(This appeared in Newsday’s Act2 section) I’m only going to say this one time. June 3 was National Repeat Day. In more ways than one, it’s a redundancy. We already have Groundhog Day in February — a metaphor for replication. And the last thing we need is an occasion to…

Once the Queen is dead, might Australians dispense with moving right to “Long live the King”? Their country is 9,500 miles from their head of state. And it is not unkind to consider that Elizabeth II — at 96 and celebrating 70 years on the throne — before long…

The cliché is that athletic failure at an early age is a primary inspiration to become a sportswriter. Which didn’t apply to Kenny Moore, who died last month at 78. Neither did the generalization that elite physical performance gifts do not translate into producing compelling narration of such. Moore was…

The End. This is an argument that a primary highlight to every hockey playoff series doesn’t happen until it’s over: The traditional handshake line between the victor and the vanquished. The sport’s handshake rite — the date and specifics of its origin are unknown — is especially appealing because…

This is about thoroughbred racing. So play your hunches. Would the sport be better off — for the horses’ health, for wider popularity, for more compelling matchups — if the Triple Crown series altered its schedule to provide more time between races? Or would discarding the demanding format devalue the…

Regarding the Western nations’ announcement of sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s close associates, should it be a surprise they include a woman, 32 years his junior, long identified as his mistress? Putin, currently directing the murder of thousands in neighboring Ukraine, isn’t exactly a man who heeds accepted moral or ethical…

Maybe ESPN’s exhaustive “Before Jerry Sandusky; the Untold Story of the Most Dangerous Player in College Football” could too easily be interpreted as targeting the monumental failures at one college, by one powerful coach, to deal with violent misogyny. Maybe the meticulously researched 30,000-word report of a 1970s serial rapist…

(This appeared in Newsday’s Act2 section) This is about death and taxes. Not the message in that familiar expression, a banality concerning fatalistic certainties. Rather, the subject here is clichés. As a practicing wordsmith all my life — and I do mean “practicing” — I am painfully aware of being…