Socotra House Publishing: Purveyor of Glib Words to the World

Socotra House Publishing is a small press dedicated to publishing and distributing the historical works of Vic Socotra, a non-mortal fellow who captures American and military history with aplomb. SOCOTRA HOUSE PUBLICATIONS, LLC, MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES ABOUT THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THIS SERVICE. INFORMATION PROVIDED BY SOCOTRA HOUSE IS INTENDED AS A SENSIBLE GOOD GOVERNMENT SUPPORT STREAM. AS A MATTER OF CONVENIENCE, NOTHING CONTAINED IN THIS AGREEMENT CONSTITUTES A SOLICITATION, RECOMMENDATION, PROMOTION, ENDORSEMENT, OR OFFER BY SOCOTRA HOUSE OF ANY PARTICULAR PUBLIC POLICY, DEFENSE OR INTELLIGENCE ORGANIZATIONAL POLICY OR ACTION.

The Seventy Days

The above is a striking and unmodified image taken from the back deck of The Farm down in Culpeper County. It was taken one afternoon around the time of the last General Election for the office of President of the United States, and we used it as the backdrop to a short account of how a sitting Chief Executive was deposed and power transferred to another.

It was not unprecedented at the time, though rare in occurrence. Things since have accelerated in excitement, speed and hysteria since then.

Apparently, we thought it was a little remarkable back then. The account spans the discrete number of days from the last election to the inauguration of the current one. We did not think it was a trailblazing account or anything of the sort. What we were attempting was to capture the specific emotion that went along with the departure of one partisan figure and the arrival of another.

It is available for free on Amazon’s Kindle publishing enterprise, issued in 2021. It will help to give some context to the partisan carnival we are currently attending. We thought the emotion of that time was worth capturing, since it was not unprecedented but it was unusual. This next one may be that and something else.

We will try to capture the highlights of these next few months, since there may be some dramatic events coming that really are without previous occurrence. We have been scribbling regularly about some of the subsequent events.

These include a major war in a place called “Ukraine.” Conflict there is hardly unprecedented. In fact, it has been in progress in various incarnations over the last few hundred years. Another struggle with ancient lineage is in progress on the border between Israel and Gaza. With those angry developments in progress, add mutterings about an atomic-related resolution and you can see why this all has attracted a certain amount of interest.

This all came up with the idea of matching the first seventy days with coverage of a slightly longer dramatic period that is approaching. At this moment, It appears to feature the departure of current leadership and a struggle over what is next. This one could be like some previous transitions, including the #1 and #2 positions and reinstallation of another.

One thing we are sure of. This is likely to include some unprecedented aspects of national history. Some are claiming it could include an end to something called “Democracy.” That isn’t our current form of government as you well know, though there are elements of it laying around in a haphazard manner.

Stay with us. We will try to keep you covered!

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra

www.vicsocotra.com

Suspending Disbelief


(The Mexican Expedition, 1916)

These are challenging times for the retired analytic community. We have a distinct baseline composed of belief and truth, at least to the extent we can tell the difference. We veered into that one with the usual mass of reporting this morning. There were more criminal acts committed by- what are we supposed to call them now? “Newly Arrived Criminals?”

Most of us here recall the 1970s and the hard-to-believe stories of those days. Crime was surging out of control, but at least no one claimed that the situation was “OK.” Action was taken across the country to toughen standards of justice, including mandatory minimum sentences and things like “Three Strikes Laws” that imposed mandatory long jail terms for repeat offenders. We freely acknowledge that they may have had an overstated impact on the segment of the population who were engaged in criminal behavior and their subsequent incarceration. Maybe it went too far, but that is just what people were saying as we stumbled into our current mess.

That legitimate concern turned into something more akin to a hallucination. “The Police are the problem!” goes the mantra, not the criminals. We will undoubtedly see the pendulum swing back the other way as outrages continue to mount. The ones this morning included reports of newly arrived non-citizens driving on the wrong side of highways hitting other motorists head-on, legal visitors to the United States being caught in civic fire-fights and dragged beneath cars for two city blocks. Or the girl whose head was smashed repeatedly against the concrete, captured on video in a gang assault. Which is not to bring up the now “old-news” of Laken Riley’s vicious murder.

These emotional pendulae take their time to arc through the extremes of public expression. So, there is that, and we expect there will be a response. But that also represents the “old think” of which we are guilty. This time, some have sworn not to allow the pendulum to perform its natural swinging motion and make it stop. Like right now.

This seems to be headed for trouble, with millions of non-citizens swarming across our border, but of course that is more antique thinking. Those of us of a certain age recall the events at Waco and Ruby Ridge as a mark of how things can unexpectedly come off the rails. But that requires you to know about rails and the hurtling locomotive of our nation. We had something else to consider this morning. We will try to keep it short and focused to see what you may think, since we have lurched from real concern to frank disbelief.

One of our sources of morning messaging is the Epoch Times. They ran an updated story today from correspondent Brad Jones about events on the Border. He clarified some earlier reporting that can only be described as bewildering. He claims some of the activity in San Diego County isn’t just “migrants” seeking “economic freedom and justice.”

Some of them are, according to video imagery, Mexican Army troops carrying fully automatic weapons in what used to be California. We used to live there and some of our families still do. It is thus a matter of increasing concern, since it appears the view of a “border” between the US and Mexico can be a unilateral misperception. There is a tradition that belies our belief that there is something legal- in fact “sacred” about the boundary between our nations.

We could go back to 1848 for the start of the perception management campaign. On this side of the Rio Grande we called it the “Mexican-American War,” and it featured soldiers who would became national heroes- or traitors- in the later Civil War. The people living south of the river still call it the “United States Intervention in Mexico.”

We don’t think it is partisan to acknowledge that there has always been a little confusion about where the border might be and who can cross it. In those days, the special military operation of the Americans followed the 1845 American annexation of Texas, an act with which Mexico disagreed. We stayed in the northern provinces for two years, hoping to settle things down in a new world order.

Sound familiar? Some of the reporting this week suggests the criminal cartels have joined the “refugees” in coming north, and now have stablished a presence in many cities across America. That also is nothing new, although it is the boldest such incursion since the events of 1916, which reflected another minor disagreement about borders and their validity.

The Press- that is what they called Mainstream Media in those days- called it “The Mexican Expedition.” It started out as the more righteous “Punitive U.S. Army Expedition.” It was a military response by the Wilson Administration to the paramilitary forces commanded by the bold Mexican bandit Fransisco “Pancho” Villa. He had taken his armed band to attack the border town of Columbus, New Mexico.

You can understand that Washington was not happy with this aspect of the Mexican Revolution. That turmoil spanned a decade from 1910 to 1920. It also set the tone for the neatly bracketing the horrific conflict of World War One in Europe. Villa’s rash move prompted the dispatch of General “Black Jack” Pershing and a thousand men to punish the recalcitrant Bandito. Or Patriot, depending on whose account you read. The Americans crushed Villa’s army, but failed to capture their leader. They stayed in Mexico for almost a year and got Mexico City’s attention in a strange variation of the cartel activity now in progress.

If any of this seems to echo today, you can yell “stop it!” We will. But the report from Brad Jones are that the Mexican Army, not the banditos crossing the border in hundreds of thousands, have set up camps south of the razor wire in San Diego. He adds that the video of the man in cammies with the full-auto rifle- a machine gun- is walking in what we still are calling the United States.

He reportedly went back south, but his presence is a graphic demonstration that we are in a state of change we no longer comprehend in the same manner we did just a couple years ago. Splash muttered something about a helicopter crash last week that killed three- two Texas National Guard solders and a Border Patrol officer. “I think we may already be in a state of war, although we are not sure with whom. It could be the Cartels, or Iran or the Chinese. They have been sending the equivalent of battalions of young men north across the border. Think they are refugees? Or Chinese-speaking modern Villas?”

There was some initial laughter around the circle but it stopped when we realized who was likely to be called up for the next special military operation and who just who we were likely to be fighting. There was some emotion on that topic, since some of us are not confident we know who our leaders are, you know?

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Travels In A New Land


(Victoria Nuland announced her retirement last week as the Assistant Secretary of State for Political Affairs. Her temporary relief is the fellow to her right, ambassador John Bass).

This is a morning for messaging, and the stakes are high. There was some news last week we did not appreciate at the time, but it may mean we are on a variable path in the direction of national obliteration.

You may have heard some recent insights shared about Ms.Victoria Nuland’s career at the State Department. In her thirty-plus years service, she has demonstrated a serious animosity to an old foe. That would be Mr. Vladimir Putin. Recent estimates of the nuclear inventory he controls is around 6,000 atomic devices. They are left over from the Cold War arsenal. We have several as well, along with the ballistic missiles to make their use a terrifying possibility when dealing with Russian resurgence.

We appear to have traveled down a road containing the ppnational horror. The Chairman decided to relocate from The Farm in placid Culpeper back to the bustle of urban Arlington. Up north in the Commonwealth there is much better access to medical services and recovery capabilities. We want him to stay healthy, and decided to accompany him to the new corporate HQ on the Left Side of the big brown River we used to cross every day. Or, better said, for the decade we were not laboring in the Pentagon.

OK, OK, we know that is a little hysterical in reaction, but many of us lived under the shadow of the Soviet Union’s nuclear capability. We have been retired from government service for over two decades, which gives us some insight into the beginning of a Foggy Bottom career path. Ms Victoria Nuland was just hitting her stride, career wise, and would have been one of the functionaries from State who attended the occasional joint meetings between State and Defense in trying to sort out the mechanics of a new world at something called “peace.”

The Secretary of State, the cabinet official responsible for America’s foreign policy, is a man named Antony Blinken. We have had a lot of fun with his name and rhyming games as you are probably aware. Our favorite was “Winken, Blinken and Nod,” which allegedly described his performance in gatherings on the world stage. Last week he informed us that Torie Nuland was departing her final position at Foggy Bottom. She had been the number three official on that side of the River. Her official title had been Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs. In her portfolio was Europe, a somewhat ungainly item recently ravaged by conflict.

Blinken said Torie had told him she was done, like it was her decision. We don’t know about that, since it seems more an opportunity for the Administration to try to set the war in Ukraine as something that would no result in nuclear horror. The Secretary had some good words about her career, noting that she “personified the President’s commitment to put diplomacy back at the center of our foreign policy,” while revitalizing America’s leadership in the world.”

We have always been in favor of that, so her departure comes at a time when atomic tensions have not been this high since John Kennedy’s Administration. Her time at State does not go back quite that far. She served thirty-five years or so, which puts her arrival at State around the time of the Soviet Union’s collapse. That was a little before we cashed in our retirement, so we are “colleagues” of a sort. But we were done with conflicts with the Soviets and frankly relieved that it was finally over.

Apparently it wasn’t, and Victoria “Toria” Nuland was part of it. Mr. Putin was a KGB officer back then, and appears to have crafted a career in reestablishing Russia’s power. He recently has been talking about the use of nuclear weapons as a sort of logical development in the reassertion of Mother Russia’s influence across two or three continents.

Toria served both ends of America’s veering policy community. She held most of the logical jobs as she rose in Foggy Bottom’s soggy infrastructure. Those included time as a Political and economic officer. In addition she had time as Spokesperson, Chief of Staff, Deputy and Assistant Secretary. Special Envoy and Ambassador. If she is someone you have only occasionally been aware of, we should note that regardless of which party she served, she was a committed opponent to Mr. Putin.

So, that is one way to look at her remarkable career. The other point to recall is that she was directly responsible for the adversarial policies that have accompanied Mr. Putin’s rise in the Kremlin.

So, the above account has been sworn to by the Senior Diplomat. There is another case to be made on Toria’s retirement. Her drive and energy have helped bring us to the brink of a war that could turn us into ashes after melting down Socotra HQ. Whichever of these versions is closer to the truth is open to some question, as are all government utterances these days. Having experienced some of them, we suspect that there is a matter of “convenience” in these events. It would enable a significant change in policy regarding Ukraine simply by telling Toria to head home and cease being a catalyst for change..

There are several stories about endemic corruption in Kiev. Russia’s seizure of lovely Crimea in 2014 . Some of them involve diversion of foreign aid to direct payments to the people who orchestrated it. We have n idea if that is true, but we are confident that Ms Nuland knows where those bodies are buried. Since we no longer are sure about what constitutes “lies” or “truth” these days, we can only presume the current version of the story would enable all parties to policy to leave the State stage quietly and collect their pensions. Like all of us!

What is interesting about this retirement is what Mr. Blinken called Toria’s “truly exceptional is the fierce passion she brings to fighting for what she believes in most: freedom, democracy, human rights, and America’s enduring capacity to inspire and promote those values around the world. If those sound like vaguely Reaganesque or Bush policies, we would be paddling in the same ship of state. She also may have had a hand in the aggressive response to the most recent Russian invasion.

Frankly, we don’t know. We have a natural bias about Russian policy since we brandished our own nuclear capability against theirs in more straightforward diplomatic times. Press reporting suggests our former comrades up in Langley- on this side of the Potomac- considered the notoriously hawkish Nuland was a liability at a moment NATO and Russia are inching closer to direct nuclear-armed confrontation.

We have heard some stories about a new branch of government not mentioned in the founding documents. In this one, Langley, the Pentagon and the Folks at Fort Meade determined that Ms Nuland had her own agenda which may have had some conflicts with theirs.

You may recall Senate Majority Leader Schumer mentioned the capabilities of the three-letter agencies to work independent from their Commander in Chief. In 2017, he made remarks following the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago. In a disinterred clip, the top Senate Democrat warned about the Intelligence Community and their ability to enact vengeance on those who oppose it.

“Let me tell you,” he said gravely to MSNBC’s resident Progressive Rachel Maddow, “if you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.” That was from the days of the Russian Collusion controversy that marred the first two years of what is now called only as “the Previous Administration.”

In response, Maddow furrowed her brow at the camera and posed a rhetorical question for her audience. “What do you think the intelligence community will do if they were motivated to?”

The best guess from former officials around town has been interesting. A retired Langley officer named Ray McGovern put it this way: “My best guess here is that the CIA and the Defense Department and the NSA got this message around saying, ‘look, Victoria’s got her own agenda here,’”

He continued his speculation- not shared here- that “‘The president doesn’t really want to strike ammo depots in Russia or knock down the [Crimean] Bridge. So we got to rein her in, I guess it’s time for her to go to early retirement.” Other sources have advanced the theory that Toria is “a staunch anti-Putinist who fervently wanted to continue to utilize Ukraine as a platform in which to continue to weaken and/or slight Russia on the global stage — and perhaps even up the ante in that conflict with her support of sending ballistic missiles into Ukraine.”

We have a pal who does a daily summary of events in the conflict, and our reading of his tea leaves is that Ukraine is not winning. We are opposed to nuclear war, just for the record, and remind our Gentle Readers that the views of independent commentators thrown into this bubbling cauldron is that the Ukrainian side is losing.

So, Assistant Secretary Nuland and her policies may be in for dismissal, though if she goes quietly there will be no repercussions. We will see about that. We have a bunch of weapons of mass destruction left over as well. Our position is that we prefer peace, and wish Toria a pleasant and speedy retirement. She may recall the embarrassing departure from Afghanistan. We also recall the unease we felt on our entry into that conflict after watching the Russian retreat after their decade-long war there.

We will see how this one goes. But like we said, as aging warriors, we prefer the peace pipe. With two wars in progress and another inching toward conflict with China over Taiwan, you can see we are not going to intimate anything that is personally unpleasant. We would prefer to reduce the chances of an atomic holocaust that would turn both sides of the big River into vaguely green-brown glass.

Mr. Socotra may have been wrong in his estimate, thinking that it would be useful for someone to be left alive to negotiate a surrender. We are not certain anyone wishes to talk just yet.

Victoria Nuland’s temporary replacement is career diplomat John Bass, who served as Ambassador in Kabul. You can see we have our misgivings about that track record, you know? He is currently serving as Undersecretary of State for Management. He oversaw the construction of a billion dollar Embassy in Kabul as well as Mr. Biden’s botched withdrawal. Accordingly, it is somewhat ironic that he’ll also oversee Ukraine policy at this critical juncture where Kiev is clearly against the ropes.

The stakes are pretty high or this one, too.

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Pruning Hooks To Spears

Well, here we are this morning after a tough news week and starting what appears to be another one. We started this morning with another fascinating chapter in our nation’s metamorphosis. We liked the way things were and spent more than a quarter century in service to its preservation against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

You know the last two words in that oath were more recent additions to the document , dating back to the conclusion of America’s Civil War in 1865. In that regard, it was an assurance that insurrection would not be permitted against the central Government by the residents of the various component states. We thought that matter was concluded long ago. So long, in fact, that a grand monument to reconciliation was erected over here on our side of the Big River. Someone decided it would be a good idea to rip it down this year.


The bronze statue atop the monument was designed by American sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel and was unveiled in 1914. It depicts the figure of a heroic woman atop a 32-foot-tall marble pedestal. It is surrounded by the graves of those who fought. The figure is wearing a crown adorned with olive leaves, holding a laurel wreath, a plow stock and a pruning hook below, according to the Army that manages the cemetery these days. A Biblical inscription at the base of the Statue reads- or used to read- “They have beat their swords into plough-shares and their spears into pruning hooks.”

The monument was erected in time to greet the onset of what was once called “The Great War.” There is another one in progress at the moment, though it does not have a name or a number associated with it. The inscription on the former monument was selected from a Christian document while participants in the struggle were alive. The last of them breathing did so in our living memory back in and there are reports from the Veterans Administration that the last pension from that war a century and a half ago was paid to a 90-year-old North Carolina lady named Irene Triplett. She received a check each month for $73.13.

She was the daughter of a man named Mose Triplett, who fathered her when he was in his eighties and his second wife was only 34. The last two soldiers who had fought passed away in the 1950s when they both had achieved the century mark in their lives. Some of us recall hearing the news when we were kids, and we have the realization we may have the same experience in our dotage for the vets who participated in World War II.

You have to forgive us for some confusion on this matter, since like everything else these days it seems a little crazy. When the Arlington statue was erected, the two soldiers still had four decades of life coursing in their veins. There were many citizens living then whose lives had been touched by the horrors of one of our species first attempts at industrial-scale warfare. The fifty years that had passed since the fighting of that war ceased enabled sufficient time to beat things from one purpose to another.

And back again.

And apparently we have had enough time to beat the pruning shears back into spears. There is a significant effort being expended these days to erase the memories of those who lost that war. Some of us had ancestors in the Union forces and some in the other one that must be forgotten. Some of us had both.

The better part of a million people died in that war, most in uniform but also tens of thousands of civilians across the entirety of what was then the dis-united States. Last we heard about the status that particular monument just down the road had a particular resonance, since some of us are eligible to rest there for the rest of eternity. Or fifty years until they decide to dig us up for some important cultural reason none of us alive have ever heard.

As with much that we hear on the News, it is just a function of our present inventing a new future over which we have n control. Our founding documents chartered the most successful constitutional republic in human history. It has been a pretty good run, but there are indications that it may be coming to an end, like the Reconciliation Memorial whose bronze pieces now rest in a dark warehouse. They are letting the marble remain, for now, since there are graves of the defeated around a monument to joint sacrifice.

It gives us some time to beat our tools from one form into another, you know?

We were going to explore the changes to the founding documents this morning. The Founders recognized that changes in circumstance might require modification. There is a process defined in the Constitution for how things might be altered as times required. It was intended to be rigorous, since those people held the principals contained in the document were considered to come from some Almighty source.

Accordingly, we have developed the technology to avoid it. The young people who drafted the document required a specific list of the things prohibited to our government in order to pass. They wanted to be sure it was plain and clear to anyone who read the words on the parchment. We were going to talk about the matters contained in the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 8th and 10th Amendments, and their unofficial repeal.
we did not consider the 3rd to be a matter of concern since we expelled the King, but everything is a little uncertain these days.

You will excuse us for brevity this morning. We are supposed to go beat some agricultural implements from one purpose to another. We have not been told what that is yet, but we have been assured that when we need to know, they will instruct us.

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Solidarity Forever, Marching Together!


(A fellow named Dominic Pino wrote an interesting article on America’s Unions and public sector participation recently. It happened to echo some other reverberations about the Teacher’s collectives whose donations helped finance the Covid-related school shut-downs in the pandemic. They say a generation of school-kids will be affected. There is more coming. Take a walk with us this morning, if you will. Image Livia Gordon, 2016).

First off, this is not intended to be an anti-union screed. There is plenty of that around these days as it is. We remind you that members of the Socotra House Writer’s Section and their families proudly served in labor and institutional collective bargaining groups for years. But there is something else going on at the moment you may not be aware of, so for better or worse, here it is.

We could have talked about the State of the Union Address this morning. The President made his annual summary remarks a few days ago. With the election looming, it had extraordinary publicity given his recent quite apparent cognitive decline. Ratings were reported as “up” by 32 million viewers. You understand we are a little suspicious of “truth” these days we cannot independently verify.

We did not watch it, since in order to inspire the citizenry of the Left Coast, the Right Coast (which is only a direction, not an orientation) had to stay awake well after 9:00PM. That is past our current bed-time, something we share with the Chief Executive, and there was no opportunity to reflect our immediate reaction to his words.

Those were provided by his often sycophant media, so we decided to wait until this weekend presented a chance to personally review the recorded remarks. This morning we completed that progress and decided to let the matter rest until next year and see where things will have changed, if at all.

There is another interesting development in the news this morning. Dominic reported it as a simple matter of fact. “The largest union filing of this year so far is by the non-tenure track faculty at Harvard.”

There was controversy about it this morning at Big Pink. You may be aware of recent controversy over the views of senior Harvard’s tenured faculty, which included the resignation that of the President of the University and their enormous fund of This is not an unusual occurrence, so forgive us if this issue is a little outre for those of us who collectively served in large organizations funded almost exclusively by our national government and funded (without variance) by you, a taxpayer.

First, like our routine disclaimer, the views expressed here by independent contract contributors do not necessarily represent those of Socotra House management or staff. The other is that we are no longer active members of either United Autoworkers Union (UAW) Local 538 or the Kenowa Hills Public School District Teacher’s collective.
Both are located in the civic concentration represented by the workers and educators of the Grand Rapids area of western Michigan.

The latter was Mom’s union, the one she had no alternative to joining. We still recall her resentment to being forced to walk a picket line one sunny Fall days. She didn’t believe it was appropriate. The former aggregation of laborers assembled Kelvinator-brand appliances in an 1880s-era brick structure across town.

People are free to assemble with whomever they choose, and that is a good thing. Our shop-steward on our art of the electric stove line was proficient at protesting unreasonable manufacturing steps that oppressed out shift. But we are far beyond that now, Mom separated by her tomb and the rest of us by disbelief at what has happened to organized labor since we were active contributors.

The matter came up a few months ago with a revelation. Our former collective representation started as a labor group composed of workers, some skilled and others not- who built Henry Ford’s seminal product for the US auto industry. You would be surprised, as we were, to discover that more than half the UAW laborers have nothing to do with producing cars!

The UAW once had 1.5 million members, which given the smaller national population on that particular day in recent past was pretty impressive. Today, the UAW is down to a third of its former strength- 380,000 members- and they represent a broad range of workers. More than a quarter work in higher education.

As such, they can rightly be described as “public sector” laborers, or those who do work in the public interest, like teach in most schools or patch our bedraggled roadways. As you might imagine, that gives them unique and sometimes intrusive influence over strike activity, and the attendant impact on students and commuters. Among others.

Maybe part of a larger social story this morning, as non-tenure track faculty at Harvard are also joining the UAW. As are the athletes in the Dartmouth Ivy-League NCAA program. Could this lead to some interesting strikes?

Considering this includes employees in a variety crafts, guilds and trades for 3,100 employees or appointees who perform direct or indirect instruction or research at the Cambridge hallmark institution. Those include non-tenured faculty at the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard’s Medical School and the Divinity School. The range of responsibility includes Lecturers, Adjunct Senior Lecturers, Senior Lecturers, Postdoctoral Research Fellows, Instructors, Teaching Assistants, Associates, College Fellows, Curriculum Fellows, Curriculum and Pedagogy Managers, Fellows, Junior Fellows, Peirce Fellows, Preceptors, Assistant Directors, Directors, Research Assistants, Research Associates, Research Fellows, Research Scientists, Researchers, and Engineers.

There are also those Excluded from unionization of course, since Harvard is renowned for excellence, which apparent includes the following categories of labor: Continuing Education, Dumbarton Oaks, the Center for Hellenic Studies; undergraduate students; Professors in Residence; Professors of the Practice; Professors Emeriti; visitors with a primary tenure-track appointment at higher institutions of learning plus the Supervisors, managers, and guards as defined in Act; and of course “all employees already represented by another union.”

That is a matter of solidarity as you well know, and we must move forward, marching together.

We suppose there is a reasonable argument for organizing this traditionally non-union work force. The most compelling factor is that the terms “Tenured” and “Non-tenured” employees had actually established such grounds long ago. This new categorization has a somewhat more companion adopted by the athletic participants in Dartmouth College’s NCAA sports program.

We needn’t point out that scholarship-based athletics are already subject to objective standards of performance. Those were called “winning” and “losing,” but that is one of those now-archaic concepts subject to dramatic revision by new and arbitrary standards.

We assume these will be extended to all schools with either academic or athletic standards from the old and superseded standards.

Back when some of us resided in Grand Rapids, those still had some applications. Now, it appears they do not. The new standards potentially have some impact in terms of performance, not to mention relevance. But this is the world we are marching into, and it has little to do with how things used to work, for good or ill.

Welcome to a brand-new world. One in which we can all organize, whether we like it or not! Or afford it!

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Winky Onboard Midway


(USS Midway CV-41 Library and Docent staff at their recent 20th Anniversary event in San Diego. In center rear of the image, Phil Eaken is holding LTJG Winky, a hand-puppet that served to keep attention on the flight event briefings for Air Wing FIVE aviators before Midway became a museum).

Phil sent the picture above this week in commemoration of the multi-decade Anniversary of ex-USS Midway (CV-41) becoming one of San Diego’s most popular tourist attractions. There were some grand memories brought back from inside her gray steel flanks!


(Old Salts Vince Fragomene and Joe Mazaffro, 2008)

It had been a tough week for some of the Old Salts. Vince was the Intel Center Boss on Ma Midway when she was an active and rollicking man o’war. Sadly, he lost his wonderful life-partner of 58 years last week. Pam had been superb at channeling some of the energy from the junior officer community her husband led on Midway. Winky was just one of the members of that team.

There was other history in that picture from back in the Indian Ocean days, circa 1979. Dean Whetstine and Vic were back in the Carrier Intel Center (CVIC) trying to stay low profile and decided a name was needed for the place in which we were endlessly operating. The senior guys in ship and squadron were always talking about “Yankee” and “Dixie” Stations from the recently-concluded conflict in SE Asia.

We tried to think of something short and memorable. We came up with “Gonzo,” since we wereand it was. Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, Legendary Journalist of that time who had originated the term, did not seem to mind.

Vic

Vinnie wrote back: Thanks Much Phil…Son is heading back, in the air to the airport just this morning..

And imagine my reaction when those “puppets” were first introduced….And then watching the “aviators” made me think, hey they are paying attention, and that’s all that matters….XO was not initially taken, to say the least….had a few others comments from visitors, and some ships company….they all got on aboard after a few talks with me…:)


(DR. Hunter S. Thompson)

Copyright 2024
www,vicsocotra.com

Super Tuesday Weather Report!

Morning, Gentle Readers! Did you stay up last night to see the slightly confused pundits on the flatscreens marveling at the results of the political pandemonium. Primary Political contests held in a couple dozen states yesterday, including the one in which our Patio Super Tuesday is over with some fairly dramatic developments. Both Biden and Trump posted decisive wins across more than a dozen states. Nikki Haley, a bold challenger, finally dropped out of the race for the GOP nomination against Trump, who now appears unopposed in the GOP re-match with Mr. Biden.

POTUS is not directly opposed in the party he wants to represent. He did adequately continue his lead for the Dems, but resistance is mounting to a November re-match of 2020 based on his weak polls. He looked tired in Tuesday appearance,

To even things up, Colorado sought to have Mr. Trump removed from the state ballot since he must be guilty of an insurrection for which he has not been formally charged. The Supreme Court voted 9-0 to toss that one out on its ear, but that has increased the vocality hostility against the very role of SCOTUS in the Republic.

He could be replaced, but with whom? One scenario is to move VP Harris by offering her a SCOTUS seat and appointing sleek California Governor Gavin Newsom as VP candidate with the idea Mr. Biden would resign, making him the next and 47th President. There is other news from the Golden State regarding former Major League Pitcher Steve Garvey running fairly strong against that strange Congressman Adam Schiff for the Senate seat formerly held for thirty years by departed Senator Dianne Feinstein. You can see only some things were solved. California has not elected a GOP candidate to state-wide office in twenty years.

That is on of the factors to show where the race has turned now. Momentarily, it is a potential re-match of the placid and unemotional 2020 election. That is a situation unpopular with many in both big parties and our little Independent one. Trump appears certain to cinch the GOP nomination as a minimum result of yesterday’s partisan paroxysm. The lawfare campaign against him will naturally continue. Mr. Biden appears to be failing, physically, and the maneuvering around VP Harris will be awkward at best since she is polling lower than the President.

So, there is that. The kinetic conflicts in progress continue. In Gaza, the Iron Dome offensive by the Israels is balanced by the Houthi rebels in the Red Sea. They are cutting undersea cyber cables and harming Asia-Europe communications and lines of communication. In Ukraine the fighting continues in bitter slow-motion fighting in the eastern area along both rivers, with the Russians capturing an atomic power plant the Ukrainians say they do not know how to operate. It is season change there, and the mud will slow offensive operations.

In American developments in that war, acting Deputy SECSTATE Victoria Nuland announced her retirement after 30 years service at Foggy Bottom. She was the most vocal supporter of UKR at State, and her departure could mean a change to US policy on a ceasefire or settlement. Also retiring is AZ D-Senator Kristen Sinema. Unknown what this means, but Dems nervous about a GOP President supported by a narrow GOP House and Senate. There are some enormous issues at stake that include money and potential prosecution. These could drive some unusual and dramatic action.

In that war, UKR sunk another RU patrol boat with drones, the last operational RU? Navy vessel in the Black Sea. They are now out of the maritime fight in the Black Sea, snd UKR outbound grain shipments are not directly threatened.

Super Tuesday here? Virginia went strong for Trump, an interesting development since Gov. Youngkin had been mentioned as a potential replacement for the Orange Man. This will be an interesting summer. The uncertainty of the way ahead for Trump and the GOP appears over at this point. It is the Orange Man as nominee. Will there be a third party candidate to shake up the re-run of a controversial contest?

The way ahead for Mr. Biden has more questions. Run him with a plan for short-term replacement? Replace him in the campaign with the VP or someone like Newsom? That could impact the election results.

This will be an interesting summer of campaigning. Mr. Trump confronts Lawfare on four fronts intended to gain a “first conviction against a former President. They say success in any one of them could be a major factor in the vote. Another could be that those currently serving in the Biden Administration may fear they will be subject to prosecution (even jail) if their side loses. There is the possibility China could act against Taiwan, but all the Asian powers- PRC, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are confronting demographic challenges. All have populations with shrinking birthrates. There will be impacts on world economies in the supply and demand of goods.

So that was Super Tuesday, just like out of one of those Marvel Comic Action films. We will have a chance to live it, starting today1

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

This Just In…

There was excitement under gray skies and moisture out of the Patio. Everyone was up and active, since it is a day that may have come from the Marvel Comics people: “It’s Super Tuesday!”

We are not sure we can get everyone to the polls this morning, nor are we sure who we would vote for if we did. Is there an Independent candidate running? Besides Nikki? There was quite a discussion about the matter, since we have some diehards who are still adherents of the old Big Two parties, and several of us who have walked away from the squawks for donations from both of them.

The dimensions of absurdity for these particular significant days is remarkable. They used to be fairly low-key events. We view voting in the General Elections as a civic duty and have not missed one since we achieved our majority shortly before the first Nixon election a zillion years ago. But primaries? Sometimes we forget. It brings back an old excuse for our laziness- we want to see what our fellow citizens think, and who they think would manage the best Administration with a shot at keeping us prosperous and at Peace.

Our approach to then examine the candidates who are selected by their parties and which of them will be the least damaging to those who will have to live with the lingering consequence. As DeMille, the Writer’s Section Chief, has observed: “H. Ross Perot was a pretty good guy with some interesting messaging. And look what a vote for him actually produced, you Independent Paragons!”

There is an entertaining set of revelations that have emerged only three and a half years after the last General voting festival. Our generation is now trapped by age in the usual unexpected paradox of the parade into the future. We still think there is something called ‘NORMAL,’ and we will slide back into it after all the hysteria. Our cognitive bias is that the system is generally accurate, and (usually) mostly fair.

It appears that is not true, and what we must subsist on is a steady diet of falsehood. We gave you a short blurb the other day on Michigan’s Constitutional Convention that met back in 1960, propelled George Romney into the Governor’s mansion in Lansing, and cleaned up some of the natural contention with a major Industrial and Union linear concentration plopped into what was then a largely rural and natural resources-rich state.

The point was to recall the three year effort (1960-’63) to clean things up, and how apparently it has all been overthrown in a large and relatively efficient scheme of corruption that includes most of the techniques of manipulation brought to us in the digital age.

This is not a diatribe, nor partisan in messaging. Our disclaimer is firm on that- and the views of the independent contractors who contribute to The Daily do not necessarily reflect that of management. But the Wolverine State has some great recent lessons that reflect much of the rhetoric emitting from left, right and middle sides of this morass. This morning, the morning of execution for the primary part of the election process, we are seeing delayed reports about how things worked up there the last time.

The old Michigan had an industrial corridor that ran from Downriver in Detroit in the southeast part of the Lower Peninsula (LP) due north through Saginaw and ending at Flint. The Western region of the LP includes Grand Rapids, where some of us resided and joined the United Auto Workers (UAW). Moderate-sized towns like Muskegon were just to the west on the Big Lake that carries the name of the State.

The controversy of what is coming this fall is all mixed up with the controversy that happened in the state in the last General popularity contest. Muskegon Clerk Ann Meisch had already reported one of four strings of state irregularities. She said her office had received an estimated 6,000 applications from a single organization, a firm based in Tennessee with an office in Suburban Detroit. Meisch indicated “Most of the applications were valid,” but estimated that “several hundred” had “irregularities,” including wrong birthdays, addresses and signatures that did not match versions on file. More significantly, the handwriting on them was identical.

We won’t bore you with accounts of the vote-counting shutdown, which made a lot of us uneasy election night. Five swing states suspended their tabulations for hours, adding votes for the candidate who was trailing at the time of the midnight suspension of the counting. Or at least some of the counting. That had never happened, though of course the pandemic machinations on mail-in ballots added to uncertainty, including its legality. What convinced many of the non-traditional outcome were the additional oddities that circulated in the immediate aftermath.

In Detroit, the truck delivering pallets of ballots to the polling site be counted during the shut-down. The cardboard sheets erected over glass observation windows, with legal poll monitors held fifty feet away from the counting tables. The strange report from Antrim County the day after, indicating the voting machines there- we don’t have to state the name of the company- had flipped 5,000 votes from one candidate to another in jurisdiction with only 8,000 registered voters. Note, these stories come from Red and Blue districts, in manual, write in and digital machines. It suggests similar activities were conducted across the state and not reported. The scheme looks comprehensive as well as integrated.

The favorite tale is not directly tied to possible vote fraud, although it must be at least related. That was the big story about crazy insurrectionists who were going to kidnap the Governor. It was a fairly lurid tale, but later investigation revealed it was actually inspired and led by Federal agents. You know, like ones who urged entry to the Capitol or the Police who held the doors open for the “paraders” and welcomed them in.

We have been told the 2020 General was a secure and fair election, but there was enough information available in the immediate aftermath that looked “funny” without a lot of laughter. Then there was one of those strange video clipss from a senior figure who said “We have put together I think the most extensive and inclusive voter ….. organization in the history of American politics.”

We don’t need to tell you the word that the dots above represent. We don’t claim any specific knowledge about what might be coming, but it is something we are thinking about in the context of the next General election. This will be fun to see, since “normal” seems to no longer apply another unusual election could mean an end to our Republic, which we like a lot.

We did a focus group on the issue and are in a compromise consensus on that matter. But it is a little sad that the integrity of our elections, good for most of our history, is just added to the myriad of current uncertainties!

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Con-Con, 2024

(Lenore and George Romney chat up Dad, 1963)

They didn’t put the hyphen in the middle of the phrase when we first encountered it in 1960. That was Mom and Dad’s thing, way back in the mists of time. It stood for “Michigan Constitutional Convention,” which was intended to fix some of the impediments to good government not covered in the state’s founding document. As ten year old kids, we saw the grown-ups in our little suburban town energized and excited to make things better and work more efficiently.

The ConCons were brought together under the leadership of George Romney, an outsider who had been called to Detroit in the reaction to Pearl harbor, and to transform the Auto industry into the Arsenal of Democracy. After the War, he turned his attention to the production of Nash motor-cars, and was successful enough to bring our family there for Dad to work as a designer.

ConCon took three years, from 1960 to 1963. It was a successful effort, and not only produced a modified Constitution but elected George Romney as Governor to sign it into law.

You can see the challenges these days. George’s son Mitt has announced he would vote for flying pigs before the candidate of the party he once represented. Other members of the Senate insider trading club remind us that conning is the way they have turned fairly modest Hill salaries into millions.

The incoming message traffic this morning reflects all sorts of things. A pal sent a nice appreciation for another period of strife in our nation. The one in the 1850s about immigration was as startling as the one now. The rise of the Oligarchs was similar to what we see in a New World order. Others are claiming an electoral victory is the only way to save the Republic, maybe through a Con-Con to amend the national document to reflect changing times.

Considering it took Michigan about 60 years to get around the results of the Constitutional Convention they had, they may have a case. But because it is the Cons who would be running the Con this time, we expect it would be intended to benefit them, first!

More on all this excitement as it unfolds. The account of the 1850s turmoil lurches into something else. Something no one expected in 1861. We are hoping at least some of the Cons recognize the perils in the road ahead!

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Prevarication


(This is a fellow accused of murder while here in Georgia as an “undocumented” non-citizen. They call them something else these days, but there are so many new terms we can’t keep track. we would run a photo of the Sheriff who holds him, but that would open up another lane in the slippery slope of American justice).

Morning, Folks! This is apparently a red-letter weekend for prevarication. You know, that is the fancier term for making up things that are not exactly true in order to make some other point, normally asserting that something false is true. We saw a bunch of it over the high-octane trips by the powerful to a troubled region of our nation.

The reporting was a little different, as you probably observed, one was fairly vigorous and the other one not at all. Then another senior official chimed in on the legal system that she claimed “has lowered violent crime to the lowest levels in fifty years.”

That caught our attention, since it is a startling claim at considerable variance from what all of us are observing first hand. The one we see right over on Washington Boulevard at the CVS is that small, high-value items like cosmetics or personal care items are now behind glass and locks, delivered to customers only on request. That is an inconvenience that represents something else.

You know what it actually reflects, and that is the impossibility of operating a business ransacked by insta-mobs of coordinated theft. Macy’s is closing the store just up the block because it is losing money, since people are uncomfortable in shopping the way they traditionally have. This is causing what some call “commercial deserts” in many urban areas. There is clearly a problem, and there is no denying the facts of it. Unless you change the facts.

So how do some say “lowest crime in fifty years’ and keep a straight face? Except for the thieves, no one could desire that, right? How can you claim it is true? Actually it is easy.

Some of us used to do numbers for the government. Budget numbers, so you know there is both honesty and fabrication in how you put them together. Some of us were good at it and some less so. But even if the “Out-year Costs” were not included in current year reporting in order to make a worthy project seem more reasonable, even if more expensive, it was a good cause.

You can see that is one of those slippery slopes in which we sometimes feel ourselves sliding quickly from doing something clever for good into something criminal for personal gain. We are seeing an example of that in the court proceedings down in Atlanta this week. So, it can truly be more accurately said that “reported violent crime is the lowest in a long time.”

You know the slippery slope on this one. There are fewer cops to report crime, arrest or prosecute it, and accordingly, there are lower numbers. Not because there is less of it. The numbers are lower because there is less crime reported, not less crime committed.

At least that what the old Budget guys claim. They have no apparent reason to lie, although of course publicizing larger amounts of criminal behavior could cause government to behave in a more aggressive manner. For those old enough, you may remember the last time the criminal element took advantage of social change to run amok in the turbulent 1970s.

That led to measures like “Three Strikes and Your Out” which increased jail populations and a certain amount of resentment from those who were arrested. And higher reported numbers, of course. This swing of the pendulum is a little wider, since there are other factors in play, though in both swinging arcs there is power accrued to the people doing the numbers according to their desires about how to run our society.

We here at Big Pink would prefer to be left alone. There are others who campaign for things like more “social fairness,” and even have a three-letter term for it: DEI.

It is in politics, of course. We do not have access to raw reporting to make our own numbers, but the indications are illustrative. This morning there was a report from the New York Times that outlined the position of a Sheriff named John Williams, who won election in Athens County, GA, with the boast that “when in office, I will not cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers.”

It is interesting, since an ICE detainer is a written request from the Federals to local law enforcement to “detain an individual who has been arrested on criminal charges and which ICE believes is a non-citizen subject to deportation.”

There is plenty of prevarication in that at the start, since the argument is for “fairness,” or something. The curious thing is that the fairness is for people who have committed criminal acts. In the case of illegals, crossing the border illegally is their first offense. The most offended are probably those standing in line to be processed in the manner our laws specify.

Athens County has been in the news since the murder of a pert and popular 22-year old nursing student. Her funeral was yesterday. The accused killer whose mugshot starts this account is part of a Venezuelan group accused of several other violent crimes committed here, in a place they had no permission to be.
Other crimes in Athens? Sheriff Williams just released from confinement an illegal (we are supposed to call them “newcomers” now) who has three charges of rape against him. They are in Oregon, which has not requested extradition. So, he cannot be held on the motor vehicle offenses in Athens. “Nothing I can do,” said Sheriff Williams.

Another report- this one from Jupiter, Florida- has four more “undocumented newcomers” in custody held for automotive-related offenses- no licenses and driving drunk. They killed five citizens on the roadway. All of them would be alive today except for driving while a big pendulum was swing toward them.

A cursory count this morning produced at least a dozen recent killings by illegals. That does not mean all the illegals are criminals, although, of course, they violated their first US Law by being here without following our law. Sheriff Williams said that he believes that cooperating with ICE detention requests instills a “culture of fear” in the community. That is how slippery slopes work, we assume. It is just a question of who exactly is going to be afraid.

So that is where were are with prevarication in our great land today. What has become the norm is a scheme of prevarication so vast as to call everything into question. That includes this, of course, but we are tempted to quit drinking or driving after sneaking into any one else’s country, you know?

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra

www.vicsocotra.com