Daily Archives: 27 Jul 04

Housekeeping — comments

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I just switched my commenting system from Enetation to Haloscan. Enetation has become pretty unreliable and recently a glitch has prevented me from logging in as administrator to edit or delete users’ comments. (Fortunately, I haven’t been hit by a comment spam attack — grateful that FmH isn’t popular enough to attract that kind of attention — so deletions are rare and mostly used to eliminate duplicates, which has been another problem with Enetation.) Haloscan has been around for awhile now, is stable and quick, and offers trackback as well as commenting.

The Enetation comments you have so graciously entered are for the moment inaccessible, but my discovery of a way to export them all from Enetation was the final goad I needed to switch systems. So I have them archived, and it will probably turn out to be possible to import them into the Haloscan system. I’ll figure that out when I have a little more time.

If, for some reason, Haloscan does not end up being satisfactory, I still have the option of going back to Enetation or forward to a different commenting system. Why not try out the Haloscan system by leaving me comments here about how you find the Haloscan system to be working?

Future Soundtrack for America

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“MoveOn.org is co-sponsoring an album featuring powerful and political songs – most of them unreleased until now — from some of the best artists around. It’s called the “Future Soundtrack for America.” For a donation to MoveOn PAC of $25.00 or more, we’ll make sure you get the album before it hits the record stores. These donations will make a real impact, allowing the PAC to run ads that counter the Bush campaign’s negative attacks on Kerry and present a vision for how our country ought to be.

…The album features a pretty amazing line up of artists: Blink-182, Bright Eyes, David Byrne, Laura Cantrell, Clem Snide, Death Cab for Cutie, Mike Doughty, The Flaming Lips, Fountains of Wayne, Jimmy Eat World, Ben Kweller, The Long Winters, Nada Surf, OK Go, Old 97’s, R.E.M., Sleater-Kinney, They Might Be Giants, Tom Waits, will.i.am of The Black Eyed Peas, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are all featured. In addition, the family of Elliott Smith contributed a mix of “A Distorted Reality Is Now A Necessity To Be Free,” a song from Smith’s as-yet-unreleased last record, and the first release of new material since his death in late 2003.

Together, the songs present a passionate rallying cry for all of us to take our country back. Mike Doughty’s song “Move On” hones in on the passion that drives all of our activism, singing “I love my country so much, like an exasperating friend.” Tom Waits’ contribution is a heartbreaking song about a letter home from a soldier in Iraq. R.E.M. takes on Bush and the war in Iraq, and They Might Be Giants (whose John Flansburgh pulled the project together) revisit a campaign song from the Presidential campaign of 1840.

…You can order the album right now and help run ads to defeat Bush.”

Even if you are a P2P music trader, this is one for which you ought to pay the purchase price, IMHO.