Author: Vic Socotra

Losing Defense?

We had a joyous New Year’s day down on The Farm. Many folks across this broad and fertile land managed to pass it by without a great deal of emotion. The Writer’s Section at Socotra House took it with aplomb. There used to be a party held by the Office of Management and Budget people […]

Year of the Tiger

I almost put “2022” in the date above, because at the stroke of midnight last night we entered into bold new temporal territory: we have left the sodden wreckage of Fiscal 2021 behind, and entered into Fiscal 2022 without a budget! But of course I am getting ahead of myself, just like the Budget. Here […]

Life & Island Times: Danse Macabre

Editor’s Note: For those who follow the antics on Capitol Hill, this is a dizzying morning. We think, after all the travail and rhetoric, that nothing except a “Continuing Resolution” made it across the Magic Minute when the old year died and the new one leapt into our collective consciousness. We are in “Fiscal 2022” […]

WEATHER REPORT: World Ends Tomorrow?

In one of those moments that informs us that the World is Not actually Ending (tomorrow) the Congressional baseball teams will gather late this afternoon for the annual bipartisan (but fiercely divided) baseball game. In one of the more poignant aspects of this amazing week, Rep. Steve Scalise will take the field despite having been […]

Life & Island Times: Plague Update

Editor’s Note: Marlow reports from his Coastal Empire this morning on one of the several Crises in progress in this historic week. There may actually be some progress on minor issues like the Fall of the West on The Hill tomorrow. In the meantime, the COVID scare continues… – Vic Empire Plague Update The above […]

Tuesday in The Big Week

OK, It’s Tuesday in The Big Week. It is pretty cool to be here in the Piedmont. The skies are a pale blue, with strands of pale cirrus clouds way up there, and evidence that humans have done the pre-flight inspection, loaded a cargo of high-value stuff and some assorted people, and are already hurtling […]

Arrias: Whither NATO?

What is it about the French? Or, at least French leadership. True, much of US leadership hasn’t been terribly stellar over the past century, but there’s something about the arrogance of French leaders that’s remarkable. >> >> In July 2017, just two months after assuming office as President of France, Emmanuel Macron canceled the traditional […]

Charlotte Works Magic

26 September 2021 Charlotte Works Magic …At Refuge Farm. The detritus of five or six moves was not stacked- but jammed in the garage. Charlotte is a recent widow, plucky lady, looking for work, and partnered with our Realtor Maggie to clean out #109 at Big Pink up in Arlington. When she moved more debris […]

Weekend Work

(Complex? This is an account fo what is in the smaller of the Infrastructure bills under discussion on the Hill today. You should see what is in the other one, but we don’t have a pie that large). We are in another crisis, which is no surprise. That seems to be the way things work […]