Author: Vic Socotra

Implausible Deniability

We can’t talk directly about what is going on. We could, but it might attract attention. Amanda is taking a late Saturday approach to the morning oversight duty, but we know the rules. If you notice some of the crap going on, there is the real opportunity to be censured and even lose the chance […]

Arrias: Spring

Dark and thick they loom, Crowding o’er the trees, Branches shake and shiver In the gathering breeze. Spring rain, cold and hard, But the grass is turning green, Trees all covered in buds, Mother Nature’s spring routine. The first few large drops fall, A heavy, staccato beat, But then they come in a torrent, And […]

Working Backwards

Our Attorney Amanda is the one that started the minor controversy this morning. She normally tries to steer us away from C&C issues, since those are the ones most likely to get us into trouble. “Current and Controversial” is too complicated to say in full, so we go with the abbreviation. It is not intentional, […]

Going Through the Laundry Bag

DeMille is the leader of the Writer’s Section at Socotra House mostly through default. Everyone else is too lazy. By training, he is an engineer with a specialty on safe reactor operations. It is harder for him to let go the basic organizational skills than it is for the rest of us. For example, while […]

Weather Report: Flurries of “News”

So, that is what the Writer’s Section under close supervision by our Attorney Amanda decided was a capture of the week’s news. You will notice what is not “in the news.” Oh, wait. Of course you wouldn’t notice! We have been trying to follow fellow scribe Marlow’s advice from his Coastal Empire. “Get cleaned up […]

1939 Rhymes

Morning, Folks! We are going to defer to Amanda this morning. We had a hurried meeting this morning out by the Fire Ring before we made our pitch to her for preliminary approval to get to production. Her Legal Shop is not imposing censorship, she tells us. That is something the Chairman is concerned about. […]

Life & Island Times: A Thin Spring Slice of the Empire

This is our sixth spring in the Empire. W’s side garden has been transformed, but not without many patience-trying times and serial plant failures. One example pictured below are the arbored yellow rose vines called Lady Banks. This plant was W’s third different specimen attempt in this small space to plant, grow, vine and flower. […]

Arrias: Escalate? De-Escalate?

The phrase “Escalate to De-escalate” has been used to describe a Russian military doctrine of the select use of nuclear weapons to stop a war from proceeding any further. While some have countered that the phrase does not exist in Russian military doctrine, it is clear that the idea does. But what exactly does it […]

Car People

The car in the picture wasn’t mine. Dad worked for American Motors, and we didn’t produce muscle. Our best try was the 343 Javelin, though the AMX could raise an eyebrow coming off the light changing to “green.” Under George Romney, the man who hired Dad to sculpt sensible designs of reasonable automobiles that could […]