DeMille was tapping his LaCrosse pen on the paper tablet he puts on the picnic table to signify he is going to actually take a note, rather than a few haphazard presses against a chill screen. He rose to an erect posture the way he does when he has an announcement to make at the Production Meeting which means he got talked to.

“You people know we are in a historic time of transition. Look at this.”

He didn’t pick up the paper pad, but instead waved his tablet over his head to display the picture of Sergio Gor, a 38-year old immigrant from the lovely Mediterranean island of Malta. It is an amazing place that Vic talks about, since the ship he was on then- USS Forrestal, ‘First in Defense’ – supported the surrender of the Soviet Union there at the Sea Sick Summit in 1990. It was a peaceful transition. At least it was in this direction until now.

Then there was a flash of Artemis Langford, a biological male whose determination to conduct himself as a biological female is supposed to be humored by the Kappa Kappa Gamma Sorority chapter at the University of Wyoming.

Socotra House sometimes credits use of the marvelous sunrise shots in the Cowboy State Daily, so Legal told us to mention that periodically as a public service. Their images nicely mark the transition from night-to-day as well as biological wonders in the wide land.

Vic was a little pensive. “Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s deepening unpopularity is being orchestrated to make a cease-fire possible in the Ukraine thing, right? And jettisoning him would make some of the corruption in the billions in aid for the war drift away in a new era of good spirits, right?”

“It’s a transition,” said DeMille. “Like the one at FBI. They announced Director Wray is going to resign effective on inauguration day, so the new President won’t fire him.”

There was some general nodding around the table, and the agenda transitioned from strategic to local, or local beyond the 22203 zip code and hence reasonable scooter range. Melissa had the legal portfolio once it got below the cabinet level and as far as 22202. “Sergio is now down around the Deputy Assistant level for jobs now. Like the new Deputy Director at CIA.” He looked around the table with a grin, since that had started the Wednesday meeting. He is going to fill 4,000 jobs in the Executive Branch in the next 38 days.”

Then she shook her mane of blond hair, rising slightly for that syntetic drama thing she does. “A steady drip of shocking stories about corruption has fueled anger among voters,” she said dramatically. The table laughed again and reached for the coffee pot, since we are done with anger and just trying to follow the flow.

She summed up yesterday’s obsolete messaging. “We thought the Wray resignation demonstrated an acceptance to the peaceful transition, and a means for the new Administration to get a solid start with that confrontational Kash Patel nomination.”

There were some nods, since it now appeared the top four nominations are going to slide through, though they were all contested to some degree and one got torpedoed. Melissa shook her head, the hair rolling across her shoulders in a peasant smock she wears to the Production Meeting to allow debris to slide off.

“It isn’t. Apparently, Wray is plotting to delay the transfer by a up to three months by appointing his deputy as the interim director, who will then nominate an acting deputy, and by the time Kash gets to sit in the chair the 2nd quarter of FY-25 will already be ending. This stuff just doesn’t stop.”

Splash frowned, since he has had his head in Syria, or what was Assad’s Syria until about fifteen minutes ago. “Yeah, I wanted to talk about how NATO ally Turkey is running part of this show, which means a friend might be having second thoughts about the relationship.”

Vapor smiled, since there was no longer any possibility there would be a flash message from someplace ordering us all to go someplace else and transition to something else.

Possibly with difficulty. Instead, he produced the real transition. It was a graphic he intended to send to the lay-out people to gin up as a template for the Podcast people who claim they are going to make all this stuff work smoothly, and go, with AI-assist, directly from the Production Meeting to press “XMT” and have the copy turned into a relatively convincing human voice facsimile.

With images like this, based on adaptations from images Vic has collected from the scribbles on the pads on the table. Like this one, if he can find the PowerPoint file they were saved to, you know?

Morning transitions are always a challenge, you know?

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com