I doubt that President Obama will adopt the line “Ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation” as he and his party head toward the November Congressional elections. But Julia Roberts’... Read more
Empty sexuality of all its narrative baggage. When at the moment a pastiche phase of “Bad Romance” resembles you and we begin to share a “mon semblable” link, a phrase – Gaga, ooh, la... Read more
The President I am in no way disposed to argue in some timeless/placeless way the concepts of just war or the virtues of turning the other cheek or the meaning of Matthew 10:34: “I have come... Read more
Nick Schager, in a review of Crazy Heart which registers the magnetic charm of the Jeff Bridges’s character, calls Bad Blake, Bridges’s character, “a jalopy of a man,” a “dilapidated has-bee... Read more
For Americans, the aughts began with the fearful Y2K and ended on Christmas Day 2009 with a terrorist attack, thankfully failed, on board a plane from Amsterdam to Detroit. Call these ‘macro... Read more
Perhaps this lone vigilante Dexter, who cleans up—that is, ritualistically kills and dismembers the mess that our system of justice creates and cannot clean up itself—and who constrains his... Read more
Let’s get the obvious —not out of the way— but listed: Who wants to be “up in the air” after another Islamic terrorist managed to board Flight 253 and almost blow it up on Christmas day? Cou... Read more
The Existing Conditions I believe this is mandatory – to set the surrounding scene of present existing conditions – even if one is dealing with a TV show about a Hell’s Angels-like club of b... Read more
The longest-serving Senate leader is relinquishing his post in the next Congress and planning to use his influence in ways that could put him at odds with President-elect Donald J. Trump. [...]
Natalie Harp, a 33-year-old former anchor on a right-wing cable show, is poised to become the gatekeeper for information to and from the president. [...]
Steve Witkoff’s involvement with two sovereign wealth funds as he bought and then sold Manhattan’s Park Lane Hotel demonstrates the potential conflicts his new role will present. [...]
The president-elect has named wealthy financiers for key economic positions, raising questions about how much they will follow through on promises to help the working class. [...]
Donald J. Trump is set to regain office without clarity on the scope of presidential immunity and with a lingering cloud over whether outside special counsels can investigate high-level wrongdoing. [...]
The administration is pressing the World Anti-Doping Agency to allow an outside audit after it failed to suspend Chinese swimmers for positive tests. [...]
