Ex-Kremlin aide: Are you surprised?

Vladimir Putin will do anything in his power to prevent Ukraine from becoming another Iraq, says Alexander Nekrassov.

• Presence of Russian troops in Crimea has sent alarm bells ringing in Western capitals


• Alexander Nekrassov says West will find it difficult to exert economic pressure on Russia


• West has misjudged way Russia would respond to seeing neighbor in chaos, he adds


• Nekrassov says idea Kremlin is ready to start full blown invasion of Ukraine are way off mark

Editor's note: Alexander Nekrassov is a Russian commentator and former Russian presidential and government adviser. The views expressed in this commentary are his own.

(CNN) -- Lots of stern-faced Western politicians and so-called experts have been asking: what is Russian President Vladimir Putin's endgame in Ukraine?

The presence of Russian troops in Crimea has sent alarm bells ringing in Western capitals, with some people predicting that it is basically a prelude to a full-blown invasion of predominantly Russian speaking eastern parts of the country, with Russian tanks rolling in. Calls were also made for the "world community," whatever that means these days, to punish Russia economically and diplomatically, although no one is talking about any military response.

Very hard to see though how Western countries can exert serious economic pressure on Russia, considering the state of their economies and possible huge losses they will incur. Symbolically, yes, they can, say, cancel some business conferences and maybe even refuse to sign a deal or two. But that would be all. We have already found out the British government is not considering any military options or trade sanctions after a cunning cameramen picked up an official carrying a policy document near 10 Downing Street, zooming in on the relevant paragraph.

Although, as a former Kremlin adviser, I can tell you that such things don't happen by accident and usually have all to do with sending out a signal to those who are watching carefully. Other countries have also signalled their lack of any desire to resort to sanctions.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have been warning Russia about costs and punishments, if it does not withdraw its troops back to the Black Sea naval base in Sevastopol. The White House has been saying that economic sanctions against Russia are in the making and that all military programs between the two countries are on hold. Other suggested punishments being looked at include boycotting the G8 summits in Sochi in June and even banning Russia altogether from this gathering, which, incidentally, has been losing its relevance in the past decade or so. I mean, who is going to treat seriously the supposed group of the biggest industrial nations if it doesn't include China and India but has Canada and Italy in it, no offence to these two great nations.

Putin and the question of sovereignty

America's diplomatic options in Ukraine

Is Vladimir Putin paranoid?

The thing about the crisis in Ukraine is that the West has greatly misjudged the way Russia would respond to the possibility of its neighbor sliding into chaos and anarchy, with the so-called interim unity government in Kiev failing to establish its authority in the east and south of the country. Not to mention that the children of the Orange revolution of 2004, which, by the way, eventually ended in tears for most of them, have swallowed more than they can chew when they toppled President Viktor Yanukovich, and then made a crucial mistake of making all the wrong noises from day one, demonstrating open hostility to Russia and to the ethnic Russians living in Ukraine.

And when the dust began to settle in Kiev and news emerged that out of the 98 people who died, at least 16 were police officers, the image of a glorious people's revolution somehow lost its initial appeal.

And with the failed attempts by some extremists to spread the influence of the interim government to the east and south, using intimidation and violence, it became clear that a prospect of a civil war looked very real indeed.

So here's the deal then: as Ukraine was slipping into anarchy and chaos, with all sorts of radicals causing mayhem, President Putin's endgame became obvious. He needed to do anything in his power to prevent Ukraine from becoming another Iraq, with a possibility of a civil war breaking out and violence spreading to Russia at some point.

We should learn the lessons of Iraq where the delicate balance, which had existed there before the U.S.-led invasion of 2003, was undermined and no one now knows how to resolve it. The same outcome happened as a result of the so-called revolution in Kiev that has now opened up old wounds and awoken historical animosities that had been kept in check.

So Putin has chosen to use the 25,000 Russian troops based at Sevastopol, reinforcing them with another 16,000 soldiers, to prevent clashes between radicals on all sides erupting and provide stability in Crimea where about 60% of the population are ethnic Russians. Without a shot being fired, so unlike the rest of the country, law and order have been established. All the Ukrainian military installations in Crimes were surrounded by Russian troops with one purpose: to prevent undesirables arming themselves, like it happened in Lviv and some other cities, with disastrous circumstances. Up to now the plan has worked.

But any suggestions that the Kremlin is actually ready to start a full-blown invasion of Ukraine are way, way off the mark. This would be very dangerous for Russia itself, considering it close links with Ukraine on all levels. So the hysteria surrounding the Russian involvement in Crimea at the moment is either caused by ignorance or is a result of the deep suspicions that the West still has about Russia, Cold War or no Cold War.

A sudden regime change that has happened in Ukraine could never result in a swift and peaceful resolution. We saw that during the Arab Spring and, less recently, in the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. That is why all sides in the Ukrainian crisis need to keep a cool head and refrain from one-sided propaganda and provocative, inflammatory statements. If one thing that we have learned for history it's that it doesn't take a lot for a big war to erupt in Europe, dragging the rest of the world in it.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Alexander Nekrassov.

Travolta on Menzel Oscar flub: Let it go!

• Travolta introduced Idina Menzel as "Adele Dazeem"


• "I've been beating myself up all day," Travolta says


• Blunder prompted online joking about "Travoltified" names

Los Angeles (CNN) -- John Travolta is speaking out about his flub while introducing Idina Menzel's singing performance at the Oscars on Sunday night.

Travolta butchered the singer's name, calling her "the wickedly talented Adele Dazeem." For the record, the pronunciation should have been closer to "Uh-deen-a Men-zelle."

Menzel performed the Academy Award-winning song "Let It Go" from "Frozen," which also won the best animated feature Oscar.

Travolta's publicist sent this statement to CNN, requesting that it be shared in it's entirety: "I've been beating myself up all day. Then I thought...what would Idina Menzel say She'd say, Let it go, let it go! Idina is incredibly talented and I am so happy Frozen took home two Oscars Sunday night!"

The blunder resulted in great fun across social networks, with some help from Slate.com's "widget to Travoltify your own name."

"You're no one until you've had your name mangled by a confused, squinting John Travolta," Slate said. "What's your Travoltified name? Find out with our handy widget!"

Wolf Blitzer "Travoltified" becomes "Will Butter." Anderson Cooper is translated into "Alasdair Crarter."

CNN's Jane Caffrey contributed to this report.

Mila Kunis to guest on 'Two and a Half Men'

Ashton Kutcher's real life love, Mila Kunis, will appear on his show.

• CBS has announced that Kunis will appear


• She will play a young, beautiful, free-spirited world traveler


• Kunis will next be seen in "Jupiter Ascending"

(CNN) -- "Two and a Half Men' is staging a "That '70s Show" reunion.

CBS has announced that Mila Kunis, who previously played Jackie on the retro sitcom and in real life plays the role of significant other to series star Ashton Kutcher, has been tapped to guest star in an upcoming episode.

Kunis will play Vivian, a young, beautiful, free-spirited world traveler who has an instant connection with Kutcher's Walden. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, except Walden meets Vivian, whom he thinks is "the one," just before he was set to propose to another woman.

Kunis, who played opposite husband-to-be Kutcher on "'70s Show" for eight seasons, will next be seen in "Jupiter Ascending," starring Channing Tatum, and currently lends her voice to Fox's "Family Guy."

See the original story at EW.com.

Pizza guy on Oscar delivery

• Edgar Martirosyan had no clue he'd be serving Hollywood's biggest stars


• Ellen DeGeneres gives him a $1,000 tip


• "I was just shocked. It was a really great moment," Martirosyan tells CNN

(CNN) -- If he looked gobstruck when he walked onstage at the Oscars, he had good reason.

Edgar Martirosyan, who might now be the world's most famous pizza deliveryman, had no clue he'd be serving Hollywood's biggest stars Sunday night.

He thought the pies were for a group of writers at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood. When he got there, he was told to wait.

Then Ellen DeGeneres, who hosted the Academy Awards, came backstage and asked her to follow him.

"I didn't know," he told CNN's "Piers Morgan Tonight" Monday. "I was just shocked. It was a really great moment."

And there he was, in front millions of TV viewers, delivering pizzas from his store's red and yellow boxes to the likes of Brad Pitt and Jared Leto.

#Oscar winning #pizza @JaredLeto http://ift.tt/1om3OF7

— ET Canada (@ETCanada) March 3, 2014

Martirosyan, the owner of Big Mama's and Papa's Pizzeria, said he was most excited to see actress Julia Roberts.

Since then, friends from all over the world have called to congratulate him.

"I'm thinking that's when you say American dream, this is really the American dream," Martirosyan said.

The 20-location chain is now doing killer business.

"All of our locations are crazy busy right now," owner Ararat Agakhanyan told the Los Angeles Times. "We had no idea that our pizzas were going to be on TV. We're ordering supplies like mad, stocking up on cheese, pepperoni, sausage and boxes and shipping them out to the different stores."

Earlier Monday, Martirosyan appeared on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show."

She'd passed around a hat at the Oscars to take up a collection for his tip and gave Martirosyan a whopping $1,000 on her show Monday.

"It was really crazy for me," he said about the whole experience.

'Frozen' hits $1 billion mark

"Frozen" has been a hit for Walt Disney Studios.

• The film crossed the $1 billion mark this weekend


• It still has yet to debut in Japan


• The "Frozen" DVD is out on March 18

(EW.com ) -- Last night, "Frozen" snagged two Oscars: One for best original song for "Let It Go," and the other for best animated feature. Oh, and it also crossed the $1 billion mark for worldwide box office.

EW: Oscars 2014 - Idina Menzel sings 'Let It Go'

Six other Walt Disney Studios films have also hit the $1 billion mark, including "The Avengers" and "Toy Story 3." So far, "Frozen" has earned an estimated $388.8 million domestically and $611.5 million internationally since its November 27, 2013 domestic release — and it still has one more international territory to go, debuting in Japan March 14.

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"With Frozen, we knew we had something truly special on our hands, and it has connected with fans and filmgoers around the world in a way we only dreamed was possible," said Alan Horn, chairman at Walt Disney Studios, in a statement.

The animated film is still in theaters and will come out on DVD March 18.

See the original story at EW.com.

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Paula Deen's alternate universe

• Dorothy Brown: "12 Years a Slave" offered harrowing depiction of slavery's horrors


• She says it's troubling the manner in which some, like Paula Deen, still talk about slavery


• The celebrity chef wants to make comeback. But listen to her words in NYT interview


• Brown: Deen's words show bizarre misreading of slavery's damage. She should apologize

Editor's note: Dorothy A. Brown is a professor of Law at Emory University School of Law, and author of "Critical Race Theory: Cases, Materials, and Problems."

(CNN) -- On Sunday night "12 Years a Slave" took the Oscar for best picture. The film is must-watch cinema because it depicts the horrors of slavery through the eyes of a slave. Solomon Northop did all of humanity a favor when he wrote his book more than 150 years ago, and director Steve McQueen and producer Brad Pitt have earned our gratitude for turning his story into a transformative movie.

Through it, viewers confront the horror of slavery, see the tearing of raw flesh from whipping, the rapes, the complete lack of privacy that slaves experienced. We see depicted the system that was designed to destroy human beings' free will during a shameful period of our nation's history.

That was then, this is now. The good news is that slavery was repealed by the 13th Amendment and whites can no longer own blacks. The bad news is the troubling way that too many Americans talk about slavery in the 21st century -- or more accurately do not talk about slavery.

Which brings us to Paula Deen. The celebrity chef and TV host, whose food empire tumbled over, among other things, her use of a racial epithet, has found $75 million in backing from a private-equity company and is trying to make a comeback. She's also opening a restaurant in Pigeon Ford, Tennessee.

My first thought on hearing this was "Thank God it's not in my adopted city of Atlanta, Georgia." But then I got very angry -- angry that I live in a country where someone who thinks like Deen can get a $75-million vote of confidence. Seriously?!

I am not angry that in a deposition last year Deen admitted to using the N word. It is unfair to judge her based on only this, because no one is at his or her best during a deposition. No, I am angry because her views on race when she is in a more relaxed environment -- not under pressure, with plenty of time to think and choose her words -- are so wrongheaded that they require an apology. Now I fear that she has $75 million reasons to never look back.

Paula Deen was interviewed by New York Times reporter Kim Severson in the fall of 2012. The interview was before a live audience and was recorded. Severson asked: "Do you have a pride about the South that you can articulate and how do you place the racism and the slavery within that?"

Deen's response: "I do. It's funny. My great grandfather was so devastated. The war was over. He had lost his son, he had lost the war and he didn't know how to deal with life, with no one to help operate his plantation. There were 30 something people on his books and the next year's Census I go to find there's like zero. Between the death of his son and losing all the workers, he went out I'm sure into the barn and he shot himself because he couldn't deal with those kind of changes. And they were terrific changes. I feel like the South is almost less prejudiced because black folks played such an integral part in our lives. They were like our family."

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Let's acknowledge that it's sad when anyone takes his own life. But listen carefully to Deen's language. Never once does she mention slavery. Her great grandfather doesn't own slaves -- he has "workers" or "people on his books." He had no one to "help" operate his plantation. Is that what we're calling slave labor these days?

According to Deen, whites in the South treated their slaves like "family." Let's travel back in time and ask, say, a man who might have been the Solomon Northop equivalent in her grandfather's plantation. We do not know how Paula Deen's forebears treated their slaves, but do you think a slave on that plantation would say he was treated like one of the family? Let's not forget that if he did tell truth, he could be punished or even killed for doing so.

Only in Deen's altered universe could she think slaves were treated like family. She also tells us that Southerners are less prejudiced because of those very circumstances. Who knew that descendants of slave owners were less prejudiced ... because their relatives owned slaves?

What anyone who has seen "12 Years a Slave" knows (if they didn't know it before) is that slavery was brutal and cruel. Somehow Deen cannot bring herself to even use the word, all the while taking credit for having slave owning relatives because that fact makes her and the rest of the South less prejudiced.

Listen to Deen's words during the New York Times interview and you actually learn what her views on race are. For that she should apologize and lean in to the 21st century. Until she does, she is not worthy of a second chance.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Dorothy A. Brown.

Addicted to thrill of married lovers

"When I dated single women, I tried to replicate some of the sense of having secrets," Akhil Sharma writes.

• Akhil Sharma writes that secrecy was a big appeal of sleeping with married women


• Sharma said the relationships made him feel both "special" and "unimportant"


• It has been nearly 20 years since Sharma dated a married woman

(Elle.com) -- I am not sure what caused me to start sleeping with married women, especially ones who were much older than I was. The easy explanation is that I was abandoned by my mother, and so I wanted to have a relationship with someone who would comfort me the way a mother can a child. The truth, as with everything involving love and sex and loss, is more confusing to me.

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The single most important event in my life is my brother's accident. When I was 10 and my brother 14, he dived into a swimming pool, struck his head on the pool's bottom, and remained underwater for three minutes. When he was pulled out, he could no longer walk or talk. He could no longer roll over in his sleep. His corneas had been destroyed because of oxygen deprivation. As he lay in his hospital bed, his eyes would move around like a blind person's.

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Anup was in hospitals for two years before my parents brought him home and we started taking care of him ourselves. The stress of caring for someone so incapacitated is astonishing: bathing Anup in the morning, feeding him, cleaning him up, exercising him so that his tendons didn't shrink and his body didn't fold in on itself. To a 12-year-old, the experience was terrifying.

Even though I was with my parents every day, I don't think I fully understood their suffering. They were constantly angry. The walls of our house vibrated with rage. When they attacked each other and me, it was almost as if the intention was to destroy. Once, my mother said to me, "People wouldn't spit on you, if it weren't for me," meaning that nobody would waste his spit. (My mother denies saying this, which I explain by the simple fact that the person who has been hurt remembers who injured him, while the person causing the harm has reason to forget what she has done.) Because I sometimes get angry at my parents and yet at other times feel only tenderness (when I wrote an autobiographical novel, the only title that I could find that contained all the contradictions was "Family Life"), to me, my childhood is only a variation of what others experience.

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Before the accident, I was a typical little boy. I was in love with my mother. I thought she was as beautiful as a movie star. Sometimes I would feel shy around her, the way I later felt around women on whom I had crushes. To be shouted at by her, to be treated as loathsome, made me feel unloved and unlovable.

After we brought Anup home, our house began to attract all sorts of strange people. Among Indians, the act of sacrificing for others is often viewed as holy, sacred. Scores of women visited our house and asked for my parents' blessing. They would kneel before them, and my parents would put their hands on the visitors' heads. Often, my mother, desperate to find a fix for my brother, invited miracle workers to visit Anup. Some of them made grand claims: One said God had visited him in a dream and told him how to awaken Anup. "If a cure is free and causes no harm," my mother would say, "then why not try?"

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In that chaotic time, one of the people we got to know this way was a woman named Hema. Hema paid me a great deal of attention, including buying me comic books. Her kindnesses felt like a mistake -- like she must be misunderstanding the situation if she were offering sympathy to me rather than to my brother -- but also like a miracle.

I began seeking her out. When she came to our house, I'd rush around making her tea or bringing plates of biscuits; another guest once teased that I was her shadow. After speaking with Hema, I'd feel relieved, as if I had left a crowded, noisy room and was now in the open air.

One day when I was 15, Hema and I were sitting at a table, and she told me that whenever she took a shower, she would imagine how my lips might feel against hers. Hema was in her early 40s, and I can honestly say that until then I had not thought of her in a sexual way.

We started meeting at the public library. I would bike there, and she would pick me up in her car. I'd lie on the floor and she'd drive me into her garage. Then, we would go upstairs to her bedroom and have sex, she lying on a towel on top of her bedsheets. Other times we drove to a corner of our local mall's parking lot and had sex there. After we had sex for the first time, I was so happy that for days I couldn't stop running around the house. I would start at a walk and then find myself speeding up and trotting from room to room.

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The combination of sex and secrecy was incredibly potent. Standing before the library doors in winter, the wind whipping me, I would have an erection and a dry mouth. The secrets made me feel like I lived in a separate world from everybody else. Also, it was exciting that I could hurt Hema. I could ruin her marriage. I could cause her to lose her job. Power made me feel masculine.

I was glad to have this power over Hema, and yet I also loved her. If I did not see her for a day or two, I became heartsick. When she went away on vacation for two weeks, I began to droop so obviously that a relative of mine asked, "Majnu, have you lost your Laila?" Majnu and Laila are the Romeo and Juliet of India.

To help me overcome my longing for her, Hema suggested that I look at the moon at eight o'clock each evening and think of her, and she'd do the same. She had us say, "I marry you. I marry you. I marry you," because she'd heard that Muslims may be married by saying this.

As we did these things, I felt guilty and dishonest. I did not think that we would have a future together; I could not imagine being willing to hurt my parents by marrying someone so much older than I was. (Now I am 42, and part of me still feels like I betrayed Hema by not marrying her. I know this is crazy. And I know that many children who have sex with adults think that they are equal partners in what occurs.)

The secrets also often made me feel invisible. Sometimes Hema and her husband visited our house. When this occurred, I felt ghostly, like someone whose reality could be denied. This not mattering, not being seen, was exactly what it was like to always have to put my brother first: to wake at a certain time every morning to bathe Anup, to be unable to leave the house if a nurse wasn't on duty to exercise him or transfer him to his wheelchair, to be eating a meal only to have my mother call out to me to help my brother, because Anup could not wait. Not only did Hema reaffirm my invisibility, but, because she had a husband, my relationship with her also reaffirmed that I could not have what I wanted.

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All of what was bad also contained wonderful, fizzy excitement. To be invisible meant not to have to be responsible or deal with the ordinary details of dating someone. While the anger and pain of feeling second to Hema's husband mapped exactly my relationship with Anup, anger has its pleasures. The knowledge that I was f--king this man's wife allowed me to take the vengeance that I could not take on my poor brother.

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For me, the appeal of sleeping with married women has always been about being miserable in a particular way. I can feel special and I can also feel unimportant. I can feel wounded and simultaneously that I am taking revenge. I guess many adults try to recreate their childhood families, and so, though the specifics of my life are unusual, the effort to recreate home is not.

I was a bright teenager. I read widely and deeply and loved books with such a sincere passion that when I talked about them, I seemed charismatic. I was accepted into Princeton when I was in the 11th grade, and within a few months of entering college, I started sleeping with Nancy, a professor in her mid-40s. (Now I feel embarrassed at the pride I used to take at having older women as lovers. Looking back, I realize that these women were damaged in some basic way. Both Hema and Nancy, for example, told me they'd been sexually molested as children.)

Unlike Hema, Nancy was not concerned about keeping our sleeping together a secret. Her husband worked at the time in another state, and he had begun to have sex with men while away from his family. Nancy and I used to talk every night on the phone at about 11. One night, when I called, the phone was off the hook. Nancy was convinced that her son, who was in elementary school, had done this deliberately. She asked me what she should do. Seventeen, and playing at being adult, I said she should talk to her son about it.

Among the strange aspects of being with Nancy was that she expected me to act like a grown man. When we went out, I paid for dinner. At night, we sometimes watched "The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour." When Nancy moved to be with her husband, I was glad she was gone.

When I dated single women, I tried to replicate some of the sense of having secrets, of not being truly committed, that sleeping with married women had allowed. When I was 19, I began seeing Susan, a woman in her early 30s; because we worked for the same company, we had to conceal our affair. Susan also wanted to continue seeing other men. I felt as jealous over this, as ashamed, as if she were married.

Sometimes I dated women who were my age, and I would urge them not to tell anyone about us. We would arrive separately at parties and mostly not talk where we could be seen.

To have secrets is to feel like one has done the unacceptable. I sometimes think that, for me, the unacceptable thing that I did was to live normally while my brother lay brain damaged in a hospital bed.

I had nightmares of shame every night, and I would sweat. I slept wearing a T-shirt and lying on a towel. In the middle of the night, I would wake up, take off my shirt, rub myself dry, and try to go back to sleep. Sometimes I sweated so much that my fingertips became as wrinkled as if I had taken a bath.

The last married woman I went out with was the wife of a friend. Brenda was beautiful, funny, smart. She was living abroad when we started our affair, and it did not last long. One afternoon, we were sitting in a car in her driveway, talking intensely, and something in our manner made her husband suspicious. He came out of the house and called out, "What are you doing with my wife?" A few days later, Brenda's husband confronted her with his suspicions. She admitted to what had happened. This led to the end of two friendships that, despite my dishonesty, had meant a great deal to me.

It is nearly 20 years since I last dated a married woman. Mostly we grow at the rate of pain we've accrued, and for me, as the losses began piling up, one bad relationship after another, I started to realize that this could be my life forever. In fact, it seemed likely that this was going to be my life if I did not make a change.

I was on my third date with the woman who would become my wife when she told me that she had an airplane ticket to see a boyfriend in Montreal. At first I was excited. I could sense the old familiar dramas, all the unhappiness and shame. At the same time I felt exhausted. I did not want to do this again. I could not do this again. "You can't go," I said. "You have to make a choice."

Reprinted with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc.