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On Jan. 7, 2021, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana posted this picture with these words: “Took these pictures of the damage caused by insurrectionists who stormed our nation’s Capitol yesterday. The physical signs of this siege will only be temporary, and the People’s House still stands. God Bless America.” A year later, many of his fellow Republicans are spinning the event in a different way.

Jan. 6, Covid and the year of the false narrative

January 5, 2022

New year, same old crap. Tomorrow marks the Feast of the Epiphany or Three Kings — otherwise known as the Twelfth Day of Christmas or Twelfth Night — a time that should be one of revelry as the Christmas season reaches its climax. Instead it’s also the first anniversary of the insurrection of the Capitol, which from the get-go has been recast as a tourist excursion run amok, a peaceful protest infiltrated by Antifa and bungled by Capitol Police, a riot exploited by Democrats — anything and everything but what it was, which was an assault on the Capitol and our democracy by Trump supporters who bought into yet another fiction, that he had been robbed of victory in his bid for re-election.

Anderson Cooper at the 35th annual luncheon for the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism, held in Phoenix, Arizona. He’s among the announced celebrities who won’t be leaving his heirs great wealth. Photograph by Gage Skidmore.

To have and have not

October 19, 2021

Earlier this evening, a publicist sent me a pitch about a law professor’s take on the trend among the rich and famous, like CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, to leave their heirs with less rather than more — the idea being that children who inherit vast sums of money would be de-incentivized to get off their keisters and work for a living.

Winslow Homer’s “Summer Night” (1890), oil on canvas. Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Each summer, I dream of spending part of it by the sea as I did as a child. Never happens. Maybe summer disappoints, because we expect too much of it.

The summer of our discontent

September 21, 2021

Winter, it is generally agreed, is the harshest season. But summer may be the cruelest. It offers its promises with soft, welcoming arms only to snatch them away.

Simone Biles taking the all-around gold at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. Photograph by Agência Brasil Fotografias. — Simone Biles taking the all-around gold at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. **Photograph by** Agência Brasil Fotografias.

Simone Biles and the crush of media expectations

July 28, 2021

Citing some mental challenges, gymnast Simone Biles withdrew from the team competition and individual all-around at the Tokyo Olympics, cheering her teammates instead as they exhibited grace and grit under pressure to win the team silver as their Russian rivals took the gold.

We can’t know what is going through her mind. She had a tough childhood and was among the gymnasts abused by Dr. Larry Nasser. She said she took herself out of competition so she wouldn’t cost her team a medal. Watching her vault again, it’s clear she did the right thing., despite the naysaying from the usual suspects, including provocateur Piers Morgan. Biles seemed disoriented in space, a dangerous thing to be in a sport in which paralysis and death are real possibilities. Without her, there would be no chance for the team gold. But with her, in that condition, there might’ve been no chance for the podium. So Biles was prudent to walk away for now.

Going for the (tarnished) gold -- our ambivalence to the Olympics

July 25, 2021

Well, the 2020 Summer Olympics have finally arrived in Tokyo. Let the naysaying games begin.

Once again we’ve heard about the tyranny of the International Olympics Committee, which is more interested in maintaining its power and money than in the athletes it purports to represent; nations trying to medal in the game of under-the-table bribery in a bid for host city status; boycotts by politicians and other world leaders, including South Korean President Moon Jae-in, miffed by a remark made by a Japanese diplomat; and the usual weird Olympic village stuff, like the recyclable, cardboard beds that were thought to deter any extracurricular nooky by the athletes. (As if anything could deter people from having sex, as a world population of 7.7 billion can attest.)

Donald J. Trump, former blogger

June 6, 2021

Lost in all the hoopla surrounding former President Donald J. Trump being banned from Facebook for two years is the news that his blog and website are kaput after 29 days. As a blogger myself, I was more than intrigued by this. Apparently, it was due to lack of interest on the part of the public. But could it also be that domain contracts, like prenups, have shelf lives? Maybe 30 days was the free trial.

The Ryanair Boeing 737 that was hijacked on May 23, seen in 2019 in Poland. Photograph by Andrzej Otrębski. — The Ryanair Boeing 737 that was hijacked on May 23, seen in 2019 in Poland. *Photograph by* *Andrzej Otrębski*.

Flying blind: Our peculiar reaction to the Ryanair hijacking

May 27, 2021

Though we should never court tragedy, we know our true selves really only in it. Catastrophe, adversity of any kind, reveals character. So what does the Belarusian hijacking of a Ryanair jet tell us about ourselves?

It tells us what we have known all along in our fractured age, what we have seen with the pandemic, which is that we can’t come together in a crisis, because we can’t think clearly about it.

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