Hammer Mill Days

Is that what busy looks like? Shut the front door! I had no idea it looked like that. Sakes alive. Well, once again, you are encountering me in the midst of some level of astonishment. Seems like I spend half of my life sore amazed and the other half just plain sore. (I am definitely in the sore second half.) Anyway, never mind my poor self control - these are indeed heady days here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill in now waterlogged upstate New York. There's so much shit hitting this fan, it's hard to see your face through the fertilizer. Or something. Here's what we've got on the burner: lunch. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is heating up a can of soup. He doesn't seem to understand that you need to TAKE THE SOUP OUT OF THE CAN BEFORE YOU PUT IT IN THE FIRE. (I'm hopeful that, if I raise my voice, he will begin to understand.) So if we hear a 'splosion just before noon local time, we will likely know why. Soup in a can, friends. Keep it cool. ...

I've heard a lot of commentary in recent days about the state of affairs in Egypt, in Russia - about the primacy of the military and the intelligence services in the political life of those countries. Not as much about our own permanent government. I'm talking about the national security regime that persists independently, it seems, of what administration occupies the White House or runs the Congress. It's a little hard to pass judgment on others when we ourselves have accommodated to something less than democratic rule. It's not that this is totally new. We had the Vietnam war, for instance, through Democratic and Republican presidencies, fought with comparable levels of savagery. The latest cycle, which started on September 11 2001, just nine months into the new century, seems much more pervasive, opened ended, and unquenchable. We invaded Afghanistan and still haven't left. We've expanded our expionage and "homeland" security apparatus to encompas...