Bob noticed a new season of Bluebloods had started, so the past week or so we have been
streaming episodes. I know months ago I wrote about the first episode of season 11 -- that I thought the
show should have gracefully vanished after season 10 as planned and that the way COVID-19 was
handled was outrageous. I've had some issues with the show over time, but in recent years it has
become almost a parody. If season 11 was bad, the episode we watched last night, number 6 I think of
season 12, stooped to a new low in terms of offensiveness. Every story was negative, and of course
the main characters are so smug.

 I know I post this sentiment almost every year, but I so miss this machine. There was such a feeling of power when yanking the big lever to open the curtain and hearing the sound of simultaneous clicks as the vote was recorded. I also miss that little display of the ballot in the cute blue/green mini machine. I early voted this year and got a sticker, but filling in the Scantron ballot in a cardboard folder with a Sharpie doesn't elicit the same emotion.

 

I shared this on Facebook but didn't include this part. The bad feeling about voting isn't helped by the abundance of races that are not contested locally, or by the contested elections where the race is to the bottom in terms of the toxic tone. I cannot comprehend the awful mailers.