Republican talk show hosts have been supporting the notion that in states where it’s allowed, Republicans should switch parties to vote in the Democratic primaries in support of Hillary Clinton. Why would a hardline blow hard like Rush Limbaugh endorse such a move? He’d tell you that it’s because he’s enjoying watching the battle for dominance between Clinton and Obama, but even more telling, he also says “it will sustain this soap opera, and it’s something I think we need.” This quote gets a lot closer to what I’d like to talk about today. Radio and print coverage alike for this disturbing practice have both focused on the fact that, well, technically it’s not ILLEGAL in many states and Democrats have employed similar tactics in the past. What I find interesting here especially is what is really being said here. For one, Republican party pundits who are encouraging this are signaling that they have serious doubts as to whether McCain can win in a fair fight. By fair fight I mean, each party chooses the candidate they believe is best equipped to lead the country. Additionally, and even more disappointingly (but perhaps not unexpected?), the message is that these people do not have faith in true democracy. Nobody is interested in what the MAJORITY OF VOTERS might actually want. These people are interested in what THEY want. The temptation toward partisan political rhetoric can be fierce. People tend to join a political party and from then on identify themselves based on the PARTY stance. This is why you often hear people say things like, “I’m a Republican,” or “I’m a Libertarian” when you ask them how they feel about politics. It becomes almost a robotic response because certain assumptions are being adhered to here. The primary assumption is that politicians working within the chosen political party will adhere to what are seen as the basic principles of that party’s philosophy, but ask most of these people what the party really stands for and you’ll get vague, high level answers like, “Republicans want smaller government,” or “Libertarians believe in greater personal freedoms.” What do these things really mean? Nothing in the long run.

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As we continue to struggle with issues of climate change and assessing humanity’s influence on the planet, much attention is paid to pollution in terms of so-called “greenhouse gasses” that some scientists claim are slowly cooking the planet by trapping in harmful rays of the sun. While scientists and politicians continue to grapple with the issue like in this article in the Washington Times, I am concerned that other related issues get swept by the wayside. We have become so focused on this debate over whether carbon emissions are actually responsible for global climate change that we are missing the big picture. That is, we need clean fresh air to breath and live healthy lives. We need pure water to drink and rich soil to grow our crops in. Does it really matter whether global temperatures are rising because of the toxins we pump into our environment in the long run if the planet becomes toxic to us? This is the big picture to me.

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Well, with a little shoe-horning and about 45 mins of downtime, we are back up and kicking with a brand spankin new back-end. There won’t be much change to the front of the site just yet, but that is coming too. Stay tuned…

The site may show some downtime today 11-Mar-2008 because I will be updating the software that runs it. The current software version is beta and although I haven’t noticed much in the way of bugs or limitations, the new release version is a bit nicer, with some handy advanced features that will allow me to provide you with better content, including a music blog that matches my vision better. All that said, downtime SHOULD be minimal if all goes well and in theory, the overall look and feel will not be changing for now. If there are complications (which tends to happen at times) then I will work diligently to get the site back up ASAP.

I was in a nightclub the night before last and I leaned over to some friends and said, “hey, we’re going to see @#$@#% of the Dead tomorrow. Wanna come?” One of them looked at me and said, “Diarrhea of the Dead???” “No no, DIARY of the Dead” I explained. I bring this up because, if you are a George Romero fan, and by Romero fan I mean, you really appreciate his early works, most specifically Night of the Living Dead, and you went to see the pitiful sequel entitled Land of the Dead, then you probably know what I mean. It was terrible… Awful. It lacked any true spirit or creativity and just spewed out the same crap we get from most Hollywood movies… Big name stars, poorly developed plot, lots of special effects, and a couple of catchy one liners. Diary of the Dead has a couple of catchy one liners, but they seem inserted almost just to be cheeky.

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