As with everything concerning President Donald J. Trump — including the boos that greeted him for Game Three of the NBA Finals between the New York Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan Monday night — much has been written about his on and off Freedom 250 concert series. It included an array of performers from country music’s Martina McBride to funk and soul’s The Commodores — until it didn’t.
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J.W. Waterhouse’s “Echo and Narcissus” (1903, oil on canvas). Courtesy Walker Art Gallery. Narcissus falls in love with his reflection not because he has an inflated sense of self but because he has no strong, healthy core identity. These days, he is too much with us.
The 2024 presidential election and the irrational cult of narcissism
These days, everyone is making closing arguments — Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Donald J. Trump, comedian Jimmy Kimmel of ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” — as if we the people were we, the jury, which I suppose we are. I might as well make one as well.
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The lotus represents karma in that it holds its seeds as it flowers. Photograph by Nevit Dilmen.
Donald J. Trump and the nature of karma
Violence is never the answer, but it is often the question. The attempt on former President Donald J. Trump’s life is nothing to celebrate as the taking of a life in anything but self-defense is morally and legally wrong.
But after almost 10 years of vitriol on the campaign trail and in office, he has come to his encounter with karma.
Read MoreA world lit by fire, part two
The great comedian Red Skelton acidly remarked of the well-attended funeral of tyrannical movie boss Harry Cohn, “Well, it just goes to show you: Give the people what they want and they’ll turn out for it.”
President Donald J. Trump has given the people what they didn’t want — American carnage — and they’ve turned out for it anyway. Boy, have they turned out for it. Protesters from sea to shining sea this weekend have made the tiki torches of the white supremacists .who terrorized Charlottesville in 2017 look like candles in the wind. (I wonder if Trumpet is measuring the size of these crowds.)
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Vittore Carpaccio’s “Vision of St. Augustine” (1502), tempera on canvas. In her response to James Rosen’s question about hating President Donald J. Trump, syndicated columnist Mark Shields of the “PBS NewsHour’s” “Shields and Brooks” said:, “(Nancy Pelosi) was quoting, of course, Saint Augustine, hate the sin, but don't hate the sinner.”
Bloomberg, Pelosi and the politics of critical thinking
This past week produced two moments that were parsed endlessly and yet little understood. One involved former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg telling CBS’ Gayle King that his Democratic rivals could’ve made a lot of money to spend on their campaigns. The other involved House Speaker Nancy Pelosi separating President Donald J. Trump’s personhood from his actions in responding to Sinclair Broadcasting’s James Rosen asking her if she hated the president. Neither Bloomberg’s remark nor Pelosi’s response were satisfactory, revealing a lack of critical thinking.
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Caption: Omarosa Manigault Newman plugging her Trump tell-all on “Today.” Photograph by Eduardo Munoz Alvarez for Getty Images.
Trump, Omarosa and race
‘He got game’ – not: Trump, race and sports
We think of sports and the arts – as House of Representatives Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi described them to “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd – as the great unifiers.
That’s partly because we expect athletes and artists of every ilk to entertain us in a manner devoid of politics. The thinking goes that since artists and athletes make a lot of dough – well, at least those in the popular sports and arts do – they should “play” and keep their mouths otherwise shut.
But what happens when politics interjects itself into sports and the arts? ...
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