Matt, my sympathies for you and your family.

And really - 2008 can back off. Really.

First Terence Blanchard

You mean Terence Howard, right?

Extreme puppy cuteness!

An excellent article on the future of the GOP: The Next RNC Chair: Captain Of The GOP Titanic?

Looks at how demographics are against them, how they've chased out all the moderate Republicans, etc.

...GOP aspirants face the possibility of a nightmare scenario: taking the helm of a party so weighed down by doctrinaire hard-liners and hectoring moralists that no one, especially an RNC chair, will be able to change course and avoid a tsunami of culturally disinhibited, secularizing 'creatives,' Hispanics, African Americans, and a young netroot-savvy demographic cohort larger than the Baby Boom.

...

The single largest block of Republican votes is made up of conservative white Christian evangelicals, who cast 4 out of every 10 ballots McCain received. These voters are overwhelmingly anti-abortion; they see homosexuality as a sin and as voluntary; many believe that women are subordinate and obliged to submit to the authority of men. These deeply held beliefs are increasingly out of tune with an electorate that has, in the main, come to terms with the sexual and women's rights revolution. Such trends are one of the reasons that the only age group McCain carried is people 65 and older - the voters who will die soonest.

The overall picture for Republicans at this point is bleak. Democratic consultant Bill Carrick catalogues the list of barriers: "Almost total lack of support from non-white voters, young voters are voting strongly Democratic and it may become a lifetime Democratic loyalty, the West is becoming more and more Democratic, the Democratic lock on the West Coast may be duplicated by a Democratic lock on the Atlantic Coast, in the post-Bush era Texas may become two-party competitive again, the once solidly Republican Mid-West is becoming a Democratic stronghold, Republicans are dramatically losing voters in the suburbs, and I could keep going on and on."

But the whole thing is good (for folks who are interested in such things).

{{Beverly}} {{{Matt}}}

Extreme puppy cuteness!

Ded!

Also, someone asked about the sound issue somewhere above -- the owners have said that they turn off the sound, sometimes. I would guess that sometimes they're home and talking to each other and not wanting that broadcast.

Beverly and Matt, I'm sorry for your losses.

secularizing 'creatives'

Is this what I am?

You mean Terence Howard, right?

Yes! Thanks. I had Blanchard on the mind because I'm in the middle of Inside Man and he does the music for it.

Yargh-- first off, if a woman does a Brazilian because she wants to, that's one thing and go you, but because a guy wants her to?

Hulk! Smash!

Second, I'm equal opportunity. Guys with no hair on the hoo ha just doesn't do it for me. I've wondered if it's the Cuban heritage-- they don't have to be bears, but I like me a man with some body hair.

Reminds me, too, of a series in the MTV Books, that I called "Judith Krantz for the teen set" where one of the lead males was propositioning a girl and told her he wouldn't go down on her unless she had a Brazilian or was at least very neatly trimmed and that he'd done the same. This was also the same character who was revenge fucking his step-mother and the author did not close the door on the scene.

Yet I had to tone down a love/sex scene in mine that wasn't anything close to that. I'm still convinced that because the author of the series was a guy (writing under a female pseudo) and I wasn't.

I knew who you meant, ita.

Matt, my sympathies to you and your family.