Long soliloquy: I'm a newcomer to this type of forum, but better late than never. There's a little voice that's been in my head that says "you need to become more engaged, so get off that damn couch and try to do something." Since Bush's inauguration and the rolling-blackouts-due-to-political-cover-in-Washington that followed in California until Jeffords bolted the GOP that May, I felt that pang that I felt back when I was in college in the late 80's and 90's. The pang said "you're government is fucked up." This feeling became somewhat dormant during the Clinton era but has been reawakened since 1/01. I've been slow to respond, and frankly I haven't been sure how to go about channeling my anger into something more positive, but I figure talking/writing it out is a good start. I've been reading this site for months, I forget how I first found out about it. But it's really a good forum and I'm hoping to stay motivated and plan on being a regular commentator here from this point on.

A little about me: I grew up in rural Wisconsin in a very Republican town called Berlin (pop 5300ish). My Grandmother (RIP) used to be and my sister (who regrettably lives far away, in Paris) now is, my lone blood familial political ally on the Democratic side of the aisle. My wife shares that distinction as well. At 15 I moved to the suburbs of Chicago (Villa Park) and finished High School there. Then I went to University of Wisconsin-Madison, where I honed my ability to be liberal but still feel conservative around my peers, graduated in '92 and moved to San Francisco in '93. I married my lovely wife in 2001 and I've now lived in the Bay Area for 11 years. I still feel conservative compared to my peers, but liberal to everyone else. I used to call myself an "angry moderate" but realized that was a contradiction in terms and suggested I relished playing a mercenary devil's advocate, so now I just use the term "pragmatic liberal." That term is a nod to a book by an old college professor of mine, Charles W. Anderson, who wrote a thoughtful book called, you guessed it, "Pragmatic Liberalism." Though I studied Political Science in College as a double Major along with English, my heart has always been in music. I am a founding member of a marginally successful six piece Bay Area rock band that has toured nationally and internationally since late 1997 and I've played everything from trumpet to glockenspiel, sung, and op'd tape.