Author: Vic Socotra

Nimitz Hill

Editor’s Note: Confirmation hearings for the new Administration’s cabinet are supposed to start this week in the Senate. This should be interesting, and the name calling and Twitter Wars have already laid out some of the battle lines. I was clearing out the old year’s stack of magazines, and riffling through the cover art of […]

Jasper, Mush and Mac

(Legendary skipper of USS Wahoo, LCDR “Mush” Morton) I don’t think Lizzie or Meghan knew the details about the spy swap- the one in which a Russian sleeper cell of agents had been rounded up by the FBI, and ultimately exchanged with the Kremlin, just like the bad old days on that Bridge in Berlin. […]

Mr. Trump and the Astrophysicists

When I woke up this morning it was very cold, only 256… Okay, that’s the Kelvin scale, which starts at absolute zero, the point where atomic motion stops, -459 degree (Fahrenheit) or -273 (Celsius). (256K equals 4 Fahrenheit.) To put that in perspective, the temperature in deep space (between the stars) is about 3K. Which […]

Escape from Beirut

Editor’s Note: I did not write this and will not try to take any credit for it. It came in the snail mail as a six-page printed document. As I read it, my eyes widened. I wasn’t quite sure what Ms Miller wanted me to do with the plain unadorned black-and-white pages, so I just […]

Right Thinking

Editor’s Note: I am watching the skies and the snow. I want to be at the Farm, and fully intend to be there later. On the other hand, I have learned my lessons about travel in Virginia, and considered a tattoo that would read “If it’s snowin’, I ain’t goin.” In the meantime, I would […]

Waking Up a Winner

(The Amen Corner in full swing. Left to right, The Lovely Bea, beautiful Jamie, Old Jim, Short Hait Mike and Jon Without on 12 January 2012. Photo Socotra). So, the Speaker trounced Mr. Romney down in South Carolina, and the circus appears set to continue into the slightly less dark month of February. I don’t […]

Life and Island Times: Day 1

Editor’s Note: The Four Corners Adventure begins. Stay with this series. Marlow makes “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Riding” look like an amateur effort! This is a loving portrait of a man and a Nation in transition. -Vic Life and Island Times: Day 1 Coastal Empire After a nice empty-road ride along US 1, […]

Bilateral Cooperation

Important senior officials From Washington D.C., Fly thousands of miles, To drink green tea, Review important files, And make proposals using Their negotiating wiles, With Japanese senior officials Who say “No” with smiles… copyright J.P.N. | Poetry, Etc., From Kanagawa, South of Tokyo, Japan www.carllafong.blogspot.jp

DUMB LUCK

Editor’s Note: If you feel that fever-chill-naseau-ache and disorientation thing coming on, be thankful that it appears to run its course in as little as five days. At least that is my experience. I hope yours go swiftly. I had a happy chance to be able to sit upright again and took the opportunity to […]

Life and Island Times: Genesis

Author’s note: Writers normally have a moral in mind when penning a story. Not so for most who are simply living life during their Great In-Betweens. During your author’s midlife wanderings on two wheels of American back road wilderness, there was a moral but only in retrospect. These multi week rides with other riders tested […]