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“Thought is impossible without an image.” Aristotle A lone man stands stock-still before an armored tank, daring it to move forward, small yet large in his defiance. That picture, a frozen moment from the student uprising in Tiananmen Square, resides indelibly in the minds of all who gazed upon the portrait of singular courage. But now … Continue reading
She was a woman of strength and courage, and the first heroic woman to have a comic book in her own name. Sheena, “Queen of the Jungle,” debuted in the British magazine Wags #1 in 1937, the creation of comic book pioneers Will Eisner and S. M. “Jerry” Iger. As the story goes, Sheena originally arrived in … Continue reading
Appomattox Surrender 1865 Wandering carnage at twilight General Lee espied General Washington surveying, engorged on war now engaged in discourse melancholy for their commonwealth. By bodies boating fell talk of pride and valor the price of tobacco the cost of life banquettes and lunettes demi-lunes and barbettes – vive la France – … Continue reading
Cotton Mather Preaches on Satan Mark Walston exceedingly disturbed, Territory wrested from a devil exceedingly disturbed, the perceived accomplishment of providential possession of the utmost parts irritating, infuriating, immediately precipitating vile machinations to overturn the godly establishment. The mouth of perdition issues a flood for the carrying away of the ignorant and unrepentant, … Continue reading
(Originally appeared in Bethesda Magazine) In August 1861, with the first battle of the Civil War at Manassas, Virginia, resulting in Union forces fleeing in retreat, President Abraham Lincoln embarked from the White House on a carriage ride. With him was Secretary of State William Seward, his son, Frederick, assistant Secretary of State, and General … Continue reading
(Originally appeared in Bethesda Magazine) On April 16, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed into law an act to end slavery in Washington, D.C.—more than eight months before the Emancipation Proclamation. News of the coming abolition in D.C. had spread through nearby Maryland slave communities. Word eventually reached Lewis Swams in his quarters near Sandy Spring. … Continue reading
On Dec. 7, 1941, more than 350 Japanese fighter planes attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, killing about 2,400 people—and igniting a near-hysterical hatred in America of all things Japanese. Two months later, in February 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued an executive order permitting the U.S. Army to remove any individuals … Continue reading
In 1830, Frances Trollope—a petite Englishwoman whose acidic wit would later earn her the sobriquet “Old Madam Vinegar”—arrived in Montgomery County, Maryland, with three children in tow. She had come to summer at Stonington, a friend’s Potomac estate near Great Falls. Immediately, Trollope was taken by the beauty of the Montgomery County countryside. It “perfectly … Continue reading
On December 16, 1773, nearly 60 hatchet-wielding men stormed three ships anchored in Boston Harbor. Frenzied, they hacked open hundreds of chests of tea and dumped the contents overboard. Their rage was fueled by incessant taxes levied by a British Parliament that refused the Americans any participation in proceedings that directly affected their lives. The … Continue reading
Now that the price of gasoline has dropped by half, down to a seven year low, the clamor against the recent cost increases has abated to barely a whisper. America has parked the episode in a back lot, with all the public concerns and private suspicions locked in the trunk, out of sight and mind. … Continue reading
Mark Walston 