I'll have to respond to your very insightful message from the 14th in stages as time and the co-operation of brain cells permit. The tendency to make no distinction between persons and their beliefs or actions is a natural but most unfortunate and destructive inclination of our species. My personal approach to the news boards has been very effective for me. I glanced at them once and moved on, rapidly, without looking back. I hasten to add that nothing in particular offended me, but armed with the memory of some SG FAQ or other that questioned the sanity of anyone who wants to get news from this source, it was easy to give it all a miss. I wrote off the left up here a long time ago and the reasons are beautifully portrayed in The Life Of Brian, while the extreme right with their belief that poor people are genetically distinct from and inferior to billionaires and thus should starve and die as a natural and desirable consequence, do not fill my heart with joy either. I take off a few marks for mass murder as well, so you can see I have my own rigid and dogmatic tendencies. What has given me much comfort as well as optimism is many studies indicating that the vast majority of people across the political spectrum agree about the kind of world they want but not about how it might be achieved. The divisions therefore involve a lack of information more than anything else. This knowledge has saved a few friendships, I can tell you.
I'm delighted that things were going well for you a week ago and hope that such is still the case.
... hope your eyes aren't too tierd from all that microscope stuff 
