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Mug shot from O.J. Simpson’s arrest for the murder of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Time magazine would be criticized for darkening the photograph when it ran on the cover, underscoring a trial that proved to be less about domestic violence and more about race in the United States.

O.J.Simpson's 'Appointment in Samarra'

April 11, 2024

When I think of O.J. Simpson, who died Wednesday, April 10 of prostate cancer at age 76 in Las Vegas, I think of the short story '“Appointment in Samarra,” often retold in novels. The protagonist encounters the figure of Death, and to elude the dreaded specter, runs off to Samarra, only to find Death waiting there at the place where they were destined to meet. You cannot escape fate — or the consequences of your actions, no matter what else you do in life. Such is the Hindu and Buddhist principle of karma.

Andy Murray surving at the 2015 Australian Open. *Photograph by Brendan Dennis.*

Mitch McConnell, Andy Murray and the art of letting go

March 2, 2024

News that tennis star Andy Murray plans to retire this summer after the Paris Olympics and that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell plans to become a backbencher has brought me back to a very bad summer day two years ago and thoughts of what it really means to let go of a a career — and your ego.

From left, A 73-year-old President Ronald Reagan meets with Sen. William Cohen and a 42-year-old Sen. Joe Biden in the Oval Office in 1984. Though Americans discussed Reagan’s age and mental agility at the time, the discussion of age and politics did not have the desperation it has now. There was also a bipartisanship that doesn’t exist now. *Courtesy the White House Photographic Collection.*

The not-so-'golden' age of American politics

February 15, 2024

Recently, I was talking with two of my writers about an older person in the workforce. When asked how old this person was, I said, “88,” and the two, a married couple, let out shrieks of horror.

“Isn’t there a rocking chair and a porch somewhere?” the husband asked. Just so. These are not the best of times for older people in the workplace, particularly when that workplace is American politics. Many Americans polled are worried about an 81-year-old President Joe Biden squaring off yet again against a 77-year-old former President Donald F. Trump.

Taylor Swift, seen here at “The Golden Globe Awards” last month, has become the subject of a conspiracy theory to get out the vote for President Joe Biden after boyfriend Travis Kelce’s Kansas City Chiefs win a rigged Super Bowl LVIII Feb. 11. *Photograph by* *iHeartRadioCA*.

The witch hunting of Taylor Swift, 'secret agent'

February 3, 2024

When my publisher asked me to write about what has made Taylor Swift a billionaire, I noted that she seemed, as a singer-songwriter who began her career in country and branched out to pop, to bridge the American cultural divide.

Silly me. I should’ve known that everything and everyone in this society at this time can be politicized and thus divisive.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III’s private, now public, battle with prostate cancer raises some interesting questions about how we process disease — ours and others’.

Lloyd Austin and 'the emperor of all maladies'

January 14, 2024

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III’s failure to disclose his hospitalization for complications from prostate cancer at a particularly sensitive moment when we are fighting proxy wars in Ukraine and the Middle East has raised the expected political hackles as well as some fascinating philosophical questions.

M. Elizabeth Magill resigned as president of the University of Pennsylvania Dec. 8 after a disastrous performance at a Congressional hearing in which she failed to denounce anti-Semitism and the genocide of Jews in relation to protests on her campus. As of Dec. 10, this photograph of Magill, who had only been in the post a year and a half, was still up on the university’s website.

Low tide for higher ed

December 10, 2023

My maternal grandmother had a phrase we could apply to Claudine Gay and Sally Kornbluth, the presidents of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) respectively, and M. Elizabeth Magill, the now-resigned president of the University of Pennsylvania — “book-smart and life-dumb.”

Andrey Rublev at the 2023 Monte Carlo Masters. After losing to Carlos Alcaraz at the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin, Italy, recently, he reacted by hitting himself in the knee to the point of drawing blood. *Photograph by* ***si.robi***.

Tennis, Congress and anger (mis)management

November 19, 2023

From the courts of the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin, Italy, to the halls of the United States Congress, these have not been the best of times for men and anger management.

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