On victory. Which is mine. Suckas.

Okay, so I try not to spend too much time talking about myself here, because, let's face it, nobody cares. But tonight, I impose upon you my own personal joy and triumph, because I can.*

I have written a novel. It took me exactly a month.

Have no illusions that it was easy. I have busted my freaking ass for thirty days to get this bastard finished in a month. Otherwise, I wouldn't be feeling so damn triumphant, such that I'm posting it for the world to see.

To review: I have written a novel. It took me exactly a month.

I would like to thank the following individuals for contributing to my success: Jacob, my inspiration; Whitney, my other inspiration; Erin, my perspiration; the makers of Diet Dr. Pepper; and Chris Baty, author of No Plot? No Problem!

*Disclaimer: This post was written under the influence of sleep deprivation, euphoria, and not a little bit of champagne. I cannot be held responsible for anything I post tonight.

On our national defense

Okay, so:

Rumsfeld abandons Strategic Missile Defense Shield in favor of grassroots effort

Okay, so I realize that presidents don't, as a rule, actually answer questions at presidential press conferences. It's just not their way. But I just couldn't get over this response to a question about John Bolton:

"John Bolton is a blunt man."

John Bolton is a man who assaults staffers with blunt objects.

On the real reason government doesn't freaking work

Okay, so regardless of your stance on the abortion issue, you have to admit that this just isn't freaking right. Pandagon brings us news of House Judiciary Committee markup of the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act. Oh, I'm sorry, did I say markup? I should have said gleeful slashing with an Xacto knife:

DESCRIPTION OF AMENDMENT
AMENDMENT DESCRIPTION IN HOUSE REPORT 109-51

DEMS: a Nadler amendment allows an adult who could be prosecuted under the bill to go to a Federal district court and seek a waiver to the state’s parental notice laws if this remedy is not available in the state court. (no 11-16)
GOP REWRITE: Mr. Nadler offered an amendment that would have created an additional layer of Federal court review that could be used by sexual predators to escape conviction under the bill. By a roll call vote of 11 yeas to 16 nays, the amendment was defeated.

DEMS: a Nadler amendment to exempt a grandparent or adult sibling from the criminal and civil provisions in the bill (no 12-19)
GOP REWRITE: Mr. Nadler offered an amendment that would have exempted sexual predators from prosecution under the bill if they were grandparents or adult siblings of a minor. By a roll call vote of 12 yeas to 19 nays, the amendment was defeated.

DEMS: a Scott amendment to exempt cab drivers, bus drivers and others in the business transportation profession from the criminal provisions in the bill (no 13-17):
GOP REWRITE: Mr. Scott offered an amendment that would have exempted sexual predators from prosecution if they are taxicab drivers, bus drivers, or others in the business of professional transport. By a roll call vote of 13 yeas to 17 nays, the amendment was defeated.

DEMS: a Scott amendment that would have limited criminal liability to the person committing the offense in the first degree (no 12-18)
GOP REWRITE: Mr. Scott offered an amendment that would have exempted from prosecution under the bill those who aid and abet criminals who could be prosecuted under the bill. By a roll call vote of 12 yeas to 18 nays, the amendment was defeated

DEMS: a Jackson-Lee amendment to exempt clergy, godparents, aunts, uncles or first cousins from the penalties in the bill (no 13-20)
GOP REWRITE: Ms. Jackson-Lee offered an amendment that would have exempted sexual predators from prosecution under the bill if they were clergy, godparents, aunts, uncles, or first cousins of a minor, and would require a study by the Government Accounting Office. By a roll call vote of 13 yeas to 20 nays, the amendment was defeated.

Republicans complain that Democrats abuse the legislative process with their filibusters and smear campaigns on innocent Majority Leaders, and then they go and pull shit like this? This is the legislative equivalent of drawing an ugly picture of Teacher with horns and putting someone else's name on it before dropping it on her desk - and these people are not only adults (or convincing facsimiles thereof), these are the adults we've charged with the running of our country.

With this immature act, they have wasted the time of every legislator who contributed to the amendments in question, they have trivialized a bill regarding the health, safety and emotional well-being of girls who have already been victimized, they have made a mockery of the legislative process, and they have wasted the money of the taxpayers who pay their salaries while they play stupid little games with serious legislature. This wasn't even a matter of arguing against amendments that they felt didn't contribute to the effectiveness of the bill - this was a passive-aggressive, immature shot at the amendments themselves and the Democrats who wrote them. And what do they have to say about it?

Apparently, Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner had this to say to Democrat Rep. Louise Slaughter: "You don't like what we wrote about your amendments, and we don't like what you said about our bill."

Oh, boo hoo hoo freaking hoo. You poor, oppressed Republicans. All you have to your name is complete control of the Executive branch, the House and the Senate. It's empowering and heartwarming to watch you strive so diligently for respect as you act like a bunch of freaking fourth-graders.

I don't want to ever, ever hear a Republican complain about the way Democrats obstruct the legislative process. Not ever. 'Cause as long as we're not writing bills supporting the legalization of child prostitution, human sacrifice, poisoning of civic water reservoirs, and hourly reruns of "Charles in Charge" and submitting them under Tom DeLay's name, they have nothing to say about it. Congratulations, Repubs, you have lost what little of the moral high ground you have left. My advice? Keep it up. The more you play stupid little games with important legislation, the more you support ridiculously unqualified political and judicial nominees because they were Bush's idea, the more you worship Tom DeLay and defend him in his blatant flaunting of every basic, intuitive rule of ethics, the more you shameless and out-of-touch you look as a party. Keep it up. Come 2008, we can run Shaky the Epileptic Chimpanzee if we want and the Republican party will have no credible candidate to oppose him. So by all means, if this is the way you choose to address your role as lawmakers, keep it up.

On Dixified quasi-Yankee American English

Okay, so this sounds about right for a girl born in Virginia, raised in Tennessee and educated in Georgia (although my dear friend Jen says that when I drink, I go full-on Scarlett O'Hara):

Your Linguistic Profile:

50% General American English

35% Dixie

15% Yankee

0% Midwestern

0% Upper Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

On courtroom fashion

Okay, so what does one wear to court to testify against the guy who t-boned one with his Kia?

Discuss.

On my Sunday-night insomnia Top Ten

Okay, so here's my iPod Top Ten as I sit up late, trying to finish an article that refuses to get started:

1. Comfort - Athenaeum
2. The Sun Never Stops Setting - Moby
3. Concerto in G Major (I) Allegro - Luigi Boccherini
4. Fly Me to the Moon - Frank Sinatra
5. Crush - Mandy Moore
6. Hammering in My Head - Garbage
7. Deep Enough - Live
8. Nobody Does It Like Me - Shirley Bassey
9. Lady Madonna - The Beatles
10. Eden - Sarah Brightman

Serious, substantial blogging to commence in five... four... three... two...

On John + Ann = 4-eva

And unfortunately, it has nothing to do with me and John Cusak.

Okay, so Atrios points us at this charming little >interview with John Cloud, newly famous for his 5,500-word exploration of the inside of Ann Coulter's colon. The results are, well, not any prettier than John's story.

The thing that absolutely bugs my rhetorical nuts is his defense of his statement, "Coulter has a reputation for carelessness with facts, and if you Google the words 'Ann Coulter lies,' you will drown in results. But I didn't find many outright Coulter errors." My immediate response, upon reading that, was, "Well, that's 'cause you're lazy, John." But I'm a big person, and I like to give people a chance to defend themselves; this allows them to either explain themselves or fully cover themselves in their own poop.

John Cloud is a poop-coverer.

"David Brock, who knew Ann Coulter from years ago, goes to a book that's years old, and prints some mistakes from that book, and of course [there are] mistakes. And a lot of them are corrected. If you go out and you buy a copy of Slander now, you won't find those mistakes in it, because the publisher has corrected them."

Yes, John, the publisher corrected her errors. That's because the errors were put in by Ann Coulter. It doesn't mean that Ann Coulter doesn't lie; it means that Ann Coulter doesn't always get away with it. Unless, of course, her lies are overlooked by someone who thinks that she's pretty and cool and wants to kiss her and hug her and rub her Adam's apple all night long.

"I don't say in this story that she's never made a mistake. In fact, I point out some mistakes. This is a story that calls some of her writing highly amateurish. I say I want to shut her up occasionally. I quote a friend of hers calling her a fascist [and] another friend of hers calling her a polemicist. I quote Eric Alterman, Salon, James Wolcott, Andrew Sullivan, and Jerry Falwell all criticizing her. The idea that this is a puff piece is just absurd."

"Ew, I don't like her, that's gross. Look, see, I'm hitting her in the arm! Look! You can tell I don't like her, 'cause I'm hitting her in the arm!"

"The cover of our magazine is not glorification. It is news."

Um, if one would define "news" as "things being new and/or interesting," what exactly has Ann Coulter done, of late, that qualifies?

"And, by the way, the picture that we used on the cover is apparently such a horrible image for conservatives that they can't even read the story."

As opposed to the content, which is so horrible that no one can read it.

"What I'll say is that I think Eric Alterman and Ann Coulter engage in the same kind of debate. They don't often make actual arguments. Instead, they throw names around. This is the point of my article."

No, the point of your article is that Ann Coulter is, like,totally your girlfriend. F'real.

Correction: I incorrectly state above that Coulter's publisher, rather than Coulter herself, is responsible for all of her corrections. She has been known to make corrections herself, as in the difference between the hard and paper versions of her book Slander. On the last page of the hardcover, she makes the following assertion:

The day after seven-time NASCAR Winston Cup champion Dale Earnhardt died in a race at the Daytona 500, almost every newspaper in America carried the story on the front page. Stock-car racing had been the nation’s fastest-growing sport for a decade, and NASCAR the second-most-watched sport behind the NFL. More Americans recognize the name Dale Earnhardt than, say, Maureen Dowd. (Manhattan liberals are dumbly blinking at that last sentence.) It took the New York Times two days to deem Earnhardt’s name sufficiently important to mention it on the first page. Demonstrating the left’s renowned populist touch, the article began, "His death brought a silence to the Wal-Mart." The Times went on to report that in vast swaths of the country people watch stock-car racing. Tacky people were mourning Dale Earnhardt all over the South!

However, when it was brought to her attention that the Times did, in fact, provide a front-page article the very next day, sans any mention of any discount retailers. Coulter is kind enough to make the following change for the paperback edition:

...(Manhattan liberals are dumbly blinking at that last sentence.) Demonstrating the left’s renowned populist touch, the New York Times front-page article on Earnhardt’s death three days later began, “His death brought a silence to the Wal-Mart.” The Times went on to report that...

which only implies, inaccurately, that the Times was remiss in their coverage, instead of lying about it outright.

If Cloud is interested in any other examples of Coulter as pathological liar with flaming pants, he can check out the Daily Howler, whence I so blatantly stole this correction.

On Habemus-ing a new Papam

Or, Il Papa's got a brand-new bag

Okay, so the conclave has ended, the white smoke has wafted, the bells have rung, and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany has ascended to the papal throne as Pope Benedict XVI. And while it's probably too early for me to try and sort out my feelings on the whole thing, I'm going to go ahead and blog in haste, that I might repent in leisure.

I had big hopes for this papal election. I'll confess to having hung more weight on the election than was probably due; I'd really consigned my future as a Catholic to the new pope. Without going too much into what is really a very personal subject, I've been struggling with my faith for quite some time, with questions of how my beliefs matched those of the church, whether it's better to be a bad Catholic or a good non-Catholic, whether clinging to my faith and hoping for the church to change to fit my needs is really fair to anyone. And while I thought that Pope John Paul II was a great Pope, and I hardly blamed him personally for my own religious issues, I thought that the election of the new Pope might give me some kind of sign as to the direction of the church and my own place therein.

For the record, I still don't know.

I'm going to give Pope Benedict XVI a chance - it's only fair. It has been suggested that his selection of the name Benedict might, in fact, indicate a desire to follow Benedict XV's more moderate approach to the papacy following the serious doctrinal fundamentalism of Pius X before him.

But then there's also Cardinal Ratzinger's homily on Monday, decrying "threats to the faith" such as liberalism, atheism, agnosticism and relativism. And while I agree that (in his words) "having clear faith based on the creed of the church" is a good thing, I also think that a wholesale condemnation of ideologies like liberalism could undo all of the good that JPII's socially progressive reign had enacted, and that it could be a sign of Benedict XVI's devotion to the harsh, impersonal, condemnatory church of the past.

The new Pope faces a world quite unlike that of the old church that he loved so much. He has, as cardinal, failed to address issues such as the priest sex scandals. AIDS runs rampant in Africa, but the church stubbornly refuses to relax its rigid condemnation of birth control. And through it all, vocations are consistenly dropping, threatening the ranks of the priesthood.

Past performance indicates that Benedict XVI might not be the man to preserve the church in this new time. Even though JPII had made serious headway into the idea of "one true church" that has divided Christians for so long, Ratzinger kept German Catholics and Lutherans from taking communion together at a gathering in 2003. Many German Catholics say that that kind of fundamentalist dogmatism is just par for his theological course.

It's far, far too early to judge this Pope's potential, or to guess what will become of the church in the future. As I said, I have to give him a chance. But in this increasingly crazy global climate, a strong but compassionate Pope is needed to reuinte a disparate church and use his considerable influence to help bring the world closer to peace, or at least to understanding. Jesus Christ preached love, compassion and charity. He hung out with tax collectors and prostitutes. The former Cardinal Ratzinger has said that the new Pope should want to emulate Jesus as closely as possible; I hope that those are the qualities he emulates.

On busyness (and, okay, laziness)

Okay, so I've only just now returned from my fa-ha-ha-ha-hantastic long weekend at the beach, and (alas) work calls, so to tide you over until my next update, a Monday blog roundup:

-Basket Full of Puppies gives us a tale of love, loss, and kidnapped puppies dyed purple;

-Daily Kos offers Tom Tomorrow's take on the (dum dum daaaaaah) Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy (VLWC);

-Eschaton (that's Atrios, folks) reminds us exactly how hard it really is to be a conservative;

-The Regular Staple provides a useful transcript of Rummy's recent press conference in Afghanistan;

-TBogg shares the usual oafishness from Doug Giles, and as an Atlantan, I can only hope Douggie isn't actually eating any of the catfish he catches in the Chattahoochee;

- And on a completely non-funny note, Hey Jenny Slater questions the devotion of chickenhawk right-wing bloggers to the best interests of our military men and women.

Enjoy.

Oh, and confidential to EngineGirl: you go, girl. You go.

On training

Okay, so this one is confidential to Woman In My Building With Tiny, Mostly Hairless Dog:

Not once in the two months that you've been watering your dog outside my window has your incessant "Go potty, Honey. Honey, go potty" caused her to do her business in anything less than half an hour. That's half an hour outside my window coaxing your tiny, Chinese Crested-looking dog to do her business - and not in the dog yard, either, but in the garden under my window.

Perhaps, instead of begging "Honey" to "go potty" for those thirty minutes, you could bring a paperback and give the kid some peace and quiet to relieve herself. I suspect I'd suffer from performance anxiety if I had to face down a cheerleading squad every time I stepped into the loo. Regardless, if I'm forced to spend one more evening listening to your constant cajoling, something is coming out of that window, and it might just be Honey's leftovers from the previous visit.

On - okay, yeah, I realize, it's Pastor Swank

Okay, so Pastor Swank is nothing if not low-hanging fruit, but I couldn't help noticing the following as I scrolled through his amusingly unintelligible blog:

Shorter* Pastor Swank:

We should forgive Charles and Camilla, because even the best of people occasionally slip up and commit mortal sins. The Pope, however, is the Antichrist.

*"Shorter" concept shamelessly ganked from Busy, Busy, Busy.

On Social freaking Security already

Okay, so has my life become so boring that I'm actually taking a moment to comment on Social Security? It is undeniably so.

To me, Social Security has always been one of those joke issues that doesn't really need comment; people on one side (the side of light) look at the proposals on the table and recognize that they're ridamndiculous, while people on the other side (the side of darkness) look at the proposals on the table and recognize that they're ridamndiculous but have to pretend to be all for them because they signed a loyalty oath back in 2004. It's kind of like why people claim to have enjoyed Kill Bill.

If anyone can be trusted to lay it out in a visual format that's both insightful and amusing, it's Doonesbury. Sunday's strip can be found here, but for those too lazy to click through, I'll include pertinent text from the strip. And now, for your blogging enjoyment, Bush's take on Social Security, in his own words:

Because the - All which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate, for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases... There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers affecting those - changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be - or closer delivered to what has been promised.

Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled.

Look, there's a series of things that cause the - Like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate - The benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases... There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, if those - if that growth is affected... it will help on the red.

Did you catch that? 'Cause I'm not going to say it again.

On activist judges, comma, the justified murder of

Okay, so hot on the heels of my recent post regarding activist judges, Senator John Cornyn makes the following brilliant statement:

I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that's been on the news and I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in - engage in violence.

The best take I've seen on this is over at Hey, Jenny Slater, but this guy (a Texas Republican, by the way) is basically justifying violence against judges. Rape suspect Brian Nichols kills four people, including a deputy and a judge, and a "delusional litigant" sneaks in and murders the husband and mother of federal judge Joan Lefkow, but we need to be sympathetic - 'cause after all, these were evil activist judges who deserve to suffer.

On activist judges

Okay, so the boogeyman of the hour definitely seems to be so-called activist judges. Activist judges, as far as I can figure, are defined as any judges that rule in a way other than Republicans would have them rule. And we're not just talking about the recent Terri Schiavo case, either - this goes back as far as gay marriage in Massachusetts and beyond. The Schiavo case is just that much more remarkable in that Judge Greer is both politically and religiously conservative (he's super Christian, folks), and he's getting hung out to dry by certain members of Congress who shall remain soulless. Lacking a wide variety of Evil Liberals to attack, the conservatives begin to cannibalize their own, and I say good on 'em. Except for Judge Greer. He seems like a pretty solid guy.

The issue of activist judges is the question du week for the AJC's Woman to Woman column, always a good source of material and ire for me because Shaunti Feldhahn never fails to be an absolute freaking putz. She goes through her usual thrash of changing values, gay marriage, abortion, blah blah blah, Terri Schiavo blah blah. But she also makes two statements that, while as asinine as we've come to expect from ol' Shaunti, are also significant:

We are in trouble as soon as a judge’s rulings become peppered with references to value judgments or shifting social mores. In our balance of powers world, those considerations are the province of the legislature and the chief executive.

and

We must find better ways to hold activist judges accountable. Although judges must be protected from political considerations, we must be willing to consider the ultra-rare tool of impeachment for egregious cases.

One phrase just jumped out and smacked me: our balance of powers world. We do have a balance of powers. We have checks and balances. And that, Shaunti dear, is exactly why your despise-ed "activist judges" are not only acceptable in but crucial to the preservation of our rights as Americans.

The idea behind a three-branch government is basically the idea behind Paper-Scissors-Rock: everyone can trump someone else, and everyone can be trumped. Everyone has their own job, and, as dictated by the Constitution (generally accepted as the official rulebook for the game) no one's job can completely dominate the government. Unless, that is, you've got a Republican majority in Congress, a sock puppet in the White House, a prostitute in the press gaggle and news media that couldn't care less. Not that that's what we have now, of course; we're speaking rhetorically.

But let's look at that rhetorical country I just laid out. We'll call it the United States of Pamerica (or the USP). Let's say that there are two pecan groves side-by-side in one of those states, run by Mr. Red and Mr. Blue. Now, Mr. Blue happens to worship shrimp, and he has a religious gathering every Wednesday night where he and a few of his close shrimp-worshipping friends get together and have a quiet, unobtrusive celebration to the glory of shrimp. Mr. Red doesn't dislike shrimp, but he's not a fan of shrimp worship, and he's starting to get news that a few potential customers have shied away from his pecan grove for fear of divine retribution, what with all of this shrimp worship going on right in the next grove.

So Mr. Red goes to the capital and talks to the state lege about passing a bill to outlaw shrimp worship within a hundred feet of an agricultural establishment. And of course Mr. Red gets laughed out of the building, because his proposition is ridiculous to everyone except for Representative Fartblossom (D-Lawrenceville), who's 90 years old and tries to pass a bill every year requiring mandatory dental exams for sheep. Mr. Red doesn't like being laughed at, so he takes his favorite senator in hand and heads up to Washington and demands - demands - that somebody do something about this damn shrimp worshipper.

Officially, Congress can't touch it.

This isn't a freedom of religion issue, and it isn't an interstate commerce issue, it's an agriculture issue, and Congress can't directly regulate agriculture. It could also be considered a local zoning issue, but Congress can't regulate that, either. And no matter how wadded up Mr. Red's panties happen to be, he's not going to get any relief from Congress because they can't act on his problem.

Except that this is the United States of Pamerica that we're talking about. Mr. Red's senator, Senator Yahtzee, who's up for reelection this year, takes it upon himself to protect this poor, poor pecan farmer from the horrors of shrimp worship in his own neighborhood. He says that Mr. Red's rights to freedom of religion are being violated by his proximity to shrimp worshippers, and that his revenue is threatened by them, and by God (and not a shrimp god, either) he's going to pass a law outlawing shrimp worship within one hundred feet - hell, let's make that yards - of Mr. Red's pecan grove. And because this is a rhetorical country, completely unrelated to our own perfectly rational and reasonable USA, let's say that law passes to streamers and confetti and popping champagne corks. The President himself flies out from his ranch in Brawford to sign the bill into law and share in a very delicious shrimp cocktail.

"Not so fast," says the Supreme Court. Thank God.

See, pretty much the entirety of the Supreme Court's job is to say "not so fast." If a law or a court ruling is unconstitutional, they say "not so fast," and if a law or ruling is constitutional but is being protested, they say "not so fast" to the ones protesting it. And they don't say, "not so fast, I think this law sucks," they say, "not so fast, this law is blatantly unconstitutional, and I'm going to list every article violated and explain why." In this case, it's "not so fast, you're trying to make a law on an issue that's not under the authority of Congress."

Congress, of course, is up in arms. The Supreme Court is filled with activist judges. They hate Mr. Red for being straight and white and Christian, and they're going to punish him by taking away his land and giving it to this heathen shrimp worshipper. The judiciary loves shrimp worshippers, the nation cries! Down with activist judges, and down with shrimp worship! These judges need to be elected, so that they'll serve the will of the people and not their own personal seafood preferences!

"Not so fast," says the Constitution.

The President is elected. By the people. The people get together and vote and, if they're lucky, the guy with the most votes is president, and he gets to appoint people (like judges) and veto bills and command the military. Congress is elected. By the people. The people get together (in their states, this time) and vote and, with any luck, the guys with the most votes are Congressmen/women, and they get to pass federal laws, impeach the president, and even overturn vetoes.

The judicial branch is appointed (by the President, people) and approved (by Congress). They've got just as much partisan politics behind them as any other branch. But what they don't have is election campaigns, which means that they don't have to pander to the will of the majority, which means that they do get to rule in favor of the minority whenever the Constitution gives them reason to do so. In a situation like the USP, with one party controlling two branches, the judiciary is the only branch really likely to speak for the minority. They can say, "Hey, the Constitution says you can't make that law" or even "Hey, the Constitution says he can worship shrimp wherever he likes," and they don't have to worry about backlash from Pamericans Against Consecrated Seafood.

Shaunti, I know that shrimp worship wigs you out. I know that you want poor Mr. Red to not live in fear of the peaceful shrimp worshippers next door. But that doesn't meant that Mr. Blue can't worship shrimp all he wants, within the boundaries of the Constitution. And when the ever-growing congregation of shrimp worshippers becomes a majority in the US, you'll be grateful for an activist judiciary to protect your right to worship Belial at your pecan grove.

On the curse of insomia

Okay, so everybody else is doing it, and I'm nothing if not an obedient sheep.

My late-night insomniac iPod random ten:
1. Freeze Time - 311
2. But Not For Me - Harry Connick, Jr.
3. Unfaithful - Les Nubians
4. Brother, Can You Spare A Dime? - Abbey Lincoln
5. All I Want - Toad the Wet Sprocket
6. Overture No. 2 - J.S. Bach
7. Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me - The Smiths
8. Orange Blossom Special - Johnny Cash
9. So Many Things - Sarah Brightman
10. Yesterday - The Beatles

Stop judging me. Stop!