There was resignation but no panic here at Refuge Farm. The news of Hurricane-Tropical Storm-Hurricane Ian’s advance had been pervasive over the last week as The Big Story. Images of shattered homes and expensive boats stacked willy-nilly on the Florida shores was a sobering indication of what had swept across the Sunshine State and was […]

(Typhoon Kip, the most powerful storm ever to come ashore in 1979. It has been part of the Bragging Rights argument for years, since some of us were there, a fact of which they remind us any time anything else comes by. Like this morning). You know the feeling. “Something wicked this way comes.” This […]

(Vic Socotra conducts field research at the Hotel Roma, Taipei, Tawian, in the delirious year of 1980. God only knows who the photographer was, 42 years ago that alcohol-soaked afternoon. We were worried about a PRC invasion.) Editor’s Note: We get Letters to the Editor at Socotra House, and we publish them as they come […]

We could talk about the Big Storm down in Florida. Or maybe who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines up in the Baltic. Instead, we have often become a little hysterical over the arbitrary changes to our language. External Imposition! It is irritating since it comes and goes based on political need. You may have […]

We mentioned the “downsizing” thing the other day. We are spending real cash to do it. Not ours, of course. It is the Chairman’s cash, which he can justify by figuring the real total cost of hiring help to get rid of stuff. That will open up space, anyway. And some of the objects emerging […]

The challenges to the staff who write The Daily are rising. You know the deal. It is possible that reference even to the most common of items or current topics could trip an algorithm some place with a lot of boxes. Make you pop up on some list of people who should get a visit […]

(We had a joyful aviation-related show this morning shortly after dawn. It amounted to a cross section of many of the local fliers in a Commemorative Capitol Wing fly-by at Refuge Farm. The humans were active yesterday in a precise flight, the old piston engines snarling and whining as throttles were adjusted to maintain course […]

(This image- a “photograph”- surfaced the other day from a tall stack discovered in the Chairman’s debris in the Barn. The image is on shiny paper, produced by a chemical reaction in a tank of noxious fluids. Research indicates the figures are Lenore and George Romney, left and center, and W.E. Reddig, who worked as […]

Yeah, we are aware that tomorrow is the day, not today, but there are nearly a dozen of us and this will take some coordination. That is one of the reasons we had to get the “check engine” light looked at on the German SUV- the Panzer- since for comfort and elegance we did not […]

(Soviet Kirov Cruiser image used in campaign ad celebrating Navy’s 247th). This is one of those delightful mornings of seasonal change- a slight edge to the dawn in the upper thirties as the sun rises, promising to warm up through the course of the day to something right in the middle edge of comfort. “77” […]