Eight votes is seven too many

This week was Election Day, but I didn't vote. It wasn't a very big election and I worked late on Tuesday. I also didn't know much about the candidates. Our local paper, the Davis County Clipper, had little blips from the different candidates. None of them really sounded too much better than the others; they all sounded fine.

Except for one.

There was one entry for an old woman who looked nice and friendly. Her opening paragraph read,

"Friends: I proposed a library and lower taxes for North Salt Lake. Vote for me: Write-in my name: Reva Wadsworth."

So, she sounds like an all right candidate; I might vote for her.

But then I continued. What follows is the rest of her entry, with commentary by yours truly. I assure you, I'm not making any of this up.

"Seek life, liberty, and happiness."
OK, you're paraphrasing Jefferson. You're still off to a good start.

"Life: Brush mind and body daily, Pray always!"
Whoa. Suddenly you've changed directions, and you're losing credibility. I know what brushing your teeth and brushing your hair are--but what exactly does it mean to brush your body? But even more confusing--what on earth does it mean to brush your mind!? And did you mean to put a period instead of a comma? Because praying always does not exactly fit with the rest of the sentence, and while praying is a good thing and you pray to capital H-I-M, you don't need to capitalize pray. I also don't think it's exactly fitting with running for a city office. It's obvious the group you're trying to get to vote for you.

Furthermore,with the way you format your sentence with life at the beginning, I would think you would have similar sentences starting with liberty and happiness followed by a colon, as your opening sentence would suggest. You do use the words, but the parallel structure is lost by abandoning the colon.

"Drink water, avoid milk products, rancid oils, sugars, excess flour, all drugs."
I could talk about the grammatical structure here, but that's the least of the problems. What is wrong with milk products? Did you never read the Food Pyramid? I would think even non-rancid oils are worse for you than milk products. And why are you telling people to avoid all drugs? Marijuana, meth, alcohol--yes, but what about prescription drugs? Have you ever met someone who is certifiably crazy who goes off their medication? (Maybe this explains you...)

"Transporting, selling, gifting drugs promises penalty by law."
I agree here that this should be the case, but unfortunately it doesn't always work out this way--you have to get caught, and you have to get caught by someone who thinks it's worth the trouble.

"Liberty is prudence, moderation, frugality!"
The way you list things like this reminds me of Ophelia Frump, Morticia's sister on The Addams Family.


"Avoid poisonous sprays, debts, credit, contracts, zoning, unions!"
One of these things is not like the other--what do poisonous sprays have to do with the rest of it?

"Beware of tolerance, without cause, breeding begging, blushing, unworthiness."
Did you really just say, "Beware of tolerance"? I think of tolerance as a good thing. Maybe you meant "tolerance without cause," and you put an extraneous comma in there; we've already seen how good you are at punctuation. But that still doesn't make too much sense. And what on earth is "breeding begging"? Once again, maybe your punctuation is messed up and you mean "breeding COMMA begging." But if so, breeding is a weird thing to mention in a list of things to beware. What's wrong with blushing? Are you trying to be alliterative? People like you should NOT attempt poetry.

"Read: therein, work, find wealth!"
I can't decide if you're saying that you work and find wealth by reading , or if you're trying to tell us to read into what you've just said, and that the advice you've given in preceding sentences allows us to work and find wealth. Either way, it doesn't make any sense.

"Be prepared!"
Thank you, Mrs. Boy Scout.

"Happiness is doing unto others as you would have them do unto you."
No argument here.

"Repent!"
Now you're sounding like the bearded, robed man standing on the street corner with a sign proclaiming, "The end is near!"

"Forgive, share, care, guard and protect private property."
Once again, one of these things is not like the other. What does protecting private property have to do with forgiving, sharing, and caring?

"After all, Families are forever!"
What do you mean, "after all"? What does this have to do with anything you've said, and what does it have to do with voting for you for city council? Families are wonderful and eternal, but they don't need a capital letter.

"There-in, I can serve you."
This is the second time you've used the word therein, and once you used a hyphen and once you didn't. It seems to me you're throwing this word around to try to sound smart, even though you don't know what it means. You haven't told us anything in this entire paragraph about how you'll serve us--not once! All you've done is set down a list of poorly-written and sometimes bad advice.

"Thanks."
Well, reading your blip was a few seconds of my life I'll never get back.

On Wednesday, the Deseret News printed results from all the elections. Reva E. Wadsworth only got eight votes. For the sake of humanity, I hope these were all family members and very, very close friends.

I'm sure she's a sweet lady. But she has no business on a city council.