Aaron Rogers’ #12 Green Bay Packers road jersey on display in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2017..Photograph by Erik Drost
Those returning from little planet Pluto last week — perhaps aboard an Elon Musk rocket — are undoubtedly the only ones in our solar system who are unaware that this has been Aaron Rodgers’ turn in our timeshare that’s the doghouse.
Read MoreWinston Churchill (center) inspects the ruins of Coventry Cathedral on Sept. 28, 1941. The English city of Coventry was bombed many times during World War II, most notably during the Coventry Blitz of Nov. 14 and 15, 1940. Photograph by Capt. Horton. Courtesy the Imperial War Museums.
Recently, I bought a copy of October/November issue of Military History magazine, which featured a cover story on Alexander the Great, who readers of this blog know has been a lifelong passion of mine, along with the ancient Greeks.
I was soon disappointed. His conquest of the Persian Empire in 331 B.C. was written off as pure narcissism. There was no mention of possible motives (the backdrop of the Greco-Persian wars; his father Philip II of Macedon’s dream of conquering Persia; his mother Olympias instilling in him a divine sense of purpose; his tutor Aristotle schooling him in the Homeric idea of arete, or excellence, which often saw its fulfillment in military glory; and finally his own inexplicable pothos, or longing, for the next horizon.)
There was no discussion of Alexander, having conquered Persia, instituting self-rule in the disparate regions of his far-flung empire. The notion that he killed all the men and enslaved the women and children is laughable. Who was going to run things and do the work? He wasn’t importing Greeks and Macedonians to do this.
Finally, there was no sense of his legacy, which includes the dissemination of Hellenistic culture, including Greek, the lingua franca of the empire. Centuries later, Greek translations of the Gospels would enable the spread of Christianity. In a sense, Alexander — who came from a world that knew how to spin stories and identities in words and images — made Jesus’ story more readily available. (Plus how could Alexander have no legacy? More than 2,000 years later there he was on a magazine cover.)
I thought about all this as I read The New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker’s review of Geoffrey Wheatcroft’s “Churchill’s Shadow: The Life and Afterlife of Winston Churchill.” To sum it up: He’s not a fan.
Read MoreThat roar you hear at the Art Institute of Chicago isn’t from Edward Kamey’s pair of lions but from conservatives up in arms over a decision to eliminate the museum’s docents, volunteers who are mostly older, white women. Photograph by Kim Scarborough.
This has not been the best of times for older, white women in the United States. First, there was a not particularly thoughtful New York Times article on self-described despiser of white boomer women Jamie Loftus. Then came word that the Art Institute of Chicago, in an effort to create a diverse staff more reflective of the city in which it’s located, is doing away with its volunteer docents, who are, yes, mostly older, white women.
Instead, a letter sent to the 82 docents noted, the museum would phase in a new program mixing paid educators and volunteers “in a way that allows community members of all income levels to participate, responds to issues of class and income equity, and does not require financial flexibility to participate.”
Let me translate this for you: Museum officials, fearing they would be declared irrelevant, had to find someone else to appear so.
Read MoreAnderson 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.
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.
Read MoreWinslow 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.
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.
Read MoreSimone Biles taking the all-around gold at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. Photograph by Agência Brasil Fotografias.
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.
Read MoreChurch fathers like St. Augustine of Hippo, seen here in Vittore Carpaccio’s 1502 painting “Vision of St. Augustine,” were influenced by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle in holding that abortion was acceptable in the first trimester because the fetus had not yet been “ensouled.”
Before I went to Sarah Lawrence College, I attended Trinity College in Washington, D.C., an excellent school that set me on the path of cultural writing. Among my professors was a contrary sort who taught philosophy. He was married to a well-known feminist, but despite this — or perhaps because of it — he liked to confound his logic class in this women’s college by proclaiming women were illogical and that no one would ace or even pass the course unless he graded on a curve. (I used to sit there, praying, “Please let him grade on a curve. Please let him grade on a curve.”)
The professor bewitched, bothered and bewildered the diverse class, which included everyone from Irish nuns to the daughters of Iranian diplomats — with Aristotelean syllogisms and thought experiments like the following.:
Say New York City is under threat of annihilation, and the only thing that will save it is the sacrifice of one man. Do you sacrifice the one man? The answer, which thrust the class into paroxysms of frustration, outrage and utter revolt, is that you can’t. Each life, our professor said, is worth the same as any other. — or millions of others. Life cannot be quantified. As Soviet dictator Josef Stalin is said to have observed — although he may not have meant it the way my professor did — “One man’s death is a tragedy. Twenty million (the number of Russian who died in World War II) is a statistic.”
I thought about all this when I read Ross Douthat’s New York TImes column on American bishops’ threatening to withhold Holy Communion from Roman Catholic politicians who are pro-choice, like President Joe Biden.
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