Good Afternoon, Gentle Readers! So, that other year- the one with the ‘odd’ last number- is now three days old and stacked in the corner with the other ones used in their time. We here in the Writer’s section are ready to move on. Forward!

We have just passed a relative calm period in some of the events depicted above, but that is mostly due to the holiday gyrations that had us nattering at one another after Turkey Day. It is now time to do the traditional greeting: a Bold New Year is opening before us, with “all that other stuff going on.”

If you have been distracted by football after Santa’s visit and the demise of the old year, we join us. There is talk that Michigan’s Coach Jim Harbaugh could win the first undisputed national championship in the new system. Then he could quit to take an NFL team to the Super Bowl If he won there, it would establish an NCAA-NFL record that might never be surpassed.

That was a stirring sentence, wasn’t it? But we harbor the realization that our beloved Wolverines will find a way to shake us up. The turmoil around sports and anthems and kneeling on the sidelines is allegedly due to our long history of patriarchal oppression. That contributes to the confusion. We are not sure if the high-pressure air is coming out of all the social lunacy in progress. We read that a player was immediately fired last Sunday when he did the knee-drop stunt- sorry, acted out his “act of responsibility.” Our gang just tuned out the coverage when the lunacy started with the Covid Cavalcade.

We remind you all those Footnotes posted by the Writer’s Section are still current, or if necessary we can emulate the President of Harvard and retroactively fix up any previous problems. Of the three distinguished academics, two have now resigned over their testimony to the House of Representatives that shouting threats of death at other students might be sort of- well, contextual.

In the wide world, multiple dramas continue. To briefly sum up, we are knee-deep in two wars, shooting in a third, and apprehensive about the status of Taiwan. We are a bit startled his morning to discover we are actually shooting at some virtuous Houthi militants on the Red Sea coast. That is supposed to be a Saudi fight, but we have ships and helicopters blowing up pirates, or militants, or whatever they re calling themselves this afternoon. With Gaza and Donetsk being struck daily by hundreds of missiles, there is very much a possibility that something could go ‘sideways’ without a lot of thought.

The logistics of these conflicts is straining the arsenals of the participants. The rockets being fired demonstrate the non-kinetic aspect of the fighting. For the HMAS fighters, home-made rockets made of construction materials are the main battery. For Israel, the Iron Dome defense system is throwing everything they have at the sky. That includes MIM-104 Patriot missiles tht our pls over at Raytheon tell us cost around four million each. We would have to wake up someone from Socotra House Finance to see if that is a unit cost, or spread across the sensors, training and launch systems. That is the curious nature of the new warfare- the old high-tech of the Cold War has given way (in part) to weapons you can make out in the garage. The remaining stocks of weapons in many arsenals are drawing very low due to transfers to the combatants- NATO/US to Ukraine, China and North Korea to Russia. Thrown in the billions of dollars of equipment left in Afghanistan, there is plenty of trouble laying about in this new year.

This morning is typical of what this year has in store. Young Houthi men were running pirate-like raids near the Strait of the Bab al Mandeb. Two USN helicopters took action and lit up the decks of the ships under attack. Some of the Houthis died, which means we have another war in progress with Americans participating.

China is still making up its mind about invading Taiwan.

That is just looking out on that broad swirling world. What we have seen here is a brief break in the Longest Presidential Campaign Ever! Nerly everyone hunkered down to rise cash, POTUS has racked up 37% of his first term on ‘vacation.’ Did you imagine that there would come a day when we were not exactly sure who is in charge of the United States Government?

We laugh about that on the Patio, since we were all pretty good at following the chain of command. Happily, despite the excitement in that old bygone year, you have more to come. And even louder. The friction between the two major parties is picking up steam. There are no ‘Black Swans” to report at the moment. That innocent phrase conceals the other side of the coin- there are so many issues that could change colors and swoop proudly above us that it is hard to keep track. This is going to be an exciting year!

For those who are still wedded to the I-395 morning and evening commute, it might be worth q moment to check the car for additional supplies. Snacks, tire gauge, and keep an eye on fuel, whether it is gas or electric power. And a back-up phone or two- burners would be useful to communicate if the power grid is disabled.

So there is that. We took a brief poll around the circle of folding chairs. First issue was ‘Can we just get back to the mildly imperfect America we all love? Because we served in it, there is a residual reservoir of trust. Recent experience suggests that a lot of things we thought sacrosanct were just ripples on a sheet of lava moving us further into terra incognito.

The crowd was narrowly split on that issue, just as it is on everything else. But there was a unanimous sentiment that this could be one of the most exciting new years ever! Times like this are historic. The last one anything like this was1939, a year of chaos we still talk about. We stockpiled popcorn to pop when things get rolling!

What is a useful phrase? “Stay alert, be safe, and have fun!’

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com