2018 – Page 10 – Vic Socotra

June 25, 2018 Vic Socotra

Arrias: Immigration: My Brother’s Keeper

In my bureau is a jersey emblazoned with the words “Dengue Fever World Tour.” A wise-guy I was working with had them made after what felt like the 100th straight “rat” hole we’d “visited” during some series of operations. Every place we went seemed to be preceded by a medical warnings brief longer than all […]

June 20, 2018 Vic Socotra

Postcard from the Swamp #43

Well, the good news is that we finally have a message for people to campaign on this November. I think it is “Kids in Cages,” which resonates with all the parents out there (pro and con). It is not that I haven’t complained about whiplash here in The Swamp, but this was remarkable. There we […]

June 19, 2018 Vic Socotra

Arrian: After Singapore

So, Trump and Kim met in Singapore and discussed a wide range of issues; nothing definitive was signed, but there was a verbal understanding that the US would end major military exercises in the Republic of Korea (ROK); the North would suspend further tests on their nuclear and ICBM forces and dismantle some assets; that […]

June 19, 2018 Vic Socotra

Juneteenth

It was the 19th of June, 1865. The blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico glittered in the brilliant sun. The sand was white as sugar on the barrier island. Major General Gordon Granger, late of the Army of the Cumberland, read General Order #3 to the people of the former Confederate city of Galveston, […]

June 18, 2018 Vic Socotra

Life & Island Times: Neighbors, Cooking and Eating

Most of our neighbors belong to a floating population, largely northerners, who turn up in town with job offers, rent then buy places in need of fix-up, stay for the most part a year or three or five, then decamp — often suddenly to be closer to family or the next job. They are of […]

June 14, 2018 Vic Socotra

One Of the Other Shoes

It is Flag Day, and the President’s birthday. And the release of a political stink bomb. Well, thank goodness we don’t have to talk about th G7 or North Korea any more. I guess it was a factor of the air transit times to the Straits of Malacca. There was too much to process about […]

June 13, 2018 Vic Socotra

Postcard from the Swamp #42

I feel like I have whiplash, almost as severe as that suffered by the politicians, pundits and production crews who crossed twelve time zones to create and cover the events in Singapore. This morning, the President is home after spending literally days on Air Force ONE and US diplomats are still strewn across greater Asia. […]

June 12, 2018 Vic Socotra

Morning Calm

They call Korea the Land of the Morning Calm. It is a historical term, referring to the whole peninsula, not the two bits with which we are familiar. It has been anything but calm in my experience in that part of the world, and that is why I went to bed early. Twelve time zones […]

June 10, 2018 Vic Socotra

Arrias: The Threat To The Nation

The United States is an odd country: unlike virtually every other on the planet; the US is not a derivative of geography, but rather a philosophic creation, a nation in pursuit of ideas, ideas of individual rights and justice and a representative government that serves the people. And that is all threatened. I had a […]

June 6, 2018 Vic Socotra

Swamp Postcard #41

Two things to share this morning on events that occurred on this day in another century, one not so far away. It was the last day of the epic Battle of Midway in 1942. Our pal Mac Showers was attired in wash khakis in the basement of the Pacific Fleet Headquarters. CAPT Eddie Layton, Mac’s […]

Year: 2018