I am supposed to be on an airplane this morning, but I am not. I had to back out of the big trade show out west because I am not confident in my ability to navigate the tender mercies of the TSA security process with my cane and knee brace, much less horse around a […]

  (State Department Official and Soviet Spy Alger Hiss in handcuffs. He dined out on his innocence for decades after. Photo AP.)   I was sitting with Mac last night at Willow. We are trying to get him out when he feels up to it, and he is, of course, a rock star to the […]

  The day is coming, not like we have much choice. I was easing into it as I got an early call on the cell phone. Dawn was creeping in around the building, flanking the shadows that hang down long from the towering flat roof. I hide from the first light on the west side, […]

(Jon-no-H proudly displays his hometown pride on the way to watching them bury the Caps, 5-1. Photo Socotra). I took my sweet time getting onto the stool at the Amen Corner. I put the cane away. It fell with a clatter. I took off the leg brace and tried to hang it up on the […]

(Remember Harry and Louise? Concerned Citizens at the breakfast table.) Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli sent me a nice note this morning. Well, better said, his gubernatorial campaign sent me a note about the first day of hearings in front of the Supremes on the Affordable Health Care thing. The Virginia Governor is a term-limited […]

(See? It really is as easy as pie. The solid, upward-sloping supply curve means that any point on the curve represents the least expensive medical treatment capable of producing additional Quality-adjusted Life Years (QALY). Thus, point “X” in the graph represents an inefficient form of medical intervention, since QALY could be delivered with an alternative […]

June 18, 1815 (Detail from the engraved copy of Daniel Maclise’s astonishing fresco “The Meeting of Wellington and Blücher after the Battle of Waterloo, June 18, 1815). I never know where we will go after priming  the pump with a piping hot pot of Dazbog-brand Russian Coffee. I got a fine note about the history […]

Politics are pissing me off again. Politics Is? Crap. That must mean I am feeling better, and about as concerned with the fate of the Republic as getting to the kitchen for the last cup of Dazbog-brand coffee without sprawling headfirst onto the tiles. The President wrapped up his big Energy Trip, and I feel […]

(The new consolidated Army-Navy complex at Bethesda, home of the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The iconic tower where Secretary of Defense James V Forestal attempted to fly in in the center. US Government rendering.) Ya know, I actually had an appointment with an orthopod Doc here in Arlington for yesterday- Sheila the nice […]

(French Interior Ministry personnel at the scene of the yeshiva shootings in Toulouse. Photo courtesy of the UK’s Telegraph.) The murder of children is back in the news this week, not like it wasn’t last week, too. It has happened down through the long bloody history of humankind, and in the clash of civilizations we […]