Running Iron Report

Poverty, injustice, over breeding, overpopulation, suffering, oppression, military rule, squalor, torture, terror, massacre: these ancient evils feed and breed on one another in synergistic symbiosis. To break the cycles of pain at least two new forces are required: social equity — and birth control. Population control. Our Hispanic neighbors are groping toward this discovery. If we truly wish to help … Read More

If there is one principle I am steadfast to uphold, it’s that a man’s waist size should always be smaller than his inseam.  If your inseam is 36, and you wake up to find your waist is a 38, you have crossed the bridge into a contrary life.

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The king is an imbecile. The realm is in anarchy as partisan factions cleave to their banners, supporting one or the other rival claimants to the throne — represented by the Red Rose and the White. Civil war on a massive and bloody scale scourges the land… If this sounds like the premise of an epic fantasy, it is: the … Read More

I had promised a different piece this week, but had a friend and his wife stop in for the weekend and that threw me off my game.  They were up from Paso Robles, California, where they raise wine grapes – Syrah, Petite Syrah — on a magnificent chunk of the central coast, and also to pick up some elk meat I’d been holding for them in our freezer since our hunt last fall. And, as things go, the weekend vanished in an insalubrious 72‐hour fete that left me feeling like I’d spent the weekend with Robert Plant and the boys in a chapter from Hammer of the Gods.

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I have become mildly obsessed with the AMC show TURN: Washington’s Spies. I got sucked into this drama on Netflix and have now made it nearly through its four seasons, sneaking in an episode almost every day in the early evenings. The show is historically challenged in many respects, but — taken on its own terms and merits — it … Read More

I was reflecting the other night that, other than chase cows on the desert, play shortstop for the Yankees, and do some decent shooting, I’ve only ever wanted to write.  I published my first piece when I was five.  That’s a grandiose vision, and meant to be funny, but it is also true although it wasn’t really writing.  It was a picture I drew — an alligator sliding into a swamp — which even after all these years isn’t really that bad for a first effort.  I’m still drawing alligators sliding into swamps, it seems, and we are fortunate these days to be able to share our thoughts and visions broadly. … Read More

Stuff that works Stuff that holds up The kind of stuff you don’t hang on the wall Stuff that’s real Stuff you feel The kind of stuff you reach for when you fall — Guy Clark * “When I finished, he just looked at me and said, ‘Good work’ . That’s what Guy said when he dug a song. Those are … Read More

Consider this: The German Wehrmacht is generally considered the toughest and highest‐quality fighting force of the Second World War — perhaps of the whole 20th Century. Yet, when confronted by military disaster in North Africa, at Stalingrad or in the collapse of their defenses in France in 1944, German units surrendered wholesale. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of officers and … Read More

Each year on St. Patrick’s Day my wife and I celebrate our wedding anniversary.  18 years ago on St. Patrick’s day we eloped and were married at the Chapel of the Bells on 4^thStreet in Reno.  Ten minutes earlier there had been a funeral in the same chapel, and I was so broke I couldn’t even afford the VHS tape of the nuptials.  Two decades later I wouldn’t change a thing.

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I’m a big believer in “safe spaces.” I will stipulate that my definition is non‐standard. Merriam‐Webster Dictionary defines a “safe space” thus: “A place (as on a college campus) intended to be free of bias, conflict, criticism, or potentially threatening actions, ideas, or conversations.” Bah! I may be tilting at a windmill here, but that’s wrong. At least it should … Read More