The Line

My stay in and around New York comes to an end today. Not I have that far to travel but it marks my return to that slightly less crowded city that I also love, Boston.

The country, as a whole, seems to have mixed feelings about Boston, Mass. On the one hand, everyone who passed Fourth grade knows that Boston was the heart of the Revolution and played a key role in defining America as the country we all know and love today. But then you have the rivalries. There are the sports teams that you either love or hate; the drivers who either confound you or provide, in your eyes, a "challenge"; and there are the political entities who either disturb you to your core or represent to you the new wave of American culture.

Not my best segue, but it'll have to do.

The huffington post reported recently that bipartisanship is reappearing on Capitol Hill. Republicans are starting to vote for Democratically sponsored bills. That was their definition of bipartisanship. Don't get me wrong, I think that's fantastic and nothing short of a wonderful start, but there needs to be more than that. Recently the Democratic leadership in the house said that they were going to table some of the Republican bills in the first 100 hours of this new House. That isn't bipartisanship. I do understand that the Dems were being treated the same way in many cases over the last 12 years and I do also realize that it streamlined the agenda by simply removing bills that would have taken time to only be voted down by the majority anyway, but limiting discussion of ideas is not bipartisanship.

I see bipartisanship as two ideologies working together to develop something wholly new and unique. Imagine the GOP and Dems working together and creating a comprehensive healthcare plan that not only satisfied the some of the socialist leanings of the most left-wing Democrats but also managed to satisfy some of the fundamentalist Christian members of the Republican Party. It would be historic, no doubt about it.

I left my cellphone charger in New York. I've gone for extended periods without a cellphone before, it's just annoying more than anything. It always strikes me as alien, not being able to be reached at any time. Sometimes, it's kinda nice.

Any of you who read this and know me, if you want to leave some suggestions on new songs to learn for solo acoustic guitar (I'm already set on learning the rendition of "My Overkill" that was on Scrubs) drop a comment. Actually... drop a comment if you like what you read or any thought strikes your mind. It's nice to know that somebody else is out there.