Author: Vic Socotra

Ancient History

You don’t have to open up the copy of the ancient history that showed up in the mail yesterday. I assumed it was a medical bill, since the medical/pharmaceutical industry is sending all sorts of pieces of paper with preposterously large numbers on them. They pass almost without comment, and this was fairly modest as […]

Arrias: A Fairy Tale

Once upon a time there was a truly great nation, a nation that tried to bring peace around the world, that tried to improve everyone’s life, that worked very hard as a nation, and the people become fabulously rich. But there were those inside the country who didn’t like things this way, they wanted more […]

Willy’s Sketches, 1944-45

(Here, the Navy’s Aviation Cadets- the AvCads- are planning for their final exercise in aerial navigation in 1944 before graduation and award of their Wings of Gold). Morning, Gentle Readers! Splash brought out some ancient pictures this morning and plopped them down under the high cirrus clouds streaking the pale optimistic blue of heaven.. The […]

Arrias: Putin, Xi, and the Pirate King

In the news this week, Alexei Navalny, the dissident Russian politician who was serving 30 years in an Arctic Gulag, died. Navalny was a longtime rival of Tsar Vlad, had campaigned against corruption – Putin’s corruption – and after returning to Russia in 2021, had been found guilty of “extremism” and “fraud” – what were […]

From Nine to Eight

We could go a couple of directions this morning. The New York Real Estate ruling against a former Chief Executive has a lot of folks consternated, since no one in the jury-less trial would have stipulated a fine near a half-billion dollars and intended only to penalize the presumptive nominee in an election year. That […]

Fruit of a Crazy Week

(This image was created as a template for a patch intended to commemorate the large annual military exercise in the Korean Republic. It was known as “Team Spirit,” and is still vigorously conducted, partly as a reasonable preparation and partly as a declaration of earnest will to the Current Kim to the north. The artist […]

Sheriff Jones of Butler County

(Sheriff Jones of Butler County, OH, as depicted by DCclothesline.com. Opinions expressed in this piece do not necessarily represent those of Socotra House LLC or independent content contributors). Sheriff Richard K. Jones is a Boomer from Butler County, Ohio. Some of us have been attempting to retrieve some of our Ohio heritage, something that has […]

A Day in February

Morning- or afternoon!- from here in Arlington, Virginia. We are entertaining, hosting a luncheon here in Big Pink. Accordingly, we won’t talk about the special election in New York to replace that Soros fellow. We will not mention the big Russian landing ship the Ukrainians put under water off a former piece of their country […]

(Are You Ready For) Fat Tuesday?!

(Disclaimer: any material appearing here is used in low-resolution for identification purposes only under Fair Use terms defined in US Code. Information is provided on a “use at own risk” basis since the First Amendment provisions on Free Speech appear to have been superseded in some jurisdictions on a general basis and thus inapplicable. Other […]

Arrias: Shake Up at Two Years

As I’m sure you know, two years into the war President Zelenskyy just dismissed his senior general and is calling for a new strategy. What might that mean? Begin at the beginning: Russia invaded on as poor a net assessment of the enemy as can be imagined. It was as far off as Hannibal’s assessment […]