There's no such thing as a candidate with everything

The Democratic Party will have another "mockus" or mock caucus on Tuesday at Silver Stage High School in Silver Springs, similar to the ones they held in Virginia City last week and Carson City last month.

Continuing my political cynicism, I attended the Virginia City event - as it was only three blocks from my house and the bar was open - to see what was going on.

They were electing pizza.

That might be an improvement over some candidates I've seen, and certainly goes down easier.

Actually, it's because the state party organization can't be seen picking a candidate before they pick a candidate, so they use pizza toppings rather than real candidates.

The candidates were pepperoni, anchovy, cheese, vegetarian and everything.

You didn't have to be a Democrat to attend the "mockus," but all of them seemed to be. There were also campaign representatives for Joe Biden, Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd and a few party regulars, along with a young, earnest fellow from Iowa who was well-schooled in caucus activities.

First you picked your pizza. You could be uncommitted, but if you were, all the other pizzas would yell at you to join them.

My husband went with pepperoni, which is the only kind of pizza you can get in Virginia City, other than cheese. I was uncommitted, as I usually am during election years and, along with Angel Tanner, got called to by people holding signs signifying their pizza.

Angel and I decided to go with everything, since who could resist a candidate that had everything? Besides, anything you didn't like, you could take off. Too bad that doesn't work with real candidates.

Any pizza with less than three supporters was considered "not viable" and the one or two supporters would have to go with one of the other types. Vegetarian was the only one not viable, with one supporter, so of course, Angel and I, and the two other "everything" supporters, yelled to him that "everything" was the only pizza with vegetables and he could take the meat off. Our logic prevailed and he joined us. So "everything" won the day.

But thanks to a rather convoluted calculating system, pizza with everything got as many delegates to the state convention as pepperoni pizza, which had one less supporter. That's politics.

Lyon County folks will get their chance to show what they stand for, or chow down on, at the Silver Springs event, where Nevada Democratic Party Chairwoman Jill Derby will be the guest. Pizza kicks off at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the high school.

•••

Plein-air artist Jean LeGassick of Silver City was shown on the PBS series "Plein-Air: Painting the American Landscape" on Monday. The episodes air at 7:30 a.m. on KNPB out of Reno.

Her section featured art of the Tongass Rain Forest in Alaska. It was the third episode in the series.

If you missed the first episode, the series in HDTV will then start over beginning Sept. 17 at 7:30 am with the first episode.

For those without HDTV, the series will start at 1 p.m. Sept. 4 and will conclude in mid-October.

"This series is a beautiful, entertaining film that is a combination of plein-air painting demonstrations, art history, and a travelog of beautiful places across America," LeGassick said.

Art lovers, check out www.pleinairamerica.com for more information. You could also go to www.JeanLeGassick.com.

• Karen Woodmansee is a Nevada Appeal Staff Writer. Contact her at kwoodmansee@nevadaappeal.com or 882-2111 ext. 351.