Decisions are made by the people who show up.

In one of Buffalo's southern suburbs, a town named Eden (which is, in fact, so far south of Buffalo that it might not even really be fair to call it a suburb at all), a freelance writer and blogger named Christina Abt has decided that the democratic process of the town needs a bit of shaking up. So she's running for office, and blogging her run. Talk about grassroots, eh?

(By the way, here's a weird thing that I just remembered: the first time I ever voted was in the 1992 Presidential Election, in which I voted by absentee ballot for Bill Clinton. But what really struck me was that in my town, there were Democratic and Republican candidates for coroner. Are there really partisan differences in how a Democratic coroner would approach that job, as opposed to a Republican one? "He's dead." "No he's not, you lefty idiotarian liberal America hater! He's just sleeping really soundly!" "His heart's not breathing. I know this, because I'm reality-based." And so it would go....)

(Link to Ms. Abt's blogs via Ali, who e-mailed this to me a few days ago and about which I promptly forgot.)