Hammer Mill Days

Got another pencil? This one's a little scratchy. You know - dull. And there ain't no pencil sharpener on this here space ship. Hmmm.... could be a lyric. Got to write that down... if I just had a PENCIL. Oh, hiya. You've come upon us in mid-passage, once again. We're meandering our way into deep, deep space, heading for some place a bit more congenial to the particular brand of music we've dedicated ourselves to. (What brand is that? Not sure how to answer you. Try my brand.) Having left Neptune under something of a cloud, Big Green is setting its sites on the mysterious deep space object known as Kaztropharius 137b , where we had a substantial following a few tours back. (You know... way back in, what, 2003 or 2002? Can't rightly recall. Do a Google search on Kaztropharius and then tell me .) Now, I don't think I have to tell you that Kaztropharius 137b is quite a long ways away from here. It's actually close to Zenon, the home planet of our sit-in

There's a pretty strong essay by Andrew Bacevich in the November issue of Harper's ("The War We Can't Win") that looks at the impasse of the Afghan war and the fallacy of believing we can make America safe by continuing to occupy a foreign land. One would hope that Obama reads it - I have my doubts he's hearing this point of view with any regularity. Bacevich observes that Obama is carrying forward the legacy of failure his predecessor established in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and while I don't agree with every nuance of his analysis, he's spot-on when questioning the general approach to the "War on Terror" that Bush took and which has since become a matter of conventional wisdom (or lack of same). The impetus towards revenge, stoked by the Bush team, that swept us into both wars has proven a dismal failure, as Bacevich points out. It is also a criminal abuse of power that has sowed the seeds of future disasters. The September 11 attacks rep