It is a huge Veterans Day down at the farm. Thanks for your service, Vets. You, and the long line of citizen soldiers have kept us free: Marines, Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard, have kept us free. Not that one Vet didn’t tweak me first thing, but I will get to that in […]

(General Dave Petraeus in happier times testifying before the House Armed Services Committee. Photo AP.) I was going to explore the wonderful, magical world that is about to come with you this morning. It is part of what my pal the economist calls “the business cycle,” and the coming boom in oil and gas. It […]

I was going to tell you about CHAMP this morning, and the implications of one of the more intriguing horrors to pop out of the old National Security apparatus, but there are a couple topics we really need to discuss at the end of this astonishing week. It is morning in America again. Everything is […]

Get with the program, folks. Here we go. Sorry…all that storm- clock change-and election nonsense quite distracted me, and I freely acknowledge I am a bit peevish. I got out the flag to take down to the farm for the maiden flag-raising ceremony this weekend. It is a trophy flag, a 5×8 American national flag […]

(The mystery of the hanging chads from 2000. Photo AP). Michelle is not peering at me from the banner to the right of my email screen. It is over. I had hoped it would go like this, either way: a clear, clean kill. Well, it was neither, in the practical application of democracy, but it […]

(Julia Childs would approve, as would Anthony Bourdain would approve. It ain’t rocket science, just like the election). Cold was the night. First decent cold of the year, the first sneer of the winter wind that cuts deep. There is going to be a lot of crap going down today all across America. I am […]

It is Monday and I feel like I am almost home, don’t you? It has been a very long bus ride with people who really need a shower. What a long, strange trip this has been to arrive right back in the middle of the road, the signposts ahead pointing boldly to the Right and […]

(It was picture perfect at Refuge Farm on an early November day. The sky was North Carolina Blue, if I may be permitted the geographic anomaly. Photo Socotra). I think we should just let the clocks alone. I have been up since “0300” and this is an affront to nature. it was lasagna with the […]

(Happy Hour White, a peach martini and candlelight at the Willow Halloween party. Photo Socotra.) Now that time is getting short. There is not much television time left before this electoral circus is in the lap of the Gods, I am not buying any advertising, and will let this thing play out on its own. […]

(The Socotras flank Mac earlier this month. Photo ONI.) Mike had the little brass box that contained his Dad’s earthly remains. Mac was in place on a low table in front of the Sanctuary at the Lutheran Church up Rt 50. He was punctual, and the Color Guard from the Office of Naval Intelligence was […]