Man, Detroit is a trip sometimes. Big story today in the News, about the train wreck waiting to happen with the city’s absentee ballots. It’s the usual misery:

Among findings by News reporters were ballots cast by people registered to vote at abandoned and long-demolished buildings; a master voter list with 380,000 incorrect names and addresses — including people who have died or moved out of the city; and a practice of hand-delivering ballots from senior citizens and disabled voters that were filled out in private meetings with Currie’s paid election workers. If the mayoral race came down to a close vote demanding a recount of absentee ballots, the result could be chaotic.

But this is the we’re-not-in-Kansas-anymore graf:

Currie refused to explain any of the problems uncovered by The News or outlined in court cases. She, along with her deputy, Vernon Clark, denied there are any problems with the vote in Detroit.

“Prove it,” Currie said. “P-R-O-V-E.”

Long weekend, although productive. Alan got the garage rearranged and I got a jump on the basement. (It was Take Responsibility for a Domestic Dumping Ground Saturday here, evidently.) Then we picked up Kate at yet another birthday party — they never end — and headed off to the little d, Defiance, Ohio, for the annual Halloween parade.

I can report: It was long (90 minutes), but there were marching bands, Shriners in Corvairs and much candy to be had. And while there were too many boring entries, at one point I saw a man approaching at the front of yet another unit, blowing a ram’s horn.

“This is what? Defiance’s newest synagogue?” I asked. Hardly. It was some evangelical Christian fellowship, which irritated me. Give the Jews back their shofar and get your butt out of the Halloween parade, I say. If you’re not willing to march in a devil mask and show you have an actual sense of humor, vamoose. But it was late in the parade and that might have been the 40-degree temperatures talking.

Also, I couldn’t help but notice how many home health-care equipment services there are in Defiance. (Their entry tended to be people riding motorized scooters in formation.) But then, we were surrounded by smokers — even outside, it was like sitting in a bar — and so oxygen delivery is probably a stable business.

So, the bloggage: Ali, bomaye! On this date in 1974, Muhammed Ali beat George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire, aka the Rumble in the Jungle. Not only that, it sparked a great documentary, “When We Were Kings,” which I can’t recommend highly enough.