George Bailey Confronts a Run of the Bank   A friend wrote me to ask my thoughts about the colossal take-over of the US mortgage market by the Federal Government that is going to be announced today. He is just getting out of college, and he may not fully realize what our generation has done […]

  Ruby Slippers I got up antsy. Must be the pressure change with the storm coming on, gripping like the cold green fingers of the Wicked Witch. Maybe it is something primordial that connects us to the burrowing mammals and the birds, the urge to seek shelter against something you can sense but not see. […]

Detroit Mayor Kilpatrick with his wife Calrita Yesterday (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)   I was doing something else when the word came over the clock-radio on my desk high over North Glebe Road. The sound quality is kind of crappy, but I had been informed that listening to the radio on the Internet could be grounds […]

The storms are supposed to get here as soon as tomorrow. They say we ought to be expecting high winds and water. I don’t know what that is going to do to the pool, but I have a reasonable idea.   The people on the radio are recommending extra batteries, canned goods and diapers. I […]

  The flyer I have been waiting for showed up in the box yesterday. I knew what was in it, though not the details. I let it sit on the counter and went out on the balcony, marveling at the smooth working of the back door. It had been an excellent investment, having John the […]

  I have always had an open door policy.   Not by choice. Most of my professional life I worked in open-bay environments, on ships and ashore, almost always in vaults of one size or another.   I had a postage-stamp sized office in the Pentagon one time, so small and so far buried in […]

I was swimming with the Doc and Ludmilla, a tag team event that worked just fine to keep the boredom of the dying day at bay. Start of a three-ay weekend, the unofficial end of Summer, and the Dog and I were at loose ends.   He thought he would be working on the proposals […]

No playmates in the pool last night. The Dog couldn’t join me- there are strict Condo Association rules on that score at Big Pink. We have to keep a tight community, you know?   Why people were not more assertive about maintaining their cardiovascular activity was beyond me. When I signed in at the log, […]

I was in Mr. Carter’s navy for a couple minutes, and then Mr. Regan’s for a long time, and Mr. Bush the first seemed to flicker briefly. He came to visit one time, the mighty USS Forrrestal, He was on his way to meet Mr. Gorbachev on the island of Malta, which used to be […]

A bombshell arrives like a thunderclap, only with shrapnel and the smell of cordite.   I got one on the phone last night, and the smoke may as well have curled in wisps out of the handset. I didn’t know it was coming, which is in the nature of things. If you did you could […]