I'm sick of politics.

[mburbank]

Not that I don't get your point, Kev.

But I'll add these Caveats.

No decision about dog poop removal could lead to the death and maiming of Thousands (not to mention potentially to the actual annihilation of human life on the planet) of human beings.

No Selectman (I'm from New England Sonny Jim) ever had the power to make me complicit in a war of choice by spending my money on fragment bombs and white phosphous and uing them on people.

No Mayor violates the laws of the land, gets caught and is allowed to continue breaking those laws becaue he is a 'war time mayor'.

Underneath the mind boggling spin, soulless corruption and sickening level of ethical compromise huge nmubers of human lives and untold human suffering plays out.

Mod; I'm not saying it isn't tough and sickening. Kev, I'm not saying don't act locally. The biggest political impact I've ever had was publicly shaming a school superintendant into reversing a decision to punitively transfer three excellent teachers. It sure as hell made more pratical diferences in lives than my voting for Tom Harkin and Ralph Nader (In Massachusetts, so don't blame me for voting my concience instead of realistically). But when you don't try your damndest to parse spin and just start rooting for your team the world gets one person worse. And when you give up on the whole thing and go down into the undertow without screaming as loud as you can... well, the beach gets a little more quietr, which is nice for the kids. I can't play out every analogy.

Hell, I don't know. If it isn't obvious I like being outraged, I'm not writing well enough. But my dad always told me (By way of Twain, I think, but I'm not sure) The only proper response to an outrageous situation is outrage.

And Preech; I DO NOT aceept the premiss the being evil incarnte is a bi-partisan probelm. Clinton was a man who'd sell his own mom for power, did more damage to the social safety net than nixon, and got a hummer in the oval office and lied about it under oath. George Bush lied to get us into a war that has kill tens of thousands of people and he is still lying about it and he sleeps well at night because he belives he is gods agent on earth. He insists on a presidential right to authorise torture. He could watch Dick Cheney eat your liver out of your living abdomen and it would not trouble him in the least as long as Dick said it was for the greater good and it didn't stain the optomism of the daisy yellow rug in his office.

The lesser of two evils matters a lot when one evil is an oily, self interested huckster and the other evil is Satan. Not that W is Satan. I'm just making a point. Satan would be far more competent.