contract extension

"Reports of this blog's demise have been greatly exaggerated". For the literary puritans out there, kindly forgive the bastardization of Mark Twain's words..

A couple of weeks ago this blog's domain address came up for renewal again. With that came a lot of brow beating and gnashing of teeth.. to renew or not.. to continue or not. Funnily enough, i've always been a man of principle - but wait, i define principle differently. To me, a man of principle is one who does what he decides is best for him, at the time and place he is in, a soldier of fortune if you will. I have never tried to live by some sort of moral code or whatever - circumstances change everything, as do people's goals and ambitions, all i try to do is get around achieving my own without hurting anyone else's around me.

Anyways, since this piece is not about discussing my mental make-up.. we'll go back to the life of this blog. I don't write here regularly any more. It's not all because i've been too busy. A combination of doing too much else and a general lack of inertia have contributed. I still have a lot to say, just am not sure how to put some of my points across. Unfortunately Blogger does not support audio blogging like it once did, i've always found it easier to explain myself vocally.

Having made the commitment though to keep the domain registered, it it upon me now to live up to my word and keep the pages populated..

First Amendment

Rage Against The Machine have always been a band with very strong political views - they have been fiercely critical of the Republicans' policies, and have actively campaigned against them. In fact, they have always demonstrated publicly at Republican conventions.

This year's Republican convention was held in Minneapolis, and as always, RATM showed up. Of course, they protest equally vocally against both political parties, it's just the Reps who bear the brunt of RATM's anger-laden music.. what was different at Minneapolis however was that the local authorities crashed an open peace rally-concert in the park and actually cordoned off the stage to prevent RATM from playing! What was the last time that The Man so scared of a person/group getting his message out to the masses that this was done?!

Throwing out a bunch of flimsy excuses, the local cops actually prevented RATM from playing their set - so being the mavericks they are, they huddled up with a megaphone and performed a-capella versions of their rallying cries "Bulls On Parade" & "Killing In The Name Of"..

Video from the park can be seen here. The NYT & StarTribune carried articles too.

What bothers me most here is the blatant disregard for the First Amendment -

Freedom of expression consists of the rights to freedom of speech, press, assembly and to petition the government for a redress of grievances, and the implied rights of association and belief.

What happened to that? Of course, you heard none of it because the massive cover-up job done here, involving the press as well. The friggin' country was either too enamored by the charming and feisty speech of Sarah Palin, or else was gawking at the circus sideshow performance this whole Sarah Palin nomination affair has become - all depends on which way you look at it.

Anyways, RATM lives on.. still spreading their message of freedom - as someone recently put it:
"The only difference between the two parties is marketing.. electing Democrats to end the war is like drinking light beer to lose weight.”