Author: Vic Socotra

LTJG Winky Returns to Duty

(LTJG Winky, lower right, reviews historical records and imagery from his time in a leadership position onboard CVA-41. He will be returning to a permanent station as a special “stuffed docent” at the Museum on 23 September 2021). A pal instrumental to the management of California’s popular USS Midway Museum wrote Socotra House to inquire […]

Weather Report: Congress and California

Welcome to another mid-week accounting of the Swamp shenanigans! Congress returned to session. According to some some modest deliberations before Labor Day, the House and Senate are providing their recommendations on the budget to the respective Ways and Means committees to be deliberated between the two chambers and enacted in some manner. The price tag […]

Sun Tzu’s Tips for Happy Warfare

General Sun Tzu, from 6th Century China Congress is back in town as of yesterday afternoon, though there was some confusion about that in Secretary of State Blinken’s testimony to the House via Zoom call. The Secretary participated from his office, three miles away from Capitol Hill, since he thought the House was still on […]

Arrias: Why Can’t We Win?

There is a wonderful scene in the movie “the Wind and the Lion,” a fictionalized account of the kidnapping of Ion Perdicaris by Mulai Ahmed el Raisuli, Emir of the Jebala tribes, that asks an important question. At the very end of the movie, the Raisuli (played to perfection by Sean Connery) has lost his […]

Friends

One of the great experiences in life is being part of a complex machine designed to do extraordinary things. A sublimation of “personal” interest to the unified mass of a good cause. We were arguing- no, “discussing” current affairs- down at the Loading Dock this morning. Climate change was one of the topics up first, […]

An Emotional Swirl

There was a lot of emotion swirling around yesterday. You may have felt it in a different way than the crowd down by the Loading Dock at Refuge Farm. It is understandable, for a variety of perfectly understandable reasons. DeMille produced a fascinating document that outlined the trauma of one of the Port Authority cops […]

Marlow: Time was on our side . . .

Editor’s Note: Marlow remembers. -Vic I was on the southernmost coral speck house hunting with the ex. We had returned to our inn’s courtyard bedroom with croissants and locally roasted coffees. The first tower had just been hit and was live center-stage on the Today Show. Suddenly the second tower was hit. I turned to […]

Twenty, to the Minute

Tears are running this morning. Most of these anniversaries have passed with a solemn recollection of that morning, one in which the usual meeting was underway in a tower in the greenery by the river. And as the word spread of unusual events began to spread, our world shifted on its normal axis into something […]

Under a Swarming Sky

So, the morning is passing as they always do. At Refuge Farm, there were tears and sadness in the moment. There were more of those across this amazing land in this lovely awakening dawn. It will be crowded today in the special corner of Arlington National Cemetery, the one nearest the Pentagon. I used to […]