the shuffle in my winamp brought this song (the jennings cover version) up earlier, perhaps appropriately as i was scouring cnn.com for election news.

i try not to post cheesy slideshow videos as a rule, but this just really struck me, just now.


i know electing one man as president isn't going to magically fix the mistakes we've made in the last 8 years (or hell, the last 200 years) as a country, but everything starts with small steps. it means a whole lot to me to think that we could be a bit closer to living in a country where the people who work in government are as decent as the nice lady at shopko who goes out of her way to be helpful or the great people i work and play with every day. i don't think that's too much to ask and yet, i've been profoundly ashamed of the majority of the people who represent the rest of us to the world at large since i was old enough to be at all informed, and i'm excited to think that maybe i could wake up tomorrow and see things starting to turn back to a point where i could someday hear that "proud to be an american" song that i sung off-key in second grade and actually believe it again.