By the time I finally got to the Hot Box at the end of the day I was not at my best.   It was business and I hate doing business after dinner. Normally my day would be done. I had been up early and writing frantically, traveling to the Arctic in my mind, […]

It is ten years since the genocide began in the heat of Rwanda. The generals are muttering about sending more troops to Iraq, just for a while, just to settle things down in Falluja. I feel sometimes that we are traveling in a pasty gray winter of the soul. The University of Connecticut won the […]

I came home for lunch yesterday, an unusual luxury. My little place was almost equidistant from the Agency where I had an early appointment and the office. It was also almost a direct line past the Department of Motor Vehicles on Four Mile Run, so I took advantage of the middle of the working day […]

Wheelchairs Sheihk Ahmed Yassin was blown up yesterday leaving a mosque in Gaza. He was a paraplegic, and the only weapon he had was his fiery rhetoric. The image of his shattered wheelchair, covered in blood, is rocketing around the world, and people are very angry indeed. A helpless old man, shredded by the detonation […]

The Dress Boutique I have never bought a fine classic car from an antique dress boutique, but apparently I did last night. There was some confusion in the residence and I was not at the top of game. Maryland had just lost a close one in the second round of the NCAA tournament and the […]

Cedric the Great It was the last day of winter and I was walking into one of the Agency buildings. It was not one of the famous ones, though the Chinese restaurant across the street was said to have a silent partner in the People’s Liberation Army. I had to swipe my badge through the […]

Ramblers I was out rambling around the town yesterday after a day in the vault. It is a most secure vault in an anonymous building. They don’t want us bothered on the project we are working, which is an examination of military intelligence with an eye toward reorganization and realignment. It is very sensitive, since […]

Dragon Patchy fog and rain this morning, cold and dank. It snowed in the night, though it did not stick. Old names and new ones floated through my dreams. I blame the neighbors for my fitful sleep. The Ironworkers returned late lfrom their celebration of the Patron Saint of Ireland, and befuddled with spirits, missed […]

Anno Domini The players are all set this morning. There are fire-fights in Waziristan, in the tribal area of north Pakistan, and the big Spring Offensive is underway. Revanchist Iraqis are well into it, continuing to murder American civilians in the Sunni Triangle. President Arisitide, accompanied by Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California, has returned to […]

The First Thing I was going to write this morning about Sedna, the new quasi-planet that is so far out there that it comes from the cloud of ice. The first thing I heard about it was that it was a new planet, or at least that if Pluto is a planet, then Sedna is […]