Tag: Washington D.C.
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#41: The 2024 Olympic Games
In 1972, the “darkest day in Olympic history” occurred during the Summer Games in Munich. Largely in part to the criticism of government forces having killed numerous revolutionaries protesting the 1968 Olympics in Mexico, it was decided that the German police guarding Munich four years later would be unarmed and nonconfrontational. Taking advantage of this…
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#30: Operation Santa Claus
U.S. government employees who are experts in economics, politics, defense, agriculture, trade, security, technology, public relations, environmental issues, and other topics are dispersed in nearly 300 locales across the globe. But diplomacy is not a unilateral concept. In fact, it doesn’t work at all without reciprocity. This is precisely why there are a few thousand…
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#25: Black Gun
This is a follow-up to Blog #23: Red Gun, Blue Gun In the back half of the first millennium of the Common Era, Chinese alchemists seeking immortality created a dark powdery substance which they named huǒyào. Literally translated by character interpretation as “fire medicine”, huǒyào is the modern Chinese word for gunpowder. In the first…
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#12: Leaving D.C.
“I think the tough times are finally behind me. There will always be bad things, but my life is good. It is as I want it to be. It’s good.” -Sera, played by Elizabeth Shue in the 1995 film Leaving Las Vegas. What is your travel style? I know men who refuse to check a…
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#6: A Close Up View of Our Nation’s Capital
“Wherever the American citizen may be a stranger, he is at home here.” -Frederick Douglass, speaking of Washington, D.C. in 1877 Nearly two decades ago this very week, I stood atop the marble steps of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial on a gloomy winter day in Washington, D.C. My thick jacket, gloves, and beanie felt foreign…
The Dark Passport 