Blondie ambition: Then British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson greets President Donald J. Trump at the United Nations General Assembly, Oct. 2 2017. White House photograph by D. Myles Cullen.
Graig Nettles, the great New York Yankees’ third baseman of the 1970s, once observed that if you want an entertainer, hire (comedian) George Jessel — meaning that he was paid to hit and vacuum up ground balls from opposing batsmen, something he was quite entertaining at.
But in today’s world, it’s not enough to be good at what you do. You have to be relatable.
Read MoreThe Unisphere — symbol of the most global place on the face of the Earth, the polyglot New York City borough of Queens. It’s the birthplace of President Donald J. Trump and part of it is in Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s district.
So, my uncle wanted to know, what do you think of those four women?
“Those four women” are, of course Representatives Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna S. Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan — who had been taking and giving the heat to House Leader Nancy Pelosi on a number of issues but mainly for their leftist impatience with her middle-of-the-road, compromise strategy. I think my answer surprised my uncle, who likes to bait me. I told him I’m not a particular fan of the Squad.
Read MoreA scene from “The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead” (British Museum), in which the heart of the deceased is measured against the feather of truth.
So Sir Kim Darroch, British ambassador to the United States, has resigned after his remarks about the Trump Administration’s dysfunction — made in private to his own government — were leaked and President Donald J. Trump proclaimed himself “not a fan.”
Everyone but particularly an ambassador should have the right to express his opinion in privacy without fear of reprisals. But in the age of 24/7 social media and Brexit — of which Darroch was apparently not a fan — it was perhaps inevitable that he should be done in. I guess we’ll have to go back to communicating the old-fashioned way — face to face.
“Not a fan”: Darroch should have those words emblazoned on a T-shirt and wear it proudly. Remember, El Presidente wasn’t a fan of the late Sen. John McCain. So Darroch is in good company.
And The Donald had been a former fan of some who are now in the hot seat, including Jeffrey Epstein, who has been charged in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York with sex trafficking of minors in Florida and New York.
Read MoreAcyn Torabi @acyn posted “The Battle of Baggage Claim” after Trump conflated the Revolution with the jet age.
Unless you were visiting Pluto over the Fourth of July weekend, you were aware that not all the fireworks were on Macy’s barges in New York City’s East River or over cityscapes and village greens around the nation.
No, much of the rockets’ red glare and many of the bombs bursting in air came from the Twitterati reacting to President Donald J. Trump’s address at the Lincoln Memorial.
Read MoreEdward Moran’s “Unveiling of the Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World” (1886), oil on canvas. The J. Clarence Davies Collection, Museum of the City of New York. Originally gifted to America by France as a symbol of the preservation of the Union, Lady Liberty has come to represent a light to the hopeful — and hopeless — immigrants of the world.
As America celebrates its 243rd birthday today, we are reminded that we are a nation of immigrants — and yet that nation and that notion are both under siege. Squalor at detention camps at the border. A Washington state judge subsequently ruling that asylum seekers can’t be kept in detention indefinitely — a Trumpian policy that has created the crisis. President Donald J. Trump — so good at the trappings of America’s birthday, with his tanks in Washington D.C. and his speech at the Lincoln Memorial — defiying the Supreme Court ruling that bars a citizenship question on the U.S. Census.
Read MoreAlabama’s Lady Liberty in Liberty Park, Vestavia Hills. While the state celebrates Lady Liberty, it appears to be less interested in individual women’s freedom. Carol M. Highsmith/Library of Congress.
Alabama has indicted a woman in the death of her fetus after she started a fight with another woman, who then shot her. The shooter was not indicted.
If this all sounds nuts, it’s actually perfectly logical in a place whose laws value guns more than life and the life of the unborn over that of the mother.
Read MoreThe dramatically lit Aphrodite of Knidos — with her baby, Eros, sleeping at her side — in “The Countless Aspects of Beauty” exhibit at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, a feast for the sense. Photograph by the author.
“We’re not interested in Alexander I.”
That’s what one of my colleagues said to me about Alexander the Great (who was Alexander III, but no matter).
I thought about this as I returned to Greece recently on another “Legacy of Alexander the Great” tour, this time with The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Arrangements Abroad. I thought about this as we swept by plane from Thessaloniki — Greece’s second largest city, named for one of Alexander’s younger sisters — spitj to Athens, the capital, on a 12-day tour that included buscapades to many of the nation’s most important museums and archaeological sites.
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