Four Years Four years after we entered the last major conflict in Europe, we were concerned with the prosecution of the leaders of the defeated regime, and the costs of reconstruction. Four years ago today the war began with a spectacular high-tech light show, and we have convicted the leaders of the defeated regime, but […]

Last week Major John Kallerson had enough. He is mad as hell, and despite his spirit of Christian charity and service, he isn’t going to take it any more. As the Senior Chaplain Clinician at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, he wrote a passionate e-mail defending his hospital, his leadership, and the troops they care […]

I have driven out the snakes, and there is no snow for me to shovel on the driveway. That is the purview of the crack maintenance crew at Big Pink, and makes it a sort of half-way house on the way from the joys of home-ownership to assisted living. A century ago the grounds crew […]

They say that cats and women will do what they want, and men and dogs should just get used to it. I think that is an outrageous oversimplification, which reinforce outmoded stereotypes. Both felines and females are simply operating in accordance with the principles of the natural world, but on frequencies that are higher up […]

It is the day they slew Great Caesar on the Rostrum in the Forum, the Ides of March he was told to beware. I try to remember the moment when the Republic was sold down the river, and the Empire embraced. It is useful to recall that nothing is new under the sun, and all […]

It is a comfort that the biggest problem I have to confront this morning is the tinkering with time. It is after six here and the sky is still black as coal. In the natural course of things, we should be awash in pale salmon light, but the Government has changed time, moving us west […]

GENERAL ORDER NUMBER ONE: Purpose: to identify conduct that is prejudicial to good order and discipline while deployed to the Iraqi theater of operations. This general order is applicable to all military members and civilians serving with, employed by or accompanying the division� Prohibited Activities: the possession, sale, transfer, manufacture or consumption of any alcoholic […]

I was not crawling deliberately through the trench-line. I got on my knees from mischance, foot slipping on the accumulated leaves of the new century. I would definitely have preferred to walk upright, as they did after they dug these fortifications. They would not have recognized what remains, even if they could find it. This […]

Principles of Accounting Duchess of Richmond: …this year, soldiers are the fashion. Duke of Wellington: [ironically] Where would society be without my boys? The Duke of Wellington was the Man of the Peninsular War, before he beat Bonaparte for the last time and became Man of the Age. I have been in his house, and […]

We are approaching a watershed moment. I am not talking about March madness, or at least not precisely. The basketball tournament will carry is from the last of winter almost to the Cherry Blossom Festival on the Tidal Basin. My son puts it more elegantly, saying that you crack that first beer and the next […]