Hammer Mill Days

Marvin (my personal robot assistant), didn't I tell you to pick those Legos up about three hours ago? Can't you do anything without being told twelve times?! Are you even awake?! MARVIN!! Christ on a bike. Sloth has reached a new level of intensity here at the hammer mill, and it's no surprise. We have been cooped up in the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill for the better part of three years (the worse part, too ... I remember those awful days...), not a hand's turn of work. Sure, we produced and released an album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick , and have dutifully (and pitilessly) posted our podcast THIS IS BIG GREEN every month, on the month (or quite nearly). But gainful employ? Naught, my friend. Goose egg. Arguably, it goes against human nature (and personal robot assistant nature, presumably) to be idle for so long. I've seen signs of restlessness, to be sure. Not from anti-Lincoln, of course, who spends most of his day in the forge room, swilling che...

This will be a quickie - I'm kind of pressed this week, for a variety of reasons. It's always astonishing to me to watch how issues in foreign affairs are reported in our nation's mainstream media. This week there was a major network interview with the new president of Iran, Hassan Rouhani. This was broadly characterized as part of a "charm offensive" that will include his appearance at the U.N. Any discussion of Iran is couched in the context of what is uncritically reported as their drive toward building nuclear weapons or a "nuclear weapons capability," which the U.S., Israel, and some European allies oppose. We have imposed very punishing economic sanctions, which cause tremendous misery amongst the Iranian population, and we and the Israeli government regularly threaten Iran with military aggression. So the reporting on the "charm offensive" is a bit like trash-talking the victim after kicking them in the gut (and promising worse down th...