brain and music

i have the oddest tendency for confusing elliott smith and billy bragg. they are nothing alike. but i listened to them both in same era. "baby britian" reminds me of austin, drinking shiner on my porch, mix tapes, and elliott smith and billy bragg.

What 6 years can do...

(Warning: not about the xBox.)

President Bush 2002: “The man and women of our Armed Forces have delivered a message now clear to every enemy of the United States: Even 7,000 miles away, across oceans and continents, on mountaintops and in caves -- you will not escape the justice of this nation.” (Applause.)

President Bush - 2007: “We must have the will to face difficult challenges and determined enemies -- and the wisdom to face them together.”

I admit that I did not watch the State of the Union this year. Perhaps it would have struck me differently if I had to watch it being said as opposed to reading it on my computer. Certainly there it was full of bad ideas (first on Bush’s list of ways to change our energy usage was “clean” coal, he suggested tax breaks for people to buy their own health insurance, as just a couple). But thinking back to the “axis of evil” speech of 2002 it seemed saner. I remember sitting on floor of the TOP in Philly after having listened in on the radio feeling like I had fallen into some kind of Orwellian world where the enemy is always Evil and we are always Good.

The enemy is still evil, I think, but perhaps we are rethinking what we mean by good.

What will be broken this time?

My Xbox has escaped Texas and is scheduled to arrive here on Wednesday. It is no less than given in my mind that it will arrive with some sort of critical flaw that will require me to send it back, but I don't yet know what form the flaw will take.