It is with delight and gratitude that I announce that I’ve been nominated for a Lambda Literary Award for my novel “The Penalty for Holding,” the second in my series of books dealing with power and rivalries, “The Games Men Play.”
The Lammys, as they’re called, are a group of awards in various fiction and nonfiction categories celebrating works with LGBT themes. This year’s winners will be announced June 4 at New York University’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. ...
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Don’t know why there’s no sun up in the sky
Stormy (Daniels) Weather
Since Donald Trump and I’ve been together
Keeps raining all the time.
The howling winds, ice-laced downed branches and big, fat raindrops and snowflakes of back-to-back nor’easters are nothing compared to the bomb cyclone that is Trump-et. The man who says he loves chaos – thinking it is somehow the same as a constructive exchange of differing ideas – has plenty of it these days. He’s got porn star Stormy Daniels suing him over the nondisclosure agreement she says he never signed, thus freeing her to show and tell about her relationship with The Donald. ...
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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. ...
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By now you’ve heard the storyline: The U.S. performance at the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang was looking a little, well, lackluster. Blame it on stars aging out of their sports (downhill bronze medalist Lindsey Vonn, skier Ted Ligety), new stars coping with huge expectations (February WAG cover subject Mikaela Shiffrin, figure skater Nathan Chen), poor strategies in the bobsled and cross-country skiing and some tough luck.
But some said, Hold on. Wait for the end of this week. Like a dark horse ...
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It’s sturm-und-drang time in figure skating at the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, not that there hasn’t already been enough drama with the flameouts, the dark horses, the falls, the wardrobe malfunctions – and Tara and Johnny’s excellent “Will and Grace” adventure.
But tonight begins what for many figure skating fans – and, indeed, Olympic viewers – is the glamour event of the Games, the ladies’ championship. ...
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When we were casting about for a cover for February WAG, American Olympic skier Mikaela Shiffrin seemed like a natural. Wine & Dine columnist Doug Paulding, an avid skier, had seen Shiffrin – the best slalom skier in the world – in action at Killington in Vermont on Thanksgiving weekend and agreed with the experts he talked to: This was her moment.
She delivered in the giant slalom – an event she has wrestled with – with an aggressive, technically proficient, come-from-behind victory that is a testament to her talent, discipline and hard work.
But then she failed to medal in her best event, the slalom. Illness, nerves, a combination of both? ...
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The #MeToo movement continues to explode, and we continue to tread gingerly through its landmine-riddled landscape.
The New York Times skewers Alec Baldwin for satirizing P-Grabber in Chief Donald J. Trump while defending filmmakers Woody Allen and James Toback, both accused of sexual abuses. Actress/author Rose McGowan – who’s been fiercely outspoken in her accusations of film producer Harvey Weinstein raping her – cuts off interviewer Christiane Amanpour before she can read a Weinstein response to McGowan’s new book, “Brave.” Museums wonder what their response should be to photographer Chuck Close, who has apologized for sexual harassment.
And yet, a woman friend of mine, a Hillary Clinton supporter whom I consider to be strong on women’s issues, wonders if we’ve gone too far ...
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