Monday, October 26, 2015

Vote because the RantWomen already Voted!

Further News Flash: RantWoman also needs to direct people to the Secretary of State elections page.RantWoman apologizes in advance because her email contains furhter info about what readers will find there and RantWoman does not at the moment have time to help troubleshoo.
WA Secretary of State Elections Page

News Flash that RantWoman may try to draw others into for future elections: RantWoman feels VERY lucky that with a lot of effort she can vote independently in a home environment, but RantWoman knows A LOT of people who cannot. The following comments are dedicated to them.

King County Accessible Voting Information Page
There are only THREE places in this entire giant county where people can go to use one of the  spiffy accessible voting units the county bought just a couple elections before going all mail-in. And people who need accessible voting or who simply become passionately grateful when they have the opportunity to vote unassisted have far less time than other voters to access these machines.
What about asking say King County library system sites to host an AVU and asking a couple library staff to receive training in operation and voting procedures. What about it. It might mean RantWoman bypassing the menu at RantMom's but ...

Now the actual RantWoman experience:
The RantWomen done been franchised yet again. This time, RantWoman decided she needed to add some Stranger election coverage to the "Who DO I vote for?" lifeline mix.
Stranger Nov 2015 Election Endorsements
Special digression about pangolins because the Stranger brought them up


RantWoman skipped the King County Voters Guide.
King County Voters Guide

RantWoman also skipped the video voters' guide.
Seattle Channel Video Voters Guide

RantMom tends to get her advice from local television and the Seattle Times.  RantMom rewarded RantWoman for her insight by repeatedly referring to "The Strangler." RantMom also refers to a certain suburb on the N end of Lake Washington as "Brothel."  With or without mind-altering substances, with RantMom ya gets what ya gets.

None of that is the most interesting part of the story. Stay tuned.


First, the Sunday Supper at RantMom's menu because that the menu is always critical for informed voting:

Baked potatoes with choice of toppings. Baked potatoes as in baked in the oven, not just nuked in the microwave. Bonus points for the roast flavor.
Steamed broccoli

Green salad with sliced avocado and this time, hugging and smooching RantMom with gratitude, NO pickled beets. Nor any digression about what is going on with RantMom's taste buds that she even thinks avocados and pickled beets together is even a good idea!
Muffins (Don't tell anyone, they are from a cheap mix. And they are tasty)
For dessert: vanilla and salted caramel ice cream.

Libations? Ice water. RantWoman is currently on a no caffeine after dark thing; RantMom had brewed herbal tea before dinner but she never got around to drinking it. In other words, mind altering substances negligible.

Pharmacopeia? RantMom is on a bunch of the kinds of meds for seniors where at least some of them trot out ads all over the television RantMom watches.RantWoman has no idea whether any of these meds involve mind-altering. RantWoman dos not even feel a burning need to find out.
 RantWoman for her part has a highly diverting progression of eye drops over the day. It was time for the ones with the yellow and dark blue lids before supper. By the time the RantWomen were done voting, RantWoman had to add the purple lid eyedrops to the mix. Again, mind-altering minimal, unless of course one counts RantWoman's who needs mind-altering substances visual experiences: fog, blur, double-vision, grow your own lava lamp floaters, a couple streams of random flashes of light.... The perfect framework for informed voting.

Having dined, the RantWomen retrieved our ballots from whence they migrated after being fetched from actual physical mailboxes. RantWoman fired up the browser on her phone and pointed it directly at Stranger election coverage, from which RantWoman read liberally aloud.
Digression: nothing makes one appreciate tight editing like scrolling through acres of logorrhea 25 words at a time on a Smartphone!
RantWoman found FUNNY
--outrageously dissing King County councilmemberJane Hague and then wondering why she does not return phone calls.

--text groaning with the kind of language the Stranger is famous for, text RantWoman studiously omitted reference to sex, drugs, alcohol, even profanity, in her verbal rendering. RantMom found plenty to laugh about anyway and the RantWomen did not even get stuck on the Stranger's thing about pangolins.

--text featuring the abovementioned vocabulary characteristics AND then including outrage that one candidate used the word "bullshit" in referring to exactly the sort of issues he should expect to come across his desk if he gets elected. RantWoman always appreciates it when candidates are brutally honest about why they might be unsuited for the job and RantWoman does not even mind if they do this using mild profanity!

The issues:
Candidates: RantWoman tends to insist RantMom make up her own mind as much as possible, especially about candidates. The RantWomen also live in adjacent Seattle City Council districts and were surprised about the number of school board positions we were expected to vote for. Anyway, no candidate endorsements except that the RantWomen do agree that Port of Seattle commissioner would not be the best use of Mr. GoodSpaceGuy's gifts.

The measures:
--Does it have Tim Eyman's name on it. If so, No, NO, and NO and RantWoman would go on in stronger terms which RantMom would prefer not even knowing RantWoman would use.

--Does it ask voters to second-guess things our democratically elected officials have already voted to spend money on? Again, vote to express confidence in elected officials making the decisions we elect them to make.

--Let someone else pay for it. Neither of the RantWomen own any property so someone else will be paying for levies. But even when RantWoman did own property she tended to vote for levies whether or not she actually thought every package was perfect, and whether or not RantWoman had done detailed analysis of the overall levy / public finance picture. So vote FOR levies. And Be sure to VOTE period.

--Save the pangolins: support the measure to make trafficking in the body parts of endangered species a crime. Yeah sure, but we also need to invest resources in things that help humans!

--King County police accountability written into the charter: Yep

--Early  learning: yep but this issue still needs more attention from the legislature too,

Most important, VOTE and get your ballots into the mail by Tuesday November 3! Or check out the accessible voting options above!

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