ON MATTERS OF DUBIOUS INTEREST
It’s easy to get tired of writing about Trump. I used to write a lot about jazz but got taken over by a fascination with political disasters and outrage. I’m too old and divorced from the jazz scene now, but here are some great jazz photos you may not have seen. They show the vibrancy of a music that once reflected the art and soul of America. Continue reading “Remembering Jazz”
What follows is a meditation on getting old attributed to Clint Eastwood but in fact seems to be written by its poster, Ed Davidson. The piece has gotten a ton of downloads because it’s so true.
Of course there’s a good deal more to getting old, as this 92-year-old can testify. For me, the physical decline dominates though your brain does weird, squiggly, surprising things too. I’ll talk about that later. Continue reading “Aging is not gentle.”
Of all Trump’s depraved doings, this one has really captured the public’s attention and ire. It’s a personal slap in the face to JFK and his memory, to the arts, to Washington. It has gotten national attention and has truly galvanized the District.
I lived and worked in DC for about eight years. It was an extraordinary town then, with plenty of problems, yes, and Trump is now doing all he can to destroy it. Continue reading “Chaos at the Kennedy Center”
I’ve been reading the New York Times daily since I lived in New York in the late 1960s. It was a very different paper (a “paper,” that is) then. Now, despite a few very pertinent newsworthy stories, they are giving us a bunch of lightweight flaky stuff on their web’s front page. You must go below the fold (the double line) to get the real news and opinions. Why is this happening? Continue reading “The No-News NYT”
Vance: They put us up at this crummy hotel while the boss signs his ass away at Versailles. I don’t think he even knows how many disastrous treaties were signed there. And now the peace talks here are going to start again but will probably end up in the toilet. Continue reading “At the Hotel Ceasefire, Geneva”
Trump: It’s my great pleasure to see you again, Mr. President. No, no groveling, please!
Xi: Did you sleep on the plane?
Trump: Very little. Too busy posting memies on Truth Social. I get so many stupid questions directed at me. Continue reading “Dialogue”
In these times of hysteria and sociopathology, it may be useful to remind us that there is “nothing new under the sun,” as Ecclesiastes put it. The Mark Twain of our time surely was Hunter S. Thompson, whose words still drive me crazy and apply so directly to what the Trumpworld has brought us. Continue reading “Trumpism Predicted”
There is a new book out that I want very much to read. It’s an anatomy of capitalism: The Insatiable Machine: How Capitalism Conquered the World, by Trevor Jackson. Capitalism plainly dominates the world’s economic and social life. “An economy predicated on infinite accumulation, mass consumption, and fossil-fueled industrialization is not reconcilable with a finite planet.” Continue reading “Capitalism Exposed”
Some think the Iran war is Trump’s “excursion” to distract from his involvement with Epstein. Maybe so, but his absurd conduct of the war makes you wonder. You’ll recall that in both his presidential campaigns Trump positioned himself as the outsider who would drain the elitist swamp. Instead, his administration “stands as the ultimate monument to elite impunity.” The proof is all over the Epstein files. Continue reading “The Deepest Irony”
Here is Sidney Blumenthal on Trump’s infantile obsession with war as a game: “The Trump White House is the first in history to define a war’s purpose as achieving the ecstatic sensation of playing a simulated war video game.” Continue reading “How the White House Sees Iran”
The tariff ruling by the Supreme Court made a lot of people jump up and dance. And rightly so. It’s the biggest legal defeat the President has suffered. Now we await with no pleasure the State of the Union on Tuesday which will give him an excuse for more self-serving venom, bluster and lies. But the real threat to Trump is still the Epstein files. Continue reading “It’s All Going to Be about Epstein”