So I took a break that went on longer than expected.

Am I back? I don't know though, politically, there's plenty to gripe about. On the positive side it looks like - finally - the other half of America is beginning to get an inkle of just how incompetent our current Administration has been and will be. Iraq is a shambles without much hope of getting better. Afghanistan is sinking quickly and bin Laden (remember him?) still runs loose. Castro is dying but that's due to old age, not to any action by Bush.

But what I originally planned to write about was the show "American Idol". I made the mistake of watching some of it this past week and have regretted the loss of time. What a piece of garbage! The good singers all sound the same with their cookie-cutter belting out of a musical phrase after musical phrase. There was no singing! It was all blast-and-warble. Or, to put it another way, Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond, Neil Young, and others who are not vocally perfect but are musically gifted wouldn't have made the cut to Hollywood.

Even more painful were the other shows. "Beauty and the Geek", "Armed and Famous"...what utter trash. And, no, I'm not going to pay for cable. That'll just get me 900 channels of more trash. Of course, I'll get movies, great movies, CLASSIC movies, like "Jackass 2" or other attitude-loaded crap.

No thanks.