Holy Moses. Where did all this snow come from? The sky? That’s where it ordinarily comes from. There have been exceptions, sure, but … how likely is that?
Well, here we are. First days of the year and we’re already snowed in. Mountains of the stuff piled up against the front door of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our adopted home. Just as well that it’s relatively congenial in here, that is if you don’t mind being cooped up with crazy people. There’s Matt, of course, though he mostly occupies himself with tending the wild creatures and feathered friends. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) does have some annoying habits, much as I’ve tried to program them out of him. (I’m not a scientist – I just play one on the internet.)
The most troublesome companion we have in the Mill is anti-Lincoln, the antimatter doppelganger of the Great Emancipator, who was chrono-teleported into our midst some years back by Mitch Macaphee, using Trevor James Constable’s patented orgone generating device. The device is, shall we say, a less-than-optimal time portal/matter transportation gizmo, so it made an antimatter copy of Lincoln as he was passing through the wormhole on his way to his future, our present. Lincoln has since returned to his Civil War glory days, while anti-Lincoln has remained behind to vex us unceasingly. Arrogant, selfish clone!
Our companion the man-sized tuber is not that bad, though he does require some tending. He had retired to the courtyard and was beginning to take root, but his retirement planning didn’t take Winter into account, and as the days grew colder, he yanked himself out of the ground and rolled back inside, taking his place in a terracotta planter we had lying around. Of course, one of us has to bring him water, plant food, reading material, etc. He’s been asking for wi-fi lately. I keep telling him, just get a freaking data plan, but he won’t listen.
Right, so … distractions aside, we are planning the next phase of Big Green’s conquest of the universe. Well … not the WHOLE universe; just one little tiny corner of it. Namely, this web site, where the next episode of our podcast will appear at some point. Come snow or high water.
Perhaps it’s simply that our Congressional elections are really 435 tiny local races rather than one big, national one; that each district decides on the basis of who’s running and who’s most likely to show up at the polls. My home district, New York’s 22nd (the fighting 22nd!) is a pretty good example. Our representative, Republican Richard Hanna, ran unopposed last year. The Democratic Party won the seat for the first time in a generation in 2006, lost it in 2010 and again in 2012, and apparently decided it wasn’t worth spending any more money on. Hanna is far from the most reactionary member of his caucus, but he is a conservative Republican in the traditional sense, holding a 95% rating with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and an “A” rating from the NRA, so it would have been nice to have someone else to vote for. So much for that.
Hope all of you are having a good holiday season. Sure, there comes a time when the plate is empty, the music falls silent, and the final champagne bubble pops. But take heart, friends … that time has yet to arrive. So for the nonce, as Governor Scott Walker would say, Molotov!
Lots to do around the holidays, as you well know. Some tasks are more challenging than others. I’ve always found bending candy canes particularly difficult. A lot of breakage. There’s got to be a better way! (Matt is thinking about taking a correspondence course in pretzel-bending, so maybe some of those skills will be transferable. We shall see.)
North Korea. When you produce a movie that makes a joke out of the assassination of the leader of a garrison state, its back against the wall for decades, you should respect a negative reaction. Agents purportedly working for North Korea have threatened violence against theaters running “The Interview”, promising 9/11 type attacks, somewhat incredibly. SONY Pictures pulled the film, generating a mountain of criticism. An AP article suggested that SONY feared hostilities against Japan by a nuclear-armed North Korea.
Yes, yes … we’re polishing up the holiday songs here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. T’is the season and all that. What, you’re not familiar with the dirge of the Christmas Bot? Small wonder. We just made it up. What kind of songwriters would we be if we resorted to used Christmas Carols? It would be a total cop out. So we are resolved to write lame Christmas numbers each and every December, five minutes before we hastily record them and throw them up on the internet. You’re welcome!
This discussion is not limited to the full-on, proud of all we did crew, like the execrable Dick Cheney, snickering from his podium, confident that he will never pay for his crimes against humanity. This is the discussion being advanced by Senators who supposedly oppose these interrogation techniques. They didn’t work, they say. No useful intelligence was gained. What a strange conversation to be having at this moment in history, when we are confronted with detailed evidence of this latest foray (far from the first) into systematic abuse of those we seek to dominate and suppress.