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.

Putin and narcissism -- a cultural perspective

March 20, 2022

With the ground war raging in Ukraine having been played to a standstill — thank God, although the shelling continues — many have attempted to analyze its sole instigator, Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have considered the so-called encroachment of NATO, a defensive organization that would probably not exist without Russian aggression; the supposed failure of American presidents to read the 800-pound gorilla in the room; the obliviousness of a Europe that reportedly saw Russia as nothing but a giant gas station with onion domes; the alleged corruption of the former Soviet satellites that Putin would seek to crush to corral — Chechnya, Crimea, Ukraine.

But as with any analysis of his former BFF, President Donald J. Trump, the political with Putin must begin with the personal. As with Trump, Putin is a narcissist. The difference is that while Trump is an ultimately ineffective narcissist — too intellectually lazy and disorganized to be Machiavellian — Putin is the worst kind of narcissist, a wily malignant nihilist.

On uncivil civil discourse

June 26, 2018

In Luke 7: 36-50, the writer paints a portrait of limitless love and the limits of the unloving. Jesus dines at the house of Simon the Pharisee, where a woman known to have led a sinful life washed his feet with her tears, dried them with her hair and anointed them with perfume, an expensive commodity. It was a profound display of contrition, humility and love, though the Pharisees saw it as an extravagant outrage, given her reputation.

After offering a parable, Jesus “turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? …

Trump hawks down; Or the significance of ‘what he signed up for’

October 26, 2017

The fog of war – or of “advising and assisting,” as every student of the Vietnam War knows – is such that the truth of what happened isn’t immediately apparent. What is apparent is that Trump handled the situation’s aftermath with less than Alexandrian leadership, first by not commenting on it for more than a week and ultimately by saying he did not “specifically” authorize it. (Dude, you are the president. You are responsible for everything that happens in your administration.)

Then he got involved in a typically Trumpian tone deaf controversy with Sgt. La David Johnson’s widow, in which he consoled her by saying that this was what her husband “signed up for. But I guess it still hurts.” ...