Yeah- I know. How did it get to be Wednesday so quickly? The news cycle, even in the dog-days of August is so fast and furious that it is exhausting just to drink the morning coffee and see what will have changed by happy hour.

I have been more sporadic than usual in publication of late, for reasons I won’t go into. Thankfully, my pals Arrias and Marlow have stepped up to the task and pulled hard on the hawser. Me? The trip to the wedding of Susan and my Brother Mike took a lot out of me. It was enough to almost convince me that long road trips- once one of the special joys in my life may be a thing of the past. It was grand fun to see everyone, and if I can survive the big conference in Saint Louis next week, we will see how things go.

The passing of Glen Campbell this week took me aback. I know he had his problems, but he wasn’t that much older than our cohort, and I remember listening to his hits hurtling across America’s highways, stars twinkling in the night sky. Of course, I was looking at the remarkable selection of Paul Newman’s Own salad dressing at the Harris-Teeter supermarket the other day and realized Cool Hand Luke had passed almost a decade ago.

Congress left town with just a couple issues hanging- like a disintegrating health care system, urgent action to up the debt ceiling to avoid default and tax reform. You know, the usual. And of course maybe a nightmarish little war in NE Asia.

As you might imagine, the old Spooks with whom I share many afflictions are fairly agitated, and that was before the “F&F” tweet from POTUS.

One of our senior-est and wisest heads opined this:

“Nobody is asking me, but before unleashing “fire and fury” on North Korea I would deploy a Yokosuka-based Aegis SM3-armed ship along with a JMSDF Aegis cruiser to the sea of Japan, protected by ROK destroyers and Tactical Air backed with Combat Air Patrols (CAP) from Kadena or a carrier to shoot down any ballistic missiles launched from North Korea. The US, Japan, ROK after these forces are on station should explain in a joint statement that this is necessary because we cannot know whether a North Korea ballistic missile launch is a test or is nuclear armed and headed to any of these three countries. If Russia or China feel compelled to demarche this action we should tell them to lean on their little fat friend in Pyongyang and we will stand down….The point here is to be completely defensive, but responsive to the threat being presented.”

That is what Joe thinks- what do you think?

– Vic

Copyright 2017 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com