Hammer Mill Days

Here comes Big Green , like a bat out of hell, someone gets in our way, someone don't feel so well! Hey, what's the problem, Lincoln? You depraved on account a' you're deprived? Oh, hi, friends. Didn't know you were looking in just then. (We always seem to get caught by surprise... probably shouldn't live our lives on the Internets so much.) No, we're not working up some numbers for a West Side Story revival of some kind. Not a bit of it. Just feeling a little like outsiders, that's all. Our own village government has turned against us, our own man-sized tuber has made monkeys of us, and our own abandoned hammer mill is getting draftier by the day. (The fire brigade broke a few windows when they were here... Mayor's orders.) Ergo, we're spending more time out on the mean streets, or at least, in the mean courtyard. (Cobblestones make a lumpy mattress, friends - word to the wise.) With the cold weather coming on, it's almost like we've b...

Nice speech, Mr. President. Now explain to me why, when committing 30,000 more Americans to this endless debacle in Afghanistan, you aren't asking those of us who are not in the military to make some real sacrifices. You invoked the noble acts of some of your predecessors, but they were not reluctant to ask for the able-bodied to serve (even if many had "other priorities") or the relatively well-heeled to pay more taxes. Why are you so reluctant? Don't feel as though I'm singling you out. I could, of course, ask this question of George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, and the sainted Ronald Reagan with equal justice. The difference, I believe, is that you are probably brighter and more worldly than any of them. I know what their excuses would have been. What is yours ? Explain, also, why it is so much more urgent to keep Al Qaeda, violent extremists, the Taliban, etc., from taking hold in Afghanistan than in, say, Jordan or Syria, where literally hundred...