(World’s worst Christmas Tree is up. I got it for a buck at the Methodist Church yard sale a few years ago. Even Charlie Brown would have a hard time loving it, but it suits my mood.) Yeah, I know. The first sentence literally writes itself: how could things get any stranger than last week? […]

(Image copyright Frank Langben) It was a special weekend down in the Country- and I hate to think it may be the nicest left in the year. The sky was a delightful cloudless blue; temperatures were temperate enough to go jacket-less, and there was the prospect that the Super Moon would present itself out over […]

– – – – – = This week’s poem: School Of Hard Knocks A fact of life, That’s hard but true: Tough times don’t last, But tough people do. Enduring, they see things Through to their end, And deal with whatever The future may send. Too busy to stop, To tired to fear, The tough […]

(Senator Sam Irvine) I am not reeling this morning- actually had a pleasant evening with some decent sleep afterward. Rose early, read and scanned email and fell asleep again. Some parts of the old-age thing are OK, if you don’t spontaneously fall asleep driving to some recently-developed place out near Dulles International Airport. I actually […]

COMMENT: So, should Japan’s Constitution be revised in order to remove the “legal doubt” about whether the Japan Self Defense Force (JSDF) should exist? I mean, is it such a big deal — either pro or con? In recent years, JSDF has become well-accepted and respected by most Japanese people due to its continued superb […]

I think it is kind of cool for most of us to have lived most of our lives in the very apex of a great country and civilization. Few generations have been as fortunate as the Boomers, GenX or Millennials. I have some doubts about where this is all going, but we had a great […]

This is a week that has a lot of things to be thankful about. The President pardoned the turkey, who may (or may not) have colluded with the Russians. Rumors abound about whether or not Special Counsel Mueller will have enough stuffing to indict the plump bird. I am thankful that I am not longer […]

OK- so it is a holiday week and I am not traveling. I still feel a little woozy, and after a half-century on the road, I just don’t have the fire in my belly to saddle up the Panzer and spend a few nights in a series of Holiday Inn Express cookie cutter motels. So […]

Editor’s Note: Here at Socotra House, we passed a significant milestone on Friday of last week. I had grown weary of toggling through a 600-odd page manuscript. It was time to whack it into more manageable chunks. I broke it chronologically into the Pacific War years of RADM Donald “Mac” Showers, then his time in […]

I haven’t written a Socotra piece for a long time. My usual excuse is time, actually a lack of it like all of the rest of us who labor in what Vic terms the Imperial City. The money is why we are here and a necessary blessing; the traffic, assholes and bureaucracy are the curse. […]