Hammer Mill Days

  Well now, I can’t hear you. Can you hear me? Say again. Once more. Nope, no … bad luck. Plunk your guitar a couple of times. I said … oh, damn it, just pick up your phone and call me. Cheese and crackers! Now, I know there are a lot of musicians out there who are more conversant with technology than we are here in Big Green. True, we were relatively early adopters of the internets and mp3 music files. But frankly we’ve been standing still since, oh, I don’t know … the early 2000s or so. And while our friends in other bands have been connecting from across the continent using all manner of web-based gizmo, we’ve been sitting in adjacent rooms with two paper cups and a string. Well, my friends, that’s about to change. I don’t know whether the change will be better or worse, but whatever happens, no more cups, no more strings. Serious upgrade … seriously Now, before you use a new technology to perform or record, you want to make sure it works, right? Su...

It kind of feels like we crossed a line this past week. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy called a massacre on the outskirts of Kviv a “genocide.” U.S. media outlets and cable television shows have picked up the term and run with it. The first I heard doing this was MSNBC’s Alicia Menendez , ordinarily progressive daughter of the bellicose New Jersey senator Bob Menendez, but it was really all over the place. The Rachel Maddow show has, in her absence, played a lead role in platforming voices advocating deeper U.S. involvement in the Ukrainian conflict. Her guest host has brought on one member of the Ukrainian parliament multiple times, giving her the opportunity to advocate for no-fly zones, shame the U.S. for not taking this more seriously, etc. I can understand the minister’s frustration, but seriously – this type of intervention simply cannot happen. And yet day after day I see the corporate media laying out the predicate for a wider war. Opting for the “G” word ...