Hammer Mill Days

First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is. Om naman shavaya. Ooooommmm.... OooooHooommmm... ahem! ahem! gack! Whoops - sorry there, folks. Got a frog in my throat. Just trying to catch up on a little relaxation, eastern-style. Yep - transcendental meditation, as practiced by the now-late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who passed away just this week. Didn't know we were into this arcane trend of many decades past? Well.... truth is, not. Just thought that, hell, if it worked for The Beatles and other somewhat more popular pop groups, perhaps it might work for us. So I started meditating, thinking if I did it hard enough, it would make us enormously famous and successful retroactively. Then we could retire to our lonely mountaintop redoubts and play the plastic banjo until doomsday. (Which might be right around the corner.... REPENT!!) Anywho... it hasn't worked so far. Not sure, but I think I may have coughed up my fifth vertebra. (Whatever it was, it sure seem...

Choosing who to vote for in the presidential election is always a question of one or the other of two people you're not so crazy about (or downright detest). That's probably one reason why so many people don't bother to vote at all. Myself, I always make it to the booth for major elections - seems only right since so many people died to gain the franchise back in the civil rights struggles of the 1950s-60s. I'm usually not at all happy with the options, as some of you know, and the prospect of a McCain vs. Clinton general election is a depressing one for me. Not that I invest all that much stomach lining into the question of who will occupy the White House. (Far be it from me to suggest that a vote every four years is all you should expect to have to do to make the world a better place.) But honestly, both of these people will make abysmal presidents. And while I would prefer not to lock-in another eight years of Republican party ascendancy, particularly the virulent st...