YACK on: Opinion poll
Grant Sanders
Aconfluence of bad ju-ju. That's the only way to describe it. Dreadladen feelings arise at the intersection of a particularly nasty presidential election year with infighting within both

parties; houses are being foreclosed upon because of risky loans given to people with overly optimistic outlooks; investment bank

Bear Sterns just

sold for two cents on the dollar; Hollywood writers have been on strike until only recently so our heads are filled with remakes, failed pilots and reality TV; the evil doers in the world and in our world are front page news; the town is tightening its proverbial belt, pundits and prophets proclaim the coming of a recession that will make the great flood of Moses look like a summer sun shower; good and great people, both nationally and locally, have passed away; the euro is up and the dollar is way, way down; the school's budget (and therefore the most vulnerable among us) is in "jeopardy;" ethanol is driving the cost of all other crops through the roof; the Iraq war keeps waging; there's a shortage of condoms - no, a MASSIVE backorder - at the Stop & Shop (of all places) for some strangely bizarre reason; Bin Laden is still not in custody and did I mention that it's March on Nantucket?

Are you depressed yet?

Don't be,

We will be fine. Nantucket, which has been buffeted by many a financial storm, will come out on the other side, a little wind-blown, but no worse for wear. We will be okay. All we will need is a fresh coat of paint on the corner boards and window jams. In a couple months it will be Summertime and the tourists will be back and the money will flow. Swells from New York and Boston and Avon, Connecticut, will once again populate our shores, enjoy our quaint-yet-mostly-authentic charm, soap their boats down in our harbors, leave their underwear on our beaches, eat our previously frozen scallops and drink our Whale's Tail Pale Ales. Please. Fear not. This pallor of doom and despair will pass just as the plagues of Egypt passed.

Breathe in. Relax. Exhale. Ah.

As you may or may not know, I am in the advertising business. And in the ad business we believe - no, we subsist - on research. So this week I will do a little research and I will poll the entire island, or as many people as possible, and I will gauge the level of hope (or lack thereof) within the populace of our fair island. And in September, after all of our larders and bellies are full and our off-season activities are planned and we say goodbye to the "Summer People" I will repeat the experiment. And we will see if our outlooks in March are the same as they are in September.

I predict that we will be feeling far better about ourselves after the summer is over and bank accounts are once again full. (I've always thought that town meeting should be held in September instead of April. That way, the town could pretty much pass any override it wanted.)

You may take this poll by visiting the YACKon.com home page and by clicking on the brightly colored button there near the top of the page.

Here are some of the questions I will ask. Just so you know.

Who are you voting for in April? For selectman, school committee, planning board and HDC?

How do you feel about your own personal financial outlook?

How do you feel about overrides?

Who was your favorite Monkee? Davie Jones, Peter Tork, Mickie Dolenz/Rolland (I get the two mixed up), or Michael Nesmith?

Are you against or in favor of the 'Sconset Beach Preservation Fund Initiative?

How are you feeling right now?

Do you own your own home? Do you rent? Or are you sleeping in your brother-in-law's disused Winnebago in his driveway?

How would you grade the job our current government is doing?

How often do you eat out? How many Styrofoam containers of ramen noodle soup do you have in your pantry right now?

Is the number 61,481,282 a perfect square? Please show your work.

What's so funny about peace, love and understanding?

How should the town seek to raise additional funds? Charge more for building permits? Raise taxes? Sell Libby Gibson's valuable collection of troll dolls from the early '70s?

Do you need a hug?

Should Nantucket invest in wind turbines at the dump?

Should the town hire professional hunters to cull the dear herd by 85 percent next winter and then hire professional butchers to cut up the meat so we can all have plenty of food in our freezers?

Okay, I may not ask all of those questions. The poll might become too long for most people to take.

Interestingly enough, as I'm writing this in some far-away hotel room on business the room service waiter just came to deliver my low-carb breakfast and handed me a copy of USA Today. And what is the headline? "Poll: Three In Four See A Recession." As if Nervous-Nelly Americans is in any way front-page news.

But take my poll anyway. It will be fun. And I'll be sharing the results on YACKon.com in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I'll be pulling for Peter Tork.

YACK on. I

Grant Sanders is the Host of YACK, The Nantucket Online Community at yackon.com and he knows the definition of a "recession" is a period of more than two quarters of a loss in GDP, and the GDP is fine, thanks. His views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of The Nantucket Independent. Or his wife.