Every day is an anniversary of something. Today happens to be one that we remember selectively because of The Bomb, and youthful Colonel Tibbets and the aircraft named for his mother, Enola Gay, and sixty-six thousand Japanese dead at the base of the mushroom cloud. It is a question of justice, really, and in the […]

“Semper Paratus” is the motto of the United States Coast Guard. It is translated as “Always Ready” in the sad state of Latin today. In ancient times, the words had another context- one associated with the male side of the reproduction of the species. That association is not in the dusty textbooks of the last […]

It is the first Saturday of the month, and naturally I woke a little earlier than normal for a weekend. The big monthly swap meet is this morning, and I want to see what is heaped up in the parking stalls at the public garage before the selection is too picked-over. When I was newly […]

USS Nautilus 1958 Khalil Ahmed is dead. He was a doctor, and he died in a hospital. He was apparently of the opinion that Kafirs- unbelievers- should die. He was one of two physicians who attempted to use car-bombs to attack party-goers in downtown London. When that operation failed, he raced with a partner to […]

There was a catastrophe in Minnesota this morning, as I’m sure you heard. It was one of such dimensions and so astonishing that London was the first to tell me of it. There are at least seven dead in the collapse of the I-35 bridge, a big honking 1,000 foot span sixty feet in the […]

It is August in Washington: hot and humid and the air shivers when you look through it, a little like gelatin. Time was when sensible people were at the Shore to cool off, at Rehoboth, Ocean City or Virginia Beach. Since the invention of air conditioning and year-round government though, there is the pleasant fiction […]

Admiral McConnell’s people had a big conference two weeks ago at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center. It was about open-source intelligence, which is that information that is laying around for free, no Spooks or satellites required. They say that almost a thousand professionals attended, and I wish I had. There are some […]

The slap echoed across the pool deck like the report of a small caliber pistol. It was startling. I was in the water, relishing the coolness against my skin. I looked up to see Mrs. Hitler on her feet in outrage, looking down at Uncle Bill with eyes that bulged in anger. I have seen […]

Registered letters are real attention-getters, or at least they are once you have received one. That is what they call “experience,” which is actually the culmination of a lot of mistakes. It enables you to know when you are making one again. They look so official, what with the green sticker and the stamps all […]

Gray at Big Pink, on the interface of night and day. Maybe rain, maybe not. Humid again. I entered the day twice. I had taken the Harry Potter book to bed early, intending to read, but did not. Instead, the dreams came and they were unusually vivid. In the first, I was in a squad […]