(USS Des Moines, CA-134, in rising gale. Oil on canvas.) Peter is a real pro, and the heart of the spirit of Willow’s bar. He snuck up in his unflappable way and filled my tulip glass to the precise level for easy listening to Mac’s story of lunch with Marshall Josef Broz Tito, Emperor of […]

(The White Palace, Belgrade, Serbia. Photo AP) I looked down at my notes on Willow’s rich wood bar. The happy hour wine made me mellow, and Mac’s stories were washing over me, not sepia toned at all, but real, as if no time had passed at all.   “The PARPRO issue was part of what […]

(First Supreme Commander, Allied Forces Europe Dwight Eisenhower in his office in Paris, 1951. US Army photo.) Monday is a fine day to stop at Willow after work, and I had a lot of questions for Mac. He enjoys the $5 bar menu and a ginger ale or two, and h is hungrier now that […]

(Convair B-36 Peacemaker, 1949. Official Air Force picture.) “The Bomb got us all home,” said Mac. “It saved us the hundreds of thousands of casualties, American and Japanese, that would have come if we had executed Operation OLYMPIC. That is certain. But once the bomb was used, the genie was out of the bottle.” Mac […]

(Bethesda Naval Hospital. Official Navy Photo.) “Maybe he was, and maybe he wasn’t,” said Mac, shaking his head. “And maybe he did and maybe he was pushed out that window. You know that British classified records were just released a couple years ago that indicate Menachem Begin’s Irgun Gang in Palestine had a serious plot […]

(Main Navy and Munitions, Washington, DC. Official navy Photo) The rescue of the Chilean miners seemed to be going like clockwork, and the whole thing was a marvel. It appeared they would all be out of the hole by midnight. Peter glided by the cocktail nook and topped up my glass. Mac sipped on his […]

We were at Willow, naturally, but I was not at the bar talking to the Mikes and Ray. Sabrina was taking good care of us, and this was a Mac interview. We were over in the conversation nook in the front corner of the restaurant. There was a lot to talk about as usual, when […]

(“33 of us are well in the Refuge,” the text of the note taped to the initial relief probe at the San Jose Mine.)   I am riveted to the account of the mine rescue this morning, along with everyone else even vaguely connected to the rest of the world.   The journey for the […]

(Table of Contents from the inaugural issue of “Inspire,” the English-language magazine of al Qaeda on the Arabian Penninsula. Copyright 2010 AQAP.) “Our audacity, at times, tempts us to feel content with our current level of devotion and ‘Ibadah.  The internet becomes our dawa, the masjid our hangout, the brothers – da brothas.  Our ‘Ibadah […]

(Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander. Photo Copyright 2009 Music Box Films.) I rose this morning to discover that two Americans, and a third man, a holder of British and Cypriot passports, have won the 2010 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science. It continues a streak of awards for this cycle for accomplishment in things I […]