Yes, Virginia,

There is a Santa Claus. The Hammer has been nailed and it's been a sweet ride. Tom DeLay, debunked, dethroned and defrocked House Majority Leader announced his resignation even though the whole mess is due to a bunch of Christian-hating, left-wing conspiring, freedom-bashing evil-doers. The man nailed closest to Jack Abramoff announced that not only would he not run but also resign by June in order to save the butt of the GOP for November. I'm hoping that more than just the butt will be lost of the Republican Party in the midterm elections. This is not even for the sake of the Democrats as, and those who know me can vouch, I am NOT one. This is for the mockingly self-righteous, indignantly feign frauds this so-called-party-of-Jesus-and-Mom it claims to be. Regardless of how spineless or myopic the Democratic Party and its vision is, most of my faith, my faith in the Religious Right and the faith of much of this democratic republic was lost during my adult years with the Republican Party in control of the culture wars and the dialogue of politics of the last ten years. Maybe, just maybe, I can rediscover the faith of a party and a leader who will guide this nation...c'mon, Paul, get real. This is politics, not Moses and the Israelites.
Anyway, lots of sex and politics in the news lately. High-ranking official in the Department of Homeland Security nailed for trying to nail a fourteen year old girl. I'll leave the comments regarding Homeland Security and irony alone and let Leftybrown have them...The West Wing had more sex last Sunday than its entire six-year run leading up to the latest episode. I guess all of those election-running people just go at like rabbits and do it two or three times though running oneself ragged and getting four hours of sleep for six months straight has had the opposite effect on my lovelife...Though, for the sake of sounding like a sexist pig, Donna was looking especially hot on Sunday night. C'mon, Steve and Chris, I know you agree with me...American Idol was supposed to have Bruce on it this week, at least according to the April Fool's joke pulled on Saturday. Unfortunately the biggest joke was pulled tonight with the booting of Mandisa, the one woman who had the greatest set of pipes that show's produced in its five year existence. She could sing anything and was wonderful and yet she's gone, she's go-one, nothin's gonna bring her back. We'll see...Twenty days till the release of The Seeger Sessions and yet the fights are breaking out on the Bruceboards about what a piece of crap the latest albumn's going to be. A bunch of people hooked up to the World Wide Web complaining and doing so virulently about a man's decision to make an acoustic album of cover songs while people are starving in East Africa, the Middle East is continuing to melt down and 20% of people in this country go to bed hungry. The only other group of navel-gazing self-centered egotists are those with their own blogs griping about others' lives instead of living their own. :) I'm still looking forward to the album and upcoming tour where hopefully I can score tickets a little easier and less stressfully than the last time last April. Man, I wouldn't wan to go through that one again; possibly missing Bruce acoustic, a new album and new re-workings of classic stuff. Thank goodness I made it, though all apologies to my Fresno friend who probably still has a little twinge of anger over that one.
I'm about seventy pages into The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman and I thought I ought to give it a shot considering the press its getting and by the number of copies at the closest Costco. Written by a NY Times editorial writer, this is the longest I-think paper since the last Woodward book I finished. First-person-because-I'm-seeing-it-it-must-be-how-things-really-are-this-can't-be-considered-scholarly-because-there-aren't-even-footnotes-in-a-five hundred-page-book blah. I'm interested in the man's experiences and what he sees in the changes in twenty-first century business and globalization though the last time I checked, of every business Friedman talks about in helping "flatten" the globe and make Earth an even playing field, a democratic market of ideas and businesses, EACH happens to be American. The world isn't becoming flatter; American businesses are figuring out how to flatten costs and expenses world-wide right now. Maybe in a century or two there will be economic shifts in global trade and commerce but I don't see the Indian or Chinese version of Chevron or Enron rising to screw its employees and natives where factories are located in order to drive up corporate benefit packages. Have you seen an Indian company "outsource" anything to an even poorer nation with a booming education and technological information center? Please educate and correct my world view but HP moving to Bangalore in order to increase its profit margin and further dominate the computer market ain't what Adam Smith described as the ideal free marketplace of ideas. I'm not being snooty nor negative, but until non-Western businesses replace the United States as the global hyperpower, the status quo remains. Maybe call center employees in Bangalore can take my order at Starbucks in order to speed up the rate I acquire type-2 diabetes. Why not, stuff like this is happening for Mickey D's. Check out chapter 2!!! Also,read the epilogue and you'll find Friedman slamming the president's legacy worse than The Nation, Mother Jones, anyone in the New Yorker or even the Democratic Party. Friedman's never been a partisan player but never has he hit the president so hard like he does on page 452. Ouch.
Since I'm the only one who's read this far down, I'll go on record and say that Ricky Lee Jones's first album is absolutely amazing. I cursed my friend Chris for not turning me onto this album from the beginning but it's great. Fantastic. Mood-setting and beautiful. Picked up the Matt Costa advertised in Target and the SF Chron and the jury's still out on that one...The Best of Ladysmith Black Mumbaza is just an absolute gem and a spiritually uplifting album. I haven't a single idea what Joe Shabalala and the group is singing about but it's holy, pure and magical. I'm the idiot who never figured out this was the group singing on Graceland.