Symbols Boris Yeltsin and David Halberstam left us yesterday, both in their mid-seventies. They had not much in common, except the proximity of their age, and the undeniable fact that they were among the best and brightest in their respective lines of work. Boris was a swaggering giant on the public stage, and David was […]

The Association How would you divvy up nearly seventy billion dollars? What would you spend it on if you had some of it? The Association wanted to help us know, and they threw one of their memorable conferences last week to provide a showcase of the leadership to talk about where things are going. For […]

Red Tie We spend an awful lot of money on intelligence, and we have been doing it for a long time. Granted, there have been times when there was more and less of it, but for the last five or six wars there has been plenty to accomplish wondrous and horrific things. I irritated some […]

Gun Control Strange week. I don’t know how yours was, but as far as I’m concerned, they can ship this one off to the archives and put a yellow sticker on the box with a big “S,” for strange, or “W,” for weird. Pity we can’t use “Q” anymore, because that is what it was. […]

Walk in the Rain It is going to rain today, and I will be walking a mile from my car to the conference in the big aluminum building on the East side of the Potomac. It is a relief that for the first time in a week the weather is significant enough to be the […]

Hero Liviu Librescu I got through shock and made it to anger yesterday, which is a lot further than the families will get. It will take months for the process to deliver something like peace for them, if ever. They say that the passage from anger and denial to acceptance is necessary for healing. I […]

I have not been to Blacksburg in a while. It was a lacrosse game that drew me, on the wide athletic field that was not a great deal different than the green pastures of that part of the lower Shenandoah Valley, on the edge of the Blue Ridge. I had some work custom done on […]

The Old Oak Tree Hotel, Raymond, Mississippi It is blowing something fierce outside the wide glass windows at Big Pink. The branches, newly tipped by green are dancing. The birds are chirping frantically, happy that the rain has stopped, but unable to fly in the fresh gale, which promises to rise through the day. Up […]

The Funeral of Jefferson Davis, New Orleans, Dec 11, 1899 It is raining in Washington, flood warnings posted, and it is a day to be inside. I spent the afternoon with Xeroxed copies of an old magazine I had heard of, but never seen. A kind woman in Mississippi mailed it to me, and I […]

Friday the Thirteenth passed uneventfully, at least for me. I think, on the whole, that the day is actually really unlucky if you are a Knight of the Temple, or the King of France or the Pope, all of whom came out badly from their encounter that Friday, what with all the torture, curses and […]