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
Hard and Nasty Boehner Goes Soft
Kevin McCarthy represents the twenty-second California congressional district, and this November, the Republicans selected him to be the new Majority Whip in the 112th Congress, which will assume power in January. Meanwhile, Eric Cantor, who represents the seventh district of Virginia, is Minority Whip in the current 111th Congress, and is certain to be the… Continue reading Hard and Nasty Boehner Goes Soft
Steele, the Moor of First Street Southeast
This evening, just after I had just been seated at 1789, my Blackberry cheerfully announced a caller – but there was no ID – blocked, apparently. I knew it wasn’t Cerise, because she had called me before I left the office to let me know, that due to unavoidable circumstances which had suddenly arisen at… Continue reading Steele, the Moor of First Street Southeast