Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam” (1511), fresco. Sistine Chapel. Touch can reaffirm our beloved humanity — or dehumanize us.
This lintel from the ancient city of Yaxchilán in what is now the state of Chiapas, Mexico conveys the richness and sophistication of Mayan civilization. Museo Nacional de Antropología, Ciudad de México.
If you were to ask me what is the greatest crisis facing the modern world — apart from the failure of education — I would say the lack and perversion of leadership. On the one hand, we have the strongmen — Donald J. Trump, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Mohammed bin Salman, Nicolas Maduro and Rodrigo Duterte. On the other, the besieged rationalists — Emmanuel Macron, Justin Trudeau and Angela Merkel.
To Merkel, we must add a number of other female leaders who’ve emerged on the world stage — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, playing a tricky hand brilliantly through the government shutdown-showdown, her encounters with her fractious caucus, the disheartening release of the Mueller report and now the latest attack on Obamacare; New Zealand’s Jacinda Adhern, who’s been a magnificent example of grace in the face of the white supremacist attack on the Muslims of her nation; Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon, a steadying hand on the till as she guides her country through the rough waters of Brexit; and now Slovakiia’s first woman president, Zuzana Čaputová, who ran on the platform “Stand Up to Evil.”
In the March 31 edition of The New York Times, Tina Brown wonders if women might not be better leaders than men.
Read MoreAnd now a word form the Land of the Rising Sun and Sanrio’s Hello Kitty.
Dear Nobel Committee-san,
It is with the utmost humility and civility in that decorous but still somehow aloof Asian manner — not to mention the teensiest, weensiest bit of arm-twisting by the White House — that I write to you to nominate President Donald J. Trumpet of the United States of America and Chairman L’il Kim Jong-un of North Korea for the Nobel Peace Prize — the committee’s answer to the Miss Congeniality Award.
Read MoreHome Secretary Theresa May with Prime Minister David Cameron in 2010. It’s her show now. Courtesy UK Home Office.
It was no minor metaphor when British Prime Minister Theresa May’s car door stuck as she strove to exit recently to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who waited with characteristic stoicism on the red carpet for yet another go-round in May’s futile attempt to negotiate a better Brexit deal. Brexit has been the ultimate stuck car door for May and the British people, a frustrating rigmarole with no satisfactory conclusion in sight.
Read MoreWell, that went well.
President Donald J. Trumpet’s meeting with NATO allies was akin to the belligerent uncle who insists on reminding you at the holiday dinner that you still haven’t repaid the money he loaned you to buy the house – with interest.
Donnie Two Scoops came out with guns blazing, bullying the allies to ante up more for defense and dumping on Germany for, well, everything …
Read MoreDr. Ronny Jackson’s decision to withdraw his nomination as Veterans Affairs secretary raises a number of issues – about drinking on the job, playing fast and loose with prescriptions and contemplating job opportunities to which you are not suited. But not the least of the rippling effects is the role of lookism in the Trump Administration, which says something important about power.
President Donald J. Trumpet holds Jackson in esteem, because he looks the part of a rear admiral and Navy doc, is blandly attractive and flattered the president’s physique in his report on his health. Indeed, the president said he would like to be Jackson, referring to his looks. This coincided with the state visit of French President Emmanuel Macron, during which Trumpet reached over and picked a piece of “dandruff” off his suit jacket. I have never seen another American president invade a foreign leader’s personal space in this manner, and you have to ask yourself, Why? …
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Read MoreI was planning to riff on novelist Jennifer Weiner’s New York Times piece about the body disconnect and the phenomenon she calls “skinny women eating cheeseburgers in magazines” – and I will in a future post.
But events of the past few days make it impossible to put that on the front burner. How can we talk about our ambivalence toward the body when the body politic is being ripped asunder? ...
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