Tag: Russia
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Russia, Marseille, and the Geopolitics of Sport at Many Scales
Note: this is the second time (!) something like this has happened. As before, I was approached to write a commentary for a non peer-reviewed expert journal – a different one this time. As before, and I still have no idea why, the editor never wrote back after commissioning and receiving the piece. Did I…
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A quick example of pernicious Russophobia
I’ve been attacked from all sides for making comments about contemporary Russia and Russian politics. I’ve been told that I’m in the pocket of Putin, or at the very least a naive “useful idiot”. Simultaneously, that same comment led others to tell me that I am Russophobic, a blind westerner who does not understand anything,…
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A Soviet interpretation on the quintessential American mega-event
This booklet is a rarity. Shipped all the way to Zurich from a legendary leftist bookstore in San Francisco (“fighting commodity fetishism with commodity fetishism since 1981”), this is a Soviet broadside against Reagan’s America, seen through the lens of the 1984 Summer Olympics. Back when I was living in Russia, a good friend once…
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The Promise and Pitfalls of the 2018 Football World Cup in Russia
Note: this was originally slated to be a commentary piece for a non peer-reviewed expert journal that shall remain nameless. For reasons I still don’t understand, the editor never wrote me back after commissioning and receiving the piece. I found it again recently during some computer cleanup, and given that it’s over a year past…
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Some history
Back in 2012, I lost my job in San Francisco. Our whole company did. One day I went into work and the atmosphere was horrible – people were scurrying around, carrying boxes, holding back tears. A bunch of suits had flown out from New York and laid everyone off. Some left that day, and some…
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What is objective information? Robert Orttung in Zurich
“At some point you have to take a moral stance and say that undermining authoritarian governments is better than undermining democratic ones.” This is how Robert Orttung, from the Elliot School of International Affairs at George Washington, answered my question today. Robert, together with Sufian Zhemukhov, have written enough about the Sochi Olympics that you…