Linden, New Jersey, can rest a little easier this afternoon. A fellow named Ahmad Khan Rahami was found sleeping in the doorway to a bar, and when awakened, produced a pistol and engaged in a running gun battle with police after shooting a cop in the abdomen. Thankfully the officer was wearing a ballistic vest […]

I am in terre incognita here. I wake each morning with the dread feeling that something awful is either about to happen, or already has. I am staying away form the television. The left and the alt.right commentators are savaging each other, and the kick-off for the Michigan game is still an hour and a […]

Well, things are getting interesting, aren’t they? I am not quite sure what to think about it all. If that video clip from the 9/11 ceremony had not surfaced, we would not even be having a discussion, much less breathless theories about insidious medical matters, body doubles and conspiracies. It is a bewildering world of […]

We have a broad and inclusive net to capture ideas filled with the diverse nature of Life in These United States. To that end, the staff of the Daily Socotra has introduced you to some fellow digital scribblers in the digital world. We hear from shipmate Point Loma about the way life was like, afloat […]

It was an emotional day yesterday, filled with ceremonies at Arlington Cemetery, the Pentagon and Ground Zero. I did not attempt to get to either the five-sided Adult Care facility, nor to the cemetery as I do most anniversaries of that awful day. Instead, there was a birthday and wine-tasting out at the Bull Run […]

12 September 2001 The Day After Editor’s Note: I kept copies of everything from those days- not physical ones, of course; I have moved too often to keep paper records. But digital lasts forever these days- and I thought that on this day before the 15th anniversary of that awful day in September that changed […]

(The Big Six are departing the stage after the fifth and final plenary session of the Intelligence & National Security Summit. John Brennan has already been enveloped by his CIA security detail and whisked away before I could get any closer with my smart phone. Lieutenant General Vince Stewart (DIA) is on the bottom of […]

As you know, I was wrapped up in the National Security Summit with many of the Usual Suspects down at the Harold Washington Convention Center in downtown DC. I am already preparing to be late to the plenary session this morning. I don’t think anyone will notice. The Director of National Intelligence had some great […]

I have a two-day conference downtown, starting bright and early, and will not be able to devote the same meticulous care in crafting The Daily as I do normally: scarfing down caffeine, finishing the dregs of last night’s nightcap, vaping away in the unearthly glow of the flat screen in front of me. You think […]