More Fun than a Barrel of Jihadis

I was about to leave work for the day when my private secretary stopped me just before I made it to the door. “Do you know somebody named Steinstien?” Gretchen inquired, her hand over the receiver mouthpiece. “A couple of people, actually,” I confessed.  “Did this one by any chance mention Joe Biden?” “Yeah,” she… Continue reading More Fun than a Barrel of Jihadis

Tonight’s XO Movie – “Top Gun Misfires”

Military types love to get up early, and so it made sense that Gretchen found a Navy lieutenant waiting for her when she came in at 7:30 to open up this morning.  She told me he’d been there waiting since “oh-seven-hundred” as he put it.  And he didn’t seem to mind waiting a while longer,… Continue reading Tonight’s XO Movie – “Top Gun Misfires”

The Future Just Isn’t What it Used to Be

My father’s older brother, Edward, never changed his last name back to Martini like my father did.  As a matter of fact, when Dad resigned his position as an engineer at General Dynamics and left the Connecticut suburbs for Little Italy in Manhattan and a job tending a bar at the Stuyvesant New Amsterdam Hotel… Continue reading The Future Just Isn’t What it Used to Be

From Belarus, with Fear and Loathing

I got started at eight in the morning today, owing to the fact that my first consultation consisted of a telephone call from President Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk.  It was three in the afternoon there, of course.  President Lukashenko, not being fluent in English, spoke through an interpreter. Interpreter: Hello?  Tom Collins? Tom: This is… Continue reading From Belarus, with Fear and Loathing