When Mitt Romney announced his candidacy, I figured, “Well, at least he’s a pragmatist.”  He appeared not to believe in anything other than what was necessary to win elections, and if winning the nomination meant disavowing his accomplishments as Governor of Massacnhusetts, he was perfectly okay with doing that.  He ran to the right of […]

Behold!  The “raw art,” as it were, for the ebook reissue of Ambassador of Progress. While it doesn’t literally illustrate any scenes in the book, it’s nicely atmospheric, and gets the main point of the story across. By the British artist Phil Booth, aka “Philzero.”

Behold a photo of a rather small portion of the Chicago skyline, taken at night from across the bay at the planetarium. Downtown Chicago was a banquet of architectural delights.  The Great Chicago Fire meant the whole city had to start all over from scratch, and over the decades the tall buildings went up in […]

I’ve had this instrumental tune going through my head for the better part of a week.  I had no idea what the tune was or where I’d first heard it— because it was instrumental and full of brass, I assumed it was from the sound track of some movie I’d seen at some point in […]