Hammer Mill Days

Here we are. Another late Spring arrives in the middle of freaking nowhere. Birds are singing, grass is growing, the underemployed ice cream vendor is driving a superannuated truck up your street, playing "Pop goes the weasel" (or 4 bars of it). Life is good. I don't know if you've ever lived in an abandoned Hammer Mill in upstate New York over the course of the coldest winter anybody can remember. I mean, damn! We were frozen solid, stuck in the ice for five whole months. The bill collectors had to come after us with ice picks. Visitors from Neptune had to go home half way through their stay - THAT'S how cold it was. (How cold was it? Well ... ) So hey ... when a little warm weather comes this way, it's a big deal. Everyone is starting to get into their temperate habits. The mansized tuber has been arranging flower pots. Before you ask, no ... he does not have a green thumb. They are both "suburban titanium". He just plays with clay pots - stack...

Well, it's just been one of those weeks. For some reason, MSNBC has been choosing to spend enormous amounts of airtime on some football scandal (talk about a news dump!), but that notwithstanding, we at Big Green insist on full coverage. Mess with Texas. I imagine you've heard by now that the great state of Texas is under threat of invasion and the imposition of marshal law by a socialist-slave U.S. military. You've heard, that is, if you spend most of your free time on paranoid right-wing nut-job web sites. This fantasy, rooted in the kind of conspiratorial blather that has animated the right since Obama's election and before (remember Ruby Ridge?), is all the more bizarre because it is taking hold in a state that prides itself as being the home of many, many U.S. military personnel. All that flag-waving, and still Governor Greg Abbott feels it necessary to task his national guard with observing the upcoming special forces exercises. Freakish. Amazingly, these peopl...