A Day On (the Road)

(The Dr. Martin Luther King Memorial on the National Mall. Hand crafted in China, the memorial symbolizes the legacy of the slain Civil Rights leader. Photo AP.)

It is a Day On this morning, not that industry has given us much of a choice about recognizing the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King off the meter. I am OK with all that, but reserve a quiet moment of contemplation for him as I did when I made the pilgrimage to his tomb on the grounds of the old Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

The public component of the Inauguration happens today, as well. The radio is murmuring about the police presence downtown, and the military vehicles strategically positioned. I remember four years ago attempting to find a place to park the Hubrismobile on the Virginia bluffs overlooking the capital to see if I could see W’s helicopter fly away from this crazy city for the last time.

FT Myer and Arlington Cemetery were locked down for security, and files of spectators, mostly but not exclusively African American, were parking where they could and taking the long trek down to the graceful Memorial Bridge and across to the National Mall. The only place I could find was a parking place on the grounds of the Arlington Annex in the shadow of the Air Force Memorial.

I sat in the car with the top down on the chilly morning, listening to the account of the ceremonies, and actually saw Marine One lift off in the distance, taking George and Laura away.

They say that there will be nowhere near the crowds that thronged the city last time. The National Park Service requested only a quarter the number of porta-potties, and they generally know what they are doing.

I am not going any way near the District today. Instead, I am headed west to the distant suburb of Reston, conveniently located near Dulles International Airport in case you feel the need to flee the continent.

I am not taking flight. I am, instead, working on the day devoted to Dr. King, and to the first African American President. This is half way through the Obama years. Each day now represents the steady march to the Smokin’ Joe Biden administration or some other horror in the slow-motion collapse of the West.

Oh well. I know we should let today stand as a signal accomplishment for the Progressive vision. We are looking at all sorts of Good Works that can be accomplished, with renewed vigor and determination.

Gun control, of course, Immigration Reform, Climate Change and all sorts of cool stuff. It should be pretty exciting. They say that the new Secretaries of Defense and State are going to be major players in the implementation of the second term agenda and naturally we are all very interested in what they will do. Mr. Kerry is supposed to have a bold plan to support international agreements on carbon (the European market in carbon swaps just collapsed) and cutting the defense budget is the number one priority for Mr. Hagel.

I am sure it will all be very exciting.

The fortress of John Boehner’s House of Representatives will be a sticking point for the President’s second term agenda, of course, so the hope is that the hapless GOP will be triangulated between the White House and Harry Reid’s Senate, and the House will fall to the forces of the vanguard of the Middle Class in 2014.

There is so much to look forward to. In the meantime, I was puzzling over a couple minor issues, like where the ten o’clock meeting is, out there in the wilds of Fairfax County.

Fairfax was once the richest county in the United States, based on median income, and at this moment as the nation arcs through the zenith of its influence, the richest that has existed in the history of the species. It is allrelative, of course. We have talked about the side benefits of living and working in the National Capital Region (NCR). Sure, the traffic sucks, big time, but we have stayed employed in a variety of worthy government activities since the awful events of 9/11.

It used to seem shocking that five of the ten richest counties in the United States were part of the DC Metropolitan Statistical Area, but as of last year, the NCR suburbs now account for no less than seven of the ten richest counties in the nation.

The prosperity of Northern Virginia represents a blend of high incomes and exclusionary zoning. But still, it is a reflection of just how the money spigot flows. Even Prince William County and bucolic Fauquier make the list. Culpeper doesn’t, and I just wish I had been prescient enough to take some business clothes down there so I could have stayed the night away from the NCR and stopped on the way back for the stupid meeting.

Oh well, it is a Day On, after all, and there is a great deal of excitement to come.

(The First and Second Families look at Marine One as Geroge and Laura split the city in 2009. Photo AP).

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Cold Case

It is early here at the farm, the light is not yet up and the stars wink down impassively on our little world. People are flooding into the city for the inauguration, and I am happy to be away from it.

They say the crowds will not be as big as they were last time, but I am taking no chances.

Things are different down here than they are Up North- so few miles under the wheels and such profound variance in the news. I swerved across the farm road to put the driver’s side window close enough to the mail box to snag the little haul of a week’s country mail as I pulled up to the farm yesterday.

The Culpeper Clarion Bugle is not the Post or the NY Times. There is no magisterial coverage on What Must Be Done, or How We Must Do It.

I glanced at the front page as I disemboweled the paper of its advertising supplement- the only reason people read the thing past the “student athlete of the week” feature. I tossed the mostly junk mail to the floor on the passenger side of the Panzer. The front page announced that the director of communications for the County abruptly stepped down. The implication is some sort of scandal, well covered up, of course, and a change to the means of collecting the hated Personal Property Tax.

Those were the above-the-fold news- below and to the right was a late-breaking story, and a sensational one. The headline to the story was dramatic: a 32-year-old murder case had been hauled out of cold storage and solved.

Amazing. We don’t even pay attention to murders back up in The District, though Blue Arlington and bustling Purple Fairfax can barely get through the daily dose of awfulness and get ready for what is to come tomorrow, much less worry about what happened decades ago.

That is normally reserved for the obituary pages- American politics burying its dead in the morgue of the Washington Post. I read the paragraphs on the front page and then followed the story that was scattered through pages six and seven- the whole front section.

This was a driveway moment indeed, and I did not get around to unloading the car or shouting “Natasha!” across the scrub trees and fields to let the Russians know I had turned up.

As I unloaded dry food and supplies from the Panzer I marveled at the story.

This story was more sensational than the last big murder case here, the one where Culpeper Deputy Daniel Harmon-Wright shot to death an unarmed woman who was sitting alone in her car. Fauquier Commonwealth’s Attorney James Fisher, a bluff balding man with a burly physique and a direct manner was appointed to handle the case. He also is presiding over the case of the ancient killing of Brad Baker in The Plains.

A prisoner at the Mt. Olive Correctional Facility confessed after being confronted by a grand jury and admitting he had been the triggerman on“a slaying that had gone unsolved for more than three decades.”

Cold case city! And the more I read there in the driveway the more intrigued I got. The story had everything: passion, big money, big property and the microcosm of life in the outer reaches of the Northern Virginia horse country.

There is a lot of money in Loudoun and Fauquier Counties. The Mellons bought the acreage to have a place to ride deep into the fall and early in the spring. I remember when I was exploring there to see if I could find the right property in which to invest. My search took me further south to the more bucolic fields and pastures of Culpeper- but along the way and on little-traveled farm roads, I saw the outlines of what that money could do.

Like the private jet landing strip that appeared at the end of a lane outside Upperville.

The Plains is the exit you would take to get there from the great concrete swath of I-66 after passing through Thoroughfare Gap and arriving in a place as different from the District as you can imagine.

There is a back road that takes you meandering into the prosperous horse town of Middleburg. The Plains is a gateway to horse country, but it was also the exit for Brad Baker from this vale of tears.

Baker had just taken over management of one of the Mellon and Ives properties (Mellon of bank fame, and Ives of Currier and Ives prints). This one was Kinloch Farm, currently a property specializing in the breeding and training of sheepdogs.

(Kinloch Farm’s rolling hills. Photo Kinloch Farms.)

It was not, 32 years ago. It was an equine property with absentee owners who needed strict management, since the place had issues. One of the first of these was a problem employee who was not on the same sheet of music as management and owners. That would be Mr. Cloud’s stepfather.

Baker canned him ten days into his tenure, on New Years Eve of 1980. That night he intended to go to a party with a pal, Dr. Linda Davies. She arrived at the farm that evening to find the door open to the snowy night, the windows broken out of the two-story farmhouse and Baker inside on the floor, mortally wounded. He had taken a bullet to the head and one right in what the reporting euphemistically called “the groin.”

The first subject was the fired employee, but he had a solid alibi. The case grew cold. There was a spate of interest over publication in The Washingtonian a few years later of a theory that the killing was the result of a romantic triangle with one of the Mellon heiresses. The shot to the groin was thought to be a lead, but it too petered out, so to speak.

Since then, the case stood as the coldest one in county history. It did have sex, money and violence, so people continued to pick at it- Detectives, sheriffs and even a couple psychics.

Things changed back in 2005. Newly-elected Sherrif Charlie Ray Fox, Jr. directed hs CID to comb through the old files and see what they could come up with.

Commonwealth Attorney Fisher was willing to empanel a special Grand Jury in 2011 to follow up, and that unprecedented allocation of resources for such an old crime produced results as the subpoenas went out and citizens were hauled in front of the judge.

Approached by the long arm of the court was the fired employee’s stepson, Ron Cloud. He is serving time for kidnap, sexual assault and false imprisonment, and he was going nowhere for a very long time. Maybe he figured that a trial would at least give him a chance to travel.

According to Fisher’s criminal complaint against him, Cloud “went to Baker’s home and acknowledged having “exchanged words” with him at the front door.” When Baker ran into the back bedroom to get his shotgun, Cloud broke in the front door. Baker fired at Cloud, but the pellets went wide. Cloud then administered the groin and headshot and departed with Baker expiring on the floor.

There is more physical evidence from that night long ago that suggests there was another shooter, so this drama is going to play out for a while.

Who says that nothing happens in the country?

Heck, I even know what the feature story is going to be in next week’s paper. The Russians bought a new loveseat and couch. Of significance, they are both blue.

(Ronald R. Cloud, confessed murderer, kidnapper and violent felon. Photo Mugshots.com)

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Day of Service

I was going to flee the capital late yesterday, after the Admiral’s retirement. It was great to be part of it. Norm racked up a series of “firsts” in his 31-year career, which he enumerated. He was the first African American to be selected for a host of key Naval Intelligence jobs- Detailer, Number Fleet Intelligence Officer, front office job for the DNI, and ultimately the first officer of color to make Flag rank.

It was a career well-served, and an honor to be part of the celebration. Naturally, his retirement comes on the eve of Mr. Obama’s second inauguration, which will take place on the holiday dedicated to the greatest African American, Doctor Martin Luther King.

By the time all the words had been said it was nearly rush hour, and I-66 would be a parking lot, with dusk coming before I could get safely away. So I caught up on the office mail and watched the last two episodes of a marvelous Masterpiece Theater mini-series called “Any Human Heart.”

William Boyd wrote the book and the screenplay, and the account of an old man and the women in his life across the last century was tender and funny and appalling by turn. Highly recommended, and you can stream it off Netflix. Then I turned in, ignoring the local news.

It is a hard thing when your local reporting is also National Narrative, so it is harder to tune out.

I did hear enough to make me want to get away. There will be something north of half a million people coming to town to celebrate the events which begin today, which is why I am getting as far away from the capital as I can. Or at least as far as Refuge Farm, anyway.

I will do my day of service down there. Scrolling through the headlines this morning, I saw the Continuing Crisis has new highlights:

“Civilian hiring freeze looms at Fort Meade, Naval Academy
Pentagon orders halt on hiring, plus plan for 30 percent cut in spending.”

It is a quiet Saturday morning otherwise, with the cold gathered close to the vest and the skies a deep and undisturbed blue. It had been a weird week and the headlines reinforced it. All the weeks of this New Year have been strange. The Fiscal Quadrafecta needs servicing: late delivery of the President’s Budget, Sequestration, the Budget Ceiling and the Continuing Resolution all come to a head starting in February.

The Republicans of the GOP-dominated House are coming out of their pre-inaugural caucus down in Williamsburg, apparently determined to permit the Budget Deficit Ceiling to be raised. In exchange for not trifling with the Full Faith and Credit of the United States, apparently a little poison-pill will be inserted into the authorization, which is that the Senators will not get paid unless and until they pass a budget.

It has been three years since the Senior Chamber did their job on that front, which is another of those amazing things that provides the surreal backdrop to the crisis. The authorization, if it happens, will only last for a limited amount of time- three months or so. Apparently the goal is to keep the Administration’s spending on the front burner through this entire two-year period of Congressional service.

We are starting to get this European thing down pretty well by now.

Not passing a budget has its upsides, since things just lurch along without debate about the numbers. Even so, the deficits have mutated into something quite extraordinary. Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman tells me not to worry about it, not that there is anything I can do about it, but the current crisis has the government cancelling conferences left and right, and trying to deal with a prospective 30% cut to the budget at the end of the year.

That accounts for the generalized angst in and out of government about the uncertainty. Not a good place to be.

(Gold bullion getting ready to travel. Photo AFP.)

And there is other strange stuff going on. I don’t know if you saw the note about the German Central Bank calling home nearly 700 tons of gold bullion it owns, which is currently stored in vaults in New York and Paris.

As you know, the usual practice of central banks is to simply move the gold around from cage to cage in a secure area and avoid exposing the precious metal to the vagaries of predation. For some reason now the Deutschers feel the need to do so now. Wonder why?

Could it be that they are skittish about whether the Yanks or the Frogs really have it? Do they think that things are approaching a brink in which it is better to have your gold under your own mattress?

The venerable BBC said it this way:

“Germany’s central bank is to bring back almost 700 tonnes of gold reserves it keeps in New York and Paris. By 2020, half of its gold bars will be in its vaults, the Bundesbank said. It currently keeps less than a third at home. The bars were originally taken out of Germany as a precaution against an invasion from the Soviet Union.”

Another reminder of how the world has changed. I am glad I have Russians so close down on the farm. It is sort of comforting. Plus, I always find it interesting to see what the “smart money” is doing. I wish I had the means to do something smart. I presume that all savings and stocks are vulnerable to the demons of inflation, and I cannot imagine that our current folly will not bring it upon us.

A colleague said he was going to cash out his 401k and buy real property, with the assumption that it would still be there, even if the currency goes to hell.

“Not liquid,” I said.

He shrugged. “At least it is there,” he said. “Beyond that I don’t know what to do. It is grasping at straws, since the smart money has already migrated to wherever it is that smart money goes before the rest of us chumps are given a clue.

Considering we are all in the same leaky boat, maybe it is time to pull on the oars and get back closer to shore. Doctor King would appreciate the effort. A day of service, working together, you know?

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Pax

(I was still teetering on crutches when Bill made his remarks at Raven and Big Mama’s funeral. His remarks were inspirational.)

I got the word when I arrived at the office. My cousin Bill- we knew him as Billie when we were growing up- had passed peacefully the morning before.

We had a sense that this was coming, but he must have wanted to stay for the holidays.  He had settled out in the Denver area after getting out of his beloved Air Force and made his life with Kathy there on the Front Range under the wide sky and against the looming majesty of the mountains.

Raven was the little brother of his Dad, the legendary aviation pioneer. Raven was 17 years younger, and with our Grandfather often gone on Western Electric business, really was more father to Raven than J.B. was.

The closeness of that relationship carried over, and Bill and his siblings were much older than we were, and they carried a certain mythic status in our lives. His brother James Burr was killed on active duty while tanking his B-47 bomber on the way home from Spain.

We were all proud of him- youngest aircraft commander in SAC, trim, eyes crinkled with laugh-lines. I remember that funeral well, and it is strange to look down on his stone, as we did this summer, the gray surface softened with lichen under the brilliant sky.

Cousin Bill honored his memory by joining the Air Force as well, though he did not fly. His interests lay elsewhere, though of course airplanes and photography were interests that stayed with him all his life.

He had a long battle with esophageal cancer. Radical surgery and chemo seemed to have vanquished the scourge. He spoke with one of those amplifiers that he held up against where his vocal cords had been. The sound was a little strange and filled with vibrato, but his wit and good humor came through.

Bill was one of the featured speakers at Big Mama and Raven’s interment up in Pennsylvania, and he funny as hell, talking about the pranks he and Raven shared down through the years. They shared the same name, of course, and took delight in calling each other’s answering services, announcing that it was “themselves” calling and laughing uproariously.

That was the last time I saw him alive. He was thin as a rail but upbeat and determined to beat the cancer. Throughout the course of the ravaging disease, he maintained a sense of dignity and grace. He was one of my heroes.

He lost the fight on Wednesday. I am going to miss him a lot. The memorial is tomorrow in Denver. I am not sure I can get there in time. I will definitely be there for the funeral.

He leaves behind his lovely bride Kathy and three vivacious daughters.

Cousin Jan, former mayor of Galveston, is the senior member of the family, replacing Raven and Big Mama as the Doyen. She and her younger brother Alan remain behind to anchor the clan.

I am going to miss Bill. He was a grand guy.

Rest in peace, Bill.

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

The Tarantino Factor

(Famed director Quentin Tarantino whose hyper-violent comic book movies have inspired a generation. Photo AP).

There is cold weather coming this way. It is snowing in Mississippi, they tell me, and in between, the Ninjas may take advantage of the drying air mass to slap more paint on the balcony at Big Pink.

It will be good to get that project done, but if it is not one thing, it is another. We had one of Arlington’s aging water mains go bust in the night, and there is no water, much less hot water, and that makes a great start to the working day. I stand four-square for improved water pipes.

I confess I was puzzled by the President’s announcement on one of the elements of the Continuing Crisis yesterday. There did not seem to be a great deal of substance in the recommendations, if you subtract the things that he asked the Congress to do. Well, it was $3.4 billion worth of stuff, but the numbers don’t seem to make anyone blink anymore.

My sources tell me a much more aggressive plan to control Gun Violence was going to be rolled out yesterday, but the Senate Democrats were very nervous about it, and it would have been a non-starter in the House.

Most of the 23 Executive Orders are happy-thinking along with some good ideas with which I have no problem. Naturally, the part of the NRA’s widely castigated “put armed guards in schools” suggestion actually turns up in the EO as the provision of 15,000 federally-funded police officers at the state and local level.

So, rather than expend his political capital for the second term in an effort that was going to go nowhere, the President elected to play “small ball,” and tinker on the margins. The real emphasis of the second term is going to be placed on a comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill  and revisiting the carbon tax. Of course, we need to get past the Debt Ceiling and Sequestration Artificial Crises first.

This is not shaping up as a happy time for everyone, except maybe the Hollywood execs and the NASCAR track owners who scored big time on the Fiscal Cliff legislation.

You noticed, I am sure, the complete lack of reference to violent content in media in anything that was said or proposed yesterday.

I am reminded of the Christmas Day screening of “Django Unchained” film by famed director Quentin Tarantino I attended with my son. I was both entertained and repulsed by the gratuitous violence wrapped around fantasy in the film, not to mention the fuzzy historical context. In addition to the use of the N-word (more than a hundred times) were the fifty-odd graphic gun homicides.

I gather the use of the forbidden word is intended to desensitize us to its use- or use it, rather, to decrease its power. The shooting just seemed to be for fun, like the violence in Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs.

Mr. Tarantino had been on the PR circuit to flak the film at the beginning of the awards cycle, and talk about his artistic vision, but he has a thin skin. I heard him wax indignant on NPR when quizzed about the relationship between his art and the actions of some of his viewers. After all, said Mr. Tarantino, “I am an “artist.” He doesn’t see any connection between the desensitization to gun violence of disturbed young men and the content they watch on the screen and the games they play on their consoles.

I am a huge First Amendment fan, of course, but the whole chicken-and-egg thing about gun violence is…well, inconvenient.

Rather than discuss the matter of the impact of Hollywood does though hyper-violent plots and special effects magic to influence the culture, Hollywood bought itself a free pass. The film industry has done pretty well in the continuing crisis. Hollywood was rewarded with hundreds of millions of tax breaks (“The American Taxpayer Relief Act,” hahahah) and no mention whatsoever in the President’s small-ball  23-point initiative.

So, it is definitely business as usual here in Washington.

Maybe coming to a theater near you, soon.

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

The Maid Brigade

(I opened up the door on the left side of the media cabinet to stow more junk before the maids arrived and found this. WTF? Photo Socotra).

I wasn’t worried that much about whatever it is they are going to do at the White House later this morning. I was prepared for this contingency long ago. Perhaps not as prepared as I would wish to be, but that is true with everything, I suspect.

Like with the arrival of The Maid Brigade. Well, it used to be a brigade. I think Vickie is back to doing the work herself, and times being what they are, she had to lay off some of the ladies she brought along with her.

I was going to yammer about the surprises I found while attempting to get ready for the arrival of the maids for the monthly purification of the unit yesterday, and the piles of books that have been growing since the operation on my leg last year and the subsequent lack of mobility.

It is funny that the impending visit from the Maids is what gets the laundry done, the dishes washed, and the flat surfaces in the unit cleared off. If that basic stuff does not get done, the cleaning effort is rendered sub-optimal.

So, when I got back from Willow and a meeting with The Argonaut, I got down to some frantic I was frankly startled by the number of books I need to look at, and opened up some drawers and cabinets that had been untouched due to their proximity to the floor and the likelihood that I would join them down there if I bent over too far.

Oh well. The ability to bend over and pick things up is still a bit of a novelty, and indicates that things are slowly, painfully, getting better.

That is good. It may ease some of the dyspepsia that some alert readers have noticed. Accordingly, I am going to resist he temptation to launch into a soaring peroration of support for the Constitution. You wouldn’t think that the venerable old document would need my support, since all of us in the government, past and present, have sworn a solemn oath to support it.

My adherence to the Constitution is unflagging, so to speak. President Obama is alleged to have read the document- even, by some accounts, to be an expert in interpreting it. I have seen little evidence of that, since there is a perfectly legal way to address the current Second Amendment controversy: amend it with the “common sense” language, or repeal it.

(Insert standard disclaimer here. You recall that is the one where we agree that murder is evil, the murder of children worse. What to do about it is a matter for discussion.)

We talked about that in a look at the first ten amendments the other day, in “By the Numbers.” The Bill of Rights was required to seal the deal on the basic document of Union.

I am in complete agreement that it is a living document that should adapt to the times, just like it did with the lamented 18th Amendment (less alcohol) and the 21st (more alcohol).

In all, the Constitution has been amended seventeen times to accommodate social circumstance, and provide a bulwark to the original ten.

It is not an unusual process, it is perfectly legal, and would ensure the “national discussion” about gun control would be held in the several states.

An amendment to change the Second amendment might not pass. But that is the process that is supposed to be followed. President Press Secretary Jay Carney and Vice President Biden have declared that there is a means by which the President can act unilaterally through issuance of Executive Order.

The EO process is intended only to clarify and codify behavior of those bureaus and agencies within the Executive branch, not the several states or to the citizens who reside within them.

The thing the President should remember is that the Constitutional amendment process is long, and it is inevitable that some other horror will occur along the way, possibly awful enough (like Sandy Hook) to mobilize public sentiment to secure a victory for common sense.

Of course, despite the number of weapons floating around in Iraq and Afghanistan, the most popular means of inflicting mass casualty is the IED.

That was the weapon of choice used in the 1927 Bath, Michigan, school massacre, which still stands as the most deadly act of school violence, though that monster Tim McVey took out a while day-care center with his bomb at the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City.

But hey, we will see what the President announces, while surrounded by a human shield of kids later this morning. In the meantime, I have to get ready for the maids.

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Something About Mary

(Old Jim’s long suffering bride Mary with a special birthday cake. Photo by the pretty Jamie.)

The good thing about Tuesdays are that the morning normally follows a decent night’s sleep, because of Monday, Monday evening at Willow. I was ready for it.

The Monday wonderful world of Work was weird. Anyone who depends on the ponderous rhythm of the Federal Bureaucracy is slowly being driven mad by the continuing circus downtown. No one, private or public sector, can make a plan.

A colleague sent me an excel spread sheet and asked me to plug in some numbers that would constitute the forecast for the third and fourth Quarter activity in the accounts I manage. I looked at the blanks blankly. I wrote back a querulous note asking why my colleague thought that I knew something that was unknown to the entire Executive Branch, both houses of Congress, and the poor Agency responsible for analyzing threats to America world-side.

I have a growing suspicion I know where at least one of the threats is located, and it is not far away from Big Pink.

I suffered through the Diane Rhem show on NPR between conference calls- it is the compromise choice I have to listening to the local commercial talk radio (WTOP) outlet. I can’t handle the “traffic and weather on the eights” drumbeat, but there is such a steady stream of nonsense emanating from the little clock-radio on my desk that I considered not contributing at the next fund-raiser.

The show today featured an extended interview with a fellow named Gregory Stone, one of those fuzzy-brained “scientists” who did not appear to know the difference between the Decadal Pacific Oscillation and Global Warming.

I squirmed in my chair. Stone’s lines were memorized and regurgitated with matter-of-fact polish. In the long series of softball questions, the “scientist” veered back and forth from small victories in his crusade to save the planet to the enduring theme of Doom.

“Screw these guys” I thought, and got back to work imagining numbers to plug into spread-sheets. The sky outside the office window was gray and the clouds dropped down to scrape the top of the new office buildings across the canyon of North Glebe Road.

I didn’t know what to be freaked out about. At the top of the hour, I heard that New York is capitalizing on Sandy Hook to pass more and tougher gun laws. I don’t know the precise details, and the prediction was that the state Senate would debate the legislation late into the night.

Gov. Cuomo has not had an opportunity to have another public hysterical moment about it- not yet, anyway- and though this is happening in a state well to the north, it will clearly have an impact on all of us.  I was driving up from the farm Sunday afternoon and realized I was running low on cigarettes. I know, I know, but I thought I might stop at Ft Myer to pick some up at Commissary prices, but realized I had several legal firearms in the boot of the Panzer.

What are the chances of getting searched at the gate to the “gun free zone” of Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall? Infinitesimal.

What were the consequences of getting caught with them in the car? Gigantic. So I stopped at the little Sari-sari store over at the strip mall next to my dry cleaner and paid the civilian freight for the coffin nails. Not worth the risk. We are all going to have to be very careful in the days to come.

I went down to the little Korean convenience store and got a salad at lunch. I was back at the desk in time to catch the President and that strange petulant performance at what was billed as “the last press conference” of his first term. I don’t know if he actually answered any questions- the parts I heard were a monologue demonizing anyone who would not let him keep spending money we do not  have.

In fact, the more I thought about it, the speech seemed like nothing short of a declaration of war by the Executive branch against the Legislative.

I have been to a rodeo and a county fair, I mused, while making up numbers to fit a variety of alternate futures. I have never seen anything like this in my life. I am at a loss to even find a comparable continuing crisis in the history of the USG- with the possible exception of the debate over the Peculiar Institution. And you know where that went.

This is no longer interesting. I am hearing klaxons of alarm. I tried to put all the nonsense out of my mind, and think about positive things instead.

It was difficult, but I settled on the only good thing I could envision: Monday Monday at Willow.

My mood brightened as LTJG Socotra called as he was getting ready to leave work in the People’s Republic of Maryland and asked if I wanted to get a beer after work.

I smiled broadly, looked at the clock, and entered some random numbers into the spread-sheet and shut down the computer. A light mist was coming down as I parked at the curb outside Willow and fed quarters into the meter.

I clomped across the street and up the two stairs to the bar entrance and peered inside. Old Jim was not at his usual place. Instead, there was a blended cast of characters: David, Mac’s son, was at the apex of the Amen corner sipping a martini. I embraced him, with the sudden realization that the hole in my heart left by Mac’s passing had not healed.

“I have been aching to get to the Monday session at the Amen Corner for months,” he said. “And since Suzanne is out of town, the only one counting on me is the dog.”

“Great to see you!” I said, and we talked about the void his remarkable father had left in so many lies with his well-organized departure. Next to him was seated Mo, a former Hill staffer who relocated to Montana to set up a HUBZone enterprise, and periodically stops by Willow to develop business for Spearfish, MT.

Placid pretty Jamie, Lovely Bea and both Johns- with and without- wrapped around the foot of the Amen Corner, and down the bar was the World’s Second Greatest Fighter Air Intelligence Officer chatting up LTJG Socotra.

“This is quite the turn-out on a rainy winter night,” I said to David. “The stars must have aligned.”

The lovely Bea gave me one of her heart-melting smiles. “No, it is Mary’s birthday, and we are going to get her a nice slice of cake. It is a significant birthday,” she said with a wink, and told me which one.

Mary herself arrived a couple glasses of Happy Hour white later. She was happy to be out. “That flu thing is for real,” she said. “I had Jim in the ER on Saturday. He is really sick.”

“OMG,” I said. “We had better stay away from public places.” I took a sip of wine. “Except maybe this one.”

Then Jasper came out with a lovely slice of co-owner Kate Jansen’s signature chocolate swirl layer cake with that delicious frosting. Mary did not want to eat the whole thing, and despite the threat of the flu, most of us took a bite, though I think we had our own forks.

“So,” asked Jon-without, “if Jim doesn’t make it, what are you doing for dinner next week?”

John-with said she would have to wait a year, for proper mourning. “It is only respectful.”

I thought about the events of the day, and what is to come, known and unknown. I took a deep swallow of wine- it was a nice Spanish blend- and responded “I don’t think any of us has got a year. Drink up.”

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

No Country for Old Men

Or women, for that matter. Or the poor kids. The Flu gets us all, sooner or later. Mostly it is just a rough spot with fatigue, dehydration, soar throat and congested lungs and that delirious in-and-out chills and fever thing best ridden out in bed.

(A ward at Camp Funston, Kan. showing the many ill patients who caught the 1918 Spanish influenza. Photograph by an unknown U.S. Army photographer.)

That is one of the reasons I have not been to see “Zero Dark Thirty” at the theater. Or the highly regarded “Lincoln,” or any of the other decent looking Hollywood diversions that are now appearing in wide release. I am conducting a low-level avoidance of public places, with the exception of the Willow, of course. Which is probably a mistake. Old Jim was hard down last week, unable to drink effectively, and confined to quarters. I hope he is rising out of the infection, phoenix-like, but this is a tough strain against those of us of a certain age.

Another pal is in the grip of it right now. Shivering and boiling by turns in Colorado, that square state has lost two of the twenty kids who have perished this year due to the Flu. There are vaccine shortages, which are expected to be resolved shortly. With a two week period required to boost the immune system, it may be too late to be much good.

The CDC still is telling us to get them. I may make a few calls today to see if shots are available, though I do not really want to go any place where there are a bunch of people shopping for flu-relief nostrums. The predominant current flu strain (there are, of course, multiple types) is something called “H3N2,” and while it appears to have good match to the flu strains in this year’s vaccine. H3N2 is high in virulence, and the CDC claims it has been around before, in the 2003-2004 season.

Here in Virginia, the wave started to hit in December, a month or two early, which hasn’t happened since the 2003-2004 season. Outbreaks have been reported in schools and nursing homes in all regions of the state but no children have died.

(Normative distribution of influenza cases by month. Data and chart from CDC).

I don’t have it- yet. I did not get the flue shot this cycle, and have not for a few years. I vividly remember the 2004 season. That was the year I got it and realized what it was going to be like, someday, when the ache was so deep, the coughing so severe, the delirium so profound that I was horizontal for days, and quite prepared to expire.

It is startling to note the number of Americans who are not going to get through this season alive. It is too soon to tell how many more will succumb to the flu this year. No one can say what the total is going to be this year- we look to be on the high side of the norm as far as deaths go. The regression model developed by the CDC claims an annual average of 41,400 deaths to the bug between 1979–2001.

That seems like a lot- think of the entire crowd at an NCAA Division II football game getting wiped out in a few weeks- but as a percentage of the total population it is not much. It is nothing to get freaked out about, unlike some of the other idiocy abroad in the land, and is a matter of being prudent. Remember to wash your hands and avoid crowds are probably the best defense. Those two things which are just good ideas all by themselves.

Sometimes the strain that comes around is really bad, which it is not, so far, though it is edging over the boundaries of the “epidemic.”

It could be worse. Much worse. I have not been freaked out by public health issues since I retired from a job on the Secretary’s staff at the Department of Health and Human Services. That position was way too close to some really scary stuff for comfort. We dealt with the anthrax thing, and the SARS thing, and hysteria over every finding of ominous white powder.

I got a chance to appreciate the nature of epidemiology and the sentinel warning system the National Institutes of Health and CDC used to identify and track disease.

(Navy hospital in 1917. Photo USN.)

The professionals know that really crazy things can happen, just like the last time the Bad Flu came around.

World War I was getting to the end-game, millions of men were overseas, living in mass barracks or the mud of the front. The Spanish Flu got a free ride around the globe with the mass movements of people.

It was remarkable. I mentioned the that scary total of flu deaths this year- but is still infinitesimal compared to the 305 million citizens of this nation.

I was looking at the totals from the great pandemic of 1918-19. That is the only year in the 20th Century in which the US population declined.

As of July 1, 1917, there were 103,268,000 Americans. As of the next year, the population had declined by 60,000, to 103,208,000.

The Spanish Flu was many things. Unusual in the population it targeted, which was not the usual combination of old and young, but rather it was most virulent against those of working age. It was frankly quite incredible.

Maybe fifty million died around the world. In the US alone, reliable number suggest 675,000 died from the flu. Based on the percentage of the population, that is over one half of one percent of all citizens died- or in terms of today’s population, it would represent nearly two million fatalities.

Two million.

I could tell you the stories of that horrific season, but there is no time this morning, and there are other things to worry about. Plus there is that work thing. But if you are feeling a little achy, fatigued, and congested, just don’t go to the office. Stay hydrated. Cough into your elbow instead of your hand.

Avoid crowds. Stay in bed.

We will be back with other things to get hysterical about tomorrow.

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Tin Foil Hats

(Natasha’s tin-foil hat sports a nautical theme. It is very useful for avoiding the rays projected by black helicopters and other useful Government programs. Photo Socotra).

Sorry, Gentle Readers. This is going to be late and not filled with passion, except of the lesser sort. Not my fault, or at least not completely. The Russians and Jiggs and Ludmilla from Big Pink were at the farm yesterday afternoon for shooting, wine, football and home-cooked local food from Croftburn Farms Market.

I think that was the order, and since there were no bodies or cartridge-cases dotting the floor, I assume we behaved in generally responsible order.

I rose this morning just past 0700 in the new comfy bed- an unheard of luxury that makes me feel unworthy of so much untrammeled sloth.

As part of easing into the soft gray morning, I read an essay on poverty and energy in the third world. It was evocative and compelling. I am in a state of high anxiety over the near-term future. I think I can handle the adjustment to some other way of living, but in the greater view, we are all part of the 1% he talks about, bejeweled and platinum-encrusted aliens who pass through the world oblivious to the great gifts that have been bestowed upon us.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/13/we-have-met-the-1-and-he-is-us/

I wasn’t that concerned with Iran or the Eurozone collapse yesterday. With all the navel-gazing we have been doing it is easy to forget that Israel takes the Iranian nuclear program much more personally than we do, and that the Eurozone is doomed, for the reasons that are compelling in their simplicity. France is melting down, it’s exports dwindling from 7% of the world total to less than three, and plummeting fast.

I don’t know what that means, except that the decimated lower tier of the Eurostate basket cases will soon be joined by one or two of the former Great Powers.

Can’t do a thing about it. They are further along in the process than we are, though the collapse will doubtless spread this way when it comes.

Times being what they are, I was more concerned with appreciating the ability to exercise some of my Constitutional rights down on the Farm. I stopped by Clark’s gun store on the way down to purchase some ammunition and look at what has happened to the formidable inventory at the Opal, VA, full-service facility.

I was hoping my Handicapped placard would get me a space in the lot as I turned off Route 29 just short of the Route 17 junction.

No soap. It was jam-packed, and people standing outside in groups, waiting to get some range time. I was going to look at a Sig-Sauer in a bigger caliber, and see what sort of ammo they had still on the shelves in compatible size to the existing arsenal, but oh well. I could not find a place to park and instead veered back on to the highway to head south.

I stopped in Culpeper to talk to Andrew at Croftburn Farms. He has a disconcerting wandering left eye, and his shop was quiet in the early afternoon. I bought vegetables and eggs for breakfast and we chatted.

“How you doing?” he asked.

“Worried about the Republic,” I said with a sigh.

“I am not so worried,” he said, wrapping the groceries up. “I had a decent vacation after the holidays, and life is pretty good.”

I had to agree with him. The further from the Beltway I got the less I seemed to care about the politics of the moment. I thanked him for his service to the local-vore movement and told him I would see him next week.

After I got the Panzer unpacked, I rang the ship’s bell to signal the Russians I was in residence, and got a call from Jiggs that he and Ludmilla were inviting themselves to go shooting and have dinner at the farm.

Timing was perfect. The Russians showed up around the time they did. Natasha was wearing a smart aluminum-foil hat, and we all agreed it was the only prudent headgear in times like this. Hers had a distinct nautical flair, which she attributed to the tradition bestowed by a Great Grandfather who served with honor in the fleet of the Czar.

There was light enough for outdoor activity, and we decided to set up the range down the slope from their farmhouse. We blasted away with Matt’s newly purchased M1911 Colt, the Glock 9mm and a couple .22s. I had not cleaned the Mosquito from last week- getting sloppy in my old age- and discovered that keeping the ramp nice and clean minimizes jamming. Still a nice tight little gun.

The foil hats seemed to work, and our brainwaves seemed secure enough even outside.

It is warm here for the season, and we blazed away in sweatshirts and down vests, quite comfortable. After gunfire, there would be wine and food and football.

In fact, we are a comfortable lot, down at the farm. Positively some of the world’s one-percenters. Life is good, at the moment.

(I have crafted a foil lining for the ball cap. Useful. Photo Socotra.)

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Heart of Winter

(Willow Group at the Amen Corner in the Heart of Winter. Photo by The Lovely Bea.)

Can’t and won’t do the rant again today. I took my aluminum helmet off when I got back from Willow, exhausted from the week. Things have been both busy and slow as the artificial crisis continues. Certainly stressful.

It is all self-inflicted, of course, and we citizens are just along for the ride. I was at the Agency yesterday to see if my badge still worked to grant me access, and ask some questions of my former comrades to see if they had any better clue than I do.

There is guidance, of a sort. The Secretary’s memo from before the holidays was a cheery “Don’t worry, be happy” note to his many constituents. The memo that a colleague handed me was much more grim. It is unclassified- not even “For Official Use Only”- and was signed out by Deputy Secretary Ash Carter on the 11th of January.

He directed rolling furloughs for the vast work force- my colleague thinks it will amount to a payless day off for everyone each pay period- and hiring freezes and all the long list of things we did in the wake of the end of the Cold War.

There was no direction from Ash about what to do about us. Contractors have become a major component of the Agency workforce, though contracts are the one thing that can be terminated “at the convenience of the Government.”

Nothing big is going to happen until people actually make decisions beyond the DEPSECDEF’s general guidance, and of course there is a complete lack of knowledge on what to make decisions about.

It might be time to take a vacation and see if sanity breaks out in the meantime. I am not holding my breath.

It was raining as I walked out of the building, and I limped down the stairs to the lower level of the parking garage on the way back to the Panzer. There is a warm tropical mass of air that is colliding with January’s chill, and it is extreme for the middle of the month that is the heart of winter.

I stopped at the office to work through the queue of emails I could not read on the road, or in the no-phone zone of the Agency. Naturally I was thrilled to hear the announcement that everything was fine in Afghanistan, or will be in 2014.

Then I glanced at the clock and decided to walk over to Willow to celebrate the victory.

Old Jim is down with the latest cursed edition of the Flu, so I took his seat in tribute. Chris the Marine, Big Jim and Jasper were holding down the bar as the place filled up with people. Chris was in a philosophic mood, and we talked at the end of the bar about all manner of things. Combat vets have a unique perspective on things: some issues matter, and others simply are not worth the waste of time. He was going to take in the gun show at Richmond this weekend. I have decided to avoid the crowds and just go to the farm and veg out.

Admiral Norm stopped by- he is retiring next week after three decades in the game, and presently the Other Russian, Jon-without, the Lovely Bea, placid Jamie and The Master Chief anchored the Amen Corner.

The Other Russian had a unique perspective on the whole thing- he has been through the end of a world, and started a new one. All of us have been to The Show in one way or another. The stories of places and faces flew, from Moscow to Stuttgart to Sarajevo to Saigon and up the Gulf to the Sandbox.

OK- the world may be going to hell in a hand-basket, but damn if it isn’t a good world while there are people like this in it.

(Not a bad antidote to the Heart of Winter. Photo the Lovely Bea.)

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com