You know the traditional dilemma for participants in the literary production game. Here we are, end of the week in the end of a year. It is not quite over, so you needn’t throw anything to get our attention. There has been talk for weeks on the matter at hand would be how to handle the transition. We could go with a wrap-up for jolly 2023, high-lighting some of the merriment, concluding with laughter about the good times we shared.

We viewed that as a sort of Plan B. There is so much flying around that we have difficulty pulling up the items that are still shiny with a little interest. You are already aware of some of the stuff shambling in this direction. To enable a graceful transition, take a stroll around the edges of the slides. There are two wars in progress now, though the one in Ukraine has now subsumed itself into being ‘the other war.’

Our Congress is participating in a lot of the other stuff, which as you know is normally covered with the succinct admonition “and the rest of this commotion continues as well.”

But there is more. A CBS correspondent who has lingered from the days of smaller media coverge. Her name is Catherine Herridge, and she has surfed the waves of modernization, shake-ups and consolidation. Back at Fox she had handled reporting on our Intelligence Community with aplomb before decamping to the Columbia System in 2019.

She made some news herself with a warning this wondrous week. Catherine says we might be headed for a “Black Swan” event that could shock our shorts. We will slow down enough just to demonstrate we are generally on the same page here. “Swans are normally White,” which would be a way to start. Hence, a black swan in unusual and unexpected. That has been adopted by people in the various financial trades to express thoughts on some of the economy is going to go.

So, we have agreed to lay out some of the swans, regardless of their color and a prospective list to have the big numerals ‘2024’ stitched up on them, bright and shiny. We may as well get organized. It is time to get ready!

Copyright 2023 Vic Socotra