The lotus represents karma in that it holds its seeds as it flowers. Photograph by Nevit Dilmen.
Violence is never the answer, but it is often the question. The attempt on former President Donald J. Trump’s life is nothing to celebrate as the taking of a life in anything but self-defense is morally and legally wrong.
But after almost 10 years of vitriol on the campaign trail and in office, he has come to his encounter with karma.
Read MoreSandy Koufax, one of Major League Baseball’s greatest players, announcing his retirement at age 30 on Nov. 20, 1966 at the Beverly Wiltshire Hotel. Courtesy the Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection.
Wimbledon may be a long way metaphorically as well as geographically from Washington, D.C., but both Ws have been confronted recently with the age of key players. Two-time Wimbledon champion Andy Murray, with an artificial hip and fresh from surgery to remove a spinal cyst, is playing doubles with brother Jamie at age 37. Just a week younger, seven-time champ Novak Djokovic is playing ahead of schedule after surgery to repair a meniscus tear, which may or may not have an effect on his chances for an Olympic medal at the Paris Games, beginning July 26, and
a repeat as US Open champ. (I don’t know why people keep saying “an elusive Olympic medal.” He won a bronze at the 2008 Beijing Games.)
Rafael Nadal, 38, who has had his own hip surgery and subsequent injuries and whose knees are allergic to grass anyway, is sitting out Wimbledon for a chance to play at Roland Garros again as Carlos Alcaraz’s doubles partner at the Paris Olympics, after losing there in May in the first round of the French Open, a tournament he once dominated.
But hey, at least they’re not running for president of the United States.
Read MoreFrom left, President Joe Biden takes the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2021 as wife Jill and children Ashley and Hunter look on. Courtesy the White House.
Context drives perception. What may be perceived as a strength in one scenario may be an Achilles’ heel in another.
Privilege raised Hunter Biden up. And privilege, which enabled his long addiction, may send him to prison for lying about that addiction on a gun application.
Read MoreCarolyn Bessette-Kennedy at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner April 26, 1999, less than three months before she, her husband, John F. Kennedy Jr., and her sister, Lauren Bessette, were killed in a plane crash. Photograph by John Mathew Smith & www.celebrity-photos.com.
May 19 marked the 30th death anniversary of Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis — editor, style icon and former first lady of the United States (1961-63). Those of us who cover and mark such figures and occasions have already noted that in two months, almost to the day, we will commemorate the 25th death anniversary of the son she loved so much and the daughter-in-law she never knew.
On July 16, 1999 — as the evening, the century and the millennium began to draw to a close — publisher John F. Kennedy Jr. lost control of the plane he was piloting, killing himself; his wife, former Calvin Klein company publicist Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy; and her sister, Morgan Stanley executive Lauren Bessette.
In the quarter-century since, there has been an almost radical reappraisal of Bessette-Kennedy — by a generation of influencers who’ve adapted her classic, minimalist, monochromatic aesthetic; and by authors sympathetic to a lovely, empathetic woman ensnared by the image she helped to create.
Read MoreThe Manhattan Criminal Courthouse where the hush-money election interference trial took place. Photograph by Ajay Suresh.
What’s the old saying about a person representing himself having a fool for a client? Now that the “trial of the century” is over, former President Donald J. Trump has been convicted on 34 counts related to election interference and the postmortem is in full swing, about the only thing that hasn’t been discussed is how Trump’s narcissistic approach to life — deny, deny deny; attack, attack, attack — cost him any chance of a hung jury or even victory.
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Read MoreJulius Kronberg’s “Hypatia” (1889), oil on canvas. The particularly brutal murder of this fifth-century Alexandrian philosopher and mathematician shocked even the Roman Empire. It’s recounted in Islam Issa’s new book “Alexandria: The City That Changed the World” (Pegasus Books, $35, 476 pages).
When I was thinking about what my next blog post should be, there was no lack of ideas. Should it be about the student protests, which, however sincere, lack historical perspective, or dog-, goat- and horse-shooting Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota or the Republicans’ “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” at former President Donald J. Trump’s trial in New York or the continuing wars in Ukraine and Gaza? Or how about Speaker-vacating Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene going after Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s eyelashes verbally, which led to Crockett’s sly rebuke “about somebody’s bleach-blonde, bad-built, butch body”?
Then I had an unsettling personal experience that made me realize that what all these events and people have in common is further proof that despite the upward arc of civilization, we live in cruel world.
Read MoreKarl von Piloty’s “The Murder of Caesar” (1865, oil on canvas).Courtesy Landesmuseum Hannover. Both Dante and Shakespeare, who understood political instability, would tip the scales in favor of Caesar’s character against his assassins as would Shaw and the 1963 film “Cleopatra.” In reality, Caesar pitted the mob against the so-called elites and destroyed those he deemed “other,” paying the ultimate price.
The tagline of the PBS series “Julius Caesar: The Making of a Dictator,” is “Nearly five centuries of ancient Roman democracy were overthrown in 16 years by one man.”
Will we even get to 250 on July 4, 2026? Here’s how Time magazine summarized two interviews with former President Donald J. Trump and conversations with more than a dozen of his closest advisers and confidants for a cover story.
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