The Prince and Princess of Wales and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are facing off with different awards in different East Coast cities featuring different members of the Kennedy clan…..In addition to dueling couples in rival cities with different branches of the Kennedy family, we get the contretemps over Lady Susan Hussey’s encounter with Ngozi Fulani at a Buckingham Palace event to fight against gender-based violence.
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Going for the (tarnished) gold -- our ambivalence to the Olympics
Well, the 2020 Summer Olympics have finally arrived in Tokyo. Let the naysaying games begin.
Once again we’ve heard about the tyranny of the International Olympics Committee, which is more interested in maintaining its power and money than in the athletes it purports to represent; nations trying to medal in the game of under-the-table bribery in a bid for host city status; boycotts by politicians and other world leaders, including South Korean President Moon Jae-in, miffed by a remark made by a Japanese diplomat; and the usual weird Olympic village stuff, like the recyclable, cardboard beds that were thought to deter any extracurricular nooky by the athletes. (As if anything could deter people from having sex, as a world population of 7.7 billion can attest.)
Read MoreWomen athletes as the main event
Self-professed feminist that I am, I must confess that I do not follow women’s sports.
I don’t know why. I support Title IX, which equalized sports opportunities in schools, the fruits of which have included higher medal counts for the United States at the Olympics, thanks to golden performances by our female athletes. I’m all for any civil rights initiative and am absolutely sick with worry about the Georgia Legislature’s most recent effort to restrict voting rights, especially for Black voters.
Still, I prefer to watch men….
Read MoreTrump and our road to Damascus
when you think you’re free to blog about something fun like the new tennis pavilion Melania Trump is building at the White House for her, Novak Djokovic-like husband — not— or the new movie “The King,” starring Timothée Chalumet as a real leader, Henry V , President Donald J. Trump does something else stupid on the road to IM, impeachment meltdown. If it’s not Rick Perry being thrown under the bus one day, it’s the Syrian Kurds watching the bus filled with American soldiers pulling out the next, leaving these staunch American allies in the fight against ISIS to fend for themselves against their longtime enemies, the Turks, in what has already become a humanitarian crisis.
Read MoreTrump, LeBron James and free speech
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 …
Read MoreThanksgiving and the attitude of ingratitude
It’s the season in which we give thanks for our blessings as a nation and as individuals. But that’s not what prevails in certain quarters.
Here we must begin at the top. Usually, American presidents use the Thanksgiving holiday as an opportunity to express how grateful we all are. Instead, El Presidente Trumpet, issuing a decree from his cell phone at the Winter White House (Mar a Lago) in Florida, is using the holiday to complain about how ungrateful certain people are toward him. Namely LaVar Ball, father of LiAngelo Ball, the UCLA basketball player picked up for shoplifting in China. ...
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