James Brown has passed. A force in popular music an culture for decades has finally moved on. The world will be a poorer place for it, but he leaves a legacy of accomplishment that will last for as long as people tap their toes to his music, and in fact much of what derives from the funky, syncopated music he created.

James Brown, creator of "The One". Can ya dig it? I knew you could.

Oh, Gerald Ford died today. The accidental president who so badly wanted to put the scandal of Watergate behind him and his party, that he assured his reelection went into the dumper by midnight on September 8th, 1974 by signing the pardon of Tricky Dick.

Most Americans wanted to know how Nixon lied and decieved them; how he had orchestrated his criminal cover-up and obstruction of justice. How he had managed to direct the metasticiztion of the cancer on the presidency from the Oval Office. But Ford cut that off, before the facts came out. He could have let a trial take place, let the facts become public, let the American people see what shitty things were being done in their name by an Imperial President. Then he could have pardoned the son of a bitch. He'd have looked magnanimous, positively Presidential. But he didn't.

Ford's lackeys at the time included one Donald Rumsfeld and one Dick Cheney. Perhaps the public trial of Dick Nixon might have discouraged them from their shenanagins of later years. Perhaps not, but we'll never know.

So rest in peace, Jerry Ford. I'll always think of you as played by Chevy Chase on SNL trimming the tree at Christmas, falling off the ladder. I'll always remember that had you let the trial of The Trickster go forward you might have changed the American electorate's perceptions of the accountability of politicians and also changed the behavior of politicians who understood that people knew they could be held accountable in the end.

But you didn't, and that's your legacy. What a shame.