So let’s talk voting procedures…

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There were a couple of things that bothered me when I went to cast my vote earlier this morning…

A Ridiculous Amount of Legalese, Specifically Looking at the State Amendments
Seriously – this is some important stuff, so why isn’t it a requirement that these things have to be placed on the ballot in plain English? Not everyone is a scholar when it comes to translating contract law, not to mention a lot of these things are purposely written in a confusing manner so that voters don’t even know if they’re supposed to be voting for them or against them!

Here in Florida we have 11 amendments to consider on our 2012 ballot. Now just looking at the first one, which is easier to understand???

This would add an amendment to the state constitution that attempts to prohibit the government from requiring individuals to purchase health insurance.

OR

Proposing an amendment to the State Constitution to prohibit laws or rules from compelling any person or employer to purchase, obtain, or otherwise provide for health care coverage; permit a person or an employer to purchase lawful health care services directly from a health care provider; permit a health care provider to accept direct payment from a person or an employer for lawful health care services; exempt persons, employers, and health care providers from penalties and taxes for paying directly or accepting direct payment for lawful health care services; and prohibit laws or rules from abolishing the private market for health care coverage of any lawful health care service. Specifies that the amendment does not affect which health care services a health care provider is required to perform or provide; affect which health care services are permitted by law; prohibit care provided pursuant to general law relating to workers’ compensation; affect laws or rules in effect as of March 1, 2010; affect the terms or conditions of any health care system to the extent that those terms and conditions do not have the effect of punishing a person or an employer for paying directly for lawful health care services or a health care provider for accepting direct payment from a person or an employer for lawful health care services; or affect any general law passed by two-thirds vote of the membership of each house of the Legislature, passed after the effective date of the amendment, provided such law states with specificity the public necessity justifying the exceptions from the provisions of the amendment. The amendment expressly provides that it may not be construed to prohibit negotiated provisions in insurance contracts, network agreements, or other provider agreements contractually limiting copayments, coinsurance, deductibles, or other patient charges.

And keep in mind, that’s the straight forward one because it’s basically asking whether Florida should be able to refute the Affordable Healthcare Act or not! There are plenty of others looking at property taxes and state court governance, and honestly at least a couple that I’m still not quite sure what I was voting on. If our (unfortunate) standard for news media in this country writes at an 8th grade level, then why are we shoving a ballot in front of them that requires a law degree to decipher?!

A Complete Lack of Supporting Documentation to Help Voters Make Their Decisions
And yes, I know that it’s always been this way, but we’re trying to find ways to improve the process here! 😉

The example I’ll give for this one is all of the state and local representatives who were on my ballot. I didn’t know who any of them actually were! Sure, I’d heard names here and there, but nowhere near the info required to actually make an informed decision about whether they should get the job or not. We’re given plenty of information regarding the Presidential election, but when it comes to the Mosquito Control Commissioner, how am I supposed to know if that lady is qualified for the job?!

Side Note: I didn’t make that job up – there’s actually a seat in our county government for a Mosquito Control Commissioner.

Anyways, let’s be honest – in addition to the president, there are 18 other state & local positions on my ballot, and I really only know what I’m doing for the big guy. Well, also for our US Senator, but that’s only because the other guy’s campaign posted a particularly obnoxious tweet Sunday night and it swayed me to vote the opposite just out of spite! For the rest, as well as the amendments mentioned above, I could’ve used all the help I could get, and I really think that this is a place where technology could shine because if voting was more of an interactive process, there’s no saying that you couldn’t have a nice multimedia interface that presents the facts for each item on the ballot to help make your decision. Show me one by one what each of the contenders is standing for, and let me use that to help drive better results on my part!

Because honestly, a good half of my non-president votes went strictly down party lines and the rest just got earmarked for people who happened to have cool names! Realistically we can’t expect people to be informed on every single one of the people on that list, and even then, who’s going to bring with them a cheat sheet* to help them remember who they want to be voting for?! Give the people some more information – we do live in The Information Age, after all – and then let them make the right decisions.

* Funny thing is, I actually did consider writing down a list of my choices for the amendments when I was looking through the sample ballot and doing a little research the other day, but I nix’ed it under the assumption that I wouldn’t have much problem picking them out one by one on my own. I guess I didn’t realize that there were five different amendments just about taxes! 😳

My point is simply this – an election is only as good as the quality of its votes. If we can make the process easier and less painless for everyone involved, maybe we can get our voter turnout up a little higher than 58%.

Mini Mario Orchestra Performs RPG Medley

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Aren’t they just adorable?! 🙂

My own personal favorites:

  • Prelude – Final Fantasy I
  • Terra’s Theme – Final Fantasy VI
  • World Map Theme – Final Fantasy VII
  • Main Theme – Dragon Quest
  • Ending Theme – Final Fantasy Series

Hearing the FF7 track almost makes me want to dig that one out and get back into it, despite not being a huge fan of Machine Gun Arm Guy… 😛

The Newsroom exposes media flaws we all need to face.

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I stayed up late last night to finish off the last couple of episodes of The Newsroom that I hadn’t ever circled back to since I started watching maybe two months ago, and I suppose if I had but one line of commentary to say about the show, it would be something along the lines of, “Man – now I have to wait until next summer for more?!”

Needless to say, I really enjoyed this show!

I enjoyed it not only for its entertainment and comedic value, but I think even more so for the attention that it brings to a sorely lacking media machine that we have to endure here in the US in 2012. While some have criticized the show’s use of actual events for entertainment purposes when in reality many were real tragedies, I think we still have something to learn from many of them and if it takes a TV drama to revisit and highlight the flaws that our current media regime doesn’t want to admit are real problems, then so be it. Things like focusing on ratings and sensationalism instead of actually reporting on what’s important, fighting to be the first to break a story rather than ensuring that what they report is actually accurate in the first place, and pandering to “both sides” when one side is so far off base that it’s closer to crazy than a legitimate opposite perspective on issues – with so much at stake in America today, these are the reasons why we need news sources that actually report fair and accurate news, not sensationalized propaganda that just furthers to polarize us with misrepresentations of the truth meant to pander to our own personal agendas.

In 2012 more than ever, we need news that gives us the facts, not necessarily the partisan-vetted facts that individuals want to hear.

When a news outlet reports that congresswoman Gabriel Giffords is dead when she actually isn’t, it should make us start to question what else falls through the cracks in their everyday editorial process.

When it comes to light that a major media mogul has been involved in illegal wiretapping overseas to ensure that his organization would be the first to break stories, we should be asking why he wouldn’t be inclined to do the same here on our own soil.

When more focus is placed on a congressman’s sexting scandal than on actual issues that Congress needs to be addressing for a nation in dire need, we should be the ones to realize that our consumption of this garbage instead of holding the media accountable for staying on top of actual news in a huge part of the problem.

And besides, you can’t tell me that a seven-minute clip like this isn’t some of the most compelling television you’ve watched this year…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdymOEZnlJg

I, for one, look forward to seeing how Aaron Sorkin continues to push the envelope with this show more next year, and maybe – just maybe – the real media will catch on and strive to live up to the example we’re seeing of a better direction for the news from this fictional TV show that’s been based on their past performance, too.

a couple of laps around the Magic Kingdom

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Last night we spent a couple of hours over at Disney World and after hitting most of the attractions that we felt like doing, we ended up also taking a couple of laps around the park for some exercise. It was kinda fun because it was almost 11:00pm by that time, so a lot of the crowds had dispersed (especially for the 2nd lap) and it had cooled down enough to the point where we weren’t super sweating … except for when we took a last-minute detour to hop on Big Thunder right before it closed!

You can see our actual route below, give or take – Google Maps is a little tricky about letting you choose walking destinations that aren’t actual sidewalks (how does it know in a theme park???), and we also had a spur up to the new Storybook Circus area, which it wouldn’t let me map so I guess just imagine that our blue line also loops up around that blue train station sign above all of the construction! In total, I estimate that our laps were about 1.4 miles each (20-25 minutes), and we did two of them, so figure we knocked out nearly 3 miles walking at a steady pace around the park in a little under an hour…

Honestly, I think this is something that I’d like to do a little more because at this point we can both use all of the exercise that we can get, and we’ve also been jonesin’ for our Disney fix after not being able to visit much all summer on account of house-buying craziness! Still, the tricky part is A) I don’t really want to walk around the park all sweaty, and also B) if the crowds aren’t light, it could get hard to maintain a pace that’s really going to do any good.

That said, next weekend we’re going over to Epcot to celebrate Sara’s birthday by catching the last days of the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival and we actually have done laps around World Showcase before, so if we try anything similar I’ll be sure to report back again! 🙂

a new month and a new book!

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So it’s official – I’ve published my third book, and it’s a children’s book!

I’ve entertained the idea in the back of my mind of eventually trying my hands at writing a kids book for a while, but it wasn’t until earlier this spring when I finally found some direction as to what it could be. I was out walking the dog sometime around March/April when completely at random, I thought that the name A is for Awesome would make a great name for a children’s book – you know, one that runs through the alphabet letter by letter. The remaining hour of my walk was agonizing because I had forgotten my phone at home and I wanted to look right now to see if the name had already been taken.

By the time I got home, I was pretty convinced that at least one other person had already come up with the same great idea as I had, but low and behold searching through Amazon and Google – it wasn’t! And thus a dream was born!

That said, I wasn’t 100% sure if it was something that Lori would be into – I mean, we’d ended the comic over five years ago and drawing wasn’t really a part of her life anymore, but surprisingly she jumped at the idea and even better, together we set a goal to have the whole thing finished and ready for unveiling at her daughter’s 1st birthday party in September! It seemed reasonable at the time, but it honestly ended up being pretty tight because collaborating from across the country is always tough, even with phones and Internet and everything, and we were pretty much working literally right up until the night before the party itself. In fact, we ended up having to get a preview copy printed at the local Office Max because there was just no way to get it done otherwise, which provided its own challenges because A) “Office Max isn’t a book publisher!” and B) they wanted an absolutely ridiculous amount to do a simple 32-page book…

Seriously – you’d think for $40 they could at least be sure to include all of the pages the first go around! 😯

Anyways, as the pictures suggest, the party still turned out great and along with properly celebrating little Madelyn’s first birthday, we were also able to read her the book (which we dedicated to her) in front of a small audience, which was kinda cool! That was about eight weeks ago and I’ve spent way too much of that time since either traveling or on vacation, so admittedly it ended up taking a bit longer to get this thing finally printed and ready for sale than I would’ve liked. But nonetheless, that’s all behind us now and as of this afternoon, the site from which you can purchase it officially went live and is happily standing by to take your order as we speak! 😉

Really, though, like most of the projects that I work on, a whole lot went into this one, but ultimately I’m pretty proud with how it turned out and I sincerely hope that enough people out there feel the same way and choose to order a copy … not only because I want their money, but also just because it’s a really cute book and fun and kinda different from the typical A to Z books that a lot of children’s book authors have already crapped out. Plus, ours is the first book in a series of awesome books, and although we haven’t really put much thought into the next installment just yet, you can probably expect to see it sometime next year and it’s going to be even more fun than this one is to read!

…and the only way you’re going to know what to compare it to is if you buy this one for yourself and check it out! :mrgreen:

By the way, you can find some sample pages and more info over on the main site for the new book, so please take a gander over in that direction if you find yourself truly interested.

I’m very tired now and desperately need to take a well-deserved break this weekend, but 2012 is almost over and I’ve still got more projects on the list to wow you with! I hope that I can wow you with the next one because it’s really very huge, but in the meantime, whether you’ve got kids to shop for this Christmas or simply enjoy a good book about the alphabet yourself, send me $6 and let me send you a copy to enjoy in return!

The Redistribution of Halloween Candy – a small correction

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I’m not really sure why I watched this video – it was pretty obvious the direction it was slanting from the get-go, with the idea being to redistribute Halloween candy from kids with lots to kids who have less.

Surprise, surprise – kids didn’t like getting their candy given away to other kids, but the more I thought about it, I realized that there was a fundamental flaw because the vast disparity between the 99% and the 1% wasn’t really being framed properly.

This makes a big difference – the whole argument that started last year with Occupy Wall Street wasn’t simply, “Give me some of yours because you have more than me!” The idea, which was overlooked by most conservatives who apathetically denounced the protests, is actually focused on the super wealthy with the belief that the methods many of them use to amass their fortunes haven’t really been fair to the vast majority of citizens who can’t buy what they need in the political atmosphere to achieve similar results.

So let’s adjust our candy example to more accurately define our two groups here:

In 2010, the average household in America had a net worth of $57,000. In terms of trick-or-treating, let’s call that 1 pillow case full of candy.

Likewise, the top 1% of households had an average net worth of $16,439,000. Or 288 pillow cases full of candy.

With that in mind, maybe we present the question to the kids in the proper light – it’s not a matter of being forced to share with your neighbor because your bag is a little fuller than his, it’s forcing the kid who needs a dump truck to carry his candy home to share because WTF?! How in the world was he able to collect that much candy in just a single night?!?!?!

Something tells me that if you show the kids pillow case full of candy vs. dump truck full of candy, this little video would’ve turned out just a wee bit differently.  😕