(The SITREP 03 June 1942. Imperial Japan advances. Map courtesy of Britannica) As you know, this is a year framed in recollection. Ten years ago Admiral Mac Showers was one of the last survivors of Joe Rochefort’s HYPO codebreakers at Pearl Harbor. He traveled out to Pearl for the 70th anniversary before departing this life […]

This is a short outing this morning due to routine medical appointments in a town thirty miles away from Refuge Farm. Nothing alarming, just assessment interventions based on age. But time consuming and an extravagant allocation of energy resources in an increasingly austere environment that Washington told us they could do little about. Splash snickered […]

The 80th Anniversary of one of the historic battles in Naval annals is almost on us. For those in the National Capital region with an interest, a ceremony will be held at the World War Two Memorial on Friday, 03 June: Our intelligence community mentor RADM Mac Showers was an Ensign in The Dungeon at […]

Our usual “All this stuff is going on” holds for this week, avoiding the tiresome responsibility to actually have to talk about it. Of course, some of the issues that will affect our society are clearly already in progress and worth a medium effort. Things that are developing: Ukraine is a still a big one […]

So here we are in Summer. Not official, of course. Management did their usual short note to the various Socotra Sections advising the color “white,” much maligned of late, is now socially permissible. In certain contexts, anyway. Notably, that includes the Chairman’s option to transition to seersucker for those events in which slightly upscale attire […]

(Culpeper National Cemetery, Memorial Day, 2022) It was a brilliant clear morning, cool at dawn but likely to soar to ninety on this Memorial Day under bright blue sky. There is a National Cemetery right here in town. It is not far off the main drag, and well posted. I had never stopped despite it’s […]

There is a brightness in this Piedmont morning. It is not unusual, since this is a lovely place with new bright green illuminated by the equally brilliant heavens above. It contrasts with the gloom of the past week, the perfectly natural parade of clouds and rain that in their time nurture the growing foliage that […]

Editor’s Note: We got something precious in the inbound traffic this morning. Well, there was more than that and it reflected the collision in currents in which we all sail. Our shipmate Marlow rang in from his Coastal Empire with a cautionary and lyrical allegory on social and nautical consequences of large things carooming with […]

So here we are. A major holiday is impending, one that used to be a bigger day than rotating what is appropriate to wear in what marked “winter” and “summer” clothing. Should the occasion arise, the Writer’s Section will drag the old seersucker out of the closet. Our Shipmate Marlow has some thoughts about Memorial […]

We were going to make the usual attempt at some commentary on the events of the week. There are several of significance. We did the research and were ready to present the developments in complex, evolving and potentially dangerous situations. They span the globe, across broad oceans from Ukraine to India. That effort was left […]