Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a 2016 portrait. Courtesy the Supreme Court of the United States. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a 2016 portrait. *Courtesy the Supreme Court of the United States.*

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-2020) -- a cultural appreciation

September 19, 2020

When I was a student at Sarah Lawrence College in the 1970s — during a seminal wave of feminism — I took a course in the Women’s Studies department on gender and the law. Our textbook, “Sex-Based Discrimination,” was filled with absurd, horrifying stories of stewardesses — as they were called in those days — and the like, who were fired for being five pounds overweight, for not being “attractive” enough, for having babies — in other words, for being women. Two decades later as President Bill Clinton announced an appointee to the United States Supreme Court, I recalled the chief editor of that textbook — Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Frederic Leighton’s “Electra at the Tomb of Agamemnon” (1868-69), oil on canvas. Mourning and black become her.

Mourning in America: My big, fat (ancient)Greek tragedy

August 31, 2020

There they were, the first family of the United States, gussied up — with one tennis-ball green exception — in basic black, clashing with the red, white and blue backdrop and looking for all the world like a group ready for a New York cocktail party to which they’d never be invited. There’s a metaphor or two in there somewhere.

A poster to a New York Times article said they looked like a contemporary Addams Family, minus the kindness and the humor. Like Eugene O’Neill’s Electra (more on her in a bit), mourning becomes them.

Sen. Kamala Harris, seen here in 2010 in her official portrait as California attorney general, will have to bring all her prosecutorial gifts to bear on the presidential campaign as Joe Biden’s running mate.

All the president's women

August 12, 2020

So Joe Biden has picked California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate and the plumbing of why he did so has commenced. Biden picked her because she possesses a prosecutorial mind and temperament — she couldn’t have done the jobs of San Francisco’s district attorney and California’s attorney general without them — which enables her to give and take a punch. This ability to serve and volley should also make her formidable in any vice presidential debate.. (See her questioning of now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Attorney General William Barr.)

My uncle, a conservative, likes to point out that a vice president isn’t a prosecutor. That may be, but this one may have to be.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, seen here at a Bernie Sanders rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa, last year, says that while haters gotta hate, you can still shine on. Amen, sister, amen. Photograph by Matt Johnson. — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, seen here at a Bernie Sanders rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa, last year, says that while haters gotta hate, you can still shine on. Amen, sister, amen. *Photograph by Matt Johnson.*

AOC and 'shining on'

July 26, 2020

I was going to do a blog post about the Ibsen-ization of Dr. Anthony Fauci,;how President Donald J. Trump has tried to turn him into Henrik Ibsen’s title character in “An Enemy of the People” for speaking truth to power,; how Trump, jealous that Fauci got to throw out the first pitch at the Washington Nationals home opener against the New York Yankees, just had to announce that he, too, would be throwing out the first pitch at the Yanks’ Aug. 14 game against the Boston Red Sox; how fans of teams and individuals who behave contrary to their beliefs are left in a quandary: Do you support your team, as you might your family, no matter what? Or do you stand on principle and part company?

I’ll always love the Yanks, but I cannot for the life of me understand how their former, legendary closer Mariano Rivera — a self-proclaimed Christian and proud Panamanian — can support Trump, whose actions are antithetical to the teachings of Jesus, particularly when it comes to Hispanic immigrants.

As I said, I was going to write about all this, and then Rep. Ted Yoho called colleague Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a “f***ing bitch “and the Repubs went after one of their own, Rep. Liz Cheney, for sticking up for Fauci, and I realized I had to write about that.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator and star of “Hamilton.” Photograph by Steve Jurvetson. — Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator and star of “Hamilton.” *Photograph by Steve Jurvetson.*

Guest blogging at JMS Books

July 13, 2020

It’s not often that I promote another blog on this one, but recently, my publisher, JMS Books, put out a call to any of its authors who wanted to guest blog on its website. Being an inveterate blogger, I jumped at the chance, and my post is running Tuesday, July 14, Bastille Day. (Vive la France.)

The post is not about France but about how I came to write “The Games Men Play” series, about power, dominance and rivalry, set mainly in the world of sports, although I’ve expanded the series to include earlier novels that have only recently been published. I won’t recount the post here, so you can discover it for yourself at jms-books.com as well as my books,, including my latest work, the short story “The Glass Door,” about love in the time of corona. (It’s a theme that’s haunting me and other writers of late.) It’s due out Aug. 10.

I will, however, discuss a subject here related to that post since many of my books are about gay or bisexual men and that is cultural appropriation.

Artemisia Gentileschi’s “Susannah and the Elders” (1610), oil on canvas. Collection of Schloss Weissenstein. The biblical theme of an assaulted woman and the men who both prey on and condemn her had special resonance for Gentileschi, herself a rape… — Artemisia Gentileschi’s “Susannah and the Elders” (1610), oil on canvas. Collection of Schloss Weissenstein. The biblical theme of an assaulted woman and the men who both prey on and condemn her had special resonance for Gentileschi, herself a rape victim who was tortured to ensure she was telling the truth.

Tara Reade and the passion of our perceptions

May 20, 2020

Context drives not only perception but the passion with which we hold that perception. Witness Tara Reade, who has accused presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden of sexual assault when she was an aide in his Senate office in 1993. In another time, Reade would be one more explosive chapter of the #MeToo movement. But as Eleanor Roosevelt might put it, this is no ordinary time.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren stumping for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire in 2016. Photograph by Tim Pierce.

A country for old (white) men

March 8, 2020

Remember that film “No Country for Old Men”? Well, this isn’t that.

Just when you thought Bernie Sanders was the second coming of, well, Bernie Sanders, “Uncle Joe” — as one of my sisters calls former Vice President Joe Biden — came roaring back. Now no matter who gets the Democratic presidential nomination, the presidential contest will be between two old white guys and, if it’s between Sanders and President Donald J. Trump, two grumpy old men with an enormous sense of grievance and my-way-or-the-highway entitlement. (They’re like the relatives you have to tolerate on holidays and then pray they don’t say anything politically incorrect.)