Kandahar — an Afghan city founded by and named for Alexander the Great — as seen from an aerial photograph taken by Karla Marshall for the United States Army Corps of Engineers.

Of dreamers and dust: The inevitable heartbreak of Afghanistan

August 17, 2021

Afghanistan has unraveled into a s—- show, and the only surprise is that anyone is surprised at all.

But then, as President George W. Bush, who first got us into Afghanistan, noted, “Americans aren’t very good at looking in the rearview mirror.” No, they aren’t, W. Our ignorance and fear — they go hand in hand — of science have made a muddle of our response to everything from Covid to climate change. And our disdain of history has sent us careening from one hotspot to another in which we never have any clue as to the place or the people we’re purportedly trying to help.

President Joe Biden might think Afghanistan is not another Vietnam, but as today’s heartbreaking reports prove Afghanistan is Vietnam right down to the whirring helicopters and those poor souls clinging to the wheels of the planes, desperate to flee the brutality that is already there. (I shudder to think what life is going to be like again under the Taliban in a country that the historian Michael Wood once described to me as “no place for a woman.”

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.

Trumpian 'Sunset' as democracy's star rises

November 8, 2020

“This is one of the happiest days of my life,” a business manager told me yesterday. I couldn’t but concur. I , too, was happy, proud and content to be an American — something I haven’t been for four long, dark years.

In their victory speeches, President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris struct the right notes about unity and hope. President Donald J. Trump’s “American carnage’ may have been fine for some when they were making oodles of money. But when everyone’s actually in American carnage, as we are with the coronavirus, systemic racism, a crashed economy and climate change denial, people want change. They want a leader who can create a vision for going forward together, communicate that vision and execute it. And that’s what Biden laid out Saturday night, while Harris in suffragist white gave women of color in particular a symbol of belief fulfilled.

Fire and ice in a week that burned

November 18, 2018

It was another challenging week bookended by ice and snow on the East Coast and wildfires in California. I have no expertise to offer in alleviating the devastation wrought by wildfires, but I do have some thoughts on preventing the havoc wreaked by six inches – yes, a mere six inches – of snow, sleet and rain in New York.

Thoughts on Stephen Hawking

March 14, 2018

The word “intellectual” has become a dirty one in our culture, and scientists, artists and academics suspect. But there is no greatness in this world without great thinking.

Stephen Hawking – the transcendent English theoretical physicist, cosmologist and mathematician, who died Wednesday, March 14 at age 76 after battling motor neuron disease his entire adult life – had, of course, a great mind, one that bridged Einstein and quantum theory...

Saying goodbye to UNESCO, again

October 14, 2017

Well, in a week in which President Donald J. Trump decertified the Iran nuclear deal, eliminated subsidies for insurance companies that underwrite poorer Obamacare enrollees and warned Puerto Rico that the federal government can’t buck it up forever, the American withdrawal from UNESCO may seem like small potatoes. But as a longtime cultural writer I noted it with a heavy heart.

As with these other issues, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is more complex than it seems. The U.S. helped found it after World War II, but in recent decades has had an off-and-on again relationship with the organization, which is well-known for its significant World Heritage Sites list. ...

The beast in the jungle: Tone in the era of Trump

September 28, 2017

Is President Donald J. Trump racist?

It’s a question that has threaded his virulent response to the NFL players kneeling before the National Anthem to protest racism and his passive-aggressive approach to Puerto Rico’s suffering in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

I don’t think Trump is a racist. Indeed, I don’t like to think of any American president as one. But I do think that he is a joyless, mirthless person who takes no pleasure in other people and strikes a misanthropic tone. ...