Category Archives: Commentary

The Hard Luck Holiday

1/1/1998 – 1:38 pm

Happy New Year, the hard-luck holiday. It was ten years ago this week that I was riding around Washington, DC in a crowded car and asked my fellow travelers to share their favorite memories of past New Year celebrations. My request was followed by several minutes during which the only sound was the clatter of […]

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One From the Heart

12/25/1997 – 11:14 am

Merry Christmas. By now, I’m sure you’ve opened your gifts, eaten too many Christmas cookies and nearly burned the house down by stuffing too much wrapping paper into the fireplace at once. By now, I’m sure it’s mid-afternoon, the frenzy of morning has passed and the next batch of relatives is not due for another […]

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Twenty People, One Vote

12/18/1997 – 11:13 am

So now we approach the solstice and our days are growing short, the year draws to an end. In this season, I always find myself reflecting on the year that is passing away. Six months ago this week, as our hemisphere reached out toward the sun, I was brooding about Hong Kong. The British were […]

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Greeting of the Season

12/11/1997 – 11:12 am

I moved to Vermont a few weeks ago, away from Seattle with all of its growth and gridlock and hypercaffeination. I moved to Vermont where winter is still winter and the current one is just moving in. I look out my window and watch the slate gray sky and the stone gray water of Lake […]

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Operators Are Standing By

12/4/1997 – 11:11 am

When I was in college, I was once unable to be present during the registration period and asked my roommate to do it for me. It was for that reason that I spent the spring semester of 1981 studying Bioethics in Public Policy. It did nothing toward satisfying the requirements for my degree, but after […]

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There is No Santa Claus

11/27/1997 – 11:09 am

Happy Thanksgiving. As this is the most American of holidays, it is fitting that its meaning should evolve and take on different significance for each passing generation. Where settlers once gave thanks for the sustaining gifts of the harvest, Americans in later years paused to celebrate freedom from want in this much-blessed land and later […]

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Tell It to the Marines

11/20/1997 – 11:08 am

The US Army suffered another casualty last week at the hands of its long-term foe. I’m not talking about the biological weapons of Saddam Hussein; I’m talking about the political allies of the United States Marine Corps. It seems last month, Assistant Secretary of the Army Sara Lister said some unkind things about the Marines. […]

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