Hammer Mill Days

 Okay, closer. A little closer. I said a little ! Right, so push the tray this way. That’s good enough. Great, thanks. Now get away from me, you scavenging ghoul! Oh, hi. I should have thought someone would be reading this blog today, as there is precious little else to do now that we live in plague times. (I’m sure someone out there is doing something more useful, like writing their own latter-day version of the Decameron .) Frankly, this is when it pays to live in a podunk town. New York’s governor has banned events with audiences of 500 people or more. While that’s a huge problem down in Manhattan, that’s like falling off a log up here. Hell, there aren’t even 500 people within five square miles of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. Safe as houses! It pays not … to get paid. Here inside the hammer mill, we’re taking drastic steps to respond to this crisis. Well, maybe “drastic” is too strong a word. Big steps. We’re stepping bigly, particularly when we see someone c...

It was a rainy Tuesday, and the revolution didn’t show up … again. Turns out revolutions are hard, even the electoral ones. As I said last week, these primaries are about proof of concept: if there’s a massive constituency for change, as Bernie Sanders has suggested, it should be mobilized enough to carry him into the presidency and to drive his agenda forward in the years that follow. There was no evidence of such a movement this week, and I don’t intend to denigrate the thousands of hard-working people who have powered Bernie’s campaign from the beginning – they have done remarkable work. But they are merely the vanguard – we need to hear from the masses. It is they who have the real power, and thus far they are not showing up. As someone who has been on the left all of my life, I am no stranger to political losses. Leftists tend not to be easily discouraged, and it’s a good thing. Make no mistake about the Sanders campaign – we are attempting to elevate to the preside...