Voting
This morning I was confronted with a myriad of transit problems. First, they (the city or the terrorists, I can’t figure out which) are doing some nebulous type of construction at Westlynn where I use the light to left-turn onto the main drag, to get to the highway, to get to the work. Thus, I have to use the intersection by my house (sans light), which is challenging. Today, executing the bonsai-left-turn was like trying to merge into an in-progress nascar race, so I threw it in reverse and hit the back streets.
Opps. Turns out that one of the churches on the small-roads is a polling station and traffic was, in a word, fuckered. Normally this would enrage the pre-coffee-morning-wade, but the fact that a polling station for a primary is causing traffic jams at 7:30 is actually kind of cool.
Later, in line for coffee (which keeping with theme of the morning was packed), It occurred to me that Starbucks could be using their corporate-mega structure for good if they could go out and buy a company like diebold and incorporate voting into the order process – walk in to touch screen: Venti drip with some ice and Obama for president. The republicans could have theirs at McDonald’s so they don’t have to get out of their cars. Increase voter turn-out while in increasing profits. That’s so American, it’s like John Wayne just served you a slice of red-white-and-blue apple pie. And Starbucks always offers me a paper receipt, which is more than you can say for most electronic polling stations.