A macaque at Ngarai Sianok, Bukittinggi, West Sumatra. Monkeypox is so-named because it was first isolated in monkeys. However, it comes from Western and Central African rodents, not monkeys. Photograph by Sakurai Midori

America's monkey(pox) business

July 28, 2022

I became a cultural writer in the age of AIDS,. And because my beat, the arts, intersected with the gay community, which was disproportionately affected by the disease in the United States, I was assigned by the newspaper I worked for then to help cover a subject few would touch with a 10-foot pole.

It’s hard to remember now more than 40 years ago as well as to overestimate the feeling of dread AIDS engendered. A wave of it came flooding back with Covid. And another wave of a different variety has come flooding back with monkeypox, wihich the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a global health emergency even as the Biden Administration weighs appointing a monkeypox coordinator.

Artemisia Gentileschi’s “Susanna and the Elders” (circa 1610), oil on canvas, Schönborn Collection, Pommersfelden, Germany. Gentileschi was raped by her artist father Orazio’s assistant, Agostino Tassi, who had been engaged to give her art leassons, then tortured to make sure she was telling the truth. She played out her survival in paintings in which biblical heroines triumphed over male assault. Whenever I think of men trying to control women, I think of works like this one.

Pro life and its culture of death

May 7, 2022

Just in time for Mother’s Day, the United States Supreme Court has a gift that is “sure” to warm the hearts of moms and would-be moms everywhere — a leaked draft decision that would appear to repeal Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that made abortion legal in America. Chief Justice John Roberts — whose position as a swing vote on the court appears to have been nullified by the arrival of conservative Amy “the Handmaiden” Coney Barrett and whose legacy is in jeopardy — was shocked, shocked I tell you, that someone leaked the draft and has vowed an investigation. But the leak is hardly the point, which we’ll get to in a minute.

Naomi Osaka serving in June 2018. Photograph by Peter Menzel.

No love all in Osaka meeting the press

June 3, 2021

Every once and a while a story comes along that touches us neurotic journalists to our core. The latest chapter in the life of tennis star Naomi Osaka is such a story.

As you by now no doubt know, Osaka — the No. 2-ranked woman in tennis and the highest paid female athlete in the world, one who advocates for racial justice and expresses herself through fashion —was struggling through the clay court season when she hit a roadblock at the French Open in Paris. Osaka decided she would not attend the obligatory press conferences as questions about her poor clay court play were messing with her head. Being a 23-year-old, Osaka did what any 23-year-old would do: She made the announcement on social media. Tournament officials did what tournament officials do-do so well: They fined her.

The Texas State Capitol at night. The Lone Star State has stirred up a hornet’s nest in suing four battleground states that voted for President-elect Joe Biden. Photograph by Kumar Appaiah.

Texas, don't mess with us (updated)

December 11, 2020

The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

We are stuck on number three, bargaining, in the Trump campaign’s post-election bid to win back the presidency. The latest in some 50 unsuccessful lawsuits came not from the campaign itself, however, but from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who sued Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — four of the battleground states in which President-elect Joe Biden bested President Donald J. Trump — arguing that coronavirus-related changes to election rules in those states were unconstitutional, even though Texas also made changes. Seventeen red states joined the Texas suit, as did Trump and 106 Republican members of Congress.

Gone with the wind: Tariff wars

July 9, 2018

The weather finally turned crisper in the Northeast thanks to cooler air moving into the region from Canada.

I hope it didn’t have to pay a tax at the border or maybe surrender its son, Cool Air Jr.

You have to worry about everything and everyone crossing the American borders these days. On Friday, President Donald J. Trumpet imposed tariffs of 25 percent on 800 Chinese goods coming into the U.S. while China imposed tariffs on soybeans, corn and pork, which hurts American farmers, who largely went for Trump in the last election. …