Secret Lottery I got to the end of the New York Times this morning and discovered that I agreed with both Maureen Dowd and Thomas L. Friedman. Something was desperately wrong. I thought about that, concerned. I detoured around an article on Edward Hopper’s marvelous paintings of New York, and found myself contemplating Weegee, the crime […]

Hot Button It is a gray morning on the verge of the Resurrection. It threatens to rain. I know far more than I ever needed to know about the Schiavo family, thanks to the Times this morning, and the relations and recriminations that have led to this sad and sorry place. I know about the […]

Pajama Game The markets are closed today for Good Friday, and I am thinking about closing myself too. I am still creaking with a cold, a strange one that has proceeded not north-to-south as they normally do, but rather uphill, from lungs to nose. I have dosed myself liberally with over-the-counter drugs, which has given […]

Occasional Drizzle I got the call at the office. I could hear the distinctive ring-tone from where I stood, shooting the breeze with an office mate. A former Congressman was supposed to visit us, since it appeared that we had some issues of common interest on which we might partner. I was watching the door, and we […]

Process There is no happiness in my heart this morning. The cold rain is soaking the ground, falling steadily from gray skies. The conflict over a woman’s body in Florida has drawn the world’s attention, and the lines in Washington appear drawn starkly between the social conservatives and the process conservatives. That line thread those […]

Leviathan I had every intention of writing about a gigantic submarine this morning. It is a cool story, embedded in my life, one of the seminal stories of wonder that my Uncle used spin around the dining table. He dared me to think of an aircraft carrier that sailed below the sea. I was a […]

Tom DeLay and the Living Will Listen, this is early on a Sunday, and the strident tone clashes with the soft mist outside and the rich smell of earth. I am embarrassed to be writing this. But it seems necessary, though it is really none of your collective business. But here it is, big as […]

The Long Telegram I wanted to sleep late but I couldn’t. I was up and down a couple times and gave up. The meeting the previous afternoon had left me depressed. I needed to get a memo put together, something that danced around the issues and wouldn’t tag me as the bearer of bad news. […]

The Mara It is the Ides of March, the middle of the month in Roman reckoning. I am wary of those with a lean and hungry look, as Caesar should have been, and I think I see some. Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, is across the parking lot from Big Pink, the condominium block where I live. […]

Universal Adversary Eric Lipton and former Senator Sam Nunn made my morning. Eric was writing in the New York Times, and Senator Sam was talking to National Public Radio. If it had not been for them, I would have had no idea what to panic about today, since the anthrax scare of yesterday appears to […]