Ice Age There was a hiss in the air that sounded like bacon frying. It was dark at the usual time, and I went straight from the soft nether land of bed to the coffee percolator and out to the balcony to listen. The sleet was coming down with a palpable hiss on the ice-sheet […]

Appointment in Samarra Somerset Maugham told the old tale again in 1933, just as the world was sliding into another really large misunderstanding, which still could have been avoided. John O’Hara used the story, too, placing the Iraqi town later, in Pennsylvania. But I like Maugham’s version, which went like this, Death speaking the monologue: […]

The Y Chromosome It was not a good weekend, and there is snow on the way. A tractor-trailer overturned on the Beltway Saturday morning, and 165,000 eggs were broken, leaving a yellow river of yolk around the Capital. Yesterday, on the anniversary of the bombing of a major Shia shrine, and the advent of the […]

I am not exactly between worlds this morning. I know exactly where I am, though I wish I were elsewhere. There is a work project spread across one of the mute computers. Comments are due this morning, and I have some vitriol to burn off before attempting it. There is the matter of what was […]

Main Navy and Munitions Last night was an affair at Big Pink. The Admiral was coming to dinner. He is the senior flag officer of my acquaintance, the Last Man Standing from his generation. I bustled around in the afternoon in preparation. I had matching plates set out, and the silver setting that I bartered […]

Svengalis My bet is that she winds up remembered like Jayne Mansfield, a lesser luminary to Marilyn, perhaps on par with Kim Novak, or perhaps Mamie Van Doren or the sadly neglected Sheree North. But I could be wrong. There is a Svenagali in the mix, and that is a wild card. My assessment is […]

Business Etiquette The Candidate was supposed to come on the conference call at 8:30PM, Eastern Standard Time. I think he was back in New Mexico, where he maintains his day-job as the Governor. It would be considerably earlier there, still light. He had been back here for the Democratic offsite meeting, and the website said […]

The Carry Cup I get questions, and I think about them. Why don’t you write about Scooter Libby and the clear obstruction of justice? That popped up the other day. I demurred, looking down the barrel of a Cuban cigar at a glass of smoky cognac. Of course it is riveting. There is nothing more […]

While You Were Sleeping The snow fell overnight. Not much, a dusting for hardier people in the upper Mid-West, but enough to throw the capital into the usual cocked-hat automotive chaos that attends any deviation from the norm. Which is, perhaps, why people are not as startled by the news that the world was divided […]

The Parthian Shot Let us acknowledge, this chilly Washington morning, the deaths of 130 and wounding of hundreds of others in the crowded Sarriya market in Baghdad. They died for the crime of shopping for dinner, and some religious schism a thousand years old. It was about a ton of explosives, the biggest vehicle-borne explosive […]