To accomplish my civic duty, Vinko & I drove offroad down a steep pass into a wash, across the desert, and over to Flamingo Heights to vote.

There's not much in Landers, not even a place to vote. I'm registered as a vote-by-mail guy, but rather than spending about $1 in postage to mail back the heavy cardboard vote-by-mail ballot, I chose to drive to the nearest polling location where I could drop it off, which happens to be in Flamingo Heights.

As expected, once again I saw no trace of flamingos, not even plastic ones. Maybe I need to explore more thoroughly. What I did see is a part of the desert that looks remarkably the same as all the other parts of the desert up here, only this part has a different name.

I could have driven there all the way on paved roads, but thought, "what the hell" and decided to take a short cut which, like most shortcuts around here, was more direct but quite a bit slower. I'd never taken this particular road before, so it also had that going for it and was drawn on the map as a straight line, which effectively eliminates most chances of getting lost in the desert and dying.

I had a hunch, and was right, that it would mean driving up a small rise of ten degrees or so, but that's no problem for my little Jeep. The descent into the wash, however, was near one of its steeper parts, so after making sure that Vinko and I were both strapped in, we rode down what I'm guessing is a 45 degree slope into the bottom of the wash. Please note that I'm no good with numbers and am prone to exaggeration.

But not, I think, in this case.

Anyway, it was fun little ride and the polling place was at the community center, a pre-fab metal building that's a step or two up from a storage container and just like lots of other buildings up here. One of the poll workers made sure everything was fine and put my ballot in a box just for mail in ballots that weren't, and our brief meeting means that if I die, my last words spoken to a human being weren't "I like your toenails," which I said yesterday in town to a woman in a parking lot.

I'm not happy about this vote, and not just because I think I got a lot of the questions wrong. I always worry about that, but am far too opinionated to ever cast a perfect ballot. My difficulty this time is that it's increasingly hard to vote for someone because I like his or her name or previous occupation. That's served me well in the past, but there's a growing number of people I wouldn't want anywhere near an elected office and I don't know enough about most of the candidates.

To me, they're mostly names on a ballot running for some office I never knew existed.

One of my hard and fast rules is to stop reading anything on the Internet or listening to anyone on the radio or TV who uses the words regime or agenda. It may be harsh, but I've learned through experience that nothing that follows will be important or give me any insight to whatever they're talking about. It will all be blather, talking points, and just fuel for all of the people who are delighted to hear someone repeat things they've already decided are true.

In short, nothing new.

I left a lot of the ballot blank just because I don't like to reward people who think or act that way and, since I never heard anything these candidates say or write, I have no idea if they're one of those non-thinking morons who populate our current political scene.

I'd hate myself, even more than usual, if I voted for someone who wanted to destroy capitalism, throw all the bums out, turn my nation's beauty into profits for companies, or couldn't get his or her head over the stupid idea of impeaching our president.

So, I hope the people who are sane and see elected office as something other than a way to make themselves and their friends rich and who try to do more than pander to the least among us get elected.

My confidence in that is minimal.

There's a guy running for office up here whose campaign reminded me of something I've been thinking about.

Over the past couple presidential elections a whole bunch of people have been talking about the US debt and deficit spending, often mentioning saddling the grandkids with repaying all the money we've borrowed to pay for things they don't think we should be spending money on. Their very simple fix, of course, is to stop spending money on things they think is wasteful (which is damn near everything).

That sounds pretty good on the surface, and I'm sure there's lots of money that can be saved, but it got me to thinking.

This candidate guy boasts that he was mayor of some town and managed to balance its budget and maybe even saved some money. Considering how easily statistics, especially economic ones, can be manipulated, I'm sure there's some way he can be telling the truth about that. I've also noticed, now that he's no longer mayor, that his town is doing a lot of road repair, putting in traffic islands, generally fixing things up.

Which leads me to my problem.

It looks to me as if instead of saddling future generations with debt, we can stop spending money and saddle them, instead, with future spending. It's sort of like putting off borrowing money to get your car fixed or a water heater replaced and, instead, letting your kids inherit something that needs repairs in order to work.

To put it simply, the money's got to be spent either now or later. Not spending the money now doesn't seem to me to be saving your kids anything at all and pretty much just puts them in the position of borrowing the money.

I'm not sure there's a great deal of real difference between inheriting debt and inheriting expenses.

Not spending the money now doesn't mean that it will never have to be spent is my point. Worse, any good feeling we might get from not giving our kids a bill might be short lived if they look at what we give them as being a piece of junk that will cost them a fortune to keep running.

I'm no economist and never even studied economics, but I hear that interest rates for borrowing are very low right now. As someone who inherited a distressed property (and admittedly let it get worse), I'm fairly confident in saying there's no easy way out of the situation.

Also, I'm not gonna vote for the guy.

As they're wont to do, the Marines are flexing their muscles.

They've been exploding things willy-nilly the last week or so, but I'm thinking that instead of trying to show nature that they, too, can make you think of thunder that they have an ulterior purpose behind all these booms.

The explosions, frequent as they are, don't bother me or Minardi, maybe because they're far enough way to be neither sharp nor particularly loud. I sometimes feel them as much as hear them, which is pretty impressive, but they've got about as much land as Rhode Island for blowing things up and I guess they want to show that they need and use it.

Which brings me to my point. There's a real dilemma for the testosterone-driven, one that's been going for several years. On the one hand, the Marines want more land and back in 2008 asked for another 250 square miles or so to better practice blowing things up.

This, I'd imagine, would naturally be just fine with the pro-military types who are based or lived in the area and whom I'd imagine find very little reason to ever deny our armed forces anything they want.

On the other hand … King of the Hammers.

The “Hammers,” as they're called, is an annual off-road race that takes place in the area the Marines want for blowing up. This past week there's been increased traffic in the area as off-road racers have been hauling all manner of vehicles and, of course, RVs, trailers, and whatnot into the nearby Off Road Recreation Center that also serves as the home of King Clone.

I don't think the Marines particularly dislike off-road racing, but I'd have to admit anything they have for moving over the desert would make pretty short work of the professional's buggies and, being Marines, might even welcome the fight.

In any case, the expansion has been delayed or postponed or something and, as is the American way, is probably sitting around in some court or other. The Hammers people, in pressing their case, cite how important their event is to the community, talking about how much money local businesses get, how hundreds of thousands of people will lose their way of life by the loss of public land, and even that thousands of desert tortoises might get blown up. Their thinking, it must be assumed, is that that is a fate somewhat worse than being run over.

It's gotta be hard to choose between tearing up the desert and supporting the military, and even I'm of two minds about it. Without a strong, overwhelming military, we'd have hundreds of thousands more adolescents running around our cities maybe painting everything in sight or trying to get on YouTube by attempting some feat after asking a friend to hold their drink a moment.

So, I'm thinking the Marines are just showing off right now. Also, that the King of the Hammers race will be a success and might be worth a visit.

Someone, although I couldn't tell you who, once famously said something profound about democracy being a bad form of government, but better than the rest. The more I see of this election process, the more wisdom I see in that, especially the "bad form" part.

It's obvious whoever said that had a much broader range of experience than I've had. Other than electing government representatives who ignore me except when they're courting my vote, I'm not sure I've seen very much democracy in action at all. Growing up I didn't have much say in how my family was run, and no job I've ever held or heard of is in any way democratic. It's always been more feudal, I think the term would be, than anything else, with rulers just telling me what to do.

After I moved out of my parents house and was living on my own, my home life was democratic, but only in the sense that there was only one vote on anything and that one my vote was mine. When I was in relationships, of course, there was still only one vote, but it was no longer mine. The women always have the trump card, all the power, and I have no argument with that.

Anyway, whoever said that famous quote about democracy must never have seen McCain and Palin's supporters. There are lots of them, maybe a majority, but very few of these people show me much of anything that would lead me to believe that they should have a say in how anything important is decided. The world, now, and maybe for quite some time, has been too complicated for me to figure out, and I think I'm one of the bright ones. With so much going on, and so little of it black and white or easily reducible, common people just don't stand a chance.

And, yet, we give them all votes.

In spite of their having invented democracy, or so I've heard, it's just a shame that Plato's elites never took hold. People who run things and make decisions should have skill sets that go beyond coaxing the electorate to think they're the ones who can best represent them. Palin has a great stage presence and can give a whopper of a speech, but I don't trust her judgment on anything I feel is important. Obama, also, gives great speeches, but at least he seems to have thought about what he's saying instead of just telling us what we want to hear.

All I'm saying is that I'm not sure I wouldn't be equally miserable living under some sort of meritocracy. I don't think only white landowners should vote, but I also don't think all these yahoos yelling USA! or scowling whenever the terms Bush, socialist, elitist, or liberal is tossed at them from instinctive reactions are the ones I want setting my future, either.

I'm not sure if another revolution will ever come, but I doubt I'll be alive when it happens. In my life, sadly, only other stuff happens.

Things this political season have changed so much that I think it's safe to say they're exactly the same.

I'm not sure what it says about humanity, but one thing I've learned as we approach this election is that no matter what gets brought up by either side, no matter what incident gets mentioned by the press, no matter how any event or issue is spun by those running the campaigns, people immediately fall straight into line. It doesn't matter if it's Governor Sarah Palin appearing on Saturday Night Live or anything else, those in her party will proclaim it a success and those on the other side will call it lame.

I don't even have to look at the source anymore. If someone discovers that Obama wrote a blurb for Ayers' book, the right will see this as further evidence of something or other and the left will say "so what."

I suspect the only reason these things get mentioned at all, anything from McCain's association with Liddy to Obama's 57 state comment, is to get each side's supporters off their asses and into the voting booths. With the dismal turnout that we in America usually show, I think either side can win if they just get over three-fourths of their supporters out. Karl Rove was famous for this, not only in trying to get all the Republicans to vote, but for trying to depress the Democrats enough that they'd choose to sit home and cry rather than vote for Gore or Kerry.

No, I'm talking about voter suppression at the polls, or the sometimes questionable purging of registered voters, merely attempts to keep people at home. President Clinton, now, may be trying to do that by his repeated assertions that the election is in the bag for Obama, that it's going to be a wipeout. His message strikes me as being close to "this thing is won, don't bother showing up," a message that would help his wife while also being one he can point to as showing his support for the Democrats.

Anyway, one thing I'm sure of is that whatever gets released will be pointed at by one side as being important while simultaneously subject to innocent explanations by the other. Anything may get "your" side out, get them riled up enough to vote, but very little of it adds anything to political discourse.

Then, again, if someone can proclaim "Country First!" while selecting a uniquely inept person to be his running mate, pretty much everything is possible.

Like a lot of people, I watched the presidential debates the other night. Unlike most of them, including the politicians, I spent a little time thinking about personal hygiene. Or, freshness.

If I were to be in one of these nationally televised debates and setting myself up to be judged by tens of millions of people who would decide my fate, before I went on onstage I think I'd want to take a shower. Not necessarily to get clean, but it might be refreshing and relaxing.

As soon as I thought that, I pictured myself telling my advisors and staff about it, that I needed to take a break and take a shower. This is something I can do now, without mentioning it to a soul, so right off the bat, that would be different. It would also be different that anyone would be interested in my wanting to take a shower.

That interest, among a ton of other, more important things, is what distinguishes me from these politicians. I thought about it some and realized that I can't fathom what it would be like to have thousands of people wanting some of my time. Right now hardly anyone does, but if I were running for president, a team of secretaries couldn't keep up with the demands on my time. Other politicians, media people, people wanting favors or thrusting wads of cash into my hand in hopes of future ones, tons of people wanting a piece of me, a chance to talk or listen to me, all of them would be asking for my attention.

I don't think I could handle it.

Boy, these conventions are sure something!

Only not so much the one that's going on now.

Last week I was going through a tissue or three each night because of the emotions raised in me by the speakers and directors of the videos. This week ... not so much. Last week Joe Biden made me think and laugh and Obama made me hope, but this week all I keep hearing is how some nameless opposition is no good at all. "Vote for us or else" is not a campaign slogan that has much traction with me.

Then, last night, I got to see the media fall all over themselves congratulating someone for talking successfully to a very supportive crowd. I admit she did a decent job of delivering a prepared speech, but I can't help feeling that reciting something after practicing on it for a few days doesn't mean a great to me. I expect more of our leaders than that, something I had to do in Junior High.

I guess most of America can relate to her, and there's no small number of political scientists who say that's a good thing. I can't say that I do and, more, I can't say that I'd vote for anyone because I did. I want my president, whoever he or she is, to be like some sort of super-adult from my childhood, and it's hard for me to do that when I can see the strings, mirrors, and through the smoke. I know a lot of people will like Sarah Palin because she has breasts, and I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but it's not like I'm ever going to get much pleasure from them.

Many of the same people who piled on Hillary are now saying I can't judge Sarah. It's true that no one questions any men about how they can work and raise a family, but it's also true that it's a reality that in our current culture, men and women have different roles. I'm not sure that I, even as a guy, would leave a newborn baby who needed me to pursue my career goals, but I'm not saying that makes Sarah a bad parent. It just gives me pause.

I have no interest in her pregnant daughter, either, other than in her name. I would never name one of my kids after some NASCAR track, but, then again, I'd be unlikely to name her siblings Willow, Trig, Track, or Piper, either: it would make it too difficult for them to buy souvenir license plates at the county fair and kids don't need to overcome every possible challenge and disappointment just to grow up secure.

Not that I know anything about kids.

It may be a good thing that the Palins can get out of Wasilla, a city that evidently has one meth lab for every 225 residents, a number I admit staggered me. Granted, there's little to do in Alaska except come up with names for snow and, presumably, exercise your genitals, but that can't be wholesome environment.

Still, she gave a good speech to people who wanted to hear her say bad things about Obama, but it didn't make me change my mind.

It's been one whole day now that people in California have been able to apply for same-sex marriage licenses and we, surprisingly, haven't been struck yet with any calamities from the almighty.

Maybe She approves.

Although I've never dabbled on the other side of the fence myself, except, maybe, sort of, I'm hoping that the gays I've known take advantage of this. Not that I want them to later experience the crushing bitterness of divorce or anything just to be equal, but, really, what the people down the street or across town do in their homes really doesn't interest me that much. Nor do I think that two guys or two women marrying each other will change how we think of marriage in the slightest.

It's two people who love each other, being together for more than tax reasons.

I was touched to read that George Takei was the first one in line to get a marriage license in West Hollywood. That's so cool, and I'm very happy for him. He may have never thought it would happen in his lifetime (he's 71, according to the article), and now he can live his dream.

He probably doesn't remember me, even though we met. And by "met" I mean that we were eating in the same deli in Burbank in the late 1980s and were seated right next to each other at the counter. He may have asked me to pass him some mustard in that beautiful deep voice of his, and I'm sure I obliged once I noticed who he was.

I nodded at him to show that I recognized him, and he sorta smiled back. I like to think he was happy I didn't call him Sulu or make a fuss, but now I'm wondering if he wasn't disappointed I didn't make a pass at him. Back then I was desirable.

There's a lot of arguing that goes on about the proper role of government, which just makes sense because there isn't a "right" answer, only opinions. Those who say government should do a lot of regulating assume the government knows best and those who say it should stay out of our lives as much as possible put, I think, too much credit on the humans it is meant to govern. Still, hardly anyone argues that the proper role of our government is to confuse us.



Yeah, that cute little car is mine, but that's not the point.

It used to be that streets didn't have these obnoxious lumps in them, and maybe they're just a southern California thing. There purpose, I think, is to slow traffic down, which reduces the slaughter and mayhem on our neighborhood streets. It also saves gas, so that's a good thing.

Years ago, when I first started seeing these, they were painted with diagonal stripes, which surely caught your eye. Then, a few years later, some more enlightened legislature decided that they might be catching drivers unaware so they added yellow street signs alerting us to the (speed) bumps in the road. Some time after the latest episode of slurrying the streets to make them look, if not function, any better, an even more informed legislature must have decided that while marking the bumps, themselves, with diagonal lines, that cost more than just writing on the street.

Why they chose to call them "humps," I cannot explain. It may have to do with us human's fondness for that which is new, or maybe the world "bump" was too difficult for many of our drivers to grasp. We'd gotten used to speed bumps, so maybe the thinking was to call them something different in the guise of updating or enhancing them, or maybe it was just to draw attention to them as being something new.

Either way, I think it's silly.

I have no idea how many fatal accidents there ever were on that street, but since it's the next block over, I'd think I would have heard the sirens or known about it. The number of lives saved, of course, approaches the infinite, in spite of the damage to done to all the cars that are now lower to the ground to save on gas mileage.

In any case, I guess I should write someone in government a strongly worded letter about this nonsense. If we can reach a consensus, an agreement, on the burgeoning hump-bump debate, there may yet be hope for the more serious issues.

I say, let's start with something small.

As some point in the distant past I heard someone ask me if I'd rather be right than happy. I'm not sure how I answered, but the true answer would be "right."

I can't just "get along." When something bugs me, it bugs me, and I have no idea how to stop letting that happen.

Like at least some other people, this year I learned about superdelegates. Now, I can understand some of the reasoning behind the Democratic Party having them, but a lot of people seem to be very upset with the whole idea. "Democracy!" they shout, and while there's a lot to be said in favor of that, a political party, I think, can select its nominee any way they want.

Still, I can sort of see why you might want superdelegates. I guess they're necessary if you need a majority and not just a plurality to select your candidate, but I also like how they add the human factor into the nominating process. It can be like having a human monitoring a computer or piece of machinery. Without the superdelegates, the process could be entirely automated, and I'm not so sure that's always a good thing.

If Barack Obama, who was leading last time I looked, cracks and does something stupid, it's good to have the superdelegates being able to pick someone else. I don't think they should overturn the will of the people on a whim, but if video surfaces of him gnawing on the bones of babies while seated on an American Flag while dressed in only a garter belt and high heels with a butt plug shoved up his ass, I think it would be reasonable to allow the superdelegates to overturn his nomination.

But that's not what bugs me about superdelegates.

It's the way they're referred to by many in the media, as if they were a bulk item. One of my favorite cartoons shows a guy in line at a grocery store correcting the "Ten items or less" sign to read "fewer," and the caption reads "Everybody's an editor."

Okay, not really all that funny, but it tickles my editorial soul. There is a difference between less and fewer, and it bugs me when people use the wrong term. One, fewer, is used to refer to countable items, even if it's a large number the stars in the sky. Less is used to talk about conceptual items, or those who we consider bulk items. There is less sugar on fewer donuts, fewer dollars means less money. It's not really that hard I don't think, but it does require a bit of thinking and evidently that amount of thinking is more than most people care to exert.

It's correct to say Obama or Hillary will need more delegates to win the nomination. But I wince whenever I hear someone refer to the superdelegates in bulk terms, although a specific instance of that escapes me now. Maybe I'll edit one in next time I hear it. If I watch any cable news program, I'm sure it will take fewer than five minutes.

[Edit: Okay, the biggest offense (from a usage standpoint) about these superdelegates is how often some knucklehead will talk about the amount of delegates needed. That's just plain wrong, and I'd be insulted if I were a superdelegate and was being referred to as if I was some sort of bulk commodity. Delegates do NOT come in amounts, they come in numbers! ]

My point is, if I wasn't so insistent on being right all the time, I could more thoroughly enjoy this race.

On the other hand, there's this, which is pretty cool and depressing, and this, which is equally depressing but is a little movie.

Einstein wrote somewhat famously about relativity in his work in physics, but his theory gets more use, I think, in everyday politics. Many of these politicians, it turns out, are lawyers, and if there’s one group other than editors who’ve learned to be exacting in their use of language, it’s lawyers.
They try hard to speak at great length and say very little, and when you think about what they’re saying, you might find they imply more than they state. The more they do this, the more successful they are as politicians.

English is pretty old language, I think, and was more suited to talking about groups of things back when it was invented. It’s brimming with vague words to talk about numbers, ones we use every day somewhat casually.

We talk about a couple of things, everyone knows we’re talking about two. A few is three or four, and several seems to me to be talking about no more than five to seven. After that, I think we pretty much run out of words except for dozens, hundreds, grosses, and others that don’t get frequent use. We do have plenty of other vague words to describe numbers of things, not the least of which is plenty, itself. Except for some and many. We use those a lot, and politicians are very fond of them and use them all the time. Some is a great word. It logically means “more than one,” and is used to describe, literally, any number of things, especially when we don’t want to be specific.

When I say, “I have some problems,” unless you press me for details, you have no idea how many problems I have. If I say I have a handful, you get an idea, more than you would have if I said lots. Lots, like some, is relative.

President Bush occasionally tries to show his awareness of opposition by saying that “some on the other side” or “some people” disagree with him. The thing is, he’s right, but he isn’t saying anything. Some can mean four people, and in that context it would only make sense if he was talking about a local Lions club, not the 300 million American people.

“Many people support my proposal,” is equally true. It sounds great, almost as if nearly a majority of people are on his side, but it would be a true statement if only a dozen did.

We have unspecified words to indicate one more than half, a majority, but in the case of the US there’s a wide gap between dozens and 150,000,001 that none of our words specifically indicate. When our tribes numbered no more than twenty, some people agreeing could mean you had less than half, less than the number that might be indicated by many.

Whenever I hear any politician use these terms in their speeches or debates, I cringe, even more so when they use them as if I know what they mean. There should be no “many” in politics, not unless I know for a fact that they’re talking about more than six people in their inner party.
It sounds good, but means nothing. Maybe that says more about a politician than I care to consider.

Like about half the country, I voted yesterday, but I don't think I did as good a job of it as most people. Oh, sure, I got most of 'em right, but I wasn't as involved as I should have been.

We had about ten propositions on our state ballot, or maybe they were called something else. I think they all had to do with Indians and casinos, which are becoming as connected in our current society as they used to be with wooden statues. I got them all right, of which I'm justifiably proud, but I can't brag about my reason for doing so.

Unlike everyone else, I didn't study these issues at all. I didn't read the propositions and supporting arguments the way I usually do. I didn't try to make sense of the arcane language or understand the arguments of those arguing for or against them, and I didn't pay any attention to any of the flood of ads that came my way alerting me to the dire consequences if any of them either passed or failed.

Those opposing the propositions, Californians Against Unfair Deals, is a group I would like to think I belong to. Those in favor aren't, curiously enough, Californians Against Fair Deals, like one would have expected, but were the Coalition to Protect California's Budget & Economy. For me, it was a choice between being for unfair deals or demolishing California's budget and economy.

It was a tough choice.

On the one hand, I was torn about the Coalition to protect California's Budget & Economy. I could see ravaging the budget, that gets done all the time by whoever's in charge, and exposing our economy to danger didn't seem to be all that threatening, but the two of them together pack quite a punch. If it was one or the other, I could live with that and myself, but the two were joined by that pesky conjunct that makes answering multiple choice questions so very difficult.

In the end I held my breath, took my chances, and voted in favor of the propositions, as did most Californians. I'm just glad I wasn't the only one, and when historians begin pointing at the fall of this great state as beginning with our acceptance of unfair deals, I won't be the only one.

As far as unfair deals go, I think the Indians know more about it than I ever could, anyway.

Unlike Ted Kennedy or Marcia Pappas, if I recommend any candidate it won't make the news. That's fine with me: I don't want to deal with reporters.

Still, this has to be one of the better campaigns. We've had freepers going batty over Fred Thompson, who acted as if he was as excited about becoming president as a sane person, the reappearance of Bill Clinton all over my TV, and a surprising appearance by the reclusive Carolyn Kennedy. Instead of the more usual "gain momentum in the first couple states and waltz to the convention," we've had real races going on in both of the major parties.

Neither of which I belong to, but that's another matter.

I have nothing to back this up, no facts or research or data or anything, but I get the impression from most partisans I talk with that they see the American public, politically, as falling into a dumbbell curve. Their side is large, and the other side is equally substantial and is, for all reasonable people, worthy of only disdain. These partisans look at the political landscape as a battlefield, something I don't agree with.

I've met a grand total of two politicians in my life, but that's not including Dwight Eisenhower who I saw riding in a big car at a Rose Parade. Still, from what I've seen on TV, I have to say that they're all pretty likable. I guess they have to be,  but more than that, I don't see any of them as being the personification of evil. I seriously doubt that any of them wake up thinking of ways to further injure the world or move a step or two closer to world domination. They often have plans and ideas that I disagree with, but I don't think those stem from malice.

Similar to religious beliefs, I can like people with whom I politically disagree. I don't have much use for our current president, but I bet if I spent some time with him that I'd enjoy it. We just wouldn't talk politics.

I'm a bit concerned about what I hear from political scientists and pundits, however. If they're right, many women, especially older women, are voting with their tits this year and backing Hillary. I'm not a woman, and I don't claim to understand them, but I have to shake my head when I hear how so many of them are voting for her because "She's a woman, and we should have a woman president."  That sort of thinking, that any woman will do, runs against my grain.

It's true that I've been enamored with Obama since last August or so. It has nothing to do with his policies, about which I'm mostly ignorant, I just think he's what I want in a president. I can listen to him without wincing and even get inspired on occasion, and I'm one of those who thinks that nothing political ever lasts very long. It seems to me that half the work of any administration is undoing the work of the last one, especially if the other side held the office.

I guess voting for a woman because you're one makes sense, but only if you think the two genders are at war, maybe the same war you fight against the opposing party.

Another of those presidential primaries is scheduled for tomorrow, but I doubt that will prevent anyone from still talking about the last one.

You see, everybody thought one guy would win, but instead of that, his opponent did.

In the week that followed, media people began assuring "never again" would they make such a mistake and they spent no small amount of time wondering aloud how such a thing could have happened. The best part of this, for me, was that they mostly discussed it among themselves. This makes sense because it was their loss of credibility that was most evident and important to them.

Politics may all be local, but reality is downright personal.

A number of possible reasons for the disparity between the polls and the actual results were offered, but by now most everyone has settled on it being women. I'm fairly confident that we'll never know for sure, if only because we can't check how people voted against how they said they would or did. That's the thing about secret balloting.

No one is talking much any more about the Bradley or Dinkins effect, where people say they'll vote for an African-American but don't, and I don't know if that has anything to do with it or not. Iowa, where Obama won, sheds no light on that, either, since it was a public caucus and not a secret vote.

Twice in the week of continuing coverage I heard interviews with actual pollsters, who make a damn decent living coming up with numbers for the newscasters and pundits to talk about. The guy I like best, the one who runs the Pew polls, came up with I thought was the best answer, though that may be mostly because I like him. According to him, his initial thought was that more of Hillary's supporters simply refused to answer or take part in the polls.

To get the thousand or so answers from which to develop a statistically relevant sample, the pollsters have to ask lots of people. The overwhelming number of people politely (or not) refuse, and it's entirely possible that a large chunk of women, whom we’ll say voted for Hillary, were put off by the people conducting the polls.

It may have been something as simple as them not caring to discuss their intimate, political ideas with some kid covered with tattoos.

The other thing, not to be overlooked, is that the polls all stopped gathering information a few days before the vote. A lot can happen in a few days, so I’m not willing to think it’s all and only a large number of women flocking to a sister in need. I don’t know anything about women, but I doubt they’re likely to consider gender a trump card.

Most of them already realize they rule the world.

One way, the best way, for me to tell that things are getting political is the sudden and continuing appearance of Indians all over my TV.

I have no idea if it happens elsewhere, in the rest of the states, but here in California it seems we can't hold an election that doesn't include at least one proposition about Indian gaming something-or-other. Every time an election rolls around, and at no other time, sad or happy Indians and their sad or happy non-Indian counterparts fill all available commercial time with ads predicting gloom and doom if some proposition either fails or passes.

By my unofficial and completely made-up count, we've had two dozen such propositions this century alone. In every one of them, the rights and rewards of Indians to build or keep casinos is it stake, along with the future of California, the nation, and the world.

These ads, which I routinely ignore, are very emotional pieces, as you can imagine, which explains the sadness or glee I remarked on earlier. The strange thing is, as critical and far-reaching the passage or defeat of such propositions is set forth, I have no idea how any of them were ultimately decided.

Nor have I seen any cataclysmic results. It's almost as if the dire predictions were inflated, but I can hardly believe that.

I have three or four Indian casinos that I can easily visit, and there's probably more than that I don't know about. I've been to a grand total of one, but only witnessed a mildly important prize fight there as part of research for a book I'd written and never gambled.

!@(boxing1.jpg:L120 popimg: "2ndPlace")

The fight achieved its mildly famous categorization, by the way, as serving as an example of how *not* to box. The one guy, Campbell, who was winning, dropped his hands to his waist to taunt his opponent in a demonstration of smugness that earned him a quick left that knocked his lights out. If I remember, we all went "Woo."

Anyway, some new proposition that will decide the fate of California Indians and the state as a whole must be on the new ballot. I have no idea how I'll vote on it, or how I've voted on any of the past ones, since my only criteria is which side has the commercials that annoy or pander to me the less.

I gotta say, tho, that things are looking up for my man Barack!

I'm reminded today of one of the better pieces of advice I've received.

If you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all.

According to some experts I heard about once, we elect people based -- as much as anything -- on appearance. This doesn't explain Henry Waxman, but every theory has exceptions.

If this holds true, I expect the GOP will go with Mitt Romney, about whom I'm less than ignorant. I saw him at the "debate," however, and he's as pandering as the his fellows, so I guess he has a good shot. To be a successful Republican primary candidate you need to be unrealistically obsessed with immigration, talking tough, and the sanctity of life (criminals and terrorists notwithstanding).

You also have to talk a lot about evil, a very religious-sounding term that puts you in the right.

The better looking Democratic candidates, I think, are Obama and Edwards. I'd add Kucinich to the mix based on his hot wife, but everyone focuses more on how short he is. Hillary doesn't look bad but she peaked a few years ago for me, so she's out.

I'm guessing one of those three will be our next president.

Now that the GOP "debate" has been aired, I've most likely seen our next President in action, giving a one minute press conference.

Last week it was the Democratic hopefuls, and from somewhere in that mess of twenty people, the next US President will emerge. I can't say as I'm particularly thrilled with any of them and none of their names sound right yet with the President prefix.

What happens next, of course, is the primaries. Right now part of my dissatisfaction may have to do with every candidate running as hard to the extremes as possible. In the primary elections, you have to cater to the extreme elements in your party, and it's only when you have the party faithful do you move more toward the center and reason. So, while last week it was all about who hated Bush the most, this week it was all about who hated abortion.

They tell me that the successful candidate will need to raise about $100 million dollars by the end of the year, just to win the Primary. To do that, of course, is a full time job, so I'm thinking most of these Senators, Representatives, and Governors won't be doing hardly anything at all as far as their day job is considered. I guess most partisans are so fond of that "favorite son" thing that they won't mind that their elected officials are going to be too busy raising money to look after their interests.

I think this is a horrible way to select our next President.

The GOP candidates are all white men, as are most of the Democrats. I guess they're all still really good at raking in the money.

This week has been an instructive one for the people of Boston and, as they say, education don't come cheap.

I suspect by now everyone's heard of the ad campaign for the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie and how it tied up the city of Boston for a day and incurred about a million dollars in expense. I have no idea how they arrived at that figure, but that would be the day's salary for some 6500 people who made $50,000 a year. If there were fewer than that involved, maybe they all got real good lunches like the movie people do.

I think some of that cost may be for shame reduction.

Until this story broke I'd never heard of the  Aqua Teen Hunger Force, but I'm hardly in their demographic. I guess I'd seen Frylock around, the box of french fries guy, but I had no idea who he was, so the little guy waving his finger who caused all the fuss might have struck me as an object of curiosity had I seen him all lit up hanging from the bottom of a bridge.

I'm not sure I would have called a cop about it, but I keep forgetting that half of the US population is living in a constant state of barely-manageable fear. Had I seen one of the devices up close, again, I'm not sure I would have reported it to the authorities, but from what I've been able to gather I probably would have recognized it for what it was, a collection of LEDs.

On Fox News, of course, they kept talking about circuit boards, which I guess also frighten their viewers. Later on, kids on the Internet dismissed it as a Light Bright, a toy I know about but was too old to play with. The truth, as usual, lays somewhere between the horrifying circuit board and some kid's toy, but I suspect it lays closer to the toy than anything else and I doubt the device was any more frightening than those message boards we used to have at work to advertise our loan rates.

Even allowing for the first person who saw this to panic and call the authorities. a person I'm sure sleeps poorly, the escalation of the event is shameful. I might have been concerned, too, but I think my response would have been closer to that of seeing a lizard in the back yard or a mouse scurry across the floor than anything else. When those things happen, I jump and am startled, but a moment later I calm down. There's the initial fear, but I think that has more to do with instinct than anything else and is out of my control. As soon as it passes, about one or two heartbeats, I'm my more usual calm self.

I might have looked more closely at the thing and recognized it for what it was. No, not an ad campaign, but a harmless bit of electrical gadgetry. From the pitctures I've seen, I haven't seen any evidence of anything bulky enough to contain any quantity of explosive big enough to do anything, but the city's response to the thing scares me more than the device itself.

Fine, Joe Citizen freaks out. That's to be expected. Not only are half the people eager to swallow ever-increasing helpings of fear, but half are below average in intelligence. What astounds me isn't Joe's reaction, but that of the Boston's finest. I'm certainly no expert, not like the members of Boston's vaunted bomb sqauad, but I can't imagine how anyone trained to deal with explosives could have taken more than a minute before shrugging his or her shoulders, laughing, and giving the "safe" sign. Sure, they don't know what it is at first, but aren't these people supposed to know more about bombs and bombing devices than, say, me?

So now the city's suing. That doesn't surpise me, but I think it's more to save face than anything else.

The elections are over, which means I can expect my telephone calls to once again be from, you know, people. Not that Clint Eastwood isn't a person, mind you, it's just that as soon as I hear a recorded voice I hang up, so I have no idea who I was hanging up on.

I did pretty good this year, getting many of the propositions right. I missed the one about the sex offenders, and I'm more than a bit sickened that so many of my fellow citizens want to tag anyone, no matter how loathsome, with a GPS monitoring anklet. Who knew?

I spread my votes around, like I think you're supposed to, between all the parties (except Republican and that one that sounds like Nazis), but I think only the Democrats won anything. I guess that now that the elections are over they'll forget all that partisan rancor and sit around the campfire singing cumbaya together. I did find it interesting that so many of the Democrats campaigned using the "my opponent voted along party lines 97% of the time" and never mentioned that they, too, voted along party lines 97% of the time. I guess if it's your party the argument doesn't hold, or maybe then it's a virtue, not a flaw.

I hardly got any mail today.

And I'm willing to predict that Rumsfeld's "resignation" will keep the Democratic "thumping" of the Republicans from dominating tomorrow's front pages.