Author: Vic Socotra

The Moon’s a Balloon

We have a crisis of sorts here. It is time to venture off the property and go shopping for controlled substances. That includes two versions of products produced in the United States by the Philip-Morris corporation. The history of the brand has an odd resonance with everything else happening these days. Smoking is now a […]

The Campaign Begins

We attempted to stay up late enough to catch part of the SOTUS last night. Sadly, we couldn’t do it. Our interpretation of the event is therefore based on what other people thought about it, partly in another language popular here these days. The key take-away seemed to be a moment of tribute to the […]

State of the Onion

There is supposed to be one of those set-piece Washington things tonight. The theme is one with historic precedent, and is given every year by the Chief Executive to let us know how things are going. We anticipate some of the usual misdirection shaped by misinformation, a bi-partisan tradition in which we take no sides. […]

Life & Island Times: Detour Version 1.0 Day 5

Easy riding trip along the T2 (Turquoise Trail), up Sandia (Spanish for watermelon since it looks reddish with dark seed spots) Ridge for photos and back to Santa Fe via other great roads and scenes. The Ridge ride was full of challenging twistiness, switchbacks, no traffic to a 10,700 foot vista. A Steel Forest of […]

Arrias: Lessons From Ukraine

When it comes to lessons learned, everyone seems to focus on the battlefield tactics and the application of current technology. While that is very interesting, there are some other points we can already pull from this war… First, nuclear weapons are the holy grail of strategic planning. I read an article the other day by […]

Roaring Twenties

We think it is over now. Or, perhaps better said, now that the Chinese reconnaissance mission is complete we were permitted to shoot it down. It is possible that the PRC intended to fly their “balloon” around the world. Then they could recover the innocent scientific camera and blameless electronic devices back in their own […]

Ninety Miles to Damascus

If you missed yesterday, the Writer’s Section was on the way to someplace warm. It may be the cold blast of air that caused some old memories to emerge, or maybe the invisible rays broadcast from that Chinese balloon. Loma had been talking about one of the significant benefits of government travel, since he stopped […]

Life & Island Times: Detour Version 1.0, Day 4

May 2001 Detour Version 1.0 Day 4 “No Livestock Unloading in the Pet Exercise Area. Corral at the End of the Rest Area.” -Sign at an eastern New Mexico I-40 rest stop At other Day 4 rest stops only “livestock feeding” was “prohibited on any concreted areas.” Revelation #2: Saw the earth’s curve today in […]