Hammer Mill Days

Above us it loomed, its great bulk blocking the early afternoon sun. Oh, foul it was, with a stench that recalled many a dormitory morning back at S.U.N.Y. New Paltz (Gaige Hall). Queasy.... so queasy... Oh, Jeebus.... my mistake, friends, sorry. I didn't know I was posting that last bit. Just getting a bit ahead of myself, that's all - some of my contemporaneous impressions during the strange events that befell us this week, as we made our way westward along the N.Y. State Barge Canal (successor to the Erie Canal) towards the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our adopted home (squat house). Some of you (or perhaps all of you) may remember our decision to surreptitiously board a riverboat, which had obligingly docked near the spot where we had made our precipitous exit from the Thruway. Not the wisest decision, as it turned out. Ever seen Ben-Hur ? Not the chariot race - the part where the guy is counting cadence below decks with a big drum. Well, we were surprised to find that fuc...

What was the big story about Iraq this week? I don't mean Harry Reid keeping some senators up all night. More than that, it was the degree to which the U.S. military is bursting at the seams over this stupid war. I'm certain many of you saw the video of Bob Gates sobbing over the death of the Marine they called "the lion of Fallujah", but how many have seen footage from the air war in Iraq? Show of hands... I thought not. That's because it's not being televised, just as the daily suffering of U.S. soldiers and ordinary Iraqis (now suffering at our hands non-stop since 1990) seldom makes it to our national news programs. As during the later years of the Vietnam War, the use of massive firepower is becoming a kind of consolational therapy for our political leaders and senior military commanders, as well as a sign of their increasing frustration over so persistent a policy failure as Operation Iraqi Freedom. Planners know that the clock is ticking on the Iraq pro...