Vote. Yeah, That Means You.

Day 5

Hey kids, tomorrow is Election Day, so get out there and vote! Democracy is the coolest! Or something like that. At least that’s what MTV says.

I had actually forgotten that election day was looming until just the end of last week when my mailbox was nearly lost in a blizzard of glossy campaign ads. Big ones, small ones, color and black and white… there were literally dozens of them. And actually that was just fine with me because with old man winter setting in we can always use more kindling for the fire.

What I’m not (to use the vernacular) =‘down with’ though, is the automated phone messages that clogged up my answering machine as they began rolling in like waves of verbal flotsam and jetsam. These ads aren’t merely irritating simply because I’m a curmudgeon though, more than that, they reaffirm my cynical conviction that not only is the old saw true that ‘all politics are local’, but that all politics are petty, mean spirited and worst of all, small minded.

Sure, half the print ads are of the happy, colorful look-at-me-and-isn’t-my-family-lovely and-hey-look-we-have-a-puppy-too!! variety, but the other half are, quite frankly, inept, ham-fisted attack ads. Now what that means around here in my little neck of the woods in Rockland County is that it’s the season to revisit the one local issue that’s like a gift that keeps on giving: the fate of the 1981 Nanuet Brinks Robbery victims and the status of those convicted of the killings.

After the better part of thirty years the social and political controversy continues to swirl: did those that have been paroled deserve to be released, and should those who are still doing time stay in jail? To this day the whole episode remains a potent and polarizing issue around here, if only because it’s so shamelessly exploited by everyone who can get their hands on it, regardless of which side they’re on. And sure, I have my own opinion about how this tragedy has played out, but unlike everyone else in this county with an agenda, I’m keeping it to myself.

Anyway, having said all that, I guess I’ll still do the right thing and go vote. I’ll hold my nose and pull the lever for the few candidates who don’t smell quite as bad as the rest. =Grrr, no wonder I’m a curmudgeon.

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