VOTER FRAUD?

Here's Al Sharpton and guests.

Watch, and listen -- it's the liberal side of a looming BIG, MAJOR, IMPORTANT, URGENT issue.

Oh boy, Sharpton makes disenfranchising voters sound like a new Republican tactic, a new way for them to win the election in 2012.

Gee, I can't help remembering when George W Bush was elected -- the voter fraud issue -- after weeks of legal battles over the recounting of votes in Florida, the findings that proved Al Gore won that election. On December 13, 2000, though Gore sharply disagreed with the Supreme Court verdict that ended his bid for the presidency, Gore said, ''Partisan rancor must now be put aside. I accept the finality of the outcome, which will be ratified next Monday in the Electoral College, and tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession.''

Gore won the national popular vote by more than 500,000 votes, but narrowly lost Florida which gave the Electoral College --271 to 266 -- to Bush. And we got Bush/Cheney, war, 4,810 dead, Abu Ghraib prison, waterboarding, and on goes the list of wrongdoings.

Is voter fraud a serious major issue right now?

Here's what I learned from Brian Montopoli, reporter, for CBS Online News' Hot Sheet. The Brennan Center for Justice, a think tank at New York University, reports that 34 states have introduced voter identification laws this year that create hardship for 3.2 million Americans who want vote.

Republicans say they're promoting new restrictions on voting because of voter fraud, because voting machines -- new ones and old ones -- are too easily hacked.

The "Vulnerability Assessment Team," at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, found that the old machines can be hacked by anyone with an 8th grade education, with parts that cost $10.50. You can hack the new Diebold voting machines by inserting a piece of "alien electronics"-- it costs $26, requires a decent amount of knowledge and access to the machine, but it is possible to do on "every electronic voting machine."

Roger Johnston, leader of the assessment team, told Salon.com, a national online media magazine that reviews technology, "This is a national security issue. It should really be handled by the Department of Homeland Security."

At the moment, the Republican voting reforms that are designed to prevent fraud are discouraging first time, young voters and low-income voters -- and yes -- these are voters who tend to vote Democrat.

New laws in Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin require photo ID. (Only One in 10 voters has them, according to the Brennan Center report.) Other states have cut back on early voting that's used by millions of Americans. Two states have disenfranchised voters because of their past criminal convictions, despite the fact that these voters are currently taxpaying members of the community. Florida and Ohio are eliminating early voting on the Sundays before election day, which is when some African-American churches organize voters to go to the polls.

Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi, house minority leader in a congress that has vowed to stop everything President Obama is trying to do, has been traveling, making speeches, attending town halls, working with state legislatures to revise these laws, and meeting with local church and community groups, revving up voters in the states where they now have to fight red tape and spend money to obtain voter ID's.

Wow! It's a huge problem that could take billions of dollarts to solve. Nowadays, nobody can win without the loser claiming fraud. No doubt about it, the new laws will keep a lot of people who elected Obama from reelecting him in 2012. It reminds me of the debt ceiling issue that hangs over our country. There are solutions, but in my opinion, a Republican in the White House will not solve or fix any of our current huge issues, including voter fraud.

Back and forthing over what I've learned, I think we need to reelect Barack Obama and get a Congress that will help president Obama pass legislation and tackle the urgent issues in America.

CAMPAIGN TIME (video)

Oh boy! Not already! It's happening, we're in it right now!
Em Frankel and John Cullum both feel as if they're still recovering from the last campaign -- Hillary, Obama, and all those Republicans lined up, planning to run.

It seems ridiculous, hugely time-consuming, and very boring --to have to hear the sales pitches of candidates, and their pals, their PR guys, who are figuring what sells, loading us with polls and opinions of not very significant information.

Can't we wait till January 2012?

ROLAND PETIT

Does the name, ring a bell? Roland Petit, age 87, died in July. If I were writing about Alvin Ailey. you'd probably nod, but Petit?

Who is/was he? Why am I writing about him?

He was a French choreographer, a creator of 176 works, who continuously reinvented his style and became a master in the arts of pas de deux, dramatic ballet, as well as abstract ballets. He was married to dancer "Zizi" Jeanmaire, who performed in a number of his works as well the films he choreographed.

Petit is gone. My mom is gone, my dad's been gone for a long time. My brother was drowned, and others -- professional dear friends like Todd Bolender, Sophie Maslow, and Robert Joffrey are gone -- as well as others who aren't famous people, who' have made a mark on the world.

What's a "mark?" Something they built, did, or created that you admire because it defined something you wished you could do, or maybe it was a vague something or other, undefined in your mind.

Roland Petit collaborated with other very famous creators, designers, composers, performers -- names you'd recognize. He made them more famous, and, I think, he made their stardom and his own, vaster, more important.

When I was an up-and-coming dancer, I knew his name, but he was in a far-away land. Of course, I secretly wondered if he'd discover me -- my compelling face, the special concentration that I have, that makes an audience focus on me. (I've seen me in movies. I had a powerful something or other -- I don't know what it is. )

His stars (the ones he discovered and the dancers whom he used as guest artists), all had an animal sensual radiance. Petit saw bodies, especially perfectly proportioned females. And somehow, in working with these various girl/women -- he imbued them, their souls -- with deeper elements of whatever was already there -- humor, curiosity, joy, lovingness, rage, despair. He made them more fascinating, more radiant.

I write about him because the effect he had on the art world lingers, like the Aztec, Mayan, Inca chiseling.

For instance Leslie Caron. That Petit found her, directed, shaped, and launched her, is one of the reasons why I'm not able to put the fact that he's gone out of my mind. Okay, Fosse did that too, with Gwen Verdon and maybe with Ann Reinking, (whom I don't include on my personal list of special/favorite/ radiant performers, but she was powerful in Fosse's "All That Jazz.")

I am searching for a way to express what I feel about Roland Petit, and others, those whom you knew, who affected you and are gone. They live -- really live on — their words, gestures, deeds.

They are not gone. Pay attention, nod, acknowledge any moment, anything about them that you remember.

Do it -- remember them, the people who made a MARK on you. Do it intentionally.

I am thinking about how I'll feel at the end of my life. I could be there in a minute. So I'm saying to you, though you may not hear it, hold on to whatever MARK I might have made on you and your world.

ALEC BALDWIN

He's getting looser, but wiser, gentler, sharper, sometimes meaner, and boy oh boy, we are seeing more, and more, AND MORE of Alex Baldwin.

In lots of ads, very big commercials for a bank card, and do-this, try-that ads that suggest better, healthier, less expensive ways to do various things -- I can't remember what -- but on Ted Turner's movie channel --wow -- Baldwin talking about movies -- there's no one who's as direct, sincere, knowledgeable as Alec B.

Remember, all the bad press he got because he yelled at his daughter, and the divorce stuff? It's fading. It seems unimportant as we watch him, and are getting to know him as he's growing up into a leader.

Former actor Ronald Reagan was a leader. Like Reagan, Baldwin has played many different roles -- heroes and villains, quite often revealing unattractive aspects of himself (physically and mentally), but Baldwin remains attractive -- admirable, honest, trustworthy, yes -- and lovable.

I think Baldwin is deliberately expanding himself, his name, his presence, all over the media; in a methodical, thoughtfully considered way . I think he's making plans to run for public office. He's a "star" who doesn't behave like a STAR, and he is positioning himself to go for something major.

Okay, I know he admires my husband, John Cullum, and Baldwin has said so in public more than two times. (I heard him) -- Cullum in the musical "Shenandoah," inspired the young Alec to become an actor. He had good taste. John Cullum, in that musical, playing Charlie Anderson, was classic -- heroic -- fatherly -- a man to believe in -- a man who loved his family and his country.

So, since I feel that image still resonating in Baldwin (as it does in many many people who saw that show) why not Alec Baldwin as a mover and shaker in politics?

Yes, I am predicting, that one of these days we'll be seeing Mr. Alec Baldwin running for President.