I am old enough to remember good black music. Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, you all know the names. And Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, King Sunny Ade...

There is simply nothing in rap to compare with the musical sophistication of even the least of the above-listed performers' b-sides. Nothing. And that's even without the mindlessness of the "lyric" content.

And that is a very sad fact.

If hostility, bling, and misogyny equate to "authenticity", then make mine artifice, thankyouverymuch.

Crist gets my kudos, if not my support (I live far from Florida), for this step.

Not only is it the right thing to do from a moral perspective, it's likely a supremely practical way of making steps towards reassimilation of the convicted felons into "normal" society.

The more of a stake in the society around them people have, the less likely they are to commit more crimes in the future. It may be only a first incremental step, true, still, that first step is the most important.

What I don't understand is that both the large business community (corporate America) and small business are not screaming for universal coverage as a way of becoming more competitive by getting the health care burden off their price structures.

I guess it's just their inherent (Republican) bias against making literally any universal good universally available. There simply is no practical argument remaining against universal coverage, only an ideological one.

Well, that and the insurers' "campaign contributions" (read: bribery) protecting their means of generating investment capital - the real purpose of insurance companies, coverage be damned.

Most rap is terrible. Musically, without even approaching content as an issue. When I think of how far black music has fallen from Ellington, Basie, Dizzy, Billie Holiday, John Coltrane, Monk, Miles, the Temps, the Four Tops, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, and many, many others over the years, who knew what melodies were, and how to fold a great voice around a good lyric, well, it's just depressing.

Imus is a moronic lout - how else does someone think it's OK to make those comments?

All that said, I think I've heard three times as much Imus in the last week as in the rest of my life. I've never been a listener. No plans to start, either.

If everyone just took that approach, and changed the station, how long would he last?

It's enough to make me want to throw every radio I own away on both counts.

No one would fight like this to keep things hidden if there was not a small mountain of "something to hide" yet unseen.

We have dots upon dots, and some connections are now clearly being drawn. I'm waiting for the "ink and paint" (animation term) and we just know it's going to be a truly ugly picture.

And still I maintain, get Cheney first. He's dirty. We know he's dirty. Very dirty. And he has to go before anyone (indeed, the nation) can realistically afford to go after Bush. And with Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress, the 25th Amendment is now our friend.

We can only hope that the Supreme Court remembers they are Americans first, Republicans second. It's all going to land there.

The only trial I am interested in hearing about for Paul Wolfowitz would take place in The Hague, on war crimes charges.

Enough!

No more talking, no more White House "offers" of anything. Issue the subpoenas now and get on to the inevitable court fight. This much overt resistance is - or at least ought to be seen as - prima facie evidence of obstruction of justice.

Mercury is dangerous, even deadly. A-Quaeda is dangerous, even deadly. Smack a globule of mercury and you distribute smaller globules of deadly stuff around in all directions unless the mercury is contained. Well, we smacked Al-Quaeda, and did it without containing them.

Oops.

They've always looked strategically at decentralization as a strength. We've helped them prove it. To themselves, and to the rest of the world.

What's more, they're open now to associating with people acting in their name who may or may not have had any genuine connection to them prior to that action in their name. We've got a world full of diverse violent groups, now all jumping up and shouting "I'm Spartacus!" at the tops of their lungs. Anybody out there think this is somehow a good thing?

Because George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsefeld refused to finish the proper job, and instead took off on their fools' errand into Iraq, they've thrown away thousands of American kids' lives, to say nothing of the innumerable Iraqi citizens, many if not most of them killed while simply trying to go about their daily lives, killed by any and every side in the ensuing chaos.

We've managed as a nation to simultaneously spread danger - to ourselves and others - by not containing a prime source thereof, and to bog ourselves down in futile, destructive warfare elsewhere which we cannot possibly win by military means. And Fearless Leader and his minions seem to have the tinniest of ears when it comes to seeking out actual solutions to any of these problems, virtually guaranteeing that this tragedy will continue until the still far too distant days of January 2009, when they finally step off the stage.

Walt Kelly was right. You all know it.