I am not xenophobe, nor a conspiracy nut, though of course I love a good yarn. We all do. I’d prefer to think about fantastic stories this morning, though work, and some unpleasant truths intervene. For a moment I’d like to contemplate the soaring beauty of the human spirit in all its manifestations.   […]

Life is funny, isn’t it?   If it is not one thing, it is another. I checked the e-mail before going to bed and found a string of notes that completely reorganized my day today. I imagine we will stumble through, since we always do, but it called to mind the fragility of human networks. […]

Killing al Quts Prelude Battlefield Photo from Iran-Iraq War I hate to see the good weather pass off over the Atlantic, though I am sure the ships at sea are enjoying the sunshine. We are still low on the water table, and we need the precious moisture. That is not what they are saying in […]

The Times helpfully reminded me this morning that it is the anniversary of the end of the fighting in Europe long ago, and the beginning of the long reconstruction. That is worth a note in the rhythm of the changing seasons. The echoes of that are rumbling still, but there was something remarkable that happened […]

  The tip of my nose itches a bit from the first sunburn of the season. My straw hat had provided decent enough protection, but sunscreen probably wouldn’t have hurt. Fifty thousand of us were at the Meadows when the last of the buses was parked neatly in rows in the pasture up inside the […]

Races run rain or shine – No refunds. That is the policy of the Gold Cup, has been for years.   Of course, when they started back in 1922 it would not have occurred to anyone participating in the race to worry about rain. The servants would have held the umbrellas, and only the jockeys […]

What a week.   The Nimitz finally got back from it’s ten hour cruise on television, and by the time that irritating young sailor realized his pregnant girlfriend had moved on, I was as exhausted as the last time I was stuck on her flight deck in the heat of the gulf, strapped in the COD, sweat […]

The day had no prospect of spinning out of control as it did. I rose with the intent of doing a piece about John McCain’s Senate time, and the birth of ambition. His personal life was in the process of melting down, something with which I have more than a little sympathy.   He found […]

Secretary Gates, that gray man in the big job, announced yesterday that his Navy has temporarily added a second aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf as a “reminder” to Iran.   That is what the great machines are sometimes. Reminders.   I shared some of the angst with the crew of the Nimitz last night on […]

Vic in Toulon, 1989   The meeting out in Fairfax blessedly lurched to a stop sometime before 1800. It was one of those meetings about a good thing, a process, really, but delivered by one of those earnest fellows who was so immersed in his topic that he did not get around to telling us […]