Hammer Mill Days

Stir a little harder. That's the stuff. Put some elbow-grease in it. No, goddamnit, not for real! That's just an expression! It means.... oh, mother of pearl. Oh, hello, cyber-surfers. You find us in one of life's most humble pursuits: making a substandard dinner. That's the kind we like here at the Cheney Hammer Mill - far preferable to no dinner at all. In case you hadn't guessed, soup is on the menu this evening, and inasmuch as we cannot afford that ultra- haut cuisine canned stuff you probably enjoy, your stalwart friends in Big Green are making it from scratch. And when I say scratch, that's no euphemism. As I mentioned before, elbow grease is a euphemism, and one that should never be an ingredient in home made soup. Though, sadly, it is now part of ours. Another reason why it's best not to have Marvin (my personal robot assistant) help with such tasks. (He just had his elbows re-greased, as it happens.) But hey - if you were thinking of dropping b...

Me thinkst the Democratic party has missed a real opportunity here to show the American people how committed they are to the well-being of working and poor families, their supposed constituency. Extension of unemployment benefits have been stopped yet again by the Republicans (joined by some particularly execrable Democrats), whose threat of a filibuster is enough to weaken the knees of the ruling party. As I've mentioned before, the filibuster is never actually joined, just threatened, and in the gentleman's club that is the U.S. Senate, that is enough for the majority to stand down. So having fallen short of their 60-vote supermajority, the majority has declared the holiday weekend to be underway. That's for Congress , not for the millions of unemployed. How's that for solidarity? Hey, Harry Reid - time to take the gloves off. If the Republicans threaten a filibuster over benefits for the long-term unemployed, hold them to it. Make them stand there, hour after hour, ...

The difference between falling up and falling down is merely one of direction. How's that, Lincoln? Not pithy enough? All right, I'll keep trying. Oh, hi. Didn't notice you there, peering at me from the other side of this flat screen monitor I live in. Hope all is well at home. I'm just hanging out here in the delightfully abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, having a little chat with our old friend Lincoln, who was carried here from yesteryear through the magic of Trevor James Constable's orgone generating device a year or two back. (That's a long way of saying hello - I know.) What are we chatting about? Funny you should ask. The usual topics that come up around here, like how many hammers were forged here, how long this place has been abandoned, and HOW THE HELL ARE WE EVER GOING TO MAKE ENOUGH MONEY TO GET A DECENT PLACE TO LIVE. (That last one's a bit of a sore spot. Not sure if you can tell.) Well, we've had a lot of ideas tossed around over the past few...

Big story this week about Afghanistan. In fact, a remarkably big story. Unfortunately, it was overshadowed by that flap over the ambitious general, McChrystal, who I can only think must have been very tired of his posting. (What the hell - not enough detainees to abuse, like in Iraq?) Far more interesting than this tawdry act of insubordination was the release of a congressional report confirming Aram Roston's story in The Nation some months ago that detailed how our military resupply operations are actually generating a revenue stream for the Taliban, through bribery (the basic system of exchange in Afghanistan). Forget about the personalities involved here. We are, in essence, arming both sides. Shouldn't this be of greater concern? Hello? Most of the reporting on Afghanistan - the Rolling Stone article included - includes a kind of embedded imperial perspective. There's an underlying assumption that we should be in Afghanistan, that there is some legitimacy to our ent...

Please turn that thing off. No... I really do not want to be video'd right now, damn it. No! I'm washing my socks, for chrissake! Who the hell would want to see me doing this, man? Put the freaking camera away! Whoops. Didn't know anyone was browsing this side of the Web. Hope you're doing well. Bit embarrassing, this, actually. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) recently got his prehensile claws on one of those super-shmeensy video cameras. He says he had to go broke to get it.... he had to go broke the department store window , that is. (Cue laugh track. I said cue it, Marvin! Do I have to do everything ?) Anyhow... now Marvin has to video everything, committing our sullen, sordid lives to Quicktime day in and day out. What he's doing with it all I can only guess. Posting it to YouTube? Burying it in a hole in the yard? Feeding it to Big Zamboola? Lawd knows. While Marvin's been capturing the fascinating sight of me washing socks in a time-honored fashion (...

These are indeed remarkable days. I can think of few times in recent history when the most fundamental problems of our civilization have been more obviously placed on display. This oil gusher in the Gulf - practically a non-story when it began - has captivated the nation, providing a gross illustration of the true costs of our current energy regime. Who can deny that this disaster was caused by a headlong rush for short-term profit, an obsession with minimizing costs, and a total disregard for human and environmental consequences? That is the model for oil development in the United States and elsewhere. And with this oil-cano spewing endlessly into an extremely sensitive biosystem, the actual costs of this enterprise simply cannot be concealed. There are spills and toxic contamination all the time, but you rarely see it or hear about it. This time is different. This time, the sludge is coming to us. What, objectively, can our government do? Well, a lot more, it seems. Our regulatory me...

Hey, what can I tell you? I didn't intend to piss him off, guys. Not my intention at all. Nor was it my intention to destroy the planet Jupiter. Furthest thing from my mind. Oh, hi. Just caught me in the middle of a little band meeting. (Bret? Here . Jermaine? Here . Murray? Here .) I'm being raked over the coals by my fellow Big Green members and our various hangers on - Mitch Macaphee (our mad science adviser), Lincoln, anti-Lincoln, Marvin (my personal robot assistant), the man-sized tuber... even Big Zamboola has chimed in. What's the "issue", as they say? Oh, hell... it's about our perennial sit-in guitarist from the planet Zenon, sFshzenKlyrn . He's been a house guest here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill for the past week or so. That is to say, he was our guest, up until he departed yesterday in a bit of a Zenite huff. (How do I know? His radioactive vapor trail was tinged orange around the edges. Sure sign.) So, why the hurried departure? Was ...