This is an election year. It’s a war year, the fifth, soon to be the sixth. It’s a recession year. If recent trends continue, it will be a year of heat, drought and storms. All of this year’s presidential candidates – the ones that have dropped from the race and the ones still in – […]
Did you heave a sigh of relief on January 20th? Did you think, “Finally, we’ve got less than a year before we get these criminals out of the White House”? Don’t celebrate yet. The Bush/Cheney appetite for crime will likely increase, if anything, in the months ahead. This morning’s Washington Post gives good examples. Attorney […]
Happy New Year. Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the launch of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. Tet, short for Tet Nguyen Dan, is the Vietnamese new year. Based on a lunar calendar, Tet will begin on 7 February this year. I’ve been thinking about the Tet Offensive because 1968 was an election year. The […]
In the autumn of 1979, I was a college freshman; majoring in history and watching it unfold. The Solidarity movement emerged from the shipyards of Gdansk as I arrived at school. Eight weeks later, Iranian students took staff at the US embassy in Tehran hostage. Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan on Christmas Eve. Each event sounded […]
The big news this week is that a new National Intelligence Estimate says Iran ceased work toward nuclear weapons in 2003, contradicting everything George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have been saying about Iran for the past several years. We here at MarkFloegel.org (well OK, it’s just me) know the ins and outs of this […]
The autumn afternoons are ripe and warm; the mornings are heavy with dew that is not yet frost, but soon. It’s the annual nostalgia for the summer passed and anxiety for the winter to be endured. I was staring through the window at the blaze orange of a sugar maple the other day, caught up […]
General Wheeler’s War
On the morning of June 24, 1898, American forces advanced toward Las Guasimas, Cuba under the command of Brigadier General Joseph “Fighting Joe” Wheeler. The aged general was a cavalry commander who’d fought for the Confederates in the Civil War. Heavy fire from Spanish troops halted the advance and battle ensued. Gen. Wheeler called for […]