"I never understand what sends [blogger Andrew Sullivan] on these tears," the estimable Instapundit tells us.

It's a question that the conservative side of the blogosphere has been pondering for years now.  If I may be so bold, I'll join in! 

In the days and weeks after 9/11, I thought that Andrew Sullivan was one of the great voices out there.  I read his blog daily, and was thrilled not only by his brilliant writing, but also by the promise he held... wow, a gay conservative! 

Oh, sure, there were plenty of gay conservatives out there before Sullivan, but the power of his writing stood out to me.  A compelling new future was out there.  He signaled to me that the flames of 9/11 really would alloy the disparate voices in our great country into something greater and stronger.  If a gay man could so powerfully put voice to conservative thought, nothing short of a sea-change could result!

Then came the gay marriage debate.

Ya know, I thought that Sullivan would continue to be the voice of reason, even in that debate which obviously hit so close to home for him, but the opposite happened.  Sullivan went crazy... he became a mean-spirited, name-calling ninny.

And the wierdest part of all is that he returned over and over to a favorite new target:  Glenn Reynolds.  I mean, of all people!!  Over in the Nutroots, the Instapundit is reviled, but they are a group of hysterical numbskulls.  Sullivan is an evidently brilliant guy.  Why does he continually attack Reynolds?  Instapundit has been my favorite jumping-off point in the internet since long before 9/11.  The man links to interesting topics, places on the internet that I might not have otherwise found...  but he so rarely injects his own commentary that casual surfers wouldn't really get a good feel for his views. 

I always thought Instapundit was a conservative on fiscal issues, military and foreign affairs, but probably liberal to libertarian on social issues (including gay rights).  And I just KNEW that he was on my side in the gun-rights debate.  But I always had a sneaking suspicion that I was projecting my own viewpoint on to whatever I could glean from Glen.

So, now Reynolds is a bloody-minded torture enthusiast?  C'mon, Andrew!!  You need to actually READ Instapundit.  You know he doesn't advocate torture.  Hell, I'll admit right here and now that I'd be less restrained on using "aggressive interrogation" than Reynolds would be.  Sullivan's rants are silly on their face, the absolute worst kind of strawman debate.

Well, if it was the gay marriage debate that sent Sullivan off the deep end, it is regrettable.  One of the great writers of the blogosphere became insufferable and unreadable.  As they say, more's the pity.

 Anything Jimmy Carter rants about should always be files under, "He's the One to Talk!"

Perhaps there's not much left to say about his latest dustup, but my fellow Coloradan at Protein Wisdom, has a fantastic commentary which merely uses Carter as a launching point.  I wish I could write so clearly and directly as Goldstein.

Carter continues to run his mouth, without think of the very real consequences of his words.  Those words can and will be used by the enemies of our country.  Yes, I realize that Mr. Carter doesn't think we have real enemies, but he, of all people, should.  The early seeds of our current conflict started to sprout under his watch... and it was his mishandling of the whole Iran Hostage situation which has led to so much pain.

Well, at least Mr. Carter seemed to show some semblance of reason when he contritely backed away from his comments... a little.

Funny story:  I was driving my kids to school, and as we passed a road construction site, my son, a first grader, asked what those men were doing.

"They're fixing the road because of all the damage our snowy winter caused," I told him.

"Cool.  Is it expensive?" he asked.  He asks this question a lot, lately, probably because his mom and dad always tell him that the coveted new toy he wants is too expensive. It's a pat answer, and we're going to have to come up with a better one as he gets older!

"It is expensive, but there are a lot of people who pay for it," I replied.  "Your mom and dad, and all the other moms and dads pay taxes, which help to pay to fix the road."

"Really?" he said, "I never saw you and mom pay taxes!"

"Yeah," I muttered under my breath, "neither did I."

I kinda lost enthusiasm for this blogging thing for a while... fine, I suppose, since I suspect not many folks read this drivel, but what the heck.  I'll dive back in, for the carthartic effect if for no other reason.

So, my favorite band, Rush, has a new album out!  It's called "Snakes & Arrows," and it is fantastic!

For those not familiar, Rush is a progressive hard rock band from Canada.  Their debut album came out in the late '70s, so no, they were not named after our favorite radio commentator.  Their lyrical themes can be complex, and they seem to lean libertarian.  Ayn Rand famously influenced some of the early songs.

If you go to iTunes, and read the user reviews, one thing that will pop out at you is all the talk about the production.  Rush is a big-time band now, with 50-something bandmembers who've done this whole rock-n-roll record thing a time or two.  Yet, the last couple of CD's have come out, and just not sounded very professional.  The last one, "Vapor Trails" from 2002, was bad enough that I thought something was wrong with my speakers when I first played it.

The band hired a new producer for this record.  Nick Raskulinecz (who previously produced the Foo Fighters, among others) came in and did a bang up job. The sound is loud and aggressive, without being overly noisy and grating as "Vapor Trails" was in spots.  In my iTunes playlist "Test for Echo" (1996) plays immediately after the last tune on Snakes & Arrows, "We Hold On."  Wow... TFE sounds like it's down in the mud by comparison.  Yeah, maybe you can chalk it up to 10 years of technical innovation in sound recording, but the effect is really dramatic.  And welcome!

For all the technical prowess of this new disc, though, and the prowess we've come to expect from these veteran players, this album was artistically about as good as it gets.  There are so many pleasant surprises here.  Listen to "The Way the Wind Blows."  Who else would move from the martial parade-ground drums to the classic blues riff to the power trio crunch to the anthemic chorus?  Who else would even try?  The three instrumentals on this record are a treat for long-time fans of the band, who shine most when they're just playing.  They've been nominated for only a small handful of Grammies in their 33 years in the biz, all for instrumentals (most recently, for the concert drum solo, "O Baterista"). 

These newest instrumentals are spectacular, and never suffer from repeated listenings.  You hear a different bit each time through.  "The Main Monkey Business" is a well-crafted rocker, while "Hope" allows guitarist Alex Lifeson to step out by himself on a 12-string acoustic solo.  The last instrumental is called "Malignant Narcissism," and pulls its title from a line in the movie "Team America: World Police."  According to the band, this was a last minute adder to the disc, and well worth it!  It rocks, but at a bit over 2 minutes, is way to short... always leave 'em wanting more, I suppose.

But this is a political blog, and this is Rush, so we need to address the lyrical themes.  As much as I'm coming to love this disc, allow me an admission... a confession, if you will.

I'm a Catholic.

And a conservative, of course.  A war-mongering, global-warming-denier type that you read about in all the papers (although I'm not particularly devout, and I lean toward the libertarian end of the spectrum).  I had read all the pre-release publicity, and devoured Peart's essays (here in PDF, here and here) about the album's inspirations.  I knew I was going to have issues with the themes that wind their way through the record, themes about the intersection of war and faith.  Given today's political environment, you could sense what was coming.

The record's 9th track is called "Faithless."  And the writings of Richard Dawkins are mentioned as an influence.

Oh, boy.  Faithless??

A lyric like "We're back in the Dark Ages/From the Middle East to the Middle West/It's a world of superstition" (from the aforementioned "The Way the Wind Blows") smacks of moral equivalency and that certain coastal arrogance leveled at those of us in Flyover Country.  Then there's the oblique, gratuitous swipe at the President in the same song: "It seems to leave them partly blind/And they leave no child behind/While evil spirits haunt their sleep."  Neil Peart, the drummer and lyricist, has taken to cruising the heartland atop his BMW motorcycle, and chronicling his travels.  He's observed the fundamentalists along his path; in parts of our great land it is impossible to miss their influence.  Billboards all over act as a call to repent and join the faithful. 

But, in the course of things, he seemed to make little effort to UNDERSTAND them.  It seems a common affliction among big-time entertainers that America's heartland is an alien land, with people as strange and inexplicable as cannibalistic tribesmen on Papua/New Guinea.  We sadly live in a world where bumperstickers and billboards are taken to have deep meaning.

Still, Peart's lyrics have been an inspiration to me for more than 25 years.  A man who includes Ayn Rand in his influences can't be all bad.  He's hardly that brand of Hollywood liberal ignoramus, like say, a Natalie Maines.  The lyrics are challenging, the music is challenging, and some of these songs are downright hooky! 

Honestly, even given the political baggage, I do love the album.  Hey, entertainment is entertainment.  Singers and songwriters tend to lean left... it is what it is.  We can sit back and separate ourselves from the politics once and again, and just enjoy the music.

I absolutely cannot wait to hear that soaring chorus from "The Way the Wind Blows" at Red Rocks near Denver this summer.  It gives chills just thinking about it!