Author: Vic Socotra

Arrias: Cyber and Corporate Responsibility

The US is only now waking to the threat posed by those who’d use the cyber world to not only steal information (and money), but corrupt data, undermine our politics, and even cripple key industries and infrastructure. Developing cyber capabilities to defend against those nations, groups and individuals who would attack us is essential. Equally […]

Rest In Peace

I am not sure if I bored you with this story before. Don’t know why I would have, except one of the players just passed the vil at age 88. It was only a glance, waiting for a light in amazing New York City a very long time ago. Let me frame it properly: Our […]

Life & Island Times: Advice to My 40 Year Old Self

Author’s Note: If I could time travel just once, I’d go back in time and offer some advice to my 40 year old self…. Marlow Editor’s note: I would hit that cocky young fool with my cane. – Vic It was a very good year. I turned 40, pinned on Commander, my alma mater won […]

Life & Island Times: Where Would You Go If You Had A Time Machine?

Famous sci-fi movie time machines Every now and then during this post-truth era, I wonder if time travel would settle our current arguments over what is factual and what is fake news. Then I awake from this reverie and remember that it wouldn’t matter, since the instances of disagreement would multiply at a greater rate […]

Arrias: Hard Choices

So, your people walk in and lay a dossier on your desk; there’s a map, some pictures, a report from several spies, and a debrief from Prisoner X. The debrief is what started it all: he fingered a terrorist who’s plotting an attack on a US city, a large bomb, maybe a radioactive or “dirty” […]

Postcard From the Swamp #38

Good heavens. It just keeps getting more amazing, week by week. There per to be three pivot points, North Korea (nice work Secretary Pompeo!), Iran nukes…back in the ether….uncertainty…the Iranians are the toughest negotiators in the world. In Congress we re-litigate post-911 enhanced interrogation techniques. Makes my head hurt. Doesn’t it take. Lot of energy […]

Arrias: The Birth of Tyranny

Michael Caputo is a media strategist who worked for the Trump campaign. He was in the news last week commenting on the ongoing investigation by Robert Mueller and how it dramatically damaged his life: even though he was just called as a witness, the cost of dealing with the various legal issues has essentially bankrupted […]

Life & Island Times: Road Travel Photos

I motorcycled many tens of thousands of miles of blue highway country that took me through, over and by mountains, fields, forests, prairies,lake shores, river valleys and ocean beaches. Fences of all types now and then marked these landscapes. During the early years we would stop infrequently if not haphazardly to contemplate the unexpected beauty […]

Life & Island Times: Notes from Beyond the Planet of the Apps

Notes from Beyond the Planet of the Apps 2028: Down-low on the Daily Upload We had not yet left the Hostess City. From the surrounding stuff in which the sources notes for this piece were sandwiched, I penned them in 2019. I was sitting in a comfy worn brown leather chair with my feet propped […]