Hammer Mill Days

I'm sure I put that window putty around here someplace. And no, I'm not using masking tape again. You think tape is the answer to everything! Look at your clothes - they're all taped together, for chrissake! Whoa, damn it. Sorry for all the shouting. Not the best way to start out a new year. Tempers wear thin when you get extremes of temperature - I don't think that's a coincidence. It's been decades since the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill has had anything like climate control technology, and back then it just amounted to an enormous, octopus-like boiler in the basement. In the summer, they opened a few windows. (With all of the broken windows in this old barn, we don't need to do that anymore.) But now, when the mercury dips below zero, well .... we have to innovate. Now, you would think that we would benefit from having a mad scientist on retainer (no, really ... his dentist had him fitted for one last week), even if his advanced knowledge is somewhat ...

Hope you're all rested and fully recuperated from your holiday festivities. Looks like we have some heavy lifting to do, and it's not clear to me that we're going to get a lot of help from the institutional Democratic party. The fact is, we are going to have to push them to do the right thing at least as hard as we push the Republicans (a.k.a. our one-party state) not to do the wrong thing. Nothing new, right? Any time anything useful gets done in America, it's because there's an army of activists locking arms and pushing it forward. Progress doesn't arrive in a sedan chair, eating sweetmeats; it's dragged kicking and screaming every inch of the way. That's what we're looking at, once again, as we work to preserve the remnants of our social safety net, keep ourselves out of devastating overseas conflicts, and protect the most vulnerable among us. The challenge this time around is being able to move fast enough to make a difference. The GOP-run Cong...