By Noah W. Bailey
Picking the best folk and Americana records of the year isn't nearly as hard as discarding those great records that just didn't feel right stuck in the category.
Releases by Calexico and DeVotchKa felt far too worldly to pigeonhole as folk or country, for instance, while Blitzen Trapper's fantastic Furr smells more like the Kinks than Neil Young. [Editor's note: That's why we put it on our indie-rock list.] We likewise discarded Shearwater's near-masterpiece Rook, despite the
Eighty Methodist pastors from Northern California plan to challenge church law by co-officiating at a lesbian wedding. It's an act of conscience that could sunder America's second-largest denomination -- and bring gay marriage to the center of national co