Hammer Mill Days

I don’t think that’s the right box, man. I keep the glass bulbs in the box marked “winter gloves” and the tinsel in the box marked “soup can collection”. That box is marked “Christmas decorations”, and that’s where I keep my soup can collection. And my winter gloves. Oh, hey. I hear you knocking, but you can’t come in. No, I’m not being anti social. I just don’t want to spoil the surprise. We’re working on our Christmas pageant, and we’re hoping that no one will guess this year’s theme before we finish our parade floats. I’ve had Marvin (my personal robot assistant) run out for some more plaster of Paris. What’s that, Anti-Lincoln? Are you sure? Damn. Marvin went to Paris. What’s in a theme? I can tell you what the theme won’t be this year. Anti Lincoln wanted to do a reconstruction-themed Christmas. I told him that we simply couldn’t do it justice. Also, our crazy neighbors upstairs would come at us with torches for advancing what they’ve been calling Crit...

The chattering classes are having a hair-on-fire moment about labor. We’ve seen this coming for a while now. I commented on it back in July when retired ad man and political commentator Don Deutsch fired off a petulant little tweet about working people, then yakked about it with Joe Scarborough. Well, they’re back, and it’s because the service is just not what it should be. Hell, do you realize Joe and Mika had to wait two hours for a flight because there weren’t enough baggage handlers? It’s like workers don’t want to work anymore. Unprecedented … or IS it? An ill wind, indeed When the Black Plague ripped through Europe in the 14th Century, it created a massive labor shortage . This was due to the fact that the disease may have killed as much as 1/3 of the population. The peasants who survived were reluctant to return to their rich masters’ fields. This compelled the gentry to sweeten the pot a bit – compensate the workers more, give them money, cut their rent, e...