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Special counsel Jack Smith making a statement regarding the indictment of former President Donald J. Trump in the documents case on June 9. *Photograph courtesy the U.S. Department of Justice.*

The Trump indictments: The master spinner spun out

August 3, 2023

Recently, I went to see “Barbie,” a surprisingly touching film about what it means to be human, with a cousin who collects Barbies. Afterward, the conversation at dinner drifted as it invariably does these days to former President Donald J. Trump. I explained to my cousin that whatever you may think of Trump — and she’s a conservative with a higher opinion of him than I have as a moderate independent — you must acknowledge that he is great at creating a narrative and sticking to it. That’s real power — power that is now being seriously countered with his arraignment Thursday, Aug. 3, on charges of fraud, obstruction and violation of voting rights in a federal court in Washington, D.C.

J. Robert Oppenheimer speaking in Israel in 1966, the year before he died. *Photograph by* ***Boris Carmi*** /***Meitar Collection*** / ***National Library of Israel*** / ***The Pritzker Family National Photography Collection*** / ***CC BY 4.0***

'Oppenheimer' as a mirror for our partisan times

July 27, 2023

“Oppenheimer” is a magnificent film that paints J. Robert Oppenheimer, the so-called “father of the atom bomb,” in a more sympathetic light than his detractors would like while nevertheless exploring the blindness behind his brilliance.

The remains of the day: J. Robert Oppenheimer and Gen. Leslie Groves returned to the Trinity test site in Los Alamos, New Mexico, for news crews in September 1945, two months after the July 16 detonation of the first atom bomb. *Courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.*

Blind ambition: The antiheroism of Robert Oppenheimer

July 20, 2023

Friday, July 21, marks the opening of two highly anticipated movies that have nothing to do with each other but have already been paired in the public consciousness, perhaps because they both ask us to consider what it means to be human in a world where people constantly grapple for power.

The two films — “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie” — have already been conflated as “Barbenheimer” (is that like “Frankenstein”?), with movie buffs planning a five-hour double feature of “Oppenheimer’s” main course and “Barbie’s” dessert. (Well, why not? After all, Barbie and J. Robert Oppenheimer were both physicists.)

I’ll have more on Barbie,“Barbie” and the male gaze in a subsequent post. But for now I’d like to consider Oppenheimer (1904-67), the scientist who spearheaded the creation of the atom bomb and whose life, lived at the nexus of ambition and conscience, would be eclipsed by his failure to understand the power dynamic.

Center of attention: (From left foreground) French culture minister André Malraux, wife Marie-Madeleine and President John F. Kennedy have eyes only for Jacqueline B. Kennedy in her pink Oleg Cassini. Even today first ladies like Melania Trump and first lady wannabes like Casey DeSantis channel Jackie’s look. *Photograph courtesy the White House.*

Moving forward: the endurance of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

July 12, 2023

What would Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis make of J. Randy Taraborrelli’s “Jackie: Public, Private, Secret” (St. Martin’s Press, $35, 439 pages) — out Tuesday, July 18, 10 days before what would’ve been her 94th birthday?

Domingo Germán, seen here in 2019, pitched a perfect game for the New York Yankees on June 28. *Photograph by* *Keith Allison.*

The Supreme Court, Domingo Germán and the perfect imperfection of life

July 1, 2023

The Supreme Court made what critics would describe as some imperfect decisions in the week that New York Yankees pitcher Domingo Germán pitched a perfect game. While the two would seem unrelated, they both tell us a great deal about the unfairness and seeming randomness of life.

**View of the bow of the RMS Titanic photographed in June 2004 by the ROV Hercules during an expedition returning to the shipwreck of the Titanic.** ***Courtesy NOAA/Institute for Exploration/University of Rhode Island***

All hands on deck of the SS Hubris

June 22, 2023

The deaths of five men in the implosion of the submersible Titan has shown us, as tragedies do, the best and the worst of humanity.

The best could be seen in the herculean five-day transatlantic effort by four nations — Canada, the United States, France and Great Britain — to save lives even as the U.S. Navy detected but could not definitely confirm the implosion on Father’s Day, June 18. The worst was, well, everything else from the foolhardy tour itself to some of the slapdash reporting to the ignorant, often mean-spirited internet reaction.

A scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” —“Madeleine” at the Golden Gate Bridge, Fort Point, right before she jumps into San Francisco Bay.

'Vertigo' and the idea of the other

June 4, 2023

Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 film “Vertigo” has reached what The Washington Post called in its reappraisal ‘Medicare age,’which got me thinking about my favorite movie — one that regularly appears on lists for the greatest, or one of the greatest, films to date. But is it, as The Post suggests, a story for our #MeToo times or rather a more complex tale of the human desire to project onto others our own dreams, fears and desires?

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