Author: Vic Socotra

Fajitas In Minutes with Ann Maloney

Attached photos are for illustrative purposes on Vic Socotra for The Daily. Food styling by Nicola Justine Davis for The Washington Post, where a line of images from Google Search collectively represents versions of Mexico’s delightful fajitas for The Post). Ann Maloney is the Recipes Editor at The Post, the newspaper I considered equivalent to […]

What About…

Let’s not call it a “constitutional crisis,” or at least not yet. A fourth criminal indictment popped late yesterday against former President Trump. He now has the most of any former President in our history. The former President was accused of conducting a multi-layered, multi-level conspiracy to steal the Electoral College vote of the Electors […]

Arrias and His Muse: Summer Morn

Author’s Note: My Muse arrived with the hummingbirds this morning…Arrias In the Dismal Swamp on a summer morn, The air is thick and warm, Like a blanket is lies over the wood, Will the afternoon bring a summer storm… The air is still, not a leaf does stir, Not a peep or a rasp or […]

HAITI DAY

The manuscript is dated 1995-96. It was part of the jumble of digits that appeared in an old group of files. There were digital communications back then, but they were still new. What follows is one of the first Official Reports distilled through paper copies, fed through scanners into different processing systems and tucked away […]

Laying Down the Dog Days

It is not over, this pleasant culmination of the energy of summer. Last week- the one before last Sunday, that is, actually was said to end things on August 12th. From here out, our weather will reflect the changing season as the days grow shorter and the temperatures stay modest. The slide into the transition […]

Calling Lahaina Home

We can’t avoid it. We tried to stay happy all week, and the gathering last Thursday proved to be a sentimental focus for fond memories. We had all met when the Navy brought us together in Hawaii. Our duty station was on the top floor of the Fleet Intelligence Center- the “F-I-C” that rose up […]

Four Courts Fellows

It was a good afternoon in Falls Church, Virginia. A dozen or so of the Old Salts who are now strewn around the world got together to share a meal and some memories. There was a certain poignancy that touched the atmosphere above the dark long table where the staff of Ireland’s Four Court bar […]

Weather Report: Emergency Tomorrow?

This is the morning in the week when our dislike for America On-Line’s decision to shed maintenance on their “classic” edition of the electronic communications system is the most irritating. In the old version, we could have dropped a copy of the one-page version of the report right after the title line so you could […]

Official Travel: Footnotes First

1. The medical stuff disrupted the production schedule at Socotra House. This is is is first of two notes we were working on for the beginning of the next book: “A Little Traveling Music.” They are necessary to frame the real point of the narrative, which is not “Gee, look at these unique places!” but […]

Rising Winds

Yep. We have some troubles this morning. As a group with experience in the maritime world, it comes as a bit of a surprise that it has such a nautical flavor. There are multiple powers here on our planet had have the capability of employing weapons of mass destruction to achieve foreign policy goals. It […]