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 […]

(Dramatic Detroit Skyline, seen, of course, from Windsor, Ontario, in the Dominion of Canada.) I am a political creature, as you know, and used to be comfortable in this Constantinople on the Potomac. These days, not so much. Nothing in particular seems to be working. The President seems to be surprised that people do not […]

(Earthquakes and tsunamis are part of the Japanese psyche. Living as they do on islands floating on the grinding of the Pacific tectonic plates, both are common occurrences. Mystical explanations helped explain the apparently random and frightening events. This image shows the giant catfish, Namazu, whose wiggling tail causes earth tremors and giant waves. Namazu […]