Trilobites Mount Lemmon is a massive piece of rock that thrusts up out of the Arizona desert toward heaven and almost makes it. It is so tall that the mountain has a different ecosystem at the top than it does at the bottom. Green and cool, while the desert below is blasted and sere. My […]

It was a day of astonishing brilliance, and the small rooms high up in the tower were oppressive after the dazzling freedom of the observation deck of George Washington’s Masonic Temple. The panorama was the best view of the two states and the District, according to the young 32nd Degree Mason who guided the tour. […]

More Soon Five years into this war, most of my contemporaries are done with the business of fighting. I hung it up on September 1st, 2003, disturbed by what was happening in the Global War on Terror and following the maxim I had been taught all those years: “When it ceases to be fun, retire. […]

Eternity is an easy concept if you ignore it. It is harder when you have to come to grips with it. The Post Office apparently noticed that it is inconvenient when they increase the cost of sending a first class letter by a few cents, since we all have to rush out and purchase those […]

The Cubi Special ADM Arthur Radford, Chief of Naval Operations had a dream He was going to cut a mountain in half, and create a modern operating base on the island of Luzon, on the Bataan Peninsula. The airfield would serve a deep-water anchorage for deep-draft naval ships. It would be constructed on land permanently […]

The Dashing Young Man I walked back into a civil war over the weekend, quite intentionally, though I was researching something else, and this morning I have no time for other times. I have other projects that are due, and consequently have no time for this. I was going to leave St. Patrick’s Day behind, […]

Four Years Four years after we entered the last major conflict in Europe, we were concerned with the prosecution of the leaders of the defeated regime, and the costs of reconstruction. Four years ago today the war began with a spectacular high-tech light show, and we have convicted the leaders of the defeated regime, but […]

Last week Major John Kallerson had enough. He is mad as hell, and despite his spirit of Christian charity and service, he isn’t going to take it any more. As the Senior Chaplain Clinician at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, he wrote a passionate e-mail defending his hospital, his leadership, and the troops they care […]

I have driven out the snakes, and there is no snow for me to shovel on the driveway. That is the purview of the crack maintenance crew at Big Pink, and makes it a sort of half-way house on the way from the joys of home-ownership to assisted living. A century ago the grounds crew […]

They say that cats and women will do what they want, and men and dogs should just get used to it. I think that is an outrageous oversimplification, which reinforce outmoded stereotypes. Both felines and females are simply operating in accordance with the principles of the natural world, but on frequencies that are higher up […]