The Sea Dog My pal Boats is the kind of guy we used to call “a sea dog.” It is not disparaging. Far from it. It is a little bit like the dramatic first sentence of Moby Dick. The narrator says “Call me Ishmael,” and then it is off to the hunt for the White […]

Bringing it Home I know that America does not float serene in a sovereign sea. You know it, too, whenever you get in a cab, or creep up to the cashier in a parking garage. I do not think I thought about it as much when I lived in the suburbs, and was better protected […]

The Israeli Defense Force was starting work as I went to bed last night. The dawn was just coming up there, and the independent fire units were processing targets as battlefield intelligence queued them up. I turned in as they turned it up, and the clock radio gave me the status of the day’s work […]

Star Ferry Oh, it is a strange morning. It has been so strange for so long that the magnitude of what is happening now is lost to context. Israel is engaged in a two front war, bombing Beirut International. My car salesman is named Mohammed, and he is from Palestine. He is concerned. His family […]

My cab driver the other day was from Mumbai, or properly, a village about an hour a way. I asked him if he was Hindu, thinking that the great south of the subcontinent was mostly of that faith. He said, no, he was a Muslim. He dropped me by the pool at Big Pink, where […]

They let Grammy-winner Li’l Kim out of jail the other day. She is the biggest selling female rapper in history, and a feisty young woman. She dodged a purely metaphorical bullet, unlike some of her male contemporaries, when she was locked up last year for lying about a 2001 altercation between her entourage and some […]

Parallel Universe It is a curious thing to me that the only place that stainless steel can be bent into the perfect curves to meet the frame of an old muscle-truck is in the wilds of Loudoun County. One would think that there would be a facility to bend stainless steel located closer to the […]

I am not going to writing this morning, not in the way I am used to. I have to go to the District, and get the Black truck back from the Speed Shop in Falls Church and I am taking a few personal days. That meant an early up and a scan at the Company […]

The Great Collector The legendary Charlie Allen was up on the Hill before the imperial city flushed out for the Fourth of July Holiday. He sat with great composure at the table in front of the raised dias where the members sit. His face was imperturbable, lined with crises that go back to the early […]

Luck of the Draw It is the start of an extraordinary weekend. With Independence Day falling next Tuesday, an enterprising vacationer could have left work a little early yesterday, and scooped up five days off at the cost of only two vacation days. That may be why the city seems a little thin today, a […]