I was in Hanoi, in June of 1995. I was sitting three stiff chairs away from Le Duc Ahn, former general, architect of the invasion of Cambodia and President of the Socialist Republic. I wouldn’t have been there except for Mr. Clinton’s unfortunate letter to his Draft Board. With the stigma of the Draft Dodging […]

A dusting of snow is falling on the city. It will snarl the commute. Already the pandemonium has begun. A commuter lost control of his vehicle approaching Arlington on I-66 where it narrows to two inbound lanes and flipped the guardrail and put his car on the Metro tracks, reducing the Orange Line to single […]

So I am a slug this morning. I got up at the usual time, blasted out by the uncaring alarm. The radio was still playing softly across the bed. I had left it on when sleep overcame me and I had a vague recollection of classical music in my forgotten dreams. I had no need […]

It is smack on six o’clock. I am up early and bushy-tailed because I have to be at a stultifying monthly meeting at the Facility at nine and have a stop at the Company before that. There is nothing happening here except last night’s dishes. There are bombs in Afghanistan and Robots on Mars. The […]

The first color ones are to be released from the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, site of the thumping USC administered to my Wolverines last Thursday. I am coming to terms with it, slowly. The loss, that is, not the Mars landing. The Europeans bounced a science package off the surface last week and something […]

 It is the transit of Venus this morning, six hours in which the Earth and the Planet of Love are in the same orbital plane, and the outline of our mist shrouded sister is visible, outlined against the hydrogen blaze of our neighborhood star’s vast heart.  I shall walk around the great flank of Big […]

I am up, of a sort, and not hung over. Just a little tired and daunted by the prospects of moving down from the Fifth Floor to the unit by the pool deck. There is a lot to deal with, all this crap acquired through a life of travel, files and curios all conjuring sound […]

I had a lunch meeting at James Mackey’s Public House on L Street. I took the metro down, since I was working at the government facility on the Orange Line in Arlington. When I got off at Farragut West the streets were full, but the people were walking more aimlessly than usual. This close to […]

It is the very dregs of the year. It is unseasonably warm and it is raining in Washington. The Holiday continues to drag on. Work is eerie. Most of the office is gone, off doing something interesting, and I am building my vacation balance and occupying space. What I am doing cannot precisely be called […]

Renouncing the Treaty As the Japanese make their first hesitant step to deploy troops overseas, it is useful to place things in the context of the last century. It was 1934, a key date in the world’s slide into black chaos. Japan renounced the Naval treaties of Washington, signed in 1922, and the London accords […]