When Sapphic Delight came out, I sent copies to a lot of places for review. A lot. One of them was to a person who published a Zine called The Easy Way. She didn't really get the concept of Whitee as you can read in her review. Over an e-mail conversation we had she said what a lot of people say after Whitee gets explained to them: "Oh. That's funny."

Anyway, she also is a part-time musician and is a full-time law school student. She's one of the "good guys". She'll be lawyering up for the oppressed and underprivilaged, she's a serious vegetarian (which I would be as well, except I'm too damn lazy and I don't know if I could go without a burger), likes long walks on the beach, rainy days and hot chocolate, hates traffic jams, rude people...ok, you get the picture. Anyway, she just told me that she was able to do a couple of demos...here's the page where you can check 'em out.

Tell her Whitee sentcha.

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I had a few minutes to kill and I was watching parts of a 60 Minutes re-run tonight. There was this story about this dude whose company has developed aircraft that can take "ordinary" people into space - bypassing NASA & the government. As I'm watching it I'm thinking in my usual, Commie, left-wing way, "See. This guy isn't looking for government handouts or tons of money. He's doing this stuff because he wants to progress humankind."

Uh, but then we see his backers...Paul Allen from Microsoft ($25 mil) and then that dummy from Virgin, Richard Branson ($125 mil). Well, I guess that's how capitalism is supposed to work. Let rich people stay rich so they'll invest then we little people benefit. Yeah, I guess. But the payoff for us po' foke is not going to be when I'm around. Rocket Man said that when his commerical space flights start, it'll cost $100K a ticket. To hell with a hot towel, I want a happy ending with that! He says that eventually the cost will come down...to what? Ten Grand? Let's take the family!

Yeah, it's a step on the way to becoming The Jetsons. But meanwhile we have a few billion people down here who could use drinkable water, some food and the end of AIDS. It's about priorities.

And I'm not about means to an end. Letting Microsoft and others get away with crap so they can invest in cool toys...no. If they're telling me if we let them have their monopolies, excessive tax breaks, etc and promise to make sure everyone has clean drinking water...OK, we'll talk.

F-ing spaceships.

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Live 8...hmmmmm...well....don't care. The issue of poverty...I do care. But concerts to bring awareness. Well, I don't know. I'm pretty cynical. I don't know how much it's going to change stuff. Maybe if it can influence people to be more aware, watch what they buy, boycott intellegently, stuff like that, it could have a small effect. I guess it's better than nothing. Though, none of the lineups made me want to watch/listen.

We (meaning people who give a shit) are never going to affect real change until we do it with our dollars...that's what makes the world go 'round. I would rather it was sex, but it's not...it's money. The thing is, the people who have money - and I don't mean millions - I mean the middle class people who shop at malls, Crap-Mart, Schwegmans, etc - they won't buy less of more expensive things that are made by non-sweatshop labor. We spend our money on stuff not on people...and funny thing is, we don't seem to be very happy.

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Man, I'm all over the place tonight, but my weekend's coming up so I won't be bloggin for a few days...gotta get it all in. If you look at my post from a couple of days ago (7/5/05) about Rochester's mayoral race, that'll give you some background.

So in the local corporate rag, there's an article about the race and how the issue of crime could be the most important issue. The Republican guy is a freakin loon. I used to think he's funny, but that guy is why they invented Prozac.

The rest of the idiots kept talking about punnishment. Cops, volunteer watch, etc. About catching criminal behavior - as if that was going to deter crime & violent behavior. No one...not even the noted local professor-expert talked about poverty. As long as you have serious poverty you will always have crime & violence. Period. There's really nothing to discuss. Create all the construction projects for political donors you want, keep bars open all night, buy 100 ferries, but you will never really reduce violent behavior as long as you have poverty and unequal condidtions focused among different races.

I'm done for now...have a happy, independent weekend (don't get me started on that, either)