My vote

Today I will vote, finally. The ballot and the pamphlets have piled up on the dining room table, and it is time to clear the mess and committ. Not that I had to think much about any of the choices on this year's ballot. The choices were obvious, and no amount of mudslinging or pimple finding was going to distract me.

I enjoyed the charade, the attacks, the twists and turns and word=coinage necessary to convince people. My test is to look at who is sponsoring the measure. People have motives and histories. And it is not hard to Google and get facts and sources.

We go back to our basic instincts when we vote. We look at a candidate and his/her history and form an opinion, an impression of how that person lived his/her life and whether he/she would understand the needs that we have.

And then, there is the way we all express our needs. Some of us are more selfish than others. And, at election time, we don't hide it too well. Look at who wants to save whom. And who needs to be saved. And who has done the saving in his/her past.

I don't need government's help. But I know lots of people who do, not because of anything they did or didn't do. Their circumstances in life became demanding. Most people have worked and struggled. And we had compassionate people help us on the way. Government is the ultimate expression of that compassion, of people looking out for each other to do things they could not do on their own.