Author: Vic Socotra

Weather Report: End of FEB & Multiple Conflicts

We normally generate a “Weather Report” each week as a means not of “informing” or “convincing.” It is intended to be a stream of information in which some smaller stories are advancing in emphasis to the media that now surrounds us. We are trying to to keep track of the various post-Colonial conflicts, America’s vulnerabilities, […]

A Resolution Continues

We passed a considerable milestone this month, and we should all be proud of it. We are nearly five months into Fiscal 2024 and have yet to pass all the appropriations bills for the year that is almost halfway done. The current hodgepodge of consolidated funding runs out on Thursday, 01 March. Midnight, we think. […]

Arrias: Marshall, Ike and Ukraine

On January 25th, 1942, USS Sargo (SS-186 (under the command of LtCmdr Tyrell Jacobs)) pulled into Surabaya, Indonesia after finishing a short war patrol, offloaded her remaining torpedoes, loaded 1 million rounds of small-arms ammunition, and headed to Mindanao, the Philippines to provide some ammunition to the US and the Philippine Armies. She then picked […]

The Second Coming

(Poet William Butler Yeats, 1865-1939. Image courtesy Wiki). We have to ask your indulgence this morning. Not that we don’t incur your debt on that count regularly, and all we wanted to do was showcase one of the extraordinary works of Irish-British poet William Butler Yeats. We will keep this appreciation on the ethos surrounding […]

Family Reunion

The visit passed swiftly with the usual jumble of laughter, old jokes, and a hint of sadness that the family one of us had was there and the other three already passed to the ages. There was important stuff that was necessary. One long medical adventure seemed to lurch forward from convalescence to something closer […]

Benedict Arnold: A Traitor Hero

Benedict Arnold has a new book out. It is a striking treatment of a man who has been termed “the most hated man in America.” We have never seen a picture of him, since his time predates photography. The etching above was a “first seen” for many of us. Arnold is a complex figure in […]

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 […]