A Healthy Outlook

(Clear skies and good company at College Park. Photo Socotra.)

We were at the Florida State game yesterday, a delightful day spent drinking in the great out-of-doors. The Terps got their butts handed to them, and we only stayed in the seats on the fifty at Byrd Stadium for the first half and then repaired to the parking lot where we continued eating and drinking.

The Man Up guys were not there, though the ringleader appeared late in what probably was the fourth quarter, and a fine time was had by all.

I am going to mosey down to the farm later this morning when things have settled out a bit. There will be more clouds today than yesterday, but still in the low 50s and with that golden burnish to the fields as they appear once outside of the Beltway, where Blue NoVA transitions to Red Virginia.

(It was chill in the early morning, but the fire-log warmed things up nicely.)

I am looking forward to the day- and nestling into a snug bed deep in the country, with the night sounds of the freight trains approaching the grade crossings on what had been the Alexandria and Orange railroad- the one my Irish ancestors helped to build in the 1850s as they headed south and then west to Tennessee.

I had every intention of going through the very strange tale of the impoundment of the Argentine warship in the African port of Tema while on a training cruise. The ARA Libertad, a tall sailing ship with a crew of more than 330, was detained in Ghana’s eastern port on Oct. 2 on a court order obtained by the American firm NML Capital Ltd, which claims Argentina owes it $300 million from defaulted bonds.

I was going to go through the machinations of malevolent capitalists, the American court system, and international law regarding the sovereignty of naval vessels. I got stopped in my tracks by a perceptive bit of analysis about the ponderous nature of the health care system with which we have been burdened.

One of my pals sent me an appreciation of what the Republican Governors were up to at their just-concluded convention in Vegas. There are more of them than there used to be, and they have a key role to play in the aftermath of the election that they thought they would not lose.

I know, what goes on in Vegas ought to stay there, but the position taken by the thirty Red Governors is worth considering. They apparently have made a collective decision to not establish state-level health insurance exchanges, forcing the burden on the dauntless bureaucrats in Washington.

I do not know what the impact of all this will be, and since it appears it is going to happen, ready or not, it is time to try to understand what it means on a personal level. I am not even going to try the Iranian A-Bomb, but you can put that in the same basket with the litany of things I hoped we would avoid.

I mentioned at the time the Affordable Health Care Act was jammed through that I was in favor of some universal, single-payer system. I mean, you have to accept the fact that it will be a crappy system like the one in the UK or Canada, and that at some point access to service will be rationed, and yes, that amounts to what has been demonized as “death panels.”

There has been a fair amount of death around me of late, and there is not enough in the way of medical personnel and resources to go around, so somehow it has to be contained- rationed, if you will.

My pal Mac knew that- he told me a few weeks before his death that there was no surgical option for people of his age, since the Docs were uniform in their view that the risk did not merit intervention.

I was healthy enough to eschew the company health care options up to this year. I bought into it when open season came along, hoping the augmentation to the TRICARE For Life program that came with my military service.

I had hoped that the company plan would provide coverage right here in Arlington, rather than having to drive to the nightmare that is the new Walter Reed, the hostile take-over of Bethesda by the United States Army.

It is pretty weird, and the clash of cultures at the former National Naval Medical Center is profound. The Navy still operates the equivalent of the 1MC with all sorts of announcements in Navy-speak, and the Army health care people say it is very difficult for them to go back to a pure Green Machine when their tours are done there.

Other than that, I don’t have much to do with health care, and I flat don’t know what the impact on people in my situation will be. I know vaguely that we transition from TRICARE to Medicare at the full retirement age, or thereabouts- I suppose I should pay more attention, but I have been content to sit on the sidelines and watch the implementation play out.

Now, the messy business is nearly upon us. I am fascinated by the intrinsic tension between the states and the Feds, and what is likely to happen. I presume the Old Dominion where I live will be one of the rejectionist front states, but beyond that I have no idea whether this will affect me or not in a personal manner, vice general, as 20% of the GDP is absorbed into the clutches of the Bureaucrats.

I worked at Health and Human Services in one of the stranger episodes in my military career, and interacted with the VA and Ag and the Public Health Service. It is a much different government than the one I knew in the IC or DoD. Much dumber, though, and with many more flacks and functionaries filling the halls of the Hubert Humphrey Building.

It appears that the Republicans are going to cave on many issues, the general theory being that they cannot stomach the notion that they are just the party of “No,” though of course that is just what we have elected them to do. I would have to go back and see what is going to happen to my paycheck, once they are done screwing around with the tax brackets.

I did not mind the taxes I paid prior to the Bush cuts- I think the difference amounted to a few hundred dollars every pay period.

Things have changed considerably since then, and I just do not know what it means, between death and taxes. I guess we will just have to deal with what is coming and figure it out as we go along.

Friday night at Willow an associate from my days in the Pentagon showed me the following video, which was quite liberating. I imagine we will survive, at least for a while. There has been a spate of deaths among the small circle of those I care about- the parent’s generation are fading fast, and there are some of our own cohort who have filed to the exits this year. The torrent will increase, since the failure rate of our frail vessels amounts to 100% over time, as noted by John Maynard Keynes. The inevitable got him, too.

So, considering the inescapable, it is worth a watch, to see such youth and talent.

Maybe this will all be OK. I doubt it, but you never know.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0INlumRpL8

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Turning of the Season

(Deck before. Work in progress. All photos Socotra.)

I am down on the farm and the light is just coming up. The first truck and horse trailer did not rumble down the lane-and-a-half blacktop until nearly seven, dawn still minutes away. I contrast that to the morning in Arlington, and the difference is stark. Here on the farm is the sound of the train at the grade crossings on Rt 522, peaceful, breeching the soft night sounds with the remembrance of other deep nights in the country.

Arlington’s mornings arrive stark and all-business. The roar of bureaucrats and lobbyists hurtling into the Federal City is palpable through the open door to the balcony. Their aggressive headlights pierce the soft light as they roar toward their cubicles.

Here in Culpeper there is little ambient light save my own eerie cold blue-tinged mercury vapor of the security light on the pole over looking the Garden of Whatever and the birdbath.

Don-the-Builder’s crew was here and sealed the deck since I was on the property a week ago. The wood looks good and ready for another season challenging the gales of winter. I listened for the whine of The Russian chainsaw in the pastures adjoining mine, but things were silent and broken only by the distant rattle of gunfire from the range at the hunting camp at Happy Acres near the state forest. Life is pretty damn good here.

(Deck sealed and ready for winter. I think I got the stain color about right. Now, if I can get the pavers in the ground I will be able to walk without getting Virginia’s red mud on my boots, all the way to the Garden of Whatever from the stairs).

I succeeded in failing to bring the correct drill bits to repair that pesky fence board that was crushed under the weight of the pine that came down in the upper pasture two years ago. Screws, not nails, is my motto, but one would have to actually act on it.

The small things- priming the little gas engine on the blower to clean out the garage of a year’s worth of detritus- and prepare for the workbench and small tools I need to get organized. Chores are good, and justify a most excellent happy hour on the deck with the Russians when the light began to lower, and the colors under the pale blue skies began lengthen and darken with purple hues of evening.

I was sitting on the refurbished deck drinking with the Russians, trying to wrap my brain around the concept that this is likely to be home, the place I am going to live one of these days.

(The dying flowers of fall just over the deck. won’t be long now).

The change is marked. Leaving Fairfax County the Obama-Kaine-Moran lawn signs abruptly change to Romney-Allen-Cantor. That is just about the place where the State has placed the ‘Welcome to Virginia” center. It is clear that Richmond views the northern tier of the richest counties as not exactly being of the state, since they face Washington, not the state capital.

Same deal headed south on the nightmare of I-95: the welcome center is at Fredericksburg, an hour’s drive (if you are lucky) south of Arlington.

(The view from the kitchen window. I do not mind doing the dishes here. Ah, Fall!)

So at the farm there is a certainty about many things: the changing of the seasons, being one. Another the necessity of caring for the land and the structures placed upon it. The satisfaction of doing simple chores and laying in supplies for the coming winter.

None of these things happen back in Blue Arlington. We are busy, busy up there, and I forget just why.

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Secret Agent Man

I woke on the farm this morning. I slept on the couch in the great room, listening to the mournful sound of the freight trains sounding their whistles at the grade crossings over by the hamlet of Winston. I thought of my Irish ancestors at work on that very track, heading south and west to Nashville, where they took up residence prior to the Late Unpleasantness Between the States.

I have a meeting in Charlottesville with a new Government customer, and coming south under blue skies of a late-January seemed to make a lot of sense. I don’t want jinx anything on this la Nina-influenced winter, but we may have dodged the worst that the season can throw at us- four weeks more in the Short Month and the azaleas will be poking up.

No cat, sad to say, though she may show up on patrol in the morning. I will refresh the food in the bowl down by the garage, which has been consumed by some critter or another.

The deer are back after the hunting season has closed, venturing out of the deeper scraggly woods and back onto my pastures. The droning of a small private plane miles away and the barking of a dog in the middle distance were the only sounds, save those of the rustling branches in a fitful breeze.

I had an hour or so of productive time after I bustled around, and could have hung a new thermometer on the deck, or got to some of the chores that have a timeless quality. Then I thought about reading a book- and actual paper-printed book- and listening to satellite radio.

Easy choice on that score. I have a Scandinavian blood-soaked detective story in progress, and a strange surreal account of life in a small-town in North Dakota called “Down Town Owl” by Chuck Closterman. I hefted them both and with a sigh, decided on a third.

An old shipmate from Texas had his publisher send me a copy of his latest book, a tome about the life and times of a Confederate naval acquisition specialist. I had thought about buying a copy, although I gulped at the price. They want $55 for the lengthy trade paperback, which is what I pay for the folio editions of the great books that I use as decorator items. This self-publishing business is a hard one, and I felt a certain obligation to support other non-mainstream authors. I was going to get to that, when a hefty manila envelope arrived in the Saturday snail-mail.

It was a free copy of Texas Walt’s book, sent to me in my capacity as editor of the little professional Quarterly, and for the purposes of generating a favorable review. I could put it in the pile of things to do in the flurry before press time, but I have learned to just touch things once, get it out of the way and move on.

I sat on the couch with the rich sunlight lowering across the front porch and making last fall’s ornamental grasses stand in bold gold. Then I starting reading about Richmond’s Secret Agent Man in old Europe, the procurer of gunboats and commerce raiders and blockade runners who drove Mr. Lincoln’s admirals nuts.
If this were a review, which it is not, per se, I would start it like this:

James D. Bulloch: Secret Agent and Mastermind of the Confederate Navy
Paperback: 368 pages/$55
Publisher: McFarland (January 20, 2012)
ISBN-10: 0786466596
ISBN-13: 978-0786466597 (ebook)
Orders: www.mcfarlandpub.com <http://www.mcfarlandpub.com>  or toll-free at 800-253-2187

I would have noted that the Gazette was proud to note the issuance of the first biography of James D. Bulloch, agent extraordinaire of the Confederate Navy who operated a vast network of procurement, intelligence collection and privateering from Europe throughout the American Civil War. Bulloch was an ingenious secret agent who conjured up a fleet of cruisers and blockade-runners from his base in Liverpool against incredible odds and under enormous pressure by the Lincoln government in Washington. Prior to the war, Bulloch was an extraordinary US naval officer and commercial sea captain. The book details Bulloch’s exploits and his impact on American history, and that of the larger world stage.

This is a most entertaining account of a sadly neglected aspect of the industrial age global war. In addition to all that, Bulloch survived the war, remaining in exile in Liverpool, but remaining life-long friends with Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., and was the favorite Uncle and mentor of a future U.S. President, Teddy Roosevelt. There is also a tantalizing possibility that Bulloch and his family provided the inspiration for the young Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone with the Wind.”

As the former head of the Navy’s intelligence operations in Europe, Walt Wilson felt a special connection with Bulloch, and writes evocatively of the world of espionage that made the American Civil War a global enterprise. Blockade-runners and commerce raiders were Bullock’s stock in trade, that and the collection of intelligence from a network of Rebel agents across the continent.

In large measure, Bulloch’s accomplishments were overshadowed by the exploits of the ships he acquired and launched on the world ocean to prey on Union merchantmen and the whaling fleet.

“James D. Bulloch: Secret Agent” is the second in a trilogy of books about three important Confederate naval commanders that have been overlooked for far too long.

The first book, “The Sea King: The Life of James Iredell Waddell” (Birlinn, 2009) detailed the life of the man who commanded the famed commerce raider CSS Shenandoah, the only American Civil War vessel to circumnavigate the globe.
Using the ship that Bulloch had procured for him, Waddell singlehandedly destroyed the US whaling fleet and almost brought the British Empire into the war on the side of the South. Waddell was a thorn in the side of the Johnson Administration (the first one) in the immediate post-war period in which Waddell remained in command and at large. He finally surrendered to the Royal Navy after a 22,000-mile journey to Liverpool. Proclaimed an American hero upon his death in 1886 he was given the only state funeral ever awarded for a former Confederate office.

Second in the series, Bulloch’s biography is a joint effort between shipmate Walt Wilson and Gary L. McKay about the most mysterious naval official on either side of the American Civil War.

(“Texas Walt” Wilson strikes a pose before USS San Antonio (LPD-17) lead ship of her class of amphibious transport docks. She is the first ship named for the city of San Antonio, TX.)

Gary L. McKay is the co-author, and is a “lead researcher at Float Research UK, a dedicated geo-spatial engineering firm specializing in remote sensing and digital cartography.” He had 17 years experience in the US Navy and US Army within the electronic intelligence, intelligence analysis and counterintelligence communities, so his chops are good.

He claims his next project is a secret, but I am betting it might be about Raphael Semmes, Confederate Admiral and skipper of the deadly raider CSS Alabama.

(CSA Rear Admiral Raphael Semmes, Captain of the Alabama, who took his war with the Union to the world ocean.His epic losing engagement with USS Kearsarge off the French coast electrified Europe.)

I won’t break the other secret, which is that of course it will be a positive review. You have to help out other authors. It is a tough world for us- I saw and article in the times in the darkness of the great room on the glowing computer screen that book giant Barnes and Nobel may be headed for the ashcan of history, along with all the other big chains.

Apparently Amazon is killing them off. I felt bad when I read the article. B. Dalton Bookseller and Crown Books are long gone. Borders collapsed last year. Now it is just B&N against the implacable Kindle and the Amazonian business model.
Shoot, that is how I get my reading stuff these days, except for the fancy editions that mostly just serve as three-dimensional wallpaper in my living room.
To get his book on the street, Texas Walt’s publisher has to ask for $55 a copy. This is a hard world, isn’t it?

I would have bought it, really I would. But I would probably have bought it from Amazon.

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Three Eggs and Grits

 

It is still dark at the farm this morning. I slept on the red couch, bathed in the brilliant cold blue-white mercury vapor security lamp.

It was quiet except for the 3:05 freight on the old Alexandria & Orange line sounding its horn at the grade crossings at Winston, Virginia.

It was nearly sixty degrees yesterday, starting lovely in Arlington, but then swaddled in clouds and spritzing rain. I drove out of it near Remington, and for a couple hours returned to an odd Spring-like air mass over the farm.

The temperature plummeted overnight, and I stepped out on the porch in the blackness to look for the black cat with the white mittens

I will stay long enough to see if Heckle shows up on morning patrol with the first light. In any case, I will have foot out for my feral feline associate. I hope she has found a better gig for the winter. My pal Jinny provided a heated cat-house (no jokes, quite true and practical) but I suspect that regular food is more in line with Heckle’s minimalist expectations.

Food occupied several first thoughts. I did not stop at the store on the way down, and have no eggs. That means one thing: if I am going to breakfast I can either cook back up in Northern Virginia, or I can treat myself to a stop at the Frost Diner. I put out the dry cat food by the garage and the last can of the wet food on the front porch, just in case the cat and I do not pass.

I had to marvel at the silence. It is really calm down here. No car bombings, like LA, which is an alarming development from the weekend in Lotusland.

There is much more to talk about as the new year lurches forward, but this is an Official Holiday, and I am going to take it and see if I can actually make it to the gym and accomplish one of my resolutions.

I did make a list of all the people who sent holiday cards, and will do something with it presently. I will remove the timer from the lights and unplug the ones on the balcony.

The Holiday is over, and time to get back to work. I don’t feel like I spent much time in the holiday spirit, but the time of merrymaking for most of the rest of us did give me the time to get some important things done.

Now, on with the show for 2012. But first I am going to stop at The Frost Diner before I head north. They open at five, and I have had a hankering for a three-egg omelet with grits. When in Culpeper, I figure, do like the Culpeperins.

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com