Blog

Ilia Malinin before the free skate of the 2025 World Figure Skating Championships. *Courtesy*
*FloweringDagwood/Wikipedia.*

Alex Pretti, Bad Bunny, Ilia Malinin and the challenge of identity

February 16, 2026

In a not-very-good but nonetheless watchable 1998 film of Alexandre Dumas”The Man in the Iron Mask” that capitalized on the Taylor Swift-like phenomenon of then teen heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio, Jeremy Irons’ Musketeer Aramis tells DiCaprio’s hapless title character that the greatest mystery in life is who we are.

Who are we? Who are you? We receive names and unique Social Security numbers at birth, pose for endless selfies, research our digital DNA data and generally live in a “me” culture, branded and monogrammed. But who are we really? What are our values? What are the strengths and weaknesses of our personalities?

The gentlemanly surrender of British Gen. John Burgoyne to Patriot Gen. Horatio Gates after the Battle of Saratoga on Oct. 16, 1777, as depicted by John Trumbull in this 1818 painting, is how we tend to think of the American Revolution after the fact — nice and stately. Instead, it was a long, brutal guerrilla conflict, and though Saratoga would prove its turning point for the Patriots, it would still drag on for six more years.

Blood debt – kings to pawns in a zero-sum game of liberty and death

November 27, 2025

Next year marks the United States’ 250th birthday and already plans are underway for the celebration, with the nonprofit America250 Commission https://america250.org/ charged with staging different events and programs to mark the occasion. (Each of the 50 states has also created its own commission, with plenty of cultural organizations contributing exhibits and performances.)

Though ostensibly bipartisan, America250 has come under the aegis of the Trump Administration, which wants to ensure that American history is portrayed in such a way that Americans don’t feel ashamed of their past. But Ken Burns – whose “The American Revolution” aired on PBS Nov. 16 through Nov. 21 and is streaming free there through Dec. 14 – has said in interviews that we owe it to ourselves to tell the truth about the revolution and let the chips fall where they may. Far from shaming us, Burns and producing partner Sarah Botstein have said, the revolution should inspire and enlighten us as ordinary citizens overcame seemingly insurmountable odds to buck the British Empire and create the world’s oldest modern democracy.

The poster for “Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light,” now airing on PBS’ “Masterpiece.” Its story of power and glittering doom in Tudor England holds up a mirror to our own mirthless times.

The mirror, not the light -- royal dramas in the age of Trump

April 6, 2025

“Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown,” — Shakespeare, “Henry IV, Part 2”

“Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light” and “Marie Antoinette” — airing back to back on PBS’ WNET-Channel 13 on Sunday nights — give us two kings in crisis as seen through the eyes of two insiders who will soon be axed.

From left, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, American President Donald J. Trump and Vice President JD Vance in a heated exchange at the White House Friday, Feb. 28. Courtesy the White House.

The only 'ism' that matters in Trump world

March 2, 2025

As I’ve written many times on this blog — too many times but it bares repeating — there is much discussion of various “isms” when it comes to President Donald J. Trump, from communism to socialism, racism and sexism. But the only “ism” that matters is narcissism, and the failure to understand this prevents us from having any hope to dealing with him effectively.

Gala opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Sept. 8, 1971 with members of the Kennedy family in the presidential box. From left, Rose Kennedy and Sen. Edward M.Kennedy standing. Seated far right is his first wife, Joan Kennedy. Courtesy the U.S.News & World Report Collection of the Library of Congress.

King to pawn in Trump's cultural gambits

February 9, 2025

Fresh from his blitzkrieg of directives, President Donald J. Trump took a break to attend Super Bowl LIX, leaving the rest of us to consider what the past three weeks have meant.

Johann Christian Schröder’s “The Annunciation” (circa 1690) depicts Mary’s initially troubled reaction at the news from the angel Gabriel that she was to be the mother of the Son of God. Courtesy Slovenia’s Ptuj Ormož Regional Museum

Yielding -- and overcoming -- in a season of dark and light

December 22, 2024

Central to the feast of Christmas, which Christians —and let’s face it, many non-Christians — will celebrate Wednesday, Dec. 25, is the story of the angel Gabriel coming to the town of Nazareth to tell the Virgin Mary that she will miraculously conceive and bear Jesus, the Son of God.

Much has been written about Mary as the new, obedient Eve — the anti-Eve, as it were — acquiescing to become the mother of God, with all the suffering his Passion will entail for her as well as him. (Think Michelangelo’s poignant “Pièta.”) And just as much has been written about so-called sacrilegious interpretations of Mary doubting this calling, (see Netflix series “Mary”); and Jungian interpretations of Mary as yet another mother in the miraculous birth narratives of famous men (see the stories of the Buddha, Alexander the Great and Augustus).

All these interpretations miss the point of the original text.

Slaughter on Sixth Avenue: One of New York City’s ubiquitous security cameras captures the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brfan Thompson outside the New York Hilton in Manhattan Dec. 4.

State of denial: When a nation's moral compass is 'out of network'

December 8, 2024

By now we can assume that there are few people in the nation who are unaware of the Dec. 4 shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson — on his way to an investors’ conference at the New York Hilton in Manhattan — and few people who are unaware that feelings are running about nine to one in favor of the shooter.