A Life Apart Perhaps it is the noted Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer who reminds us the Lincoln marriage was one lived largely apart. During the early years, Abraham Lincoln, a busy Springfield lawyer, rode the circuit, gone for weeks at a time,  with judges and other counsel. They would huddle around a campfire or sleep […]

Sony “Un” Done Leave it to Hollywood to assume that they can make a film depicting the assassination of the world’s most vicious dictator and that he would happily go along with it, perhaps in the spirit of Christmas. Not. North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un, gastric-banded dictator and cheese fanatic, is reportedly behind the hacking of Sony’s IT […]

Make Way for the Elephant Robert Emmett, Irish patriot, was hanged, drawn and quartered in Dublin, Ireland, convicted of leading a failed rebellion for Irish freedom in 1803. He was 25 years old. Emmett was a protestant from a wealthy family, hardly the type to commit “high treason.” But he identified strongly with Catholics in […]

  The Self-Made Man David Rittenhouse (1732-1796)  was a world renowned astronomer, scientist, mathematician, surveyor and inventor. He was also entirely self-taught. Rittenhouse grew up near Germantown, PA.  It is said that at age 13 he had mastered Newton's laws of motion and gravity.  He was one of the first Americans to build a telescope and […]

Notes From The White House Since the federal shut down I have spent some time most days in front of the White House in what might be called a “crazy old man supportive vigil.” I carry a home-made sign saying, “US Shutdown = Tea Party” and a smaller sign saying, “Christ is for Healthcare.” �I […]

I chose death. Let’s be honest, that’s where the drama is.

  The War Relocation Act Seventy-one years ago today Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed an executive order requiring 120,000 mostly Japanese-Americans to report for forced relocation. In the wake of the December 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, politicians, leaders and many others concluded that all Americans exhibiting the features of Japanese ancestry were potential spies, soldiers or […]

  To Apologize for Kindness You may recall that after the Newtown massacre where 20 children and six adults were murdered, an inter-faith memorial service was held. Reverend Rob Morris, a Newtown Lutheran Minister, one of whose young parishioners was among the dead, gave the benediction at the service. Reverend Morris was subsequently forced to […]

  Ellsworth, Lincoln and the NY Volunteers The Smithsonian Museum of American Art is running an exhibition through April 28th, entitled The Civil War and American Art. �It includes 75 works, mostly created during the war by some of America’s most famous artists of the period: Winslow Homer, Frederic Church and Eastman Johnson. �It also […]

The (mostly) federal buildings around the city are adorned with some extraordinary lighting.                                                                                     […]