Well guys I escaped another close call today.  I don’t really know why I write this here other than to just get it off my chest.  I got a call at home yesterday from the receptionist at work who told me that our HRM (Human Resources Manager) needed to see me in her office.  I explained I was off on Tuesdays but would check in with her first thing this morning.

All night I worried about what she was going to tell me.  I logged onto City of Heroes (an MMORPG I like) but my head wasn’t in it and I died several times.  I tried to sleep and spent the whole night in an uneasy rest.  I arrived at work today and began my day as normal, checked my online finance applications (there was none as usual) went about helping them push the used bikes out onto the lot and thought about all the bikes we had recently gotten out of service that I still do not have pictures of for our website.  By the time I decided to just go up and get it over with I was sure today was my last day at this company.

When I walked into the office there were two large boxes on the floor.  I immediately jumped to the conclusion they were to help me clean out my desk.  HRM asked me to come in for a sec while she finished a quick phone call.  By now I was close to breakdown with panic.  Only 20 days till Christmas and me without a job…

HRM told me to get into the boxes and get out my new uniform shirts, I was to sign for three short and three long sleeve shirts.

Whew… I left the office much relieved.  When I got downstairs I stopped to speak with Johnny one of our other salesmen to relay the experience to him.  He smiled and relayed a similar experience of his own just yesterday when he was called to the office.  He had actually started cleaning out his desk before he went up.  We both stopped for a moment of retrospective thought and I concluded that my time here really is short.  I don’t want to work anywhere that I feel as if any second the axe could drop.  Maybe I’m asking too much, but I would like to feel that when I get to work my job is not being held over my head.  That so long as I am working at getting the task’s they place before me done to best of my ability, my job is secure.

I guess in today’s workplace that’s asking too much though.  Oh well breathe in breathe out, repeat as needed… life goes on.

A Swiss guy, looking for directions, pulls up at a rest stop where two bikers are leaning against their bikes. “Entschuldigung, koennen Sie Deutsch sprechen?” he asks.

The two bikers just stare at him.

“Excusez-moi, parlez vous Francais?” he tries.

The two continue to stare.

“Parlare Italiano?” No response. “Hablan ustedes Espanol?” Still nothing. The Swiss guy drives off, extremely disgusted.

The first biker turns to the second and says, “Y’know, maybe we should learn a foreign language.”

“Why?” says the other. “That guy knew four languages, and it didn’t do him any good.”

Okay, no fancy research this time.  No here’s the facts.  This time I write to you from the heart.  Yeah I know not what you expect from this site based on its current content.  Here’s the thing, I’m tired of it already and I’m the one putting it together.  That being said, I read somewhere that if its not fun for you, then why do it.  Further if you don’t like it, most likely others will get that impression and not like it as well.  Thus I break with my current content trend and go another route.  Figuratively as well as literally

I am a motorcyclist.  Not just any motorcyclist, I am a Harley Rider.  Some may ask why?  I ask them why not?  The fast response is, “Its dangerous!” My reply is life without risk is not life at all.  No I’m not the first to say it, but it doesn’t make it any less true.  Why Harley?  Well, its kids dream.  I have wanted a Harley-Davidson motorcycle ever since I can remember.

I grew up in a regular neighborhood, with mostly normal friends and family life.  I played air guitar with my friends in a back yard with Kiss rocking our phonograph or cassette tape deck.  I wanted to be Gene Simmons, but play Ace’s guitar and sing all the songs.  I wanted the fame, I wanted the girls, I wanted to be cool like they were.  And I wanted to ride up on stage on my Harley, throw the kickstand out and step off to jam the audience till my fingers bled and I couldn’t sing any more, then I would take my pick of the girls throwing their unmentionables up at me and ride off stage into the sunset with her.

Parts of the dream faded with age, but the bike remained.  I still see the girl in my dreams too, but I know now that for me cool wasn’t about her.  It wasn’t about the music, or the fame, or even the bike really.  Cool was about the freedom of that moment.  The way a child’s imagination took him to a place where he was a part of everything there.  You can’t be there in a car.  In a car you are not truly part of the environment.  You are seeing it through a window.  You are watching it happen, but you aren’t in it.  On a bike its different.  Your eyes feel the crisp cool air in the winter mornings, they tear up and squint even behind the glasses or goggles.  You breathe that air, you feel it penetrate your clothes and touch you.  You sense the road, you smell the fields, grass, the city.  You and your bike are one with the road, the environment, and for the short time you are out there you are free in every sense of the word.

Problems from work, family, and life in general for that ride seem to melt away.  My life is still there waiting for me when I get to my destination, but now its not about getting there, its about the trip.  Its about getting time to feel free from the bonds of responsibility and duty and what you know you have to do for others and just getting back into being a kid pretending to be riding a Harley up on stage in front of millions of screaming fans.

Motorcycling is a hobby, its a sport, its a means of transportation, but its so much more to the open mind.  Ride safe, ride well, but ride.  Ride your imagination, ride your dreams.  Breathe life with every inhale, and let worries and problems fall to the side of a winding road to nowhere.  Dare to live life around the curves.  Your boss and your family, even you will appreciate it when you come back more focused, lower stress, and able to tackle the hardest parts of your day in the knowledge that soon you’ll get a chance to see another open road.  Get lost on that dream dude… I do.

There’s a guy sitting at a biker bar, just looking at his drink. He stays like that for half an hour. Then, a big trouble-making biker steps next to him, takes the drink from the guy, and just drinks it all down.

The poor man starts crying. The biker says, “Come on man, I was just joking. Here, I’ll buy you another drink. I just can’t stand seeing a man crying.”

“No, it’s not that. This day is the worst of my life. First, I fall asleep, and I’m late to my office. My boss, in an outrage, fires me. When I leave the building to my car, I found out it was stolen. The police say they can do nothing. I get a cab to return home and when I leave it, I remember I left my wallet and credit cards there. The cab driver just drives away. I go home and when I get there, I find my wife in bed with the gardener. I leave home and come to this bar. And when I was thinking about putting an end to my life, you show up and drink my poison…”

As the flight was just finishing its boarding protocol a man sitting next to a little girl turned to her and said, “I understand flights go faster if you have a conversation, would you mind talking with me?”

The little girl slowly closed her book she was about to get into and replied, “Well, okay, what would you like to talk about?”

The man said, “I don’t know, how about we discuss nuclear power ?”

She said, “That could be interesting, but before we begin answer me a question first.  A deer, a cow, and a horse all eat grass, but the deer leaves pellets, the cow patties, and the horse clumps of dried grass.  Why is that?”

The man puzzled replies, “I’m don’t really know.”

The little girl says, “So you think you can have a conversation about nuclear power when you don’t know crap?”

Lets look at this logically first.  and go from there.  We are in agreement that there are criminals who have violent and or murderous tendencies that live in our society yes?  Okay, lets talk about why murders occur in our society.

First lets talk about the criminal mind and its intentions.  Okay we all know that most crime is impulsive by nature.  That is to say people know that what they are doing is wrong usually before they do it but at the moment they are doing it the law is irrelevant.   So even though they know the law forbids the action, they commit the action not thinking about the law.  Thus they will break laws regardless of that knowledge.  Impulsive action is response without thought to stimuli such as environmental, emotional, or internal.  The act occurs before the logical mind has opportunity to dispute the morals or right and wrong of the act.

and if we understand that then lets look at the murders in America and how they are committed.  So in 2004 here in America;

Murder, Types of Weapons Used
Percent Distribution by Region, 2004

Region	Total all weapons 1	Firearms	Knives or cutting instruments	Unknown or other dangerous weapons	Personal weapons (hands, fists, feet, etc.) 2
Total	100.0	66.0	13.2	14.1	6.6
Northeast	100.0	61.3	16.5	15.8	6.4
Midwest	100.0	66.5	11.3	16.3	5.9
South	100.0	66.6	12.9	13.9	6.6
West	100.0	67.7	13.1	12.0	7.2

So yes the lions share of killing was committed by firearms, but the figures also show that killing occurs without firearms too.  So we have established that there are killers among us and they don’t need guns to kill, then we have to logically realise that if you take the guns away, people will still be killed.

Next step, Those of us who abide by the law, who follow the rules set out by the governing bodies put there to help us live comfortable and relatively safe lives know the same laws the criminals break.  So if the law to remove guns is passed, who will turn them in?  Us, the law abiding populace.  So we are disarmed and the criminals break one more law and have their guns.  But has disarming us accomplished anything?

Information found http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0506/0506msswiss.htm states; according to Thomas Sowell in, “Gun Control Myths: Gun Restrictions and Murder Rates” , statistics actually negate any positive correlation between owning a firearm and higher murder rates; though the figures are often manipulated in order to support the call for gun control. Indeed, Israel, New Zealand, and Finland are known to have high rates of gun ownership and low rates of murder. Furthermore, in the U.S., white people own more guns than blacks, yet have lower murder rates. There are more people who possess weapons in rural areas, yet urban areas have higher rates of murder.

The following information was found at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/guns.htm ;

Victimization

   Firearm-related crime has plummeted since 1993, then slightly increased in 2005.
   Nonfatal firearm-related violent crimes, 1993-2005

   Nonfatal firearm crime rates have declined since 1994, before increasing in 2005.

   Nonfatal firearm-related violent victimization rate, 1993-2005

   After 1996, less than 10% of nonfatal violent crimes involved firearm.    Percent of violent crimes involving firearms, 1993-2005

• According to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) in 2005, 477,040 victims of violent crimes stated that they faced an offender with a firearm.
• Incidents involving a firearm represented 9% of the 4.7 million violent crimes of rape and sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated and simple assault in 2005.
• The FBI’s Crime in the United States estimated that 66% of the 16,137 murders in 2004 were committed with firearms.

So are we thinking that if we could magically make all guns in the world vanish from existence that criminal killings would drop by 66%?  Unfortunately I can’t find anywhere that tells us how many of the 66% were premeditated or impulsive killings, but would that really matter?  My thought is that if someone has premeditated that they are going to kill, the gun not being there is not the obstacle.  Further if they suddenly have the impulse to kill and there isn’t a gun there, clearly they will still attack their victim with murderous  intent.

In an article in Time Magazine regarding the effects of television violence relating to actual violence Psychoanalyst Ner Littner said, “There is no such thing as a single simple cause or a single simple solution. Searching for scapegoats allows us to avoid facing the problem of why we are violent, and also postpones the solution.”  Thus using ownership of firearms as a scapegoat to murderous and or violent tendencies helps no one.

The next thing a lot of people will shout about is children getting a hold of guns and either injuring or killing themselves or their friends.  To me the issue there is a lack of proper discipline and instruction from parents and those closest to the child. I am not saying that accidents would not happen if parents taught their children about gun safety, but I am saying that the number would be greatly reduced. And as far as accidents go, whether its with a gun or falling off a building, or playing in traffic, or just any kind of fatal accident, kids will be kids and we as adults have the responsibility to keep a closer eye on those kids.

 If the adult who owns the firearm takes the time to buy a gun safe, a trigger lock, an ammo safe, and store the ammo separate from the guns, plus teach the child that the guns are not toys, well then it stands to reason that the child would be more respectful of the guns and avoid them when the adult is not around.  Of course that works best when the child has no emotional/mental health issues they are dealing with; but in that case the adult is the one who must take the additional responsibility and keep the guns out of that child’s reach.

I have a son with “issues” and while I do own a 12 gauge pump shotgun for shooting clays at the range with my father, I do not have any other firearms in my house.  The shotgun is kept in a locked gun case, in a locked storage area.  I also let my father keep all my ammunition with his guns, at his home.  With that my ex-wife and the mother of my son is with the local police department and she does have firearms.  My son has been well taught regarding the safety and handling of pistols and guns.  We all are also very careful with our weapons when he is around.  Showing them every bit of the respect they command and making sure he knows we practise what we preach.  In general they are never where he can get to them when we are not around.

Now I am not saying that there is evidence that gun control or registration does not work, but there is no evidence that it does work either.  Its much like an individual with a cold.  He has a cough, a stuffy nose, and is running a fever, so we treat the fever, the cough and then the stuffy nose, great, but he still has the cold until it runs its course.  We can’t cure a cold yet, we can’t cure violent tendencies either.  What I am saying is if we want to reduce violence, we need to stop skirting the issue by pointing fingers at symptoms of it.  There is no cure, and taking freedoms away from those who are responsible enough to handle them won’t make any difference in the symptom either.

Three priests were conversing about their churches and how things were run.  The first priest asked the others, “How do you determine what amount of the Sunday offerings plate goes to God and the poor and what amount goes to you and the church?”

The other two looked at one another but didn’t answer so the first priest said, “I’ll go first.  What I do is I draw a line through the middle of the room, I place all the money in one tray and throw it into the air.  What ever lands on the right side goes to God and the poor.  What ever lands left, I get to keep.”

The second priest says, “Well our church is a bit larger than yours and our cost’s there for more.  So what I do is I draw a circle in the middle of the floor and put all the money in one tray, then I throw it up in the air and whatever lands inside the circle goes to God and the poor and what ever is outside I get to keep.”

The third priest says, “well my parish isn’t all that big, but my method is similar.  I place all the money in one tray and throw it up in the air, what ever God keeps up in the air he and the poor can have.”

The church does not want to be governed by man’s law; it touts itself as a place one can turn to for sanctuary and forgiveness. However if you look at the history of religion and the church, most if not all wars have some form of religious interference in them. The word of god or whatever omnipotent being you may believe in has been used in one form or another to justify the actions of man in times of war for centuries.

Looking at the history of the Roman Catholic religion is the most prime example I can think of. It was founded by Constantine who arose as Emperor of Rome in 312 A.D.  According to The Encyclopedia Britannica, Constantine created the Roman Catholic religion in order to unify his people during his reign. However this was contested by a Father George Schultz of the Prince of Peace Catholic Church who stated in effect that, “The religion was founded by Saint Peter… You could argue that Jesus and his disciples were the fathers of the church… The church itself existed before him (Constantine); he just gave it strength and helped it grow more widely accepted.” Heh, funny thing that.  Can you think of any religion that does not claim to have been started by God? Regardless of your belief in its origins, no one can contest the bloody history that the religion is still today trying to live down or distract folks from.

Just to name a couple: The Crusades where the RCC (Roman Catholic Church) decided that they were the only ones that would get into heaven simply because they were Catholic; thus they decided to convert the savage Moorish people. They sent troops over to the middle east to fight in a holy war against the Muslims. A very bloody war. Next there was the Inquisition, pretty much a repeat of the Crusades except here the RCC attacked, captured and tortured anyone until they accepted God as the RCC wanted them to. In this way the RCC thought they were cleansing the world of heresy.

Father George Shultz, when confronted with these facts, said, “The Catholic Church, when following man is fallible, and we’re not proud of some of the things we have done. When we follow Jesus, love is paramount. And the Church grows stronger.” Okay, let’s set aside the blood spilled and the atrocities of war and torture that were committed in the name of religion and god. Let’s talk about the values of the church.

So the church asks us to give money to them so they can help the less fortunate, the poor or the down trodden. I think that a fine goal, so where does the money we give the church go? What money are we giving the church that we may not even be aware of?

An excerpt from Lo Bello, Nino The Vatican Empire © 1968 reads “In 1956, shortly after moving to Rome with my wife and children to take up my duties as a business news correspondent, I was faced with a household crisis – we were without water in our apartment for 28 days. Calls to Acqua Marcia, the company that supplies the water in our Piazza Bologna neighborhood, were all but futile…” (Lo Bello 9). Lo Bello went on to say that he discovered that the Vatican ran the water company, the gas company, the phone company and controlled the leasing of buildings up and down both sides of the street where he lived. Several attempts were made to get the problems corrected but they all met with negligent service and slow response. Most of what was wrong seemed derived of the age when Rome built the utilities; i.e., the plumbing was from the aqueducts dug below the city two thousand years earlier. He also states that the Vatican keeps its financial records in secret, and that they are the only sovereign state that never publishes a budget. “The Vatican is not only in the business of selling God. It’s total enterprise goes beyond God.”

Not only is it made clear that the Catholic Church is secretive of their money, it is also shown how rich the Vatican Empire truly is. We may not have been given a numerical figure of their holdings, but we are given an idea of how vast are the holdings, both in money, and in material pieces such as art, literature and furnishings, which make the Vatican rich beyond most men’s wildest dreams.

With all that money and power at their beck and call, what do the poor and down trodden get? Shelters are set up in the name of the church, and they will give them a hot meal and a blanket if they agree to worship and pray like the church believe. Hmmm, seems like the Inquisition hasn’t ended, its only changed tactics. Find the ones already tortured and tell them, “Believe as I do and God will provide for you.” Then when they conform so they can get the basic necessities of life, they are brainwashed in a Pavlovian fashion that “God” has provided. But doesn’t the food and blankets and clothing come from church driven charities and people giving up the things they no longer need to help the poor? So where did your money go?

One of our (United States of America) founding fathers and president, Thomas Jefferson, devoutly believed in and fought for separation of Church and State. Nonetheless, the Church, as a matter of record, has been very involved in the affairs of government. This double standard has prevailed through most all Church dealings. The church itself is a non taxable “entity” that claims to also be “non-profit”. But as shown above in the quote from The Vatican Empire, there seems to be an awful lot of wealth in those so called “non-profit” organizations.

It is understandable to take up collections for the betterment of the community as a whole. However, to create a business empire out of the sweat and work of others is not what true faith and religion are all about.

This greed shows the extent of power in the civilian work place which the Church has invaded for its own gain. Jesus himself denounced the act of commerce in the house of God in the bible;

“After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days. When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get those out of here! How dare you turn my fathers house into a market!…” John 2:12 (NIV Bible 921) So now we have the carnage of and bloodletting of war, as well as the church operating outside of the law and government of man but still as a corporate entity regardless of its intention. Still, there is the teaching right? I mean the church instills values of Godliness and morals for our masses and tries to teach how one might live their life in a Christian fashion with a proper understanding of right and wrong. “And let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” They use that a lot, but I think its because they live in a glass house. The truth is faith isn’t found in a church, or in the bible. Faith is found in the individual. Only in your own heart can you find it. Believe what you will, let no one shake the foundation of your belief and there have you found faith. Want to help the poor and down trodden? Don’t give money to a church, take non-perishables, clothes, blankets and such to the drives, and volunteer for community programs where shelters are built and worked on. And when it comes to morals and right and wrong teachings, don’t follow warmongers and unethical businesses. Listen to your heart.

The teacher gave her fifth grade class an assignment: Get their parents to tell them a story with a moral at the end of it.The next day the kids came back and one by one began to tell their stories. “Johnny, do you have a story to share?”

“Yes, ma’am, my daddy told a story about my Aunt Carol. Aunt Carol was a pilot in Desert Storm and her plane got hit. She had to bail out over enemy territory and all she had was a small flask of whiskey, a pistol and a survival knife.

She drank the whiskey on the way down so it wouldn’t fall into enemy hands and then her parachute landed right in the middle of twenty enemy troops. She shot fifteen of them with the gun until she ran out of bullets, killed four more with the knife, ’til the blade broke and then she killed the last one with her bare hands.”

“Good heavens,” said the horrified teacher, “What kind of moral did your daddy teach you from that horrible story?”

“Stay the heck away from Aunt Carol when she’s been drinking.”

Why Should We Vote?

Every four years, our government (United States) sets out to prove that the people still control this country by suggesting that we get to vote on who will lead us into the next four years. Do we really get to select the best man for the job? What power does our vote truly carry? And finally, if we did have the control we were supposed to have, why do we keep getting ourselves into trouble with those we elected to run things?

Shakespeare in Hamlet, Act III, Scene I (changed ever so slightly for our purposes) wrote, “To vote or not to vote, that is the question. Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them.”

In layman’s terms, should you keep your opinion to yourself or speak upon the greatest sin of our electoral times, not voting?

How do we get to select the next man to run for the President’s seat? Well, to be honest, we don’t. A government elected group of people called the Electoral College get together and, based on what they think, put candidates into one of two political parties (either the Democratic or Republican party). The higher officials within these two parties choose who they want to enter into the “Presidential Race.” The only say Americans have in that process is we get to elect the people who run the parties. Can you say “snow-job?” Just because I vote to let a congressman speak for me in Senate hearings and majority votes about bills set to become law, that in no way infers that I trust him to be my advocate when it comes to someone seated to run the country. I don’t pretend to be either Democrat or Republican. If I vote, I choose who I think is making the most sense and give him my vote. For the last three elections my vote was counted and disregarded.

In Harris County / City of Houston during the 1996 Presidential elections, our population was 3,076,867. The number who voted was 855,893 (per American Votes vol. 22 Scammon et al © 1998 Congressional Quarterly Inc.). The elections could be drastically changed if our total registered voters turned out to vote, right? Wrong!!

The way our country designed the electoral process was; “The founders premised their insulated system on the ability of an electoral college of the nation’s most virtuous and learned men to rise above petty factions and select leaders with national vision.” (Congressional Quarterly’s Guide to the Presidency Michael Nelson © 1989)

During the Primaries, anyone meeting the qualifications laid down by law can apply for candidacy to the presidential seat for the United States. The Electoral College then takes a majority vote to nominate people from that group for the candidacy. This approach makes sense if you have a direct voice in the Electoral College, but aside from those elected for that position, the rest of the population basically gets what they give us. How many people actually vote for the primaries?

The Encyclopedia Britannica “Electoral college: In the US, a group of electors chosen within each state to elect the president and vice president. Each state has as many presidential electors as it has representatives in both houses of Congress….although the constitution still allows electors to use their discretion, electors are usually pledged to support a parties candidate…whichever candidate wins a plurality in a state wins all the electoral votes in that state.”

Maybe it’s just me, but just because the majority of the people in the state of Texas vote for Dole, I don’t want him to get my vote. I put my vote in for a specific candidate and although he may not win overall, the vote itself would hold more meaning and more strength if it stood alone than if just because the rest of my district disagreed with me they get to change my vote.

Presidents Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876 ,Benjamin Harrison in 1888, and more recently George Bush Jr in 2002 won a majority of electoral votes even though they received fewer popular votes than their opponents. This fact is also a matter of record in the Encyclopedia Britannica.

The state of Texas over five elections voted as follows: Reagan, Reagan, Bush, Bush and Dole.

The winners, as a matter of history: Reagan, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Clinton.

I came of voting age before the 1984 elections and my vote has been changed without my permission, and in the beginning of my age of voting, without my knowledge or understanding, at least twice now. How many times has yours been changed?

How do we as the public get to know how many and who were in the primaries? Is there a 1-800 number? More than likely it’s a 1-900 number! Money talks, even in elections, and especially in politics. In today’s elections, the guy who rises to the top is not always cream of the crop; and even if he/she is a great leader with strong influential abilities, how do we know what they themselves said and what they were prompted to say by everyone else in their campaign army?

Some organizations affecting modern campaigns include: corporations, labor unions, interest groups, public action committees, the national party, state parties and third parties. Campaign groups today consist of: campaign workers, media consultants, public attitudes, the candidate’s family, a running mate, political allies, campaign strategist, schedulers, advance people, advertising experts, issue experts, fund raisers, pollsters, computer analysts, and sometimes the incumbent President. Oh yeah, and don’t forget the candidate himself.

With all these people hanging on to the candidate, how can they be expected to form their own opinion? Everyone in the campaign telling them how to stand, what to say, how to act, dress, walk and think. If they can’t remember who they themselves are, how can we be expected to form an educated opinion about them as a leader for the nation’s best interests? I don’t care what the polls say he should say; I want to know what HE says and how HE would react to the problems of the office when a split second decision could decide the fate of living, breathing Americans who don’t have the time to wait for that next poll to come out.

Campaigns, like Christmas, have gone too commercial. It has become a fight to see who can dig up and throw the most mud at their opponent. We all know nobody is perfect and that’s not what we as a nation need to be looking for; what we need is an honest person who has the nation’s best interest at heart and who will not embarrass us when people see who we have chosen to represent this country as its leader and chief.

Do we really get to pick the best man for the job? No, our powers of selection are pretty much forfeited to the Electoral College. What power does our vote truly carry? Not much, considering that if we choose to vote one way and the majority votes another, then they can and will give our vote to the other guy. Finally, why do we keep getting freaks of political power in office? Because the Electoral College gets the say in who can and can’t run for candidacy, and because the ones who do get in aren’t who the huge following in the campaign party want us to believe they are.

When our founders began this system, I don’t think they had our population numbers in mind. As the population grows, we have a wider base of possible candidates to choose from. Let them apply. Then the Electoral College can shave down the numbers based on the legal requirements of the position and qualifications of the individual vying for the candidacy. Then have each one write a short bio and campaign platform consisting of 4-5 paragraphs. That should be released to the press and let us have a preliminary vote where only the top gets to the primaries. Then the parties can squabble like wolf pups fighting for meat to select who they endorse. Once that has been done, hold the final elections and pick the best person for the job based on the total counted vote of the population, not the lesser of two evils.