My Sick Mind

I'm old enough to remember backyard leaf-burnings during the autumn. The smell of a leaf fire was a rite of passage for young people in the 1960s. We'd rake the fallen leaves into a big pile and set them ablaze, then do a gleeful little dance. The embers would scatter into the same wind that brought them to the ground. The great cycle of life . At some point in our development as a society, we decided that burning leaves in the backyard was either (or both) an environmental or safety hazard. It's as though our habit was irresponsible, and we are supposed to sit back and marvel at how we never burned the neighborhood down or inhaled enough smoke to go to the emergency room. I suppose we were impervious? Or perhaps now, we tend to think too much. When leaf-burning became taboo, it gave rise to a new technology - the leaf blower. A backpack contraption, fueled by gasoline that makes more noise than a small aircraft engine. Somehow, this is seen as being better than raking a...

Finally. Just like pulling off a bandage, you have to do it quickly, without thinking. Otherwise, the pain will be too great and you'll just wind up leaving it on until it comes off in the shower. What am I talking about? Voting. I was at my polling place at 6:35am. Number 6. I waddled into the booth, pushed a few buttons and viola ! Off to work. Incidentally, do you think that something is fishy when you sign that paper receipt with a number on it and they hang it on the back of the voting machine? I do. I think they can trace number 6 to the votes I cast and paste together my voting record. I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough? It's a lot like trying to lose weight, the voting. We vote, thinking that we're doing something good, but we don't really know. It's like eating low-fat food and exercising to try to lose weight. You aren't sure if what you are doing is going to do any good, but you do it anyway. The ads that ran for the better part of three ...