BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

The morning of the election results Gross asked what our shields should be:

my reply:

At last something to think about. What design on our shield?

The ostrich rampant, head buried in a pile of charoset. A tongue aiguisee. A finger pointed dexter and a second sinister. A wolf ravissant in shadow behind the ostrich. The shield to be transparent.


mek

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

The election is over.

Depending on your point of view, this might have been the best imaginable outcome or the second-worst possible outcome.

The world still spins.

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

"Little boy, big boy -- it's the same thing. "

.............Maria

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

An interesting and perhaps telling difference between Gross and Katz is the method by which we mark our places in books. Gross boldly earmarks almost a quarter of the page, while I timidly turn a tiny piece of the page or use a piece of ribbon so as to leave the page pristine.

Gross' earmarking is much more than a bookmark, which only marks a place in a book; while the larger earmarking crease, being permanent is a display denoting ownership of the book's content.


mek

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Reading Edith Weisskopf-Joelson's Father, Have I Kept My Promise? Madness as Seen From Wthin.

She describes her escape from Austria, and her engagement with teaching.

Then, she quickly draws her introduction to Viktor Frankl, explaining that he believed that psychotherapy works because the therapist helps the patient develop a philosphophy of life that dares go beyond the the body and the psyche. Therapy should be through meaning, and make use of the resources of the human spirit, which, Frankl believed included a will to find meaning, to have goals and to make commitments. He saw the nature of his patients not only determined by their past, including trauma, but also determined by the by their future,--goals and tasks that pulled them forward.

Does this sound like Gross talking???

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Filled up the car with $2.08 gasoline. Last fill was 7 days ago. Total was about $31.00.

If gasoline was $1.25 a gallon; the difference would be about $600.00 per year!

Just think, I am giving that $600 to the enemy in Arabia and to the fortune 500 oil companies--and I am not spending it on my family.

If this were a tax imposed bu the democrats would Bush, Limbo, and that little twerp, on Fox be screaming their heads off?

Enjoy your money Mr. Bush.

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

there has never been so much distrust of the voting process as there is now. Not in my memory, anyway. This all started after the vote of 2000. The extremists on the radio haven't helped either. Their constant ad homimum attacks have made people feel that the other side is vicious, crooked, mealy mouthed, stupid--and worse, anti-American. Can you imagine Kerry as an anti-American?

We're in a dangerous place right now.

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Fanatic: A man who does what the Lord would do, if only He knew the facts of the case.

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Does each step carry me only further into empty space? Is that where I have been living?

What is the measure of all things. What is the measure by which I should measure myself? Is my ruler too long? Or is it my cock that is too short?

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Perhaps life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender to dreams--this may be madness. To seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness. And, maddest of all, to see life as it is, and not as it should be.

Don Quixote

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

from Art Theil's sports column: ...(Kurt) Schilling's right ankle, soon to be the most celebrated baseball joint since Toots Shor's saloon in 1940s New York...

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

from Art Theil's sports column: ...(Kurt) Schilling's right ankle, soon to be the most celebrated baseball joint since Toots Shor's saloon in 1940s New York...

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

from Art Theil's sports column: ...(Kurt) Schilling's right ankle, soon to be the most celebrated baseball joint since Toots Shor's saloon in 1940s New York...

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

from Art Theil's sports column: ...(Kurt) Schilling's right ankle, soon to be the most celebrated baseball joint since Toots Shor's saloon in 1940s New York...

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com


There's little escape from her black hole of abulia. Abulia: the inability to make decisions.

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

I voted today along faster than most voters will, so my 7 minutes tells me to expect at least 700 minutes for a hundred voters. But remember, I think that I am faster than most voters will be.Prediction: long lines, shouting, accusations.. There was a very short line, three people before and plenty of voting machines to work with. I signed in, they found my registration, reminded me that I had an absentee ballot at home, asked me to destroy it, and passed me on to the "inspector" whose job it was to show me the machine and set me up for voting. It took her a few seconds and I finished voting about seven minutes later... The machine worked fairly well--of course, I am half-way smart and I could easily read the resolutions and already was familiar with them. I think I moved

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

We live in interesting times. Tomorrow I am going to vote early so that I can get a look at the new voting machine--new in the sense that we did use it for the primary on Aug 31--but then the ballot was only a page or two.

Now the ballot has expanded to ten pages. This means that people unfamiliar with computers will have to learn how to move from page to page, from candidate to candidate, will have to figure out which judge is running under what party's banner. Then they may want to check their votes which is a new thing to learn...Finally they will have to find the button marked "CAST YOUR BALLOT." Many people will forget to press this BLINKING RED LIGHT button necessitating the following procedure. Two people from different parties must go to the machine and press the button together. Then an affidavit must be filled out and signed by the two poll workers (Inspectors) of different parties and their Clerk.

As a paid poll worker (my only paying job) I think that we will have trouble getting everyone to vote by closing time. Anyone on line at 7:00 PM may vote--even if we have to stay until midnight. Under some circumstances Governor Bush can extend voting hours as long as he wants. Let's say that there is a thunderstorm or blizzard--he can extend the time at which people may get on line. Or perhaps a shortage of Republican voters.

I am imagining myself pushing seniors through the process, then helping the halt to get to the machine, then teaching others how to move through the electronic ballot. Of course, we also have the Provisional Ballot to deal with too. That is used when we think that a voter is unqualified, at the wrong polling place, or has no identification. That voter gets to uses a provisional ballot, after signing a paper attesting to his good heart and soul. This must be witnessed by two poll workers of different parties. Luckily there are a few Naderites at my poll.

Our polling place is in the Plumber's Local on Andrews Avenue. Three out of four faucets in the Men's Room were leaking on Primary Day.

There is supposed to be a post election party in our building--nonpartisan, of course--but I think I'll be home too late to attend.

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Reasoning often leads to desired, preferred conclusions.

Prescription for certainty.

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

The hard reality for many of us is that this is, essentially, a pretty conservative country. Norms that are taken for granted throughout the rest of the industrialized world are anathema to many Americans, including gay rights, universal health care, six-week vacations, gun control and the maintenance of a minimal social safety net.

SUSANNA RODELL is editorial page editor of the Charleston Gazette. (West Virginia)