Hammer Mill Days

Listen, Marvin. I know you want to go to summer camp like all of the other robot assistants. That's understandable at your age. But you have to understand, we just can't afford it right now. It's not that we don't want you to go ... it's money, Marvin. We'll try to save enough to send you to robot assistant camp next year, okay? Sheesh. Another dejected look. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has now officially joined the ranks of the disgruntled. That makes about nine of us, if you count both Lincolns. We are in the dog days and, apparently, the doldrums of summer here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill in beautiful upstate New York, and I can tell you personally, nobody's happy around these parts. I blame our persistent lack of gainful employment. Most band entourages, as you know, can occupy themselves with the somewhat questionable benefits of touring. Big Green , though, has not done a tour yet this year, and I fear that fact is beginning to wear ...

What does the tea-party acronym stand for again? Taxed Enough Already, as some of you recall. That's the credo for our age, whether or not there's any truth to the sentiment. If people are paying higher taxes, they're doing so on the local level; as county and municipal governments try to grapple with austerity policies from above, they resort to whatever means of revenue generation that may be available to them. Federal austerity starves state coffers; that in turn negatively impacts localities. Combine that with the fact that we are in the midst of a depression of sorts - i.e. a period when people need greater assistance from the government, not less - and that causes upward pressure on local taxes. When that happens, people inevitably look for someone to blame. Lately that someone has been unionized public employees. Sad to say, my fellow Americans are all too quick to think the worst of them. That's not surprising. A lot of editorial ink, political rhetoric, and a...