TMI a little place to whine

In Florida there is such as thing as early voting. Tomorrow is the primary but we have been able to vote at "specified" locations, at specific hours, for the past 2 weeks. I voted last Friday at the Regional library.

So, now the day before the "official" election I have gotten at least 10 phone calls asking me to vote for one candidate or another, and to vote for or against one of the issues on the ballot.

It's a waste of time and energy.

Don't planners have a way to deterime where to spend their energy rather than bother people who have already made a selection? If they don't they should - and stop wasting my time.

So once again "W" want to give us back the money that's rightfully ours, as a stimulus package so we will spend more and keep his eceonomy running. Sending the idea to congress and the idiots there are agreeing just because the stock market took a big plunge this week

WRONG.

It's not OUR money, we are so in debt as a nation we have no money to refund. Doesn't anybody in America understand this? The rest of the world is losing confidence in our ability to be fiscally responsible and they understand that if the USA falls, because most nations have used the US as a standard monitary measure, the rest of the world will fall as well.

Dominos.

So ignorning this fact - "W" proposes making more debt.

What he plans to do is give us the money our grandchildren will be paying in taxes decades from now. Yep, if we are lucky it will only take two generations to pay back the huge debt that the current administration has created, but in reality it might be our great grandchildren will will be "refunding" us this money.

My idea? previously stated but apparently no one has noticed:
If you get a check from "W" to stimulate the economy do something different with it.

Return it to Washington DC to the Department of the Treasury to PAY DOWN THE NATIONAL DEBT.

At least that way you'll know your grandchildren's, or great grandchildren's money is not being wasted.

Then maybe your great-great grandchildren can live in a debt free country.

I am starting to answer my phone this way.

Why? Because most calls I get in the evening anymore are not from friends or family, but from political pollsters asking me questions about the upcoming primary election.

I used to answer truthfully, until I realized that the questions are squewed to get the answers the pollsters want, not your actual opinion. Then I started to lie, much more fun.

But then I realized that we live in a country with a "secret" ballot.

What part of "secret" don't pollsters understand?

So now I don't lie.

I simply say, in a loud voice, "It's none of your damned business what I think." Then hang up.

I think we should make that a motto henceforth in every election year.

It's no ones business what I think or for whom I cast my vote...it's a private matter between me and me.

Maybe if pollsters stop second guessing us all before we even pull a lever, or put pen to paper to mark our choices we might actually have a fair election where every vote is counted and every voice is heard. That's what democracy is all about, isn't it?

One can only hope.

An American Holiday that is what an American Holiday SHOULD be.

No build up to a massive glutton event.

No commercialization and spending beyond the limits of credit card or wallet.

No one day MLK event sales.

No.

Today is a day to honor a man and his ideals.

This is what a holiday should be about.

"I have a dream.." that it will catch on.

So the idiot inthe White House wants to return more of our taxes to us again to stimulate the economy.

That's another way to buy votes.

If such an event should occur I think we should mount a campaign to send the "refund/rebate" back to the Dept. of the Treasury and instruct that it be used to pay down the National Debt that "W" has so kindly saddled future generations with his financial mismanagement and his "oil war."

And then when Cheney is impeached I think he should be fined the amount of money his "former" company made in profits from the no bidcontacts they have gotten since this war started. I think that would be fair.

At least fairer than trying to fool Americans into thinking that tax breaks are what makes the economy viable.

There is something wrong with our psyche in America.

We think we have a democratically elected president in this country.

We are wrong.

Citizens vote to elect "delegates" to a political party convention in a primary election. In a general election citizens vote so that delegates to the electoral college can vote for the president.

So, technically, we have given control of our country to represenatives of a political party, or the electoral college to supposedly protect our interest. But there is nothing that says the MUST. I mean there is probably some paper law that says it, but what enforcement is there if delegates decide to vote for whomever they chose?

If they fail to vote as "instructed" by the voters and elect someone no citizen wanted does that mean our votes mean nothing?

Enough of this crap.

Let's get it right. Let's do it the old fashioned way.

One voice, one vote.

No delegations.

No electoral college.

One citizen. One vote. Count all valid votes, no dead man voting please, and let EVERY vote count.

Why?

Why do we all feel this urge to be entertained?

Someone on a list I am on was complaining that she finds exercise boring because she isn't reading or watching TV while doing it.

So?

What makes us so selfish that we feel the need to be entertained all of the time? Are we all like 5 years olds who come to "mommy" to say, "there's nothing to do and I am bored?"

Why can't we use our brains and entertain OURSELVES? Is that such a hard thing to do?

Why can't we actually use our brains to do more than absorb the thoughts that someone else speaks or writes? Why can we use our time to quietly think things over for outselves? Are we so mentally lazy now as well as physically lazy that we want to somehow push a button and collect a thought from some preprogramed channel of life? Whatever happened to meditation and contemplation over the problems, situations, actions of our own life?

I can't understand the need to text messages, iPods, instant messaging, phone that provide TV and movie access, cars with media screens and individual music systems in the back seat. How can we expect our children to be critical thinkers if we don't give them the chance to exercise their minds and learn to think ON THEIR OWN?

This dependence on someone to entertain us will only lead us to a point where we be incapable of thinking for ourselves.....

In the last 7 years the administration and the mostly Republican congress has done exactly what it was telling us NOT to do. It has been living on credit.

We have no cash to cover the cost of necessary programs, but we spend the money anyhow.

This is what is seems like to me.
The president wanted us to spend money so he "refunded" cash to us all from the surplus left to his administration by the former (Democratic Clinton administration) to make him look like he was doing something to help the middle class.

And he cut taxes.

And then he started a nice expensive war and spent money.

And spent money we didn't have.

OK, explain how fiscially responsible it is for any individual to:

a) spend the money they have in the bank, and decrease their income
b) give people they know,who already have money, MORE money
c)start something they can't afford to finance and have no idea when they are going to finish needing the money to finish it
d) buy things they can't afford using credit
e)insist that credit buying won't harm themselves or their children

Well, I think it's IRRESPONSIBLE for an individual to do that and I think it's reprehensible for our President to have run the country like that!!

I want a CASH and CARRY candidate who isn't afraid to tell the people that we can no longer afford to spend money we don't have.

I want a return to fiscal sanity. If we dont' have the money don't SPEND the money.

I want us to be able to pay our bills, not just a minimal interest payment. I want the United States of America to be able to pay down the capital of a debt that is so enormous that should our creditors, China and India, call in the "markers" we would all be homeless - or should I say countryless - because they own us.

Mortgage crisis in America? Hell there's more than a mortgage crisis in America - we ARE the mortgage crisis. We can't even claim to own what we live in anymore. Thanks to Mr. Bush our country should be in forclosure, but we are not because the emerging industrialized nations that hold our notes are afraid that if the "great" nation of The United State of America - and it's myth of prosperity - should falter then the rest of the world will follow suit. And they will start a cycle of Depression that will make the "great depression" look like the good old days.

So who out there is willing to vote not for a race, a gender or a religous belief, but vote to do the best thing overall for the American people? I don't know. But I hope there are enough to elect a leader who will no longer max out our national credit cards and elect a president who knows how to spend our money wisely.

It simply amazes me that people are afraid of quiet.

There is noise everywhere. I don't mean normal noise. I mean intentionally created noise.

Stupid cell phone ring tones, stupid and oftern inaudible answering machine messages, noise in restaurants, noise in elevators - oh sure some people call it music, but it's still noise. Nothing is quiet anymore.

Worse yet is the young people who attach headphones to htier head, just to they can block out the world and be in their own space...creating a selfish little world and destroying in the process the small cillia in the ears that aid in hearing. It's not just teens, but younger children plug in to iPods, and other video games that make booming noises and screeches and bangs.

There is constant sound being thrown at us, whether we want it or not, and because it is something we can't control in public places, we put up with it.

But what's to happen in 30 years when the children of this noisey generation can't hear because of the birrage of noise now? Will hearing aids be as normal as glasses once were? Now they can "fix" the eyes so that glasses are no longer necessary. And the eyes were things that for the most part were not damaged by the user. But we are damaging our hearing every single day by not being able to live with quiet.

Even what was once considered a quiet haven - the libraries and churches - have become places of social gathering or technology laden rooms with background buzzing so much a part of the normal day that it's hardly noticible.

Hey, let's stop this.

Let's hear it for SILENCE,

or is that let's NOT hear it?

Can't think of anything positive lately.

I can't motivate myself to start anything.

More to the point I can't motivate myself to finish what has already been started.

Feel like I am going nowhere.

Maybe it's the January blahs.

I hope so.

Sue Ann

Primaries .

Let's get rid of them.

Let's just let those who want to run for office do so.

No campaign spending allowed.

Declare yourself and state a position 8 weeks before the election in November.

Then one one day, the entire USA votes.

No one can disclose ANY election results (or stupid predictions) until 24 hours AFTER the last state votes.

I am sick to death of hearing politicians.

It is not a part of democracy at work when it takes billions of dollars and nearly two years to get two people who are possibly qualified. Elections aren't about democracy, it's about money.

I am sick to it.