In order to get a boatload of bucks, I said “yes” to an aggressive technology company that wants my services.   But that means I have to quit my current job. I went to the office yesterday and typed out a contrite resignation and slipped it under the door of my erstwhile boss. He […]

  War Department, Washington, D.C., April 9, 1865- 10 o’clock P.M.   Ordered: that a salute of two hundred guns be fired at the headquarters of every army and department, and at every post and arsenal in the United States, and at the Military Academy at West Point on the day of the receipt of […]

  By the time I finally got to the Hot Box at the end of the day I was not at my best.   It was business and I hate doing business after dinner. Normally my day would be done. I had been up early and writing frantically, traveling to the Arctic in my mind, […]

It is ten years since the genocide began in the heat of Rwanda. The generals are muttering about sending more troops to Iraq, just for a while, just to settle things down in Falluja. I feel sometimes that we are traveling in a pasty gray winter of the soul. The University of Connecticut won the […]

I came home for lunch yesterday, an unusual luxury. My little place was almost equidistant from the Agency where I had an early appointment and the office. It was also almost a direct line past the Department of Motor Vehicles on Four Mile Run, so I took advantage of the middle of the working day […]

Wheelchairs Sheihk Ahmed Yassin was blown up yesterday leaving a mosque in Gaza. He was a paraplegic, and the only weapon he had was his fiery rhetoric. The image of his shattered wheelchair, covered in blood, is rocketing around the world, and people are very angry indeed. A helpless old man, shredded by the detonation […]

The Dress Boutique I have never bought a fine classic car from an antique dress boutique, but apparently I did last night. There was some confusion in the residence and I was not at the top of game. Maryland had just lost a close one in the second round of the NCAA tournament and the […]

Cedric the Great It was the last day of winter and I was walking into one of the Agency buildings. It was not one of the famous ones, though the Chinese restaurant across the street was said to have a silent partner in the People’s Liberation Army. I had to swipe my badge through the […]

Ramblers I was out rambling around the town yesterday after a day in the vault. It is a most secure vault in an anonymous building. They don’t want us bothered on the project we are working, which is an examination of military intelligence with an eye toward reorganization and realignment. It is very sensitive, since […]

Dragon Patchy fog and rain this morning, cold and dank. It snowed in the night, though it did not stick. Old names and new ones floated through my dreams. I blame the neighbors for my fitful sleep. The Ironworkers returned late lfrom their celebration of the Patron Saint of Ireland, and befuddled with spirits, missed […]