Tori

I've seen Tori Amos many times over the past decade or so, and it's always best to see her in a smaller venue with excellent acoustics over any arena setting, and The Paramount Theater fits that bill nicely. The opening act was decent enough, but falls into the same mold as most of Tori's openers, much in the vein of Howie Day.

The American Doll Posse tour is largely Tori as her most inscrutable and strange, but she's clearly having a good time dressing up. After a particularly defiant rendition of The Waitress and a costume change, the show seemed to settle down a fair amount. I've not heard much of the new album, and it was interesting to hear much of it live for the first time. She also played a fair number of the Tori favorites including Cruel, The Waitress obviously, Corn Flake Girl, Tear In Your Hand, Sugar, Precious Things and a selection of songs from various albums including Putting the Damage On, Rattlesnakes, and Smells Like Teen Spirit.

A solid performance as always. I miss the more personal songs of her tours years ago, like Baker Baker and Cooling, but I was always a fan of more piano and her obtuse yet haunting lyrics. Her showmanship has certainly gotten more complex, and her band including two local Seattle boys did a great job as always.

Spinning history

Romney's religion speech annoys me because he invoked the writers of the Constitution's use of "God" as evidence that we are supposed to be a "religious" nation, and then immediately connected it with the statement: "He should remain on our currency, in our pledge, ...". This is all very nice and comforting to the religious right, except that it is misleading at best. The text of the Constitution doesn't invoke God or religion at all. God is mentioned in the Declaration of Independence in non-denominational tones, which is not surprising given that many of the Founding Fathers were Deists rather than Christians (I wouldn't call the phrase "Nature's God" or "their Creator" to really speak of a Christian perspective). The phrase "IN GOD WE TRUST" wasn't on the currency until 1863 and even then that was just coins. It wasn't on paper until 1957. The phrase "Under God" wasn't present in the Pledge of Allegiance until 1954.

It's a modern fiction to say that the United States of America is a "Christian Nation". We had and have many Christians here, but that's not exactly the same thing. The persecution complex the Christian right like to use to make it seem like they are "under attack" even when they are already well-represented in the majority might feel assuaged by this kind of rhetoric, but it's historically misleading if not an outright lie.

(no subject)

Oh, and whenever I hear someone use the phrase "innovative mortgage product" I think "technically legal, ethically questionable, unregulated financial behavior". When I was buying my house last year, that's what I keep thinking when I'd see or read it. I guess this current mess proves me right.