Author: Vic Socotra

Weather Report: Into the Maelstrom

Ah, the week of pleasant warming weather has ringed the pastures with soft tones of brilliant pink blossoms. Refreshing color as the gray of the winter is bathed in new growth and glory. There is other stuff going on, of course. Much of our limited attention is invited to the ongoing crisis on the Southern […]

Back to Work

Lions and lambs here this morning in Virginia’s gentle rolling country, shouting “Green!” Or something colorful, if only a rising buzzing chorus of life and joy. Out back, the carpenter and honey-bees frolic around the outbuildings, back to work after the slumber of winter. There is some seasonal tension, of course. We await the awakening […]

Fascinating Vistas

(Mt. Kilimanjaro, an accommodating item in a vista seen from an old rail car from someone else’s empire on an endless plain. Seen while headed for Nairobi, a city not yet known, from the bounds of a vast and seemingly endless pale blue sea). This year of artificial endings has been fascinating. I think we […]

Oral history …. How USS MIDWAY came to be forward-deployed to Japan

This account of the decision to home-port a USN aircraft carrier is from Naval Intelligence legend John Niemeyer, a national treasure. He relieved me in VF-151 in mid-1980, and did a memorable job as a Midway officer. He liked the Japan experience of the Overseas Family Residency Program (OFRP) a little better than most. He […]

Arrias: Easter History and Some Thoughts For Beijing

Editor’s Note: It was a fabulous holiday weekend down at the farm. It was filled with warmth and the sunlit prospect of hope. The Socotra editorial staff unanimously decided to allow tomorrow to take care of itself. Now, as often happens, tomorrow has arrived. Arrias has some thoughts on the kettle of crises, and one […]

Piedmont Easter

The wayward jet Stream has wandered north again, after caressing us with chill embrace the last few days. This morning, we can feel a breath of warmth and life and living once more. It is a holy day for some, celebrating something primal and good. I am not going to take the easy way out […]

FISA Follies

OK, there is plenty to talk about this afternoon, but the spin on everything these days makes me tired. The monthly Editorial Meeting on the First was unsettled and confused. No one knew quite what to make of the vehicle assault on the Senate entrance to the Capitol. Then the EPA notification came up that […]

Lingua Franca

Good Friday! This week brought us some of the most astonishing acts of public derangement I have seen in my time on the planet. It is very refreshing, but difficult to know where to start and stop. It seems we no longer have a lingua franca, a language we could use between cultures and multi-lingual […]

Life & Island Times: April Fool’s Edition: The Dude Speaks

Editor’s Note: It is the day to celebrate fools, or their foolishness, anyway. This is Marlow’s take on an older version that seems completely appropriate this rainy morning in Virginia’s lush Piedmont… – Vic Author’s note: Dear readers, below the tear line is a slightly tongue-in-cheek piece that was written during the early January days […]

Sources and Methods

This would be the Weather Report for this week. It slides over tomorrow’s celebration of foolishness and the real transition from one sort of weather to another. Lions and lambs will frolic in April, and we will get warmer. That is an immutable change with which we are all familiar. There is a lot going […]