Rage in the Machine The waters are receding. I checked the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration homepage, suspicious, and was pleasantly surprised to see the banner over the map of the Atlantic Ocean that there was no tropical cyclone activity. This morning there is nothing coming our way, but turning to the Pacific, I saw […]

Second Amendment One of the most powerful storms on record is plowing across the Gulf, apparently headed spot-on for Galveston . It will come ashore within 48 hours. Reports suggest that Rita will find Texas better prepared than Louisiana was, but it is still going to be a slow-motion horror. And the aftermath is going […]

Suite Serendra The Doctor’s name was Amin, like the late dictator of Uganda, and that was all I knew about him, except that he had a contract relationship with the Department of Veterans Affairs. I had a letter directing me to report to his clinic on Beauregard, which is what Walter Reed Drive becomes as […]

Personal Best Of course I am concerned about the German elections. I don’t know how an uneasy political coalition ruling the largest economy is going to affect the future. And yes, of course I am searching for a reason why the Afghan election turn-out is so much smaller than last year. Maybe it means something, […]

Posse Comitatus It is dark and the news contains mixed portents. I am in a mood for the cliché. “In the South,” Faulkner said, “the past is not dead. It isn’t even past. I take some issue with that, since the ground on which I sit was a part of the South, and occupied by […]

Blame Game There must be someone to blame. There has to be. These things cannot just happen as if the universe was a random place. Someone has to pay. It is the system. I think they ought to go back to the big appropriations bills that were passed before the storm and take out the […]

Conveyer Belt The storm is moving slowly. We expected Ophelia to lash us with her gray claws yesterday, but all we saw were some puffy clouds and felt her oppressive humidity. The building was oppressive, too. The garage, down on the third level where you can feel the heat from the earth’s core, was particularly […]

Disaster Medicine I’m not Cassandra. I would never get you to believe that. The most obvious reason is that I am cursed with the XY chromosome, and thus share the dogged ability of all men to continue doing the same thing, over and over, expecting to get a different result. But I do share something […]

Duct Tape I do not want to go to New Jersey today. That should come as no surprise. I suspect it would be fairly low down on your list, too. I have made the train reservations, and the limo will pick me up at Newark ‘s Penn Station, and I said the name twice, so […]

Hidden Storm The good news is that street by street searches as showing fewer corpses than the hysterical mayor had predicted. Like 9/11, the worst case estimate had ranged as high a 10,000 dead. It appears it will be something less than that, thank God, or whoever giveth and taketh away in the aftermath of […]