“Is it too soon for a city devastated by a hurricane six months ago to hold a party?” So asks CNN in its description of a story about Mardi Gras in New Orleans. There’s even a poll.

How about this: You don’t have to have an opinion about everything.

Yes, yes, in this day of polls for everything and every Web site with a poll, it feels like it’s out patriotic duty to have an opinion on everything. There’s always a new report on a new survey, whether it’s the President’s approval ratings or “Should kids be allowed to wear mismatched socks to school?”

Sometimes the appropriate answer is: I honestly don’t give a damn.

(Is “damn” an inappropriate word to use on a Web site that children may visit? Vote now!)

Sure, it makes sense to have opinions on some issues — abortion, Iraq, what kind of car to drive, whether you prefer vanilla or chocolate. But — let me say it again — people don’t have to have an opinion on everything. Even big issues. And no, that doesn’t make you a bad person if you just don’t care.

Should the Confederate flag be banned from state flags? I don’t care. Should the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge be opened for oil drilling? I don’t care. Should Georgia red clay be the official dirt of Georgia? I don’t care. Should New Orelans have its Mardi Gras this soon after Katrina? I don’t care.

Does it make me a bad person for not taking up someone else’s cause as my own, no matter how reasonable their argument is? No, it doesn’t. “You don’t care that all these horrible things will happen if X is allowed to pass?” Honestly, no.

I’ve got plenty to worry about — saving for retirement and Sam’s college. Getting my next story out on deadline. Wondering what’s that funny noise my car is making. So sometimes I just don’t feel like making room in my head for things simply because other people — even lots of other people — have strong and righteous opinions about them.

Did you see “Real Genius”? Remember Lazlo Hollyfeld, teh guy who lived in the closet and entered lots of sweepstakes? Well that’s what Karen is doing — entering Internet contests in her spare time. And, like Lazlo, she won.

Not quite as much, though. What she won was a toothbrush. But not just any toothbrush: The Oral-B Triumph, possibly the ultimate home-dental-care appliance on the planet. (With a name like “Triumph,” it kinda has to be. How do you go up from there — the “Triumph with Extra Credit”?)

First of, if you wanted to buy the thing at, say, Amazon.com, you’d have to shell out $110. For a toothbrush. The thing comes with two separate heads, one for brushing and one for polishing. It has four separate settings: Clean, Soft, Massage, and Polish. You can choose the mode yourself, but if you pop on the polishing head the brush switches to polish mode automatically.

It not only tells you when you’ve brushed the recommended two minutes, but has separate 30-second timers for each quadrant in your mouth. Seriously. And, of course, it tells you when you need to charge the battery, and when you need to change the brushhead.

It does this in 13 languages. Yes, I’m serious. (English, German, Danish,
Dutch, Suomi (?), French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Norwegian,
Korean, and Japanese.)

I’ve got a $5.00 battery-powered toothbrush that I like a lot, but ever since Karen’s has been in the bathroom I could swear mine has been inching across the counter, away from the newcomer, strictly because it’s intimidated. I sure am.

From the Orlando Sentinal:

DAYTONA BEACH — Dennis Crouch had already slashed himself. And when he refused to drop his knife, Daytona Beach police Officer Betsy Cassidy decided she had no choice.

“Taser! Taser!” Cassidy shouted as she sent a two-pronged wire, packing 50,000 volts, at Crouch’s chest. What happened next stunned everyone.

A Taser probe pierced the pocket of his khaki shirt — and ignited the butane lighter inside. Cassidy’s pocket exploded in flames.

“The subject,” recounted Sgt. Al Tolley in a subsequent report, “immediately dropped the knife.”

This is a test of a new blogging tool called Performancing. I already see one problem: It doesn’t have the ability to add images to a post, unless you’ve already (and separately) uploaded the file to your site. Phooie.

Update: I stand (sort of) corrected. You can drag and drop an image from a Web site into a post, but you can’t upload a new one from your PC. I.e., it has to be on the Web already.