Heads or Tails #20 (New -- or Old)

On this first business Tuesday of the New Year, Barb, the Lead Guru of the Heads or Tails Cult, the mysterious Eastern philosophy that is attracting new adherents every single day, asks us to meditate about (Heads) "Old" or (Tails) "New."

Here in America, we're mired in a seemingly endless process of replacing our old President with a new one.

And there are already new results in from New Hampshire, the first actual primary state, where voting is underway. (There were no 'votes' cast in Iowa, whatever you may have heard or read. There were a bunch of folks who loitered in various public and private buildings one night last week and noses were counted according to where they finally stopped after they'd mixed and mingled a bit -- but there was no voting in the sense of a secret ballot.)

In fact, not only has voting begun today in New Hampshire, voting is already concluded in tiny Dixville Notch where Barack Obama pulled away from the Democratic field with seven of the 10 votes cast.

There was 100% turnout in Dixville Notch this morning -- all 17 registered voters showed up. Seven took Republican ballots.

And Hillary received no votes at all in Dixville Notch.

And somewhere, right now, on a cable news channel, some over hairsprayed pundit is prognosticating -- extrapolating from this quadrennial publicity stunt. It is an old, and very lame, tradition.

The good news is that we are at long last counting somebody's votes -- even if they are mostly from some of Boston's suburbs. The bad news is that it's several months too early: Why are we doing this now when the general election isn't until the first Tuesday in November? And the worse news is that, when they're done in New Hampshire, the candidates will disperse to multiple states, among them Illinois -- which moved up its primary this year to February 5.

Yes, we have a new primary date. Our primary used to coincide with the feast of St. Patrick... so all the candidates played up the most tenuous Irish connections imaginable. Now, what will happen? Will they all be groundhogs?

Oh, if only the politicians would hibernate another six weeks. But, alas, there are 800 numbers calling my home phone at all hours of the day and night already.

And they're not all creditors.