This is a short one that welcomes a brand new month in a year that is still sort of new. There is something special here in Your Nation’s Capital: the National Weather Service has announced when we will see the lovely pale pink cherry blossoms bloom down by the Jefferson Memorial on the Tidal Basin […]

(This image from The Telegraph has nothing to do with the Jones Act. It is a recent picture of the Motor Vessel Rubymar (“Red Sea”) sinking in that body of water- a crucial link between oceans. It was hit by a missile fired by Houthi rebels and demonstrates one of the means by which global […]

We normally generate a “Weather Report” each week as a means not of “informing” or “convincing.” It is intended to be a stream of information in which some smaller stories are advancing in emphasis to the media that now surrounds us. We are trying to to keep track of the various post-Colonial conflicts, America’s vulnerabilities, […]

We passed a considerable milestone this month, and we should all be proud of it. We are nearly five months into Fiscal 2024 and have yet to pass all the appropriations bills for the year that is almost halfway done. The current hodgepodge of consolidated funding runs out on Thursday, 01 March. Midnight, we think. […]

(Poet William Butler Yeats, 1865-1939. Image courtesy Wiki). We have to ask your indulgence this morning. Not that we don’t incur your debt on that count regularly, and all we wanted to do was showcase one of the extraordinary works of Irish-British poet William Butler Yeats. We will keep this appreciation on the ethos surrounding […]

The visit passed swiftly with the usual jumble of laughter, old jokes, and a hint of sadness that the family one of us had was there and the other three already passed to the ages. There was important stuff that was necessary. One long medical adventure seemed to lurch forward from convalescence to something closer […]

Benedict Arnold has a new book out. It is a striking treatment of a man who has been termed “the most hated man in America.” We have never seen a picture of him, since his time predates photography. The etching above was a “first seen” for many of us. Arnold is a complex figure in […]

You don’t have to open up the copy of the ancient history that showed up in the mail yesterday. I assumed it was a medical bill, since the medical/pharmaceutical industry is sending all sorts of pieces of paper with preposterously large numbers on them. They pass almost without comment, and this was fairly modest as […]