Accusations levelled too strenuously at others often reveal the accuser’s own failings – a psychological defense called displacement or projection, what the New Testament (John 8:7) meant in warning against “casting the first stone.” Inflammatory selective accusations – “autocrat,” “aggressor,” “terrorist,” “authoritarian,” and other swear-words – are hurled at adversaries with subjective enthusiasm but little […]
Russia pivots east
Russian culture and history has long embraced a hybrid self-image: a western and an eastern, orientations sometimes compatible but more often in conflict. Geographically too, it is one-third in Europe, two-thirds in Asia. In 1703 Peter the Great built St. Petersburg (named for the apostle, later for the tsar), a city on the Baltic Sea […]



