Green Side Up   There is an old joke that is completely appropriate to this day as we prepare to stagger back to work. The excess is about over, parties done, and return legs from vacation complete or in progress today. The Ohio State Buckeyes are Kings of College Football, first time since the year […]

Copyright 2003   Gentle Readers, I hope that the Eve was good for you and the New Year finds you dry and comfortable. Ohio State is playing later today for the National Championship and I will dutifully cheer for the Big Ten, though my heart is not really in it. My game is this morning […]

The metro region is buried this morning under feet of heavy white snow. The Government won’t be a threat to anyone today, and I’m not sure we are going to be effective again the rest of the week, regardless of how hard we dig or how warm it gets. My apologies to the BBC this […]

30 December 2002   Dave Barry Couldn’t Make This Up   The Moon and Venus are dancing in the eastern sky this morning. They have risen together and grown closer, changing places. Venus is now ascendant. Earlier it had clung below the sliver moon. They seem to have something going. The light is rising too, […]

28 December 2002   Attack of the Clones   There is no BBC World Service on my National Public Radio station on the weekends. I awoke alone in the cool darkness of the apartment and turned the coffee and a symphony on. The sound George Auric’s rich strings filled the small I turned on the […]

26 December 2002   On the Water   I don’t know how Vicky Barker is doing it this morning. It the day after the holiday, Saint Stephen’s day, and her voice is still bright and her phrasing impeccable. But the stories she reads and introduces on the World Service this morning are enough to propel […]

London Calling   Tomorow is Christmas Eve. I don’t know how this happened. Last time I looked up it was still in the teens, still time to get to the Post Office, still time to get the list accomplished and now it is the the penultimate day, either the last gifts are bought or the […]

  They’re Back   I was working on a homework project for my son last night and did not get to bed until after the local news ended. I checked the e-mail before I went down and got this from a friend on the West Coast, where the El Nino rains are sweeping cars down […]

  The Smoot-Hawley Tariff   The seventieth anniversary of the BBC World Service is tomorrow. It was born in 1930, at the apex of the British Empire, Rangoon calling and all that, a full quarter of the earth’s surface under the Union Jack, and a third of its people. But something was happening that same […]