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‘Border’line psychosis

President Donald J. Trumpet has rescinded the order separating children from their parents when they arrive at the southern border but, get this, some 2,300 kids who have already been separated from their parents have not been grandfathered in. Not only have they not been grandfathered in, but they have already been scattered to the four winds – to cities in Michigan, New York and Rhode Island – which came as a distressing surprise to the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Members of the conference hastily gathered in El Paso at the behest of that city’s mayor, Dee Margo, a Republican no less, who painted a very different picture of life at the border than President Donald J. Trump has – one of low crime and entwined Hispanic-American cultures.

So, what the hell is going on? You’ve got mayors – for the most part, men – who are so distressed about children who have just disappeared into their cities that the distress is palpable. You’ve got parents who are so distraught that one even killed himself. Most of all, you’ve got kids who are being traumatized …

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Justified – and not

Gee, do you think Justify will be going to the White House?

The massive chestnut colt – huge, as a certain American president would say – secured the Triple Crown in decisive fashion Saturday with a win in the Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park in New York. Schooled by Bob Baffert, 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah’s trainer, Justify is the 13th colt to win the Crown and only the second to do so undefeated (behind Seattle Slew, 1977). Neigh-sayers (I couldn’t resist) note that …

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The literature of rejection

I tend to use this headline to write about young men who have a disproportionate rage at the world and take it out on others as mass murderers, assassins, terrorists and serial killers. I’ve also written about a number of literary works that deal with such young men – Homer’s “The Iliad,” John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights,” among them.

But I think it is also an appropriate title for a post about the Lambda Literary Awards, which I attended Monday night at New York University’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts as a nominee. My book “The Penalty for Holding,” published by Less Than Three Press, the second novel in the series “The Games Men Play” was a finalist in the Best Bisexual Fiction category. (When I got the news, I had two thoughts: This must be an email for somebody else. And, were any of the characters in my book bisexual? It goes to show that the readers sometimes know more than the authors do.)

As I sat there, I had a feeling of disassociation. I didn’t know anyone …

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