From Russia, not with love

October 31, 2017

Ah, the emails.

Not Hill emails this time but Russkie emails. We know they are Russkie emails, because the subject line of George Papadopoulos’ emails to three Trump campaign officials was “Russia updates.” In hindsight, that was probably not a good idea.

On Monday, we learned that Papadopoulos had pled guilty to lying to the FBI about his efforts to broker a relationship between the Trump campaign and Russian President Vladimir “Vladdie Rootin’ Tootin’” Putin in his guise as an unpaid foreign policy adviser. Papadopoulos is now cooperating with Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trumpettes and the Russkies. This is not good news for Trumpet.

Trump hawks down; Or the significance of ‘what he signed up for’

October 26, 2017

The fog of war – or of “advising and assisting,” as every student of the Vietnam War knows – is such that the truth of what happened isn’t immediately apparent. What is apparent is that Trump handled the situation’s aftermath with less than Alexandrian leadership, first by not commenting on it for more than a week and ultimately by saying he did not “specifically” authorize it. (Dude, you are the president. You are responsible for everything that happens in your administration.)

Then he got involved in a typically Trumpian tone deaf controversy with Sgt. La David Johnson’s widow, in which he consoled her by saying that this was what her husband “signed up for. But I guess it still hurts.” ...

A life lived at deuce

October 24, 2017

The game of tennis has always served the arts brilliantly.

Combining the elegance of chess and the brutality of boxing – or should that be the brutality of chess and the elegance of boxing? – tennis relies on an individualism that appeals to the writer and a balletic motion that captivates visual artists.

The Roundabout Theatre Company production of Anna Ziegler’s new play “The Last Match” – which opens Tuesday, Oct. 24 at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre in Manhattan – does not stint on the visual. ...

Whose art is it anyway? Harvey Weinstein and the film fan

October 22, 2017

Among the questions to emerge from the Harvey Weinstein scandal is one that human beings of conscience have been grappling with forever: Is it ethical to support the work of a scoundrel?

At first glance, the answer would appear to be simple: Art transcends biography. You wouldn’t rebuff a child because his father was a murderer, would you? So why hate the brainchild of a Weinstein or a Woody Allen – who, tellingly cautioned about a “witch hunt” against Weinstein – or a Mel Gibson or any other artist/athlete accused of heinous behavior?

But it’s more complex than that, isn’t it? ...

#MeToo: My story (ies) of sexual harassment

October 19, 2017

I once had a movie producer kiss me on the neck.

How’s that for an opening sentence? Pretty good, huh? Got your attention, right?

It was at the end of an interview when, shaking my hand goodbye, he suddenly lurched forward and kissed me on the neck. (It may have been more of a bite than a kiss, but I don’t actually remember and don’t want to overstate what was a pretty bizarre sendoff.)

Afterward, the embarrassed publicist apologized, concerned that I would be writing about this. But I was a young journalist and had, as a woman, been raised to soldier on. So I said, wrote and did nothing about this. And I hadn’t thought about it until Harvey Weinstein’s alleged sexual harassment of, well, just about every woman on the planet opened the floodgates of ew-ness. ...

NFL stuck in the red zone

October 18, 2017

Well, NFL owners and players had a “productive” meeting on social issues in Manhattan Tuesday – code for nothing but smoke and mirrors designed to placate two mutually exclusive viewpoints. There was, incredibly, no discussion of the National Anthem protests that have been designed to draw attention to the very social issues that were on the agenda. You can’t make this stuff up. ...

‘The way it is’: Kaepernick and the NFL protests

October 17, 2017

On Tuesday, the NFL owners and representative players will meet to discuss the National Anthem protest that has been a driving issue this season – this as protest initiator and former San Francisco 49ers’ quarterback Colin Kaepernick filed a grievance against the NFL, saying the 32 owners colluded to keep him out of the league because of his activism.

A bit of background: “The Star-Spangled Banner” has been played before NFL games since at least 2009 at the behest of the U.S. Department of Defense, ostensibly to bolster recruiting. The NFL rulebook says that teams must be suited up and on the field before the Anthem begins, standing facing the flag, with their helmets in their left hands and their right hands over their hearts. In the third preseason game of 2016, a reporter noted Kaepernick sitting through the Anthem to protest police brutality against people of color.