Junteenth It was the 19th of June, 1865. The blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico glittered in the brilliant sun. The sand was white as sugar on the barrier island. Major General Gordon Granger, late of the Army of the Cumberland, read General Order #3 to the people of the former Confederate city of […]

The Temple I was reading this week that the fraternal lodge system is falling apart in America. The kind of men that joined them in the past no longer have those sorts of needs. They have computers and high-speed Internet access, Barcaloungers, and a thousand sports channels at home. Our generation does not need to […]

Like Bill Gates, I am considering stepping down from my day-today duties and devoting myself, full-time, to the management of my Foundation. This could be opportunity knocking. I think it is time to make the annoucement. I have helped drive my corporation, one with a storied history, into a desperate embrace with a handsome foreign […]

The Security Mess I was up too late last night. I intended to be good, but in clicking down the dial I happened on a re-run of the 1985 film “The Falcon and the Snowman.” Coke dealer Daulton Lee was played by actor Sean Penn, who wore a bad wig. His drug habit was what […]

I am not completely sure why I got out of bed this morning. The weekly meeting yesterday was surreal, the heavy fall of the second boot. After all our little reports around the table, the account of our strivings and connivings, the Boss made the announcement that the office as we knew it was going […]

Knights of God The Council of Holy Warriors, a shell organization fronted by Sunni Iraqis to cover foreign participation in the Iraqi insurgency, has announced on its website the selection of the new CEO of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, RIP, has been replaced by a fellow named Abu Hamza al-Muhajir. No picture […]

Three prisoners staged an act of political theater at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. No, wait a minute. I am using the wrong words. Three Detainees were driven mad by abuse and were forced to take their own lives by the inhuman and illegal prison managed by the U.S. government on sovereign Cuban soil. […]

It was a curious coincidence. I was going to a funeral on my birthday. CAPT William Hatch had passed away on the on the 6th of June, the sixty-second anniversary of the landings at Normandy. When he died, he was the oldest living naval intelligence officer. I did not know him personally, but I edit […]

It did not occur to me at first, my brain not working until sufficient caffeine is placed piping-hot into my bloodstream. It was about the hundred and twenty-third minute of the waking morning that it dawned on me that this is a day of special significance for Socotra Enterprises. It is five years since I […]

I get letters from the Veteran’s Administration, which is nothing unusual. Millions of former service people do. Every couple years I hear about the status of my claim. I saw a doctor last year to clarify a written statement I made the year before that, and expect they will notify me of a decision, maybe […]