The death of five police officers in Dallas – coming after the shootings in Baton Rouge and Minnesota – overwhelms. How to make sense of the incomprehensible? How to know what to do?
“That was horrible,” people said definitively over and over again in its wake. “People are tired of being lied to," my cousin told me by way of explanation.
But I don’t think this has anything to do with people’s disgust at being lied to unless they are fed up with the lies they tell themselves. ...
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The world is like a restaurant with a major conflict in the front of the house and a fire in the kitchen.
In the front of the house is Brexit – the tip of whose Titanic-smashing iceberg we’ve just experienced. In the kitchen, we have terrorism in Istanbul and Bangladesh and the shootings in Baton Rouge and Minnesota.
Brexit will have sweeping, long-term effects – not the least of which will be the continued rise of women to the heights of political power, probably the only good effect.
But the more immediate issue is the continued violence in this world. ...
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I boldly predicted to a publicist-friend the other day that Theresa May would be the last man standing, so to speak, in the Brexit scandal and become the new PM. I also believe Hillary Clinton will be the next president and Elizabeth Warren, her secretary of state.
You never want to make bold predictions, because they have a way of not coming true. But what is clear is that we’ve been moving toward an era of greater female political power and why not? As Brexit continues to demonstrate, there’s nothing quite like a man when it comes to mucking things up. And women – bless their little detail-loving hearts – would seem better-suited to the day-to-day nitty-gritty of governance.
Perhaps more important, they’re less likely to let their egos get in the way of doing a job. ...
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Another day, another Brexit drama, another example – or two or three – of political cupidity and stupidity.
By now, Brexit buffs know that BoJo – alias Boris Johnson, the Brit Donald Trump, how I love how Maureen Dowd describes them maliciously as “prolific authors” – is out, having been stabbed in the back by erstwhile supporter Michael Gove, who decided he wanted to be a king rather than a kingmaker and thus run for prime minister himself.
Personally, I think Gove is barking up the wrong bamboo and that Home Secretary Theresa May is going to be the next PM. ...
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A few days ago, the most pressing question in the United Kingdom may have been would Andy Murray – recently reunited with coach Ivan Lendl – mount a successful campaign at Wimbledon next week to stop Novak Djokovic’s bid for the calendar Grand Slam.
“It’s the eye of the tiger. It’s the thrill of the fight, risin’ up to the challenge of our rival,” you know.
That was, as I said, a few days ago. And then came Brexit – the British exit from the European Union. ...
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There’s a lot of sports stuff we could talk about this week – including Andy Murray reuniting with former coach Ivan Lendl in an attempt to stop Novak Djokovic’s bid for the Grand/Golden Slam. (Nole fan though I am, I’m all for the “It’s the eye of the tiger,; it’s the dream of the fight, rising up to the challenge of a rival” attitude Murray has adopted. Nothing worthwhile comes easily. There’s no point in lying down for an opponent. And no champ worthy of the name would want a competitor to roll over. I think Nole knows the Grand/Golden Slam will mean nothing if he doesn’t earn it.
But there are two ways to think about sports. Like the arts, they can take us outside ourselves. And there are moments when they simply pale in the wake of tragic events. ...
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Once again, there is nothing to say and too much to.
A lone gunman, a massacre among people going about their everyday lives and the usual hand-ringing and finger-pointing.
Although I must say Donald Trump deserves our heartiest “congratulations” for putting a new spin on opportunism – or should that be a new low.
“Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism,” he tweeted. “I don’t want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!”
And just how is he “right”? In a PBS town hall recently, President Barack Obama responded to an edgy question about refugees by observing that the real terrorist threat to the United States is not from refugees – who are vetted extensively – but from “tourists” and American citizens who are radicalized, like Omar Mateen, who murdered 50 people and injured 53 in an Orlando nightclub – the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. ...
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