Winston 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.

Rethinking history: Churchill and cancel culture

October 28, 2021

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 on…

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.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Great Hall, seen here in happier times, is not as bustling as it once was. Some experts have suggested that tourists may not return to the Big Apple until 2023, Photograph by TomasEE.

New York in the time of Covid

September 30, 2021

“So, how was the city?” my hairdresser asked.

I was telling her how my cousin who is also my goddaughter had graciously offered to take me on an impromptu adventure last Saturday evening to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan for The Costume Institute’s “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion,” which she, a fashionista by vocation and avocation, was longing to see.

How was the city? Something of a foreign country, but then, as Ric Burns’ “New York: A Documentary Film” (1999-2003) noted, it has always been a place that looked outward to the world rather than to the rest of the nation, particularly to Europe. That internationalism cost it dearly a year ago as the pandemic spread from European visitors throughout the city, where 34,000 people died and thousands more fled.

New York state Gov. Andrew Cuomo, far left, meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden in the White House on Feb. 12. Photograph by Adam Schultz/White House.

The unfathomable tragedy of Andrew Cuomo

August 10, 2021

Time is indeed another country. Last year, New York state Gov. Andrew Cuomo was a hero of the pandemic, his daily Covid briefings compared to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fireside chats for their calming humanity.

This year, Cuomo — who announced his resignation today — is another villain of #MeToo, accused in state Attorney General Letitia James’ report of sexually harassing and assaulting 11 women and in other circles of berating, bullying and brutalizing male and female employees alike.

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (left), examines building models at the University of Salford in 1967. During a 70-year career as a working royal, he carried out more than 22,000 solo engagements in addition to being what Queen Elizabeth II called … — Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (left), examines building models at the University of Salford in 1967. During a 70-year career as a working royal, he carried out more than 22,000 solo engagements in addition to being what Queen Elizabeth II called her “strength and stay.” Courtesy the University of Salford Press Office.

Prince Philip -- the Queen's man

April 11, 2021

Among the photographs The New York Times used to commemorate Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh — who died on Friday, April 9, at Windsor Castle two months short of his 100th birthday and will be buried from there Saturday, April 17 — was a 2017 photo in which the natty duke faces the camera smiling amid a sea of red-garbed Canadian soldiers, who are virtually all facing right. It encapsulates Prince Philip, a part of and yet apart from the British monarchy, “the strength and stay” of Queen Elizabeth II (her words) through 73 years of marriage, the longest in British royal history, who served crown and country with a confounding mix of devotion, action, humility, crotchety humor and a patronizing snobbery that critics have called impolitic at best and prejudiced at worst.

Novak Djokovic at the moment he became the No. 1-ranked tennis player in the world, in the 2011 Wimbledon semifinals. Still No. 1, he is under fire for organizing a Balkan tour for select players that ignored the coronavirus restrictions in place el… — Novak Djokovic at the moment he became the No. 1-ranked tennis player in the world, in the 2011 Wimbledon semifinals. Still No. 1, he is under fire for organizing a Balkan tour for select players that ignored the coronavirus restrictions in place elsewhere.

The D list -- disease, denial and Djokovic

June 23, 2020

There are few emotions more confounding, crushing and ultimately useless than the love affair between a fan and an athlete — confounding because, well, it’s one-sided really. I mean, you really don’t know the athlete, only what you project unto him, which is really a dream of yourself. Crushing, because the emotion is real enough. And useless, because, well, see 1. and 2.

So it pains me to write about Novak Djokovic’s thoughtless, coronavirus-infested, aborted Balkan tennis tour.

Robert F. Kennedy addressing an Indianapolis crowd on the night of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.

Leadership, race and 'the awful grace of God'

May 29, 2020

Well, so much for those “You Ain’t Black” T-shirts .

President Donald J. Trump and the Republicans — always ready to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, as their handling of the pandemic demonstrates — were all set to capitalize on former Vice President Joe Biden’s gaffe that presumed to tell black people they couldn’t really be black if they voted for Trump, as if there aren’t black Republicans and conservatives. But Biden’s remark, however maladroit, contained the kernel of a question: Might a black Trump supporter actually be voting against his own interests?