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‘The Other Coachella’ Launches Its Own Festival
Each spring, the music world hears the name “Coachella” and thinks of a major two-weekend arts and music festival. So attached are the name and the event that the web address Coachella.Com takes you...
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After the Election, the Renewal Begins
Back in the days before all data was stored everywhere, forever, never to disappear even if you try, writers and composers shared the experience of waking up at 3am, in cold-sweat terrors because of...
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Can Marine One Fly in the Rain?
Why, exactly, did Donald Trump not join Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, and Justin Trudeau at Saturday’s commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the original Armistice Day? I don’t know, and I don’t...
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Trump, Marine One, and the Rain: Pilots and Other Readers Weigh In
Last night I posted an item about weather conditions this past weekend in Paris, when Donald Trump joined other world leaders there, and on how rain and clouds affected helicopters, including Marine...
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A Sikorsky Veteran on Marine One in the Rain
I imagine this will be the last installment in the “weather flying with Marine One” series. Two previous entries here and here. (On the other hand, who knows that the incoming email inbox will hold.)A...
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Are You a Menace to Public Health?
With all the problems plaguing America today, it can be difficult to prioritize which to address. But just because a problem may not be headline-worthy doesn’t mean it isn’t a problem.Take gas-powered...
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Agnosticism and the Gary Hart Case
Last month I had an article in the print magazine about a reported deathbed confession, by the GOP operative Lee Atwater, that he had intentionally set up the Monkey Business escapade that effectively...
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Serving Trump Revealed Who John Kelly Always Was
John Kelly’s forthcoming departure as White House chief of staff is a reminder of an important but underpublicized distinction among those who have chosen to support or work for Donald Trump.The...
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Two Questions About a Surreal Oval Office Exchange
Please read my colleagues Russell Berman, Elaina Plott, and Amanda Mull on the spectacle that took place this afternoon in the Oval Office.Like all but a handful of people, I saw this exchange first...
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Now It’s Up to Congress
Donald Trump is intellectually, emotionally, and ethically unsuited for positions of public responsibility. The Atlantic argued this in an editorial published just before the 2016 presidential...
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Will James Webb Be the Next Secretary of Defense?
One of the odd-but-positive political rumors at the start of this odd year is that Donald Trump is considering former Senator James Webb as a successor to James Mattis as secretary of defense.Among the...
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The Man Who Made Air Travel Better Has Died
Almost everything that is “positive” about the modern air-travel experience, is positive thanks to Southwest Airlines. Upbeat staff and crew attitude, straightforward rather than hyper-opaque pricing,...
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The Trump-Centric Case for Jim Webb as Defense Secretary
Last night I mentioned the latest Trump-appointment rumor: that the successor at the Pentagon to James Mattis, Marine Corps combat veteran and retired four-star general, might be James Webb, Marine...
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Trump Is Grinding the System to a Halt
The nation’s roughly 15,000 air-traffic controllers don’t do exactly what some people might imagine—namely, keep airplanes from completely losing their way or falling out of the sky. As William...
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The Networks Blew the Call
On Tuesday night, Donald Trump is planning to give an address on immigration, the southern border, and the government shutdown that has arisen from his insistence that any budget measure must include...
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Yet Another Reason to End the Shutdown
On Monday I mentioned what the prolonged government shutdown is doing to the nation’s air-travel system: namely, slowing it down.The whole system is based on built-in safety buffers. Everyone within it...
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3 Simple Facts About the Shutdown
Today’s life-in-DC gazette: a little while ago I was in a line at a coffee shop with a middle-aged man, who from his accent I guessed (correctly) was from Nigeria. We talked while we were waiting. His...
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Let Them Eat Vacation Days
From the PBS account on Twitter.This evening on the PBS Newshour, the chair of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors, Kevin Hassett, said this about workers who are going without pay as the...
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Federal Employees, On Dealing with the Shutdown
In response to these past few items — “Let Them Eat Vacation Days,” “3 Simple Facts About the Shutdown,” and “Yet Another Reason to End the Shutdown” — furloughed federal workers write in about their...
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Shutdown Notebook: Decline and Fall
A current member of the U.S. Foreign Service, originally from a non-coastal ag-economy town like those that my wife, Deb, and I have been writing about, describes how the abstraction of “the shutdown”...
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