impressions

The more I learn about this place I live, the more depressing it is.  Of course, people are people everywhere.   But here things are just downright depressing sometimes.

1) the history.  I'm doing some reading on the African American settlement on the north end of the island.  It's so sad to read some of the oral histories and hear about the things the people - who I have come to love through the pages of history - had to face simply because of their skin color.
2) the politics.  today someone cheerfully admitted out loud that he voted for a candidate for county sheriff who spent time in JAIL for corrupt things he did with drug money when he used to be sheriff, among other things.  this same person proceeded to tell how he would happily vote for Huckabee for president because Huckabee likes to hunt, and Palin because she's attractive.  For the rest of the day, every time I saw him, he'd say "Bill Smith for President!" (that's the sheriff's name).  The only glimmer of hope is that the crook didn't win the election.  THEN, after all those shenanigans, I still had to sit there and listen to a bunch of blindly conservative individuals go on and on about Obama's failures.