I hear rocks… rocks bubbling. Or is that something else. Wait a tick, wait a tick… could be… Yes, by god it is. It’s… the man-sized tuber cooking dinner. Again.
I suppose it probably comes as no surprise to those of you who have known Big Green for more than a week or two that an oversized vegetable does much of our cooking. Yeah, we’re vegetarians, and I think that particularly resonates with the man-sized tuber – my guess is that he thinks the safest place for a vegetable around here is on the handle-end of the ladle. Fact is, we don’t eat a lot of root vegetables, and the man-sized tuber is far too tough to roast, far to fibrous to fry, far too husky to boil. He’s just plain inedible, that’s what it comes down to. (Though with a handful of shallots and a splash of merlot, he might respond to an overnight marinade. Mmmmmm-boy.) Wait, tubey, wait…. just kidding, man! Aw, put the pot down. Put it DOWN. No. NO. NOOOOOOOO…
Oh, okay – he’s just moving it to the back burner. Can’t hear real well, our tubey. I keep forgetting. Well, what the hell else is new? Oh, yeah. We’re hurtling through space in our new ride. Yessir, the cobbed together playground equipment we’ve been using to traverse interstellar space finally proved 
itself unworthy of even terrestrial travel, so we broke down (quite literally) and scraped together enough scratch to rent ourselves a ship… a proper ship. Not the kind that comes in a bottle, mind you – a space vessel, with functioning navigational controls, living quarters, and a hull that will hold atmosphere. But where… where would we find such a conveyance out here in the void between Cancri 55 and Earth? Actually, not that much of a problem. Hey… every shit town has its commercial strip, with gas stations and used car lots, right? Well, this interstellar backwater is no different. We just followed the neon lights and pulled into Proxima Centaurii Motor Rentals and South Asian Grocery. (Take exit 452a, just past the companion star – can’t miss it.)
I’ve never been any good at haggling, so I left the negotiations to John, and he came away with a sharp looking little unit for a one-way rental back to Earth. All we had to do 
was, well, hand over the licensing proceeds to our recordings for a radius of three light-years around Proxima Centaurii for the next three years – not too shabby, since we’ve yet to sell a single disc out here. (Don’t say anything!) That and whatever else we had in our pockets, including the last of our Cancri 55 currency. Got to tell you, it’s a relief to stand on a solid deck once again, instead of monkey bars… particularly when you’re traveling at 65% light velocity. And crew cabins, for chrissake! Marvin (my personal robot assistant) was immediately tasked with setting up the galley for the man-sized tuber.
So here we are, cruising along towards home, rice on the boil. Why rice? It’s cheap, that’s why. We blew the bankroll on this ship. Sure, it would be nice if we had a few vegetables to sauté;…. nice… root…. vegetables…..
about his latest book – an extended satirical essay on how our national political leaders in Washington D.C. are a kind of species unto themselves, with their own language, culture, and value systems completely distinct from those of the rest of the country. I know he’s playing this for laughs, but this is the sort of fable that nourishes the very manner of political beast he parodies. I ask you – who runs for national office without attacking some aspect of Washington D.C.? Isn’t that the horse that Dubya rode into town on, as well as nearly all of his predecessors for the past 30 years? They all embark on this mission to clean up the mess in our nation’s capital. Even after seven years in the White House, junior is still reading from that same tired “outsider” script. The reason is simple – people don’t see their desires or priorities reflected in federal policies, so Washington itself is painted as the problem… and a damned convenient one at that.
I know you already know this, but I’ll say it anyway just to remind myself. Those people in Washington D.C. we so revile were sent there by us. They do what they do because they feel confident that between election days we’ll be too busy, too distracted, and too disengaged to have anything to do with the actual process of national governance. They assume (based on experience) that we can be bought off with a few pleasing tales (or by slinging a guitar and talking folksy), while they almost unfailingly serve the interests of those centers of concentrated wealth that own this country. And to a large extent, they are correct. The only way we can stand against those powerful institutions is by building our own popular institutions, by organizing and acting in our own common interests. Corporate America has nothing but money, and we have nothing but numbers – we can prevail if we are willing to abandon the notion that progress comes in a glossy package. 
exception, even though we are bobbing here in space, directionless, our controls replaced by discarded vegetables, our navigation effectively disabled. No matter – the man-sized tuber donned his garish Christmas sweater and led a somewhat enfeebled rendition of “Oh, Holy Night” (which degenerated into “Oh, Holy Shit!” when the fire alarm went off). Due to limited shopping opportunities in deep space, we did a sort of round-robin gift exchange, a secret Santa type deal, drawing straws for gifts. 
delicate surface is virtually unprotected by cloud cover. (Sounds practical, eh? WTF – it was all I could think of, frankly.) My “secret Santa” was Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who handed me something that might have been a battleship or an enormous Chicklet, but was, in fact, a humble kitchen sponge. (Marvin went a little overboard on the wrapping this year. Could have knocked me over with a feather when I opened that sucker.) Our shipboard penury notwithstanding, it was a holiday celebration very much in the spirit of previous years. Lincoln made punch. (And that punch had a kick – thank you, great emancipator.)