Year: 2017

Five Reflections

Editor’s Note: Japan-Gazer has ended his government career, and this is the first of his retirement essays. He will stay on as an ExPat, and his observations are as keen as ever in our most important Allie in Asia: Japan. With rhetoric rising between the DPRK and DC, he will have a ringside seat for […]

Life & Island Times: Walking Over Miles of Bad Road

They are careless men with tired minds Can’t see the darkness in front of them, or the light that is just behind They insult one another while sipping fine champagne They both should pale when they stare into the other’s eyes Should we expect to wake up tomorrow under azure skies Or should we be […]

Arrias on Politics: A Little Leverage: Moving North Korea

“Give me a place to stand and I will move the earth” – Archimedes, Greek mathematician and physicist, on realizing the science behind the lever and fulcrum. The President lambasted North Korea in the UN. Finally, someone stood up in that assembly and said what needed to be said. In response, Kim Jong Un, North […]

We are all Ambassadors

Editor’s Note: It was a couple cycle of advertising slogans ago for the recruiters, but one of the ones that resonated with me long ago was “Join the Navy and see the world!” We did, in grand style. But we were also seen by the world we visited. CDR Gilmore has a thoughtful appreciation of […]

Life & Island Times: Flea Market Washington DC

For those of us who inhabit the American heartland of old Cadillacs, flatlands and flea markets, our national politicans conjure supposed real deals seasoned with a peculiar dash of our unique pop culture affinity for new frontiers and adventure. It has always been a marvel how lame their blandishments are. Openly small-timey about the country […]

Postcard From The Swamp #14

Swamp Postcard I swear, you could not make this stuff up. no one would believe it. The address by the President drowned out the 140 MPH winds slamming Puerto Rico, right across the old Navy base at Roosevelt Roads. Mom always said, don’t work on the other side of a bridge from where you live, […]

Life & Island Times: A Few Parting Irma In(s)anities

Yes, another major hurricane is pushing its way westward across the Atlantic, perhaps it’ll make it to the US east coast. But if that occurs, it’ll be next week. So, let us briefly relax and review. I used to think that the full moon brought out man’s inner crazy. While the police departments and the […]

Life & Island Times: Strung Out and Allergic

Editor’s Note: Still strung out from an evening in the ER to start the weekend. Home and fine now, just…allergic to the the cure, perhaps. Marlow sums it up nicely in the wake of the temporal storms, and the more existential ones here in the Emerald City…We are not done with hurricanes this season, even […]

Life & Island Times: Storm Interview

Editor’s Note: The Cleveland Indians- are we supposed to say that these days?- have done something quite remarkable, and I enjoy seeing it. 22-straight victories, and they seem prepared to accomplish something Joe DiMaggio-esque in the next few as we roll into the divisional play-offs. We will see how they do. But Marlow has an […]

Postcard From The Swamp #13

As a function of habit lately, I got out of bed and shuffled to the living room to check on the storms. We are just looking at reporters under blue skies looking at heaps of wreckage. From what we have been hearing, a difference of just twenty miles in the storm track may have saved […]