my take on the GOP retreat

1. it's really nice to see that people in government can actually treat each other civilly like human beings and discuss things in a polite manner...there was no yelling or screaming or "talking points" or "you lie!" it started to revive (just a little, I promise) my faith in government...which leads me to

2. Again and again, it seemed like the President actually did want to talk to people, to discuss things, and went on with well-thought-out eloquent answers that could never (and this is a sad state of our society that this is the case) be minimized into concise, 7 second sound bites. Without demeaning anyone the President explained the reasons he has done some things, express how he would like things to be done in the future and "corrected" those in accuracies brought up. He even got some applause from the GOP members there. And, he seemed annoyed with the way that politics works. He said "but that's the way our politics work now" more than a few times and mentioned that it was merely rhetoric but we have to bridge the gap between rhetoric and reality and "we've got to be careful what we say about each other sometimes...a tone of civility instead of slash and burn would be helpful. The problem we have is a media that only responds to slash and burn" - there were very few 7-second sound bites and even fewer really polarizing statements where someone can turn it into "he hates America." There was thought and eloquence very rarely seen on TV nowadays. THIS is the person I voted for, who wants to have honest discussion to fix things, not just yell until someone else fixes it or people just give up on some very worthy causes.

peace,
Dann

it's not a Total Tragedy at all

So, King Henry the 8th wrote Greensleeves for one of his many wives - you may know the melody as "What Child is This." This is a slightly different take on the song, released in honor of Erin Dionne's book release party for her new book "The TOTAL Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet" which you can purchase here: www.thebookrack.com/store or any bookstore near you.

And don't forget you can now request a 15th century rock song at shows! :-P

peace, Dann

http://www.dannrusso.com/free_download_of_the_month.html