The oldest public school in the United States, the Boston Public Latin School, was founded today in the Year of Our Lord 1635. It was a day still locked in the heart of dark winter in New England, the summer months away. The stern Fathers of the day must have figured it was a good […]

Christopher Marquis wrote from the Imperial City on the Potomac yesterday: “As the Haitian crisis deepens, with violence flaring and President Jean-Bertrand Aristide locked in an impasse with his opponents, the Bush administration has placed itself in the unusual position of saying it may accept the ouster of a democratic government.” There is nothing unusual […]

It is a good day for Senator John Kerry. He won big in the Virginia primary. I thought about voting yesterday. It is a novel feeling, being able to declare a party affiliation after so many years of rigorous non-partisanship. But I think the Democratic Party has pretty much sorted itself out for the race […]

I spent the day assembling the Murphy Bed. I think I am probably only a month away from completion, and have resigned myself to sleeping on the floor amid the parts. But there is room for optimism. I have heat and light and the whole of a Sunday to fritter away. I took the elevator […]

I ordered Chinese after Sam the Shutter guy finally got done with the job last night. Sam has a sandy chort beard and intense blue eyes. He is a perfectionist. I wondered about offering him beer while he was trying to complete the installation of the Plantation shutters on the big glass windows. But he […]

There is a winter storm warning declared for today, a mix of sleet and snow predicted to fall atop the icy residue of last week. We had recovered sufficiently that I washed the car of the crusty layer of salt and chemicals. So the return of winter is technically my fault, and I apologize. I […]

The center of gravity at Big Pink shifted abruptly yesterday 5:15PM. The happy equilibrium of gravity and altitude came crashing down, the lode-star shifting in the heavens and plunging toward the frozen drifts around the forlorn swimming pool under its taut green cover and crusted snow. The cable company came and shut down my service. […]

Ranger 6 crashed into the moon forty years ago, one of the survey craft to help get us ready to land on the moon. My Uncle Jim designed the camera systems that sent the images back to earth digitally, prior to its lunar demise. It was quite a development, but he was very cagey about […]

“Your e-mails will be passed on to those who can make decisions.” That is what the host said on the BBC World Update. I was up early because the morning show was all about spooks and journalists and policymakers. Once a junkie, always a junkie. There is an uneasy balance amongst these tribes on both […]

It is winter and I wondered what the hell I was doing, out on the road. My motto in Washington is “If it’s snowing, I ain’t going.” Yet here I was, snow crunching beneath my wheels, the front end of the Sebring seeking its own way through the packed snow. I had thought about this […]