Voting keeps getting easier and easier for me. My default position on ballot initiatives is no. Most of these initiatives are brought up by fringe special interests, or they’re hot-button issues that elected officials don’t want to take responsibility for so they push them off on voters. As long as I’m paying my state senator’s paycheck, they can do their job and make laws. I’ll vote yes on an initiative if it’s something really compelling.

Like I just totally voted yes to add another $1 a pack in taxes on cigarettes. The funds would go toward cancer research. Smoking is grody. It’s bad for smokers and the people who have to breathe in their filthy fumes and deal with the mess it makes. We all have our vices and ways to relax, but unlike having a beer at a restaurant, smoking is a vice that invades the space of non-smokers and creates a drain on our healthcare system in the form of elevated risk. If you’re going to be a smoker, fine. I won’t tell you to stop. But in return you should accept responsibility to chip in for treating the diseases you’re giving yourself.

Candidates are even easier to choose from. I just start by weeding out and vote for whoever is left. Here’s how I do it. I scratch a big X through the name if:

• The candidate doesn’t have a website
• The candidate’s website has malware or pop-up ads
• The candidate did not bother to submit a profile for the state’s voter guide, which is totally free and easy to do.
• The candidate’s profile doesn’t use complete sentences, presents no cohesive platform, talks about other candidates but says nothing about themselves, or consists solely of whining about the status quo

That narrows it down quite a bit, especially in cases like the current race for California’s U.S. Senate seat. There are 24 candidates on the ballot. Yeesh. However, only eleven submitted profiles for the voter guide. If you can’t take ten minutes to type up a paragraph about why I should vote for you, my confidence in your competence is not high. From there, it’s easy to cross out candidates based on red flags that pop out from the text. Here’s examples of candidate fail:

• Orly Tatiz: “[Obama] is an Indonesian citizen.”
• Elizabeth Emken: “I became Vice President of Autism Speaks“
• Robert Lauten: I’d quote him but his broken English offends my grammatical sensibilities.
• Dan Hughes: “proud Reagan conservative.”
• Dirk Allen Konopik: “Will boldly stand for Christ.”
• Marsha Feinland: “The 1%” blah blah blah. Berkeley address.
• Colleen Shea Fernald: “Dear congressionally betrayed voter”
• Rogelio T. Gloria: “I am an experienced U.S. Naval Officer and federal employee.” (That was all he put.)
• Al Ramirez: Second Amendment illegal immigration blah blah blah

Easy peasy! By crossing out people whose statements are irrelevant as to their fitness for office, I was left with only two to choose between. I used to try to vote by comparing all candidates as equals. That was draining and frustrating. It’s so much easier to do it this way now, sifting out the nutters and lazy folks from people who actually seem to understand the importance of representing me and so many other voters.

TMI ALERT

TMI ALERT

There. You have been properly warned. This post is hilariously grody and discusses baby squirrel genitals. If that’s not your thing please click here for pictures of adorable clean well-behaved kittens.

Yesterday at the Wildlife Nursery I learned something . . . special about baby squirrels.

The nursery has a couple of big whiteboards where we track each animal. It keeps information on diet, medication, and habitat cleaning very well organized as there are a lot of people moving around the facility and staying on top of hundreds of hungry critters can get tricky. I kept noticing in the notes section by nearly every male squirrel that there were, well, penis issues. Yes, itty bitty baby squirrel penises. I said it. Please remember I DID give you a TMI warning. In the notes section of the whiteboard it was a penispalooza. Swollen penis. Don’t forget penis meds. Watch penis. Eew. Gross. No thanks.

I went to the squirrel cages with that morning’s set of tiny baby bottles filled with formula, and try as I might to focus on the adorable slurping sound, my eyes were inevitably drawn to their junk. As the whiteboard promised, lots of the males had seriously swollen, red, irritated squirrel schlongs. I asked one of the more senior volunteers what was up with that. She suppressed a laugh and told me. At first I was so grossed out that I almost dropped the baby bottle I was holding for a very hungry squirrel. It squealed in protest and I pushed the nipple back to its mouth. It went back to slurping and gazing at me contentedly with those velvety dark eyes. And then, as I watched it continue to eat, I laughed in spite of myself.

So here’s where I’m going with this. Like babies of any mammal species, they’ll suck on anything. Like . . . anything. Critters like to continue to suck on things even if their bellies are full, whether it be fingers, a pacifier, or their mother. It’s comforting to them. Human babies are drool factories that unceasingly seek out anything to slurp on. Now imagine that baby with enormous buck teeth on about nine shots of espresso and you’ve got an idea of what a baby squirrel is like.

Now you know where I’m going with this. Yes. Exactly. Male baby squirrels are, er, endowed with an item that is pretty much the same size and shape as a momma squirrel nipple. And their siblings, in the absence of an itty bitty squirrel pacifier, will go to town on their poor little squirrel schlongs, leaving bite marks, inflammation, and infection. There isn’t much that can be done about this, since it happens in nature and it’s much better for the squirrels to live in nests together where they can socialize. All the SPCA can do is offer a little ointment if their junk gets too much funk.

Happy Tuesday Everybody!