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A different kind of “Trump tower” — The Daniel Patrick Moynihan U.S. District Courthouse, home of the land of no presidential pardons — the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan.

The ultimate farewell Friday

March 24, 2019

On this past “farewell Friday” — a phrase that I believe was coined by NBC News chief White House correspondent Hallie Jackson to describe President Donald J. Trump’s revolving door policy toward staff — special prosecutor Robert Mueller took his leave of the Russia probe, submitting his report.

By George: A British World War I recruitment poster invokes St. George, England’s patron saint. England could use him right about now.

Britain's long goodbye

March 20, 2019

Like the student or reporter who simply cannot meet a deadline, the United Kingdom will today ask the European Union for a short (three-month) extension to the March 29 deadline for its leave-taking from that organization. No, that’s not the right analogy. The British are like the soon-to-be-ex hubby, who needs to spend a few more months on your couch as he ponders his commitment to the woman he betrayed you with. How well does that end? The other 27 members of the E.U. must approve such a request. And they’re not inclined to a longer goodbye without a new game plan, which the Brits don’t seem to have. As Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte said, there’s really no point to the British “whining on for months.” Yes, quite.

Lestat, the rapturous protagonist of Anne Rice’s “The Vampire Chronicles,” has the right attitude toward (unending) life.

Fear itself

March 17, 2019

Three friends, the same reaction: They’re all in a tizzy — bewitched, bothered and bewildered — by Trump world.

One is appalled at the Trump Administration’s restrictive treatment of pregnant undocumented immigrants. Another is angry about President Donald J. Trumpet’s policies and tone in general. And speaking of which, the third is severely stressed by his threats to the American resistance, which preceded the massacre of 50 Muslims — and the injury of just as many — at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand by yet another young man with a disproportionate rage at life’s rejections, one who counted El Presidente as a white power inspiration.

“The Garden of Eden With the Fall of Man” by Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder (1615), oil on panel. The Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague.

'An otherwise blameless life'

March 10, 2019

So Paul Manafort was given four years for his “decade-long, multimillion-dollar fraud scheme,” which drew outrage from the legal community and beyond.

Is it the end of the U.S.-North Korean affair?

March 4, 2019

Don’t kill those Nobel Peace Prize hopes just yet.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in is eager for talks to resume between President Donald J. Trumpet and North Korean Supreme Leader “L’il Kim” Jong un and pointed to the cancellation of U.S.-South Korean military exercises as an act of good faith. If I were Moon, however, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

And now a word form the Land of the Rising Sun and Sanrio’s Hello Kitty.

Messrs. Congeniality with their eye on the (Nobel Peace) Prize

February 24, 2019

Dear Nobel Committee-san,

It is with the utmost humility and civility in that decorous but still somehow aloof Asian manner — not to mention the teensiest, weensiest bit of arm-twisting by the White House — that I write to you to nominate President Donald J. Trumpet of the United States of America and Chairman L’il Kim Jong-un of North Korea for the Nobel Peace Prize — the committee’s answer to the Miss Congeniality Award.

Enes Kanter (right), — then of the Utah Jazz, now of the New York Knicks — attempting to block a shot by Patrick Beverley at the Houston Rockets’ Toyota Center March 17, 2014.

Is some speech freer than others?

January 21, 2019

Everyone is entitled to his opinion, until, of course, someone thinks he isn’t. Recently, three incidents have challenged our concept of freedom of speech.

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