John “Mac” McQuown, creator of the first index fund and owner of Stone Edge Farm, dies at 90

There’s an App for That

Your correspondent apologizes for any typos or wine stains in this piece but he's finishing this column and trying to get his 2024 ballot read, analyzed, marked and in the mail before polls close. Those who’ve herniated a disk lifting those dense Voters Guides know what that involves. Oh, the ballot is simple enough – two pieces of paper. Just color in the circles to pick who should run things and which things should/shouldn’t be run. Stick ballot in the blue envelope, sign envelope, moisten – DO NOT LICK – the possibly covid-infected seal, close flap and drop envelope in the mail. If you can color inside-the-lines, vote-by-mail is easy. The hard part is deciding which circles to color; signing it with your Registered Voter Signature (remember what that looks like?) and submitting it – in-person, via mail or in a dropbox – before polls close. But fair-minded voters free of preconceptions, simmering hatreds and/or lusts for revenge, must admit that voting is not easy. To discharge this Sacred Patriotic Duty taught to us in school (after the Pledge of Allegiance and/or Lord’s Prayer), we should: 1) Carefully study the backgrounds and positions of every candidate for each office on the ballot. 2) Thoroughly analyze the wording and ramifications of each ballot measure. 3) Meticulously compare “For” and “Against” arguments for each ballot measure as written by advocates and opponents. 4) Study all election flyers harvested from your mailbox. 5) Fortified by the best wine, spend an evening or two carefully considering the ramifications of our possible choices on our hopes, fortunes and dreams and those of our progeny for decades to come. 6) Discuss possible choices with trusted family and friends to get their thoughts and feedback and, finally – 7) With a blue or black ink pen (NO NO.2 PENCILS!), mark your ballot, sealing the fates of candidates and Our Democracy. It can be exhausting. So, in this Age of Technology and AI, you’d think there’d be an App For That, one that would work something like this: Activate phone; open App which instantly downloads and analyzes political ads from everywhere in cyberspace; let phone scan Voters Guide; touch phone to head to allow App to scan a jabillion brain cells (more or less) and upload brainwave activity/inactivity. After the beep, touch phone to ballot and – Voila! (not ‘viola’) – the App immediately: (1) Inserts the choices our brains would have made if we had bothered to think about them. (2) Saves a screenshot. (3) Finds and applies image of our registered voter signature stored in brain cells. (4) Encrypts and e-mails the completed ballot to . . . (5) The Registrar’s computer, which, (6) Instantly tallies it with thousands of votes livestreamed from other voters' phones/brains. No standing in long poll lines. No looking for drop-boxes or mail-boxes. Best of all: NO THINKING! The App might even prevent post-election surprises. E.g., several elections ago many Sonoma Valley voters learned – after the election – that they had voted to fund much-needed school repairs plus a new multi-million-dollar high-school stadium. The stadium item was buried deep in the school district’s cheery, “Warm, Safe and Dry” voter pitch. But AI could highlight any "surprises" lurking in those fine-print Voter Guides we usually just skim and toss in the . . . wait . . . #@!! . . . now where'd I put the damned thing???

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There’s an App for That

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