Новости за 19.02.2022

This week, the jury adjudicating former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s defamation suit against The New York Times ruled in favor of the Gray Lady, temporarily alleviating the worry among journalists that the case might harm press freedoms. It was an intriguing ending: As the jury deliberated, Judge Jed Rakoff announced that he was dismissing the case on the grounds that Palin had failed to meet the high standard for defamation. 

An obviously fatigued but resolute Joe Biden on Friday afternoon sent a familiar message to Vladimir Putin, warning that an invasion of Ukraine would launch “a catastrophic and needless war of choice.” Putin’s target is not just the border regions, he said, but the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv—a “rapidly escalating crisis” that, to those of us following from home, sometimes has the grim inevitability of a train wreck. No wonder the World War II analogies are inescapable.

Social psychologists, notably Mr. Trotter in his account of herd psychology, have described the peculiar mental effect of war upon the civilian population. Vague unlocalized anxiety and fear; dread of isolation, and desire for company to reinforce confidence and opinion; quick and easy accessibility to rumor, indeed, an eager hospitality to it; extreme credulity as to both good news and bad; a suspicious attitude which finds spies and enemies everywhere; scandalmongering of pessimistic inventions... Читать дальше...