I pay very little attention to politics these days. I know I probably should, I know it is important. I do get enough information to make what I think is an informed enough vote, but there is so much vitriol out there that I can’t take too much of it in.
I used to pay close attention. I used to argue about it on social media thinking I was making a difference. Then one night I realized I was lying in bed at two o’clock in the morning trying to make the perfect argument to convince an old college friend on Facebook of something or other.
I didn’t convince him of anything. In fact, we got into a pretty good fight and stopped talking to each other for a long while.
My blood pressure can’t take that crap.
And that’s how I make an introduction to my review of a book that is full of political cartoons from a century ago! Puck was a hugely important political magazine that ran from 1877 to 1918. This book covers that history and presents a whole bunch of the cartoons that ran inside its covers. As you can read in my review, it is quite informative and rather dull to this non-history buff reader.
themidnightcafe.org 
Agreed! For the most part, every time I think to make a political statement on social media or elsewhere, I nix it, knowing it probably does nothing good, and probably just causes my blood pressure or others’ to rise.
I do like political cartoons though. Here in Atlanta, the Atlanta Journal Consitution’s Mike Lukovich is one of the current masters of the form.
Like I said in the post at some point I realized it was raising my blood pressure and not actually doing anything positive. I had to defriend and unfollow a lot of folks because. they were constantly talking political nonsense and I couldn’t take it anymore. I try to just talk about fun things like movies and music now, and follow those who do the same.