RED SOX WIN STARTS OFF THE COMING CHAOS.

Byline: KIMIT MUSTON Local View

I think I am a logical person. I am not a believer in ghosts, alien abductions, the Da Vinci code, ESP or over-the-counter weight-loss medications. I don't invest in Ponzi schemes, I don't think copper bracelets can cure arthritis, and I don't send money to television evangelists. So you can trust me when I assure you that we are in the midst of a quadro-physic harmonic convergence of frightening proportions.

This is the way the world ends, my friends: Halloween arriving an hour early, preceded by the Red Sox winning the World Series during a lunar eclipse. These aren't portents or omens, folks. We're talking screaming road signs of looming disaster - Doomsday, next three exits. And all the mystical arrows are pointing at Tuesday and a ballot designed to end democracy as we know it. You can cancel your car insurance and drive like a maniac because the end of the world can only be a week off at most.

We literally ran out of time. I don't know why we did that to ourselves. Spring forward, fall back. Spring forward, fall back. We kept worrying time like a 6-year-old with new toy. Sooner or later we were bound to break it. Why didn't somebody just pick a time and leave it alone?

All those cute little children transforming themselves into ghouls and witches and goblins. And tonight they will be knocking on doors an hour early. And what if you didn't have time to make it to the candy store? What if today you came up an hour short? It could happen. Why run the risk? Because we're too darn smart for our own good, that's why.

It's like the Red Sox - they couldn't leave well enough alone. The Curse of the Bambino? It was a blessing. You know what my beloved Red Sox have lost by winning? Do you remember who won the series last year? Or the year before that? Or in 1974? Or in 1944? Of course not. But you knew for certain the Red Sox hadn't. And that's one more certainty we have now lost, forever.

How many more warning signs do you need? When you get into that voting booth on Tuesday, treat that ballot like the time bomb it is, and you're Jeff Daniels from ``Speed,'' trying to defuse it - only if you try to take pliers into the voting booth with you, you could probably get arrested. Still, you've got to be careful because this ballot was designed by genius political consultant madmen bent on world domination, and if Jeff cuts the wrong wire first, he could blow our democracy right out the window.

You think I'm kidding? Listen, if you vote yes on both Propositions 60 and 62, you have actually voted no on 62.

Sounds crazy, doesn't it? Yeah, it's crazy. Crazy like a fox - an evil political consultant fox. People who think the two political parties have gotten too fat and lazy wanted to reduce their power by requiring open primaries - Proposition 62. So the fat, lazy party regulars slipped Proposition 60 onto the ballot, which negates everything in Proposition 62. If Proposition 60 gets one more vote than Proposition 62, the fat lazy party regulars win.

Pretty clever, huh? Ain't it great to know that Republicans and Democrats can at least agree that they don't trust the people? It could almost make you so disgusted with politics you'll vote no on both measures. And then the fat lazy party regulars win again!

And what about the Indian gaming measures, 68 and 70? Proposition 70 would make it law that there are no laws on Indian gaming. And if the average reasonable voter should find that too extreme (and who wouldn't?), they will then probably see Proposition 68 as more reasonable. But 68 gives the Indians the final veto on accepting 68, and also exempts them from any future tax increases. Very crafty, don't you think? Yeah, crafty like a fox - an evil crafty political consultant fox.

You see what's happened? We got too smart. We got so smart we figured out how to turn democracy into a shell game. We've figured out how to shoot ourselves in the foot while our foot is in our mouths. We've figured out how to blow up Jeff Daniels. And once you blow up Jeff Daniels, the one thing you know for certain is that there's only 20 minutes left in the movie.