the pleasures of history

Sometimes, research leads me down some very twisty corridors. I was idly following a thought-thread through the maze that is Google, and I came to this exquisitely ribald short story by Balzac.

Then, the captain, who was acquainted with the Donna of the Cardinal
Archbishop of Toledo requested her to smother the King of France with
kindness, and demonstrate to him the great advantage of the Castilian
imagination over the simple movement of the French. To which the
Marchesa of Amaesguy consented for the honour of Spain, and also for
the pleasure of knowing of what paste God made Kings, a matter in
which she was ignorant, having experience only of the princes of the
Church. Then she became passionate as a lion that has broken out of
his cage, and made the bones of the king crack in a manner that would
have killed any other man. But the above-named lord was so well
furnished, so greedy, and so will bitten, he no longer felt a bite;
and from this terrible duel the Marchesa emerged abashed, believing
she had the devil to confess.

I remember now.

A couple of you may know that I went through a political phase in college. I'm a lefty at heart and I always have been. I went to rallies and did some work for when Iowa was trying to pass the ERA. You know, typical college student stuff.

I got tired of it, drifted away, lost my passion for the process. I quit beleiving that I could make a difference.

I remember now why I lost my passion. Watching what little i have of the debates, I remember the reason that, after i left college, I refused to watch anything political at all.

I have a finely tuned bullshit detector when it comes to things people say. It really bothers me to watch people try to lie to me. I often let it pass instead of calling people on it, but that's only because most often, the only people who they're fooling are themselves. (And a lot of the rest of the time, the people trying to lie to me aren't actually speaking to me personally.)

Anyway.

Everyone is lying to me, when it comes to politics. Republican, Democrat, whatever. I watch the debates and go, "Wow. Both of them are lying their little asses off." I can't watch either of them speak without wanting to yell at them.

I can't care about this. I can't afford to care about this. No matter what happens, neither of these people is going to represent me. I'm too far left, too peacenik, too socially progressive, too everything. All I get out of this process is a sense of despair that none of these people is going to do anything to make my life better.

I feel bad about my desire to bury my head in the sand. At the same time, paying attention to politics raises my blood pressure and makes me want to throw things.

There are too many people, and they're all trying to lie to me.

Illume: Lose Me Like an Arrow

[geekery]

zondrrrah is evil. Wow. There haven't been a whole lot of times that he's come up with something that made me go, "um, EW", but this is one of them.

( Cut one of them, they both bleed. )