Author: Vic Socotra

Arrias on the Holiday: Admiral Claus and His Sleigh

We all know that NORAD (The North American Air Defense Command) traces Santa every year. But, here at the Special Compartmented Operations and Tracking Center Hypo (SCOTCH) we have been working a special program, (known locally as “Project Single Malt”) to develop a better idea of what we are really looking at when we consider […]

A Town by the Manger

We were stuck for ideas this morning. We had those old notes from the 1989 Med Cruise on USS Forrestal (CV-59). It was an odd cruise for its times, just as this holday currently sweeping over us has some moments we would just as soon forget outright. We had looked back at the Cruisebook junk […]

Why George Picked Three

Finding the above image was what Splash brought to the Production Meeting. He liked it because of the bold nature of post-publication speculation in 1947. It is an understandable result, since that is the only model his generations hd to work with. To his credit, George was a product of what fate delivered to the […]

Weather Report: Living Is Easy

Yep. we are officially in winter. One of the meteorological boffins bounded onto the Patio yesterday to announce the official arrival of the winter solstice. There were a couple glance around the motley crew of Salts, most of whom had experienced the Solstice Blues delivered by the legendary Jim Champaige when someone said “longest” or […]

River and Sea

(We are driving from the River (one of them) back down to the Sea in 1989 or early 1990). This morning we had one of those little pastiche accounts of visits to odd places at times when there was a lot going on. We have bored you before with the mild tingle when our Air […]

Arrias:  Freedom of the Seas

How much trade is carried by ship? Perhaps as much as $20 trillions worth as it turns out. On any given day there is more than $100 billion worth of international trade moving on the world’s oceans. In 2021, the last year with complete figures, 11 billion tons of goods, 80% of all world trade […]

The Deliberative Body

This is a curious morning in your nation’s Capital. We wrote a brief appreciation of that event this morning with the intent to describe it with a humorous approach about how our public servants reward the taxpayers with their private conduct. This one happened in the Hill’s Senate Hart Building. We would have to run […]

A Holiday, a Holiday

(The late great Sandy Denny of the folk-rock band Fairport Convention). There is plenty to yammer on about this morning and we are not going to do it. This is a time of transformation, and we could raise our voices about matters like “Section-702!” or attorney-privilege. You’re lucky to be where you are, safe from […]

Friday Frolic

Thanks for letting us join you this splendid morning. The mid-Atlantic Coast of America is attempting to get a bit warmer as near the lunch hour. There is the list of Holiday things remaining to be done atop the old cabinet from the family general store that closed a few dozen crises ago. So, Holiday […]

Weather Report: Down By the River

We could probably distill the Weather Report to just a few words. You know them. All the stuff jumbled up in the graphic above are happening, against all reason. Overnight, with all that there is more to put late sparkle into the day. Congress senses the national and Constitutional crises in progress and will adjourn […]