Melania Trump, an appreciation

January 26, 2018

It’s official: Melania Trump has Princess Diana-ed the Donald.

One of the ways that the late, loved, lamented Diana, Princess of Wales, checkmated her philandering hubby, Prince Charles, was with a carefully timed photo op – looking beautifully forlorn alone in front of the Taj Mahal, that monument to love, in Catherine Walker red and purple; or drop-dead gorgeous in that black, silk, off-the-shoulder Stambolian cocktail number at the Serpentine Gallery in London after Chuck-chop revealed his infidelity on TV; or purposeful in the charity work she did, supporting AIDS sufferers and landmine victims. ...

A timely ‘Post’ about an underestimated woman

January 23, 2018

We get, it is often said, the art we deserve – that is, the art we need, the art that the times demand.

That certainly could be said of the new Steven Spielberg thriller, “The Post.” The story of a First Amendment showdown between a rising newspaper, The Washington Post, and the Nixon White House, “The Post” works on several different planes – politically, professionally and personally, as Edie Demas, executive director of the Jacob Burns Film Center, noted at the screening I attended. As such the movie speaks to an era in which “fake news” and #MeToo have become buzzwords. ...

Choosing life – and choice

January 21, 2018

With the anti-abortion rally this past Friday and Women’s March Saturday, I thought it was time I address a subject that I have avoided writing about for most of my life – choice.

I have always been pro-life, though not in the way the pro-life movement might think. I’m not only personally anti-abortion but I’m also against the death penalty. Heck, I don’t even like to kill bugs. I feel bad when buildings are taken down, and don’t even get me started on historic buildings. ...

Would you immigrate to Trumplandia?

January 12, 2018

You have to hand it to President Donald J. Trump. He really knows how to commemorate an occasion with a bang. On the anniversary of the Haitian earthquake and Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, Trumpet decided to let the world know that people are not to be judged by what King called “the content of their character” but by what one witty Washington Post poster called “their country of origin.”

Trump apparently told Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Durbin – who thought they were at the White House to negotiate the bipartisan immigration “bill of love” that “Apprentice” Trump spoke of Tuesday when he was trying to disprove the lunatic persona portrayed in Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury” – that we don’t need people from Haiti, El Salvador and “s---hole” countries in Africa. No, what we need is immigrants from places like Norway. ...

Is Trump mad – or crazy like a fox?

January 10, 2018

With the fire and fury over Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury” comes the question – this one courtesy of The Washington Post – of President Donald J. Trump’s mental stability. Is he insane? Does he have dementia?

I’m not one for armchair psychology or speculation. Nor do I believe in using language imprecisely. Insane people don’t live in the real world. Just because many of us don’t like Trump’s take on reality doesn’t mean he dwells in the realm of unreality. ...

Merry, well, you know

December 23, 2017

We hear a lot at this time of year about putting the Christ back in Christmas – or, more recently, putting the Christmas back in Christmas. Indeed, one of President Donald J. Trump’s campaign promises was that we would say “Merry Christmas” again – as if we ever stopped.

This used to be a religious campaign against the commercialization of the season. With the, um, advent of Trump, it has become less about the materialism of the season – it’s hard to believe that he and his administration object to anything that makes money – and more about reclaiming a Christian identity that, they think, has been co-opted by multiculturalism and political correctness. It is factionalism versus globalism and, inevitably, us versus them, whoever they are.

And you have to wonder: Why? ...

‘Making America Great Again’ (again) – not

December 20, 2017

In the latest installment of “When Donnie Met Vladdie,” Russian President Vladimir “Rootin’ Tootin’” Putin thanked American President Donald J. Trumpet for a CIA tip that prevented a terrorist attack in St. Petersburg.

No one is suggesting that the nations of the world shouldn’t cooperate on terrorism and other matters – would that they did so regularly – but it seems that some countries like special American friend Great Britain are rethinking the relationship and the sharing of secrets thanks to President Blabbermouth’s indiscretions in other situations.

How do these frayed friendships and new alliances with those who have no love of the United States “Make America Great Again”? ...