Wednesday, July 1, 2009

South Carolina's "governor" / How I love Eva Cassidy

Two completely unrelated topics, just what I was thinking about earlier, during my lunch break.

First, Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina hasn't resigned yet. I just read a story on The Washington Post's website that quotes Sanford as saying he intends to remain governor until the end of his term - another 18 months.

When this story first broke about the governor "missing," before his infidelity was confirmed, Jeff and I both had the same thought: this guy is supposed to be RUNNING THE STATE, and no one knows where he is, and then we find out that he wasn't just out of state, HE WASN'T EVEN IN THIS COUNTRY!!! It almost doesn't matter WHAT he was doing in Argentina, or anywhere else he might have been. HIS JOB is to be in charge of things in South Carolina. Imagine a plane crash, or a damaging storm - serious things happen all the time, and it's the governor who declares a state of emergency. You can't be a governor and just go wherever you want and do whatever you want; people need to know where you are and how to get in touch with you.

But NOW he says he wants to keep on working for the people of his state. Doesn't he realize he STOPPED working for them when he went AWOL??? I mean, DUH!!!



OK, enough about that man and his absence of common sense. I was looking for new music some weeks ago -- not "new" music, just new to me -- and thought I'd try a CD by Eva Cassidy. I had heard a couple of her songs on Pandora, and liked her voice. When I found a couple of her albums at the library, I checked one out. I've since checked out three others, and bought Songbird. I can't say how much I love this woman's voice, it's fantastic and amazing.

If you've heard of Eva Cassidy before reading this, you probably know already that she died some time ago -- actually, over twelve years ago, in late 1996. She was only, I think, 33 years old. She had been treated for skin cancer a couple years before that, but ultimately the cancer returned and spread. I've been more forceful with my boys about them wearing sunscreen since I learned these details about Eva. The sun is wonderful, but also dangerous.

There are very few videos available of Eva performing. A lot of the YouTube videos only contain photos of her. But there are a handful of them on there, and most of them are beautiful. This is Eva performing "Over the Rainbow," and I believe it's the same version that's on Songbird. Forget your stresses, and listen to this.

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