Opine

The Word of the Day for November 4 is "opine."

opine: (verb) Express one's opinion openly and without fear or hesitation.

Synonyms: sound off, speak out, speak up

Usage: "I dare say it is all for the best," opined Mrs. Munt.

Relevance to my life: It may appear to some that I opine at length about what gets under my skin when in fact, I feel as though I have been biting my tongue in half, holding back what I really think.

Happy Election Day.

How ironic, considering the fact that if politicians really expressed their true opinions instead of pandering to the widest possible voter base, few of them would make it higher than city dog-catcher.

What? Cynical... me?

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WD-40 or Duct Tape Can Fix Anything

In all my years as an active voter, I have never experienced what I did today.I got to my polling station, located conveniently two doors down from my house, just after it opened at 6 am to see a long line and the news crew from News Channel Nine. I'd expected the line, even the news crew, but not the snafus.

My polling place is home to two districts in a single ward. There were two old-fashioned lever-type voting machines, one for each district; one electronic, touch-screen machine which could be used for registered voters in either district; finally a stack of emergency paper ballots.

The electronic voting machine was not yet online, the were waiting some code, and the voting machine for my district was not working: the levers would not go down. So we stood there and watched our line grow.

Tempers flared a bit when one annoyed voter opined that the reporter should stop being part of the problem by merely reporting the news instead of being an agent of change. Repeated calls to the board of elections yielded busy signals or interminable phone trees.

We had a man there from the Democratic party charged to observe the process and watch for irregularities. It's thanks to him, I believe, that the official voting machine repairman finally showed up at 7:15 with his magic can of WD-40 to remedy the situation.

So it was that at 7:26, almost an hour anad a half after I got there, I cast my vote.