Hammer Mill Days

Okay, it goes like this. Boom.... crack .... boom-boom crack .... Boom.... crack .... boom-boom... crack ... crack! Got that? What.... you need to hear it again? What the hell am I, a beat box? Momma, don't let your babies grow up to be band leaders! Not that this band has any leaders, per se - we kind of pass the talking stick around, and who ever happens to be holding it has the floor. (In truth, we don't really have a stick here in Big Green . We just take turns in non-stick holding ways.) However you cut it, it's hard to make music in this abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill environment, particularly with patience running thin in the midst of such a serious economic downturn. Oh yes, my friends - it affects us, as well. Big Green is not immune, no sir. We put our pants on one leg at a time, just like everybody else. Except the man-sized tuber, who doesn't have legs. Or Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who doesn't wear pants. (He's made of metal, you see.) O...

A few miles from where I live, there's going to be a demonstration of sorts sometime soon. Our local NPR station did a somewhat incoherent interview with the organizer, an elderly sounding gentleman who said he was bringing together people who represent a broad range of political tendencies, left to right, to protest taxes against the backdrop of Fort Stanwix in Rome, a tourist-oriented recreation of the Revolutionary War era outpost. His contention was that, like the colonists during the revolution, he was encouraging people to take a stand against taxation. Actually, I think the founding fathers took issue with the notion of taxation without representation , but nevermind. This is a very 21st Century type of revolution - a bunch of people gathered at a local tourist trap to complain about something that will be with us as long as we have an organized society. It's kind of like protesting gravity. Jump as high as you like - eventually, you'll have to come down. I wonder if...