Welcome to Wonderland.

Behold! You have entered Wonderland: a weekly round-up of news and events and occurrences occurring in this topsy-turvy world of ours. In the coming months and years, I’ll focus on whatever news happens to strike my fancy. Given that Wonderland does, after all, live on AlphaMom, many of these stories will undoubtedly be of special relevance to parents. And because of my own personal bias, I shall also, inevitably, regale you with tales of heroic kitty cats.
Onward!
Will you please be quiet, John Kerry, please?
As you may have heard, next Tuesday is a little something we call Election Day. And it appears that after this year’s Election Day, the Democrats might just gain control of Congress. That is, as long as every single Democratic candidate disavows friendship with or knowledge of this ‘John Kerry’ character.
Pity poor John Kerry. He finally gets the spotlight again, only to have that happen. When you heard that sound clip, did your heart not break for him? Could you not hear his brain frantically whirring as he figured out how badly he flubbed his little joke? Or do you loathe every basset-houndy inch of him, and did you cackle in glee as he crashed and burned?
Mid-term voting: ID, graduate degree required
Chaos. Mayhem. Fisticuffs. Humans mating with raccoons. All these things and more will almost certainly occur on Election Day.
This was the conclusion (sort of) of Electionline.org, an election-reform website that issued a 75-page report on how Election Day will go. I read it all. And I can sum it up for you in this pithy haiku:
Confusion will reign
IDs! New machines! Oh, god!
It’s going to suck bad.

Does your state require ID? Twenty-four of them now do, but in several states, the new law has been challenged, and in some cases overturned, and in still other cases overturned yet again. When the news tells you that the lifting of the ban on not requiring ID has been reversed, can you figure out whether or not to bring your driver’s license without your head exploding?
With these baffling new rules, the learning curve expected as poll workers and voters alike contend with new electronic voting machines, and new registration databases in some states, I’m thinking that maybe eight people will manage to vote.
If you want to be one of the lucky eight, be sure to know your state’s ID rules: the poll workers may not. In Arizona’s primary, poll workers who weren’t sure about the ID requirements were observed simply making them up.
When the poll workers are improvising, my friends, we should all be a little more nervous than we are.
This week in science: Women 38% more likely to suffer from studies
According to this week’s published studies, women are delicate creatures who succumb easily to sickness, perish if they are without a man, and swiftly fail should the temperature of the room dip below 68.
First off, this bit of news, which I could have told them if they had only asked: women are more likely to develop multiple sclerosis. I know plenty of women who suffer from MS, sadly, and the only man I know is Squiggy from Laverne and Shirley. But apparently ‘What Alice Could Tell You If You’d Just Ask’ does not a study make, so scientists made it all official-like.
Actually, what raises this study above the obvious is the real discovery, which is that the ratio of MS-afflicted women to men has, for the past fifty years, been rising. Why, you ask? That, apparently, is for another study to conclude. Thanks, scientists.
In yet another study, it was shown that women who smoke really should not. Groundbreaking!
Due to our delicate lady parts, we are apparently more vulnerable to the deadly effects of smoking, and much less vulnerable to looking mysterious and cool with a cigarette in our hands. (N.B.: There was no mention of ‘lady parts’ in the actual study.)
And what if your husband smokes? Women are more likely to suffer ill effects from secondhand smoke, after all, so shouldn’t you get those divorce papers ready? Well, according to yet another study, that’ll kill you, too. Or at least make you less healthy.
In this study, a group of rural women were studied over the course of ten years; the divorced ones suffered increased stress, which led eventually to physical ailments. The key word here seems to me to be ‘rural.’ Who isn’t going to suffer, all alone, out on the frontier, with the wolves howling at your door, and no man who can get up at 4 a.m. to shear the sheep and milk the goats? And herd the animals that require herding? Can you tell I’ve never lived in the country?
Hey, men? With that smug expression on your faces? There’s bad news for you, too. Don’t look now, but whoops, your testosterone levels are dropping. According to another recent study, testosterone levels are plummeting 1 percent each year. And yet again, no one knows why.
But here comes the answer, just in time to save us all: red wine! If you consume massive quantities of red wine, according to scientists, you’ll live forever! This may not be exactly what the scientists said, but it’s what I took from this article. Also, that fat mice are cute.
So: are you voting? What’s your opinion on this year’s elections? Are you a divorced frontierswoman smoker now forced to drink bottles of red wine just to live another day? Weigh in, below.