More than 6 million people live in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, but only about 700,000 live in the actual District of Columbia. The rest live in the suburbs, Maryland, and Northern Virginia. Thanks to a federal government that spends $6 trillion per year — more than one-fifth of the entire economy — these suburbs […]

The Empire Strikes Back famously features a string of Imperial officers being summarily executed by Darth Vader as their horrified successors look on with concern. The lesson? Sometimes, one climbs the ladder only to fall from a greater height. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), the man who has succeeded Mitch McConnell as the Republicans’ […]

Peter Hujar’s place in American photography was summed up aptly, and not a little harshly, deep within the biography of another photographer. Hujar’s career, Patricia Morrisroe wrote in Mapplethorpe, was “a shadow version” of her subject’s. “The two men might be compared,” she goes on, “to … Mozart and Salieri.”  So let’s compare. Both men […]

The new year is off like a rocket. 2025 has dawned with more optimism than we’ve known for years. Inhaling that hopeful air, I asked my Army team leader and good friend, retired Army Master Sgt. Mike Preston, about his goals in the new year. “I don’t do New Year’s resolutions,” the party pooper said. […]