Hammer Mill Days

  Okay, back it up a little further. That’s it. Little more. Little more. That’s great, stop there. I said stop. STOP, DAMN IT! Bloody hell! Yeah, hey, everybody. Just attempting to wave a shipment of widgets into the loading dock here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. I have to say, it’s not working out very well. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) volunteered to drive the truck. Need I say more? (We’ll be needing to put a tarp over the loading dock, now that he’s punched a truck-shaped hole in the garage door.) What kind of widgets are we receiving? Not sure. This wasn’t my gig. Actually, Anti-Lincoln had the bright idea of getting an assembly line going here in the old mill. He is from the mid 19th century, and so a hammer mill from the 1890s looks quite modern to his eyes, particularly when he’s had some of his beloved absinthe. Unintended consequences So, I’m pretty sure I’m partly to blame for Anti-Lincoln’s new project. I told him to do s...

Former General Colin Powell died this week of complications from COVID-19. I’m sure you’ve heard this about a million times by now. You’ve probably also heard that he was a hero, a man of great stature, an inspiration, etc. I can tell you that a lot of hagiographic remembrances came floating up from the television on Monday and Tuesday. I don’t think it will surprise any readers of this blog that I was not a fan of the former Secretary of State. Yes, like many on the left, I never forgave him for his Feb 5, 2003 performance at U.N. headquarters in New York – a key moment in the rush to the Iraq invasion. (Some may recall that they draped Picasso’s Guernica during Powell’s presentation , which was just a little too on-the-nose.) But his career had a lot of bloody patches. Spinning from the beginning Powell was a Vietnam veteran. He did, actually, play a small role in concealing the My Lai massacre, suggesting that the story was unrealistic because Americans and Vi...