LA FLORIDIANA Double Book Review: "Tangled And Dark" by Patty G. Henderson "Florida Curiosities" by David Grimes and Tom Becnel. Plus...Happy Anniversary Sunshine Skyway  by William Moriaty

THIS WEEK'S MOVIE REVIEW "Napoleon Dynamite"  by Mike Smith

ODDSERVATIONS Oddservations Spotlight: Largo's Comic World owner Pat Potter  by Andy Lalino

THE DIGITAL DIVIDE Guided By Voices CD review  by Terence Nuzum "The Rock and Soul Revue" concert review by guest reviewer Michael Smith

COUCH POTATO Chappelle's Show....Fanzine Memoirs  by Vinnie Blesi

DEADGUY'S DEMENTIA Powerless  by Mike "Deadguy" Scott

NICHOLAS REX A Rant About Bush  by Nick King

MATT'S RAIL The Yankees Suck....Latest Kerry Rumor....Masters of Horror  by Matt Drinnenberg

MIKE'S RANT Happy Birthday....The Shame of The Yankees....Why Even Try....Is That A Guarantee?....What?....Meet The Beatles, Part 33  by Mike Smith

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Hello again everyone, it’s me Nicholas Rex. It’s been several months since my last post. For that I do apologize. Last time I sent in a report it was concerning the influences on Lord of the Rings. Now on the other hand, I would like to once again throw in my two cents on current affairs. As the title of this piece states very succinctly, this is a rant about our current President Bush. Now please bear in mind these are my personal opinions about Bush 2.0, not Nolan’s (although he and I do agree on certain points). As always, if you don’t like the subject of my piece, you’re under no obligation to read it.

First and foremost, I want to clarify something. I did vote for Bush in 2000. At that time, there were certain values that I held that have since evolved and I was a much more conservative person. Bush exemplified what I wanted from a president: Honor, Integrity, and a willingness to say that he was a man of faith. It was only within the last two years that I really began to reevaluate the decision I had made in 2000. Looking back in hindsight, I couldn’t have been more wrong than to put my vote with this man.

During Sept. 11th and the aftermath of that horrible event, I saw a politician set aside partisan politics to help in the healing of a nation. Bush did just that. He was able to pull together a shattered and shaken nation and pull their focus together around a common cause: continuing our way of life. Now that I look back as a much older man, I realize that this was the perfect time to really unite a nation that has yet to be completely united. That’s another subject for another time however.

Bush has squandered all of the promises he made during his election campaign. I’m a member of the lower middle class, making less than 30,000 dollars a year at my current job. One of the things that got my attention with Bush was a promise for tax cuts to the middle class, to help take the burden of paying for this country off of my back and millions of other Americans. In the four years since that election, we have seen two major tax cuts, both of which are directed to the upper 1%. I on the other hand have seen the percentage of my taxes increase twice since then, from a little under 10 percent in 2000 to almost 16 percent in 2004. For someone who lives paycheck to paycheck, every dime that I could scrape together would be appreciated. Nothing so far from Bush.

Also we were promised that the booming economy of the late 1990s would not only continue at its current level, it would reach new heights. Now granted, the stock market took a major plunge after 9/11 but there has been little to no recovery since then instituted by the Bush administration. Last year I was unfortunate to be released from my job due to a purge of the workforce. Twice. In the same year from such businesses as a national food store chain and a clothing store. All total, I spent some 4 ½ months out of work collecting unemployment. Now for anyone who says I should have gotten a job, chew on this fact. In the state of Florida you are required to go on at least 2 job interviews per week in order to justify your unemployment check and show verification that you attended said interviews. There are currently some 1.6 million Americans out of work right now. Another 40 million Americans are living in poverty or below the poverty line, which is a family living under 25,000 a year in gross salary. These are numbers that can’t be fudged, released by a government group the Bush and Kerry groups don’t get to control.

Lastly, we have the major issue that many people have been talking about: The War in Iraq. Once again let me preface this by saying: Saddam Hussein was not a nice person. He was a sadistic man who committed atrocities similar to those of Slobodan Milosevic and his ilk. That being said, however, this war was started under misleading and false information. Bush had everyone from Colin Powell to Donald Rumsfeld saying that there were WMDs in Iraq and we were on Saddam’s short list of countries he wanted gone. When that didn’t pan out, Bush cast himself and our armed forces as liberators of a oppressed people. Okay, I can buy that. Now we have a completely different story.

There was no connection between Iraq and Al-Qaida. Quite the contrary, Saddam wanted nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden because of the radical Islamic views he carried that went against the Sunni rule of law in Iraq. The most deadly weapon in Saddam’s supposed “arsenal” was serin gas. To top this all off, several months ago, Bush commented that there would be no need for a military draft. Now there is word that not only will there be a proposed military draft but being in college will not an eligible deferment. This coming from a man who used his father’s family connections to avoid the last draft this country had.

Some of you may think that I’ve been listening to Michael Moore too much. I do enjoy Michael’s work and I actually have not seen Farenheit 9/11. What I have done is spent a great deal of time reading up on the things this President has done in the name of our country.

This country that I was born in, which to this day remains very close to my heart, is about to face a major crossroads. Since Bush has been in office, we have not only become a financially bankrupt nation but there are now more than enough people who want to see us fall by the wayside. Like so many empires that have fallen in the past. Vote for Bush, vote for Kerry, that’s up to you. It’s not my place to tell you how to vote and who to vote for. The only thing I will say is to actually read up on the policies of both men and look at their track records. Soak in every last ounce of information you can about this election and then make an educated decision, not a decision based on partisan crap. We are the ones who decide the fate of our nation. Let’s hope we make the right decision for all of our sakes.

Nicholas King
(AKA Nicholas Rex)