POLITICS AND PEOPLE - THEY NEVER CHANGE!

Number one reason I am not a politician: I obviously don't get people. I'm not a join a party and stick to it person. I have never and don't ever expect to agree 100% with any political party or politician and the perception of those who belong to a group is that they go along with everything they think the group stands for, which may be totally different than others think the group stands for. (See picture of confused infant.) For many, a political party defines them and I think that is just wrong.

Second reason I am not a politician: Very few issues have excited me to action beyond voting, which I deem a privilege and a duty. I am glad there are people who do feel that way about politics. If they like to sit on committees and live in Ottawa - more luck to them.

Whenever there is an election I do start to ponder such matters and find myself in danger of taking the whole thing much too seriously. It is then I re-read a favourite chapter of Mr. Dickens' The Pickwick Papers. I'll save you the trouble of hunting up your copy.

It appears, then, that the Eatanswill people, like the people of many other small towns, considered themselves of the utmost and most mighty importance, and that every man in Eatanswill, conscious of the weight that attached to his example, felt himself bound to unite, heart and soul, with one of the two great parties that divided the town--the Blues and the Buffs. Now the Blues lost no opportunity of opposing the Buffs, and the Buffs lost no opportunity of opposing the Blues; and the consequence was, that whenever the Buffs and Blues met together at public meeting, Town-Hall, fair, or market, disputes and high words arose between them. With these dissensions, it is almost superfluous to say that everything in Eatanswill was made a party question. If the Buffs proposed to new skylight the market-place, the Blues got up public meetings, and denounced the proceeding; if the Blues proposed the erection of an additional pump in the High Street, the Buffs rose as one man and stood aghast at the enormity. There were Blue shops and Buff shops, Blue Inns and Buff Inns;--there was a Blue aisle and a Buff aisle in the very church itself.

Of course, it was essentially and indispensably necessary that each of these powerful parties should have its chosen organ and representative: and, accordingly, there were two newspapers in the town--the Eatanswill Gazette and the Eatanswill Independent; the former advocating Blue principles, and the latter conducted on grounds decidedly Buff. Fine newspapers they were. Such leading articles, and such spirited attacks!--"Our worthless contemporary, the Gazette"--"That disgraceful and dastardly journal, the Independent"--"That false and scurrilous print, the Independent"--"That vile and slanderous calumniator, the Gazette"; these, and other spirit-stirring denunciations were strewn plentifully over the columns of each, in every number, and excited feelings of the most intense delight and indignation in the bosoms of the townspeople.