Nasty Little Man

Overheard today on the streets of Harrisburg

Voter fraud or media fraud? Sitting in the pizza shop for lunch, I had to stomach Fox News, which was on the TV. (Between my slow service today and the fact that Fox News has been on the last two times I've been in there, I'm considering abandoning my favorite downtown pizza shop.) Fox was doing one of their usual manipulation jobs, trumpeting a story about 10,000 deceased people who are still registered to vote in Missouri, seven of whom supposedly voted in 2004. Fox, of course, missed two key facts: A) Those who supposedly voted only came up that way because poll workers accidentaly scanned the bar codes next to their names when they shouldn't have done so. And B) remaining registered is simply a clerical error. It only becomes a grave problem (so to speak) when these supposedly dead people are voting en masse.

But the lady behind me didn't think this through. "Ha," she said. "Dead people are voting in Missouri."

"Voter fraud," one of the pizza guys said.

Fox knows full well that when people think of dead people voting they think of the Democrats in 1960.

Multi-culturalism lives in central PA. The International House and the Governor's Advisory Commission on Latino Affairs had a wonderful turnout for their first La Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. In fact, the turnout was greater than the organizers expected, and it was a diverse crowd. South central PA can embrace diversity, immigrants, and their cultures.

His favorite team. As I walked by a group of men near the capitol today, I heard this: "They're going to decide on Sunday morning. He's played the last few weeks but hasn't carried the ball very well." Ah, a good ol' fashion conversation about someone's favorite team? "I can't cut him." The team in question is not the Eagles or the Steelers or some other NFL squad. It was this guy's fantasy team.

posted by Kinder Gentler Little Man @ 11:03 PM