I originally posted this blog on my MySpace page on May 27th this year, while Barflies was still under construction. Almost two months later it's still something I want people to know about.

A die-hard Dixie Chicks fan, I was a little embarrassed to only recently have stumbled across a blog written during their "Accidents and Accusations" tour (I feel like this was something I should have known about all along - should have been reading as it was happening, not long after the tour had ended). The Chicks had partnered with MSN to hire a blogger to travel with them on the tour and record it from his perspective. Junichi Simitsu is a law professor at the University of San Diego, and someone who liked the Dixie Chicks, but wasn't an uber-fan (at least not at the start of the tour - when he mistakenly thought Emily was the older of the two sisters - I'm sure after spending months on the road with them, he's a total Dixie Chicks nerd now).

I spent a good four hours poring over this blog: Junichi's observations are, for the most part, hilarious, and I laughed out loud at several of them. But one in particular wasn't funny to me at all, the one titled "The Evolution of an Anti-Dixie Chicks Protester." This one brought tears to my eyes.

The image of this woman symbolized for many of us Chicks supporters just how out of control the anti-Chicks sentiment had become in 2003. Reading that she attended this rally not out of conviction, but because someone told her she should go, was very unsettling. It frightens me how easily some people can be persuaded to follow a crowd without really believing in what they are doing.

However, it takes an awful lot of courage to admit you were wrong, and I applaud this woman for her apology and efforts to make things right. I only wish that this article had received the same media attention as "The Incident" that started it all.