Hello, I must be going

SINCE MY FIRST COLUMN, 19 YEARS AGO, READERS AND co-workers have clamored to have me fired. The first time I visited TIME’s L.A. bureau, I saw one of my columns taped outside a science reporter’s door, with sentences crossed out by red Sharpie accompanied by the words “This is what TIME magazine has become!” When I introduced myself to Gore Vidal on a flight, he ranted about how TIME’s editor at the time, Walter Isaacson, had destroyed the magazine by bringing in solipsistic young