wow, this is just like in the movies…
by krisis
Archives for November 2000
Well, brushing my teeth over the bathtub really isn’t so bad.
There is an entirely obvious reason that the electoral college system is in effect in America, and that is to prevent what my high school government teacher lovingly referred to as Mobocracy.
All Gore won California by a very healthy margin at last count, but he still received the same 54 electoral votes that the state is always worth. He’d win those same votes if he had between Bush 10 to 1. Or, just by ten (well, as in Florida’s case, this might not be true…). In a strictly popular majority vote system, what would happen if suddenly the mid-west had 90% voter turnout? Or, if all of New York and Texas voted for one candidate? These are extreme examples, but they serve to very handily exemplify why a straight popular vote wouldn’t work out entirely well for America.
Since Congress is split between the Senate and the House in order to provide just such a balance to the legislature of the country, there ought to be a similar way to place a check on the highly unstable electoral system when a race is as close as this one has been. Perhaps the electoral votes only should add up to a total of 435, with actual Senators casting the last 100? Or, perhaps the last 100% could be a proportional representation of the popular vote itself.
The whole point of the college is to avoid various forms of mobocracy, and that i think anyone could agree with. It’s just the implementation that’s off…
lalala. So, i should be practicing my new songs more; I brought my electric guitar to the apartment. I am still undecided on whether i’m going to include any older songs like Bridge or Afterglow on my next disc … i think i’ll just record some old ones for posterity, and if they work, they work. The trouble with tracking an album in advance is that you might not record some of the songs to your liking. But it’s a guideline. That guideline is a progression right now, a progression of emotion from “Never Say Goodbye” to “Goodbye,” which is obviously a progression in itself. But, in “Goodbye” i even say “don’t you ever say goodbye” … so i reversed my purpose; in the first song i tell the subject that i won’t say goodbye, but in the last song i ask them if they ever could. That’s been a concept that’s stayed with me for a few months now – other than that and the fact that “Under My Skin,” will be dead center, i’m not sure how it will turn out.
One of my co-workers had a near death experience with alcohol the other day. And, when i say near death, my meaning is that her heart stopped at some point. By the grace of god (or someone) she was with a very responsible friend who got her to a hospital immediately, but she’s mired in trouble that runs deeper than a radical detoxification can cure. It’s just a shame when good intelligent people get wrapped up in other people’s problems, and worse when they can’t get untangled from their own.