: About Me

I am a long-term American expat in the Philippines and full-time freelancer, which confers the unique benefit of allowing me to be whatever I need to be in any particular situation. Business process consultant? Sure, I do that. Economic policy analyst? No problem. Civil society and media observer? Practically have it tattooed on my forehead. Romance novelist? Okay, you got me there. But I did marry one.

Being a writer - a real writer, I mean, one who has to work 12 or 14 hours a day to both satisfy the absolutely rudderless feeling not having a keyboard under one's fingers causes, and the more mundane needs for food and shelter - is not what I ever imagined it would be like. It's frustrating and stressful, and truth be told, doesn't really pay all that well. Works for me - I couldn't imagine doing or being anything else.

My passion is ...

Negotiable. People and ideas change over time, it's part of what makes life interesting.

I know too much about ...

I hope I never have the hubris to claim to know too much about anything.

My parents always told me ...

Too many things I wish I'd paid more attention to.

My childhood ambition ...

Changed on a weekly or even daily basis, because I had an undisciplined imagination.

My favorite memory ...

Is nobody's business but my own.

Why I write ...

Because apparently it's an autonomic function; I can no sooner stop writing than I can stop my own heart. Also, I get paid for it.

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

Daily news articles from about 70 different sources for work purposes, and Gorky Park (again) just for fun.

My first job ...

Mowing fairways at a golf course.

My best moment ...

I'm too much of a relativist to pick one.

My inspiration ...

Annoyance, more often than not.

Arts & Humanities > 19th Century US History Pivotal battles that affected the outcome of the Civil War

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To say that one battle in the Civil War was more important than another seems a bit unfair to the men who fought in them, but there were several battles that had ramifications for the course of the war, and indeed the course of American history, out of all proportion to the action on the field. One battle fought in the East, small in scale but gigantic in consequences, is worthy of closer examination for the impact it had on the war and the nation. On October 20, 1861, General McClellan, then commanding the Union armies from Washington, ordered Brig. Gen. Charles P. Stone to use units of h...

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