The sky is a blanket of gray wool, cloaking Arlington in a soft, moist mist. There is no sturm and drang, though the weather channel is promising me that some of that Germanic vigor is in store for later. I am a civilian this morning, just as I was yesterday. It is a new feeling, […]

The Great Helmsman passed away today, taking his last swim up the Yangsi River. Last of the Big Boys, he was, last of the great generation of movers and shakers. I was about to join the Navy when he passed, the dust hadn’t settled over Vietnam and I and was driving a Chevy about the […]

My son called from college yesterday. I had told him he had to check in once a week and Sunday was a good day for him to do it. He said he had been out looking for a bike, since the distances on his campus are vast and he does not like to walk. He […]

There was a tide of emotion surging through the holy city yesterday. Thousands poured in from throughout the country, walking to the corner of the sacred shrine where their spiritual leaders were last seen. I’m not talking about the Shrine of Ali, either, as you well know. That was going on, of course. They will […]

I could write about the unending misery out there in the wide world but I can’t bring myself to do it this morning. The Marital Dog is visiting, and his liquid brown eyes greeted me before five this morning. He needed to go out. I was happy to take him. The world is good this […]

It is raining and thundering again out there. The morning is coming in with lightning and loud banging, another wave following the one that blew through in the night. We have been battered daily by massive electrical storms, the one that started the week knocking out the power across the National Capital Region. We aren’t […]

It is a slow news day. There was a stampede at a Hindu religious festival in western India. The dust has only begun to settle on the terrorist bombings in Bombay. I can’t get used to calling it “Mumbai,” which is what the government wants to do to ease English out as the national lingua […]

Mars is hanging over Washington like an orange basketball. OK, OK, maybe not that dramatic. I am accused sometimes of hyperbole, and I do believe that nothing exceeds like excess. But Mars is bright in the night sky, not at all subtle. This is a shout-out apparition. Mars, god of War, muse of the hard, […]

It was cool on the balcony. James Wilkins, Staff Meteorologist of The Weather Channel tells me that the dry air will continue here for a few days. That should be good for the merchants at the shore, and the run-up to the last big holiday of the season. The coolness makes me dream of the […]

I hope that Leni Riefenstahl’s one hundred and first birthday was memorable. I hope there was a glass of champagne and several naps. She is the last one left, the last one who had a major role in how those awful decades played out, and she was a cog in the machine that casued so […]