Call me a commie pinko, if you want. I don't often get political here, but I just have to say something. In our travels the last couple of weeks, there have been way too many for rent and for sale signs. There have been storefronts and warehouses abandoned in too many towns, even in places you would not expect. Outsourcing and unemployment is taking its toll on America. One of the shopkeepers we talked to in Telluride categorized it by telling us, "The deeper the dreadlocks, the richer the trust fund," as he talked about how that town has changed in the past 30 years, from a hippie enclave to a wealthy playground. And no, it is not healthy for a democracy. It's even harder on the less fortunate in our society. There is a man I know who has received a continuance to stay in his house for another couple of months. My heart went out to him when he told me if he loses his house, he has no place to go. No work, no hope. Many of us are only a paycheck or two away from crisis. Many of us no longer have paychecks, and have been forced to scramble in the last couple of years to make ends meet, often without a safety net. I don't know what it will take to set the ship of America back on course. To get us back to work. To get America manufacturing again. To allow the American Dream to be revived from its doldrums. Or we will, once again, all be refugees in search of better lives.

8 Ball Aitken comes from Australia with a National Resonator guitar on his knee, and brought his Australian blues to us in Memphis, TN during Folk Alliance last February. "Refugee" comes from his 2004 CD Behind The 8 Ball. It rings true worldwide, no matter who you are or where you are.

- Jessie Scott