It took a couple weeks to get the mighty engine of democracy up and humming. But it is back now, and fully up to speed. There is so much happening, now that everyone is on the job, generating words on paper and over the air. It was a poignant day of deep beauty. As beautiful, […]

Pitching In The oil refineries are beginning the chemistry-set process of starting up again, but it is a slow process. Everything has to be checked out, the pipelines the valve, the tanks, the cracking towers. It will take a while for distilled product to get back in the pipeline. There are shortages in the immediate […]

Rage in the Machine The waters are receding. I checked the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration homepage, suspicious, and was pleasantly surprised to see the banner over the map of the Atlantic Ocean that there was no tropical cyclone activity. This morning there is nothing coming our way, but turning to the Pacific, I saw […]

Second Amendment One of the most powerful storms on record is plowing across the Gulf, apparently headed spot-on for Galveston . It will come ashore within 48 hours. Reports suggest that Rita will find Texas better prepared than Louisiana was, but it is still going to be a slow-motion horror. And the aftermath is going […]

Suite Serendra The Doctor’s name was Amin, like the late dictator of Uganda, and that was all I knew about him, except that he had a contract relationship with the Department of Veterans Affairs. I had a letter directing me to report to his clinic on Beauregard, which is what Walter Reed Drive becomes as […]

Personal Best Of course I am concerned about the German elections. I don’t know how an uneasy political coalition ruling the largest economy is going to affect the future. And yes, of course I am searching for a reason why the Afghan election turn-out is so much smaller than last year. Maybe it means something, […]

Posse Comitatus It is dark and the news contains mixed portents. I am in a mood for the cliché. “In the South,” Faulkner said, “the past is not dead. It isn’t even past. I take some issue with that, since the ground on which I sit was a part of the South, and occupied by […]

Blame Game There must be someone to blame. There has to be. These things cannot just happen as if the universe was a random place. Someone has to pay. It is the system. I think they ought to go back to the big appropriations bills that were passed before the storm and take out the […]

Conveyer Belt The storm is moving slowly. We expected Ophelia to lash us with her gray claws yesterday, but all we saw were some puffy clouds and felt her oppressive humidity. The building was oppressive, too. The garage, down on the third level where you can feel the heat from the earth’s core, was particularly […]

Disaster Medicine I’m not Cassandra. I would never get you to believe that. The most obvious reason is that I am cursed with the XY chromosome, and thus share the dogged ability of all men to continue doing the same thing, over and over, expecting to get a different result. But I do share something […]