It is a giddy sort of day here in the Piedmont of Virginia. Great clear sunrise, sparse but attractive clouds. Temperature rising, low humidity. Nice winter day, pleasant for a smoke out on the back deck and watch the vulture circling over the bottom of the east pasture.

It is the Day Before, as you may have heard. The 70 Days will be up, a special and interesting time between November 3 and January 20. The New President will take the oath and become President. We are close enough to it now that there are whispers of anxiety on the ‘net, though not as much as during the climacteric week that started this amazing new year.

So, it is a good day to be a little giddy. With a new Administration in town it will be different, of course, or rather amplified echoes of a recently previous inside group. They seem determined to reverse the entirety of the (momentarily) current Administration’s policies. Accordingly, I have asked you to be kind and remember the previous footnotes were just good ideas. We may be headed for a new normal in which our emails can be expected to be searched for keywords or other indicators or incorrect thought.

That has already happened to one of the weekly Swamp Postcards, innocuous and fully supportive of whatever emergency is declared on any particular day. Accordingly, for legal purposes, a new set of footnotes should be appended to all our published documents to demonstrate complete and shared belief in whatever it is we are supposed to believe on any particular day.

Running the footnotes as full text in every story would be punishing to both the editorial and consumer side of the data equation. Accordingly, this will be the only time our footnotes department gets feature billing, since it will shortly be something else, and something else again. But for the moment, this is what we are working with:

Footnote 1: Subject to change. Author and Publishing House recognize the disaster of the pandemic. All concerned observe CDC guidelines, wash hands frequently, avoid all possible personal contact with other citizens, mask when interacting with essential personnel. Be polite.

Footnote 2: Subject to change. We recognize the times are swiftly revealing new truths. In that context, Socotra House Publications strongly supports necessary guidance from those in a position to give it about a variety of issues, including the genetic nature of human beings, the definition of terms to suit just implementation of equally just policy, and anything that suggests otherwise is due to clerical error with deep regret.

Footnote 3: Subject to change. A flexible note, available for ready update in case some new idea or Emergency has swept society and requires immediate understanding and support without tiresome debate.

With luck, these simple precautions will ensure continuity with changing times. The 70 Days was a spectacular show, and marks a dramatic moment of national transformation that has every indication of rapid movement. We all feel it. Footnote 3.

Copyright 2021 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com