Will this work

Test post to see if Brainsplotch still works.

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President Obama

I don't even know how to begin, and I know whatever I say will end up sounding trite. What an amazing, historic, and emotional day. I was reminded of Martin Luther King's "I've Been To the Mountaintop" speech, the one he delivered in Memphis the day prior to his assassination. It's the King speech that has always stirred the most emotion in me, even more than the much more lauded "I Have a Dream" speech. Near the end, in the part that always makes me teary-eyed, King says: "I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!" I always have believed that the "we" in "we, as a people" could apply as much to whites as blacks. Perhaps whites just didn't realize that they needed to make it to the promised land. Well...
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1984 album in review: The Replacements--Let It Be

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Former Replacements guitarist Bob "Slim" Dunlap died on December 18 after many years of ill health. Though Slim didn't join the Replacements (aka the 'Mats) until 1987, this seems the perfect time to write about the band's 1984 album Let It Be , and thus continue with this little series on 1984 long players. Let's rewind to that magical year of 1986, the year I have rhapsodized about so often in this blog. I don't remember exactly how this happened, but sometime in autumn '86, Ron P.--an older guy who lived on my dorm floor--let me borrow his vinyl copy of Let It Be . I assume this has to do with the R.E.M. factor. Ron may have thought that Let It Be was similar enough to R.E.M. that I'd like it, and maybe it also had to do with R.E.M.'s Peter Buck being guest guitarist on the opening track, "I Will Dare." (All roads lead back to R.E.M.). Allow me to digress for a moment and say a retrospective "thank you" to all the peop...
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