Hurricane Milton seen from the International Space Station. Photograph by NASA astronaut and U.S. Navy Commander Matthew Dominick.
As “A Furious Sky: The Five-Hundred-Year History of America’s Hurricanes” by Eric Jay Dolin demonstrates, hurricanes in the United States have always been about two kinds of storms — meteorological and political.
Read MoreThe Robert F. Kennedy Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, includes a wall that contains part of the improvised speech Kennedy made before a Black crowd in Indianapolis on the night the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, April 4, 1968. It’s considered one of the great empathetic speeches of the modern era. Photograph by Rob Miller.
What are we to make of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ bid for the presidency? After he was overwhelmingly reelected governor last November, the New York Post dubbed him “De Future.” But he stumbled early on the campaign trail — bleeding money and staffers, hardly confidence-inspiring in a man looking to become the most powerful executive in the world; sliding in the polls; and turning in a mediocre performance in the Republicans debate, after which everyone was talking about irritating, more-Trump-than-vous Vivek Ramaswamy and, to a lesser extent, disapproving schoolmarm Nikki Haley, Christian milquetoast Mike Pence, blustery Jersey boy Chris Christie and steel magnolia Asa Hutchinson.
Read MoreStanding in for flag-waving attendees, flags unfurl on the National Mall before the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States. Photograph by Brian Soward/U.S. Border and Customs Protection.
Something dies, and something is born, and the sunset begets the sunrise.
What died in the last two weeks — hell, in the last four years — was the idea of the American empire as the Trump Administration’s “America First” policy, which was really the “Donald J. Trump First” policy, absented America from the world stage even as the president himself assumed imperialistic trappings of Caligula- and Nero-like proportions.
Read MoreToo, too funny: Back in the day when Gov. Krispy Kreme, er, Chris Christie was my CPWB (Chief Pretend Weekday Boyfriend), I would fantasize about my love gov and me “under the boardwalk, down by the sea,” the waves of the Jersey Shore caressing us with their Aphrodite-ish foam as we embraced like Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in “From Here to Eternity” – OK, more like two beached whales – to the soundtrack of Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road.”
Now, it has all come true. Sort of. ...
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Is it me or have people become less civil, nastier even?
I think of the lines from Bruce Springsteen’s song “Nebraska,” inspired by the mass murderer Charles Starkweather:
“They wanted to know why I did what I did.
“Well, sir, I guess there’s just a meanness in this world.”
But is there? As far as institutions and laws are concerned, the world has gotten more just and compassionate. Today, most of us would agree that slavery is unjust, for instance. That wasn’t true 150 years ago.
But these past two weeks I have either experienced or heard about three instances of ego-besotted, bizarro, apoplectic rudeness. ...
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Once upon a time, Gov. Krispy Kreme was my CPB – Chief Pretend Boyfriend. I imagined myself under the boardwalk down by the sea-ee-eeee yeah, on a blanket with my baby, swooning in passion as the waves crashed upon our bodies to the beat of The Boss blaring from my Hello Kitty boom box. We were like Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster in “From Here to Eternity” – if Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster were two beached whales, that is.
But what with Bridgegate and the capitulation to The Donald, it’s become harder to sustain the fantasy of being with my tubby little Luv Guv. So I banished Gov. Krispy Kreme from my heart, and instead promoted my WPB (Weekend Pretend Boyfriend), Rafael Nadal, to CPB status. ...
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Whenever I was asked about my “walls of inspiration” – which have followed me to each new job, albeit with a changing cast of characters – I always responded that they were a feminist gesture, that I would remove them the day Playboy magazine folded.
Well, Hell has frozen over and I’ll have to remove my men. (Yeah, right. More on that in a bit.) ...
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