Going Down Swinging

Well, I have my answer to who would bother airing anti-Kasich political ads.

Marco Rubio, of course.

I saw two instances of the same Rubio ad last night. It was a kind of confusing mish-mash starting with (I'm paraphrasing here), "Marco Rubio is awesome," segueing into "Donald Trump is the debbil," then "a vote for Cruz or Kasich = a vote for Trump," so "vote Marco. Yay!" All in less than a minute.

Two things:

Those were the only political spots I saw all night although that may be my fault since most of my limited TV time was spent either on the BBC, Al Jazeera (while it lasts), or the pre-March Madness tournaments. Colbert was the exception and that's where I saw them. I realize Florida is a large state with very numerous and distinct TV markets but, although two is a definite increase over the one, or none, per day I've been subjected to so far, this does not at all feel like a saturation campaign just days before a must-win election. Perhaps they're suffering more in Miami, Orlando and Jacksonville.

Also, the ads were put together and run by Rubio's superPac since, according to reports/rumours, Rubio's campaign is out of money and can't afford to do any commercials on their own in his own home state! I'm sure that's a confidence builder for his backers.

Our Cookie-Based Civitas

We're halfway through our early voting period before the primary election next Tuesday. The library's meeting room has been taken over by voting machines and the people who serve them, although the Christians who camp out by the door with their proselytizing propaganda have not moved as they have done in the past. They may have worked out some accommodation or, perhaps the authorities realize they're basically harmless.

I'm waiting for election day to cast my vote, mostly because the folks who run the actual precinct voting stations always have cookies and pastries and soft drinks available and never enough voters show up so there is always plenty to go around. The early-voting places are just boringly utilitarian.

I also get cookies and juice when I donate platelets.

There's no point in pretending my attention to civic duties is anything more than a Pavlovian response to a baked-goods stimulus.

Speaking of stimuli, there are no, zero, nada candidate signs on the approach road to the library. Normally there are dozens, frequently multiple signs per candidate. And I haven't seen any yard signs on lawns, either.

The TV spots are picking up, a little. I saw two more anti-Trump pieces, one of which was repeated, and another pro-Rubio. The most surprising one, however, was a hit on former Ohio governor, John Kasich.

John Kasich! Seriously?

Whose campaign manager, or superPac media "expert" has enough money to throw away attacking Kasich? Who in this race believes Kasich is any kind of threat? Is there some kind of deadline by which you have to spend a certain amount of money and you couldn't think of anything better to do with it?

Here's an idea: Buy cookies for everyone.

And, Here. We. Go.

Our presidential primary is now under two weeks away and I have finally seen campaign attack ads. Two, precisely.

Just to set the record straight, I have seen a couple of Bernie Sander's ads, I think, but they were on MSNBC, a national cable channel, not local, and I could be wrong about that because they sometimes run bits of various ads as explanatory material to their editorial segments. The two I'm talking about were local and real.

The first was from an obvious Marco Rubio supporter, although I think not from the campaign itself since it didn't have the "I'm [CANDIDATE] and I support this . . ." disclaimer. It started by claiming Rubio has foreign policy expertise (dubious, but O.K.) and then went on to disparage Donald Trump. The best line was (paraphrasing), "He claims he can negotiate with China because a Chinese bank is a tenant in one of his buildings."

The second one was also anti-Trump and didn't mention any other candidate, so must have been put out by a super-pac. It went on about all his various business failures, an impressive list.

And that's it.

No Hillary or Bernie ads even though the Democratic primary is the same day.

No other Republican ads either for or against any of the candidates, all (and I mean all) of whom are still on the ballot here. No generic attack ads for or against anyone. Just those two spots, and each one just once. I don't watch a lot of TV and what I do watch is seldom local, but still.

I cannot imagine it will stay this quiet until March 15.

Clockwork Democracy

In all my years of voting I have never seen an official notice like the one that appeared in the newspaper yesterday. I don't know if this is the result of some new law or if I just haven't been paying attention all this time.

Our Supervisor of Elections, who has been trying to recover some semblance of competency after the fiasco of two- and three-hour waiting lines during the last presidential election, placed a half-page advertisement/public notice in English and Spanish on page 2 of the local paper. It's title is "Canvassing Board Meetings and Logic and Accuracy Testing Schedule" and it opens up all the inner workings of the elections office to public scrutiny (which may have been the case already, but who knew?).

For starters, we actually have four elections happening together on March 15: two separate municipal elections (City of Bonita Springs and Town of Fort Myers Beach), and a referendum special election for the Matlacha/Pine Island Fire District as well as the presidential primaries for both Republicans and Democrats. Only the "D" primary applies to me.

The next section of the notice lists the 10 early voting stations and their days and hours of operation. I've never seen that published before although I'm sure it must have been. One of the polling places is our library and I'm there often enough that I couldn't miss it if I wanted to.

The most interesting part, however, is the chart that makes up the bottom half of the notice giving the dates, times locations and tests to be done to insure the completeness and accuracy of the election(s). For instance, the first line:

DATE           TIME          EVENT                    LOCATION                                PURPOSE

03-01-16      9:00 AM     logic and accuracy   Lee County Election Center       Test, by a random method of

Tuesday                        testing                   13180 S Cleveland Ave               selection, the voting machines 

                                                                 Fort Myers 33907                       to be used in the election during 

                                                                                                                 early voting and at the precincts

                                                                                                                 on Election Day

There follows: Test absentee ballot tabulators (also 3/1 right after the logic testing) and initial canvass of already-received absentee ballots. Then on Thursday, review of absentee ballots followed by more absentee ballots on Tuesday (election Day) and receipt of unofficial election results, then provisional ballots on Friday 3/18, overseas ballots and election certification on Friday 3/25 and a manual audit the following Monday 3/28.  All of which is very explicitly open to the public. As it should be.

I may just have to cross the river and check this all out.

Nobody Listens to Me

Despite my repeated warnings about tornadoes, sinkholes, pythons, alligators (and crocodiles), brain-eating amoebas, flesh-eating bacteria, bears, brown water and red tides and a zillion different species of disease carrying mosquitoes, folks still come down here voluntarily.

I went to the library today and the first three license plates I saw in the parking lot were from Minnesota, Colorado and Ontario.

And don't get me started on license plates from the Virgin Islands, Bahamas and Aruba. Seriously, Aruba? It's a small island. Why do you even own a car and why go to all the bother of transporting it here? Hertz is in the process of moving their "World Headquarters" down here from New Jersey. Just fly in and rent something. (I assume you're coming for the cooler weather. Or maybe to fulfill a death wish.)

And you, Bahamas. What are you even doing here? In terms of weather, sand, sun, beaches and warm water what do we have that you don't right out your own front door? Are you looking to die from something exotic? Because otherwise I fail to see the advantage we have over you. (Maybe you should do a swap with Colorado up there. You can ski in the snow and they can ski in the water.)

Well, as long as you're all down here, please make sure you go to the beach. And the nature preserves. And the concerts, plays and restaurants. Go boating, kayaking, paddle boarding. Mind the crocodiles while you golf. As long as you're willing to risk death, you might as well enjoy the paradise part while you're at it.

And please spend lots of money, too.

Thanks.

Another Day in Paradise

In addition to the cold (for us anyway) and the recurring torrential rains, our county is on the list for Governor Skeletor's emergency declaration after two cases of Zika virus (out of 9 or 10 statewide) were reported here. Not sure what that entails since we already have a very robust anti-mosquito program in our county although its current effectiveness may be negated by all the rain. It does mean that the disease may now spread locally since the most common transmission vector is for the mosquitoes to pick up the virus by biting an infected person and then transmit it by biting uninfected folk.

We are, of course, home to 80(!) different species of mosquitoes, 33 of which think people and/or their pets are tasty, of which 13 can spread diseases among us including Aedes aegyptii, which spreads Zika and Aedes albopictus, which could if it wanted to.

Also, the red tide's back—with a vengeance. Thanks to all the rain (see above), the Corps of Engineers has been releasing torrents of water from an overflowing Lake Okeechobee into our main river washing tons of farm runoff nutrients downstream and into the Gulf (note the concentration of red dots) to feed the algae. The algae then overbreed, their vast numbers causing the red color, using up the available oxygen in the water suffocating the fish. Wave action also causes some algal cells to go airborne where they can cause respiratory problems in people.

The good news is the water has probably been cold enough to discourage the brain eating amoeba and flesh eating bacteria.

Meanwhile, back on land, while avoiding the bears and wild hogs and pythons and nile monitor lizards and tegus, it might be wise to note the discovery of a crocodile in town just visiting the beach. Which, for the record, makes us the only area in the world to have both alligators and crocodiles wandering around.

But, what the heck, come on down for a visit. If the wildlife doesn't kill you a tornado or sinkhole just might!

Taking the Plunge

Two women from the county clerk's office were at the library today when I stopped in. They had set up their voter registration table off to the side of the entryway. They get to be inside the foyer. The Christians are set up just outside in the shade of the arcade which is nice for them in the summer but our high temperature today was 68°F (20°C) and that was at sunrise. It's been dropping since and it's very windy out there.

I walked right past the county folks at first but turned around when I realized this is now 2016 and the primaries are coming up soon. I have been thinking of registering with a party to either vote for Bernie Sanders, who I really like, or, in an attempt to monkeywrench the Republicans, Donald Trump.

The incredibly helpful women (possibly employees, possibly volunteers, I didn't ask) had the necessary form (indeed, a full stack of them. Are there that many people choosing sides this time around?) right on the table. Although a different form, it asked the same information as a new voter registration form (which they also had in abundance) and took all of three minutes to fill out.

The only reason it took me that long is because I hesitated when I got to the choosing party section. There was a check box for "Democratic Party," and one for "Republican Party," one for "No Party Affiliation" which is totally redundant since not checking any of the boxes automatically results in the default "no party affiliation" status, and the last box, "Minor Party," with a space for the voter to fill in the name of the minor party of choice. (There were no suggested minor party names, i.e., Green, Libertarian, etc., which makes me wonder if I could just make up any party name I wanted and have that listed on my voter registration card.)

Anyway, I hesitated over which path to choose, support good or fight evil. I finally decided that, if I am going to start receiving political junk mail—and I know I will, now—I really don't want to see xenophobic fear-mongering, religious pandering and/or economic nonsense.

I am a proud new—officially registered—member of the Florida Democratic Party.

Go Bernie!