Hammer Mill Days

  Wait, what? It’s over? That was fast. How about Michaelmas? Is that over too? Okay, well … I guess I wasn’t paying close enough attention. Was it fun? Did everybody have a good time? No? Ah … okay. Yeah, I know – 2020 sucked, all the way to the end, right? That appears to be the consensus. Here in the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, Big Green has been known to keep Christmas in an unusual – perhaps singular – way. Like last year, when we built a big plaster volcano and set it off at midnight. Or three years ago, when we all got really, really high, then ended up trampling all over our neighbor’s chocolate pterodactyl farm (though the next day they denied ever even having one in the first place – strange ). This year, on the other hand, was a low-key affair, given the COVID restrictions that even we observe … with the exception of our mad science advisor, Mitch Macaphee, who eschews masks in favor of an ultraviolet force field device he wears around his neck. (It gl

As the Senate moves closer to a veto override vote on the $740 billion defense authorization act, I’ve been thinking about how eager our national legislators are to spend money when it comes to military hardware, consultants, logistics, etc, and yet how reluctant they seem to be to provide working people with the means to, I don’t know, feed themselves and their families, keep a roof over their heads, maybe see a medical professional if they need one, all in the midst of a once-in-a-century (up to now, at least) pandemic. Of course, this $740 billion doesn’t represent the full price tag of our national security posture – no, indeed, there are many billions more going into intelligence, covert operations, and of course the after-market costs of war, such as the Veteran’s administration and so on. All this money to “keep us safe”, and yet here we are – more people dying on a daily basis than in any previous armed conflict. We have an administration that has dragged its f