Legal sent Fast Eddie over to monitor the afternoon session since there was the possibility that sex, age, experience and faulty assumptions could be presented as breaking news in the midst of all the other stuff.

This is from VIc’s Stuff, or what we should call “VICSTUFF” for short, since he and Holly and three of the other Interns are from Michigan. Vic says he was born in Detroit, though Grand Rapids, Petoskey and Ann Arbor are other Mitten Municipalities represented at the Conference Table.

That is what made these two disparate notes spark interest because of their demonstration of the implacable human spirit.

First was about Sen. L. Louise Lucas, a long term Virginia lawmaker. Her background is beyond reproach. in 1971 she was a Naval shipyard pioneer. That was the year Vic was finishing his sophomore year at Ann Arbor. Lucas then became the first female ship-fitter at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia, with several subsequent federal equal-employment positions.

Her partisan political beginnings began in 1984 as the first Black woman elected to the Portsmouth, virginia City Council. She rose to Virginia Senate in 1991, where she began a legislative career that has lasted more than three decades. Her influence grew with time served. She became Senate president, pro tempore, in 2019 and chair of the powerful Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee in 2024, giving her substantial influence over state spending and budget legislation.

Fast Eddie said we should stay away from the cannibas business interests between 2019-2024 which is when Federal prosecutors allege Lucas and associates developed businesses connected to “The CBD Shoppe” and “The Cannabis Outlet.”

Fast Eddie posted the big “ALLEGED IS NOT PROVEN,” sign on the wall next to the big flat-screen.

There was general laughter at the idea that the Speaker of the Michigan Senate was also dealing drugs- and dealing ones she helped make legal illegally- lightened the afternoon. we wanted to include a GOP mis-queue for balance and this one made us a little sad at the follies of humankind. Here it is:

The Day They Dropped Ike’s World

U.S. Armed Forces Joint Chiefs Of Staff Under President Eisenhower History – Item # VAREVCHISL040EC427 – Posterazzi

(An original defense department image from Ike’s time in the Pentagon, 1945 or so).

Fast Eddie was OK with this one, since it was in the Post this morning and a lot of people are still reading it.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s staff accidentally damaged one of the Pentagon’s historic globes associated with General Dwight D. Eisenhower. The incident actually occurred earlier this year, back in February o during an attempt to relocate the 30-inch globe to Hegseth’s office.

According to the Army and the Post reporting:

The globe dated from the 1930s and was one of two historic Eisenhower globes kept in the Pentagon.
Staff attempted the move without the assistance of historical preservation specialists.
The globe fell onto its supporting structure, punching a several-inch hole near Antarctica.
The sphere also separated from its rotating mount.
The globe never reached Hegseth’s office and is now undergoing repair.

The Pentagon acknowledged the accident but described the object as a replica of Eisenhower’s globe.

The historical irony at this time of national and international tumult is irresistible. Eisenhower helped organize the Allied invasion of Europe using maps and globes. Eight decades later, an attempt to move one of his globes across the Pentagon ended with a hole in the bottom of the world.

Today, we note Pentagon furniture movements with that of France. Their Defense Ministry was unable to move a brigade of troops to a joint exercise last year and today cannot douse the fires in their streets. But President Macron is relaxed enough to send soldiers to support the Saudis against the Houthis!

Fast Eddie surveyed the Conference Table and decided the afternoon had produced quite enough breaking news for one shift.

On one side of the political aisle, a Virginia senator with more than three decades of public service faced a federal indictment involving a cannabis business. The allegations were serious, the denials emphatic, and the presumption of innocence remained firmly in place. Eddie pointed again to his sign.

ALLEGED IS NOT PROVEN.

On the other side, the Pentagon had managed to damage a globe associated with Dwight Eisenhower, a man who once helped organize the movement of entire armies across Europe. Moving a thirty-inch representation of the planet from one office to another had apparently proved a more delicate operation than anticipated.

Nobody was suggesting the two events were equivalent. One involved serious criminal accusations; the other, an unfortunate encounter between military history and office furniture.

But they did offer a curious afternoon lesson in the limits of human judgment, regardless of age, experience, party affiliation or rank.

The globe was being repaired. The legal proceedings were just beginning. And the actual world, which had survived considerably worse, continued spinning without consulting either party.

Deirdre announced Happy Hour. Fast Eddie took down his sign.

See you in the morning, folks. Mañana!

Copyright 2026 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com