Category: DailySocotra

Japan-gazer Update

Japan-gazer Update — January 26, 2018 平成30年1月26日 = (30th Year of HEISEI Era, 1st Month, 26th Day) – – – – – = This week’s poem: Some Wisdom If, for what you strive, Is so distant and far, Across a life’s desert, Like an unreachable star, Then don’t walk, take a car… { From my […]

TAPS: Rosie the Riveter

Editor’s Note: This is not an intelligence passing, but it is one that represents something extraordinary in American history. The pressures of the war demonstrated the ability of women to perform in many formerly all-male industries. Rosie and her sisters changed everything about how our society worked. It is worth some reflection on just how […]

Nellie Bly

(Elizabeth Jane Cochran, from Pittsburgh). Thursday is what passes for my biggest business day of the week, and to my mild surprise, I got through it again. Then I ran a couple errands that had been nagging since the weekend, and took myself off the clock sometime after three. I unloaded the groceries and bundled […]

Postcard from the Swamp #30

I had a case of the flu or something that came on hard just as we thought we had a deal on the Budget. As it turned out, there was some petulance expressed on both sides about promises made and ignored. There was bluster and a member of the President’s party on the floor of […]

A Tale of Two Cities – Part Two

Here is the second part of the story about my experiences in dealing with the Russians, this time the return trip in 1995. In the true sense of contrasting the difference between two cities, Part One was more centered on Moscow; the highlights of Part Two center more on St. Petersburg. In that regard, allow […]

A Tale of Two Cities – Part One

Editor’s Note: We lurch into the second day of the Federal Government Shutdown. Days ago, we wondered if anyone would notice if the Feds were not working. It suddenly comes to a dramatic revelation: the Commonwealth of Virginia maintains it historic blue laws on the commercial sale of bonded spirits on Sundays.Naturally, this does not […]

Japan-gazer Update – 30th Year of HEISEI Era, 1st Month, 16th Day

平成30年1月16日 = (30th Year of HEISEI Era, 1st Month, 16th Day) – – – – – = This week’s poem: The Way It Happens Sometimes the best Things a day can confer, Have no reason, They simply occur, And the rest Is just a blur… { From my Blog: https://carllafong.blogspot.jp } – – – – […]

Postcard from the Swamp #29

Do you suppose anyone would notice if the Government actually shut down at Midnight this Friday? So much stuff flying around this week, including the snow that always panics residents of the Swamp. We got only a dusting in placid Arlington, with the heavier concentration to the east in Maryland. Traffic was predictably awful regardless, […]

Phone Call From Paradise

Well, I suppose it was more like a phone call from Detroit, circa 1960. I was dozing in the brown chair, watching the cable news and watching the new cold air chase away the moisture of the temporary January thaw. 1960 was the year that our Scout Troop (#1032, Methodist Church, Lincoln St, Birmingham, MI) […]