Shocking, shocking act of violence last Friday in Japan. As some of you know, I lived in Japan during the ’90s and always stay as on top as I can of politics there. So I was pretty disgusted Friday morning when I went online to read about the assassination and I found this AP article. Keep in mind that he was referred to as “divisive” and “arch-conservative” in the original lede (one cannot see that in the linked piece). I have no objection, in an obituary or news article, to referring to whatever controversies might have surrounded a politician. But the use of provocative, polarizing language to describe a man who had just been murdered was appalling. Abe was a cultured fellow and he was democratically elected – yet to many in media circles, anyone who is conservative must necessarily be a rube with dictatorial instincts. The choice of language also showed some ignorance of Japanese politics and culture – it felt like a projection of Anglo/Western politics and language onto a man who did not live or operate in an Anglo/Western environment. Yes, Japan is “Western” in many ways, but it also isn’t.

Not unrelated is what has happened in Sri Lanka. What I mean is that “green” policies that are popular and even desirable in countries like Canada and the United States, France or Germany, don’t necessarily belong in places like Sri Lanka. A nightmare has unfolded.

Masha Gessen’s latest in the New Yorker. So sad – one feels so much for the Russians she writes about here.

…about Zelensky (I’m seeing it spelled this way, too, as well as Zelenskiy) being a swashbuckling figure.

I have been vaccinated and boosted. I am also someone with enough of a libertarian streak that I don’t mind debate about most matters, including vaccine mandates – in fact, I think it’s healthy to have such debates. But when protesters start behaving like this, one can only assume they are a bunch of unserious yahoos.

Update: I should add that I feel the same way about protesters on the left when they knock down statues of Sir John A. or Queen Victoria. Unserious yahoos. But, of course, they rarely get the sort of condemnation this current crowd is receiving.

Too lazy to write two posts, so I will include both of these very different people here. Bishop Tutu died and the laudatory headlines were everywhere. Would anyone, I wondered, have the courage to write about his, er, uncomfortable relationship with Jews and the Jewish state? Melanie Phillips to the rescue with this must-read. (I had not been aware with just how vile some of Tutu’s views were. Now I – distressingly – am.) Apart from Phillips, though, there has been little criticism or challenging of Tutu – it reminds me of when Helen Thomas died and nobody would mention the antisemitic elephant in the room. It was all, what a feminist icon, blah blah blah zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

My internet friend Rick McGinnis (still have not met him, but hope that I will, one day, post-pandemic) wrote about Joan Didion three years ago. An original take – as he calls it, her “uncomfortable fit” in American (counter) culture.

The case against the Iran Deal (to which, stupidly, the Biden administration apparently longs to return) – by Yossi Klein Halevi and Michael Oren, two gentlemen I was fortunate to lunch with on a press trip I took to Israel in the aughts.

Nervana Mahmoud’s beautiful tribute to her mother, who died of Covid. I imagine I would be touched by this eulogy at any point, but perhaps due to the death of my brother from the same virus I feel a special connection to Mahmoud’s words.

Rats are playful, feeling, living creatures – heck, they giggle! We should not be torturing them in labs (or anywhere).

A fair and thorough analysis of why Trump lost, from the Claremont Review of Books.

A vegan restaurant gets a Michelin star. Take that, snooty anti-veganites!

Silvia Foti’s grandfather was a Nazi. But in Lithuania, he has been celebrated as a war hero.

As human birth rates fall, a rewilding is unfolding. (I rather like this.)

Navalny is all-in on bringing down Putinism. I hope he succeeds. If he does it will be with the help of courageous protesters in Russia.

A wolverine caught on camera in Yellowstone for the first time. Extraordinarily cute little gaffer.

So cool: Caligula’s Garden of Delights, unearthed and restored.

And finally, Cloris Leachman died a few days ago. Enjoy what I think is one of her funniest MTM moments (from the episode where Phyllis’ husband is cheating on her with Sue Ann Nivens – yes, I have encyclopaedic knowledge of MTM):