Both daughters now have their learner's permits. I'm pretty sure just typing that sentence may have caused my Dad's hair to regrow

You can understand how the political process makes people yawn, become disinterested, or just go flat out postal in frustration. Not a day has gone by over the past few weeks, that I don’t come home to find anywhere from 3-7 glossy 9″ x 12″ mailers from all the candidates up for election in my area. The common thread is that everyone is, and I mean every document, craps on the opposition.

Regardless if it is a local, state, or federal election, the vitriol is directed at what a crappy person his or her opponent is. And pundits have the nerve to wonder why people don’t vote. I make it to the polling place because you are supposed to, but you can understand how people can become disengaged because the bulk of the candidates are.

It comes as no surprise to this independent that we are not sending choir boys to Washington, Albany or even County and City Hall. I long suspected there is something in the water at the State Capitol where Caribbean junkets are written off as “economic development” and 20 years in other public offices makes you an “outsider” in Albany.

I don’t care that two candidates for the same office hate each other and everything they stand for, don’t particularly care if they speak of each other with affection either. Stop polluting my mailbox with laminated crap!

The masses are cynical, if ill-informed for a reason. There was an almost throwaway bit of dialogue on The West Wing that I think is pretty on the nose: “Politicians are always running for something. When one campaign finishes, the next one begins.” Okay, it sounded better when Stockard Channing said it, but you get the idea.

Just once, I’d like to open the inbox and be greeted with something telling me what you are going to do if I vote for you. Not in blank platitudes, no pronoun-laden propositions, just tell me your plan. You want my vote? Fine, what is in it for me? Can my kids schools be safe from funding foolishness? Are you going to do something to improve the jobs situation? Can you help make the government work for the people? (And don’t say run it like a business). Can you quit spending on stuff for you when cutting programs that improve the quality of life here? Can you just quit spending what you ain’t got?

But I’m not counting on those questions getting answered anytime soon.

I’ll queue up on Election Day, but I’m tired of picking between “Who gives a rat’s ass?” and the “lesser of the established evils.”

I want it to be a case of why I should back somebody other than he or she isn’t the other guy.

Yet, that seems to be the reason to go this year.

lies something. Not sure what exactly. It's been a little busy around the old workplace. My department temporarily shrunk by one and all those responsibilities landed on my desk. We hired a replacement who couldn't be expected to dive in so the seasonal activity planning stayed with me. The past two weeks, I've also had to pinch it for our press person who was out until Friday.

My ex teased me about the large irish cranium coming in handy for the wearing of many hats. I've wracked up a decent streak with 3700 people over the past couple of weekend dates and I have next weekend to get through and I'm done.

Not a moment too soon. Staging something like this is educational to say the least and you are prone to pontificating as everybody who has done their part has helped put the pieces together, with all eyes looking in my direction. It has kept me up as the details have me talking through it a lot to make sure nothing gets overlooked.

Maybe it is self inflicted pressure, but the assurance for one of my work buds that it was going okay and I've done good wasn't quite as satisfying as it should have been. I think I had already moved on to the wheeling and dealing that needs to be done in the days ahead to make sure that the next weekend runs as well as this weekend.

Makes your head hurt. I half-jokingly told a student that the key to a successful event on a grand scale was to take your preventive Advil right at the outset.

Today I took two. It's a little freeing to have them out of the way, but you invest so much in the thinking that when the Beatles "Golden Slumbers" came on the car stereo it reduced me to a bit of a mess before I event got out of the parking lot.

To balance out how much that messes up with the child rearing schedule, I was trying to dress up time with number one son over the start of the weekend. I lucked into some hockey tickets for friday night which was good, as it felt like I was giving him a bit of bum's rush to immerse myself in the foolishness at the office.

Yeah, I worry, I'm irish, it's how I roll.

Phenomenal show at the Arena on Friday











Absolutely amazing

The political process makes my head hurt. In an unintentional environmental statement, I called the board of elections to bail on both the republicans and democrats since the primaries are such a moot point lately.

Literally independent as I now have a card that says so.

So, Carl Paladino will “take a reporter out?” And Andrew Cuomo‘s minions are digging up old news on staffers working for Paladino. When you read about the exchanges in the press this week, you can’t help but wonder if either is really concerned with the abhorrent state the state is in. We are fooling ourselves if we think we are getting choir boys with any election and the media fixation with things that have nothing to do with governing doesn’t aid in the discussion. The state has been a poor business model for a very long time and so far, nobody has said what they are going to do about that. That matters more than ANY of the shenanigans being talked about this week.

With the transparency, power trips, and manipulation that was evident in plan site from the Espada episodes onward, you’d have to wonder who in their right mind would want the job?

The authorities are bloated, you have assemblymen saying things like “My boss, Shelly,” implying the peoples business was only getting attended to unless Mr. Silver said so, and in the flood of glossy postcards that filled my mailbox leading up to primary day, nobody was going to fix anything, nobody has a plan other than beating and insulting the guy they are running against.With candidates campaigning on things they DIDN’T completed like UB2020 and the party chairs picking their guys before the primaries, it’s a wonder people showed up to vote in the primaries at all. But if we get the leadership we deserve, as the saying goes, we must really suck.