Abra Moore has captured the spirit of a young girl and combined it with the mind of a 28-year-old on her new album, Strangest Places.

Strangest Places, her second studio album, was released in May 1997, and "Four Leaf Clover," the first song from the album, earned Moore a Grammy nomination for "Best Female Rock Vocal" as well as some decent airtime on MTV and VH-1.

"Four Leaf Clover," with its happy-go-lucky lyrics and familiar guitar chords, was a bad choice as a first national release. All together it's not a bad song, but it's definitely not a great representative of the album.

The title cut, "Strangest Places," is much less giggly and verges on being like a Sheryl Crow song, with its toe-tapping guitar and Moore's wispy voice dipping well below its normal soprano range.

Scattered throughout the album are slow tunes like "Happiness" and "Your Faithful Friend" that suit Moore's girly voice perfectly. "Summers Ending," another ballad describes that reminiscent feeling after a vacation or summer break. It is a song about memories and is by far the best song on the album.

"Summers Ending" is well-placed as the last song on the album. Strangest Places is indeed like a summer, with emotions ranging from anger to happiness to dizzying excitement to sadness, and just like summer, I was sad to see it end.

- j. rossi

Dallas Cowboys. There is no middle ground with them. To some, they are the second coming of Christ. To the sane , they are the anti-Christ.

Dallas haters (myself included) take heart. You are not alone. I Hate the Dallas Cowboys-and Who Elected Them America's Team Anyway? is the book that puts the hatred for the Cowboys many football fans feel into a tangible manifesto. The book compiles essays from former football players, sport journalists and sports-radio broadcasters and each essay has one common theme: a contempt for the Dallas Cowboys.

In one of the essays, Deacon Jones, a former NFL offensive guard, writes: "...the essence of the Dallas Cowboys: a bullshit organization that hides behind its arrogant, self-righteous name of America's Team and possess none of the qualities that America aspires to."

This definition of the Cowboys is what the book shows the reader. The essays illustrate the difference between hating the Cowboys because they once were winners and hating the Cowboys because, despite all of their legal and character problems, their arrogance and their lack of respect for anybody but themselves, the team continues to call themselves "America's Team."

The essays show that in the last two years, Michael Irvin, Erik Williams, Deion Sanders and until recently, Barry Switzer, have been members of "America's Team." If these are the players who are part of "America's Team," I want to defect to Canada.

Incidentally, the Cowboys got the nickname "America's Team" from NFL Films. Each year, the NFL makes a highlight film for each team. In 1978, John Facenda, announcer for NFL Films, uttered these fateful words on Dallas' highlight film: "Dallas...they are America's team." The film was shown to then Cowboys owner Tex (yes, his name is Tex) Schramm and he liked the phrase so much, he co-opted it.

I Hate the Dallas Cowboys... finally gives a voice to the people who have been over-shadowed by John Madden and Monday Night Football. It lets football fans know that if they hate the Dallas Cowboys and all that the team stands for, they are not alone.

- c. remlinger