Absolutely disgusted

So, after making it through an unbelievable Ten Day Slog Through Hell -- during which every class I took had a project due and every student I taught was schedule to meet with me and every organization I'm a part of had a mandatory meeting -- I went to the mailbox to see what I'd missed over the weekend.

I have now received between 12 and 20 pieces of political print advertisements. All of them, I believe, paid for by the Republican party.

Six have been full color, double-sided cardstock ads for the state senate/rep candidate -- and all six are the exact same ad! Bravo to responsible use of campaign finances.

What's a little bit sickening about this chick is that when she's on TV they dress her up like Sarah Palin. When you see her old headshots she's just a pretty blond (no glasses). When you see her on TV she's got that shoulder length hair pulled half back with a clip and she's wearing rimless square glasses. Creepy.

But I digress.

Yesterday I received a piece of mail which disgusted me.

I opened an envelope with no return sender marked and opened a "handwritten" letter addressed "Dear Friend." Of course this "handwritten" letter was mass produced. By "handwritten" I mean the whole damn thing was in cursive and therefore difficult to read. This is supposedly a letter written to me by a grieving vengeful mother who blames the inability to send many people to jail for her son's murder (instead of just one guy who did go to prison for 12 years) on a politician.

She writes this supposedly moving letter (I did not find it moving, my composition students would not get an A on this thing) about how politician X took her son's case to a plea deal instead of a jury trial.

Letter writing lady: It was an open and shut case of first-degree murder. A jury would have convicted these killers in 10 minutes.

Me: um ... haven't you ever seen an episode of Law & Order? Open and shut murder trials don't exist.

Letter writing lady: My son was a victim twice at the hands of politician X.

Me: First, your parallelism is faulty. It's not "twice at the hands of X" (that would mean that X hurt your son twice); it's "once at the hands of [murderer] and twice at the hands of X." Second, get a clue about the legal system. In this system, most criminal cases do not go before a jury; they are plead out. Your beef is with the legal system not this one dude. Third, you fail your paper assignment because you never stated what politician X's job was when he was trying your son's case. TEARFUL LETTER FAIL.

OH: it gets better.

There's something else in the envelope. I pull out a 3x5 reproduction of the dead kid with more of the "mother's handwriting" on the back. Except this handwriting does not match the handwriting of the letter. It's still cursive, but the letters don't connect the same way. MORE LETTER FAIL.

But what really disgusts me is that this is a political advertisement. You want me to vote based on my heart and not my head? You want me to do that? I simply can't condone or endorse that.

Congratulations paid for byt the Michigan Republican Party, you've just convinced me to vote straight party ticket, straight Democratic Party ticket that is.