On my 16th birthday I recieved a copy of Sgt. Pepper on vinyl from my parents. It was without a doubt one of the greatest gifts I'd ever recieved. When I came home from school every day I listened to it as a treat for getting through another day of high school.

What can you say about an album like that? Calling it emotionless and cold is probably more of a projection of yourself than an honest response to this album.

The music of The Beatles moved (and moves) me more profoundly than anything I'd heard. The music is lush, beautiful and richly describes the range of human emotions and experiences.

Sgt. Pepper was and is still a groundbreaking album. The White Album prefigured much of the music of today - garage rock, punk and indie rock.

To say Sgt. Pepper isn't influential is to be intentionally unaware. To say it's cold and dated is to miss the beauty and power of the music.

You're right Kate. American's don't give a damn about much beyond fast food, new gadgets, SUV's, reality television and the like.

We've become a fat and lazy nation, both physically and mentally. That's what frustrates me the most- it's a colossal waste of potential and resources. Imagine if we trained our focus on something meaningful and substantial rather than fixating over Angelina Jolie's new acessory baby?

The fact that we've become cut off from one another and so self absorbed is incredibly disturbing. People can't go five minutes without plugging into their I-Pod, watching tv, checking their email, calling someone on their cell phone...

What the hell happened to just being present in your life and living your life and truly EXPERIENCING what is going on around you? Technology is the real Soma.

And you're also sadly right about D-Day too. With no sense of common goals and the selfishness of today's America- if World War Two happened right now we'd get our asses handed to us.

Unless you happen to have formerly been the Governor of Texas.

Then, not only can you jail them, you can execute them too.

About everything. And despite his feeling naive when he was in his 20's, he was absolutely correct.

Working IS a waste of a human life in most situations. Especially in offices. Why do you think sitcoms like "The Office" are so successful?

I resent that, despite my creativity and talents, I cannot express that side of myself except in the tiny periods of time I squeeze between working, commuting, food shopping and the laundry. And not to mention sleep. It sucks. There's really no other way around it.

And it IS awful that democracy is completely absent from all working situations. I personally have yet to have a boss that wasn't either a complete sexist or a complete homophobe. FUN TIMES!

There are a lot of reasons why we allow ourselves to be this kind of slave. We have to have credit cards and plasma tvs and SUV's, right? To be happy, right? To be successful, right? To be good Americans, right? Enough already.

Basically, unless you're self employed or lucky enough to have a job where you CAN be creative and have control and democracy (one in a million) you're probably going to work for an autocratic dickhead. It sucks and we need to change it. I don't know how yet-probably one person at a time in our own ways- but it MUST change.

Can we expect a historical revisionist perspective of GW Bush's regime?

True, Nixon was a bastard, but at least he had the capacity to be clever. Not to mention the environmental laws that were enacted under his administration, which included emissions standards for automobiles- something our weak kneed congress just played dead for on behalf of the Big 3 and Big Oil.

It's hard to imagine that an article like this will even be POSSIBLE to write about Bush in 30 years. Can anyone think of a single positive aspect or action of our current administration, something that wasn't a total pooch-screw? I've tried to think of something, I really have...and I can't come up with a damned thing.

"The act I am signing today is the product of one of the longest and most difficult legislative undertakings of recent memory. It has truly been a bipartisan effort, with this administration and the allies of immigration reform in the Congress, of both parties, working together to accomplish these critically important reforms. Future generations of Americans will be thankful for our efforts to humanely regain control of our borders and thereby preserve the value of one of the most sacred possessions of our people: American citizenship."

Well, so much for that...

Sincere applause for a very well written article.

These past six years have been a Maciavellian dream come horribly to life.

One thing that removes our civil liberties in for the illusion of security is the treatment we law abiding citizens get when flying out of any American airport. The brownshirts at the TSA search scrutinize and fondle in the most absurd and unneccessary ways. Each and every one of us is treated like the second incarnation of Mohammad Atta due to nail clippers, shampoo bottles and toothpaste tubes.

I shudder to think what gross contortions of our liberties we will have to endure to board an aircraft next- we already have to remove our shoes and risk strip searches and shakedowns. And can someone please tell me the reason for the ludicrous anal-retentive specifictity as to the size and volume of the clear ziploc bag I can keep my shampoo in?

To justify this continued treatment, as well as our big brother color coded alert levels, there must be a demonstrated positive result to it. How has taken our shoes off made us an iota safer as a nation?

This kind of treatment gets my hackles up every time I fly. It doesn't make me feel a bit safer- it just pisses me off.