Taylor Swift at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards. Courtesy iHeartRadioCA.
When Peggy Noonan, who was one of President Ronald Reagan’s speechwriters, writes in The Wall Street Journal, that Taylor Swift should be Time magazine’s Person of the Year, you know that Swift has captured the zeitgeist.
Read MoreThat roar you hear at the Art Institute of Chicago isn’t from Edward Kamey’s pair of lions but from conservatives up in arms over a decision to eliminate the museum’s docents, volunteers who are mostly older, white women. Photograph by Kim Scarborough.
This has not been the best of times for older, white women in the United States. First, there was a not particularly thoughtful New York Times article on self-described despiser of white boomer women Jamie Loftus. Then came word that the Art Institute of Chicago, in an effort to create a diverse staff more reflective of the city in which it’s located, is doing away with its volunteer docents, who are, yes, mostly older, white women.
Instead, a letter sent to the 82 docents noted, the museum would phase in a new program mixing paid educators and volunteers “in a way that allows community members of all income levels to participate, responds to issues of class and income equity, and does not require financial flexibility to participate.”
Let me translate this for you: Museum officials, fearing they would be declared irrelevant, had to find someone else to appear so.
Read MoreJill Biden, who likes to be known as Dr. Jill Biden, in her official 2009 portrait as second lady of the United States. Photograph by Ralph Alswang for the White House.
The latest skirmish in the culture wars involves incoming first lady Dr. Jill Biden, as she likes to be known.
Biden is not a medical doctor but a doctor of education, and that seems to have stuck in the craw of Joseph Epstein (honorary doctorate), who in a somewhat snarky piece for The Wall Street Journal, told Biden in effect to stow it. Epstein’s commentary was not so much about BIden but about the decline of educational standards in general in this country, something I would heartily agree with, including in the awarding of doctorates, something I would not agree with. My family was enormously proud to see my oldest nephew Matthew receive his doctorate in applied mathematics after years of hard work and challenges that began when he was in high school. The degree has brought him a plum job as a government subcontractor at a prestigious university. So a PhD in any subject is nothing to sneeze at, and we can’t assume it wasn’t well-earned.
Read MoreA recent footnote in the tennis world – Novak Djokovic and his wife, Jelena, have taken up ballet.
Let the sniggering begin. “Ballet?” someone named Jaybee88 responded. “Ah, now, no wonder an ageing Federer beat him in Qatar.”
Ah, now, Jaybee, if you’re going to criticize, you’re going to have to learn how to spell “aging.” What is a wonder is that in the 21st century, ballet is still considered unmanly, effete – and let’s face it – gay. After covering the arts for 30 years, I can tell you that many if not most of the top male dancers are straight or bi. I remember Ethan Stiefel, one of the greatest male dancers, telling me in response to a question about why he became a dancer, “You spend your days touching women in various states of undress. What man wouldn’t love it?”
But that’s not the point, is it? Gay or straight, ballet is one of the most physically and mentally demanding of careers. You start class at 10 or 11 in the morning. Then there are hours of rehearsal. You dance at night; on weekends, at matinees and evening performances. You finish around 11 p.m., grab dinner, then sleep and the whole thing starts all over again. And that’s if you’re lucky and you perform regularly. Otherwise, guess what? You’re not getting paid.
If you’re a man, you’ve got to make the woman you partner always look good. That means sometimes you are lifting dead weight, no matter how light she is. You can’t ever show the strain the way an athlete can. And you can’t hide a few extra pounds. No wonder legendary New York Yankee first baseman Lou Gehrig – the great “Iron Horse” of baseball – said, “Dancers make the best athletes.” ...
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The NFL has announced its new conduct policy, and frankly, I’d rather study nuclear physics or the tax code.
The penalties will be tougher for violations, of course, including domestic violence. But they won’t be implemented by commish Roger Goodell, even though the NFL will rely more on policing itself. No, there will be a special counsel to implement the conduct code, which goes into effect immediately even though the special counsel has yet to be appointed.
And there’s a new conduct committee as well, made up of owners, among others. I guess the committee will help implement the policy, which the players’ union didn’t see before the announcement. The union was a little miffed about that, as unions are wont to be.
Does anyone else’s head ache? What a load of hooey: The NFL is taking on more policing of its own organization, which it should’ve done in the first place, but Goodell – who is in effect the NFL’s CEO, as in chief executive officer, as in the person who chiefly executes – can’t implement the policy. You need three more layers of bureaucracy. Geez Louise, this makes Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner who immediately canned the bigoted misanthrope Donald Sterling, look like Eliot Ness. ...
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