The above is a striking and unmodified image taken from the back deck of The Farm down in Culpeper County. It was taken one afternoon around the time of the last General Election for the office of President of the United States, and we used it as the backdrop to a short account of how […]

(The Mexican Expedition, 1916) These are challenging times for the retired analytic community. We have a distinct baseline composed of belief and truth, at least to the extent we can tell the difference. We veered into that one with the usual mass of reporting this morning. There were more criminal acts committed by- what are […]

(Victoria Nuland announced her retirement last week as the Assistant Secretary of State for Political Affairs. Her temporary relief is the fellow to her right, ambassador John Bass). This is a morning for messaging, and the stakes are high. There was some news last week we did not appreciate at the time, but it may […]

Well, here we are this morning after a tough news week and starting what appears to be another one. We started this morning with another fascinating chapter in our nation’s metamorphosis. We liked the way things were and spent more than a quarter century in service to its preservation against all enemies, foreign and domestic. […]

(A fellow named Dominic Pino wrote an interesting article on America’s Unions and public sector participation recently. It happened to echo some other reverberations about the Teacher’s collectives whose donations helped finance the Covid-related school shut-downs in the pandemic. They say a generation of school-kids will be affected. There is more coming. Take a walk […]

(USS Midway CV-41 Library and Docent staff at their recent 20th Anniversary event in San Diego. In center rear of the image, Phil Eaken is holding LTJG Winky, a hand-puppet that served to keep attention on the flight event briefings for Air Wing FIVE aviators before Midway became a museum). Phil sent the picture above […]

Morning, Gentle Readers! Did you stay up last night to see the slightly confused pundits on the flatscreens marveling at the results of the political pandemonium. Primary Political contests held in a couple dozen states yesterday, including the one in which our Patio Super Tuesday is over with some fairly dramatic developments. Both Biden and […]

There was excitement under gray skies and moisture out of the Patio. Everyone was up and active, since it is a day that may have come from the Marvel Comics people: “It’s Super Tuesday!” We are not sure we can get everyone to the polls this morning, nor are we sure who we would vote […]

(Lenore and George Romney chat up Dad, 1963) They didn’t put the hyphen in the middle of the phrase when we first encountered it in 1960. That was Mom and Dad’s thing, way back in the mists of time. It stood for “Michigan Constitutional Convention,” which was intended to fix some of the impediments to […]

(This is a fellow accused of murder while here in Georgia as an “undocumented” non-citizen. They call them something else these days, but there are so many new terms we can’t keep track. we would run a photo of the Sheriff who holds him, but that would open up another lane in the slippery slope […]