Recently, when Time magazine polled some people in the US about the most trusted man in news, Jon Stewart was actually ahead in the ratings. Now, I understand the guy’s a comic. But I gotta be honest, I think I’d vote for him as well.

Here’s a hilarious bunch of clips with Stewart at his glib, unabashed best ripping apart the GOP and MacCain and some other Repub cronies as they lie, double talk, and drool their way out of their own boiling pot of hypocrisy. This is a laugh a minute.

Unless you’re voting for MacCain. Then I guess it’s not so funny.

This isn't just Tina Turner at her best, this is a live performer at her best Period.

Turner is rock and roll personified. But she's also something more. There's a freshness, even at the age she is here, and a buoyancy about her. She's almost above the water when she sings. As if she's dancing on something. Her Topography (the patterns she makes on the ground) are light and seem to wander aimlessly. Yet she never looses her balance. It's about her moving on the earth for me.

Add to that her remarkable voice that's sort of a combination chain saw and deep soul and you have a legendary woman living in her element. This is a train coming at you full speed. There's really no sitting down to watch Turner. You have to get UP and EXPERIENCE her.

And look at her face. The song is bursting out her. Amazing stuff.

Over at Joe My God’s site there’s a small post with some thoughts on the debates. Here’s a few highlights:



-"Seems like Obama is trying to make himself up out of bits and pieces of other people. President Clinton's hand gesture, a phrase from one of Senator Clinton's speeches, an idea from this one, a thought from that one."

-"Obama - you are not Jack Kennedy.... or Bill Clinton.... and you will NEVER be in the same class as Hillary Clinton. So take your pointy finger and your long winded speeches and go running back to Hyde Park."

-"McCain/Palin '08!. Hillary 2012!"



I have to say, there are some points I actually agree with.

“Are you a drug addict?”

I shrugged.

“I dunno. I guess so. I’m not sure. What does that mean?” I asked snorting another line of this random guy’s polyester sleeve.

“Well….if you need this shit all the time and you can’t think of anything else, then you’re probably a drug addict.”

“Why are you trying to bust my high?” I asked incredulously.

After all, I was I Cabrini Green doing drugs. Speeches I could get from my mother. I was 24 years old and already hooked on cocaine, heroin and occasionally pot. But only occasionally because when I smoke it, I always assumed the police were at the back door. Even when there wasn’t a back door.

I did cocaine though the 80’s and almost into the 90’s until one night. I was alone in my two bedroom apartment, I had just recently barely survived a brutal attack from a knife wielding ex boyfriend, and I was inches away from getting evicted. And there I was, in the middle of my kitchen floor, with my black and white TV blaring next to the refrigerator and snorting my last line.

I had lost track of time.

I knew what month it was…well, I knew it was cold, but then, it’s always cold in Chicago, but I had no idea what day it was. I peeked outside to see if it was daylight or not, and all I could see was pitch black. I wasn’t sure whether or not I still had a job, and I knew I had a roommate, but I wasn’t quite sure who it was or how long I had been living with them.

I suddenly got up, with the TV blaring in the background, and decided to walk into the bathroom and throw up. I needed to do this every once in a while so I could make more room for more dope.

As I passed through my hallway, there was a large mirror hanging on an otherwise blank wall. I remember stopping, and then moving on because I assumed the picture staring back at me was one that I had bought at a store. I then remembered I hadn’t bought anything recently and that the thing looking back at me was my own reflection.

I walked back toward it.

I stared for what seemed like hours. Just gawking. Looking at myself. Touching my face to make sure what I was seeing wasn’t a horror movie.

There I was. My face haggard and drawn and a strange sort of yellow tinge to it. I touched my left eye and a small trickle of blood seeped out of the corner. Parts of my scalp were visible as there were chunks of my hair that had fallen out. My finger nails were brown and my lips were almost a snow white.

I looked as if someone had dragged me under a car and left me for dead.

I stood there for a while, and as I began to realize what I had truly done to myself, and how much I hated what was looking back at me, I was even more scared of what was underneath. I was terrified. Terrified of the truth and telling it, and most importantly, living it.

I ran into the bathroom, threw up, and immediately dialed 411 to get the number for the nearest treatment center.

I was in treatment for a couple of months, and then started going to meetings right after. I’ve been sober ever since. By the grace of God.

As I was getting ready for an audition not too long ago, I walked past my mirror that hangs in our bedroom. It’s not the same one, but as I stood there I remembered the feeling of panic and desperation and deep despair that followed me when something stared back at me. I was putting on some make up to try and cover up some pesky lines around my eyes that are starting to show and I realized that no matter what I looked like now, I can see much clearer. And what’s looking back at me makes sense to me. I get it.

A Transgender friend of mine said to me on the phone just yesterday:

“I don’t know why they call it a sex change. It’s not a sex change. That makes it sound like we had a choice. Can’t we call it a metamorphosis?”

I think that’s right. I’ve hated myself in many ways for many years when I was younger and I simply got tired of it. It takes so much more energy for me to hate something than to either love it, or at the very least, tolerate it.

I’ve grown up. I live in the truth of my life now, and although there are things about me I’d love to be different (I’d love to have Angelina Jolie’s waist….I’d love to have A waist), I’m not mortified by what stares back at me anymore. I can smile. I can move away from a mirror and although I obsess, I’m not angry, filled with rage, or trying to figure out how to get to the bathroom and hurl.

The person I’m looking at is finally the person I want to be.

Now…if I can just get some teeth I don’t have to take out when I eat corn on the cob, my life would be perfect.