Author: Vic Socotra

Pains and Penalties

(The old Parish Stocks at Meldreth)    The first blooms are out, brilliant pastels on the bushes and bright cheery yellow on the daffodils out in front of Big Pink. The earth is repeating the cycle as it always does. So are we.   I wish we were up to it, but it appears that […]

Tar and Feathers

(Dome of the Capitol)   I was in one of those meetings with the government yesterday in the big aluminum breadbox across the river that put things in focus.   We were talking about in important financial initiative that will ensure the health and comfort of the program I work. I should say that we […]

Maps, Charts and Geodesy

It is Saint Patrick’s Day today, and naturally my thoughts are elsewhere. I saw that the Free State is offering discount deals on Irish Citizenship. Apparently if you can demonstrate that your Great Grandfather was from the Auld Sod you can qualify for dual nationality.   I have to check that out. Grandfather Mike was […]

Masada

The Pakistani Supreme Court judges fired by ex-strongman Mussharif have been reinstated, and the oily bastard Nawaz Sharif has stared down the elected President of Pakistan, “10%” Zardari. I guess that is good, if the nuclear arsenal is secure this morning.   I don’t like the passivity of watching things play out there any more […]

House Arrest

(South Lodge Hotel, near Horsham, West Sussex, Home of the G20 Ministers)   I had the best of intentions this morning. One of them was to lay abed and not think. Another was to do something with the second half of a book I wrote years ago, and found completely by chance late yesterday.   […]

Numbers

  I ventured fairly far afield yesterday, but it was a worth trip. I was hoping to find in a nice, approachable way to describe what we are in the process of doing to ourselves.   I had the vain hope that I might discover something that   I know my limits, and I am […]

The Lawyer

(Pulitzer Prize Winning Author Thomas Friedman)   I sighed. There was too much on the plate. The rough quartos of the Spring Quarterly were strewn on the wide mahogany desk that faces the tall plate-glass windows of the office complex in Tunnel Eight. The red light in the center of the phone was blinking an […]

Eye on the Ball

  It is refreshing to be on the same sheet of music with Nobel Laureates.   I was right there with Dr. Steven Chu, the last time I saw him. We had a broad agreement on the fact that America needed to free itself from the curse of dependence on overseas oil.   The only […]

Thelma and Louise

(Thelma and Lousie)   The Republicans are back.   No, don’t freak. Not those Republicans. Congressman Boener of Ohio ought not to take heart in the matter, since that is the term for the Marxist scum in Northern Ireland who take grim delight in killing British soldiers and police officers.   They are rejectionists of […]

Mardi Gras

  (Mardi Gras)   I don’t have a great deal of time this morning, and I am grumpy about it. I am going to be trapped in an airless conference room drawing happy-faces on a pad of paper, listening to some blather about capitalism.   I am not very happy with the capitalists this morning, […]