"Oxbow Bend Sunset" at Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. Photo by Jeff Sullivan

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Absentee ballots have become a major get-out-the-vote tool for both parties in recent elections, and the practice is changing the way candidates and parties spend money and campaign, reports John S. Adams in the Great Falls Tribune today.

Monday is the first day absentee votes can be cast by mail or at elections offices, where polls will be open until Nov. 4.

The sheer number of early ballots cast has been rising sharply, election by election.

Last night Barb and I watched the most thought-provoking, inspiring movie I’ve seen in years. It’s not often that a film comes along that can challenge your way of thinking, and shake up your preconceived notions of how things work in our dirty little world. Our individual perceptions are constantly being manipulated by the media, and sometimes we’re exposed to something that just shocks our belief system right down to our core.

I mean, TWO Spidermen? Whoa!

Then, after the kids went to bed, we slid “Shut Up and Sing” into the DVD player, on the recommendation of my friend Chris. He’s not necessarily a big country music fan, but he’s turned me on to some pretty fine stuff. From Ryan Bingham, to that heavy metal band You Will Know Us By The Tabouli In Our Beards, he’s batting a thousand.

So when Chris gave the Dixie Chicks documentary a glowing review, I put it at the top of my list. “Shut Up and Sing” is an account of the controversy from The Comment, and the ordeal the trio went through on their journey back to the top of the charts. While playing a show in London during the run-up to the Iraq War, Maines mentioned to the crowd that she was “ashamed that President Bush is from Texas,” the home state of all three Dixie Chicks. The crowd cheered, but as soon as The Comment was reported in the world press, rednecks everywhere lost their shit.