(Late Chanteuse Amy “Wineglass.”  Photo UPI) Europe has begun to question the sanity of the debate in Washington, which ought to come as no particular surprise. A pal send me a note that quoted Vince Cable, a Conservative member of Prime Minister David Cameron’s cabinet (and Hillary Clinton’s opposite number) as saying a deal on […]

(Santa with a cool IPA at the Amen Corner at Willow. Photo Socotra.) Jerry B. Harvey was not at Willow last night. Jerry could have been, though, since he is a professor of management science at the George Washington University right here in Your Nation’s Capital. He is a smart guy, and I thought about […]

(Theatrical Poster of the Ed Wood film “Plan 9 From Outer Space.) Oh, yeah. Sunny skies and low humidity- baby, the summer doesn’t get any better. They say the swelter will be back, just like the crisis downtown, but we can push it back a few days. I have no idea what they think they […]

(President Warren Gamaliel Harding. Widely known as one of the worst presidents, and certainly the worst from Ohio, his “make no enemies” campaign strategy made him the compromise choice for the GOP nomination in 1920. He promised a return to “normalcy,” whatever that might be, and encouraged an “America first” campaign focused on jobs and […]

(Mac on the rebound. Photo Socotra.) Sunday was not as awful as it could have been. No great progress on the continuing budget crisis, or so it seems, and the wet soaking blanket of humidity continued to drape over the capital. It is enervating weather, sucking the energy out of my pores and causing me […]

  (ADM Noel Gayler in his office at Camp Smith, HI, 1976. An authentic hero and warrior, he was proud of being the first no-nucs officer to head the Pacific Command. Photo New York Times.) It has been so hot the last few days that I think my brain softened. I saw the note in […]

(Willow in July. Photo Socotra.) We could not get any further than Clarendon on the Metro. The train had seemed like the right way to get out of town, where we had business in the Chinatown district adjacent to the old Convention Center and the Bus Station, where I worked in the towering structure that […]

(Butterfly stroke, or Dolphin, in the Big Pink pool.) The heat was as wet as a damp washcloth. Adam, the Pole from Podlaska, had firm control of the pool deck with his bluff friendly manner. He is a big guy, muscular, if a little soft in the waist, an East European version of a Minnesota […]

(Speaker Boehner castigates the President in a press conference shortly before the President promised to make everything OK with justice for all. The Speaker later decamped to Ramparts for a beverage and a smoke. Photo UPI) The moist heat has returned to Washington. I have the door to the balcony open, and the breath of […]

(Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. He has been described as “the driving force in pushing the Republican party toward an ever-more rigid position of opposing any tax increase, of any kind, at any time. Photo Gage Skidmore.) I imagine there are people who are just enjoying a delightful summer. Certainly the respite […]