Once you know something you can’t not know it ever again. Innocence is unceremoniously yanked away. There you are, looking at a world you thought was round, like a beach ball, only to have discovered it’s flat and your little ship of happiness has a strong tailwind sailing straight toward the edge.
Due to the enthusiasm of another blogger, I’m reading Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72. I admired his writing in Rolling Stone when I was young, and he was alive. In my imagination he’s of my generation but in reality he was just a few days younger than my mother.
The most troubling thing I’ve read so far concerns the practice of sponsoring candidates. Apparently, it was common for wealthy people (now corporations are people too, just ask Mitt Romney and the US Supreme Court) to fund more than one candidate. The financial support sometimes included candidates of both parties, to insure Oval Office access regardless of who won. I cannot express how much this distresses me. On my formerly round planet, we do not play both ends against the middle. The practice is not sophisticated and urbane. It is cheap and dishonest.
I’m surprised Thompson wasn’t assassinated. His discoveries and opinions were incendiary. He said what he meant.
elroyjones 
How are you liking the book?
Thank you for recommending the book. I actually laugh out loud sometimes, the times when I am not grinding my teeth at revelations that are almost more than I can bear. Hunter Thompson had an amazing capacity for irony, among other things. I’m glad you stopped by. I’ve been on a rant lately and you, as always, seem to be nicely balanced. Fear and Loathing, the more things change the more they stay the same. Good to hear from you WB.
I’m very glad you are enjoying it! Now that you mention it, I should give it a re-read, to steel myself for the upcoming campaign season.
Big sigh. I wish a candidate I could support would emerge from the mist.
Because I am worked to a frazzle and I’m not kidding, I haven’t made a lot of progress so am a bit better than 1/2 way through. I am really enjoying the writing but I am so disillusioned. I’ve been a pathological optimist all of my life, I tell the truth and take the consequences. In spite of a lifetime of evidence to the contrary, I have always wanted to believe that corrupt politicians were the exception not the rule. I must have dementia WB because this is a reality that I am faced with and forget over and over again.