You know, this used to be a helluva good country. I can’t understand what’s gone wrong with it. – George Hanson in Easy Rider

There’s a lot that seems backwards to me today.  Or maybe upside down.  Upside down and backwards.  I know I only crested the summit a few weeks ago, but I swear this is not a case of “back in my day”.  I don’t think things have been right side up and straightforward for a while now.  So it may be a case of “longing for days I never knew” if anything.  But I don’t think that’s it either – read on and you tell me.

Take for example the things we do today to be “nice”.  So that we are “nice” we give some people everything they need to live.  Their home, their food, their car.  It does sound nice doesn’t it?  And for a time, when someone really needs it, it is.  If we do it for too long though, it becomes a way of life.  A trap.  Although we give them everything they need to live, we strip away their reason for living – their purpose, their drive, their motivation.  Even those not caught in this trap are seriously impacted: they get the bill and as a result they have less of what they work for to pursue their purpose, drives and motivations.  What sounds nice really isn’t very nice if you look deeper.  But putting the burden of providing on the nameless / faceless government is a lot easier than asking someone you know for help.  And it’s just as true that rendering unto Caesar is easier than working with someone directly who needs your help.  It’s way easier to pay or get paid by someone else.

Another example is what we do today to be “safe”.  We pass laws against things that scare us as if simply by wishing we can make the bogey go away.  And while we wish the imaginary thing under our beds into non-existence, we ignore the real problem staring back at us in the mirror each day.  As long as we are alive we aren’t safe.  Bad things happen and their is evil in the the hearts of all men (and a few women).  Combine those two and it means that no matter how safe a new law may make us feel, the reality is that law’s can only do so much (especially when we are seriously lacking in law enforcement resources) and in many situations we will be on our own.  Passing a law that keeps me from getting the the tools I know can help keep me safe because it makes you have the perception of increased safety, in reality makes both you and I less safe.  But passing a law is easier than admitting that each day may be our last and that we have a choice to respond to violence with violence or let it happen to us – either is a valid choice, but one we choose not to make.  It’s way easier to pass a law.

And then there is what we do that we call being “fair”.  In order to be fair, there are high achieving high school students who won’t get an awards banquet this year because it isn’t fair for those students that didn’t do as well.  Under the banner of fairness we don’t keep score in soccer, we mainstream students with learning disabilities (which to be clear isn’t fair to any of the students in the combined class) and we implement zero tolerance policies.  Somewhere along the way, fair started to mean even.  Equal opportunity came to mean equal outcomes.  And we started to believe the fairy tale that everyone has equal talents – which if you have ever seen me play volleyball with my daughter, you would know is one of the biggest lies ever told (she makes me look like David Rappaport up against Misty May).  Again, this was the easy way out – think of all the difficult conversations we can avoid if we can tell everyone that no one everyone is special.  What gets missed in all this is what that great villain Syndrome from The Incredibles knew – “when everyone’s super…no one will be”.  It’s way easier to pretend everyone is the same.

I could go on.  What we do in the name of “tolerance” (shout anyone down with different views).  Or what we do in the name of “liberty” (tell people what they can’t do).  But I think you get the point.

I am not going to pretend to be wise enough to know why all this has happened.  But I do know that  we’re not nicer, safer or fairer than we were years or decades ago.  Why not?  Because the reality of being nice means we sometimes have to do hard things.  The reality of being safe means we have to do hard things.  The reality of being fair means we have to do hard things.  And we’ve made the easy choices – we don’t like hard.  And that’s what has to change.

So what to do?  It’s up to each of us.  I have to stop looking to others to do the hard things and do them ourselves.  I have to recognize the easy now isn’t easy for ever.  I have to have a clear picture of where I want to get, a map that describes the course from here to there and a compass to tell me where I am – and when I get off course.  And I have to have faith/hope/belief that enough of the rest of you will do the same.  It doesn’t have to be my destination, my map or my compass.  But we all have to own our own or else we’ll continue on the easy path.

I hope this is something we can fix.  I hope that we haven’t become so accustomed to the easy life.  I hope that we can still do hard things.  If not, the future may not be so easy.

History is filled with the sound of silken slippers going downstairs and wooden shoes coming up. – Voltaire

I haven’t done a lot of research on it, but I believe the phrase over the hill comes from the basic idea that at 40 you are half done.  More days behind you than ahead.  The idea that 40 is the middle is based on averages – not actuarial averages…more like cultural averages. If you really believe that you have 80 years it’s a good way to live a very average life.  The truth is that my half way point may have been 20 years and a day ago or may still come 10 or 15 years into the future.  No one really knows – but we mostly act like we do.

Everyone knows the word “Mañana” which a lot of people assume means tomorrow, but I think a more literal translation is “not today”.  If you live in the “mañana” mentality there will always be a better day to do something.  Always a reason to delay or wait.  I choose to live differently.

A lot of people have asked me what my mid-life crisis is going to be.  Am I going to get a muscle car, change careers or get a girlfriend?  My wife will be happy to know the answer to all three is a very definite no.  The midlife crisis comes from the “mañana” mentality.  When you reach what you think is the mid point and live in the “mañana” mentality you suddenly get a wake up call that you are half done and you feel the sudden urge to play catch-up.  Because you have delayed or put off so many small things, you feel you need a big (and foolish) thing to help play catch up.  Why let yourself get behind in the first place?

Call it what you want.  Mindfulness.  Being present.  Focusing on the now.  This is not to say that I simply live day to day.  I have goals and a plan.  But once that plan is set (and revised now and again) I don’t sit around waiting for “perfect conditions” to arrive…”mañana”.  I look each and every day for the opportunities I am given and try my best to take steps towards where I want to be.  Towards the person I want to be.  Towards the legacy I want to leave.  And if there happen to be no opportunities that day…then there is always tomorrow.

I think C. S. Lewis described it best in The Screwtape Letters:

The humans live in time but our Enemy* destines them to eternity.  He therefore, I believe, wants to them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present.  For the present is the point of time at which time touches eternity.  Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which our Enemy has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them.  He would therefore have them…either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the pleasant pleasure.

That is why I choose to live in the now.  It’s the closest we can get to true freedom.  We can’t change the past and we don’t know what the future holds.  The only real choices we can make are the ones we make right now.

Choosing to live this way has made 40 seem like not such a big deal.  But today seem like everything.

Now I just hope it gets the word out and I start to get some courses scheduled.  If you know someone that might be interested but can’t get their whole school on board, tell them to come to my event on the 23rd at Premier Martial Arts.

Through a series of small, chance happenings (one man’s luck is another man’s hand of God) I ended up finding out about the School Attacker Response Course that Rob Pincus, of ICE Training and Combat Focus Shooting fame, was putting together.  I found them on Facebook and followed them.  A week or so later I happened to be on Facebook when Rob put out a call for some help getting a website for the course setup and I raised my hand.  Fast forward another week and the site was up and running.  Through the course of getting the site setup I noticed that there was an instructor certification course scheduled to happen a bit north of Columbus OH, but that it was already at full capacity.  I asked if I could come anyway and Rob said yes.  I got up before the crack of dawn, drive up to Delaware, OH and for the next 10 hours went through all the material, presentations and testing that it takes to instruct the 2-3 hour course.  A few days later after a background check, a check of my test and a review of my presentation, I found out I passed and was certified.  That was just last Thursday.

In the last few days, things have really been falling into place (by chance?  I really don’t think so…).  I asked for and have been given an interview on 55 WKRC.  I really think that will generate lots of interest and future bookings for the course – at least I hope so.  I also tapped into my personal network and have had meetings and have more coming up with local school administrators as well as law enforcement.  The response has been really positive and those should lead to some classes being scheduled as well.  Lastly the owner of the dojo where my son takes Karate and I take Krav Maga has generously offered the use of his studio to hold a session of the course that is open to all – teachers, administrators, faculty and parents.

Now I need you to help me get the word out.  Share the flyers for the course offering in schools and for the event on Feb 23rd.  Point people to the website.  Like the program on Facebook.  Tell people to tune in on Thursday (or listen to the podcast later).  Get people to ask questions and sign up.

The information and discussion in this course is not a hard sell.  It’s not about arming teachers with guns.  It is all about some concepts and principles that attendees can discuss while there and take away to make a plan that is better than “hide and hope” in the unlikely event that they should ever be faced with a school attack.  Help me get this information to all that need to hear it.

Joe Biden, soon to be leading a presidential commission on gun violence

Since it seems that we as a nation have decided to ignore the obvious things that will make us and our kids safer and instead are going to take the lazy way out…make it someone else’s problem …and legislate our way to safety, I thought I would assist our lawmakers in not just making us a little safer, but making us all the way, completely safe.  Mega-safe.

So here for their consideration is a top 10 list of other things that we should ban to make us safer.  Banning these will not remove all risk from our daily lives, however as our fearless leader just said today “The fact that we can’t prevent every act of violence doesn’t mean we can’t steadily reduce the violence and prevent the very worst violence.“.  Besides, we all know that the guys and gals up on the hill love tacking things on to bills (why do they call it Pork anyway?), so here are a few suggestions for the the 2013 Keeping Everyone Safe From Everyone Else (KESFEE for short) bill that will soon be making its way through the House and Senate:

1. Guns.  Not just semi-autos, but all of them.  Bolt Actions, Revolvers, Black Powder, and Shotguns.  Someone is no less dead after being shot by one of these than they are from an assault rifle.  In fact, the rounds that the guns commonly referred to as assault rifles were designed to fire were actually designed to wound not to kill, the twisted logic of the military planners being that a wounder soldier takes two people out of the fight (one that’s wounded and one to take care of them) rather than just taking out one with a more powerful round (i.e. the dead guy that no one really needs to take care of).  I would prefer to never be shot, but if I had to be shot by either a .223 from an AR or a 30-06 from a hunting rifle, I’d take the .223 every time.
2. Knives.  Although handguns are the number one tool of those committing murder according to our good friends at Wikipedia, following right behind them are knives (ahead of “other weapons” which include rifles and shotguns).  We shouldn’t just pick on knives though, I am sure swords and axes have been used in their fair share of crimes, so those should be banned too.  I hope the lumberjack union isn’t too strong to keep this one from happening.
3. The guys at Wikipedia gave me a few other good ideas. Since we took care of the top 3 items on the list, lets take care of the rest.  So let’s ban other methods which I would imagine strangling, punching, and kicking.  So no karate classes, weight lifting or rope anymore.  We’ll just have to find other ways to stay in shape and tie things to other things.
4. Rounding out the Wikipedia ideas, let’s get rid of blunt objects.  No more sledge hammers, baseball bats or pipe wrenches.  We all know what Col. Mustard did with the pipe wrench in the Library.  Oh, that reminds me – candlesticks too.  And rocks.  Big ones anyway.
5. Crossbows and Bows.  Have you seen the cross-bow that was in van Helsing?  That thing was a high capacity weapon if there ever was one.  We clearly can’t leave this sort of destructive power in the hands of civilians.  We should probably throw spears in here too since they wouldn’t be covered by any of the previous provisions.
6. We definitely need to ban cars that go faster than the speed limit.  Why should you be able to put me in danger because you have a car that goes too fast.  Have you ever been tested or certified to drive a fast car? There is no reason anyone should ever be able to drive faster than 70 MPH, so why should we let them?  To make sure that none slip through we should come up with a list of cars that we know go faster than the speed limit and put it in the law: Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini.  Cars developed for racing have no place on the streets.
7. To close the “sharp object loophole” created by the knife ban, we should also ban chainsaws, scissors and hedge clippers.  We’ll just have to live with taller trees and shaggier bushes and hair.  Sometimes you have to make sacrifices for the greater good.
8. Mean looks and curse words.  This is sort of a catch-all provision to prevent the things that often lead to violence.  Surely there are a few things left that people could use to hurt each other with, so by banning mean looks and cursing we will nip it in the bud.  How’s that for getting to the root of the problem?
9. Crazy people.  Now I know that one of the groups the media seems to be running over in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting is people with Asbergers or Autism.  I’m not talking about them here.  They may have issues, but who doesn’t?  I’m talking about the really crazy ones.  The ones you just know are going to go off some day.  We don’t have to be mean here – send them to Puerto Rico or something.  They want to be a state – show them what it’s going to be like in as part of the US by forcing all our really crazy people on them.  Of course there would have to be an exception here for anyone serving in office…or we wouldn’t have anyone serving anymore.
10. Free will.  I know the enforcement on this one will be tough, but if we could just make people stop doing what they wanted to do and do what we wanted them to do, think of all the money we could save in law enforcement? Not to mention all the work that would get done and the time we would save in passing new laws and getting things done in Washington.

Now is not the time for half measures.  Now is the time that the government finally needs to make me safe.  I am sure you can join me is contacting your elected representatives right away and asking that all 10 provisions of my proposal be added the KESFEE bill as amendments.  We’ll all be safer for it.

(Fair warning: I’m kidding.  This all in jest.  Banning these things will not make us any safer)

Let's start with the things that I think everyone can agree on (and yes, by everyone I mean specifically me and you):

1. We should all do everything we can to make sure that things like this never happen again.
2. The things we do should actually be effective, i.e. not for show and not to just make us feel better about what happened.
3. That evil exists.  Now I know this is a bit of a metaphysical departure from the first two, but I think generally everyone can agree that evil exists, either as a "thing" in and of itself (hey I was an engineer, not a philosopher) or as an abscence of goodness or light.  I haven't met very many people that can't accept one of those two ideas – and it really doesn't matter which one is right for the rest of this to make any sense.  Suffice to say, there is evil in the world in at least one of two "forms".

Now for my first specific request: does anyone disagree with any of those points?  I really do want to understand, so if we are off on our base assumptions then let's start there.

Next, I'll list the things that I believe to be true that I think some of my friends disagree with me on (I won't go into more details than neccesary on each – just want to get them out there to see what I might have wrong):

1. The best person to take care of you, in most cases, is….you.  The exception being when you are somehow disabled (permanently or temporarily) and then the best person to take care of you is someone in your immediate family or circle of friends.
2. Any large group or organiztion (including but not limited to the government) that doesn't really know who you are or what you are all about is not as good at taking care of you as you are (or in some cases as your family or immediate circle of friends).
3. People are less responsible for themselves, their families, their friends, their neighbors and strangers they meet than they were in the past.  This is a rather sweeping generalization I know, but I do believe it to be true on average.  Say all you want about all the "social" technology we have today (including this blog and how you likely got to it), but we are less connected than we were in the past – in the true human sense of connection.  This may be some form of notalgia for a false past, but again, I believe it to be true.
4. People are generally lazy.  This isn't a new development – its been true since the dawn of time and will be true until the last day (maybe next week if the Mayans were right).  We want quick, easy to understand packaged "solution" to our problems.
5. As a result (or perhaps as a driver – again, I don't want to get off track here about whether this is all intentional from the "top" – the reason for this doesn't matter for this discussion, as long as you agree that it's true – or argue against me) the government and the way it operates, i.e. laws, have expanded from something that protects the rights of the individual from other individuals as well as from the majority (the basis of all common law) to a set codes intended to take care of people and remove risk from everyone's life.
6. This feeds on itself.  I'm not sure where it starts or ends, but the basic cycle is: people feel less responsible for themselves, the government tries to take on more responsibility, which results in people feeling less responsible, and so on.  Of course the problem is statement number 1 – even if the government had the best intentions at heart, its still not as good at taking care of people as people are at taking care of themselves.  So people feel less responsible at exactly the time they are becoming more at risk, lulled into a false sense of security.
7. People that break the laws we have now will ignore any new ones that we add to the books.  This is sort of obvious to me, but somehow its one that a lot of people overlook.  If there is a serious argument against this one, let's hear it.
8. What we wish to be true and what is true are not always the same.  This is not to say that we should accept things for what they are and just trudge on, but rather the first step of making them better is recognizing where you are and dealing with that to set yourself up to move to that better place.
9. Things are not evil.  People may or may not be evil (not really sure on this one – again, kind of beside the point for this discussion).  But people can and do act in evil ways.
10. Politicians have agendas.  No value judgements here – some have agendas I agree with and some have agendas I disagree with.  Again, not the point.  They have them and whats more, they seek to use current events to further them.  Let me be perfectly clear here: I am pointing my finger equally at those that want to use the blood spilled on Friday to ban guns as those that want to use that same blood to introduce God back into schools.  See, both have an agenda and both are using the same event to further it.  Disgusting really… (ok, that was a value judgement).

Now for my second request – what of what I stated above do I just have wrong.  Pick one, pick them all.  Or maybe what I wrote is right, but I am missing one of the logical conclusions that I might be missing.

Lastly I will end with my solution for what we need to do to severly descrease the risks of violence like we saw last Friday.  This really is just an expansion of the facebook post I made yesterday – your gut reaction is often the right one:

Take responsibility for yourself.  Say to yourself right now and every day from now one: "No one can take care of me better than me – what I do this day matters".  You have no idea how transformational this can be for you and for everyone around you. 

Start giving a shit about those around you.  Tell them you love them.  Make sure they know you are are here for them and listen and watch for signs of trouble.  Don't be fooled into not saying somethign or taking action by social moires.  Love knows no moires.   Not to be a Monday morning quarter back, but what if everyone that was around the shooter had done this?  No one can say this would have prevented Friday's tradgedy, but it would have done more good than harm.

Accept that even if we all took personal responsibility and started giving a shit about the people in our lives, that people can still do evil things.  Going back to the first point of my action plan, make sure you are doing what you are comfortable with in order to stop those people from being succesful.  This is really up to you – help your kids school with disaster planning, get a CCDW or even push legislation that will ban assault weapons.  But ask yourself first – will that really do anything but make me feel like I've done something?  Does it make me more or less responsible for me?  Has the government been 100% succesful in restricting access to things that are banned in the past?  Is this just the easy / quick answer – is it easier for me to deal with an evil object than an evil person, especially if I have to admit that I have more in common with that person than would make me feel comfortable?  Did any of the laws that the shooter on Friday broke before he shot his first victim (breaking and entering, firearm on school grounds, etc) do anything to stop him, much less slow him down?  Are my emotions being used to further some politicians agenda?  WIll people with evil in their hearts still find a way to carry out that evil?

Let me conclude with this: I will be the first one to turn every firearm I own if I thought it would keep one more kid from getting killed in a classroom (or on the street for that matter).  I want to solve this, and I guess that is why I argue so passionately against trying to solve it by banning guns (in whatever form that ban could take – all out or focused on a specific type that scares u) beacuse not only do I think it won't help – I think it will make it worse by folling us into thinking that we're done – that it's going to get better.  We'd all breath a sigh of relief, only to be shocked and horrified when the next one happened, perhaps worse than this one because of the perception the risk had been removed.  So for all of you that argue the other side, let me hear it – convince me.  It's worth your time – you'd at least get my guns off the street.

Only one rule: whatever you come back with, has to make sense to me.  I think everything I wrote above follows that rule, but am happy to hear where I viloated it.  I will do the same for anything that comes back in as a comment – if I think it doesn't make sense I am going to push back until it does or you give up.

Grow the Fuck Up. That's the phrase that I keep coming back to today. Whether its team Obama whooping and hollering, or team Romney declaring its the end of America – both groups of you need to grow the fuck up and stop acting like children. And no, I am not talking to the top level party and campaign officials. I'm talking to the average Joe / Jane who finds themselves in either camp. Today, I saw way too many "we're better / smarter / cooler" messages coming from team Obama – and just as many "the electorate is just plain stupid" messages from team Romney. Those are recent examples but I'm not just talking about your behavior after the election – I'm talking about how you are approaching your life.

The basis of most of the chatter seemed to be about what Obama will give us vs. what Romney would have if he'd been elected. The popular view seems to be Obama will give minorities more equality, better access to healthcare and an even shot for everyone. It all sounds good until you understand what he has to take away to make that all happen, namely a bunch of money to pay for it all. And don't get started on the raise the taxes on the rich chant – there is solid data showing that personal tax receipts have remained in a pretty tight band regardless of how high (or how low) tax rates go. So its a false control – the government can't increase its income simply by charging the tax payers more. But when rates increase it is a fact that tax payers have less. Obama will take our income which results in less freedom. Some members of the President's party go even further – they want to directly restrict your freedom…for your own good of course.

Romney on the other hand was supposed to give us free markets, a growing economy and remove burdensome regulation. Of course that's not without taking – he would also have taken some of our rights to choose, our rights to free association, rights to free speech and all the other things that Bush II started us on the path of. To be honest this is what drove me away from the Republican party, and what seems to have repulsed many of the voters that cast their ballot for Obama yesterday: they can't stop with just being fiscally conservative – they have to keep going to the point of being mean, or in some cases even crazy. ; What "average" person is going to vote for a party that merely "distances" itself from crap like that?

So we have one side promising to give specific groups some more rights and freedoms, while planning to take more of everyone's money and the other promising to give everyone more (of their own) money while taking away rights and freedoms from specific groups. ; After yesterday's election I really know what Ray felt like in Ghostbusters. The two parties are the opposite side of the same coin. Ying and yang. Mom and dad.

That's right, both parties and their candidates are just parental surrogates. Mommy Obama tells you its going to be al right – that "she'll" take care of you. Mean old step-daddy Romney wants to kick your ass the minute you step out of line. The proof is in everyone's newsfeed today – almost every comment boils down to "my 'parent' is better than yours…neeener – neener". All the while we are missing the bigger picture. All the while we continue to loose our basic freedoms and liberties. All the while the future for our children gets darker. Let me be clear: these things would all be true regardless of who won yesterday.

Every child eventually have the urge to break out from their parents and to taste freedom – looking for the thrill making your own choices, but not anticipating the responsibility that comes with it. It is my sincere hope that we as a population in America develop the same urge. Let's stop giving into the promises and ignoring the restrictions. Lets take responsibility for ourselves and our neighbors directly rather than letting daddy or mommy do it for us. Lets taste freedom and accept the risk that we might fail. Let's grow the fuck up.

First choice (starting at the bottom of the ballot): A yes/no vote on an amendment to the Kentucky State Constitution

This seems pretty straight forward to me.  More rights for the people rather than less.  But then again, if the rights have to be specified, then if they are not specified, do they not exist?  I know this was the argument from some of the founding fathers against the Bill of Rights and I find myself wondering the same thing.

My Vote: No. I think there is more to be lost by adding specified rights to the constitution than by specifically allowing hunters to have constitutionally protected rights to hunt.

Next choice: Crittenden City Council

OK, didn't really know / remember that Crittenden even had a city council.  Wonder what they do / when they meet?  May have to look into that and go to a meeting to see for myself…  Anyway, in terms of making my picks on this one, I have to choose six and there are eight choices.  So really this come down to eliminating two.  As you might expect, its pretty hard to find info about a city council election in a city with a population of less than 4,000.  In fact I think it might be impossible.  Despite applying my best Google-fu I was unable to find out any information about the candidates in this race, much less the Crittenden City council in general.  Even nearby Williamstown's city government has a webpage, facebook and twitter (it is the county seat after all) but no such luck for Crittenden.  My plan is to vote for the incumbents since they didn't so anything this year to really even let me know they existed, so I expect more of the same next year – exactly what I am looking for from government.  I just need to find out who they are…

My Vote: whoever the incumbents are (guess I need to go to a meeting to figure that out).

Next choice: School Board

Well, this should be easy.  Pick one and there is one choice.  I guess I could write in my own name, but I might actually win and then would have to decline since I wouldn't want the scandal of being on the school board when I send my kids to private school in another county.  There's only so much I can take in service of my county.

My Vote: Congrats Alice.  You earned it.

Next Choice: School Board

Didn't I just do this?  Oh wait, this is for the 1st district.  That's a whole other district from the one that Alice is going to win.  They're making this one easy on me though: I get to pick one and there is one choice.

My Vote: Jim meet Alice.  Alice meet Jim.  Don't screw things up.

Next Choice: Constable

Ah, finally a vote that matters.  Seriously, constable is an important job with all the same powers as a Sheriff or other peace officer.  I met a constable once and he told me that traditionally the constable is responsible for such things as serving warrants, dealing with truancy and performing animal castrations.  No, I'm not kidding and I'm also not sure if those last two duties were ever execute simultaneously.  Even though this is a little wider race than Crittenden City hall, I wasn't able to find anything about either of the candidates.  So how to decide?

One added perk of being constable is, just like any other peace officer, you get the right to own fully automatic weapons without a tax stamp and that were manufactured after 1986.  Since I am pretty sure that the guy with the R behind is name is more likely to take advantage of that, he gets my vote.

My Vote: John Childers (make sure I get the invite to your range for demo day)

Next Choice: A few lawyers and an engineer

Not sure why these are grouped together on the ballot.  Another one choice / one option race for commonwealth attorney so James will be getting my vote (see I can vote for people regardless of the letter after their name). 

For county clerk there is a real choice.  And yes, I do know what a circuit clerk actually does.  The reason I know that is Tina Melton actually stopped by my house a few weeks ago and asked for my vote.  I asked her what exactly the clerk did and she explained it to me.  She seemed nice enough and I bought our house from her husband.  So Tina it is. 

What's up with County Surveyor?  No one wanted to run?  Is it that bad of a job?  Maybe I'll write myself in here and then change all the property lines so everything is owned by me….bwuahahahah.

My vote: James for Commonwealth Attorney, Tina for Circuit Clerk and me for County Surveyor (wth)

Next choice: State Senate and Reps

Finally some races big enough to warrant a few hits on Google.  I was able to discover that Mr. Thayer is the incumbent and is running for this fourth term.  Mr. Holcomb is a relative unknown who ran unopposed in the primary.  Beyond that I really couldn't find much about Mr. Thayer's voting record, but I did see that he has endorsements from Rand Paul and the NRA.  I think that may be enough to put him over the top, even though I have a strong urge to vote against any incumbent.

For the state rep its a race between two challengers with no incumbent.  This is the seat formerly held by Royce Adams, who replaced the tires on my trailer by the way (well he didn't do it – but one of the boys at his tire shop in Williamstown did).  The big issue here seems to be which of the candidates actually got the endorsement of the NRA?  Surprisingly beyond that there doesn't seem to be much news.  I guess the 61st district of Kentucky is still too small to warrant news coverage (or at least the kinds that shows up online).  Gonna have to go with Linder here, primarily because I disliked his quotes less in the Grant County News piece.

My Vote: Thayer for State Senate and Linder for State Rep.

Next choice: US House of Reps

We get to vote for this one twice.  The second vote for an "unexpired term" is to fill out the last few months of Geoff Davis' term, who retired in July of 2012, citing family concerns.  Evidently the Clerk of the House of Representatives has been acting as my Rep since July.  I don't even know who that is...  Anyway, then we get to vote again for the same slate of candidates for a regular 2 year term.  I wonder if anyone will vote for two different people in each?

The big issue of late in this race seems to be whether Mr. Massie is ducking debates with Mr. Adkins.  The good news is there is a debate scheduled and confirmed by both men coming up on October 22nd.  I think I'll have to watch this one to make up my mind.  As for the third candidate, Mr. Lewis, I think I'll pass.  What little I could stomach to read about his platform, he seems to be a one issue candidate (abortion) and while I applaud him for his convictions, we need someone with a little broader perspective than any single issue.

My Vote: Whoever I support more after watching the debate on the 22nd.

Last Choice: The big one...

I'm going to approach this one like I did the first one I wrote about - I'm going to figure out who I'm taking off the list. 

First to exit my realm of consideration is the Terry/Smith ticket, for exactly the same reason I disqualified Mr. Lewis for my vote to be my congressional representative - they are a one issue candidate. 

Next to fall of the list is the Stein/Honkala.  While I have read some good things about the Green Party and their stances against out of control spending, I just can't get behind the idea that we need a "green version of the New Deal".  The New Deal was one of most sweeping pieces of socialist propaganda in US history.  Greewashing it won't make a second version any better for America. 

Third to be cut from the list is Obama/Biden.  Not because he did anything really wrong, but because he didn't do much right.  And while I really don't know where Obama stands on things like a new AWB (although I know a lot more after the second debate than I did before), I really don't want to find out what he would do "unencumbered" with having to keep the people happy in order to win another term.

That leaves two.  Romney/Ryan and Johnson/Gray.  Kentucky has a total of 8 electoral votes (one reason we get no attention from the candidates) out of a total of 538 and has gone with the Republican candidate for President in 7 out of the last 10 elections and in 3 of the last 3.  Polling indicates an overwhelming majority of likely voters in Kentucky in favor of the Romney/Ryan ticket.  So it's not that I couldn't force myself to vote for Romney/Ryan if I thought that a vote somewhere else would cause the Obama/Biden ticket to win.  Quite the opposite.  However, I know that I could cast another vote for myself (hopefully Grant County would understand if I win the surveyor spot too) and Romney/Ryan are still going to end up with Kentucky's 8 paltry electoral college votes.  If that's not the definition of a vote that doesn't matter, I don't know what is.  So I'm going to go with the Johnson/Gray ticket. 

There are lots of things I like about the libertarian party and a few things I don't like about Mr. Johnson's positions (foreign policy chief among them) but here's one thing I know is true: the two party system in the US is broken.  The choices we get today are like the choices I gave my four year old getting dressed in the morning: blue pant or brown pants.  They're still just pants - they have way more in common than different.  Just as with my 4 year old, we get the illusion of a choice and so we don't fight.  How does a vote for Johnson/Gray solve this?  Pretty simply: according to Federal Election Commission rules, any party receiving at least 5% of the popular vote in the previous election will be eligible for matching funds.  If Johnson can find a way to get at least 5% of the popular vote from states like Kentucky that will go either red or blue no matter, then we truly can have our cake and eat it to: something a little better than Obama for the next 4 years and a much more interesting election cycle, with more than just left and right, in 2016. 

For my Ohio readers or any in other so called "swing states", I don't suggest this path.  Your votes matter and will decide the presidency this year - your vote should be for who you want to representt you between Romney and Obama.  But for voters in other states out there that are already decided, red or blue, think a little more long term than most Americans are used to and consider a vote for Johnson/Gray.

We all hear plenty about our duty to vote.  I've voted in every election since I was able - 21 of them so far.  But my 22nd will be the first where I have really looked at my choices ahead of time and made up my mind for reasons that make sense to me.  You may agree with some, think I am nuts on others, or think I am taking it too lightly.  All I ask is that you take the time to do the same - get your ballot.  Look at your choices.  Find out what they stand for, and pick the people you want to work for you carefully.

My vote: Johnson/Gray to have a better choice in 2016.

Flash forward 22 years and we got a similar letter in the mail, this time for my daughter who is about to enter 8th grade.  Her school is also experimenting with a new approach to the curriculum: all based on using the iPad.  Both the NeXT and the iPad owe a large part of their existence to Steve Jobs.  I found it fascinating to do a little comparison of the specs:

Official  Name	Next Station	iPad 2 (I know about the new one of course – but this is what she is getting)
Year Introduced	1990	2011
Price (at introduction)	$4,995 (half the cost of the original NeXTCube)	$499 – $829
Processor	Motorola 68040 @ 25 Mhz	Apple A5 @ 1 GHz with dual core
Video	1120 x 832 4 color (black, white, 2 shades of gray) 4,096 color graphics was a $3,000 option	1024 x 768 16.8M Color
Memory	8 MB – 32 MB	512 MB
Storage	105 MB – 4 GB ($$$$$$$$)	16 GB – 64 GB
Weight	13.2 lbs (just the box)	1.3 lbs
Input	85 key mechanical keyboard 2 button mouse (the last / only that came with a Steve Jobs product)	Touch screen
OS	NeXTSTEP (still say it had all the good stuff just now making it into OSX)	iOS (the future of all Apple's OSs)

The table above is, to me anyway, the surest sign of progress in the last 20+ years.

The integrated curriclum at Rose was an interesting experiement.  I "dropped out" after a few months and switched to the regular curriculum.  There was just way too much homework with the integrated projects.  No one was able to keep up. I still got the use the NeXTs (when the IC guys weren't on them, which wasn't often, but they had to sleep – a little – now and again) and I imagine that has a lot to do with my fascination with all things Apple to this day.  Educators are drawn to tech like moths to a flame.  Here's to hoping they can figure out how to use it for more light than heat.