Johnny It was sometime in the afternoon, between laundry and sweeping the snow off the car. The news from Iraq is bad, and the terror thing is a dull ache that feels like the cold outside. I checked the e-mail and saw that the little news icon on the welcome screen had his picture on it. I […]

Winds Blow The snow came and stayed. Not like it did up in New York. They got a classic Nor’ Easter. The winds swirled out over the ocean and brought the moisture back ashore and dumped it on Central Park. Maybe nineteen inches. It is not the storm of the century, but it is a […]

Republican Rasta Man ”When the Declaration of Independence was first read in public and the Liberty Bell was sounded in celebration, a witness said, “It rang as if it meant something.” President Bush spoke those words after the Chief Justice swore him in for the second time. The Chief Justice made quite an effort to […]

It was 1995. It was not the first time I had been to the Hermit Kingdom of North Korea. But last time was a quick scoot to the north side of the conference table in the Treaty Village at Panmunjon. A North Korean guard in one of those flying-saucer caps peered in the window from […]

Black Cat It was black as the inside of a cat when I got up, and cold and raining. I had a date with destiny, or something. I had been commanded to be in the Emergency Room at Bethesda before 0700 for evaluation. I was told to bring a bag, just in case they had […]

The Wait Everybody has to wait. Mr. Gonzales, the President’s nominee to be the next Attorney General, did some waiting yesterday. I saw it as I watched the news scroll by on CNN, killing time. I saw that there were seven national guardsmen killed in Baghdad, the worst incident since the mess-tent bombing in Mosul […]

Old Guard College football is finally over, though I had to take a pass on it. I am sad that the Big Money has decided that the most significant games of the season will be played till midnight on a work night, and I refuse to watch the corn-chip commercials for the privilege of watching […]

Requisat I was trying to find out what we had to do to spread Snidely’s ashes at sea when I saw the stupid old Navy is going to scuttle the O-Boat as an artificial reef in the Gulf. There are four states, or five, if you include the joint proposal, that want the former USS […]

There were three voicemails waiting for me when I stirred in the darkness. The cell phone beeps slowly, every minute or so, like the dripping of a faucet. I looked at the dim red light of the alarm clock. I was screwed. It was 0248, and sleep would not come again. I stumbled around, and […]

I never saw a truck melted to the height of a card-table before, but I did yesterday. I was in a high state of agitation anyway, having wasted an hour in the visitor’s center in front of CIA. I was not able to work the security system, which is apparently fairly simple but only if […]