Hammer Mill Days

Things are heating up around here. Not surprising. I left the mansized tuber in charge of the thermostats. Bugger was born in a greenhouse, what the hell was I thinking? Well, summer is upon us, friends. No, not summer by the calendar, but rather summer by the sweat of the brow. Or so it goes in the northern climes of the northern hemisphere, on that land mass known as "North America", just below the mighty lake Ontario, maker of much snow in the darker months - a kind of ice goddess, if you will. (Hell, even if you won't .) It doesn't take much to raise the temperature in the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill - all that brick, you know, baking in the direct sunlight, no trees to protect us. It's like spending a night in the box. Sure wish you stop trying to help me, Captain. Okay, so... what's my summer project going to be? Could be any of a number of things. As Big Green has no interstellar tour booked, I may play a few gigs with my old cover band, Putting On Th...

My first thought at a Democrat winning the 26th district congressional race in upstate New York was one of deja vu. Didn't this happen two years ago, with that seat up near Watertown, when McHugh was appointed Army Secretary? Bill Owens won, then won again last fall - the only Democrat in my little backwater region of upstate to manage reelection, as it turned out. Dems and liberal commentators tried to read that race as a bellwether, too, but it didn't turn out to be predictive at all of the 2010 election. What matters is what the party does in between. If the Dems sit on their asses and wait for the check to arrive, they'll be sorely disappointed. There's no denying, though, that this speaks to a strong undercurrent of distrust in the Medicare "reform" cooked up by Paul Ryan and company. As much as they try to dress up their voucher / privatization program, it's still just a pig with way too much lipstick, and any fool can see it. I am a bit heartened t...