From the Daily Sun, February 6, 2008:

Confused Florida voters try to cast ballots

Florida voters got so caught up in the excitement of Super Tuesday many tried to cast ballots for the presidential primaries — again.

Election officials across the state said they fielded hundreds of phone calls from confused voters asking where they could vote Tuesday, apparently unaware that Florida’s presidential primary was last week.

“We’ve had over 100 calls at least over the last two days,” said Kathy Adams, a spokesman for the Palm Beach County Election Supervisor.

“Caught up in the excitement” is a complete mis characterization of the ignorance of these Florida voters. It’s not that we had early polling for two solid weeks before a week ago Tuesday’s election complete with campaign visits and ads from all the Republican candidates. One would have to living in a cave to miss all that.

Maybe we should yield to the stereotype of Florida and chalk it up to a “senior moment”.

Maybe since the Dems side of the primary was essentially marching in place due to the decision by the DNC to not count Florida’s votes at the convention for having the primary on Jan 29, many Dems weren’t paying attention to the election.¹ Or since Hillary came to Florida after the primary vote, perhaps voters got confused as to when the election was.²

Maybe some voters just figured that they were entitled to vote twice during each election.³

I don’t know.

© 2008, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.

1. It wasn’t reported, by the way, how many of the callers were Republicans or Democrats [↩]
2. Palm Beach County is the next county north of the infamous Broward and Miami-Date counties made famous by the 2000 presidential election [↩]
3. We do have migrants from Chicago and New York, don’tchaknow [↩]

“Indecision may or may not be my problem.”

© 2007 – 2008, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.

“Red meat is NOT bad for you. Now blue-green meat, THAT’S bad for you!”

© 2007 – 2008, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.

“Do you realize if it weren’t for Edison we’d be watching TV by candlelight?” –Al Boliska

© 2007 – 2008, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.

Here’s an article from Campus Ministry Update June 2007 published by Ivy Jungle:

“Porn Driven, Look-at-Me” Culture: The evidence of the mainstreaming of pornography is not hard to find in our culture today – from the provocative videos on YouTube to Myspace pages for adult film stars. Some researchers and observers continue to express concern over the impact on young people – particularly girls. “Sexiness” has become very important to girls, with an increasing push into raunchiness. High school counselors find themselves consoling teenage girls who have undressed and more in front of web cams. Employers are increasingly implementing dress codes. The American Psychological Association recently published a paper on the sexualization of girls. One great concern is that while boys tend to use pornography and other aspects of sex for their own pleasure; most girls who exhibit provocative behavior are doing so for the pleasure of someone else – often someone they don’t know well (or perhaps not at all thanks to the internet). Some women claim they have more power with their sexuality, but many researchers are seeing a very negative impact – especially among teenage girls. (AP June 4, 2007)

Here’s a semi-related photo I received via email some time ago:

© 2007 – 2008, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.

“24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case. Coincidence? I think not.”~ Stephen Wright

© 2007 – 2008, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.

A little old man shuffled slowly into “Kilwins“, an ice cream parlor in The Villages, and pulled himself slowly, painfully, up onto a stool.After catching his breath he ordered a banana split.The waitress asked kindly, “Crushed nuts?”"No,” he replied, “arthritis!”

© 2007 – 2008, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.

Here’s a slug I got on my newsreader¹ from Fox news:

Smoke Break May Have Saved Woman’s Life

Brenda Comer had just finished washing dishes Monday and stepped outside to smoke a cigarette when an 80-foot oak tree crashed through her roof, landing across the sink where she had been standing, splitting her house in two.

Two observations: (1) What was she doing splitting her house in two? And (2) thank heavens for cigarettes.

© 2007 – 2008, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.

1. The actual article didn’t read like this [↩]

As Pogo used to say, “Looks like Friday the thirteenth falls on a Friday this month.”

© 2007 – 2008, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.

1. Eighteen holes of match play will teach you more about your foe than 18 years of dealing with him across a desk.
   –Grantland Rice
2. Golf appeals to the idiot in us and the child. Just how childlike golf players become is proven by their frequent inability to count past five.
   –John Updike
3. It is almost impossible to remember how tragic a place the world is when one is playing golf.
   –Robert Lynd
4. If profanity had any influence on the flight of the ball, the game of golf would be played far better than it is.
   –Horace G. Hutchinson
5. They say golf is like life, but don’t believe them. Golf is more complicated than that.
   –Gardner Dickinson
6. If a lot of people gripped a knife and fork as poorly as they do a golf club, they’d starve to death.
   –Sam Snead Read the rest of this entry »

© 2007 – 2008, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.