An Amish man and his seven year old son ride north on Stone Street in an open black carriage wagon behind a magnificent black Arabian. I raise my hand in greeting and shout out “A lovely horse, that!” The Amish man grins broadly and shakes the reins slightly.… Read full post »

Précis : The Atchafalaya River basin fill with the overflow of half a continent’s worth of weather. I pore over Google Earth and the drainage maps from the Army Corps of Engineers. The maps meet my memory in some places but it’s a big state.… Read full post »

While I was yet still in meat-space, we neatly divided up the world between the living and the dead. Kids like me were told stories of ghosts, returned from the dead to terrify the living. It's all kind of funny, because the people still in… Read full post »

Précis: In the era of President Obama, the term “post-racial” has been bandied about with glib abandon. America learns its geography from the war reporting: we now know who the Pashtun and Kurds are, if not with much precision. Mankind has always… Read full post »

Once there was Louis Gottschalk, a piano virtuoso who grew up on Rampart Street in that wicked old town named New Orleans. Gottschalk was born in 1829, a prolific composer of what to the modern ear would be sentimental tunes, but in his day, his praises were sung by no… Read full post »

In the world of belles-lettres, Christopher Hitchens distinguished himself early. Where many other Christians have condemned him, I have long admired him. Hitchens’ own spiritual journey is a recondite and eloquent struggle against religious authorities which so consumed Jesus Christ himsel… Read full post »

There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery. - George Washington

Propped up in bed one night, falling asleep I watched a locally produced program about Rosedown Plantation. The… Read full post »

 By the time we'd packed my life up into my Rodeo, it was already 10. Six lanes per side of AZ 60 becomes a two-lane road as we enter the Superstition Mountains. C shoots out the window, her iPod playing modern country.

… Read full post »

Water and heat define this place. Even the locals fan themselves and complain of them to me. Compared to Nigeria or Asian jungle this is par for the course. This I keep to myself; it is never wise to trump someone's complaint with… Read full post »