Editor’s Note: In following the traffic from several old pals and shipmates, I have an increasing certainty that the civil war some people mutter about has already occurred. We just missed it, because we were intimately familiar with how all this stuff works. The cognitive process doesn’t recognize that it doesn’t work that way any […]

Marvin Creamer, a Mariner Who Sailed Like the Ancients, Dies at 104 “No GPS for him, not even a sextant; the sun and the stars did nicely. He was the first recorded person to sail round the world without navigational instruments.”[1] Long before I went down to the sea to take my chances on ships, […]

Editor’s Note: It is a rare and welcome thing to have contributions from the Socotra Writer’s Panel. I have a marvelous rumination from he redoubtable Marlow which is waiting for a September release. Today we have Point Loma’s take on SPACECOM and the future- one that appears to be marching ahead of us at every […]

Editor’s Note: Point Loma has some thoughts on identity in the institution we served. There is nothing more personal than your name, right? One of the most important characteristics in the culture of Naval Aviation was the re-naming that new arrivals in operational squadrons received. In no small part it was the establishment of an […]

Rep John Lewis (D) I was somewhat bemused but not unsurprised to see that Vic chose to write about the passing of John Lewis in “Information Operations” which is a great piece. I was thinking about doing the same, but for different, more personal reasons. It all sort of centers on Atlanta, doesn’t it, and […]

Don’t Piss this Guy Off – Just Do It Vic’s recent soliloquy on the crossing the line ritual we used to “enjoy” that was once a staple of being a Westpac sailor brought back what are now, in retrospect of nearly 40 years, some great memories. Goddamn it was good to be a JO in […]

Falling Water I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a little weary of the second wave COVID-19 doomsday predictions, the George Floyd canonization, and the overall Trump Derangement Syndrome and unhinging of our collective sanity by the ravening mob of media fools. I thought this weekend I’d rather write about beauty, of things past, […]

Kryptos – Just something else for pigeons to shit on in Langley, or is it? In our current age of COVID-19, telework is all the rage. I myself love it, since otherwise I would be driving a minimum of 100 miles round-trip every fucking day to work and back, scare shitless most of the time, […]

Editor’s Note: Point Loma chimes in with an appreciation of the weekend madness. I have lived 1968 once already. It is a pity we seem to be doing it again. As I recall, it wasn’t that good the first time. – Vic Washington DC, Burning I don’t know about you, but this feels so…1968. Samuel […]

Editor’s Note: Point Loma looks back on a parade of non-human close friends that enrich our lives. I was thinking of my first puppy the other day, and our next twelve was together. Having more time to think while under our Governor’s House is a marvelous mystery. I wonder how this clash of past and […]