It is a week jammed with anniversaries, some of them a little disquieting. Today, for example, is VE Day- “Victory in Europe, 1945” as we also observe something unfolding in Europe again some eight decades later. We will talk about that tomorrow, in the context of Russia’s observation of the Soviet Victory Day that we […]

It is clear and blue out there on The Patio. Still a bit chill, and the first Production Meeting of the new week lurched into immediate conflict. This did not directly involve the Writers Section, though it was the venue for the first company dispute about production priorities. There is plenty swirling here in town, […]

Tough one this morning. News of departures from this world lent a shadow as pervasive as the gray clouds that obscured the Aurora of the big solar storm. Let’s gt the ceremonial and honorific part done first. It is Mother’s Day. We interred the one with whom we were privileged to participate tangentially in the […]

Author’s Note: The memorial service for Jane Reddig is scheduled for 11:00AM this morning at Kirk in the Hills in Bloomfield Hills, MI. Visit the Kirk’s website at the “worship from home” tab to join the Livestream coverage. – Vic TANSTAAFL (This colorful chart is lifted from the Powerline blog. We do not know the […]

(The usual caption to the seven day forecast image is “yeah,” and “all the stuff above is happening.”) We would normally update the overnight developments on existing streams of our chaotic current events with some pithy observations. We are not going to have to do that, since there are reports of a coming storm that […]

(May 9th is Victory Day in what was known for many years as the Soviet Union. It commemorates the defeat of a savage despot who invaded the Russian homeland and the more successful Soviet invasion of Poland and eventual conquest of Berlin. Red Square Victory Day photo 1998 SOCOTRA). We have not shared the image […]

(The usual caption to the seven day forecast image is “yeah,” and “all the stuff above is happening.”) We would normally update the overnight developments on existing streams of our chaotic current events with some pithy observations. We are not going to have to do that, since there are reports of a coming storm that […]

(Woman perched atop a shaggy young man in the May Day protest at the Capital in Washington, DC. Image courtesy “wagingnonviolence.org”). We were going to go with a tale about the unfolding story of attempts to escalate tension in nuclear relations- there is some disturbing Escalation in progress. You will see us cover it presently, […]

Here it is again! It was a surprising as the Kentucky Derby’s arrival yesterday, and a group celebration of a classic event for the Bluegrass state. We had thought the event was long past, but it was not. The nose-to-nose-to nose finish was as exciting as anything we have seen, and that was a perfect […]

There is other stuff to ruminate about this morning, in fact a swirl of the big messaging machine that has many of us in an uproar. A congressman from Texas just got indicted for something corrupt, which he and his wife deny. We don’t know if that is a reflection of the old corruption which […]