Hammer Mill Days

Wait, I heard something. That beeping noise. Did you hear it? Go out and take a look, will you? I'll just sit here and finish this cardboard sandwich. What? That's the microwave beeping? Turn it off, then. There's a good chap. Oh, yes ... hello. Just getting a little impatient here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill in beautiful (now roasting) upstate New York. It's been so damn hot we can't even manage to borrow enough electricity to run our fans, and now the refrigerator has gone south (looking for warmer climes, perhaps) and all of our provisions have gone sour. (Except for the lemons, which have turned strangely sweet in their spoilage.) Nothing to eat but cardboard. Here's the good news: there's not a lot of that, either. I just sent Marvin (my personal robot assistant) out to greet the delivery van that will be dropping off the initial pressing of Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick , Big Green's ludicrous new album, hot off the digital pres...

So Zimmerman walks. I can't say as I'm surprised. It is now apparently legal to kill people in Florida, particularly if your victim is black. I should say not exclusively - my neighbor spends half of his time in Florida, and he told me about a "Stand Your Ground" case at his retirement community wherein a Vietnam Vet shot his wife's lover dead and got off based on Stand Your Ground. The victim was white, but from another country, so that may have been "other" enough for the law. It seems like if your intention is to kill someone, all you need to do is get them alone in Florida and give them the gun, so to speak. So long as there's no witnesses, it's your word against theirs. That aside, let's consider what this verdict says, in truth: Killer Sidewalks. The Zimmerman trial introduced the concept of the sidewalk as a deadly weapon. I suppose this means that any (black) person strolling down the sidewalk can now be considered armed and dang...