Pointless Announcements

Love, love, love mine. I'm adapting to the size. But it's fantastic.

 

Monday, November 3, 2014...58 days until I retire...whoa....

 

Looking out of my office window watching workers put up Christmas wreathes along Pennsylvania Ave.

 

I've been watching a lot of anime series on netflix.
Kite - a young girl and a teenage boy are being used as assassins by a dirty cop.
Hunter x hunter - a 12 year boy takes the test to become one of the elite hunters like his father
Freezing - young woman go to a special school to learn to protect the world from aliens (well boys too but they aren't nearly as important)
Blue Exorcist - the son of Satan goes to school to learn how to be a exorcist
Deadman Wonderland - set in Japans first for profit jail and theme park

 

First of all, I have been watching Holmes Inspections on Netflix and I could tell it is was filmed in Canada before I even checked. Turns out it was the greater Toronto area. Hearing the Canadians say "house" is more amusing than hearing some US deep south native saying "I ain't got nothing" or whatever other grammar atrocity that general region has.
continuing with the "pointless" theme -
Shared this on a closed facebook group, felt like posting it here for the hot minute it will be prominent in this thread before getting buried.
Trail at the University of Idaho. Canon FTb-QL loaded with TRI-X (I have a strong preference for the B&W film, has more life and vibrance than colour film).
Minor editing in Lightroom 5.6 for the exposure and contrast to achieve the higher contrast look I prefer.

 

In all honesty, there isn't much chance of that.

 

We frequently have to choose the lesser of two, maybe three, evils.

Voting in Texas is interesting. Our constitution, written after post Civil War reconstruction, makes just about every position in public office an elected position. In theory it sounds great; in practice the ballot tends to be very long. We don't elect dogcatchers (an old cliche reference), but probably only because someone forgot include dogcatcher on the list of elected positions.

 

Fuck Rick Scott.
That is all.

 

The notion of electing every possible public office predates Reconstruction by quite a bit. It goes back to Andrew Jackson and what historians call "Jacksonian Democracy".

Jackson and his movement invented the "spoils system," as in "to the victor go the spoils." In other words, once in office, a politician gives jobs to his political supporters; this is called political patronage. (The governor of Pennsylvania used to have 60,000 patronage positions, so that when a new governor of a different political party came in, 60,000 government workers would be immediately fired and replaced by 60,000 from the new governor's party.)

The Jacksonians invented the Democratic Party. Arguably, it has roots going back to Thomas Jafferson, but it was first known by that name in Jackson's time.

They also invented the elected judiciary -- a horrible idea which has plagued the U.S. ever since.

Michigan was founded in the Jackson era. A whole group of counties were named after the members of Jackson's first Cabinet. I grew up in one of the Cabinet Counties.

Some things have changed since the 1830s, but Michigan still elects a startling number of officials.

My personal vote bears on almost 100 different elected positions:
President, Vice President, US Senator, US Representative, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, State Senator, State Representative, 8 members of the State Board of Education, 8 members of the University of Michigan Board of Regents, 8 members of the Michigan State University Board of Trustees, 8 members of the Wayne State University Board of Governors, 7 Supreme Court justices, 7 Court of Appeals judges in this district, 5 circuit judges, 2 probate judges, 3 district judges, 7 members of the community college board, 7 members of the school board, 7 members of the library district board, county prosecuting attorney, county sheriff, county clerk/register of deeds, county treasurer, county water resources commissioner, county commissioner for this district, mayor, 2 city council members in our ward.

 

Our 1876 constitution was a reaction to Texas' "powerlessness" during reconstruction. After having just about every position filled by appointment during reconstruction, the lawmakers tried to make just about every political position subject to being duly elected. It could very well be based on "Jacksonian Democracy."

As I wrote, that's great in theory, but in reality the average voter doesn't know every candidate for every position.

I've posted this story before, but I'll share it again. One of my polisci professors got together with some friends to analyze voting trends so that they could help a not-so-successful-or-ethical attorney friend get elected as a judge. It worked, he was elected as a judge.....despite being caught having sex with a female client at the jail just a few days before the election. The incident was very much in the local news, but he still got elected.

 

I'm enormously more knowledgeable than the average voter, and I could not tell you the name of every person elected to represent me.

Electing judges on party tickets is the worst possible way. I doubt he could have won a nonpartisan race. Not that nonpartisan elections are so wonderful, but at least they are affected by publicity.

In Michigan, only the Supreme Court is explicitly partisan (candidates are nominated by parties, but the party names are not listed on the ballot). The way to get elected judge is to have an Irish name, like Fitzgerald, Brennan, Corrigan, Cavanaugh, O'Brien, Murphy, etc. And it's not like we have a large Irish population here!

 

On voting rights.

Residents of Washington DC did not get to vote for President (and get 3 electoral votes) until 1964 with the adoption of the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution.

And still have no real representation in Congress. No Senator and the representative in the House can only vote on procedural issues and in committee.

In recent history, residents of Washington DC did not get to elect a representative body (mayor/council) until 1974 with the passage of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act. They had such rights between 1812 and 1870 but those rights were abolished and replaced with appointments of a board of commissioners by the President until 1974.

 

Yep. She is one classy and courageous women who continues to fight for equal justice for all (well beyond the voting rights issue for DC).

I dont expect to see full representation for DC as long as Republicans have a significant voice in Congress, but the effort continues. ..DC Vote.

 

Back when I was studying polisci (my minor) voting analysis showed that a common last name--Johnson, Smith, Jones, etc.--was very helpful, especially for the 'lesser' positions where voters were less informed. That has changed. While the latino vote is not nearly as strong as the white & black vote percentage wise, it's strong enough to make Bob Smith v. Jorge Gonzales a much closer race.