There was excitement at The Trillium with the arrival of Enormous Winter Storm FERN. Nearly 240 million Americans—citizens and non-citizens alike—shared the experience. Light, powdery snow began falling Saturday night, then slowly turned to sleet Sunday morning, sealing the snow beneath it. The lead photo shows what Monday morning looked like from the 4th floor. […]

They said it would start at 5:31PM on Saturday, but that started to creep after normal people were getting ready for Lunch. Friday had provide the Chores Day with dry streets and full grocery shelves and today it turned into boredom when they announced that Storm God Oden had put his sandal on the brake […]

Well, the roads are not closed. not yet. But this is what it is looking like to the west of here as the sun rises on the East Coast. It is a mind-numbing 9F out there below the Conference Room windows on the 4th Floor of the Trillium. We liked this stock picture as a […]

It may be National Baked Crusty Goodness day, celebrated since the mid-1970s, but about half the US population is the path of the winter storm. It starts today in Texas and reaches us up here in the Northeast by Sunday. You can see the lead edge heading direct at the North End of the Conference […]

There has been a continuing conundrum here at Socotra House about how many times we have been around the world. For a crowd composed of students and military retirees you can imagine it is a widespread assortment of jogs and flights and white water under the bows of warships. But connecting the various dots has […]

Air Force One turned back today due to a minor electrical fault, returning to Joint Base Andrews to switch aircraft. The presidential Boeing 747s have been in service since the mid-1980s, raising the quiet question of whether replacement is overdue. At an estimated $200,000 per flight hour, even short detours add to the broader maelstrom […]

(Photo Socotra, we think, 1965). This sculpture is the Unisphere, a monumental stainless-steel globe Installed for the 1964–65 World’s Fair in New York City. We believe the image is from the Chairman’s personal collection, rights owned by him, since the family’s trip to New York City brought back his folk’s time, engaged and wed in […]

(Dr. Anthony Fauci. Photo HHS) Well, this morning started out with a bang. There wasn’t an actual detonation, mind you, but with the number of geopolitical hot-spots on active boil at the moment (Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Taiwan, et alia), it was a muffled sort of explosion. Part of the underpinning of it is the plague, […]

There are two Acts under discussion this morning and we will talk about both of them in traditional numerical order. The Insurrection Act of 1807 naturally came first, since there aren’t enough numbers in the title. The Posse Comitatus Act seems older. since it uses Latin in the title, using a classic tongue to provide […]

The President had some strong words for the Mullah in Tehran the other day, so we assume that means something much is going to happen, since the Mullah may have noticed that something strong happened the last time the President had some increase in the rhetorical intensity and volume. We admit we may be losing […]