The Chief I was sitting with Jim and Joe in the center aisle of Hall B1, on the ground floor of the San Diego Convention Center . Outside the breeze blew in from the Bay, and the water glittered and life was a sweet as only it can be in SOCAL. We were out of Washington, which […]

Fog It might have come in on little cat’s feet, I don’t know. It was as quiet as a thief in the night, or an assassin. It must have come in the small hours and was answered by the long low-throated bleeting of the horns from the shipyards down toward 32 nd Street. The sound […]

Pottery Barn I don’t have anything burning off my fingertips this morning; goodness knows I should be concentrating on Judge Alito’s confirmation, or the bird flu, or how to defeat improvised explosive devices. I can’t do it, though. I am concentrated on the little things, and am prepared to let the larger world spin on […]

The Minister of Meaning I forgot that S amuel Ichiye Hayakawa was born in Vancouver, Canada, and I forgot that he was elected to the United States Senate. I remember that he liked jazz, and that he was President of San Francisco State College, and that he was one of the few who spoke with […]

Small Fish I got it backwards, and as it turned out, the right way. If I had been watching Pappa Joe’s Penn State finally win a triple-overtime contest over Bobby Bowden’s Seminole’s in the Orange Bowl, I would have heard that the trapped miners in West Virginia were rescued. I assume that good news was […]

Quiet Week The quiet week is over, or at least the quiet here in Arlington . The affairs of the world have continued as we boxed up the decorations. I got the willies when I heard about the miners trapped a mile underground in West Virginia . I thought of all that dirt and rock […]

Both Hands Tied “Muslim Scholars Paid to Aid U.S. !” shouts the headline in the Times this morning. My goodness, I thought. Headlines shouldn’t shout . They should just Bold themselves. And besides, if you are attempting to fight an implacable foe without using every trick in the book, wouldn’t you be fighting with your […]

First Day Ah! The delicious scent of morning in a fresh new year, barely out of the package! The coffee smells richer on the first day, and everything is filled with promise. I am weary of the last few weeks of looking back. I can’t take that load of old clothes to the Goodwill yesterday and […]

Singularity I am confused, but I maintain it is not my fault. It is the press of events, the acceleration of the Holidays. The festive days fall on the Weekends this cycle, and it is Saturday that is the last day of a very strange year. Tomorrow should be the day for stillness and hangover recovery, […]

A Dry Martini “I like to have a martini; Two at the very most; After three I’m under the table; After four I’m under my host.” -Dorothy Parker The dark lobby bar was filled with holiday merrymakers. Elegant wood paneling crept tree-quarters of the way up to the high ceiling. An odd mural of Asian […]