It is 18 degrees this morning morning, cold in a way that only a normally temperate climate can deliver. Penetrating. The 71st annual convocation of the American Conference of Mayors is happening today. They are meeting somewhere, didn’t catch where, but I expect it is someplace warm. Looking back up the centuries, Francis Bacon, Lord […]

Then There Was One   It is nineteen minutes to the hour, according to Bush House in London. There is quite a controversy over whether or not the Chancellor of Germany colors his hair or not. Believe it or not, there is more news, some of it significant.   A quarter of Britain’s army is […]

A Day On   It is the celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King’s life today and we have a national holiday. I hope we consider the legacy of non-violence, and the remarkable success that Dr. King had in overthrowing the appalling system of American Apartheid. The doctrine of non-violent civil disobedience developed by Mahatma Ghandi […]

I was wintering in Korea in 1981. It was cold there, bitter numbing cold so pervasive that we were authorized to wear a thick thermal jacket with our uniforms. Walking to the concrete entrance of the old Japanese bunker where the watch center was located, I made sure to make a lot of noise, whistling […]

French Birth Rate Skyrockets   It is never good news to hear about your hometown on the overseas radio. I knew we were in trouble when the BBC reported from Fairfax County, and it was about the wave of shootings this summer. This morning they reported about my alma mater, The University of Michigan. My […]

Vigilance   This is an early morning. I sampled the January air from the balcony. The air is cold and dense enough to fly a nun. Not as cold as it is in Seoul this morning, where in January the breath freezes hard on the interior windows of the escort van and the traveling party […]

The Play-Offs   Well, things are settled in the National and American Conferences. Saturday was better than Sunday, plenty of drama in the demise of Pittsburgh and Atlanta as Tennessee and Philadelphia advanced through the Wild Card round to the Championships. On Sunday things were straightforward, both teams with Pirate motifs blowing out their rivals. […]

Vicki,   I was on my knees tracing a phone line, trying to get a dial tone so I could call someone to remind them how important it was to catch the World Service. I had to trace the jack to the wall, and in the process of taking it out and reinserting it, when […]

The Horrors of War   Vicky Barker of the BBC did me wrong this morning. She got me agitated and very nearly made me later for work. Actually, it wasn’t her. Vicky is OK. It was one of the Beeb’s correspondents with an irritating air of moral superiority and a foreshorted memory.   I was […]

The Answer to the Korean Crisis   The news is loonier than usual this morning. The Brits have found a makeshift biological production lab in London and arrested six men. Three more are at large. It looks like the bad guys were producing Ricine, a powerful toxin, but all they found was traces and they […]