Maybe no one has noticed. Then again, maybe you have. The NY Times appears to have put up new pictures of all their regular columnists. It’s kind of interesting to see their faces now. One has a beard but didn’t before. Little things like that. They all seem a bit older, maybe even a bit wiser. That last part is harder to tell.
All except Maureen Dowd. Her photo looks just about the same. Maybe it is the same. Or maybe she had her face and hair done ahead of time to try and look exactly the same. Maybe she sat before the camera with the same tilt to her head and sly look in her eyes. It’s impossible to know…
But, for whatever reason, it bothers me. It bothers me that she either was able to convince the Times that she alone was exempt from a new photo. Or… maybe worse, I’m really not sure – that she had this great need to try and look exactly the same. As if time had no bearing in her life. Or as if we, the readers, could not cope with her aging or looking slightly different in a new photo, new pose, wrinkles perhaps, maybe a little wisdom in evidence. But no…..
Either way it’s kind of sad.
I like the idea of aging gracefully. Of accepting it. But I doubt that’s true for her. She may need to turn men’s heads still, at age 59 or thereabouts for her. Me? When I noticed that my silver hair and older looks had made me invisible in public, I loved it! No longer an “object” of men’s stares. How wonderful it felt to me! It was freeing.
It’s sad Maureen at nearly 60 needs to look like she did… or once was.
Take Helen Mirren, for example. I happen to love Helen Mirren. She’s just my age. 65. She doesn’t appear to use botox or plastic surgery. She has a mobile wonderful face. She has dignity. I fancy she has wisdom too. She’s still acting. She’s wonderful!
Once Upon a Paradigm 
I had to go check it out. It does appear to be the same photo, except they changed it to have a black backdrop instead of white one.
Do they keep the old photos with the old columns? Never thought to check that.
Thanks! I’ve been puzzling over that for a week or so.
But what does it mean? She’s got enough pull to keep her aging face away from the public?? Not that her current face is all that …. well… what can I say?
It would she does have that pull. It reminds of W.S. Merwin the poet who always used this one photo from the ’60s or ’70s for his books twenty years later.
Well, all I can say is… I wonder what she really looks like then… All that make-up…
She’s always been Dowd-y.
Poor dear…
I hereby render unto Donal the Dayly Line of the Day Award for this here Paradigm site, given to all of him from all of me. hahahah
I never really liked that woman.
Um… that may be why she remains unmarried to this day… 😉