I’ll be reading from my new historical thriller (JMS Books) at Westfair Communications Inc.’s first literary luncheon, Feb. 23 in White Plains, New York, and March 25 at the Greenburgh Public Library in Greenburgh, New York.
I pause here from my usual ruminating — and venting — to mention several upcoming appearances involving my new historical thriller “Riddle Me This” (JMS Books), part of “The Games Men Play” series, as well as my day job.
Read MoreThe cover of Prince Harry’s new best-selling book, “Spare” (Random House). Jacket design by Christopher Brand. Front cover photograph by Ramona Rosales.
Having written about Prince Harry’s “Spare” (Random House, 407 pages, $36) elsewhere – and written about him many times for a variety of publications — I wasn’t going to weigh in on this blog about the book. I thought it might be passé. But what I’ve learned is that with politically divisive figures — and make no mistake, the prince and his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, are politically divisive figures — there is no such thing as passé. Witness this New York Times opinion piece, which plays right into the hands of everyone who defines liberals as “woke.”
I’m not going to reargue the article, except to say that while some members of the British press and posters have made scurrilous, racist remarks, the Sussexes must also be held accountable for their lack of professionalism in leaving the monarchy and the contradictory narrative they have since put forth. A similar contradictory quality dominates “Spare,” which purports to be an authentic account of Prince Harry’s life in his own words but is certainly not written in his own voice.
Read MoreLost opportunity: Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, chats with children during a visit to ActionAid in South Africa in 2019. Judging from photographs like this, you’d have to conclude that she and Prince Harry could’ve been king and queen of the Coomonwealth. It wasn’t enough. Photograph courtesy eNCA.
In the trailer for “Harry and Meghan,” the new six-part Netflix series that dropped like an H bomb Thursday, Dec. 8, with the final three installments on Dec. 15, Prince Harry observes, “It’s really hard to look back on it now and go, “What on earth happened?”
Boy, ain’t that the truth.
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Read MoreWhat is it about Colorado?
First, there was the baker who didn’t want to make wedding cakes for gay couples. He told the U.S. Supreme Court that it violated his artistic and religious freedoms.
Now we have Lorie Smith, a Colorado website designer, who’s making pretty much the same argument before the court.
Read MoreMerrick Garland being sworn in as U.S. attorney general in 2021.Does his appointment of a special counsel for the federal government’s investigation into former President Donald J. Trump just make him look weak? Courtesy The United States Department of Justice.
Early in the Trump Administration, there was a store in Grand Central Terminal that sold novelty gift items, many of them critical of President Donald J. Trump. Some were innocuous enough (a troll doll). Others were too scatalogical for reportage. But one that elicited a chuckle was a take on the old paper dolls that showed pictures of Trump and BFF Vladimir Putin to which you could attach outrageous clothing. It was called “Bad Hombres,” after the phrase
Trump coined to characterize many of the Mexican immigrants thronging the U.S. southern border.
These have not been the best of times for the “bad hombres.” In Ukraine, Putin had to pull back from Kherson. When last seen, he was doing some soothing ribbon-cutting and the generals were managing the retrenchment/regrouping/retreat. On the same day, the Republicans turned in a less-than-stellar performance in the midterm election — setting many to blame Trump for pushing through his chosen election-denying candidates, most of whom went down to defeat, and to anoint Trump archrival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, as the new It Guy for the 2024 presidential race.
Putin and Trump are, however, not going anywhere.
Read MoreEugène Delacroix’s “Medea About to Murder Her Children” (1862), oil painting. Musée du Louvre. The ancient Greek myth — the subject of Luigi Cherubini’s “Medea” at The Metropolitan Opera — has also been misinterpreted, most recently in Maureen Dowd’s column on Vladimir Putin.
In his perceptive eulogy for Queen Elizabeth II, Justin Welby, archbishop of Canterbury, observed: “People of loving service are rare in any walk of life. Leaders of loving service are still rarer.”
Ain’t that the truth. At the risk of sounding like the hammer always in search of a nail, I must nonetheless note once again that we are in an increasing crisis of leadership, from Vladimir Putin’s bungling attempts to conquer Ukraine, which would be laughable if they weren’t so horrific and dangerous, to the ham-fisted handling of Miami Dolphins’ quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s concussion. (The doctor/consultant who cleared him to play was fired. Really? The team’s front office and ownership should all be fired.
What does it mean to be a leader? it means you are a steward of everything and everyone in your care, a servant of others. It means you take responsibility, even when you are not directly involved in the action. Say what you want about QEII, put she saw herself as a steward, one who remained on the job till her dying day.
For most, however, it’s me, me, me all the time, and it doesn’t help that people don’t really understand this, because they have a limited understanding of culture.
Read MoreRoger Federer at the 2014 Australian Open. Photograph by Peter Myers.
At his Laver Cup in London this weekend — which Team World won over his Team Europe — Roger Federer ended his professional tennis career , a career that has said as much about fans’ perceptions of sports figures as it has about his accomplishments.
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