Hammer Mill Days

  Okay, so, what rhymes with Klondike? No, that’s two words. I’m looking for one, man. Why am I so exacting? Well, let me tell you, fool … you don’t get to where I got without applying a little exactitude in all the right places. Take it from Mr. Nobody. You heard it here first! Well, hello, cybernauts, and welcome to the home of Big Green. We’ve been around so long, we seem like a square. Ain’t that the way with popular music groups … particularly the ones that aren’t so popular. Why, we’ve been making noises under the name Big Green since Matt wore skinny ties and I rolled my jacket sleeves up to the elbow. Yes, we lived in the eighties. It wasn’t easy, kids, no matter what they tell you. There were no hover crafts, no jet packs – none of the things you young’uns are used to these days. Putting the tune in cartoons Like most bands, our biggest challenge is developing new material. Mind you, we stand on a mountain of older songs, thanks largely to the r...

As of this writing, the Saudis and Yemen have pulled together a tentative truce for Ramadan. As Ryan Grim reports in Deconstructed, the podcast by The Intercept , it’s essentially the first one in seven years of brutal war that has left almost 400,000 Yemenis dead. It’s quite possible that, by the time you read this, the Saudis will have resumed their merciless campaign of destruction, but I, for one, hope not. There is truly nothing so invisible as a war promoted by your own government. In Russia, they need to make it a crime to refer to the war in Ukraine as a “war”. Over here, that’s not necessary. There are other ways to manipulate public opinion in a formal republic; as Orwell wrote, educated, thoughtful people understand that there are some things it simply would not do to say. No need for brute force – just a compliant professional/managerial class eager to get ahead. Hidden in plain sight As I’ve mentioned in previous posts , the Russian invasion of Ukra...