Author: Michael A. Ventrella

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The Ten Best Prince Songs You Might Not Know

Damn, Prince was only a month older than I am and could afford the best doctors. Appreciate life every minute folks, because you could leave any minute.

I have most of Prince’s albums, ignoring some of the more obscure weird ones, like the all-instrumental jazz one. And there are lots of great songs there that many people just don’t know.prince2

Here’s a list of my favorites that weren’t singles or big hits. Normally, I’d post YouTube links, but Prince guarded his songs very carefully. I urge you to check these out, though. Look them up on iTunes or Amazon and see for yourself.

In alphabetical order:

Chaos and Disorder: Prince knew how to rock when he wanted to, and this one never gets boring. From the disappointing Chaos and Disorder album — but the opening is great.

Dolphin: This should have been a hit single. It’s from the excellent Gold Experience album, which is probably my favorite Prince album — not a bad song in the bunch. This one is tremendously catchy with wonderful pop hooks.

Guitar: Prince shows his guitar skills in a great little song. “I love you baby / But not like I love my guitar!” he sings and you know he means it. From the Planet Earth album. At the end he’s singing “I love you baby / Ah, you know the rest.”

Joint 2 Joint: From Emancipation, this song runs about 8 minutes long but isn’t a jam — it starts off kind of mellow, then builds and switches, and has various parts such that by the time you get to the end, you’ve forgotten that this started off so simple.

La la la He he he: This is an obscure B side from the Lovesexy sessions. Very Funkadelic influenced. Be sure to get the long ten-minute version which never gets boring. Listen for Prince’s bass solo, overdubbed at double speed.

Rock and Roll is Alive (And it Lives in Minneapolis): Another obscure B-side which rocks away and then halfway through splits off and does some Frank Zappa-like musical twists and turns, always surprising.

Slow Love: A track from Sign O’The Times, this is a perfect make-out song. I never get tired of hearing this one.

So Far, So Pleased: A duet sung with Gwen Stefani, this pop bit flows along wonderfully and should have been a hit. It’s on the Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic album.

Three Chains of Gold: This is from the symbol album (you know, the one where he named himself after that weird symbol). This could have been a Queen song. It has a few different parts that blend together and then in the end combine to build to a great climax.

We Can Funk: Prince wrote this with George Clinton and it shows. It’s exactly what you’d think a Prince/Funkadelic mix would sound like. It’s from the Graffiti Bridge album.

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Editorial cartoon: Cruz in for a Bruisin’

Jen Sornesen

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We need money to fight money

Some Bernie supporters are posting memes about how terrible that awful liberal George Clooney is. Did you hear? He hosted a fundraiser for Democrats where rich people paid a lot of money to eat with celebrities. And then that money went to Democratic candidates across the nation (including Hillary — apparently that was the part they disliked the most).politifact-photos-ClooneyNBCscreenshot

Now, I understand the complaint that we need campaign finance reform and that the system is bad because so much money is needed to campaign. In fact, George Clooney agrees. “I think it’s an obscene amount of money,” he said.

But the fact is that in order to change the system — to get rid of Citizens United and to enact campaign finance reform — we need to win. And how do you win? With money. It’s a vicious circle.

Come on, you know the Republicans are doing this, too. If we didn’t raise as much as we could, too, we’re giving up before we even start. And it doesn’t help us at all if we’re protesting ourselves. We can’t laugh at how stupid the Republican candidates are being for attacking each other constantly while we’re doing the same thing.

Money in and of itself isn’t evil. And there’s nothing wrong with being rich. The problem is in how you get the money and what you use it for.

I support Bernie, really I do, but some of his supporters are making it difficult. They complain about party rules that have been in place for over 40 years while they’ve done nothing to change them, and they often don’t understand how it all works — they confuse the rules for the primary elections with rules for the general election and just kind of look naive.

In many ways I am an idealist as well but I think it’s important to be an informed idealist.

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Editorial cartoon: Feeling the Bern

David Horsey

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Let People Pee in Peace

Jesus, let people pee in peace.

Prohibiting trans people from using the bathroom they are more comfortable in is the latest right-wing non-issue du jour. It’s imperative that Fox News and the conservative blogs keep their followers scared, because that gets them to the voting booth (as well as increases ratings).

But the fear is entirely fictional. It’s made up, just like their other false boogeymen voter fraud, Planned Parenthood sells baby parts, Beghazi was a crime, the war on Christmas — I could go on. Lies, all of them.cis

Gullible people think this is a huge new threat because the right-wing media tells them it is. Well, here’s a big news flash: Transgender people have been around your whole life. You’ve already shared bathrooms with them. Your fear of them isn’t real.

Why haven’t you noticed? Because transgender people identify with a different gender than they were born with — and they look like that gender, by their own choice.  If you force someone who looks like a man to use the women’s restroom, how does that benefit anyone? Who are we trying to protect here?

“Oh noes,” they yell. “But what if some pervert pretends to be trans just so he can go into a woman’s bathroom so he can peep on people?” (Texas politician and Stupidest Man in Congress Louis Gomert said that he would have lied about it, done that in school, and thus knowingly committed a crime.) Then prosecute the bastard! Make the guilty pay, not the innocent. Seriously, this argument sounds a lot like “We should make women wear burkas because there are people out there who may rape them.” Stop blaming the victim.

So grow up. Treat people with dignity. And let them pee in peace.

 

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Editorial cartoon: Republican House of Horrors

Tom the Dancing Bug 1283 republican house of horrors

Tom the Dancing Bug 1283 republican house of horrors

Ruben Bolling

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Why I hate hate crimes

A recent trend in law has been to punish people for thinking in ways we don’t like.

The way it usually works is this: People who get into fights or threaten others because of their race or sex or religion or sexual orientation can be charged with crimes usually called “ethnic intimidation” and the like. hate crimes

So if you beat up someone, you can be charged with assault. But if your reason for beating them up is because of their race, you can be charged with assault and more.

See the distinction? We’re now making it a crime to have views we don’t like. This seems to me to be a clear violation of the 1st Amendment’s Freedom of Speech clause — and as I’ve said many times, that clause means nothing if we don’t protect speech we hate. Speech we all agree with doesn’t need protection.

I think it is perfectly fine for the criminal’s views to come into play at sentencing. A judge should be able to take into consideration the motives and reasons for the attack when deciding a proper punishment. We do that now, even in cases that don’t involve “hate crimes.” Giving someone a harsher sentence and/or requiring other sanctions when their motives are based on hatred and intolerance is justifiable.

But the crime itself punishes people for saying things we disagree with, and that’s where it goes too far.

I had a case once where a man was arguing with a woman who butt in front of him in line at the supermarket, and as they yelled at each other, he ended up calling her a “stupid nigger.” He was arrested and charged with Ethnic Intimidation. He told me he was so angry at her that he just said the thing he knew would hurt her the most, but that his anger was not based on her race — it was because she had butted in front of him in line. “If she had been overweight, I would have called her fat,” he said.

That’s not an admirable thing for the man to do, but it shouldn’t be illegal. Our current laws against harassment could have covered this situation just fine and still punished him (and, chances are, had he not said this, they probably both would have been charged).

I was ready to use this case to challenge our state’s Ethnic Intimidation law, but as it turned out we worked out a deal to a much lesser charge, he paid a fine, and it went away — which was the best result for my client.

There is a big difference between laws prohibiting discrimination and criminal laws that punish you for being a bigot. I think everyone has the right to be a bigot. Why, without bigots, how would Fox News stay in business?

 

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Editorial cartoon: The will of the gods

Tim Eagan

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Socialists want to destroy education

As we all are aware, free education to every American from kindergarten up through 12th grade is a worthy expenditure of our tax dollars. Making sure our children are educated provides not only for better citizens but also helps to make them competitive in the world market.College You’ll hardly find a patriotic American who doesn’t support using taxpayer money to fund education for our precious children.

However, extending that education four more years is an abomination that is the worst kind of socialism, and anyone who advocates for such radical views clearly wishes to destroy not only our economy but also the very fabric of the United States of America.

(Have I got it right? I think that’s the argument anyway. I’m new at this “hold two competing ideas simultaneously” thing.)

 

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Editorial cartoon: Can’t get off the ride now

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Steve Sack