I love the summer season. Most people do. There’s much time spent outside, at the beach, lake, parks, you name it. For us, it’s time on the Potomac River or, as the Algonquian tribe named it, “Patawomke” meaning “River of Swans.” It is a favorite place for our family. We sit and enjoy its majestic Read more
Earlier this week, an 18-year-old murderer took the lives of teachers and elementary school children. This morning, twenty-one families awoke again to the horror that their children, their precious ones, were taken from them in a deadly and cowardly act. There’s no reason to name the killer. He deserves just one appellation. Evil. The only Read more
Why did an 18-year-old white supremacist man walk into a Buffalo supermarket and mow down innocent people in a racially-inspired mass murder? Why did a Chinese U.S. citizen in California a day later walk into a Christian church of Taiwanese Americans, killing one parishioner and wounding ten others even as Read more
Where are the leaders? In the course of American history, leaders of vision have blessed our nation. That was certainly the case with our Founding Fathers. These men were highly educated. That alone is a lesson for us today. There is no substitute for leaders to be knowledgeable, to understand history, to have read and Read more
Abortion is an intensely emotional issue. For people like me, it’s a matter of genuine religious conviction that we protect innocent life as understood in natural law. For others it’s a presumed Constitutional right. I say “presumed” because there has been much debate on whether or not abortion is a right per se secured under Read more
Two years ago, I began writing these weekly missives in the hope that somehow, I could share a bit of wisdom that has accumulated over the years. The update this week marks number 100 in my effort to do so. I’m sure it comes as no surprise to most of my Read more
When you take a long trip as Shelley and I are doing this week, crossing half of our great continent, you have time to think about things. In a moment of silence when I had muted the radio, I asked Shelley what was on her mind. She is a deep thinker. I wasn’t Read more
For the next two weeks, we’ll be on the road visiting our kids and grandkids in Kansas City. So, I just wanted to touch on a few items this week. Officers of the First Division Dinner: Every year since the end of WWI, the officers of the 1st Infantry Division who have served Read more
I have listened closely to those who have debated one side or the other concerning the role the West should play in Ukraine’s struggle for survival. Vladimir Putin’s war crime-laced naked aggression against Ukraine is nauseating. One need only see the pictures that are now becoming available in the news to see Read more
The war in Ukraine—one that amounts to naked aggression by Russia—has set the stage for a tutorial on failed diplomacy. By failed I mean in the signals that diplomats and national leaders send when they are glib. Sadly, the United States has led the way when it comes to sending the wrong Read more