Me, too, I’ve had enough politics, too.

Curt at Flopping Aces writes: Since I’m on a ‘everything but politics’ kick today…” and he links you to a story on the Buried Belvedere Unearthed. You’ll like.

I think I’m going to say “anything but politics” too…but for more than a day. Too much rage both left and right, and so much of it feels like a giant illusory overlay. I read a blogger today – can’t remember which one, but it doesn’t matter, there are so many right-wing bloggers are saying it – who was basically tapping his toe and saying, “bring on the third party!”

When I read that I remembered something I’d written a while back:

Maybe I should launch a conspiracy theory of my own…say…oh, something silly, like maybe this hysteria is just the conservatives doing everything they can to foment enough discord and discontent to create the “demand” for a third party candidate

I still find it really inexplicable that:

this issue – ignored by so many, for so long – not even discussed in ‘96, ‘98, ‘00, ‘02 and ‘04 – suddenly became a searing flashpoint needing a solution “yesterday” and pulling so many into positions of shrill absolutism, incapable of compromise.

What if it’s all an illusion, just like the Cinco de Mayo “nationwide protests” by Hispanics was an ‘06 (election year) illusion that had nothing behind it in ‘07 (no elections). What if everyone is being played a little bit, here, being prompted to emotional reactionaryism…

Perhaps I was mistaken in my earlier post – the prompting wasn’t to make people “hate” but to simply spur them on to a the creation of a third party, convinced (as some folks were in 1992, actually) that it could work?

Whatever. All I know is I’m feeling burned out and I have some things going on personally, concerning my mind, body and spirit, that need to take precedence over this non-stop national countdown-to-ignition into which I too have sadly contributed. It’s not serving me well, personally. I doubt it’s serving anyone else well, either.

So, here’s a last round-up of some interesting things political and then I think I’m going to write about “anything but politics” for a while.

Dept. of Ain’t History Innerestin’: Some political cartoons from America and Britain on the issues of immigration, isolation, theocracies and more. Note the UK loved to draw the Irish-Americans with simian features. I know, I know, you’re only against “illegal” immigrants. But we’ve already covered that – the Immigration Dept needs to be rebuilt and so does an Ellis Island (West) – in the meantime, check out the cartoons and see if some of the themes do not seem pre-tty familiar to you, all these enlightened years later. (H/T Sally.)

Dept of This Should Not Happen: Florida Masochist posts on A US citizen deported to Tijuana and now missing:

Guzman [who is developmentally disabled – admin], who knows no one in Tijuana, was last heard from on May 11, when he phoned his brother and sister-in-law’s home to say he had been deported to that city, but the call was interrupted before he could say exactly where he was, according to the ACLU.

FM writes:

I’m a US Citizen by birth, but I have three naturalized citizen relatives. My wife, my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law. The first two live with me, my SIL lives 60 miles to my south…None of them carry their naturalization certificates on them. For your information, copying them is a federal offense. The documents, like other proof of citizenship like a passport, are locked in our safety deposit box. My wife carries a Florida Driver’s license and a social security card. If stopped, is that going to prove citizenship?

Maybe “enforcement, enforcement, enforcement” will only work if the dysfunctional Immigration system is overhauled and modernized?

Dept of Mysterious Grace: FM also links to this story about how two parents are dealing with the loss of their daughter, Mary Karen Read, at Virginia Tech.

“When a deep injury is done us, we never recover until we forgive,” Mary had written in a little red notebook discovered by her family in her dorm room at Virginia Tech the day after she was killed in her mid-morning French class in Norris Hall on April 16.
[…]
Seeing the notebook for the first time, Peter reached down to pick it up and began reading. He discovered that for three years Mary had been collecting quotes on various subjects of interest typical for a teenage girl including boys, love and friendships. The last 10 quotes she wrote, however, caught her father’s attention. Dated Feb. 4, 2007 about two months before her life would be taken, Mary wrote about the profound importance of forgiveness.
“Forgiveness means letting go of the past.”
“Forgiving is not forgetting. It’s letting go of the hurt.”
“To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love. In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness.”
“Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future,” were among some of her last entries.

Dept of Great Books: 100 Greatest Adventure Books. I still think the greatest adventure writing is contained in the psalms and in Isaiah, but these are good, too!

Dept of Thanks, Dad! Derek Jeter talks about his father in time for Father’s Day.

Dept of Brits at their Best: just blogroll this site, already, will you?.