This summer — like last summer and the one before it — seems to be another case of promise denied. Once again we started with high hopes or at least middling hopes. (Let’s face it: Since Covid, the bar has been set pretty low. And once again, it has not been cleared. We can each point to personal disappointments, which may or may not be of our own making. But as a society, we must consider a failure that stems from our own lack of rationality, imagination and compassion.
One example — the dominant story of the season — will suffice. No sooner did the FBI search former President Donald J. Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago for documents that belong to the National Archives than the Bureau was under attack.
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Read MoreSeventeen people were killed by a gunman in Florida and I feel – nothing.
No, that’s not exactly correct. I feel a certain righteous indignation. The Republican governor of Florida, Rick Scott, thinks FBI director Christopher Wray should resign, because the Bureau got a tip on gunman Nikolas Cruz and didn’t follow it up. Oh, please. The Broward County sheriff’s office got numerous complaints about this guy. Listen, it’s always the same story – young white guy with a disproportionate rage at the world. And it’s always the same result. And the same response. Thoughts and prayers. Nutjob. ...
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Read MoreJust in time for Valentine’s Day comes a poignant story in The New York Times about Nigel, a gannet, a type of seabird, who fell in love with a decoy bird placed on New Zealand’s Mana Island for the very purpose of attracting many of his kind. But he loved only one. He presented. He preened. He attempted to mate. But the stone-cold beauty remained unmoved. And, in the end, the island caretaker found him dead, which just about broke his heart.
It reminds you of Hans Christian Andersen’s story of “The Steadfast Tin Soldier,” and the little one-legged tin man whose love for a ballerina seals his doom. (Not a huge fan of Andersen’s downer stories and even less of a fan after learning that some scholars believe Charles Dickens based the creepy Uriah Heep in “David Copperfield” on him.) Anyway, the George Balanchine ballet version makes the soldier’s unrequited love more apparent.
Love is blind. But then, so are politics and selfishness. ...
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Read MoreTruth has only one story; lying, many narratives.
The firing of now-former FBI Director James Comey was the suggestion of the Attorney General’s office, until it wasn’t and became President Donald J. Trump’s idea.
It was the result of Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton emails and then his “grandstanding” personality until it became clear it was really all about the FBI investigation into possible collusion between team Trump and the Russkies. ...
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Read MoreSo let me get this straight: President Donald J. Trump has fired FBI Director James Comey for the way he revealed the Bureau’s investigation of the Hillary Clinton email scandal.
Uh-huh.
Not because Comey was investigating the Trump Administration’s relationship with the Russkies, no, not that. ...
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