I voted today, but you wouldn't know it by looking at my shirt. My shirt is totally unadorned with the evidence of having voted. What am I talking about? Those ridiculous "I voted" stickers they try to shove into your unwitting hands on your way out of the polling place.
Let me take you back a few years, to when I was younger and my mother would go to vote and she would take me with her. Voting in "those days" was accomplished by stepping into a big steel contraption, where a curtain slid closed behind to form a sort of cloister. I don't precisely recall, but I think there were toggle switches next to the choices, and my mother would flip the toggle switches to the positions she felt represented her views, opinions, and preferences, and then I got to pull the big lever that served to set into motion some mechanical workings that would ultimately record the vote, with a satisfying clunk to let you know you had participated in the democratic process and open the curtain to allow you your freedom.
Then "the man" got rid of the mechanical voting machine, and we now have to settle for touch screens and scantron sheets, which fall flat in eliciting the same visceral satisfaction, that feeling of pomp and ceremony that pulling that lever did. So I suppose "the man" realized that tapping a twitchy touchscreen that disregards your input and registers a vote for some cretin you despise or filling in a scantron sheet reminiscent of the SAT didn't have the same cachet, and I suppose to make up, they started giving voters stickers.
The problem with that is, anyone who either a) decides to vote but otherwise wouldn't if they wouldn't receive a sticker or b) decides to vote because they saw a sticker on someone else, SHOULDN'T VOTE. Anyone who wouldn't vote if not for the A-for-effort prize of a 1 inch diameter patriotic slip of paper with adhesive on the back can't possibly have a worthwhile opinion. I spoke earlier of pulling the lever in the voting booth. You might say, isn't it ridiculous to overemphasize the importance of pulling a lever in voting as well? And yes it is, but I was 8 at the time, give me a break!
Not to mention it is a waste of resources in terms of the paper pulp, chemicals, etc. required to produce the stickers, having some poor soul hand them out, and the ruinous effect they will have on the environment when discarded, either on the ground, or hopefully in a landfill.
Anyway, after voting, I went fishing out at Mountain Run Lake, fished for about an hour and a half, the whole time employing a small 1/16 oz jighead with a yellow curly tail, mostly casting it and retrieving it slowly out towards the boat, moving along the bank with steeper drops. After a while, I clipped a bobber about 2 feet above the jig and cast that a while. Nothing doing there, so I returned to my previous strategy, except for fishing the creek mouth. And I got a strike, which I missed, and shortly thereafter another, which I didn't, and caught this fat 11 inch crappie:
Nothing else was especially noteworthy, except that there were as many vultures there as I've ever in my life seen in one place, or maybe in total. There were three separate flocks that I saw, here is a picture of one, with maybe 60 individuals. There was a larger flock that had been roosting in a tree elsewhere that flew overhead as I was taking out, which was more visually impressive, but I'd left the phone in the car so I didn't get a picture of it so you'll have to stretch you imagination a bit. You can really only see the birds in this picture if you view it in the original size.
Let me take you back a few years, to when I was younger and my mother would go to vote and she would take me with her. Voting in "those days" was accomplished by stepping into a big steel contraption, where a curtain slid closed behind to form a sort of cloister. I don't precisely recall, but I think there were toggle switches next to the choices, and my mother would flip the toggle switches to the positions she felt represented her views, opinions, and preferences, and then I got to pull the big lever that served to set into motion some mechanical workings that would ultimately record the vote, with a satisfying clunk to let you know you had participated in the democratic process and open the curtain to allow you your freedom.
Then "the man" got rid of the mechanical voting machine, and we now have to settle for touch screens and scantron sheets, which fall flat in eliciting the same visceral satisfaction, that feeling of pomp and ceremony that pulling that lever did. So I suppose "the man" realized that tapping a twitchy touchscreen that disregards your input and registers a vote for some cretin you despise or filling in a scantron sheet reminiscent of the SAT didn't have the same cachet, and I suppose to make up, they started giving voters stickers.
The problem with that is, anyone who either a) decides to vote but otherwise wouldn't if they wouldn't receive a sticker or b) decides to vote because they saw a sticker on someone else, SHOULDN'T VOTE. Anyone who wouldn't vote if not for the A-for-effort prize of a 1 inch diameter patriotic slip of paper with adhesive on the back can't possibly have a worthwhile opinion. I spoke earlier of pulling the lever in the voting booth. You might say, isn't it ridiculous to overemphasize the importance of pulling a lever in voting as well? And yes it is, but I was 8 at the time, give me a break!
Not to mention it is a waste of resources in terms of the paper pulp, chemicals, etc. required to produce the stickers, having some poor soul hand them out, and the ruinous effect they will have on the environment when discarded, either on the ground, or hopefully in a landfill.
Anyway, after voting, I went fishing out at Mountain Run Lake, fished for about an hour and a half, the whole time employing a small 1/16 oz jighead with a yellow curly tail, mostly casting it and retrieving it slowly out towards the boat, moving along the bank with steeper drops. After a while, I clipped a bobber about 2 feet above the jig and cast that a while. Nothing doing there, so I returned to my previous strategy, except for fishing the creek mouth. And I got a strike, which I missed, and shortly thereafter another, which I didn't, and caught this fat 11 inch crappie:
Nothing else was especially noteworthy, except that there were as many vultures there as I've ever in my life seen in one place, or maybe in total. There were three separate flocks that I saw, here is a picture of one, with maybe 60 individuals. There was a larger flock that had been roosting in a tree elsewhere that flew overhead as I was taking out, which was more visually impressive, but I'd left the phone in the car so I didn't get a picture of it so you'll have to stretch you imagination a bit. You can really only see the birds in this picture if you view it in the original size.
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