Through the Looking Glass

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The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright–
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.

(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, by Lewis Carroll,1872)

It was a surprising week, which is saying something these days. I am tempted to say it is like the Walrus and the Carpenter and their adventure with the Oysters, but no one is really through the looking glass on anything. It is just the game the way it is played here, strange as it might be.

The Veteran’s Affair’s Department’s Inspector General released that damning report about systemic national fraud committed within the Department in the middle of the week. Everyone had to take notice.

The usual response to these sorts of things is to wait until everyone is dragging their butts out of town late Friday afternoon, bury it on a splendid almost summer weekend, and hope that things blow over by opening of business on Monday. There were a couple problems that have not followed the usual crisis management process.

First, the IG report was complete and out there. You will recall the way the IRS abuse was presented for a textbook approach: Lois Lerner planted a question in a routine press conference about what the Service’s IG inspection was likely to find, deflected the problem onto a couple rogue agents in Cincinnati and then clammed up. That was pretty slick.

The playbook was hauled out immediately this time, because everyone was mad as hell, if I remember the quotes, and “if there was wrongdoing” then by golly something really serious was going to happen. There would be consequences.

The IG report then flopped wetly on the desk, and darn it, something had to be done.

As Secretary, General Eric Shinseki accomplished three things: one good, one he should have expected, and one that is reprehensible. He expanded the waiting lists by including Agent Orange and Post-traumatic Stress claims. Those naturally expanded the waiting lists for claims adjudication, which is not at all the same thing as falsified appointment lists in the hospitals, which was a function of an organized conspiracy to protect executive bonus payments. But no matter- it was wrong, it happened when he was responsible, and he offered his resignation. The President accepted it with regret. I am not sure that Shinseki’s departure is going to solve anything, but a sacrifice had to be made.

Then things got interesting.

In an unusual second appearance in the White House Press Room, the President announced that Press Secretary Jay Carney had suddenly remembered that he needed to spend more time with his family. That surprised me, since Mr. Carney is my personal nomination for Lou Gehrig of Press Secretaries- a real iron man.

And tough as nails. I will never forget the July, 2012 press briefing when he refused to answer a question about what he considered to be the capital of Israel. It was masterful, one of the best dodge and weaves I have ever seen in the big leagues:

Rpoerter: “What is the capital of Israel?”
Carney: “Wow, I have not been asked that in a while.”
Reporter: “Well, what is the capital of Israel?”
Carney: “Our position has not changed.”
Reporter: “On what? What is the capital?”
Carney: “You know that.”
Reporter: “I honestly don’t know. Is it Tel Aviv or Jerusalem?”
Carney: “Our position has not changed.”

It was a grand run, similar to the one in Baltimore when Cal Ripken decided it was finally time to sit down after 2,632 consecutive starts.

I thought Mr. Carney was going to swing for the fences: go for the magical “10,000” number of refusals to answer questions from the podium. According to Yahoo News political correspondent Chris Moody, the streak is going to stand at 9,486 unless there are a few more prevarications before the transition to eponymously-named Deputy Josh Earnest.

A very substantial record, to be sure, but he didn’t crack ten grand. Still, an iron man’s performance, and one that will stand in the annals of spokespersonship for a long time.
I for one am going to miss him. The brilliance of his sun really lit the dark night, you know?

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

Badgers for Our Future

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(Professor Cass Sunstein by John Springs in the New York Review of Books).

“What would life in 2070 be like if we collectively shift our values toward community, connections with nature, and sustainable living?”

– Framing statement from the National Science Foundation-funded Yamara 2070 Project at the University of Wisconsin

Well, they got General Shinseki this morning. It is the most amazing thing. Someone was held accountable for something.

That is not true of some of the really interesting people who should be, too. We have talked about Mr. Cass Sunstein before, but in case you blew by it, he is the former administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, and is a professor at Harvard Law School and a columnist over that the Bloomberg View.

He has a lot of cool innovative ideas about things that are really good for us. In fact, in order to make our lives better, he has advocated the Government pay people to troll websites and assail clearly wrong-thinking individuals, and active publicly-funded campaigns to “nudge” people in the ‘right’ direction.

If you happen to agree with his point of view, that could be a good thing. If you don’t, well, maybe you might have a little problem with this. Particularly if he is using your money to do the nudging.

He is an interesting man with far ranging thoughts. One of the stranger ideas was the notion that pets should be empowered to sue their owners. Wait, that makes him sound like a loon. I should be more fair. Here is the citation from page 11 of his tome Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions: “personhood need not be conferred upon an animal in order to grant it various legal protections against abuse or cruelty.”

There is certainly nothing wrong with that, and I am opposed to abuse or cruelty in just about everything. But Sunstein goes on to suggest that “granting standing to animals, actionable by other parties, could decrease animal cruelty by increasing the likelihood that animal abuse will be punished.”

So it really wouldn’t be Fido suing you, if would be some busybody who took an interest in your relationship with the family dog. Or your cattle. But never mind.

The Professor has all sorts of other interests, too. His latest rumination is about the success the Chinese have with indoctrinating their high school kids. I will let him tell you himself, since I don’t trust myself not to go a little hysterical about his apparent interest in experimenting with that right here in the good ole USA:

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-05-20/open-brain-insert-ideology

But I have to think about the Professor when I run across some of his style of nudging. You see it all over these days. Remember “The Life of Julia?” that was the cute little PowerPoint presentation that showed how a woman was helped at every crucial juncture of her life by benevolent government programs.

It was a hoot at the time, and thankfully it was campaign donations that financed it. I spent more minutes than I have this morning looking for it, since what remains posted on the web are mostly parodies of the original. Here is a link that works, via the Wayback Machine:

http://web.archive.org/web/20120509061658/http://www.barackobama.com/life-of-julia?source=MeetJulia-02-20120503-signup-HQB&icn=20120503-MeetJulia-02-signup-HQB
Then there was the grotesque parody of American manhood, the Pajama Boy. This was classic nudging, intended to spark conversations about the Affordable Care Act:

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It was so distasteful and so mocked that it disappeared almost immediately, but as you know, ‘information operations’ (another term for ‘nudging’) is a complex business, and the show goes on.

I don’t know if you are aware of the Yahara 2070 project. It is a modest waste of cash, given that we have become inured to the billions that Washington shovels out these days on all manner of amazing and magical things. In fact, this bit of nudging was almost a bargain at only $5 million, provided by the National Science Foundation to the Badgers at the University of Wisconsin.

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(Helpful Predator UAV patrols the bucolic farmland of the Yahara watershed in 2070 in one of the rosy scenarios after most of the people have been wiped out. Image by John Miller).

Yahara is designed to produce four ‘scenarios’ of how the watershed area around the Wisconsin campus might fare over the next fifty-five years. It is amazing. I mean freaking amazing. Here is one of the quotes about the present day, but set in a bucolic 2070CE after the Great Transformation that I found particularly endearing. It is uttered by a fictional woman named Rosa, who was part of the Badgers for Change Brigade:

“We were discontented with excessive consumerism and angry about the social inequalities and ecological destruction it caused. To us, life quality was not based in quantity, and wealth provided no shield against the crises we were facing. Instead, many of us believed the cultivation of meaningful connections with each other and with nature was more nurturing to our well-being and would enable a more sustainable future.”

Her little granddaughter looks back in wonder, and blurts: “So people back then didn’t think they were connected with nature?”

Trust me, it gets better. Rosa ruminates about how things work in the future after her years of struggle to eliminate property rights, lawnmowers, affordable air fares, the meat and dairy industries and the internal combustion engine:

“For example, you’ve learned in school that the United States Constitution grants explicit rights to nature. The government also pays farmers to help them grow their food organically. These things came from my generation’s prioritization of nature and collective well-being. We believed true happiness came from connection and meaning, and our prosperity relied on our success at nurturing these things.”

In that script I saw Professor Sunstein’s un-calloused hand, and it leads naturally into the rest of the fantasy narrative constructed by a woman named Jennifer Seifert:

“These priorities fueled our desire for sustainability, which means that we can live a good life now, but we must live within the limits that nature has set for us, so that future generations can also live a good life and have their needs met. My generation did a lot to fight for the better social equality and environmental justice….”

You have to love it. The creator of the whole project is named Steve Carpenter, and he praised the four scenarios for being “the edge of plausibility.”

I will give him that, and maybe more. In the most severe of the four scenarios, people fail to prepare for climate change. Agricultural phosphorus pollution releases toxic vapors into the air and 90% of everyone dies.

In a second scenario, heavy federal investment in green tech, biotech and high tech transforms the Yahara watershed into a tech powerhouse. The population doubles.

A third version, the one the quotes above came from, envisions young people invoking a major shift in values toward community, sustainability and lower consumption. Air travel becomes a lot more expensive, as does food. But people also get out of the rat race and have more time to spend with each other. It is like the story about unemployment being good for the economy.

In a fourth future, the nation’s government, responding to a major freshwater shortage induced by climate change, junks state and county lines and reorganizes on watershed boundaries. The Midwest must export water to water-scarce areas, and enacts strict regulations to conserve water.

I don’t know why those are the only futures. I had hoped for one with Godzilla and space aliens, and maybe one where we just sort of muddle along and complain about the weather. But it is really interesting to see our tax dollars at work, and just when you think you have seen about everything, it gets better.

The same National Science Foundation (they are located a short walk from Willow, and it is entirely possible they spend more time there than I do) just awarded a $5.7 million dollar contract to a company that is making “voicemails from the future” possible to listen to right now in the present.

http://futurecoast.org/

 

No kidding. There are all sorts of scenarios in this one, too. Paris can only be reached by submarine, that sort of thing. One of my favorites- this one allegedly from 2059, and “decoded” by someone named “Alex” says: “We recommend that you take the new electric Hydrofoil that goes up along the coast, rather than trudging along on the mass transit through the tunnels on land. Take the Hydrofoil. It’s a much nicer view of the coasts. You can see all the new coastal defenses that’s come up to protect the cities and harbors from the rising sea levels.”

I am serious. Only people who think like Professor Sunstein could possibly imagine that this was a useful thing for the Government to sponsor. Take some time and check it out.

It is quite entertaining, like reading Walter Duranty’s accounts of the liquidation of the happy Kulaks in Stalin’s USSR.

And the best part is that we are all paying for it.

Copyright 2070 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

Scandalous

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I have been having episodes of vertigo lately, and it is almost enough to get my attention. It is a delicate balance, I know, having to pay good money in the evening to get dizzy, and then complain about it when it comes for free in the morning. I would have shaken my head but I did not trust it. I rose this morning, wobbled, and got on with the day. At the moment, I am chalking it up to the first really decent swim of the season- up to a half hour already, going for the regular hour a day workout.

But I did have the sneaking suspicion that maybe I might want to access the health care system and see what is up with the periodic dizzinness.

There is a bit of a problem with that: I don’t really know how to access the system in a way that is not the functional equivalent of going nuclear. That, of course, would be a pilgrimage to the healthcare holy-of-holies, the imposing tower that rises in the midst of the jumble of buildings that form what used to be the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda.

The Department of Defense decided that the Army Hospital up Georgia Avenue was older, and had no room for expansion, so they closed it and decided to consolidate operations at Bethesda, bringing the name with it. So, access to medical care for me means a trip to Walter Reed.

I have a lot of pals who know how this works- or is supposed to. There is a thing called “TriCare,” which provides service to active-duty dependents and the retired military community. For a small additional monthly charge, there is a program called TriCare Prime, which I may be paying for. I am not sure.

I should be a smarter consumer, but I am not. I will try to figure it out, and get back to you. But the fact that there is a hospital, and probably a plan, albeit at a distance, made the whole VA thing a little distant.

But the steady drumbeat of coverage of the matter made me sit upright.

Secret appointment lists- 115 day wait times- a nightmare of obfuscation. The VA’s own IG released a report this week that also documented several schemes intended “to conceal wait times” and concluded that the problems are “national in scope.”

Predictably, the opponents to the Administration sought to portray it as dysfunctional- and with the VA system having been previously touted as a model for how a nation-wide care system might work, a cautionary tale indeed.

Mr. Jay Carney, the astonishing spokesman for the White House told the press that the President “found the findings extremely troubling.”

I am gratified, since now I know that Mr. Obama is not only troubled, but mad as hell.

There could be no more scathing indictment of a top-down, resource driven centrally planned government program. So, naturally, I went to the TriCare Web site to see if I could find out if I was covered.

It was not like going to helth.gov. I found out I was covered by TriCare, and had even signed up for TriCare Prime.

I don’t know how it works, but at least I am not left with the VA, you know?

I am still a little dizzy today, but it seems to be getting a little better. Maybe I can wait three months and check it out then. But that would mean three months from then, right?

Maybe the problem will resolve itself on its own. One way or the other.

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Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

Trash Novels

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I rose at the Farm feeling the first muggy heat of the season. I checked the usual sites as I was easing into the post-holiday truncated week. Gently.

I was relieved to note that some things are unchanged in this cascade of constant change. Noted futurist and perpetual hysteric Paul Ehrlich is still very much with us, and playing the same tune that he did when he was spectacularly wrong about population and food and climate in the 1970s. His latest meme is that we will soon be eating our dead. Shriller and shriller are the voices, less coherent, more foam flecks.

I am not going to waste any time re-reading The Population Bomb- that sort of science fiction isn’t any fun, just trash. But the pool season brings on a requirement for new ways to waste time by the blue water of the Big Pink Pool. I have a weakness that I abandoned for years of busy service and the sadly departed spate of follow-on capitalism: Trash Novels.

Now, hold on a second. They are not trash, per se, but they are a sort of mental bubble gum. That is not to say that they are not intricately crafted, well written, and by turns, electrifying and compelling. They are the sort of things I would like to create myself, if I could find a loopy character with a goofy world view, an ironic turn and an engaging grin and place him/her in a series of improbable but timely and breathtaking break-neck series of events. With great sex.

When I was laid up and bedridden in the summer of 2012, I devoured the adventures of Sheriff Walt Longmire (Craig Johnson) and Game Warden Joe Pickett (CJ Box).

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Both characters are icons of the Square state of Wyoming, and sadly, I have read all of them. Both Johnson and Box are on a one-year writing cycle, and since they take only a day or two to read, the ability to binge on them has passed and the wait to the newest outing is long.

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I was wondering how I was going to mis-spend the holiday weekend, and saw a reference to a new source of trash. The latest to provide welcome diversion from the distressing reality of today’s America is a series- four so far with a fifth to be released shortly- called “Monster Hunters International” by a fellow named Larry Correia.

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They are the ultimate pool-side books. Utterly without social benefit or other redeeming qualities except nonstop violence, gun worship, sex, the supernatural and fun.

I hesitantly mentioned my fascination to a friend and got an immediate recommendation for two more authors: if you like Monster Hunters, you will like the series by penned by Laurell K. Hamilton, and Kim Harrison.

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I mentioned them to another pal and got a recommendation for a series by Mr. James D. Doss and his Ute Reservation Lawman, Charlie Moon.

I bought the first in the series of each, and three of the Moons.

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That is not to mention the solid recommendations of Senior Executive Jerry, which includes the remarkable work of Charles Finch (“A Beautiful Blue Death,” et al) and the amazing Donna Leon (“Death at La Fenice,” et al).

That should handle the summer, anyway.

The pool awaits. I have to get in the water- and if I can find a plastic baggie large enough, I am taking the iPad with me.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

Thunder Road

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(Allan Paone, right, a 15-year member of Rolling Thunder, directs bikers to their staging position at Pentagon North Parking in Arlington. Thousands of members from Rolling Thunder chapters across the country participated in the ride through the nation’s capitol. DoD photo by Army Sgt. 1st Class Michael J. Carden).

The bikes are headed from all points of the compass toward Pentagon North Parking this morning. Rolling Thunder XXVII “Ride for Freedom,” will push off at noon for the big parade ride past the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial. For the first time this year, the list of names from The Wall also included those who perished in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They started rolling out of the campground across the street from Big Pink around 0600 to get decent spots at the Pentagon.

It is an interesting juxtaposition of cultures over there this morning. The Bikers are of a certain demographic and a certain age, and the kind of motorcycles they ride are expensive toys- not exactly the type that Marlin Brando’s Wild Ones of long ago rode in to terrorize the town.

Other motorized activities were in progress as the older generation rolled out: the volunteers who maintain the gray Blue Bird former school bus of the Iglisia Pentacostal Luz Verdadera Tor De Arlington were out as well, doing preventive maintenance to support bussing the faithful for services later this morning.

The Iglisia shares the infrastructure of the Assembly of God Church, which I suspect has excess capacity these days based on the number of cars in the parking lot Sunday Mornings, but everyone seems to get along, and the church is happy to host the Rolling Thunder folks in the parking lot near the common garden.

The Pentagon North Parking Lot is part of what they formally call the Pentagon Reservation, which adjoins the portion of the Custis-Lee estate that was seized by the Federal Government as a cemetery for Union War Dead- some of them killed at The Wilderness, just down the Germana Turnpike from Refuge Farm. And considering the plan is to get interred at Arlington myself, there is a symmetry to the whole thing that is sort of appealing.

I am glad they are including the casualties of the later wars. With the disappointing revelations about Veteran health care, it is important to remember the latest generation of sacrifice along with those who have gone before.

My family’s Union and Confederate kin served in the west, or at least what passed for the west in those days. Patrick Griffin was at Ft Donelson, was captured by U.S. Grant’s men, did a year in jail in Chicago before being paroled and returning to combat with the 10th Tennessee at Raymond, MS. Great Great Grandfather Foley was at the siege of Vicksburg, among other scenic locales.

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(Artist Jerry McWilliams unveils the portrait of Colonel Randal McGavock: God’s Own Gentleman. McGavock, commander of the 10th Tennessee Irish, was killed during the Battle of Raymond. Uncle Patrick is at lower left, from his enlistment Daguerreotype. This story has actual elements of truth.)

I am comforted that both did at least three years service. Patrick told his stories in 1905 in the Confederate Veteran’s Magazine, and James just held his peace about the whole thing. Some modern historians have reviled Patrick as a braggart, but I like him, and he does have his supporters. His stories late in life include accounts of service at the end of things on the staff of John Bell Hood in Georgia, but I think it is as likely that he unilaterally ended his time as a private soldier after Raymond and returned to private life.

James enlisted at Steubenville, OH, in 1861 and served his three-year enlistment. He re-upped in 1864 and was granted home leave. While back in Ohio, he had second thoughts and did not return to the war, marrying Patrick’s sister.

They both had subsequent long and full lives as successful small business owners. But I am proud that both my direct ancestors in the conflict were technically deserters. Hence, neither would qualify for burial at Arlington, though I thought about that briefly when I dropped a note to the people at The Atlantic Magazine when I cancelled my subscription last week.

I told them that while I had subscribed to the venerable publication for most of my life- not just the adult part- I thought they recently had lost their way. Check out the story on the cover of the June issue and see what you think.

I know what I do, and if that is the level of discourse in this great land, I have had enough of it, particularly on a holiday like this one.

Anyway, while I love the spectacle and the sound of the thousands motorcycles, I am not going to challenge the police escorts for the thousands of bikers coming in from the west (I-66), north (I-95) and the east and north (Rt. 50 and I-270). There are police escorts ahead of them, and the roads inbound are going to be jammed all morning coming in, and then all afternoon going out.

I think I will take a dip in the chill but inviting waters of the pool, salute the Thunder Road, and head the other way for the farm. This holiday is not about those who served, after all we have a holiday for Veterans. This one is about those who did not make it home again.

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

Rev It Up

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(Jon-without had a challenging day at the office, and Boomer fixed him up with a Bourbon Sling from the Happy Hour Menu to ease into the Holiday weekend. He didn’t stay with that drink long, but you have to admire how he looks with an elegant glass in his hand, don’t you think? Photo Socotra).

You could feel the town flushing out even as the roar of the motorcycles rose out on Route 50. Anyone with brains was out of town- knowing that all sorts of people were going to be coming in and making travel to the District impossible. What with the revelations about the VA and the delays in care that have killed some of us, there is a certain poignant quality to this Memorial Day.

I had a bunch of preparations in various states of completion. I had to find the pool pass in order to be first in the pool- Milos was out there this morning, vacuuming, and I asked if I could jump in an hour early and get it out of the way. He grinned, his English a little rusty from being back in Poland for the school year, and he said it was OK.

The water was not as cold as the air, but it was still 63 degrees this morning. I jumped in and almost jumped out again as fast, but it is done. The dozen-year streak is intact, and life is good. The Season is now started.

Meanwhile, the usual suspects were at Willow last night, and I wanted to share some of the other stuff going on. The Government dropped two major solicitations, and Jon-without bemoaned the fact that the short deadline was going to ruin this weekend and the next.

“They didn’t even release them until a lot of people were on the road out of town.”

“Always works like that,” growled Jim. “They get the weekend, and if you don’t like it, then don’t do business with the Government.”

“I remember that,” I said. “A Memorial Day weekend a couple years ago we had fie proposals going simultaneously. The Government had to get the money obligated or they would have had it taken away. It is just the way it works.”

“Sort of like the civilians getting Veteran’s Day off whilethe Vets have to work?”

“Yeah, something like that. Bastards.”

Chef Robert always likes to come out early in the evening and work the crowd. He appeared in his go-to-hell cooking baggies and shook hands all around. He is a very talented and gracious man, who also raises pit bulls. If he knows you, wonderful things can happen. He whipped up this broiled short-rib and cheese Philly Steak on request.

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We were talking about food with Boomer, and Barrister Jerry got to talking about fried chicken, the pluses and minuses, and Boomer talked about how to cook collard greens to go with it, and cornbread and pone, and this is what Robert sent out from the kitchen:
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Jim was drinking Budweiser, of course, but Boomer the Bartender mixed up a batch of sangria, and what is not to like about that?

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Chef Robert is in his element, whether he is cooking surf or turf. This is the broiled salmon being devoured by the distinguished attorney.

I may grill down at the farm this weekend- but I think I am going to avoid the motorcycles and hang out with my Polish pals at the pool today.

Have an excellent weekend- and rev it up to start the season. Enjoy the time off, if you get some. And remember why we have this holiday, and why it has the name it does.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

Count Down

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I am counting down like crazy: Rolling Thunder is coming to town, and the bikes will start roaring in this afternoon. The Hogs hang out in the common area between the two churches across the street, and the sound of the big V-twin engines is a lot like living in the landing pattern of a Master Jet Base: it is the sound of Freedom booming out.

The pool opens tomorrow, so if you were expecting some commentary on the various follies de jour this morning, you are going to be wrong. It is tempting, but I have decided to personally adopt what has become a formulaic Washington masterpiece for handling unfortunate things. I wish I had known how to do this a long time ago. It would have saved an enormous amount of trouble:

First, I announce that whatever it was I did was a complete surprise until I saw it on the television.

Second, I am mad as hell about it, and if it happened, there will be consequences.

Third, I have commissioned a thorough investigation, and as soon as it is complete, I will release the results late on a pre-holiday Friday. Sorry, though, you completely understand that I can’t comment on a matter under investigation, right?

Fourth: “Dude, that is like, you know, really old news.”

It is worth a try. It has been a hell of a week- it even featured one of those Kodak moments. If you live in DC, it goes like this: you get to the airport in plenty of time, get through the indignity of Security, have your shoes back on and are threading your belt, and look at the board for what gate the airplane is waiting…to discover the ticket reads “IAD” instead of “DCA.” And there is exactly fifty minutes to get from the one to the other.

Oops. Something happened to us in Shanghai that was a lot like that- they have two airports in that town, too, but the one that happened this week didn’t involve airplanes, just packages. But still the adrenaline flowed, rapidly re-locating from the District where I was told to delver the thing and Reston, where it was actually supposed to go, with the clock ticking.

Maybe everyone had the same sort of week. They are starting to flee the city for the first festival of Summer. The winter was brutal- the Gold Cup race reflected the first libations of liberation from its icy claws- and this is the first opportunity to actually get into shorts and flip-flops and fire up the barbeque.

At the farm, anyway. I am still working on that aspect, but I assume it is all going to come together at some point once I have The Streak nailed down for the 12th iteration of the First Splash.

So, there is the exhilaration that will come after meeting this Summer’s crop of Mittleurope Life Guards, some of whom are going to be pals for a long time, and the shock of the still-cold unfamiliar water.

Here is how the pool looks this morning:

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I feel like climbing the fence and getting the plunge out of the way. Count down!

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

Two Out of Three (Ain’t Bad)

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(Mac with out of town admirers, P&T, at Willow in February 2012. Photo The Lovely Bea.)

I have been avoiding it. Not because it is unpleasant. It has just been too raw. I feel the imperative growing, though. I made the mistake of looking at the archive this morning- I happened on one of the stories called “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad,” and was startled by the immediacy, as though Mac had just stepped out for a cold one.

https://www.vicsocotra.com/wordpress/2012/02/2573/
I don’t have much else on the plate this morning and two- maybe three- manuscripts to get serious about. That is where the despair thing kicks in. I have an accusatory file folder on my desktop. It is titled “Mac 50s,” and was intended as a place to put the stories about the interviews with RADM Donald “Mac” Showers, USN-Ret., that covered his career(s) after WWII.

We did a mini-version of the larger book to commemorate the 25th Anniversary of the Professional Association, which was about the time my energy was starting to flag on editing the Quarterly Publication. It seemed like a way to kill two birds with one stone- the alternative was to publish a “greatest hits” version of some of the better stories from more than a hundred issues of the Quarterly- a couple of us had paid personal money to digitize the archive, but we had done it on the cheap and the archive was not searchable in a way that made any sense, so it was easier to work with a smaller data set- and hence the Mac book was generated.

Keeping things restricted to the World War II years was a way to neatly bound the problem, since we were always all over the map in space and time.

You have seen some of the stories- Mac’s luncheon with Tito when he was bouncing between Naples and London, and his time at the Schoolhouse in Anacostia where he met everyone who was anyone in Naval Intelligence. Then the Naval Field Office (NFOIO) up at Fort Meade before it came back to beautiful Suitland, MD, to hide behind the mustard-colored Depression-era buildings of the Census Department and the National Archives.

We talked about all sorts of things. The massive bulk of the Main Navy Building on the National Mall, where the “On the Roof Gang” performed their magic, and where Mac ran into wartime colleague Forrest Sherman, who whisked him into the newly-created post war cadre of Air Intelligence officers.

I marveled at his description of what it was like to commute from Arlington to the outskirts of Baltimore in the days before the Beltway. The maturing nature of the Cold War. Cryppies and Spooks and operators of all stripes passed through the narrative. All the characters- and then back to the Pacific, and the conflict in SE Asia as he made Admiral and the system sucked him back to Washington.

His final years were as the Director of the budget programs at the Defense Intelligence Agency, then as Deputy Director, before the scorched-earth flag officer assignments process of Admiral Elmo “Bud” Zumwault brought retirement.

There were many interesting things after that in his second career, since Mac took off his uniform and reported to the nascent IC Staff to help DCI Richard Helms manage the fractious intelligence community. We agreed to not discuss anything that would still be of interest to the folks at Langley, at least not for the record, but I can tell you we are still debating some of the fruits of his labor today.

Perhaps the most poignant was the third career Mac took up: first as caregiver for his beloved wife Billie, and then as a volunteer to help others through the bewildering world of dementia and cancer.

He was my guide as my parents slipped away, and his experiences made mine the more bearable.

And then there was the sudden illness, and Mac’s decision to take his leave with his family around him. The Showers clan is something special, and I am honored to have spent so much time with them over the last few years.

And then there was the amazing spectacle of his Mac’s interment at Arlington Cemetery- damn, I am getting misty about it now. Maybe that is why I have been in denial mode about the project.

But it is time to get back to work. I wish I had been more organized when we were doing the project. And of all things, I wish he was over at The Madison so I could stop by and ask a few questions.

This will be the first of the projects I will get to. The one about Raven and Big Mama is still a little hard to deal with. Hell, one out of three wouldn’t be bad, you know?

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Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

A Taste of Willow

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I guess the surprising thing was that the Bluesmobile had not spontaneously combusted since the last time I actually had the hood open. That is a problem with cars that are used sometimes as lawn decorations. I forget how it got back up here- I think we took the JG’s Explorer down to the Farm, and the police car was the way we got back.

That left two vehicles up here, but the car had mostly been on the trickle charger down there and now was a static display in the parking lot where I could see it from the apartment window and the Panzer sleeps, by pride of place, down in the garage.

So the P-71 Cruiser spent the fall and winter outdoors, and it was clean enough on the outside, if a little raffish, but as I mentioned a while back, I discovered it was dead as a doornail when I was going to run out to get eggs at the Harris Teeter. All mechanical problems have a progression of resolution; the first of these was that the changing seasons had frozen the hood in the lock-down mode. That meant looking at the battery was a real problem.

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The straightforward answer was to use a tire-iron on the problem, but there naturally were some attendant issues to that, notably the bending of the sleek sheet-metal. I am not going to run off on auto-mechanical issues this morning, nor the wooden backscratcher that solved the first problem, and the loose negative cable on the battery that resolved the second, but the ants and the packed leaves that the persistent winter winds had blown up into the engine compartment were really troubling from a fire-safety perspective.

I wound up in the wash-bay under my dining-room window, housing down the engine compartment until most of insects and flammable debris were sluiced away. Confident that the immediate threat of driving a moving fire-ball down I-66, I left the engine running until I could relocate the beast to a flat parking space where I could jump the battery if required, and added a trip to the Ford dealer for later in the week.

A little research indicated that Ford did not start quipping the Police Interceptors with fire suppression kits until the year after mine was built. My bad.

Anyway, it was a splendid day for working on the car outdoors: cool and sunny with a few puffy clouds and a refreshing light breeze. With the immediate problem out of the way I came back in the house and checked my email. The Governor had dropped a note in response to an earlier query. He and TLB were heading for a family event, and accordingly he had visited A Taste of Arlington as soon as it opened for business.

“Lines are way long to buy tickets,” he wrote. “Try the booths down on Randolph Street. See you at Willow this week.”

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That meant a solo trip, but that was fine. I am still a little unsteady on my feet, between the injury and arthritis, so being able to take my own pace was perfectly acceptable. I drove over to the nearest lot I could think of close to Willow. I knew the parking was going to be problematic, and I should have biked or skateboarded or roller-bladed over, I know. Goodness, we are an organic lot here. We love our dogs, and our strollers- you should see the rolling contraptions that the strollers of yesteryear have become- literally SUVs versus the old umbrella folding things- and the bikes.

Lord, look out before you open your car door, or you might have a Lance Armstrong-wannbee plastered on the inside like an enormous bug.

Anyway, it was a short drive over to the Holiday Inn near I-66 and I parked the car, forgot my phone, and limped off toward Fairfax Drive, which I assumed would be blocked off. On the way across Glebe I swing past Old Jim’s house to say hello, and then realized that the festival wasn’t on Fairfax Drive, it was on Wilson, two blocks over.

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My mistake was natural. Tracy O’Grady had named her creation for the street fair “The Fairfax Drive,” which was a new take on her signature flatbread, in this incarnation

adorned with “broccoli rabe pesto, braised shredded pork, sautéed wild mushrooms, garlic sautéed broccoli rabe, red pepper flake, Fontina & Parmesan cheeses.”

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The most excellent day had brought out a big crowd. There was live music at both ends of the three blocks that were blocked for foot traffic and tents. Virtually all the restaurants I know about and many I did not had tents- but the Governor was right: the long pole in the tent was purchasing the red tickets to exchange for food samples.

It would have taken longer to stand in the line to buy the coupons than I was willing to spend at the street far, and so I wandered down the north side of the street, looking at the vendors and the lines in front of the popular ones, dodging dogs on leashes, SUV baby carriages and people wandering with little plates of food.

There were beer tents and this year the County said it was OK to carry a beverage along with you. Big Buns and the Liberty Tavern and Screw Top and Lyon Hall were all there, with the host of others.

Willow was working hard on the south side of the tent row. Brian was working the customer, Debra and Kate and Tracy were all sautéing, serving, toasting and garnishing away.

The Fairfax Drive is a marvelous creation. Brian cut me a deal- no ticket for my slice! I wandered off, munching as I went. It was the only taste of Arlington I got, but it was delicious.

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Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

Two Minutes

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I was driving the Panzer over to meet Old Jim at the not-Willow bar to shoot the shit and maybe watch the Preakness. It was a lovely day, low humidity and sunny, a splendid day to be alive.

By consensus, the old cathode ray tube televisions high atop the bar fixture at Willow was not going to present the proper high-def resolution I demand for my sporting sensibilities.

To meet the requirements, Jim suggested a slice of the excellent pies at Pizza Roma, across from the Ballston Metro stop and then some beers at The First Down next door.

I think I had been in the place years ago, most likely when I worked for a company that was conveniently located just up the block and patronized the Eat-And-Run shawarma shop that used to be there, two or three businesses ago. It is a modest looking place, just a single storefront, but surprisingly vast as it wrapped around the back of the other businesses on the block.

We agreed to meet at four; Jim was hungry and it would be two and a half hours, near enough, until post time for the Preakness. “That should be enough time to get your mind right for the Sport of Kings,” he growled on the phone, and I had to confirm that he was right.
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Problem was the Canadiens v. Rangers game. There was too much not to like about the line-up, real Old School Hockey though with five minutes to go in the game on my television, I saw that I was cutting it close on being on time to Pizza Roma. The Habs were down by five goals, though, so despite my interest in sticking to the bitter end, I put down my first drink of the day and wandered down to the garage to drive over to Ballston.

The winter was not kind to our streets. I know the County intends to build a half-billion dollar trolley down on Columbia Pike that will do nothing for us in North Arlington, but I really wish they would allocate some of that money on fixing the pot holes that the Spring heave opened up to hinder my progress over to Willow during the week.

We are bike friendly here, so the streets are quite narrow now that the assertive bike lanes and curb-parking for the rental apartments and there is no alternative but to run right into the nasty holes. That might have got my front right tire last week- I don’t know.

I do know that the active hostility to motorists is one of the prime irritants in an otherwise militantly inoffensive municipality. I was surprised to see that some road repair was in progress on the weekend, and Henderson was closed to traffic.

I veered left on 4th to Carlin Springs, which tees into North Glebe at the world’s lamest mall and went left, intending to swerve right on Wilson to take Taylor up to Fairfax Drive and look for a place to park.

I was in the process of activating the turn-signal at Wilson when I saw Jon-without crossing the intersection. He was well turned out, as always, but in a white collared knit shirt, madras shorts, white socks and loafers. I rolled down the window and said: “Hey, Governor! Where you going?”

Jon-without looked at me affably. “Going downtown. TLB is engaged in some family business in Maryland, and I am at liberty this afternoon for a cocktail.”

“Just where I am headed. Going to meet Jim at not-Willow.”

“Where might not-Willow be?”

“Across from the Metro station- why don’t you come along? We don’t see enough of each other these days.”

He laughed and climbed into the passenger’s side as a motorist behind us helpfully leaned on the horn. We found a place to park at the curb almost directly in front of the bar. I was feeding a credit card into the parking kiosk when Jim called on the cell to say that the Pizza place was closed when he walked by and he was already at the bar.

I assured him he would be joined within the minute, and when the kiosk printed out my ticket I slipped on the dashboard and locked up the car and we entered The First Down. Televisions were affixed to nearly all the flat surfaces behind the bar and over the coat rack, mostly displaying Major League Baseball.

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Jim was at exactly the same place at the corner of the bar that he occupies at Willow, and there were two places next to him, though the rest of the bar was lined with customers- a cute couple immediately to his right, which would have been my seat at Willow, and a very drunk Hispanic man, and some preppy types beyond.

Jim had ordered the three-slider plate, and we fortified ourselves with vodka and tonics from Trey the bartender, and introductions were made all around. “Did you see that the Canadiens got shelled in game one?”

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The cute couple grimaced- it turned out they were from Greater Plattsburg in Upstate New York, which is one of the places Jon-without hails from, and that led to a discussion of traveling in Canada, and the fact that the guy had gone to McGill University in Montreal, and I had grown up in Detroit, a little town north of Canada, and from there it turned out that everyone at the bar (except Jose) hailed from an Original Six town from the NHL.

Bruins, Blackhawks, Canadians, Rangers and Red Wings were all represented at the bar, and five out of six isn’t bad. There was some general merriment, and the then the hockey crowd turned over to baseball fans, and two imposing African American ladies in full Redskins regalia appeared next to Jim, and watched baseball stoically.

Jon-without requested the Yankees game be played on the big screen in front of us, which caused several of us to shout out that we hated the damn Yankees, but Jon was brooking no opposition. We all became Pirates fans at that moment, at least situationally, and the drinks flowed as I marveled at being in a bar that wasn’t Willow.

It was fun- Trey’s shift came and went, and Anthony relieved him, and eventually there came a moment when it seemed like it might be time to cut from baseball to horse racing, and Anthony was kind enough to accommodate us. The bar filled up to near full as post time neared country music was blasting on the jukebox and the three trumpeters mutely sounded the call to post.

“So if California Chrome is a 1-2 favorite, you have to spend two bucks to win one? What’s up with that?”

At exactly 6:20 they managed to stuff the pretty ponies into the starting gate, and with the sound turned off we could not hear the bell, but the gates flew open and the two most interesting minutes in sports was on.

Despite the size of the television, I could not tell who was who, but the whole thing was colorful enough. The first six furlongs took just over a minute, and Victor Espinoza on California Chrome went for the lead as Social Inclusion made an early move entering the far turn. Chrome opened up a three-length lead at the top of the stretch and held off a late charge by Ride On Curlin.

I looked over at Jon-without and Jim. “Two minutes” I said. “That is all it took. And two legs toward the Triple Crown”

Jim looked at me phlegmatically. “Last time a horse did it was 1978, Affirmed, with Steve Cauthen up.”

“I remember him,” said Jon-without. “He was a gentleman from Kentucky.”

“And sportsman of the year in Sports Illustrated. Been a while since a jockey did that.”

“Pressure is going to be on. Can you imagine?”

“The Belmont Stakes is a mile and a half long. That means there is exactly two minutes and thirty seconds until we know.”

“But not today,” I said, looking at the level of the clear liquid in the glass in front of me. “How many more sports can we do today?”

“I think men’s lacrosse is coming up next,” said Jon-without, and he settled in to get comfortable. “That takes more than a couple minutes.”

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303