Hammer Mill Days

I don't know, man. My pressure suit is a little frayed around the elbows. I don't even know where I left my magnetic boots. We're probably not ready for that, but ... if you insist. Jesus. Ah, hello. Band meeting. Joe's here, that's all I can confirm. No one else wants to go on the record, including Marvin (my personal robot assistant), though he has appeared on at least one of our records, truth be told. (Forgive the double-entendre.) We've been tossing around ideas for generating a little cash, as the Big Green collective has been struggling a bit of late. The obvious remedy would be another tour, probably of the interstellar variety, but as I was saying earlier, our gear is threadbare as hell and we don't even have a line on a spaceship rental. God knows what we would cross that trackless void in this time around. Well, to be sure, the lure of money drives humankind to desperate means. We could probably wrangle a string of marginal gigs between Nept

This week started with our president, Donald Trump, threatening to close our southern border, from the Gulf to the Pacific, to keep brown people from entering the United States. There's nothing surprising about this display - immigration is Trump's signature issue, specifically the demonization of anyone attempting to emigrate from what he would term as "shit hole" countries. And yet, he seems hell-bent on policies that are practically guaranteed to increase the flow of migrants and refugees from south of the border rather than stem it. The recent increase in apprehensions of undocumented immigrants is illustrative of this. Of course, part of the increase is simply due to the time of year - people are trying to cross before the summer heat sets in. But I think it's pretty obvious that Trump's hateful and aggressive policies and rhetoric on this issue are prompting desperate families and individuals to attempt the crossing between ports of entry, which have