Hammer Mill Days

Just getting a few things packed away in my cozy little cabin, in the makeshift rent-a-spacecraft we've hired for our interstellar tour in support of Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick (our latest album). A few sticks of chewing gum, some duct tape, an x-ray of a tooth (not mine, as it happens - just some random tooth) ... all stuff I wouldn't want to be without for the stretch of weeks we'll spend in the icy void of space. Brrrrr! Anyhow, before I do another hand's turn of real work, I wanted to post my usual visitor's guide to our most recent podcast. I know, I know - podcasts should explain themselves, right? Well, in a perfect world they would, but this world is far from perfect. Just ask Dr. Pangloss. (Wait ... he's probably exactly the person you shouldn 't ask. Try Candide instead.) November's THIS IS BIG GREEN included some very useful tidbits, such as: Ned Trek XIV: The Wrath of Carl - Amazing to hear myself say this, but this fourt...

Back when I was knee high to an antelope, in the scented 1960s, the U.S. was engaged in what is now described as "limited war" in Vietnam. Our concept of limitation is, well, somewhat limited, as it amounted to an all-out attack on Vietnamese society, particularly in the South Vietnam hinterlands, which took the brunt of the bombing, defoliation, and other depredations. Part of that policy was establishment of "Free-fire zones" - when night fell and the friendlies were inside the wire of the strategic hamlet, anything that moved beyond the wire was fair game. Hence the shooting, the bombing, etc. Our drone war in Pakistan-Afghanistan, and essentially everywhere else, runs on a similar principle. It isn't as all-out, of course, but it appears to be nearly as random. And just as every living thing in the Vietnamese countryside was assumed to be Viet Cong, every military age male in the tribal areas of Pakistan is, by definition, an extremist, a combatant, a terr...