Notícias

During a brief and unsuccessful attempt at becoming a flaneur, and working off some excess weight, I found myself in an unfamiliar part of my city. Making my way down a street of boxy concrete structures, overshadowed by the ancient volcanic presence of the igneous mass known as Arthur's Seat, I become aware of footsteps echoing my own. Behind me, to my surprise, was a man in raincoat, snap-brimmed fedora and aviator glasses, a detective or secret agent from a dated B-movie, as out-of-place on this modern street as a capybara in a haulage firm's accounting department (not the most elegant simile, but it will serve). The anonymous figure shadowing me might have been dismissed as a lone eccentric, except that up ahead I espied three elderly figures, two women and a man, who was sat upon a low wall. As I neared them, I became aware of a strange...

Photograph by Olaf Blecker

An Information Hound: Mullen grabs a few minutes to read the newspaper in his Pentagon office. | Photo: Olaf Blecker

Admiral Mike Mullen says the sea was his business. Now, as America's top military officer, he's reshaping strategy for a world in which economics and security are intertwined.

On the evening of January 6, Admiral Mike Mullen got into his armored SUV and girded himself for the last meeting of his day. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had been up since well before dawn -- he'd gone to the gym at 4:30 that morning. A bad cold was making him feel as if his head were stuffed with gauze. And his aides? Slave drivers! He'd wanted to cancel his appearance on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, but he had done that once before, and they thought it would be bad form to back out again.