I collect my copy of the free Metro each morning from the lovely man who stands at the Kendall Square T-stop handing them out through wind, rain, and snow, and who always has a smile and a cheerful word for me. Today the paper was chock full of more than the usual number of articles that gave me cause to remember how idiotic and/or vicious the human race can be.

Exhibit A: A letter to the forum (I have helpfully scratched out the writer’s name to protect his privacy, because more people read my blog than the Boston Metro). Is this person fer-serious? The Pope, no matter how senile and sick, and no matter how much trouble he may have communicating at the moment, has not been in a persistent vegetative state for fifteen years. His cerebral cortex, the part of his brain that makes him so wonderfully weird, has not been destroyed. I won’t go on, because I don’t really want to write about Terry or the Pope, today of all days — but please, Name-Scratched-Out, use your functioning grey matter to come up with a more logical argument for your beliefs.

Exhibit B: This is kind of hard to read. Here’s the first sentence of the article: “Hundreds of volunteers, some of them armed, are expected to take up position along the Mexican border tomorrow and begin patrolling for illegal immigrants.” I don’t think I need to tell you what I think, or feel, about this. I hate that there are people who imagine this is a good idea and somehow right.

….and, Exhibit C: I find it kind of kooky that there are people who don’t think this is a good idea, wayyyyyy late in coming. I’m astounded that you can go to a voting station in this country and be asked to furnish nothing, except your name (if it really is your name), in order to cast your vote. Ross could have gone to twenty different voting stations, this past Election day, armed with the names of twenty different registered voters (as long as he knew where they were supposed to go), and racked up the numbers for whomever he wished. Of course, when the real voters came along (if they ever came along) the game would be up, I suppose, but they would have had no way of tracing Ross, and the whole kerfuffle would have taken forever to sort out.

Anyway, let me lower my blood pressure by sharing with you what must surely be one of the greatest pictures ever taken:

Ah, to have my face eaten by a squishy Asher.