CD Spotlight -- 11/30/2004

Original Soundtrack -- Who's That Girl (1987)

Another apparently random choice this week but for some reason, I've blown the dust off this CD and have given it another spin. It's the soundtrack from Madonna's 1987 movie flop Who's That Girl. Even as a Madonna fan, I have to say that the movie itself is pretty insufferable--it captures forever one of Madonna's worst-ever looks (the fact that her eyebrows are so dark and her hair is so white has always bugged the hell out of me) and she's just not all that good in it. However, the music is not bad. It's fluffy and forgettable in a mid-to-late 80s sort of way, but you have to hand it to Madonna--even when it's fluff and forgettable, it's still pretty good fluff. I think the reason I've been thinking about this soundtrack recently is because of the Scritti Politti song that's on here called "Best Thing Ever"--and whenever I see the VH1 show "Best Week Ever" it always makes me think of that song. So blame it on VH1, I guess.

The Madonna songs on here do make the movie worth the effort--that is to say, if suffering through this abysmal movie is what it took to get "Causing a Commotion" it's probably worth it. Truth be told, I think I've read that most of the songs on the Who's That Girl soundtrack were True Blue rejects. But there's something fun about the giddiness of "Can't Stop"--it's something that we really don't get from Madonna anymore since she's so busy being all serious and all that. I certainly can't begrudge her for following her heart in the kind of music she's doing, but she doesn't really cut loose anymore, and that's a bit sad.

Here's something I wrote about "Who's That Girl" (the song) a long time ago, back when I was on the Madonna listserv and we were doing Song of the Week (SOTW). It seems apropos to post it now.

I really like this little song. It's not very substantial, and I suppose that's a trait that it shares with last week's SOTW "Don't Stop." However, there's something that separates WTG from DS, even though they are pretty much in the same vein musically--slow groove pop music. Lyrically, the song is pretty well constructed with yet another Madonna patented-brilliant bridge "Light of my life/So blind I can't see." The instrumentation is fun and lightweight. I was surprised to see that it had such a Latin feel to it considering that it came on the heels of "La Isla Bonita."

Yeah, I was just a little bit obsessed.

Post Turkey Day

Well, back to work after four days off. Well, techincally 4 1/2 because it's weird to leave work at 3:30 PM on Wednesday and not come back until 2:00 PM on Monday. It was a good time off. A lot of people at our house for Thanksgiving, saw my brother and his wife and spent time relaxing. I watched Freddy vs. Jason which was way better than it had any right to be--I'm thinking it might have benefited from insanely low expectations. Not a bad mixing of the two mythologies but after a while, watching Freddy and Jason fight was akin to the scene in Pirates of the Caribbean where Jack Sparrow is dueling Captain Barbosa even though they were both undead skeleton guys. I mean, no one's ever going to win, right? And if they'd have left the last scene off of F vs. J, why, then it would have at least made a tiny bit of sense. But still a fun slasher movie with some inventive slashing. But nothing I ever need to see again.

I'm reading Dante's Inferno right now. I haven't read that since I was in high school--and since I found the entire set in paperback at the Good Will store in Washington, I figured I'd give it another go. Surprisingly not all that tough of a read. But I was thinking something as I read this morning--Dante and Virgil are heading across the River Styx toward the demon guarded City of Dis--and the wrathful and sullen are condemned to inhabit the river. The sullen are below the surface and the only signs of their presence are the bubbles of their despair. Sullenness a sin? Yep, at least according to Dante. And boy do I know a lot of people that walk around in a permanent state of sullenness. Makes me all the more determined to not get sucked up into that mindset. Of course, at this time of the year, that's always easier said than done, but it's worth a shot, no?

CD Spotlight -- 11/21/2004

Olivia Newton-John - The Rumour (1988)

An interesting CD pick this week--it's Olivia Newton-John's 1988 comeback attempt (emphasis on the attempt part) The Rumour. I remember hearing the title track on the radio in the waning days of the summer of 1988. It was fun and lightweight and it seemed like a guaranteed hit (at least in my naive eyes.) I eagerly awaited the release of the album, which happened while we were on a family vacation in the Rocky Mountains. I actually owned this album as an LP originally--I think it was one of the last LPs I bought. I was stubbornly resisting the transition to cassette tapes (even though everyone else I knew had made the jump--and some were already on the CD bandwagon.)

Livvy covers a whole raft of social topics on this CD--AIDS ("Love & Let Live"), ecology and the environment ("Let's Talk About Tomorrow"), single parenthood ("It's Not Heaven") and growing older ("Tutta La Vita"). I remember liking the album a lot when it first came out--and listening to it now it hasn't aged as horribly as say Physical or Soul Kiss has--those CDs pretty much scream 80s. The production is pretty middle of the road--not great, but not offensive either. Overall, I think that the timing was poor on ONJ's part because her viability as a hitmaker just wasn't there by the time we hit the late 80s. Even with Elton John writing what should have been a sure-fire hit ("The Rumour"), radio just wasn't willing to play it--this was prime hair band time, after all.

One side note--there's a radio remix of "The Rumour" which is highly superior to the album version. The album version seems very empty and bare bones, whereas the radio remix filled it out with synths and overdubs. I managed to dub a copy of that from a cassette single I had of "The Rumour" to mp3 a few years back before the tape completely went to pot. Shep Pettibone also did a remix of the song in the early 90s which was damn fine as well.

Rawhead Rex

I'm reading this collection of short stories by Clive Barker called Books of Blood Volume 1-3. It's pretty good as horror fiction goes--sometimes it can get pretty cheesy and not very satisfying. But these are pretty intelligent stories for the most part and it looks like I'm actually going to finish the book--which is saying a lot for me these days. Anyway, there's a story called "Rawhead Rex" that I'm reading right now, and it is freaking the crap out of me. It's a pretty straight-forward giant monster story, but the images that Barker puts on the page (and consequently in my head) are pretty intense.

Rawhead Rex is an ancient demon that was buried alive ages ago and is inadvertantly unearthed by an unsuspecting farmer. The carnage starts pretty much immediately after Rawhead is released. There's a priest who is apparently a disciple of Rawhead (he's baptized by Rawhead's urine in a particularly vivid scene) and many people have died rather gruesome deaths. I haven't quite finished it yet, so I don't know how it ends--not that I'd dream of spoiling it here anyway.

Apparently, Rawhead Rex was made into a movie back in the mid-80's. One site I found while Googling tonight called it a "shit-stain" and it looks pretty bad. Not at all how I pictured the monster (pictures here--don't look if guys in rubber suits scare you easily) As one of the reviews on IMDB says, "This movie is as horrifying as a hamper with too many clothes in it." Good thing there's a graphic novel of it, but I can't find out much information on that.

All in all, I'll probably read more Clive Barker, but I think he's a little bit like Anne Rice--a little bit goes a long, long way. Speaking of which, I think I'm just about to the point where I can think about reading Lasher.

Crazy In Love

I've been listening to the new Eminem CD Encore on Rhapsody--I haven't sprung for the CD yet--and dang if I'm not really liking it. I agree with some of the reviews that it doesn't seem as inspired as Eminem's previous stuff. As I've written before, there's more than a few songs where he seems really bored and just going through the motions. But there's one song that really stands out--the song "Crazy In Love." It's pretty typical Eminem lyric-wise, but the greatest thing about the song is the sample of Heart's "Crazy On You" which is used pretty much perfectly. I've come to expect nothing less from Eminem as far as his use of samples. Usually, I'm all "oh, samples are so unoriginal" but I have to admit, when it's done right, they really work. Anyway, check it out if you can.

St. Joseph -- start yelling at him

It's been 9 months since we put our house in Washington on the market and it's still for sale. And Friday, I got a notice in the mail from my insurance company that they're going to be cancelling my house insurance because there's no one living in the house. Of course, we're more than welcome to purchase a "non-occupancy" plan which insure the house at the tidy sum of $1,100 for six months. Great, that's all I need--another 200 bucks a month that I'm going to have to pull out of thin air.

It's hard sometimes to feel like this move was for the best, although I know that it is. I simply hate that house sitting empty in Washington while I throw money at the mortgage. I've already lowered the price $10,000 since we first listed it, but I think it's just the market in the town. I mean, there are probably 100 houses for sale in that town of 7,000 thanks in no small part to the general tanking of the local economy. My father says that if it takes me 5 years to dig out of the debt that I incurred by moving, it's still worth it. And I know that he's right--I would have been crazy to pass up this job and the opportunities it gives me. But still, with the house still sitting there not selling and with us moving into winter, it's disheartening.

We've buried St. Joseph in the yard (any port in a storm) and I just don't know what to do any more. It sucks because I know that no matter what, I'm going to lose money on the house. I keep telling myself that any money I lose is the cost of getting out of Washington, but that's a small consolation most days.

CD Spotlight -- 11/15/2004

Barbra Streisand -- People (1964)

This is something I want to try to do at least weekly. So get ready for some rather bizarre choices along with some rather reasonable ones as well.

I've been listening to this Streisand CD a lot these days. It's one of the few that my wife can stand and it's truly one of her best moments. Streisand is kind of a weird animal in the fact that she's probably one of the greatest singers to live during a time period where her entire career can be recorded for all time. It's also odd that she's been recording for 40+ years and none of her work has ever gone out of print. Anyway, this is one of my favorite of all the Streisand CDs, and that's saying a lot because there are simply a slew of them.

It's a mixed bag of fast and slow songs--but on the fast songs Babs really gets to let loose and be goofy. Best example is "When In Rome (I Do As The Romans Do)" which is just a hoot to listen to. Barbra even vamps some Italian:

E molto difficile resistere agli uomini di Italia
Per esempio, per esempio i biondi,
I biondi di Firenze, di Venezia
E i bruni di Palermo, di Milano...
You know what I mean?

Actually, Babs, no I don't. But it hardly matters.

The other highlights of the album are the back to back songs "How Does The Wine Taste?" and "I'm All Smiles." I think I summed it up best in my journal way back in 1993 when I first picked up the CD.

But anyway, this song "How Does The Wine Taste?" has these really cool shaker sounds, followed by "I'm All Smiles" with the wicked vibraphone introduction. Vibraphones must be one of the wickedest instruments. The greatest thing about it is that this music is old enough that when you hear the cool shaker sounds or the wicked vibes, you're really getting cool shaker sounds and wicked vibes, and not some computer generated sounds.

Of course there's also "Love Is A Bore" and the most mournful saxophone I've ever heard on the song "Suppertime" (Suppertime/I should set the table 'cause it's/Suppertime.) Anyway, you can probably tell that I really love this CD.

Dead Alive

I just got done watching Dead Alive--a Peter Jackson zombie movie from the early 90s. When I first heard about it, I thought "Oh, man! Peter Jackson and zombies? What a combination." Well, I'm sorry to say that I was completely disappointed in the movie. While I was watching it, I was having a hard time figuring out why it was so bad, but I think I figured it out: The movie had absolutely no respect for the genre.

Even in something as throwaway as a zombie movie, you have to follow certain rules. And Jackson pretty much threw them all to the wind in the interest of making an incredibly gory movie that was exceptionally low on real scares and high on cringeworthy scenes. Dead Alive's biggest offense is that it broke the cardinal rule of zombies: Kill the brain and you kill the ghoul. Not only were headless zombies abundant, but seemingly random intestines suddenly became "zombified" and attacked people. People whose skin had been completely torn off so that they were basically a walking spinal column with a head were passed off as effective zombies. Just doesn't work.

As if breaking the cardinal rule of zombies wasn't bad enough, Jackson also was tripped up by one of the most common misconception in making horror films--and that is a gory film is a scary film. The movie was so gory that after a while, I had to turn away from the screen. By the end of the movie, everyone's covered in blood and you forget what the real point of the movie was to begin with. The movie also messed around with the whole zombie mystique, which while not entirely a bad thing just didn't work in this movie.

Clearly, I won't be watching that again, and it's a good thing that Jackson's improved as a filmmaker--his Lord of the Rings trilogy will certainly be a film classic.

Next up on my zombie movie fest: Resident Evil--I have it on good authority (aka Wendy) that this is a good movie so I'm eager to watch it.

Star Wars Figure -- Mint in Package

The best part of this was that I originally thought the joke was the "mint" part, judging from the rather poor condition of the figure. A second look made me laugh out loud, which was really good for me today.

(shamelessly reposted from Planet Dan)

Remixed Re-Invention

Amidst the craziness of the last week or so, I've managed to complete what was a germ of an idea in my head a while back. I've been listening to the Re-Invention Tour a lot--re-living a lot of fun memories of going to the tour in D.C. this summer. The recording that I'm listening to a lot is one from Atlanta which is probably the best sound quality of all the ones I've heard. I also love how when she's singing "Material Girl" and she's all "this song goes so far back that I can't even remember the words to my own fucking song! So you're gonna have to help me out." Anyway, I've put together a mp3 playlist (maybe a 2-CD set if I get around to it) of a remix of each song from the Re-Invention Tour. Some are official, most are bootlegs. Anyway, I'm really enjoying listening to it. Here's my list

The Beast Within (A!O Words of Prophecy Mix)
Vogue (RA's Superfiltered Mix)
Nobody Knows Me (Above & Beyond 12" Mix)
Frozen (Dens54 Musette Remix)
American Life (Felix Da Housecat Devin Dazzle Club Mix)
Express Yourself (Coming Out Local Vision Edit)
Burning Up (2004 Revised Edition)
Material Girl (Extended Version)
Hollywood (Jacques Lu Cont's Thin White Duck Mix)
Hanky Panky (Bare Bottom 12" Mix)
Deeper & Deeper (Marc Hanumm Remix)
Die Another Day (Brother Brown's Bond-Age Club Mix)
Lament (Dying In Your Arms Tonight Mix)
Bedtime Story (Luscious Vocal Radio Edit)
Nothing Fails (Peter Rauhofer's Classic House Mix)
Don't Tell Me (Victor Calderone Sensory Mix)
Like A Prayer (Mixman Mike's Pious Anthem Club Mix)
Mother & Father (Forfait Mix)
Into The Groove (DMC Mix)
Papa Don't Preach (M-A.N. Cosmos Mix)
Crazy For You (Tony Moran Club Circuit Mix)
Music (Idaho's Musicology Remix)
Holiday (A!O Live Collection Medley)

Bonus Track:
The Re-Invention Medley (mixed by Madonna-Addiction)

Pretty cool, eh? Yeah, some of the remixes are not really remixes ("Lament" is basically an extended version of the CD version.) The version of "Holiday" is really cool because it starts with the version "Holiday" from the Virgin Tour and ends with the version from Drowned World Tour. The whole playlist is a lot of fun to listen to and was even more fun wading through the nearly 1000 Madonna mp3s I have on my hard drive trying to find just the right one for the mix.

(updated on 11/6 with link to Re-Invention Medley mp3)

My last political post for now...

...and then I'll get back to music and movies and much more fun things. I'm starting to reconcile myself to the fact that Bush is the president. I'm not happy, but I think Kerry did the right thing in conceding and not dragging it out in the courts for weeks on end. The American people chose Bush. Sadly, I think that means that the majority of American voters are ignorant, but I guess that remains to be seen.

In the meantime, here's a letter posted on Salon.com--which will continue to be one of my favorite lefty sites for a long time to come

Many of my liberal friends are seriously discussing leaving the country, for Canada or Europe or New Zealand. It is, of course, tempting. How could we not feel a violent disillusionment and disconnect when we discovered this morning that the majority of voters in the country have a worldview we cannot comprehend? That hate and fear and ignorance can run a successful presidental campaign; that people will respond to these things with eager glee?

And if I wasn't tempted before leaving the house, one look at my car with its Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker -- the only car with such a sticker in the lot -- and how overnight it suddenly acquired a political statement consisting of eggs and shaving cream -- the only car in the lot so decorated -- certainly pushed me in that direction. I imagine the decorators (or their parents) voted on "moral values," as so many Bush supporters did.

But I'm not going to leave, and I made a list of reasons why.

Because this is my country.

Because I'm not letting them have New England autumns, New Mexico sunsets, the Grand Canyon, or Revere Beach.

Because Barack Obama, Ted Kennedy, Barney Frank and a few other stalwarts are isolated enough in a Capitol gone mad without their supporters pulling up and getting out.

Because over a million people voted for Alan Keyes, and that means even in Illinois we can't relax.

Because Massachusetts elected a far-right religious zealot in a gubernatorial race no one bothered to vote in.

Because I do, honestly, want my kids to be American citizens.

Because 200 years ago Americans believed in a separation of church and state, and if there's one thing we seem to be good at, it's regression.

Because we have to speak up even if they're not coming for us personally yet. We're educated and energized and relatively financially secure, and there are a lot of people out there who are none of those things and are at least initially going to suffer far more than we are. We have to speak for them if they can't speak for themselves.

Because this is still my country, and being female and pro-choice and pro-gay rights and an environmentalist and a pacifist and a believer in intelligent leaders and an atheist does not make me un-American or unpatriotic -- and that needs to be screamed from the fucking rooftops.

Because they vandalized my fucking car, and that is their level of discourse.

Because I am not afraid anymore. I am angry.

Settling down...

Not as angry and full of vitriol as I was last night. Barely got any sleep and have to work in half an hour so we'll see how that goes.

I decided there's one thing worse than a Bush win. It's what we have now--an election headed for litigation in Ohio (and most likely several other states) and a country that will be wounded and its faith in its own democracy shaken.

I'm trying to decide if I want to delete my previous two posts, but I think I've decided to leave them. It's raw emotion which is good and it was entirely me just venting on what I consider to be so incredibly important. But MeteorBlades over at Daily Kos just posted this and I'm reproducing it here in it's entirety because I think it needs to be read.

'Don't Mourn, Organize'

by Meteor Blades
Wed Nov 3rd, 2004 at 10:10:13 GMT

OK. I read thousands of comments and dozens of Diaries last night and this morning. And you know something? I’m going to forget I read most of them. Just erase them from memory along with the names of those who posted them. Chalk them up to adrenaline crashes, too much rage and reefer and booze.

Because what I found in my reading was a plethora of bashing Christians, bashing Kerry, bashing gays, bashing Edwards, bashing Kos, bashing America and bashing each other. As well as a lot of people saying they’re abandoning the Democrats, abandoning politics, abandoning the country. This descent into despair and irrationality and surrender puts icing on the Republican victory cake.

Why were we in this fight in the first place? Because terrible leaders are doing terrible things to our country and calling this wonderful. Because radical reactionaries are trying to impose their imperialist schemes on whoever they wish and calling this just. Because amoral oligarchs are determined to enhance their slice of the economic pie and calling this the natural order. Because flag-wrapped ideologues want to chop up civil liberties and call this security. Because myopians are in charge of America’s future.

We lost on 11/2. Came in second place in a crucial battle whose damage may still be felt decades from now. The despicable record of our foes makes our defeat good reason for disappointment and fear. Even without a mandate over the past four years, they have behaved ruthlessly at home and abroad, failing to listen to objections even from members of their own party. With the mandate of a 3.6-million vote margin, one can only imagine how far their arrogance will take them in their efforts to dismantle 70 years of social legislation and 50+ years of diplomacy.

Still, Tuesday was only one round in the struggle. It’s only the end if we let it be. I am not speaking solely of challenging the votes in Ohio or elsewhere – indeed, I think even successful challenges are unlikely to change the ultimate outcome, which is not to say I don’t think the Democrats should make the attempt. And I’m not just talking about evaluating in depth what went wrong, then building on what was started in the Dean campaign to reinvigorate the grassroots of the Democratic Party, although I also think we must do that. I’m talking about the broader political realm, the realm outside of electoral politics that has always pushed America to live up to its best ideals and overcome its most grotesque contradictions.

Not a few people have spoken in the past few hours about an Americanist authoritarianism emerging out of the country’s current leadership. I think that’s not far-fetched. Fighting this requires that we stick together, not bashing each other, not fleeing or hiding or yielding to the temptation of behaving as if “what’s the use?”

It’s tough on the psyche to be beaten.Throughout our country’s history, abolitionists, suffragists, union organizers, anti-racists, antiwarriors, civil libertarians, feminists and gay rights activists have challenged the majority of Americans to take off their blinders. Each succeeded one way or another, but not overnight, and certainly not without serious setbacks.

After a decent interval of licking our wounds and pondering what might have been and where we went wrong, we need to spit out our despair and return – united - to battling those who have for the moment outmaneuvered us. Otherwise, we might just as well lie down in the street and let them flatten us with their schemes.

Dang, wish I'd have written that.

Wait a minute, I'm not done yet.

This election is so bupkis. Yeah, I know that Bush is winning "fair and square" this time with no discrepancy between the popular vote and electoral college. But what I'm refering to is how all these really good people are being beaten by these bastards. What is our country going to look like in four years? Will there still be any public education for Anna to use? Will there be any national parks left or will there be oil wells in all of them? Corporations will only gain more power under a second Bush term, and the media, well, so much for the fucking so-called liberal media.

Do I think Kerry was the perfect man for the presidency? Hell no. I mean, he voted for the war in Iraq which is just turning into the biggest clusterfuck since I don't know what. But what I know for certain is that Bush is absolutely the wrong man for the job. I mean, I would prefer my president be interested in learning things rather than just surrounding himself with yes-men. I would prefer my president not be somebody I want to go drink with or even have lunch with. I expect more from my president than that. Which is what kills me every single time I see people saying that they're voting for Bush because they think he's "one of us" I just have to shake my head in complete bewilderment. Yeah, that's how I pick my president. Jesus.

So the country's a mess and will remain a mess and all those smug Republicans across America will be on TV and at work and at the grocery store acting like they just averted the apocalypse by keeping John Kerry out of office. Well, you know what? Screw them. Screw everyone who voted for Bush and wasn't conscious enough to see the damage that he's done to this country. Good-bye civil liberties with Patriot Act II. Good-bye equal rights under the law and hello discrimination into the U.S. Constitution via the Hate Amendment. Good-bye environmental protections and good-bye to the working class. They're pretty much screwed now anyway.

I know I'm overgeneralizing and I know that I'm speaking mostly out of hate right now. Well, so be it. I get to be angry. I get to be irrational. I get to be irritated. I just can't believe that half the country is so crazy. Even if Kerry pulls a win out of his hat now (which looks increasingly unlikely unless Ohio falls into the win column) the fact that it's this close is just devastating to my morale and my belief in the innate good and common sense in people. I can't believe I'm watching what I'm watching. I can't believe that I'm going to have to put up with four more years of cowboy foreign policy.

You know, Ronald Reagan asked the question during the 1980 election -- "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" For me, the answer would probably be yes. We live in a nice neighborhood and I have a good paying job with good health benefits and we have a lot of creature comforts that many people can't afford. But you know what? Sometimes, it's not just all about me. What about the people that have no job that had one four years ago, or have a job that pays significantly less than the one they lost? What about the people who have no health care? What about the people who can't even freaking afford to put food on their table? Tell that to all those evangelical "Christians" who voted for Bush because he's anti-abortion.

No, instead we have to vote based on guns, God, and gays--as Howard Dean put it during the primaries. Who cares if we have money as long as we get to keep our AK-47s and keep those damn homosexuals from destroying the fabric of society? I just can't believe it. I'm in utter shock.

And it all started here in Iowa. Iowans chickened out at the last minute and sent Kerry on his way to the nomination because he was the man who could "beat Bush." Well, here ya go. Maybe Dean would have been beaten even more decisively--who knows?

Blech

Well, I'm starting to get used to the fact that Bush is probably going to win the election, despite all the great GOTV that the Democrats did. This fucking sucks. This man is the worst president in the history of America and just over half of the American public isn't awake enough to realize this. His tax cuts to the wealthy are in the process of bankrupting the country and are creating a sort of class warfare. He's created the biggest deficits of any president and has presided over the first net loss of jobs of any president since Hoover but it looks like we're going to return him to office.

All I can say is that anyone who voted for him that has children anywhere between the ages of 13 and 20 better not be surprised when he starts drafting them to fight his holy wars.

An over-reaction? Perhaps. I'm just super fucking pissed at our country right now and am almost ashamed to be American. He may be the president, but he's certainly not my president.

At least it looks like we're going to deliver Iowa for Kerry.

It's going to be a long four years.

Salon.com | American nightmare

Salon.com | American nightmare

Requires a Salon.com day pass or subscription (as I've said before, totally worth the price and then some.)

It's a day before the election and I'm confident of a Kerry win. Talking to my sister, who is very guardedly confident--she described it as "I think Kerry will win, but I'm still holding my breath."--I realized just how far gone the right wing in this country has gone. Their arguments don't even make sense. And so much of the time, right wing voters are one issue voters--abortion, health care, etc. Which is not to minimize those issues, but seriously, not voting for Kerry because you don't like socialized medicine? OK, first thing, his plan isnt socialized medicine and secondly, do you think any kind of health care reform has a prayer of passing an almost certainly Republican controlled Congress? Not likely.

I shudder when I think about the damage done to this country by Bush and his cronies. I agree with the Salon article linked above.

"Historians will likely judge the Bush presidency one of the worst in the history of the republic--an amalgam of arrogance, radicalism and folly so egregious it's almost laughable."

Only trouble is, no one's laughing.

I'll be knocking on doors tomorrow trying to get out the vote for Kerry and our local Democratic slate of candidates. I hope we have cause for celebration tomorrow. Hopefully, this is the end of Bush's presidency. Power to the people!

Seems appropriate to link to this today. Dean may not be the nominee, but he did have his finger on the pulse of disaffected Democrats.