It's the end of the world as we know it

By Daniel B. Kline

For a time, in my formative years, REM was my favorite band without question. They were my introduction to music that fell outside the mainstream (though they did not stay semi-known for more than a few months after I discovered them) and they were my personal soundtrack to my last two years of high school.

At a time when U2 was the accepted “alternative” mega-band, I felt, when I discovered REM (through their early-career greatest hits record Eponymous) like I was literally the only person in my high school class who knew who they were. That was likely not true, but I delighted in sharing their music with my small circle of friends.

This was 1989 and though they had had a radio hit with “The One I Love,” the real commercial breakthrough did not occur until Automatic For The People in 1992. So, in some ways, their early records including the stunning Life's Rich Pageant, were still a secret shared lovingly with people I remain close to to this day.

One of my happiest memories from that time involved an awkward bus ride to Quebec City as part of a school trip. I was more than a little nervous about the trip as I had few friends at the time and those that I did have were not on the trip.

Because of that, I sat alone wearing a too-big-for-me REM T-shirt with hair that would eventually be long, but was then cut like Ernie from Sesame Street listening to Eponymous on a yellow Sony Walkman (a tape player for those of you who don't remember a time before iTunes). Not precisely shy, but certainly not the type of young fellow who just randomly talked to pretty girls, the joyous revelation that was REM empowered me to start chatting with the girl sitting across from me whom I had never seen before (a rare thing in a school of about 600).

Jennifer would go on to become my first girlfriend and one of my closest friends to this day. It was an REM song that was my first “our song,” (with her) and it was even a line from the “It's The End Of The World As We Know It,” that provided the name for my first newspaper column (a column in which I wrote about my first date with my wife Celine).

Certainly there were other bands playing from the jury-rigged CD player in my 1982 Chevy Malibu Classic station wagon (which blew a fuse if you honked the horn while playing a CD) but REM meant more to me than the Replacements, the Pixies and countless other bands I love.

As I got older, I liked their new output less and less and they faded as my favorite band (replaced by Boston alt-rock legends Buffalo Tom). That, however, doesn't make me any less sad to hear that REM has disbanded and that I will likely never see them on-stage again and that they will never make that “return-to-glory” album that I expected each time a new record came out.

Still, that does not change that at a time when I needed something to grab onto, REM provided a path that led to me discovering a new world of music. They led to me wanting to be a music critic and meeting my best friend in the newsroom of The Chronicle at Hofstra University whose first assignment for me as a music critic was Buffalo Tom's Let Me Come Over. That was the same newsroom where I met my wife and where, for better of worse, pushed me on the path of writing and journalism that I still walk today.

I suppose I'll never again be a heartbroken teenager listening to “Country Feedback” over and over any more than I'll ever get to experience the joy of discovering something entirely new. But as REM walks quietly away, I'll know that had Bill Berry, Mike Mills, Peter Buck and Michael Stipe never played music together then my life may have been utterly worse for it.

Daniel B. Kline's work appears in over 100 papers weekly. He can be reached at dan@notastep.com or you can see his archive at dbkline.com. You can listen to his podcast or buy his book, Worst Ideas Ever, at Worstideasever.com.

Candidates should leave religion at home

By Daniel B. Kline

In general, I prefer my presidential candidates not mention their religious affiliation. I'd actually prefer they not have a religious affiliation, but, in this country, that's essentially impossible because too many voters place whatever faith they've been brainwashed into ahead of any other voting criteria.

And, before you start sending me emails about the last line, what else would you call it when we indoctrinate children from birth into a group with rigid rules where you aren't allowed to question anything? In my mind, anyone devoutly devoted to any particular religion should not be a candidate for president as it's impossible for them to be impartial when their indoctrination contradicts common sense.

Take abortion – the hottest of hot button topics – Christian religions are anti-abortion, no matter the circumstances. That flies in the face of common sense as the United States simply has more children than we can care for and bringing more unwanted children in the system represents a bad use of resources.

Because of that, a president, must support abortion remaining legal even if he or she finds it morally reprehensible. First off, we should not dictate morals to other people and second, on a practical basis we can't afford more unwanted children.

Morality has no place in public debate. It's a moving target and a definition we can't all agree on, which should not be decided by politicians. You consider abortion immoral, I consider bringing unwanted children into the world immoral.

Bringing god into politics, also allows candidates to to make arguments that sensible people – those of us who don't believe any sort of higher power micromanages daily events – can't argue with because it's rude to question religion no matter how wacky its application may be. This can perhaps best be illustrated in the actions of presidential candidate Michelle Bachman who moved from a little cuckoo to downright deranged last week when she more or less said that God had sent the earthquake and hurricane that hit the East Coast last week due to overspending by government.

"I don't know how much god has to do to get the attention of the politicians," Bachman told a crowd of Floridians over the weekend, according to the St. Petersburg Times. "We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane. He said, 'Are you going to start listening to me here?' Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we've got to rein in the spending."

If Bachman truly believes that god sent an earthquake and a hurricane to send politicians a message about spending, perhaps she can explain exactly what he/she meant during every other natural disaster? We just had a rain storm where I live, perhaps that one was about overcrowding in the public schools?

When politicians start making decisions based on their belief in a magical man in the sky then they forfeit their right to speak for those of us who deal in reality. I know that much of the country believes – or at least pretends to believe – deeply in their religion, but facts, not faith should drive our political decisions.

Presidents, congresspeople, governors and even mayors need to make decisions they find distasteful because it's what's right for their constituents. That might mean handing out condoms in public schools, letting gay people in the military or supporting equal pay for for equal work for women. If your faith – and your inability to waver from that faith for the good of those you serve – makes it impossible to do your job, then you should not run for that job.

We're heading for an election where our woefully incompetent president runs against a Republican (take your pick of which one) whose only election platform involves religion. As a country, we'll get to pick between a guy who has no answers for our dying economy and a guy (or gal) whose first allegiance is to the fairy tales he was fed before he knew how to read.

Daniel B. Kline's work appears in over 100 papers weekly. He can be reached at dan@notastep.com or you can see his archive at dbkline.com. You can listen to his podcast or buy his book, Worst Ideas Ever, at Worstideasever.com.