Much has been said about Elizabeth Dole's voting record in the Senate being strongly supportive of President George Bush's misguided policies, and that is a legitimate issue by itself. But I believe her behavior as a party apparatchik and deal facilitator has had a much more profound impact on the way our country operates and the direction in which our tax dollars flow. And the more North Carolinians are exposed to the truth about her dealings, the more likely they will realize that she's a salesperson to the moneyed elite, as opposed to a public servant.

Very often here at BlueNC, we focus on the things that people are doing wrong. Which is cool, because being progressive means that we eschew complacency and believe in taking active measures to "fix" the things that need fixing. But we also need to recognize progress when it happens, as it demonstrates that our "hope for the future" is neither naive nor in vain.

Most people consider themselves fairly well-informed, and are not likely to admit that they (personally) are vulnerable to manipulation. Those other people are, of course, but not me. And while we might think we carefully "choose" the sources of our information, our brains often store and edit things according to a different set of often less "enlightened" rules. Whatever. It's part of our psychological makeup, and not likely to change any time soon.

This will come as no surprise to those of you reading this, unless you're three years old and playing around with mommy and/or daddy's computer, in which case you need to a) stop leaning on the keyboard because it's expensive, b) get down from the chair before it rolls back and you bang your head on something, and c) move out smartly because you're about to get caught doing something you know you're not supposed to.

Back to the big people reading this: we are smack in the middle of an Energy Crisis, but most of us don't really understand why. We think we do, because we've been conditioned over the years to respond to rhetoric, but that needs to change.

I usually don't talk too much here about my real job, because it's seldom relevant to our discussions and it's not very "sexy", either. I've been in manufacturing for over 18 years, basically working my way up from driving a forklift to being a division head with 4-7 departments under my "banner", depending on the needs of our management structure.