Hammer Mill Days

Where the hell is that banjo? What.... Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is using it again? Jesus... how's a brother supposed to sing the blues around here? Have to resort to non-banjo alternatives, I guess. That's the way things go here at the Cheney Hammer Mill. You got complaints? Stand in line for the pluck string instrument. You may call it annoying mountain music. We call it aural psychotherapy. (Of course, when Marvin's doing it, I don't know quite what to call it. ) Be that as it may, you need some kind of relief in these troubled times, when money is as rare as .... well ... rare earths. We've got lots of common earths. My point is... we're freaking broke again. Join the select club of 90% of Americans, eh? Busted! Well, if we have a middle name, it's innovation. Big Innovation Green , that's us. (People often associate another middle name with us... I believe it begins with an "f"). We're constantly thinking of ways to float t...

As is typical for me, I'm going to roll through a couple of topics. Who knows where we'll land, eh? Haiti redux. Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier returned to Haiti last week, a fact treated as something of a curiosity by the mainstream media. Sure, they referenced the fact that he killed thousands during his 15-year tenure, picking up the club left by his departed "president for life" father (who was himself removed from office via the only constitutional means available to such a leader). But they didn't examine the circumstances of Baby Doc's arrival very deeply at all. All Things Considered did a piece on it Thursday night, and they basically navigated around any suggestion of political maneuvering. (They also managed to avoid mentioning the fact that Lavalas, the largest party in Haiti, was excluded from participating in the recent election.) The most plausible explanation for his return was suggested by Kim Ives of Haiti Liberté on Democracy N...