Author: Vic Socotra

Spring Ahead

You could hear the muttering early on a spectacular clear morning in Virginia’s Piedmont. You already know what it sounded like as people looked at clocks, mystified that an hour of restful rejuvenating sleep had been sacrificed to the people in Richmond and Washington who seem to still be living in some old time of […]

Alaric’s March

(Alaric, king of the Visigoths) “Saturday, damn! What fun!” That was Splash, who walked up the path from the Fire Ring to the Bunk House, entering by the side door and into the warmth provided by the roaring fire in the wood stove in the corner. His parka was not dusted with snow, which would […]

Life & Island Times: Doctor My Eyes

The past three weeks of 24/7 shock and awe sh*t, war-war porn on our flat screens, smart phones, tablets and computers took me back to similar dark times 50-years ago, when I heard a fellow boomer’s tune on my FM radio as America’s first televised nightly news war crescendoed half a world away in Vietnam. […]

Paved Parking Available!

So, Buck is a little different than the rest of the long-term Writer’s Section. He thinks we are funny artifacts of old conflicts. We view him as a breath of fresh air in his ability to tell us what going on in those Faculty Lounges that seem to be manufacturing a whole new history, economic […]

This Just In…

News this morning at The Farm was received under partly cloudy skies and a sun we had not seen in days. The external stuff featured alarming economic news, and the beginning of some major changes in US monetary policy. Behind it are competing information streams, both carefully managed between pro-anti positions in the Ukraine litany […]

The Gas Spike

Editor’s Note: DeMille asked us to think about what is going on. Some of this was compiled late yesterday- the time we did not know if there would be a US budget for the year halfway gone mated with the horrors on the digital flat-screen. The information narratives shifting overnight. This morning, inflation reported from […]

Weather Report: Hoping for a Method

So, here we are in a world at war. At least one in Europe, with the tangible thought that the Chinese may be studying the lessons of Ukraine with an eye to Taiwan, and some sort of incomprehensible accommodation to the Iranian Mullahs in a desperate effort that will shave a few pennies from the […]

Piedmont Pivot Points

Goodness, what a morning! Here in the Piedmont there is a slow-motion struggle that is snagged in events overseas. The issue at this point, here anyway, is construction of two modest rectangular buildings on an equestrian property off Rt 3, just a couple miles from The Farm. There is an information campaign in progress about […]

Arrias: Cuba, Korea and Ukraine

We need to end the war in Ukraine, for a host of reasons. The immediate reason is obviously to end the very real suffering among innocents, the reason any war should be avoided at nearly any cost (not all costs, some wars are necessary, Ukraine is justifiably fighting at this point). The second reason is […]