Imagine if Quentin Tarintino directed a remake of "The Wizard of Oz"!!! Wouldn't that be the sickest movie ever? If you could select a dream team cast, who would play which character? I have it narrowed down but I need help making the final decisions. As follows is the actors I have chosen. Wicked Witch of the West - Angelina Jolie, Sharon Stone, Gena Davis, Michelle Pfifer Auntie Em - The mother from "That 70's show" Tin Man - Nicholas Cage, Tom Hanks, Luke Wilson ScareCrow - David Spade, Jim Carey.......? Cowardly Lion - Owen Wilson, Martin Lawrence Dorothy - Mandy Moore, Katie Holmes, Dakota Fanning, Amanda Bynes Wizard - Gene Hackman, Bill Murray, Christopher Walken, Anthony Hopkins help me out with choices.......or just add your own!

It is now 2008......and slavery is still very much alive in the United States. Please don't get me wrong, it is no where near as extreme and blunt, but it is still here. Imagine this, a rich man can party all night, wake up at noon and decide to fly to Italy just to buy a pizza. The poor man has to be at work by 6am, work 40hrs a week, plus overtime.....and still barely scrape by each week. Greed and egotism has consumed our once great country. Our priorities are always monetary first, human beings second. The United States currently ranks the lowest amongst civilized nations in health care. Middle-class manufacturing jobs are what molded the stencil of American culture. These jobs are what made the American dream possible on the honest working mans salary. That is what made America beautiful, it was the land of opportunity. But today, corporate greed has outsourced all of the decent manufacturing jobs so that they can maximize profits. As this happens the gap between the rich an poor grows to ridiculous proportions. Money is the root of evil, and it is GREED that has destroyed our country. Advertising is OUT-OF-FUCKING CONTROL! Ultimately, we are forced to settle for low wage jobs......difficult jobs, slave-like in nature sometimes. But today, instead of paying us with food and shelter they give out vouchers/meal tickets (a couple hundred bucks a week) so that we can survive. Yet still, they only keep us alive so that we can perform the duties that need to be done, but nobody wants to do. And as this happens I recall a few old saying that I heard growning up. "You can do anything you put your mind to" and "All men are created equal". These inspirational phrases are simply that, "inspirational". In my opinion, you can do whatever you put your mind to IF, you are rich, inclined, and relentlessly determined.

In my own opinion, the backbone of musical power lies in empathy and nastalgia. Each track is inperpreted differently by the individual recieving the message. Also, every person is different, therefore each person will ultimately recieve and individualize a message from the same song. Sometimes we hear certain things "musically displayed" that cause stimuli to react. In this reguard, songs are like books, they allow our imagination to interpret them. For a moment we become lost in time and stress does not exist. For that split moment we are not a tiny part of the machine, we are the machine. Music brings us back to the good old days, whatever days those were, it reminds us about the days that made sense. The days that we were alive, and anything could happen. I believe that the beauty of music is its ability to be conveyed and transfered. It allows us to relay feelings that cannot be simply spoken. The preformers Ability to do this should not be taken for granted, it is a gift that has been given to them. It is the ability to persuade and be heard. It is the ability to reach out to those who feel the same way. It is the ability to tell others that they are not alone. When the listener empathizes it transfers an intangible warmth. This warmth provides security, and we are drawn to it like an addiction. The purpose of music is for somebody to feel a certain way, to musically convey it, and to have somebody hear it and relate in some way......it draws us together in a world whicj increasingly pushes us apart.