Hammer Mill Days

Anybody seen my tuning fork? No, damn it, THAT'S not it. That's my tuning spoon. I said fork , you moron. This .... place ! Oh, yeah ... hi out there. I'm just attempting to replace a string on a second hand guitar that's been lying around the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill since before we started squatting inside this big old drafty barn of a place. In as much as Big Green is a collectivist institution by nature, we make use of what resources avail themselves, utilizing only what we need to accomplish a mutually agreed-upon task, then replacing the surplus in such a way as to benefit all. Yes, we're all equal here. Except, of course, anti-Lincoln. Fuck that guy! Why am I restringing an old, abandoned guitar? Well, if it makes you feel any better, I'm doing it with used strings. We're scraping the bottom of the stewpot here, folks - I won't make any bones about it. (Typically, what you find at the bottom of the pot is not so much bones as sinew and fat...

His tremendous majesty Trump the First made several speeches this week, generating the usual range of comments, lamentations, amens, and apologies. I will set aside my observations on how he handled all of this presidential business for the moment and focus instead on the most consequential remarks; namely the speech he delivered on the Afghanistan war, now in its sixteenth year. My short take is that there isn't a lot new here. We knew that Trump had loosened the rules of engagement a bit, resulting in a greater number of civilian casualties than was typical under Obama. In Monday's address, Trump said that troop levels would be determined based on conditions, not deadlines - again, nothing new. Both Obama and Bush followed this standard in Afghanistan and Iraq at one point or another; that's why we were still in both countries when Trump started his presidency. He had some kind of stern words for Pakistan; same as his predecessors. (Obama as much as promised cross-borde...