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Justified – and not

Gee, do you think Justify will be going to the White House?

The massive chestnut colt – huge, as a certain American president would say – secured the Triple Crown in decisive fashion Saturday with a win in the Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park in New York. Schooled by Bob Baffert, 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah’s trainer, Justify is the 13th colt to win the Crown and only the second to do so undefeated (behind Seattle Slew, 1977). Neigh-sayers (I couldn’t resist) note that …

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The literature of rejection

I tend to use this headline to write about young men who have a disproportionate rage at the world and take it out on others as mass murderers, assassins, terrorists and serial killers. I’ve also written about a number of literary works that deal with such young men – Homer’s “The Iliad,” John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights,” among them.

But I think it is also an appropriate title for a post about the Lambda Literary Awards, which I attended Monday night at New York University’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts as a nominee. My book “The Penalty for Holding,” published by Less Than Three Press, the second novel in the series “The Games Men Play” was a finalist in the Best Bisexual Fiction category. (When I got the news, I had two thoughts: This must be an email for somebody else. And, were any of the characters in my book bisexual? It goes to show that the readers sometimes know more than the authors do.)

As I sat there, I had a feeling of disassociation. I didn’t know anyone …

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Kate Spade, by any other name

In 2013, Tiffany & Co. celebrated Baz Luhrmann’s new film version of “The Great Gatsby” with a day of events that concluded with a Roaring ’20s-style party at the Fifth Avenue flagship. I swanned through the night in a black column dress that was accented mainly by a Kate Spade necklace of green turquoise florets. Throughout the evening, several people stopped me – this was at Tiffany’s, remember – to say what a great necklace it was.

That was the Kate Spade effect. Whether it was with a statement necklace or a book with an inspirational saying or one of her signature vibrant handbags that marked a young woman’s coming of age and defined a generation in the good-times ’90s, Spade had a way of lifting you up. That she could not do the same for herself proved to be her tragedy. …

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A half-baked Supreme Court decision

In a 7-2 ruling, the United States Supreme Court has decided that Colorado baker Jack Phillips’ civil rights were violated when the Colorado Civil Rights Commission apparently “ridiculed” his religious beliefs for refusing to bake a gay couple’s wedding cake. It may seem that Phillips’ religious objections to gay marriage trumped David Mullins and Charlie Craig’s civil rights as a gay couple. But had the commission not gotten “hostile,” it might’ve gone the other way.

Here, however, is what the “offending” commissioner actually said …

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Why are women so hard on one another?

In my guise as editor in chief of WAG magazine, I had a pleasure of sharing a moment with Ashley Judd on the red carpet of the Greenwich International Film Festival (GIFF) in Connecticut Friday night. She is an exquisite-looking woman who is, more important, exquisite in her manners and manner. I began by thanking her for her work as one of the leaders of #MeToo and asked her if she thought that this time, the response to the sexual harassment women have suffered would really be different.

It already is, she said, and the result will be an improvement not only in the lives of women but of men as well. …

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Below the Barr

ABC, which is owned by Walt Disney, cancelled “Roseanne” immediately after star Roseanne Barr tweeted that Valerie Jarrett, former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, was the progeny of the Muslim Brotherhood and “Planet of the Apes.”

One poster on The New York Times’ website suggested that Barr was riffing on the political commentary offered by the movie. But racists have been comparing blacks to apes for centuries. Barr has built her career on what can only be called white trash humor. Somehow I don’t think she was aiming for political allegory. …

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Taking it on the (double) chin re: North Korea

Do you think it was the premature commemorative coin, in which “L’il Kim” Jong-un is portrayed with two chins and President Donald J. Trumpet with only one? (Which is laughable. Melania could do a step workout on her husband’s triple chins.)

The much-“Trump”eted summit between the two narcissists – which Donnie Two Scoops suddenly called off after Kim essentially pulled out – may be on again for June 12 in Singapore. Or not. We don’t know. Because that’s the way Trumpet rolls.

He sent Kim a letter that set new standards for passive aggression in what can only be described as a cross between a threatening lawsuit and an insecure society hostess’ thank you note…

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