O.K., so the State of Israel came into existence on this day, just after midnight, when the Americans were just leaving work in Washington. The United States had recognized the new Jewish state as a sort of off-hand, end-of-the-day action over the objection of Secretary of State George C. Marshall.   David ben-Gurion ceased […]

  It is Armed Forces Day today, and the anniversary of the introduction of the Nylon Stocking. The hose arrived in 1940, on the market just long enough to become an essential wardrobe item for a generation of women and for those vertical seams to get burned into the collective consciousness of a generation of […]

It was cold this morning. Late Spring, so the window had been left wide open.  I awake at 0500 in darkness. No dawn yet. I had the horrible feeling I’d overslept; that I was late for the early shift in the Bunker. I have just had a particularly vivid dream and my pulse is racing.  […]

12 May 2004 Strong Najasa The video is grainy, but in this war of images it does not have to be perfect. Fox News published he video-grab. They did not include the web address of the Islamist site that posted the streaming video. I’m sure the prurient interest would have crashed their server. Fox helpfully […]

13 May 2004 Culture Shock I understand Don Rumsfeld is in Baghdad this morning, a surprise trip to visit the leadership of the occupying forces. I don’t know what the motivation is, or the action-items he wants to achieve. I would not want to be on the receiving end of the visit. The debacle in […]

  Major General Gen. Antonio M. Taguba is going to testify to Congress today. He will be questioned by the Senate Armed Services Committee about the scathing report he wrote documenting the systematic pattern of abuse against the detainees in Iraq. He will presumably be asked about the OGA, who is apparently responsible for some […]

  I really enjoy the Cadillac car commercials that use the old Led Zepellin songs as the background. They make me quiver, just like in the old days, and I applaud whoever came up with the campaign to replace the old-fogy image of the marque. My son thinks they are pretty hip cars.   The tunes still […]

  Well, I must say that things don’t make a great deal of sense this morning.   Secretary Rumsfeld was pretty impressive on the Hill yesterday, and he said many of the right things, and seemed sincere in his apology to the abused Iraqis, and even offered some of them compensation. So the Department seems […]

  Secretary Rumsfeld is being summoned to the Hill to talk about the horrors of Abu Ghraib. He is in deep kimchi with some members of Congress, and is expected to get a tough grilling from the Armed Service Committees in extraordinary Joint Session.   Uncle Don will probably get through this, and some of […]

  At 7:25 p.m. on May 6, 1937, the German airship Hindenburg was nearing the mooring mast at Lakehurst Naval Air station in New Jeesey. It was completing its flight across the Atlantic from Germany. Souls on Board were 36 passengers and 6l crew.   That is an astonishing ratio, if you think about it, […]