Somebody needs to do a cartoon showing this: Both sides, left and right on a giant teeter-totter. Each time the left (on the ground) gains volume and sends the right soaring up into the wild blue yonder, the left cheers and parties. Each time the right (on the ground) gains a victory, sending the left up to navigate the heights, the right cheers and parties. It would seem to be a fun game until the next box shows both left and right hobbling away with concussions on crutches ... just my overly-imaginative mind at work.

I think it possibly needs to be said as well, there are three sides represented here. The middle counts as a side too. About the only thing that could bring the far left and right together would be to oppose the middle which can come across as being pretty smug sometimes. The middle figures that if we could get rid of the far left and right, the problem could be solved more easily.

Here's a suggestion, we should all call a truce for a day, for listening and understanding. Visit each other's camps. Talk with the innocent victims on both sides and those who loved them. Listen to what their families have to say about them, about life without them; about why they had to go ...

Acknowledge each other's pain. Ask, what has been accomplished? Then, kick out the opportunists who have taken over and are drowning out the whole original message. Remind our news networks that they are there to tell the truth ... not to manipulate it.

Find a new medium ground; far enough away from the old camp sites (left, right and middle) but close enough to remember the lessons learned. These old camps would not be shrines or national monuments but rather boundaries or obvious reminders of what can so easily happen when we forget.