The Old Oak Tree Hotel, Raymond, Mississippi It is blowing something fierce outside the wide glass windows at Big Pink. The branches, newly tipped by green are dancing. The birds are chirping frantically, happy that the rain has stopped, but unable to fly in the fresh gale, which promises to rise through the day. Up […]

The Funeral of Jefferson Davis, New Orleans, Dec 11, 1899 It is raining in Washington, flood warnings posted, and it is a day to be inside. I spent the afternoon with Xeroxed copies of an old magazine I had heard of, but never seen. A kind woman in Mississippi mailed it to me, and I […]

Friday the Thirteenth passed uneventfully, at least for me. I think, on the whole, that the day is actually really unlucky if you are a Knight of the Temple, or the King of France or the Pope, all of whom came out badly from their encounter that Friday, what with all the torture, curses and […]

Friday the Thirteenth It’s a day people look out for. Filled with symbolism. Make plans cautiously. I am not talking about the gusting wind, which could reach 40 knots, nor the rain that will make the Beltway slick. I am just happy it is not snowing. Some folks reach far back in our ancestral memory […]

Slaughterhouse Five So it goes. Kurt Vonnegut is dead at 84. It is an appropriately gray day in Washington to hear the news that the author of “Slaughterhouse Five” has left us. I have the book on my desk right now. It is a fancy edition form the Folio Society, on acid-free paper and a […]

If you are going to get anything done in Washington, you need someone important to cover your actions. Power is too widely dispersed, which was the brilliance of the founders. They knew that inaction on the part of the government was, generally speaking, better than a rash that act that would alter the constitutional separation […]

Death and Dishonor Tehran, 1979 There is death, of course, which is the Great Democrat and comes to us all in time. There is also dishonor, which is an increasingly tenuous term in the age of Britney and Paris and Kevin Federline, or whatever his name is. Fame of any sort seems to pay the […]

You know the feeling. You are driving down I-95, the dreary part of the multi-lane slab near Fort Meade. Some moron is blocking the fast lane, creeping past traffic. There are seven lanes of concrete going this way toward the imperial city, and he has to be in this one. Your sleek imported chariot is […]

Woman’s Work Detail of the Woman’s Memorial at Gettysburg I stared in disbelief at the white stuff falling from the sky this morning. It cannot be real. I washed my car this week, and most of the salt has been washed off the pavement. It is corrosive stuff, and eats the vehicles alive. I had […]

The cold is back, bitter and ironic, and the shutters rattle on the windows from the chill leaking in the windows at Big Pink. It is a broken promise of Spring, cold enough to snow, if there was enough moisture. This blast out of Canada is dry, though, and only shakes the bows heavy with […]