It is the anniversary of the second day of the battle of Shiloh, the battle in Tennessee that demonstrated the resolve of General U.S. Grant, and just how awful things were going to be when the large formations of armed men collided. Shiloh is the word is Hebrew for �place of peace.� My great-great Uncle […]

The police are playing it close to the vest, and Few details of the killing have been released. It was a shotgun, that much seems to be clear, since two shells were reportedly found near the body. It is said that a woman passing the little whitewashed cottage noticed a broken window, and that is […]

It is certainly not the first Spring, nor the first warning of high winds. Comes with the season. Still, the band of storms that swept over Big Pink was a mighty one with jagged bolts of lightning. It is the remnants of the system that generated twisters in Arkansas and Tennessee on Sunday, killing twenty-four. […]

I’m a Gabacho now, and I didn’t know it. With all the hoopla over the immigration issue swirling around the last few weeks, it has been easy enough to not notice. The folks in the La Rasa movement are fond of saying that the border is nothing special; in fact, the Americans just moved it […]

Spring broke out in the three days I was in Tidewater. The dogwoods are out, even as the cherry blossoms pass their prime and turn to green. There are golden banks of forsythias, and the discontent with the long gray winter has caused an incipient riot in the diverse family of azaleas. It’s Andrew Marvel’s […]

Last Call The fog is thick this morning, and the cherry blossoms are on the trees, and there is a crappy newspaper at my hotel door. USA Today, I think, the one with the bright colors written for high school kids, if they could read. There were days I would have killed for a newspaper, […]

I’ll confess I am at sea this morning. Up too early, too much to think about. The Times did not help; the issues lack focus this morning. The perils are all out there, lurking in all the articles, and maybe some promise. The approach of Spring is viewed by the correspondent who writes from the […]

Potomac Potemkin You know what I want to write about this morning, and I can’t. I had instructions from the Chairman not to say anything more than “negotiations are continuing at a high level,” and later in the day, a terse note from the business unit instructing me to maintain my “laser focus” on the […]

I was standing in the corner of the main room that contains the dining table. My jaw hurt from the Persian dentist’s adventures in the back of my mouth. In front of me, a muted Duke basketball team was going down to defeat to the Louisiana State Tigers. Dinner was burning, I could smell it, […]

Pay for Performance Money makes the world go around. It was true in Cabaret and it is true in Washington. Money is the most interesting change I’ve ever seen, going from bureaucrat to capitalist. Of course there is more of it, which is quite a novelty. But what’s more, out here the amount you make […]