Although I don't share your wrongheaded notions about some things (i.e., jazz, gay people, etc.) all is forgiven because of the sheer ecstatic poetry and spiritual flight of "Desert Solitaire." Here is a man who knew in every fiber of his being that he was created, held up, broke apart and delivered into salvation by the uncompromising, uncaring, healing, stupefying beauty and terror of the natural world. What a gorgeous song he left us! If I were allowed to amend The Bible, "Desert Solitaire" would be what follows Revelations.

I live in Nashville. Several weeks ago someone gave me a Harold Ford, Jr. bumper sticker. Eventually I put it on my car and then I started paying attention to what Ford was saying and doing research into his stands. What I have learned has made me dread having to scrap his bumper sticker off my car on the one hand, and on the other to remember not to let the Perfect become the enemy of the Good. I'm entertaining the idea of not voting for Senator, just leave it blank, none of the above.

I wrote Mr. Ford an email asking some background on his thinking about the following:

The Perfect: Why he supported the Military Commissions Act. I asked him why was it that he was not able to explain to the citizens of TN why this outrageous Act is a terrible law for themselves and their country.

The Perfect: He has said that he supports civil rights for gays so I asked him how he was going to ensure that law-abiding, tax-paying, productive gays and lesbians achieve the full blessings of the law while actively working to ensure they will not be allowed to marry to the point of enshrining bigotry and prejudice into the state Constitution. His classic Democratic Party waffling has me wondering what his definition of "civil rights" is.

The Perfect: Finally on an issue that is relevant to TN, a state that relies on a hugely regressive sales tax, rather than a progressive income tax, I asked him if it was beyond him to explain to the voters how and why the sales tax penalizes poor and working class people while it lets the rich off the hook.

The Good: His other stands on the issues, energy policy, minimum wage, environment, global warming, healtcare, education, the Iraq War all seem aligned with standard Democratic Party positions. I praised him for these stands.

I've not heard from him or his campaign people.

I'm so sick of Jesus politics in this country that I daily entertain the notion of leaving it. Still, I keep coming back to the Perfect being the enemy of the Good.

This period will be written about by historians as some of the darkest times ever in the history of the country.

And brace yourself: a lot of people have begun to use "LGBTI" (the I being for Intersex). Oh, no! A whole new letter to learn!

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Ugh! Yuk! Ahyyaya! Puhlease! Sheesh! God Almighty deliver us from these god awful balkanized acronyms. Always thought these labels utterly useless and totally misleading at describing anything except the reductionist American mania for pigeonholeing and labeling everybody and everything coupled with a neurotic over-sensitivity to everyone's "lifestyle." Put them together and you get silliness. Why do bisexuals (aren't we all, insrinsically) need liberating or protection? From what? It seems logical that their proclivities would be addressed depending on which pack they run with at the moment. If gay men and lesbians ever obtain their full civil rights in this god forsaken country, wouldn't bisexuals lay claim to the same privileges BY DEFAULT. The other half of their make-up is already pretty well covered. I would even be in favor of having us focus our attentions on getting bisexual rights and dropping the gay and lesbian thing, just to simplify things. It all seems so needlessly redundant. And what about straight rights? When will that be added?

Community? I cringe at the modern abuse of that word.

Hooray for the NJ Supreme Court!

I read "Sexual Personae" in a trance. The first 10 chapters are some of the finest synthesis of and insights into western art, culture and history that have ever been published. She casts quite a spell. Then over the years I've listened to her interviews and read a couple of her other books and with each encounter I've become less enchanted to the point where I think some of her opinions and ideas are simply dingy. She starts out with a sound footing, building a strong case that you expect her to drive home with some brilliant piece of synthesized artifact that fits perfectly but that you would never have imagined belonged in the same domain: the way she did in Sexual Personae. But invairably she slips on the peel of her own intellectual vanity and her shrill judgemental self-importance and the whole thing comes crashing down with a big resounding clank...and you start to think..."Miss Thang you've gone off the reservation again!"

The reason the Brits conquered the world? They were looking for a good place to eat.

Love his sexy voice and he's hot with his bald headed self..but the song? I don't know...uhh, ick, blaak, pee-u. The whole thing is weird, phony, just like every other time the corporate world tries to be "hip."

I just left the South for DC. - raj

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You're still in the South.