Republicans Block Gore's Live Earth in DC

Republicans have stymied Al Gore's attempts to stage the July 7th Live Earth concert in the nation's capital. Planning continues for the seven-city, twenty-four-hour event -- Madonna confirms she will headline the London leg of the show at Wembley Stadium -- but the U.S. host city will no longer be D.C., after a series of apparently partisan moves blocked the event from two sites near the Capitol. In March, the National Park Service, a division of the Interior Department (headed by Bush appointee Dirk Kempthorne), denied organizers a permit to hold a concert on the Mall, citing an undisclosed previous reservation. Next, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Sen. Olympia Snow introduced a resolution allowing the concert to go forward on the Capito's west lawn. Organizers hoped the resolution would pass quickly, but Republican Sen. James Inhofe -- who has called climate change "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" -- vowed to stall the resolution indefinitely, describing Live Earth as a "partisan event." "It's unfortunate that Senator Inhofe used the rules of the Senate to block an event like this," says Jim Manley, an aide to Reid. "The environment is not a partisan issue."

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Song Stories

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell | 1974

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.

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