Robert Redford at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. Photograph by Paul Smith/FeatureFlash.
Robert Redford — the actor, Oscar-winning director, Sundance Institute and Festival founder, environmentalist and activist, who died Tuesday, Sept. 16, at 89 — has been mourned with many tributes, and rightly so.
He was a gifted movie star but more important, he was a gifted artist and humanitarian whose best films blended art, commerce and civics without being pretentious, crass or preachy.
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Read MoreNovak Djokovic practicing at Arthur Ashe Stadium on the US Open’s Media Day, Friday, Aug. 22. Photographs by Georgette Gouveia.
So Friday, Sept. 5, Novak Djokovic will play Carlos Alcaraz in the first semifinal of the US Open men’s singles championship — a match that virtually everyone sees as a fruitless quest to win his 25th Slam singles title and thus break the record he holds with Margaret Court.
Even if by some miracle Djokovic could beat the magnetic, mercurial Alcaraz, he undoubtedly would have to play the flawless, flawlessly robotic Jannik Sinner on Sunday, Sept. 7. It’s the kind of back-to-back challenge that Djokovic faced and met many times in the last decade. Now 38, however, it seems an unattainable double bill, even though this will be his fourth Slam semifinal appearance this year — a not-too-shabby achievement in a career of not-too-shabby achievements — one that has brought him full circle.
Read MoreDisplaced Palestinians in Deir el-Balah line up to receive food provided by charitable organizations. This photograph was taken by Ashraf Amra for UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, on Aug. 27, 2024, before the crisis reached an inflection point.
What is the statute of limitations on atrocity? When do the oppressed become the oppressors?
Before and during World War II, the world did nothing about the Holocaust, nothing. Never forget, people rallied when it was all over, never again.
But they did forget. And it has happened in varying degrees again and again and again.
Which brings us to the systemic, systematic starvation of the Palestinians in Gaza in a war that has seen passive-aggression at its most brutal play out in a zero-sum game whose end strategy now is the elimination of the Palestinians from Israel in one form or another.
Read MorePresident Donald J. Trump campaigning in Arizona in 2016 wearing one of his MAGA hats. Recently, he and members of MAGA have disagreed over the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Photograph by Gage Skidmore.
President Donald J. Trump is learning all about karmic comeuppance with regard to the Jeffrey Epstein files. …
Read MoreAn 1823 William Stone facsimile of the “Declaration of Independence” — a document that is still more of an ideal than a reality.
Whenever there’s a civic holiday coming up, the recessional hymn at our church is always “America the Beautiful.” We in the choir usually sing all four verses, and we always get a round of applause at the end — for us, for the country, maybe both.
I’ve never liked the song. It’s no “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which I find far more melodic and moving. But lately my antipathy toward “America the Beautiful” has taken on deeper meaning.
Read MoreThomas Lawrence’s “John Philip Kemble as Coriolanus” (1799, oil on canvas). Guildhall Art Gallery. William Shakespeare’s “Coriolanus,” about rivalries and shifting alliances, offers some insights and warnings for the Trump-Musk feud.
Those who think President Donald J. Trump and Elon Musk will make up, or staged their feud for effect, do not understand how narcissism works.
Read MoreWilliam-Adolphe Bouguereau’s “Orestes Pursued by the Furies” (1862, oil on canvas), Chrysler Museum of Art.
Well, that didn’t last long but perhaps longer than we thought it would.
Actually, Elon Musk was only slated to have a six-month tenure at DOGE, although given the importance of groceries — remember them? — Musk’s sell-by date was always ready to be stamped.
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