It is gray out there today, the remnants of a hurricane scudding north in dissipation after landfall a few states to the south. We were relieved there were no reports of major military operations in the places we have been told to be concerned about. This morning has some historic tick-marks to compare with these historic times. It is 50 years since Richard Nixon resigned from his term as President, so there is some context of tradition to modern times in the air.

There was one striking new-ish development. Apparently the Ukrainians launched some sort of a token attack on Russian soil. It is “token” only here, of course, and quite real to the young people who died in the process of creating a symbolic act of violence. It occurred across what had been a border- one of those “red line” things in the area southwest of Kursk. It is a place that experienced heavy fighting over other things not to long ago.

It was an demonstration of some sort, akin to the one in North Korea. L’il Kim just moved 250 SRBM rockets down to the border with the South. The Ukraine “invasion” of Russia had occupied about a thousand young men, some of whom were blown to pieces, and occupied- at least briefly- some 50 square miles of territory on a direct nine-mile line of advance.

Perspective and scope are useful when attempting to discern what the messaging is intended to do besides selling some product or policy.

We thought back to our days in one of the Big Machines. The Ukrainian event would be similar in size to the Joint Staff marching out of the E-Ring at the Pentagon and advancing with determination to the Dunn Loring Metro station in Fairfax County, and maintaining strict control of all the 7-11’s along the way.

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The crowd at the production meeting was a little more alert than usual. It seems a rational approach to all this noise.

There was more stuff to talk about, some near and some further away from home. The irritating “My Pillow” guy from TV apparently is losing Big Box support, whatever those are. We put it to the right of the spinning circle on the morning chart for consideration. Then there was word about a digital company’s “two completely minor officials” who worked for a voting machine company far, far away across the Pacific who were placed on “indefinite leave” after reports- and an indictment- involving a ten-year old computer malfunction that may have altered a national election is a place we used to enjoy visiting. Fun times.

DeMille adjourned the morning meeting a little early, wanting to keep the scope of discussion limited to things we could actually do anything about. Which apparently is just changing the letters of the sign out by the parking lot entrance:

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