It was an odd Thanksgiving this strange year, and odder still to feel the spirit of “thanks” that rises on mornings like this. OK, I get it. You cannot feel the ice that coats the old Navy bell on the back deck. It has spent it’s long life in the open, on the ocean, decorating […]

(This young American is on the only side of this little bridge you would want to visit. The other side of it is in North Korea. Taken at he Joint Security Area (JSA) in 1980 by some kid named ‘Socotra.’) I am sure you want to talk about the Electoral College this morning, and the […]

The big epidemic and the big emergency continue to rule our lives. Not so much down here on the farm, since satellite coverage enabled us to see video of an obviously stressed United Cabin Crew throw a young family off a flight because the family’s two-year-old had trouble conforming with CDC guidelines. The rest of […]

Editor’s Note: So, SCOTUS refused to accept the legal challenge from Texas yesterday, and set the stage for the Electoral College vote on Monday. From what we can see from the Piedmont here in Virginia, that strongly suggests we will have a Biden Administration next month. I anticipated grand theater in this amazing year, but […]

Breaking News! We may have a President, one of these days. We are in the midst of the excitement of final exams at College, the Electoral one, with the only key date being the 14th of this month. The Joint Inauguration Committee, split down the middle with the two major parties, was unable to declare […]

(Pearl Harbor, 0755…While the Giant Slept. Image copyright Dru Blair.) You know what day it is. It used to be more prominent, but we have moved on in terms of memory and public emergencies. I am going to defer on those issues in honor of the day. I will think about living on the shores […]

Editor’s Note: Watching an endless Hallmark Channel movies has been recommended as a possible therapy for SAD. It is worth a try. Refuge Farm is decorated. Marlow has some memories of tunes past coming up tomorrow. As was heard in the chow line near the publishing bunk-house late yesterday, “Best damn National Emergency, ever!” – […]

Editor’s Note: Medical appointments this morning. This note is from ten years ago and kind of fun. Not exactly like this year. Reading it makes me remember another America. – Vic 05 December 2010 (Keepers of the Old Navy traditions. USMC Drill Instructors. Photo USMC.) My Candidate Officer called from Newport late yesterday, right before […]

I was briefly stunned into waking consciousness by a news blast yesterday afternoon. I know, I had almost dozed off in peace, but sadly that is how we get our news these days. I was reviewing some of the more amazing claims about the recent election- you may have heard them- that involved alleged casualties […]

Editor’s Note: This is part two of an account of a small event that happened a while ago. At the time, it was part of something much larger than a politician’s visit to a simple aircraft carrier conducting routine operations in the Mediterranean Sea. There was something else much larger going on. The Soviet State […]