Author: Vic Socotra

Arrias: Notorious

Here’s a question: at the next US Olympics Trials will people who were born male, but who identify as female, be allowed to compete as females? There are now people who were born male but who identify as female, who are competing in various female college athletic programs. This is being defended by those who […]

The Field Marshal’s Daughter, Part 2

Author’s Note: Tough night. I forgot to take the evening dose of medication, which was subsumed by the newest news of the day. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg took leave of this life sometime during the afternoon, word being passed as the day waned in darkness. This will add more complexity to the already […]

The Field Marshal’s Daughter, A Life of Lies

Author’s Note: I have been wrestling with a treatment of the extraordinary career and legacy of departed Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. My sentiment about the Court has always been tempered by the adherence to the founding documents across centuries of change. Though not intended, the composition of the Bench has been a thing […]

The Field Marshall’s Daughter

Author’s Note: It has been an interesting year for us all. I discovered a button on the iPad that revealed “unread” messages. There were a surprising number of them, mostly covering the period of early February of this strange year. I must have missed a couple weeks as the COVID excitement was just hitting its […]

Point Loma: Mob Rule

Point Loma: Mob Rule Editor’s Note: As many of you unfortunately are aware, I have been doing a weekly account of events in our amazing year of 2020. It has been quite a ride. I hope you can you tune these things out, as I often want to do. I have pals though who are […]

Swamp Postcard: Nobels, Fires and Flames!

Morning, fellow citizens! Another day surfing down the roiling cascade of information, leading to something some pundits say is really important. I forget what that is. The outlines of it are there, certainly. One of the headlines blared this morning that the Center for Disease Control, the Government agency responsible for dealing with epidemics, is […]

Rest In Peace, Rich Gragg

Sad news, friends. CDR Richard Gragg, USN-Ret., ended his gallant fight against cancer yesterday. His battle was tough and long. His was the second name posted on the Naval Intelligence Professionals Binnacle list in 2016. Rich was a shipmate from USS Midway days. A bit more about that shortly. He had a successful career in […]

Changing Nature

Yeah, I know. It is all getting hard to take. I intend to vote next week and get that irritating issue off the table. The rumble of the daily outrage will continue, of course, in a manner someone has orchestrated for timing. It is fun to deconstruct the various narratives. There will be the colossal […]

Arrias: A Shadow of Its Former Self: Education Today

Author’s Note: I have a copy of McGuffy’s Reader – I started going through it the other day (I hadn’t opened it in years and years) and was struck by what I read… – Arrias A Shadow Of Its Former Self: Education Today There’s a wonderful scene in the movie “A Man For All Seasons” […]

Pont Loma: Tone Deaf

Editor’s Note: In following the traffic from several old pals and shipmates, I have an increasing certainty that the civil war some people mutter about has already occurred. We just missed it, because we were intimately familiar with how all this stuff works. The cognitive process doesn’t recognize that it doesn’t work that way any […]