Hammer Mill Days

Lights are off again. I thought I just bribed that guy last week. Didn't I? What.... it was the wrong guy? His pushcart was decorated with a cardboard sign that had "electric company" written on it in crayon. Seemed legitimate to me. It seems I'm too trusting. We all are here at the Cheney Hammer Mill, Big Green's crap shack of distinction. Oh, we've had a lot of crap shacks through the years, from a tumbled-down house on Irving Avenue in Castleton-On-Hudson to the slightly less beat up place next door to it.... (and one or two others, if memory serves). Then of course there was the lean-to in Sri Lanka. (What happened to that? It leaned fro.) Anyway, next to all those joints, this abandoned hammer mill is the next best thing to being someplace decent. And yet, here we are... lights off, phone disconnected, water intermittent, gravity reversed (Mitch Macaphee's been at it again)... It all comes down to one thing: frankincense. No, wait. It's another wo

I've been more than a bit irked with America's permanent ruling class just lately. You know the one - that core of political actors who operate in and out of government, keeping things from getting out of hand. I've talked about the foreign policy establishment in the Obama administration not being all that different from the late Bush II administration (or that of Bush's father, for that matter). On the domestic policy front, we see more of the same. All of the major economic decisions are being shaped by Wall Street types, focusing on the health of companies rather than the well-being of workers. Nowhere is this more apparent than with the auto company bailouts. Obama's automotive task force is made up largely of financial types, and their solutions reflect that experience. What the hell - we could have gotten THAT from McCain. Okay, here's what doesn't make any sense to me about this deal. We are literally pouring money into GM - not to the extent we'