Author: Vic Socotra

Life & Island Times: Seaman Recruits

Editor’s Note: Marlow takes on the challenges of generational change in our new and strange world. There questions flying about how to respond to public health emergencies, changing norms in social behavior and even the nature of how our Constitutional Republic functions in these times when “crisis management” supersedes the old regular order. In older […]

642 Ways…

“Truth,” or what passes for it these days, descended on the Writer’s Section shortly after the morning editorial meeting, and thus got mixed up with everything else. DeMille was concerned, while Rocket, Loma pursed their lips against a plaintive cry from Splash, lost down in the underbrush beyond the lower lunging ring at The Farm. […]

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 […]