What whiskey won’t cure there is no cure for. Irish proverb read more »

It is simply a myth that the world is anywhere close to multipolar. Jo Inge Bekkevold, Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies read more »

As a result of the accelerating decline in Europe’s global influence and reach … the overrepresentation of Europeans in global institutions is the greatest flaw in the international architecture. Walter Russell Mead read more »

As we saw last week, President Xi understood (as observers in the West did not) that China’s growth model was exhausted and that the only known strategy for continued growth was to transition to a Western-style consumer-led economy. That had been the strategy used by other now-wealthy Asian societies. read more »

The vaunted China model … has entered its death throes. Michael Schuman in The Atlantic read more »

A Committee of Inquiry was investigating Angie’s attempted suicide at VA, and now the chair and vice chair of the Committee had been in Rich’s office for an hour and a half. They finally left, looking grim, and Rich had remained in his office alone for a long time. Then he summoned Meg and me in. read more »

Meg and I had been enjoying some serious quality time on the couch in VA’s front room when Meg suddenly froze – she’d heard something. read more »

Disaster strikes

As I’ve mentioned, from my first day at VA I’d been flirting vigorously with Meg Petronius, albeit to no avail. What I didn’t know was that Meg had recently ended a troubled, long-term relationship and the last thing she wanted was to fall into another one. read more »

The Resignation

Meg had asked me to tell the girls they could get out of their beds but I’d told her I couldn’t, “Because I don’t work here anymore.” read more »

I’d just broken up a fight between Earl and Eddie – I was seriously disappointed in Earl and had sent him to the front room to serve a time-out until bedtime. Earl had been a good Head Boy, he had a good job at a sawmill and he was on his way to being a productive grownup. The possibility that he would throw it all away by losing his temper and attacking Eddie was extremely frustrating. read more »