(Segment of Grand Dad’s Trans-Isthmian Duplex Cable, circa AD 1914. Photo Socotra.)   “We could Hold Panama City for fourty-eight hours” (Torrijos) told me. “As for the Canal, it is easy to sabotage. Blow a hole in the Gatun Dam and the Canal will drain into the Atlantic. It will only take a few days […]

(The star of DESERT STORM- the F-117 NIGHT HAWK.) The flag that flew in the chill winter breeze from the balcony at Big Pink had flown on the roof of the Capitol on Kuwait Day, 1991, the deadline President Bush set for Saddam to take his legions home. It is a little faded, since I […]

(DVD cover for the epic film Battle on Shangganling Mountain. Photo YesAsia.) If anyone thought this whole rising China thing was going to be easy, or fair, let’s just disabuse ourselves of the notion. The arrogance of Imperial Britain, and later followed by the less-structured and well-intentioned international meddling of the Americans, is going to […]

(Wind Farm in the Pacific Ocean. Photo LA Times.) The conventional wisdom about what is going on in the wide world continues to chug along. I was going to talk about Adrian Lamo this morning, the third individual who played a major role in the WikiLeaks carnival. Young Adrian has been called a “snitch, a […]

It was Third Thursday yesterday, and the weather was supposed to be bad. The reports were ominous all day. I looked at the schedule on the computer. The monthly soiree at the Capital City Brewery had died a natural death last summer. We picked the venue back when the Pentagon was still central to our […]

I have an eight o’clock in town and left my car at the office for reasons I will either get to, or not, later. I forgot about the meeting until an icy thought pierced me a couple minutes ago like a cold shock to my adrenal system. Accordingly, I have no time to think. I […]

(JacksonBrown out on bail. Photo Bill Kostroun/Associated Press.) I opened up the mail this morning with that familiar feeling of dread. I had sent an intemperate note after getting back from Willow that felt good at the time but was too cleaver by half. It is the trap of wine; there may be veritas in […]

(Troops of the 10th Mountain Division in Iraq. Official US Army photo.) So, We are getting a taste of winter here in DC this morning. Chill rain fell and froze on the lawns and sidewalks and side-streets. Everything is closed or on two-hour delay. We don’t do winter well here in Virginia, so I dread […]

It is Dr. King’s Day, and he is one of my heroes. It struck me one day in Atlanta, walking through his church and by his tomb that he was a man who took on the entire United States of America, with the serene knowledge that he would, sooner or later, be shot down. A […]

(PFC Bradley Manning out of uniform, and apparently feeling OK.) I had the opportunity to meet a former Governor of the Sooner State a couple months ago. He is a legitimately Great American. He had just begun his term when that nutcase Tim McVey slaughtered the innocents at the Alfred P. Murrah Building in OK […]