"guess my post got under your skin"

Awesome! Self congratulations are always in order for those who are extremely insecure. Pat yourself on the back, buddy. You've done a great job exposing everyone on this thread to the ugliest side of humanity. Really, you didn't get "under my skin at all." Your comments are pure comedy. I'd say it's "dark" comedy, but anything that isn't white probably offends you quite a bit. Anyway, keep up the good work. Self congratulate yourself often and don't forget to attack someone for something you do often. You need to work on the hypocrisy a little more if you're going to come across as a genuine Republican troll. 31 days! Get to work!!

The whole country has been dumbed down. There was a time when we valued education. Of course, we've always had a problem with "egg head" politicians -- most likely because we couldn't understand what they were saying. If something doesn't happen to raise the level of smarts in this country, we're going to be in serious trouble. It's not just losing a competitive edge in a world economy. It's being ripe for takeover by smooth-talking dictators. We allow wedge issues to dictate national policy, we want leaders we can drink a beer with, and we're slowly becoming a nation of idiots -- and poor ones at that! To quote Dennis Kucinich, "Wake Up, America!"

I hadn't watched/listened to the work linked in your post when I responded first. I have not heard John play that since I was a boy in Washington, DC, on one of those endless summer nights when he'd sit across the street with the other, older guys, playing poker and the guitar simultaneously. I was moved in a way words can't describe.

This was a truly great American, simultaneously one of the simplest and most complex people I have ever known and quite possibly the most intelligent. He didn't always live in his car either, but for most of his life he was just one step ahead of disaster. Yet this is the gift he left us.

Thanks again. For me, at least, this really does speak directly to the issue posed by the article. "Well said, sir", indeed.

The encroachment of this attitude of dumbing down has been occurring throughout our society for some time. As a public school music teacher, I was struck speechless by the attitudes of "peer" teachers who would insist that my expectations were "unrealistic, too difficult" for the children in our district. If you expect nothing, you get nothing. I expected a lot, taught them well, and got what I expected. Over the years, I have observed that this country, at best, gives nothing but lip service to setting realistic, yet challenging expectations, standards, and accountability. The dumbing down occurs at the youngest stages of development; and, at the apex, becomes most glaringly apparent when athletic departments of universities are of more importance financially than the functioning of the rest of the university.

The dumbing of this country begins in the home with parents who do not model reading, literacy and culture. It continues in the public school, beginning with underfunded or completely eliminated early-childhood intervention programs, with the ill-conceived No Child Left Behind (with no funding), with poorly funded public schools that cannot provide real teaching and learning because of no parental support and the unending, yearly barrage of state and federally mandated standardized assessments. By the time you get to secondary level, it's glaringly apparent that, in many areas of this country, the school athletic alumni association is more important than what's going on in the arts and sciences.

So, now as a product of our public school system and declining societal values and expectations, we have a Republican Vice-Presidential candidate who brags about being a lipstick wearing pit bull, hockey mom, "joe six pack", who cannot speak in coherent sentences and uses slang at an embarrassing rate while (attempting) to discuss the serious issues set before her. In the few instances when she CAN speak coherently, she lies and manipulates the facts. All the while, she is winking, tossing the head and jutting the jaw. She is all style (of some sort) and no substance. And, it is apparent that the dumbing down of this nation HAS certainly occurred, because a significant percentage of the electorate is falling for it. But, it really is of no surprise. A good percentage of this country fell for it before with the re-election of George W. Bush, the male version of Sarah Palin. We could actually look at this man who mangles the English language, who was mediocre in school and business, who is both a manipulator and corporately manipulated, who had and has no international credibility, and elect him as our president.

Sarah Palin is another George W. Bush. She is a product of a society and it's educational system that expects nothing. She is vacuous and entertaining. If the McCain/Palin ticket is elected, we got what we wanted and expected.

We've got "The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death" playing now. An amazing find...LondonLad, you done goood tonight/today.

Oh! I almost forgot: You totally have to throw in some more macho stuff too. Tell other people they are wimps, spineless, etc. Use the word "liberal" like an insult like you've seen on FOX. If all else fails, start using physical threats and LOTS OF CAPS AND EXCLAMATION POINTS!!

In making comparisons of all of the candidates in this campaign on "Leadership" and on "Experience", almost everyone quantifies that by positions held, length of time in those positions, position titles, etc.

Anyone can have the experience of leadership, even Hitler. It is the direction, the effectiveness, the motivation, and the success or failure of that leadership experience that needs to be evaluated.

Sometimes, a community organizer can display more leadership and gain more experience and accomplish more in 3 years than a mayor and a governor in 10 years.

I do not buy the factor of "leadership experience" in the case of Sarah Palin. She is obviously a persuasive personality, a crowd pleaser in an entertainment sort of way, and she certainly is motivated--not sure by what--but she cannot take that to the next step of effectiveness. Much has been written by Alaskans about her management style, her priorites on her agenda, and her results and it is not a successful record. She cannot solve the climate crisis if she does not know what caused it. And you cannot be effective in governing or in foreign relations using her management style in Alaska. You cannot "reform" anyone or anything when the politics of your own state are replete with cronyism, greed, and corruption and you are a part of it.

Her record of accomplishment in all of these areas in which she racks up "years of experience in leadership" is abysmal. She is a colorful candidate, good on stage in a character role, with a script, a mic, a camera, a captive audience wherein "somebody out there will like me", but she is a vacant, shallow, uninformed, unaccomplished, narrow minded, silly person when the need to interact with anyone who she feels "may not be liking her", such as in interviews with others than her conservative right wing press/"meedia".

She and McCain have dissed so many entities in their campaign, it is just another factor that indicates to me neither one can lead with any kind of experience. They each lack judgement, temperament, wisdom, and intellect to lead effectively.

One wonders why the conservative Republicans keep choosing these kinds of candidates, for sure. Sometimes I think they must do so purposefully; it seems, at times, to me, at least, that they must have an agenda intent on sabotaging this country and this democracy, as we know it. In truth, after these past 8 years, it seems that it is not the "liberal left wing" that could overboard and turn us into some socialist, banana republic, it is the conservative, right wing that has already done that, i.e., paved a road to this bridge to nowhere that the election of McCain/Palin represents.