Jazz Flute

Hot Buttered Rum was really good last night. So was the Big Damn Band (which consisted of three people). Great banjo reels, some rockin' slide guitar, impressive mandolin playing, a quirky fiddler, and some really nice harmonies.

One gripe, though. I don't go to blues/bluegrass shows to see ten minute long jazz flute odysseys. He was a good flute player, but I really don't care. Leave it out of the string band.

I've got a sinking suspicion that this is going to be a disappointing election year. Either the Democrats will mess it all up and lose, leaving the Republicans in the executive office, or the Democrats will barely hold on, win by 2 or 3 percent, and do nothing.

Sure, they'll make noises about getting our troops out of harm's way, cite a re-dedication to catching ol' Osama, maybe they'll make some modest improvements to health care, maybe they'll reduce the national debt a touch, maybe they'll boot a handful of shady lobbyists out of Washington, shoot, maybe they'll even flood a little money into R&D for alternative fuels and bail American car manufacturers out for the time being.

Whether the Democrats or the Republicans win, I think we're stuck with the same waterlogged economy and imperialistic mindset we're looking at right now. These issues have been a long time in the making, and more corn gasoline and less troops in the Middle East won't fix them. Neither party will address the horribly discursive and broken NAFTA agreement, neither of them will shut down the School of the Americas, neither of them will restructure the IMF and the World Bank such that they start helping developing nations rather than planting Western corporations at the top of their economic pyramids, and neither of them will do things that actually eliminate or even significantly reduce our culture's reliance on oil.

Don't get me wrong. I'll still vote and all, and I'm really rooting for Obama. I'm just not getting my hopes up.