Hammer Mill Days

Hmmm, let me see. Nicely wrapped. Let's see what's inside. Okay ... huh. An empty bubble pack that used to contain a ballpoint pen. Nice. So .... who amongst you could have known that that's something I've always wanted? Oh, hi, everyone. Yeah, it's that time of year again, and Big Green is celebrating the holidays in the usual way. We put on a bunch of cheesy records. We make a little extra rice and mustard greens. And then there's the Secret Santa exchange of gifts, which we do in the traditional way ... one gift at a time, and the recipient tries to guess who the giver is. How exciting. Someone bring me my sodium bicarbonate. This could be a long night! That's not to say that the holidays are any less problematic in our makeshift home than they are in everyone else's. There's a lot to look out for here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill - a lot going on beneath that cool, clammy exterior. For instance, if you're stringing the lights on t...

Well, I was half prepared to do a post on General Flynn this week, but with the advent of Trump's apparently unilateral decision to pull U.S. forces out of Syria and the nearly apoplectic response, it seems more appropriate to concentrate on the broader matter of our foreign policy and how it plays out in what passes for our national conversation. I think it's worth saying at the outset that I have no idea of what our military's mission is in Syria. I keep hearing that it's essentially the same as the one we're pursuing in Afghanistan - training and equipping a local force to fight the war for us - but that doesn't exactly inspire confidence. It is, in fact, a formula for another unending deployment, one that has the support of most of the foreign policy voices in the media. Much of the criticism of Trump's abrupt decision has been from a right militarist perspective, though one that is broadly shared, much like the criticism of his Korea policy. The only ...