The Election Process

"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have."
Thomas Jefferson

With federal elections going on in both Canada and the United States, it seems appropriate to take a moment and think about the way we govern ourselves.

Firstly, that's an interesting concept right there. "Govern ourselves." Do those words really have any meaning anymore? It seems that we have given up that right, to rule our own paths, to others, we even pay them to do it. We delude ourselves into thinking that we have control by saying that we chose them to represent us.

Here in Canada, at least, this just isn't the case by and large. The parties decide who will run in each riding (or electoral district for those who don't speak Canadian) on their behalf. Only members of the party in question are welcome to submit their name for nomination. Every now and then, some maverick will put their name forward as an Independent candidate. On rare occasions, they actually get a seat in the House.

It would be nice if the people we elected were truly our representatives, voting the way the constituents tell them.

In the same train of thought, it is very interesting in how we choose (and I use that word loosely) the actual leaders of our respective countries.

Here in Canada, the leader of the party with the most seats in the House of Commons becomes the Prime Minister. He or she will remain in that post as long as his/her party is in power and feels that he/she should remain as leader of the party. The only limitation is that there must be an election a minimum of every five years. In other words, we the citizens do not actually have a say in who the person is who will represent us to the world.

In the United States, you choose who will represent you as President directly. However, if he or she happens to be of a different party or ideology than the majority of Congress, there is little can be done because of the struggle between the Legislative and Executive branches of the government.

And I still do not understand the whole "electoral college" thing either. From what I see, it's quite possible for the college to override the wishes of the people in choosing who the President is going to be. Forgive me if I am in error. As I stated, the whole concept eludes me.

Which brings us to the major difference in the election process between Canada and the United States. You will never hear about broken ballot computers or hanging chads in Canada. It's simple people. The candidates names are written on a slip of paper with a circle next to it. You put a mark in the circle next to the name of the person you are voting for. Questions about the numbers? Each party has one scrutineer watching as the ballots are recounted, twice. The candidate with the most valid ballots wins.

All the same, sometimes I am still tempted to put in a write in vote for Bullwinkle J. Moose.

Dilemmas

I'm on the horns of a dilemma, one partially of my own creation.

In the course of writing a story, I became part of a semi-collaboration. I have added other authors to my tale (with their permission), and made it possible for them to help the story evolve. This seemed like a very good idea at the time. After all, we all got into writing fan fiction for the fun of it.

The thing I forgot to take into account is group dynamics. For a man who minored in psychology, that was pretty stupid.

One of the writers has begun to encounter problems with others. I do not have the specifics of the problem, as it occurred in a chat room when I was not present. It has potentially damaged the integrity of the characters of my story, in that if they cannot work together in the real world, asking them to do so in this tale won't work either. The writer involved has left it to me, as the story's author, to decide what to do.

So, do I take him out of the story or leave him in? Do I get involved in any personal squabble these writers have, or stay away from it? Instinct tells me to stay out of the mess myself, and perhaps do some rewriting so that this person stays in, but does not have to necessarily deal with the others when the story planning is done.

It is my story, and so up to me. I just don't want to hurt anybody's feelings.

This is what happens when you start writing around real people instead of just the fictional ones.

Weather or Not?

Well, the season is beginning to change, as indicated by the amount of fur that our cats are shedding. There have been a couple of frost advisories that have resulted in my covering my tomato plants. The leaves and beech nuts have been falling from the trees. (By the way, beech nuts will do damage to the cranium if they fall on you. Be warned!)

So why is it that I'm sitting here in shorts?

This has been a strange year, weather-wise, even up here in Canada. I won't begin to go into the problems experienced in the lower forty-eight. Summer took its own time getting here, with a lot of rain and then, when it did arrive, it did so with a vengeance. The humidity was enough to flatten you out, and then create short thunder storms. Now we go from highs of 26 C to lows of 1 or 2, sometimes to the freezing point.

I think that's one of the wonderful things about being Canadian. We always have something to gripe about. If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes!

On the other hand, I don't think I could imagine living someplace with a more regular climate. My aunt and uncle have a place in Florida that they escape to each winter. They were even tempted to spend the Christmas Holidays down there. Christmas without snow. So wrong, on so many levels. Besides, I think my favorite time of year is when the maples have all changed color, but the leaves haven't all fallen to the ground. That would be so hard to give up.

So, like every other Canadian, I think I'll go ahead and complain about the weather, and just keep a pair of shorts handy.

Babysitting?

I know I promised not to do this here, but I just have to vent a little.

When did I become a babysitter?

There was a problem yesterday evening with some of the tenants. Apparently, they felt that one of the boys who lives in the building was being far too rough with the others. I received a phone call, complaining about something that happened the day before yesterday. While I am responsible for the safety of the children as they play in the yard, I have to be notified of things when they happen before I can take action.

Furthermore, without the proper complaints filed, the most I could do was talk to the boy's mother, and ask her to have a serious chat with him. As the assistant superintendent, I really don't see how it is up to me to handle how the children are behaving. Even as I was talking with both sets of parents, all of the children involved were outside playing together.

I really do want to keep peace among the tenants of the building. I'm just not sure how to do this when somebody gets their feelings hurt, and feels the need to say "he started it" to me. Then there is dealing with the kids.

Okay, that last paragraph was a little harsh.

When do I start treating "boys will be boys" as a tenant incident with the possible consequence of eviction?

The LHC

By now I'm sure that just about everyone has heard about the LHC, or Large Hadron Collector. The particle accelerator was brought on-line a week ago. It is the most awesome observation machine ever constructed by man. More than seven kilometers of tunnel under Switzerland and France. All to detect a particle that scientists aren't positive exists, and is so small, a scanning electron microscope cannot see it.

I was intrigued by the number of doomsday scenarios that surrounded this thing. The directors of CERN, who are operating the LHC have even been threatened. According to some, it was going to create a black hole, and the earth would be devoured by it. Others had the idea that the collisions would result in a fusion reaction, that would cascade, and essentially be a huge nuclear bomb.

In fact, there have been a number of particle accelerators. The only difference with the LHC is that it's so much larger, and the detectors much more sensitive. There is an infinitesimally small possibility of creating a reaction harmful to anyone. The possibility is so remote, it doesn't even bear considering. We are talking extremely tiny reactions that the Universe produces itself by chance.

The goal here is to detect the Higgs particle, or what was created at the moment of the big bang. If the current model is correct, then there is an elemental particle of our universe unaccounted for. As well, physics has yet to explain why there is no antimatter anywhere to be found in the known universe. If it annihilates when it comes into contact with matter, should there not be an equal amount of each, matter and antimatter in the universe?

Science is attempting to explain how you go from nothing, to a whole expanding universe. We are reaching out to God, in essence, and asking, how and why are we here.

I won't even begin to comment on the debates that question brings up.