They tried to get the replica Wright Flyer to fly at Kitty Hawk yesterday, but it didn’t work. It was raining, which made the replica heavier, and the launch rail had more resistance, and although the front end pitched up briefly, they couldn’t get it airborne on two tries. There were over 35,000 people there […]

They flew a hundred years ago, just about the time this flew into your in-box. The stern brothers with their celluloid collars, sons of the Bishop, eager to get home for the holidays. They flew through the experiment, both the brothers getting two hops in. When the kite flipped over after Wilbur’s longest flight, they […]

The Wright Brothers flew this week a century ago, and we can forgive the Brazilians and the New Zelanders who phlegratically say that their native sons were actually the first to right a heavier-than-air machine into the heavens. Or a couple feet above the sands at Kitty Hawk, in the case of the Wrights. “Wind […]

The Saddam thing is still rolling over everyone this morning. The comenators can�t talk about anything else. The deposed dictator and newest Federal Prisoner is unlocated. He may be in Qatar, or someplace undisclosed. Maybe Guantanamo by now. His last words in the wild are reported as being “I am the President of Iraq and […]

George Washington, Prince Albert and Andrie Sakarov all died on the 14th of December, perhaps agitated by the approach of the holidays. Maybe their shopping wasn’t done. I was in pretty good shape in that regard. I rose this morning to contemplate the mystery of the coming days, and to turn a weather eye to […]

The New Year is coming, like it or not. I was sitting in the watch turn-over meeting at the Department yesterday morning. They do it at ten because the Watch Center that coordinates Homeland Security is in the District, and you can’t get there at rush hour. By ten, most people have got themselves sorted […]

We killed a bunch of kids in Afghanistan yesterday, the second group of youngsters we inadvertently blew away in as many days. The wounded in the bombings at Mosul and Red Square have barely got the stitches in, and off we go again. There is something abroad in the land. The Democrats barely won the […]

There are bombs in Mosul this morning, dozens of Americans wounded, and some Chechen woman blew herself a a few dozen Russians in Red Square. Al Gore formally endorsed Howard Dean for the Democratic nomination for President. It is way early and I do not know what it means. I cannot begin to write about […]

I am discombobulated this morning. Not only is Dan Damon doing a bit on the resurgence of canabalism, made possible by the internet, but I have to be at the guardshack at Nebraska Avenue at 0645. I am late before I begin this morning. The Internet! What an astonishing means to link the darkest desires […]

I rose in the darkness and screwed around withthe coffee maker and the bacon. I like the baon crisp and as flat as possible, probably a raction to the tangled mass that my Mother used to serve up when we were kids. The rich smells rose from the kitchen and wafted around me as I […]