On Oct. 24, The News Virginian ran an editorial cartoon entitled “Curiosity Killed the Cat.” It coincided with feelings I’m having also. While the cartoon’s point was to question Barack Obama’s associations and associates, it so happens that I have questions about what and why his candidacy has caused to occur – increased security at the polls.

On a bright October morning, Laura Burkhead pinned her Obama button to her blouse and went job hunting.

Maybe the bearings are shot.

In January, pharmaceutical companies will no longer give trinkets to doctors.

With all the interest in voting this year, I was pleased to see Bob Stuart’s recent piece on voting in The News Virginian (“Virginia’s voter registration sees high numbers,” Sept. 18). While his report answered a number of questions it also triggered others.

The presidential election confounds me.

With Nov. 4 approaching faster than a Wall Street downturn (then upturn, then downturn again, then ... ), there is precious little time remaining to pen a ridiculous, often hate-filled crackpot political letter to the editor packed with idiotic half truths and outright lies.

Thousands of bankers are already out of work or soon will be.

Now that folksy is in, I don’t mind admitting that the first line of Joe Biden’s latest e-mail reminded me of my grandmother.

Ever had “aromatic fig and cassis body butter applied after a warm, tension-releasing back compress?”

Yesterday my cat leaped on a line of string lying on the floor, treating it as if it were living prey.

If you’re thinking about going into business for yourself, after Nov. 4th’s national election, I believe you should consider investing in a bathhouse or carwash.

Normally, I pay little attention to who wins the Nobel Prize in Literature.

I may feel a lot worse about the country than I did a short time ago, but my self-esteem has received a real boost.

As a joke, about 30 years ago, I said to co-workers that Social Security should be paid to everyone when they turn 18 and stop when they reached 30. I added that everyone could then find jobs and work until they died.

I was waiting in line at the truck stop along with every other knucklehead swept up in the panic of the Great Southeastern Gas Shortage of Early Fall 2008 when my mind wandered, as it often does, and I flashed forward 30 or 40 years.

I am trying to keep my head screwed on straight, but the news is messing with my mind. It reminds me of what it must feel like to live in the path of a hurricane a day or two before the storm actually hits.

A warning to readers who are contemplating getting naked and unruly: You could be Tasered.

Yesterday in class a student asked me what I thought about the upcoming election.

Was I watching and hearing the Republican candidate for U.S. president on television during his convention acceptance speech, John S. McCain or Democratic candidate Barack H. Obama?

During the 1980 presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan, in a debate with President Jimmy Carter, famously suggested that voters answer a simple, but potent, question.

It’s time some courageous person exposes the global epidemic of mass dog weddings.

It occurred to me this week that being a U.S. taxpayer is a lot like being the parent of difficult teenagers.

The other day I had a discussion about municipal budget shortfalls or really the strains on them.

Sen. John McCain either made a bold move or a blunder by selecting Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate for the Republican vice presidential position.

There is at least one family in the Augusta County area that has figured out how to raise a family on an income of $40,000 or less.

Happy Labor Day! As many Americans enjoy a last weekend at the beach, the Republican National Convention opens today in St. Paul, and the GOP begins making the case for John McCain for president.

Apparently laborers who built much of the infrastructure and the buildings for the Olympics were hustled out of town before the grand event took place.

Am I the only one who’s noticed changes taking place in the Valley?

Democrats open their national convention today amid troubling news.