Author: Vic Socotra

Arrias: Place Your Bets

The race isn’t always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong… but that’s the way to bet. – Hugh Keough (and Damon Runyon) The attempted assassination of former President Trump has now had a chance to settle in just a bit, and in capitals around the world I would suspect that there are […]

Messaging in the Mornings After

It was a decent night’s sleep, according to reports from across the nation and as far away as Australia. We did not know how it was going to go as our last act of the day was to attempt to absorb the address from the Oval Office about the assassination attempt that has roiled us […]

Bastille Day

We were surprised to discover we had slept pretty well after a startling disruption to the evening. We had stayed up late attempting to process the news. We had been working on a draft for a story to be run to bridge the messaging of the NATO Summit week to the rising torrent of reporting […]

Who’s In Charge?

This is the product of a fun outing after the Production Meeting yesterday. You are aware of the developments in the Campaign, and they have been spectacular. One columnist attempted to draw a parallel to the media treatment of other world leaders. That special treatment was deemed necessary to maintaining order and stability. The trajectory […]

Front Row Seats

13 July, 1960: John F. Kennedy nominated for presidency. Here we go again. In this moment, the emotion is too profound for comment. The minutes were electric as Mr. Trump disappeared from view, and we thought in horror that a situation that was already bad had somehow just lurched into something much worse. The laptops […]

NATO Summit Closes Out

We don’t know if you stayed up for the event last night. We felt obligated to do so, since the coverage of everything has been as much the topic under discussion as the discussion of the topics that are supposed to be under discussion. Confused yet? We are. That was the point on tuning in […]

Arrias and His Muse: Another Storm

Author’s Note: Very gray very humid (Weather Underground says it 93% humidity… – Arrias Another Storm The wood is still, not a breath of air, Thick clouds, dark gray on gray, Dawn is still an hour off When the first raindrop falls today. One lone songbird greets first light, In the distance a dog barks, […]

Arrias and His Muse: Pawns

Author’s Note: I wrote this after reading some accounts from Ukrainians who are getting ground down – they want their independence but they also fear their country is being destroyed, literally and politically, and there seems to be no way to, in practical terms, split the difference. The public face is very patriotic but there […]

Never Mess With…

Another morning in the cavalcade of chaos that has enveloped us all this year, regardless of which side of the aisle on which you seated, and of course whether your chair is facing the front or rear of the room in which the seating is placed. Did you forget there was a GOP Convention this […]

All the stuff on the slide above is in progress. A part of the campaign chaos here included some coverage of the NATO show in town. One headline read: “Biden awards Medal of Freedom to NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg” We saw part of the event on the flatscreen, at the suitability of this event for […]