Hammer Mill Days

Cold fingers? Rub them together. I know we're in a trackless void with temperatures approaching absolute zero - just rub a little harder. Just coming off of a ripping good string of performances on Neptune, mother of all Big Green fans in the outer rings of our solar system. (Good to know we're still loved by someone... or some THING.) When I say "ripping good", I mean it certainly seemed that way to us. As some of you may know, however, the atmosphere on Neptune contains many elements not prevalent in our own sweet Earth-bound air, so frankly, after a couple of sets breathing that stuff, I get a little punchy. You could tell me iron is chocolate and I'd believe you. You could tell me Carl Paladino is sane, and I'd buy it. It's just that crazy. So... we may have played well, but possibly not. Or "splunge", as Monty Python would put it. Some of you may remember the distinctly terrestrial phenomenon we encountered on Neptune last time out of peopl...

No time to think, less to write, so this is right off the top of my head. Food Fights. Those are the words that come to mind when I think of this year's political campaigns. I remember 2006 being similarly acrimonious, but honestly, this year is worse. It seems like there are nothing but attack ads. Even the nice-nice "Hi, I'm blankety-blank and I want to be your blank" ads have a poison pill embedded in them for the opposition. The California gubernatorial race has descended to an exchange of "He's a liar!" and "She's a whore!" in something reminiscent of my junior high lunch room. The New York race is, if anything, even more surreal in its nastiness. I'm anticipating a crush of toxic direct mail in the closing weeks - lookout, mailbox! Imperial Prerogatives. There has been a lot of reporting on Pakistan the last couple of weeks. Their military closed a crossing to U.S. convoys on the Af-Pak border in response to a range of disagreem...

No sandwich? No matter. Open another can. Try one of those square ones. What's inside that one? I'll be damned. We must have taken the wrong cans. Domage ! Okay, so we don't have any Domage . What the hell are we supposed to eat up here in the middle of nowhere? NO MORE CHESSE-BASED SNACK FOODS! I'VE HAD IT WITH THAT GARBAGE! (Hopefully the Cheese-It people don't read this blog - I'd hate like hell to loose that endorsement money.) Well, as you can see, we are bobbing through space in our rented space craft, foraging for sustenance, flipping through superannuated star charts, hoping for a break in our navigational quandary. Sadly, Big Green didn't have the budget for a proper navigator, so once again, we have pressed Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, into the pilot's couch. (Stool, actually. As I said, this is a cheap rental.) Our first destination? Neptune. Back to Neptune once again, where the bars are always open, the streets are always molten...

Here is what I'm thinking about this week. Nothing too much out of the ordinary, frankly. Another lie falls flat. Just listened to a harrowing story on Democracy Now !, about ten days old (I listen to the podcasts up here in nowheresville). Amy Goodman was talking to the wife of an Iraqi detainee - a partially disabled ex-general who's been locked up by the Iraqis for about a year, tortured hideously, without charge or any prospect for release. The story is sadly familiar in its contours - you can find similar ones in practically every country we've ever "helped". Listening to it, I could only think of one of the many justifications for the invasion of Iraq; that of protecting human rights, ending torture, etc. There will be no more rape rooms, George W. Bush promised to the Iraqis as he announced his unilateral, criminal war in March 2003. Well.... there are rape rooms. Another lie bites the dust. Not your monkey. It's the economy, stupid, to be sure, but...

Okay, so this is how the countdown went: Ten... nine... eight... seven... Shall I go on? Are you in suspense yet? Well, okay, 'cause we're already down to three... two... Hold it right there. Neptune can wait. I've got some mail to answer. Here's the first item: Dear Big Green, Couldn't help but notice that your diet appears to have been restricted to cheese-based cracker snacks. Why is that? Are you under advisement from your physician? Best, Jaycorn McHammerstein. Thanks for writing, Jaycorn. Yes, I can see where you might have gotten that misimpression about our foodstuffs. Same place other people acquire misimpressions about us - from this blog. The simple fact is, none of the snack foods I mentioned as being part of Big Green's regular menu contain a significant amount of cheese. And doctors? We don't need no stinking doctors! Unless they are doctors of mad science. Here's another one. The envelope seems a bit distressed, frankly. Hey Big Green....

First item: the Democrats are among the most exasperating political parties on Earth. They seem to have an innate sense of how to alienate their core voters, casting over the side any item of legislative action - the public option, Medicare expansion, don't ask don't tell, the fight over middle class vs. top 3% marginal tax rate reductions, etc. - that is remotely popular. That said, let's look at their opponents. Probably a good idea, since there's an election coming up. And these folks look pretty grisly. Oddly, they picked what looked like a Home Depot lumber department to announce their "Pledge To America", a lobbyist-written document full of stuff that would make, well, lobbyists very happy. (Perhaps the choice of venue is their way of telegraphing the kinds of jobs they plan to create. How do you look in an orange vest?) Rather than talking about what's in the document, let's look at what they didn't put in there... but which they advocate no...

Sunday evening, 6:37 p.m. - Mitch Macaphee test-fires the main engine on our ramshackle space craft; the one that will supposedly carry us to many a far-flung rock venue in the galaxy. Based on what I heard, I have my doubts about this vehicle. It took Mitch about fifteen pulls of that rip cord to get the thing smoking, and that's about all it did... smoke. No lift. Matt just looked on and shook his head. I saw that and shook my head. Whole lot of shakin' going on 'round here. Monday afternoon, 12:45 p.m. - Sumptuous lunch of cheese doodles and expired raisins. Did I say sumptuous? I meant nauseating. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is practicing his galley skills. He has volunteered to be our ship's cook. Lincoln refuses to call him "cookie" (as Marvin has asked to be called). Anti-Lincoln vehemently disagrees with that refusal. We shake our heads, yet again. Monday night, 10:30 p.m. - Oh, great - now there's drinking. No, not the band. (I'm ...