The Mara It is the Ides of March, the middle of the month in Roman reckoning. I am wary of those with a lean and hungry look, as Caesar should have been, and I think I see some. Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, is across the parking lot from Big Pink, the condominium block where I live. […]

Retreads I talk to the folks on Sundays, late in the afternoon when things are pretty much wrapped up for the weekend. They are normally watching golf, and I am looking at whatever seasonal sport is on. It was basketball yesterday, though they could as well have televised people working on tax returns. I gave […]

Protected Speech Price Charles is getting married to his long-time paramour, Patricia Parker-Bowles. The BBC told me it was going to happen as soon as April. They interviewed a man named Winston Churchill about the situation, saying he was a long-term friend of the Prince and a former Member of Parliament. He said exactly what […]

Vienna The woman in the Monday meeting looked at her notes and indicated that she was going to Vienna the next day for a meeting. I had the image of a trip to Dulles, and a big jet across the water. I let my mind wander a little, thinking about a break from the current hysteria […]

Polar Bears The strikes and riots began in St Petersburg seventy-seven years ago, the February Revolution that the Russians celebrate due to the peculiarities of the Old Style Calendar. My sons would not care. The empire that was spawned by the Red Rising crumbled away when they were still pre-teens. If they think that their […]

Party of God Hezbollah must have been startled by the outburst of anti-Syrian sentiment in Beirut over the last three weeks. The collapse of the status quo is unnerving. I have problems with changes to the little routines of life, getting querulous in my old age. What is happening in Lebanon is the equivalent announcement […]

Tuneless They took the classical music out of the attractive building in Shirlington, about two miles away as the crow flies, across the street from the Capital brewery where I drink with the Judge sometimes. The music had its hands bound, and the station manager and an heiress to part of the Rockerfeller fortune shot […]

Cyber Czar The President made a special trip to Langley to reassure the work force yesterday. I don’t think it was the concern about Martha Stewart’s release from federal custody. She will be under house arrest for a while longer anyway. I have the oddest feeling of d’eja  vu as I write that. Isn’t this something […]

Steam Power The wind is roaring outside, pummeling the junction of the towers beneath which I dwell. The month that enters like a Lion has brought us a raw chill that is as cold as any of this winter. Thin drifts of snow linger in the places where the shadows lie. It’s cold. I turned […]

Format Change I woke to an eerie silence. There was something wrong. The clock radio hissed, and the numerals glowed. There was power, and it had turned on at the designated moment. But there was no sound, and no music. I set it fifteen minutes before the BBC World Update begins at five. I need […]