At the risk of sounding like Special Ed from Crank Yankers: "I got to vote for prothonotary! I got to vote for prothontary!"

The prothonotary is this odd post that is elected, but nobody knows what it does. I thought it was like "clerk of courts" but then we found there was an actual "Clerk of Courts". As near as I can tell, it's one of those Pennsylvania rituals somehow derived from Scotland (other examples of this include alcohol-fueled open rebellion against the state.)

The interesting bit is that I may have had the last shot to elect a prothonotary. As part of the Allegheny County Chief Executive election campaign, the Democrat, Dan Onorato, basically pledged to blow up most of the county offices. The weird thing about this election for me was watching this one, I couldn't actually tell you one policy difference between the two, aside from Onorato was telling us in ads that Jim Roddey was lying about his record. I'd really love to know where those ads were that Onorato was talking about, because they weren't airing anywhere near me. Not that I was expecting Roddey to win. He's always been percieved as a sort of shadowy figure in area politics, prior to his election, always there but never directly involved. (The fact that he looks exactly like what you'd imagine THE MAN who was perhaps not hassling you, but definitely involved in organizing a hassling campaign, didn't help.) The only reason he won the slot was because he was running against Cyril Wecht (known to most of you as talking head brought in whenever talk show X needed a coroner, or if you're not a single bullet theoretician). So, oh well, I don't think much will change, I would have liked having Roddey in negotiations to keep USAir here, but I don't think either candidate could save it.