I don’t understand why people listen to polls.  I also don’t understand why people go to psychics.  My skepticism is best illustrated in the story of Mary Bateman, also known as the Yorkshire Witch.  Back in 18^th-century England, Mary claimed to have unerring prophetic abilities.  She swore that she could predict the future by messages inscribed on the eggs laid by her hens.  Of course, nobody believed her – because why would you believe that?  Then Mary invited several people to her farm, where they witnessed a hen actually laying eggs that said “Christ is coming”.  And, yes, they saw the eggs come out of the hen.  Mary became a sensation.  Needless to say, it was later discovered that Bateman used acid to write the messages on eggs.  She then reinserted them into the hen’s oviduct – which, and I say this not as a gynecologist or even a veterinarian, I believe is somewhere in the vicinity of the uvula.  And that’s why I don’t trust pollsters – they’re always trying to stick something in one end or the other.

One didn’t need to be a pollster to know that Maura Healey would be elected governor of Massachusetts.  While locals note that she’s the first female governor of our state, the national press is making much of the fact that she’s the first openly lesbian governor of a US state.  But what she does with her eggs is her business.

Shortly after Healey’s win, another tinkle came from that glass ceiling when fellow lesbian Tina Kotek was elected governor of Oregon.  And Jared Polis, who in 2018 became the first openly gay elected governor in the US, was re-elected governor of Colorado.  Bill Maher says we should be watching him.  I was watching closely enough to note that I don’t like my politicians wearing a suit and sneakers.  Never have.  But he seems smart.