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Rembrandt’s “Aristotle Contemplating a Bust of Homer” (1653, oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art), is actually three portraits — Aristotle, Homer and, dangling from Aristotle’s gold chain, an image of his most famous student, Alexander the… — Rembrandt’s “Aristotle Contemplating a Bust of Homer” (1653, oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art), is actually three portraits — Aristotle, Homer and, dangling from Aristotle’s gold chain, an image of his most famous student, Alexander the Great.

Jeffrey Epstein and the virtuous life

August 14, 2019

I’m of two minds about Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide, which is something I never thought I would say. On the one hand, he was portrayed as pond scum, his alleged victims will now never have to worry about recriminations or retribution and the taxpayers don’t have to support him for the rest of his life in prison — a point my uncle always makes in defense of the death penalty — which is surely where Epstein was headed.

But leave aside the vast right- and left-wing conspiracy theories about the rich and powerful who may have offed him, the federal investigations into whether or not Metropolitan Correctional Center officials turned a blind eye to his suicidal mindset — it appears two correctional officers may have lied about checking on him — and consider instead whether or not we should’ve extended to Epstein the dignity he allegedly denied to his underage victims.

Before a joint session of Congress, President John F. Kennedy announces the goal of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth as Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson (left) and House Speaker Sam T. Rayburn listen. Courtesy NASA.

On leadership: Trump, the shootings and the stock market

August 7, 2019

So, shortly before 10 a.m. last Sunday, I boarded a plane for New York from Florida, and shortly after 10 a.m., the pilot informed us that one of the engines was leaking, which was “a blessing in disguise,” he said, because there was also a more problematic electrical malfunction outside the cockpit that wasn’t discovered until the check of the plane right before takeoff.

Greek to us

June 27, 2019

“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.

Jean-Simon Berthélemy’s “Alexander Cuts the Gordian Knot” (1767), oil on canvas. École nationale superiéure des Beaux-Arts. Some say Alexander the Great saw where the knot was pinned and so released it; others, that he impatiently cut it with his sw… — Jean-Simon Berthélemy’s “Alexander Cuts the Gordian Knot” (1767), oil on canvas. École nationale superiéure des Beaux-Arts. Some say Alexander the Great saw where the knot was pinned and so released it; others, that he impatiently cut it with his sword. Either way, he fulfilled the prophecy that whoever unraveled the knot would become lord of Asia. Where’s an Alexander now to solve the United Kingdom’s tangled Brexit crisis?

Stay of (Brexit)cution

April 7, 2019

Brexit Day is now Oct. 31, the European Union granting the United Kingdom yet another stay of Brexit-cution, which was supposed to have taken place March 29 and then April 12. Let’s leave aside that Oct. 31 is Halloween. I don’t think the E.U. is ironic enough to have chosen that day for its gallows humor. And indeed Nov. 1 is the day the new president of the European Commission is set to take office, so presumably the E.U. needs to have this resolved by then. But will it be resolved?

Enes Kanter (right), — then of the Utah Jazz, now of the New York Knicks — attempting to block a shot by Patrick Beverley at the Houston Rockets’ Toyota Center March 17, 2014.

Is some speech freer than others?

January 21, 2019

Everyone is entitled to his opinion, until, of course, someone thinks he isn’t. Recently, three incidents have challenged our concept of freedom of speech.

The permanent interest in Jamal Khashoggi

October 21, 2018

The grisly murder of Jamal Khashoggi – for which the Saudis have now accepted responsibility (sort of) with some cockamamie blame-the-victim scenario – proves Benjamin Disraeli’s Macchiavellian dictum that there are no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests.

Coping with the Trumpian age of narcissism

September 15, 2018

I once had a job in which the staffers liked to say that we all had a timeshare on the doghouse. We called it “the Pomeranian palace,” which lent – as Jane Austen might’ve observed – such an elegance to our misery, for no matter how talented you were or how much you worked, eventually the wheel turned to you, because that was the way our bosses rolled.

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