The First Words

A lot is being made, and justifiably so, out of a number of previous Inaugural Addresses.  Just the other night, all the Obamas read, on the north wall of the temple in which the 16th President’s memory is enshrined forever, the model to which the President...

An Era of Feeling Good

I took two walks earlier today. Despite the dire warnings of the media about the ghastly human gridlock that was (and probably will be tomorrow) inevitable, I braved the Metro system, and wandered around the Mall and the White House precincts for about an hour this...

Vincent Ford 1940 – 2009

Good friends we have had, Oh, good friends we’ve lost along the way. In this great future you can’t forget your past. The Gilberto Gil cover of “No Woman No Cry” has been working its way to the top of my TNN Weekly Weekend Reward queue for...

Very Heaven On The Potomac

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,But to be young was very heaven! Wordsworth’s vision of 1789 is no less true in 2009 as hordes of young uns descend on Washington to begin their jobs in the Obama administration. JFK brought numbers of younger-than-usual...

Recommended Listening

The BBC’s excellent arts magazine radio program  The Strand invited several writers and poets to compose “open letters” to Barack Obama on the occasion of his inauguration. The two that most impressed and moved me were those by journalist, author,...

“A Man Of The Center”

It’s starting to look more and more as if the inauguration of President-elect Obama may augur an Era of Good Feelings not seen in the United States since James Monroe left the White House in 1825. Last week, a speaker at a public library not far from Richard...