I 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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The racial clashes that led to the death of three people, including two state troopers, in Charlottesville, Va. may seem complex but they’re actually sickeningly, frighteningly clear.
The white supremacists, protesting the planned removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, were loaded for bear with torches, Confederate and Nazi flags and shields, evoking the Ku Klux Klan, a terrifying image from my childhood. They were met by counter-protestors, who carried the day – until a car plowed into them, killing a 32-year-old woman and injuring 19. In all, 35 were injured. (The troopers were killed when their surveilling helicopter crashed.)
President Donald J. Trump initially took to his favorite medium, Twitter, to condemn the violence, then expanded on the theme at a veterans’ event at his Bedminster, N.J. golf club, denouncing “hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides.” ...
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It’s clear now that President Donald J. Trump is like the Lord: He giveth and he taketh away.
Just ask the Dow and the Nasdaq.
Trumpet said he was responsible for the Dow at 22,000. If that’s so, he’s going to have to own the 205 point drop today, to say nothing of the 135 point drop in the Nasdaq and the 36 point drop in the S & P.
But hey, for all of you who thought you could coast into September, Trumpet is just looking out for your interests when it comes to fellow narcissist and nutjob Kim Jong-un of North Korean nukes fame. “It’s about time somebody stuck up for the people of this country and the people of other countries,” Trumpet said from the comfort of his Bedminster, N.J. golf club. ...
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So one narcissist has decided to call another narcissist’s bluff.
Mess with the U.S., President Donald J. Trump told his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong-un from his Bedminster, N.J. bunker, er golf club, and the threats “will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen….”
Ooh, did Steve Bannon – Mr. Apocalypse, Senor Armageddon – write those words for Trumpet? I’m sure Kim is quaking in his little boots. Whatever happened to the words of another famous, at times high-handed Republican, President Theodore Roosevelt, who adopted the West African proverb “Walk softly and carry a big stick”? ...
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Last year, I attended OutWrite, the annual LGBT book festival at The DC Center in Washington D.C., with the second (and original) chapter of my then soon-to-be published novel, “The Penalty for Holding.”
This year, I went back with the first chapter of the now published book (Less Than Three Press) and once again enjoyed myself immensely.
Part of the fun...
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Add President Vladimir “Vlad the Lad,” “Rootin’ Tootin’” Putin and (now former) Communications Director Anthony “the Mooch” Scaramucci to the long list of those who banked on President Donald J. Trump to be something other than he is.
What he is is a narcissist, and the first rule of dealing with a narcissist is that you cannot bank on anything. That’s because the narcissist must always be right. But no one is always right. So in order to maintain perfection, the context has to change. The circumstances and others must be wrong. ...
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One of the many complexities that has come to light in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus that is the Trump White House is the supposed New Yorkification of Washington D.C. The two cities have always had an uneasy relationship ever since Alexander Hamilton, perhaps the ultimate New Yorker, and Thomas Jefferson, perhaps the ultimate non-New Yorker, struck a deal that would make Washington the political capital of the country and New York, the financial one.
Even today, this remains an unusual arrangement but one that has worked for the United States. As Ric Burns notes in his superb “New York: A Documentary Film," ...
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