Hammer Mill Days

Electrodes to power, turbines to speed. Flag the commissioner, Alfred, we're ready to roll! Hope you fixed the sticky hinge on the bat cave door. You did, didn't you.... ? DIDN'T YOU?? Wha-at? Oh, man... what an awful dream! Not that you asked me what it was about, but... I dreamt I was an MBA in the accounting department at Enron, and... Oh, no, wait. That was Thursday night's. Last night's was a bit more blood-curdling (if that can be imagined). But I won't go into that in detail. Suffice to say that it resembled something from mid-sixties television, populated by big pointless-looking computer consoles covered with flashing, multi-colored pin-sized lights. (They made whirring sounds. It was terrifying!) Lucky to get out of that particular sojourn alive. Thank uncle Jebus our tours are nothing like that. When we do interstellar travel, we tend to avoid whirring sounds.... at least, the evil, low-pitched ones. Uuuhhhllll.... Enough about me. Glad to be able to ...

You've been reading my extended blog rants for some time, perhaps. Well... maybe a few of you. Here's a slight departure. Instead of blathering on about one issue, I'm going to just briefly rant about two or three things. (Yeah, no planning ahead here - let's just see how far I get). Beer at the 'House. Like you, I saw the photo of the president and vice president sitting down with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Sgt. James Crowley. Looked friendly enough, as intended. For me, though, it doesn't erase that disturbing image of Gates being led out of his house in handcuffs - a man who walks with a freaking cane - in obvious distress. Whoever made the decision to subject Harvard's Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the Director of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute to this level of humiliation is, well, let's say not a nice man. I don't care what Gates said to the police in his own home. If he didn't wave a gun at them or try to assault them in some w...