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 […]

13 December 2002   The Green Line   I feel a little fuzzy this morning, talking to the blue-haired ladies in the lobby at the Holiday party here at the building last night. The hors d’eourves were good, though, and the wine was free. They seemed to like a man in uniform.   The news […]

Army-Navy   I checked the e-mail in the morning and noticed there was a note from the Assignments Officer- the Detailer- in Millington. I opened it and then closed it again, saving it as new. I would deal with that later. It used to be phone calls from the Bureau, and I just had one […]

A Phone Call from Millington   It is six-fifteen here, Pearl Harbor Day, and there is a dull glow on the horizon that suggests the sun may rise again in the east. It will take another seven hours to form a glow in the east from Honolulu, 62 years to the minute when the Japanese […]

Broadband   There are airplanes falling out of the sky in Miami and a patent has been denied in Canada for the gene system of an engineered species of mouse. The Israelis are acting on the West Bank, intervening in one of the camps, it is an Islamic Ali Abu Aloof is quoted as saying […]

Laylat al Qadr   It�s 20 degrees in Washington this morning and the capital is bracing for a winter storm. People all over the metro region are hurrying to the Safeways and Giants to make the ritual purchase of eggs and  bread and toilet paper, whether they need them or not, and all are wondering […]

Turkey Day   There were two streaks of light, the pilot said. They came up alongside the aircraft. He was convinced that there were surface-to-air missiles. He continued to take the charter jet on climb out, probably sweating hard, wondering if there were two more missiles coming, seeking the heat from the engines, coming behind […]