I am getting up at the Farm to the sound of a distant train, rolling with freight, holiday or no, down the tracks of the former Alexandria and Orange Railroad that my ancestors helped build. There is the sound of cattle lowing from the farm adjacent, and the clatter of ravens under clear blue […]

(The Maine Avenue Warf, Washington, DC. Photo Amantio di Nicolao)   They can tap-dance around the numbers all they want. The Dutch put the only numbers they needed on the board against Brazil, and I will be damned if America doesn’t seem to be interested. Shoot, I haven’t turned on the television during the day […]

(Area B at Big Pink. Photo Socotra LLC)   I was on the balcony at Big Pink. The high summer being upon us, access to the sun is starting to be a factor on the pool deck after work.   Work steals access to PRT- Prime Ray Time-  and by the time the whistle blows […]

(Grilled corn con quesa, photo courtesy Bonds in Northampton)   Brutal Day. I won’t bore you with the details, but I ended it with a complete understanding of Democracy, Socialism and Fascism.   That is not bad for a single 24-hour period, but I will have to do the set-up. Your government, bless its little […]

(Accused Russian Sleeper Agent Anna (Anya) Chapman. Photo courtesy Anna Chapman)   If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it. –       Sleeper Agent Anna Chapman’s pithy philosophy from her Facebook page. The whole thing is baffling. Why would any current or former superpower spend good […]

(Presidents Medvedev and Obama at Ray’s Hellburger in Arlington. AP photo  by Charles Dharapak)   It is not a gig I would choose now, but it is a pretty good one, and I might have been attracted to it in my youth, about the time I graduated and had no particular future.   Of course […]

I heard the other day that ThinkGeek, an innovative novelty company, had come up with a new gag product. Previous efforts included a bogus fondue pot that worked from a USB connection to your office computer. Funny stuff.   The latest hoax was centered around a re-branded canned meat product. It looks to me like […]

The big opening of the season party happened at Joe’s last evening. Mary Margaret worked all the details, and the event was Sangria-powered and had plenty of food- the classic potato salad, excellent deviled eggs, three bean dip, fiery wings, and Diana Ross’s most triumphant pigs-in-blanket.   If you can believe it, the great state […]

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(Sadamu Komachi. IJN picture in USN archives) Sadamu Komachi was on the flight as well, and like Lt. Sakai, had been badly wounded but returned to service at the bitter end. He bagged 14 Americans in the course of his career, and he “could not bear to see American bombers flying serenely over a devastated […]