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Vic Socotra

Author: Vic Socotra

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January 7, 2019 Vic Socotra

Arrias: Tyranny or Liberty?

A really smart friend of mine once noted, while speaking of the DOD: “You need to remember that we don’t do why!” Joe’s point was that there is, in all government bureaucracies, a resistance to anyone trying to get to the primary reason that would explain actions, because in the end bureaucracies are really about […]

January 6, 2019 Vic Socotra

Spicy Artichoke Dip

OK, OK, it is the New Year and we have to move on. I am going back to the kitchen and try this recipe. I will always remember a Temporary Alternative Duty assignment that brought me back from Yokosuka to San Diego in a year that seemed like 1980. The first night back in the […]

January 2, 2019 Vic Socotra

Swamp Postcard: Back to the Trenches!

Gentle Readers, It is still a raw and new experience to append “2019” to these missives from the perpetual Swamp. Thankfully, I am down at the farm, enjoying the buzzards and the cool grey gloom of a brand new year. A reminder for annual planning: don’t attend weddings in Moscow. Screen Shot 2019-01-02 at 10.25.12.png […]

December 30, 2018 Vic Socotra

Arrias: Great Power Struggle

People don’t change, as a friend reminded me just the other day. 800 years ago the rulers of the Grand Duchy of Moscow wanted more land, buffer zones between them and the “others.” Kiev soon became part of the Russian “buffer zone.” But, Russia lost Kiev (and Ukraine) in 1991. They want it back. In […]

December 28, 2018 Vic Socotra

Life & Island Times: The motorcycle as it should be ridden

Motorcycle as skateboard Riders ramble the roads they’d like to ride, but more than anything they cherish the ones that haven’t been ridden yet. Whether they are motivated by the inspiring efforts of other enthusiasts I do not know. When a biker’s face says “Damn, this is good,” his ridership becomes a pure translation of […]

December 23, 2018 Vic Socotra

Arrias: Syria: A Strategic Assessment

Shortly after Pearl Harbor Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Marshall tasked then Brigadier General Eisenhower to provide a strategic assessment of the situation faced by US Army Forces Far East, trapped in the Philippines by the Imperial Japanese Army. Eisenhower studied the problem and several days later told Marshall there was no possibility of […]

December 21, 2018 Vic Socotra

Winter Solstice

It has been a busy week. Last holiday shopping and shutting down the government. It has been looking tired, and probably needs a break. There were other events in the strife and chaos in The Swamp. Prison Reform and the Farm Bill were passed by the Congress and signed by the President, who in his […]

December 20, 2018 Vic Socotra

Secret Police

20 December 2007 The LaPlants entertain at home, in Belgrade, 1946 There are those who feel a fondness for the old Bolshies who terrorized and murdered their people. You hear a lot of that from the Osties, the East Germans who yearn for the good old days when the Stasi- the secret police- recruited your […]