Tags: humanifesto | love | politics

Some alternative suggestions which would not only to be constitutional and fair, but would reflect the sensibilities of the unique Florida demographic.

The voting method is one of my personal favorites: Pin the colostomy bag on the politician: Voters would drink three pints of their favorite liquid food.

Twelve hours later (as measured by physicists from the National Bureau of Standards), registered nurses would disconnect the bag from its voter's intestinal mooring and affix the bag to a huge forward-facing pin or spike on the end of the voter's legally designated walker.

The blindfolded voter would be spun in circles until dizzy, then proceed to stagger across the voting gymnasium where a pair of life size images of the major party candidates would reside on a huge official corkboard. The candidate skewered by the colostomy bag pin would receive one official Florida vote.

If the bag missed both candidates, this would represent a third party vote. Once again, there is plenty of legal wiggle room around the edges for ambiguous results.

Saggers, drippers, droppers, and splatters - official Florida voting terminology - would need to be analyzed by forensics teams and psychiatrists to determine what was in the mind of the voter's bag at the moment of impact with the target candidate or bag man - yet more useful Florida voting terminology.

They shoulda split the goddamn electoral votes.

Also: Gabriel Garcia Marquez has retired from public life due to health reasons: cancer of the lymph nodes. It seems that it is getting worse. He has sent a farewell letter to his friends.

"If for an instant God were to forget that I am a rag doll and gifted me with a piece of life, possibly I wouldn't say all that I think, but rather I would think of all that I say. I would value things, not for their worth, but for what they mean. I would sleep little, dream more, understanding that for each minute we close our eyes we lose sixty seconds of light.

I would walk when others hold back, I would wake when others sleep. I would listen when others talk, and how I would enjoy a good chocolate ice cream! If God were to give me a piece of life, I would dress simply, throw myself face first into the sun, baring not only my body but also my soul.

My God, if I had a heart, I would write my hate on ice, and wait for the sun to show. Over the stars I would paint with a Van Gogh, dream a Benedetti poem, and a Serrat song would be the serenade I'd offer to the moon. With my tears I would water roses, to feel the pain of their thorns, and the red kiss of their petals ...

My God, if I had a piece of life ...

I wouldn't let a single day pass without telling the people I love that I love them.

I would convince each woman and each man that they are my favorites, and I would live in love with love. I would show men how very wrong they are to think that they cease to be in love when they grow old, not knowing that they grow old when they cease to be in love! To a child I shall give wings, but I shall let him learn to fly on his own. I would teach the old that death does not come with old age, but with forgetting. So much have I learned from you, my fellowmen ...

I have learned that everyone wants to live on the peak of the mountain, without knowing that real happiness is in how it is scaled. I have learned that when a newborn child squeezes for the first time with his tiny fist his father's finger, he has him trapped forever. I have learned that a man has the right to look down on another only when he has to help the other get to his feet. From you I have learned so many things, but in truth they won't be of much use, for when they put me in that suitcase, unhappily shall I be dying."