President Donald J. Trump is expected to name Amy Coney Barrett to the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat today. Photograph by Rachel Malehorn. — President Donald J. Trump is expected to name Amy Coney Barrett to the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat today. *Photograph by Rachel Malehorn.*

Amy Coney Barrett , 'notorious' women and the limits of sisterhood

September 26, 2020

A female relative of mine recently told be about a flurry of activity in her company that involved the possible election of a woman for the first time to a certain position. The problem was that some did not like this woman or think she was qualified.

Well, said I, just because someone shares your gender doesn’t mean you’re going to support her for a certain job. Which brings us, of course, to Amy Coney Barrett, the apparently wonderful, brilliantly successful jurist, teacher, Catholic, wife, mother of seven (including a special needs child) and soon-to-be “replacement” for the late, deeply lamented Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In this Barrett will be opposed by many women who believe she will threaten their right to choose and the Affordable Care Act. She will also be opposed by many men as well who see her as a possible rubber stamp for a Trumpian second term should the presidential election descend into a Bush v. Gore slugfest.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-2020) -- a cultural appreciation

September 19, 2020

When I was a student at Sarah Lawrence College in the 1970s — during a seminal wave of feminism — I took a course in the Women’s Studies department on gender and the law. Our textbook, “Sex-Based Discrimination,” was filled with absurd, horrifying stories of stewardesses — as they were called in those days — and the like, who were fired for being five pounds overweight, for not being “attractive” enough, for having babies — in other words, for being women. Two decades later as President Bill Clinton announced an appointee to the United States Supreme Court, I recalled the chief editor of that textbook — Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

A not so Merry Christmas?

December 24, 2018

’Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house not a creature was happy, not even a mouse. Where to begin to recount all the reasons for the winter of our discontent. Start with the stock market collapse. As of 2:52 p.m. EST on Christmas Eve, the Dow was down 653.17, or almost 3 percent., for the worst Christmas Eve plunge in its history. But that may turn out merely to be the tip of the Titanic-slaying iceberg. I know, frightening, isn’t it?

Trump, LeBron James and free speech

August 9, 2018

Aaron Rodgers is among the latest people to respond to President Donald J. Trump’s criticism of LeBron James. Rodgers thinks we should take a stoic approach to Trumpian attacks. But should we?….

The post-election and what I wore

December 12, 2016

The devil, they say, is in the details. And so it proved recently as I found myself serving and volleying furiously in a conversation with my Republican uncle about Barack Obama and Donald Trump. (If this had been a tennis match, it would’ve been John McEnroe and Ilie Nastase circa 1979, Madison Square Garden – don’t ask.)

Normally, I am the soul of forbearance with said uncle, who is elderly and served in the Korean Conflict – as he often reminds me. And I have a high tolerance for personal insults, being a confident person and having spent more than 35 years in a newsroom. But when someone I love or admire is attacked, my back is up. Uncle disparaged the current president, and we were off, shouting and talking over each other like a particularly maniacal Eleanor Clift and Pat Buchanan on the late, lamented “The McLaughlin Group.” (The idiosyncratic political round table was even funnier than its “Saturday Night Live” sendup.)

Late into the dustup with Uncle, he delivered what he no doubt thought was the coup de grace: The outfit I wore to the family’s Thanksgiving gathering made me look like a bag lady. ...

The Supreme Court and the executioner’s song

July 2, 2015

The Supreme Court has upheld a drug used in Oklahoma executions, dismissing the claim of three death-row inmates that it causes excruciating pain.

Basically, the majority of the Supremes said the inmates should’ve come up with an alternative drug – which Justice Sonia Sotomayor thought was nutty.

“Petitioners contend that Oklahoma’s current protocol is a barbarous method of punishment — the chemical equivalent of being burned alive,” Justice Sotomayor wrote. ...