The Unready The great city is not paralyzed by the remnants of the storm, though preudently, most of the schools are closed or opening late; the closer-in districts like Alexandria City and Arlington expect their administrative workers to be in on time, even if the children are summoned to appear a few hours late. They […]

12 February 2006 Maldon The snow is deep here, or since this is a town of relativism, relatively so. I see about five inches on the railing of my balcony, and the trees limbs are cloaked in white, and the flakes are still coming down. North and west of the city there may be over […]

Stockpiles It is beginning the blizzard as I write. They say it will come on through the day, heaping up. The first flakes began just at dawn, but the ground is still warm enough that it is melting. That will change, they say, or and begin to accumulate. But this being Washington, there is a […]

Chemicals They are saying that there is snow out there, coming at us, a thick white blanket that will wrap up the weekend, seal us in Big Pink, and call for tons of chemicals to clear the streets. Sometimes the prospect of snow is enough to just send me back to bed. We have only […]

Policy Watching hubris explode in this town is the only thing that rivals the passion for the Redskins. The people on horseback with the One True Answer show up, and they crash around for a while and presently the systems dulls them, or breaks them, or begins to ridicule them. But right at the beginning […]

High Noon The chair was too narrow, or maybe we are all just too big these days. The auditorium was jammed with concerned citizens in nice suits. We were there for a technical panel on the problem of processing different levels of classified information on government computer systems. The company that cracks the problem is […]

Going To Press It was a tough morning, as we have sometimes in the news business. The morning meeting can be a pressure cooker. Choices must be made, emphasis placed, nuance determined. This was a brutal meeting. The writers were tired. The Editor was cranky. The financial section was seething; ad revenues were down. It […]

Secular Sunday My Mother, bless her, asked if I was pulling for the Steelers or the Seahawks. I had to think for a moment. The Seattle Seahawks had beaten my Washington Redskins on their way to the Superbowl, but I had a hard time dredging up any particular animosity to them. And I like Seattle […]

It is nearly sixty degrees out there and raining. It is enough to make me go back to bed, thinking of the water splashing off the cars and the long wait on the 14th Street Bridge going down to the office. And why go to the office, anyway? They survived perfectly well the three days […]

Post Attack This morning I am drinking coffee again. I have not gone two days without caffeine since before the Wall came down. I don’t know if I should got to work or not, but I am restless and need to get out. There is a big meeting out at Tysons that I probably should […]