The morning after finally arrives

March 6, 2018

The day I thought would come the day after Election Day 2016 is finally here. I thought the stock market would tank after Donald J. Trumpet became president of the United States.

But it never happened. Instead, in a kind of financial Groundhog Day, the stock market went up and up and up. And Trumpet, who never misses a moment to inject himself into every story, continuously took credit for this.

But now he has started a trade war, and the Dow futures are down 400 points on the news that economic adviser Gary Cohn is the latest to bail on the White House. The bet is that the Dow will open Wednesday down 1,000 points. ...

The myth of the strongman

March 4, 2018

Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu. North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. The Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte. Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. Russia’s Vladimir Putin. China’s Xi Jinping. And, of course, our own Donald J. Trump.

The world is in the grips of the strongman – tough, reactionary and taking no prisoners. Part of this is a response to the terrible, fascinating transition in which we find ourselves – a backlash to the global, multicultural, digital age to which so-called “feminine” energies (communications skills, sensitivity, a sense of service) are better suited. Part of this is the envy, rage and resentment, particularly in this country, of white, blue-collar males, who lacked the courage, intelligence, industry and imagination to confront their greedy employers and, failing that, reinvent themselves when manufacturing jobs began to dry up in the 1970s. ...

Farewell (for now) to PyeongChang

February 26, 2018

Experts will tell you that the high-pressured setting of the Olympics’ global stage is like no other. It can make the favorites fall and rise again and the dark horses surge to the front of the finish line.

That was certainly the case of the magical two weeks in PyeongChang, whose motto might’ve been “Expect the unexpected.”

It was a time when America lost its record for most medals in the Winter Games (37, Vancouver) to Norway (brilliant with 39) while setting a new record for medaling in the greatest number of different events (11). So what Team USA sometimes lacked in depth, particularly in the glamour sports of alpine skiing and figure skating, it made up for in breadth ...

The gun control movement’s #MeToo moment

February 24, 2018

Just as The New York Times’ Harvey Weinstein series ignited #MeToo, so the shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, has galvanized a movement – and a generation – against gun violence in a way that we thought the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting would but never did.

I know: We’ve been here before – too, too many times. But this time feels different as high school students have taken to the streets and to buses – latter-day Freedom Riders, Oprah Winfrey called them – to protest the absolute lunacy of children, and the rest of us, being held hostage by people who think their Second Amendment rights entitle them to assault weapons.

Why does their right to own guns that should only be in the hands of the professionals trump our peace of mind? ...

We’re number one…oops

February 21, 2018

We’re in the home stretch of the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, and one thing is certain: The United States is number one…in mediocrity.

At this writing, we are tied with France for fifth place in the medal count with 13, behind Norway (30), Germany (23), Canada (19) and The Netherlands (14). This is a far cry from the U.S.’ record-setting 37 medals in Vancouver in 2010. ...

When thoughts and prayers aren’t enough

February 17, 2018

Seventeen people were killed by a gunman in Florida and I feel – nothing.

No, that’s not exactly correct. I feel a certain righteous indignation. The Republican governor of Florida, Rick Scott, thinks FBI director Christopher Wray should resign, because the Bureau got a tip on gunman Nikolas Cruz and didn’t follow it up. Oh, please. The Broward County sheriff’s office got numerous complaints about this guy. Listen, it’s always the same story – young white guy with a disproportionate rage at the world. And it’s always the same result. And the same response. Thoughts and prayers. Nutjob. ...

The due process of love

February 14, 2018

Just in time for Valentine’s Day comes a poignant story in The New York Times about Nigel, a gannet, a type of seabird, who fell in love with a decoy bird placed on New Zealand’s Mana Island for the very purpose of attracting many of his kind. But he loved only one. He presented. He preened. He attempted to mate. But the stone-cold beauty remained unmoved. And, in the end, the island caretaker found him dead, which just about broke his heart.

It reminds you of Hans Christian Andersen’s story of “The Steadfast Tin Soldier,” and the little one-legged tin man whose love for a ballerina seals his doom. (Not a huge fan of Andersen’s downer stories and even less of a fan after learning that some scholars believe Charles Dickens based the creepy Uriah Heep in “David Copperfield” on him.) Anyway, the George Balanchine ballet version makes the soldier’s unrequited love more apparent.

Love is blind. But then, so are politics and selfishness. ...