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Going to College…Electorially

2/25/2020

  A candidate doesn’t need to win electoral votes from all states. They can win the the votes of fewer than half the states [and still win the election.]
from: What is the Electoral College?
by Santana Hunt
illustrated with photos used by permission
Gareth Stevens Publishing, 2018

   Our election system is complicated.
   Here’s what I found out after reading several children’s books, various web pages, and encyclopedia articles about how our votes are counted:
   Our election system is complicated.

   First of all, The United States is a Republic, not a Democracy, depending on whose definition you use. The writers of the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Ben Franklin, and the rest, did that on purpose. They had a very clear understanding of law and language. Clear enough to be ambiguous, open to interpretation. This is usually a good thing.
   Here’s what Meriam-Webster says:
       Republic, “a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law.”
       Democracy, “a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.”
   The difference: in a democracy, the people vote directly or indirectly through a system of representation. So democracies are more common on a local level: city government; school boards; state officials; but nationally, we are a Republic. (I think)
   People we choose to represent us vote for our president. The national parties allocate to each state a certain number of delegates based on complex formulas. https://electoral-vote.com/evp2016/Info/delegates.html These delegates are chosen at the conclusion of each state’s primary. The Democratic Party uses a proportional method for determining the amount of delegates each candidate wins.
   HERE’S WHY IT’S IMPORTANT TO VOTE IN YOUR PRIMARY:
   Delegates are awarded based on a percentage of the popular vote.

Here’s an alphabetical list (by state or territory) to find out when your Presidential Primary is held. https://www.fvap.gov/guide/appendix/state-elections

The Democratic Party has two types of delegates, pledged and unpledged. A superdelegate is just another name for an unpledged delegate. The number of pledged and unpledged is figured out using a complicated formula.
   The following definitions are from https://www.usa.gov/voting-and-election-definitions

Pledged, or bound delegates must support the candidate they were awarded to through the primary or caucus process.
Unpledged delegates can support any presidential candidate they choose. Superdelegates is another name for unpledged delegates.

   Only the Democratic Party has unpledged or superdelegates. They were established in 1984 to give party officials more say in the election process.

Remember: Delegates are chosen by a complicated formula that includes the popular vote each candidate wins during their respective State Primary Elections or Caucuses.
   Thousands of people are delegates, 2,470 Republicans and 4,483 Democrats. https://electoral-vote.com/evp2016/Info/delegates.html They vote at their respective Party’s Nominating Convention. To become the presidential nominee, a candidate typically has to win a majority of delegates.
   But if no candidate gets the majority during the primaries and caucuses, convention delegates choose the nominee. This happens through additional rounds of voting and is called a Brokered Convention. Most delegates are permitted to vote for whichever candidate they choose, allowing for input from party leadership and political maneuvering. Additional votes are taken until a majority is reached. https://ballotpedia.org/Brokered_conventions
   It is unlikely that a person chosen as a party’s candidate through a Brokered Convention will go on to win the National Election. I don’t know why, but here’s a chart: https://ballotpedia.org/Brokered_conventions Scroll down for the Democratic chart. Scroll past that to see the Republican chart.

Did you notice? I haven’t even gotten to the Electoral College yet, but here goes.
Once the Party’s Conventions have taken place and the nominees are chosen by the delegates, we’re ready for the General Election and the Electoral College.
   Each state has laws for how Electors are chosen. Generally they are party faithfuls, committed to their respective Political Parties.
   Each state has a number of Electors equal to the number of the state’s Representatives plus 2, one for each Senator. “Faithless Electors” are members of the Electoral College who, for whatever reason, do not vote for their party's designated candidate. Most states require faithfulness, but there are no consequences for failure to comply. https://www.fairvote.org/faithless_electors Each Elector usually votes for his or her Party’s nominee. A simple majority of the 538 electoral votes (270), is needed to win.
   The Electoral College votes are counted in Congress on January 6, following the November general election. States with larger populations have more Electors making it possible for a candidate to win the overall popular vote but not win the electoral vote. Lots of states with only 3 or a few Electors can add up to a majority of Electors. That’s what happened in 2016.
   Over the years, 700 hundred attempts to change the Electoral College have been proposed. It will take a Constitutional Amendment and is unlikely to happen in my lifetime.
   In short, our Presidential Election is complicated. It is a several-step process, beginning with the primaries and delegates and ending with the Electoral College vote and Inauguration on January 20.
   Each person’s vote carries weight. Maybe more so in local elections, but if more people actually exercise their constitutional right to cast a ballot in a Presidential election, the more influence we, as individuals will have.
-—stay curious! (and vote)

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Eeny Meeny Miney Mo!

2/18/2020

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…would you rather be
a letter?
well then, which one would you be?
Would you rather be a curly one
like j or s or g
or would your rather
be a sharpie
like k or z or v?
from Would you rather be a Bullfrog?
by Dr. Seuss writing as Theo. LeSieg
illustrated by Roy McKie
Random House Children's Books, 1975

I’d like to say I’m a round, curly letter. I flow along, but I only do that sometimes. Some other times I can be pretty stubborn, prickly, a sharpie. After all, who doesn’t like to be right?
   When we were kids and needed to choose teams, or which hair ribbon to wear, or who got to sit in the front seat of the car, we chanted “eeny meeny miney mo, catch a tiger by the toe, if he hollers, let him go, eeny meeny miney mo.” Maybe you did, too. It seemed fair. The choice was random.
   Some people are good decision makers. Some let life choose for them, kinda like riding a wave at the beach. Maybe that’s what the phrase “go with the flow” really means.
   But making a good decision involves much more than choosing a pet or picking out a dress, or insisting on being right, life-changing as those can be. Important to the process is seeing the big picture. While no one can know for sure what the implications of a particular decision will be, most of us understand how the world works, how one thing usually follows another.
   Some decisions are deliberate. I asked to keep a cat when I was growing up. Of course, it was my parents' decision to say “yes,” but I started the ball rolling with the question. Even now, I’d rather share my life with a cat (or several) than a dog. I like to visit my kids and grandkids. Cats can take care of themselves if I’m only gone a day or two. And I know someone who is kind, dependable, and full of common sense that will fill in if I’m gone longer than that. (You know who you are…Thanks!)
   To me dogs are like children who never grow up. As cute and fun to be with as most of the ones I know are, I’m a little too selfish to share that much of my life. It’s a good thing to know before making a doggie-decision.
   Many years ago I took my older daughter to look for a dress to wear to her high school Homecoming Dance. It was very hard for her to make up her mind. Part of the problem … too many choices. She looked good in everything she tried on, and I only let her try on the ones in my price range. Her field was large. Her options were many, and the qualities she looked for were present in many of her choices. It was hard to make a good decision. But she finally narrowed it down to two, then one. Her decision was deliberate, but not life-changing, really.
   She came home energized, I came home exhausted.
   The deliberate decision we will make in November will be life-changing, without a doubt. Our choices are many. Most of the candidates have qualities we are looking for. Many questions are still unanswered.
   And right now is the time to be informed, or to stay informed. YouTube can catch you up on the previous debates. Is there anything NOT on Youtube?
   Tune in live to the debate tomorrow from 9-11 pm on NBC, if you can. One more will take place the following week, February 25 (CBS), and another on March 15 (CNN). The date for the last one has not been announced yet.
   And the Primaries are in full-force. When we vote in our Primary, we are choosing delegates. Voting in the Primary is important for many reasons. One is a perception thing. Someone who gets a lot of attention (and votes) is perceived to be a winner. Another is the math. Presidents are chosen by delegates to the Electoral College. More on that next week.
   Super Tuesday is March 3, 2020. About 33 percent of total pledged delegates will be chosen in contests held that day (and during early voting held in some of those states). Ohio’s Primary, is March 17, where I’ll be voting. Florida, Illinois, and Arizona also have primaries that day. By March 17, at midnight then, about 61 percent of pledged delegates will have been chosen.
   If you live somewhere other than Ohio, check the National Council of State Legislatures for the full Primary schedule: https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/2020-state-primary-election-dates.aspx# Scroll down past the introduction for an alphabetical state by state list of dates.
   I think the Electoral College is complicated, out of date, and probably unfair. But I’ll do some research this week and report back next Tuesday.
   In November, we will be exhausted, I’m sure. I hope, exhilarated, too.
   Until then,
-—stay curious! (and choose wisely)

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What's a Deficit?

2/11/2020

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“The money we earned is called our PROFIT,” explains Penny. “And that is what we will give Bunny for the plumbing repairs.”
from Pretty Penny Makes Ends Meet
written and illustrated by Devon Kinch
Random House Children’s Books, 2013

My allowance was not pay for completing chores. Chores were what we did because we lived in a family and helped each other get along. Allowance was what my parents gave me because I was part of the family. Some of my friends got paid for doing chores. If you didn’t do the work, you didn’t get the pay. I’m not sure which was more socialist, but I continued getting allowance until I got my first job, babysitting. Even fifty cents per hour was a big improvement over my negotiated allowance. I’m sure I never got more than a couple of dollars per week.
   Don’t get me wrong, my parents were generous. If my brother and I wanted to go to the movies, they bought the tickets, we bought the treats. They bought our clothes, we could save up for accessories. But we didn’t have extra money. Mom sometimes played the bill-paying shuffle. One month she put the phone bill in the electric bill envelope. Back in those days, a person would actually call and you could straighten it out over the phone. What Mom really bought was a little time. I don’t know how often she did that. I don’t know how often other people did it. Were the utilities smart enough to know what was happening, or did they play along because the world was nicer then?
   Mom taught me how to make a budget. My meager allowance was recorded in one column on a piece of graph paper. I recorded everything I bought and subtracted the amount from a running total. That’s still a useful exercise when I start wondering where my money’s going.
Honesty and a good memory are important.
   That’s the way a budget works. You have some money. You spend some. You have some left. But what if I spent more than I had? Well, that was trouble. There was no such thing as credit in my growing-up house. We didn’t get advances, either. So what if I really wanted something? I had to save up my dimes and quarters until I had enough.
   My parents taught me the definition of their mortgage. The bank gave them enough money to buy a house. Then, they paid the bank back, little by little, plus some extra because the bank let us borrow the money in the first place. That sounded fair to my ten-year-old brain. But a 30 year mortgage was almost an unbelievably long time.
   Cities have budgets. States do, too. Even our country has a budget. And the president made his announcement yesterday. It is controversial. Of course. But the radio station I mostly listen to kindly explained that it isn’t really a budget, per se. It is a wish list. Congress gets to make the final decisions, then gives it back for approval. That will take a lot of time, a lot of arguments, a lot of letters to senators and representatives.
   So what is in that wish list? He says he wants to root out “waste and fraud.” His chopping block items include health care, student loans/debt forgiveness, affordable housing, Medicare and Medicaid, food subsidies (SNAP: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), issues affecting the environment like the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, funding for National Parks, roll-backs to emissions standards for factories and vehicles.
   He also wants to keep that income tax credit in place for his wealthy friends and increase money to the military. I thought we were going to stop funding “endless wars?” And the Space Force needs military money, too. But that’s a topic for another day.
   All this for $4,800,000,000,000.00 ($4.8 trillion) which will add $3,400,000,000,000.00 ($3.4 trillion) to the national debt by 2024 (four years from now, hmmm).
   Back on September 3, 2019, I posted a blog about the national debt when it was about $22 trillion. I found out that four trillion one-dollar bills laid end to end will reach all the way from the earth to the moon. So that’s a lot of money.
   Part of the $4.8 trillion must go to pay down the national debt. It’s a law. But deficit spending continues. And the national debt continues to rise. Clearly, living within our means as a country, as a society, is not realistic.
   Investing in our future, though, that’s something we could do. Helping each other live well, teaching our children the importance of planning and implementing ideas that will benefit the most people and make the biggest positive impact, doing what we can to protect our Earth and the life she sustains, we can start there.
   Here’s the link to the Senate’s recap of the president’s proposed 2020 budget. https://www.budget.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/SBC%20Trump%20Budget%20Reaction%203-20-19%20FINAL.pdf
   Use this link to find your representative in the US Congress, your state, your county, and your city. http://myreps.datamade.us Type in your address and click the search button. Decide which item is most important and write a letter to whoever needs to hear your ideas.

-—stay curious! (and sharpen your pencil)

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I Love an Award!

2/4/2020

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Surprise!
it’s a book party
Stacked with all your favorite
friends:
A picnic of
words + sounds
in leaps + bounds.
Read
from: How to Read a Book
by Kwame Alexander
art by Melissa Sweet
HarperCollins Children’s Books, 2019

   Each January, The American Library Association announces its Book and Media Awards. Most important of those are the Newbery and Caldecott. For a complete list of the current winners, look here: http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia Scroll down on the left side to click on the different awards.
   The Caldecott and Newbery Awards, are each chosen by dedicated groups of fifteen knowledgeable and practiced librarians. The Newbery Committee also includes a consultant, and a staff liaison. The decisions of these committee members come with a heavy dose of responsibility, and no monetary reward. Members apply and are chosen by distinguished panels. Committee members agree to volunteer their service for a two year term.
   Volunteers’ libraries need to agree, too, since the obligation involves hours and hours of reading boxes and boxes of books. I’ve heard former members of the committees describe their experiences as daunting, exhausting, and exhilarating.
   The Caldecott Medal, named for Randolph Caldecott, a 19th century artist whose humor appealed to children, has been awarded since 1938. The award is given yearly to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children.
   This year’s Caldecott Award Committee selected The Undefeated, illustrated by Kadir Nelson and written by Kwame Alexander. Although Kadir Nelson has won two Caldecott Honor Medals, this is his first Caldecott win. Look here for examples of his remarkable work. https://www.kadirnelson.com
   The Undefeated speaks the unspeakable. Published by Versify, a new imprint of HoughtonMifflin: "[The book] highlights the unspeakable trauma of slavery, the faith and fire of the civil rights movement, and the grit, passion, and perseverance of some of the world's greatest heroes. … [T]his poem is a love letter to black life in the United States."
   Julie Roach, this year’s Chair of the Caldecott Committee said, “Through color and composition, Kadir Nelson’s daring visuals erupt off the page. They challenge our emotional capacity in this layered journey of heroes.”
   The Newbery Award is named for John Newbery, (1713 -1767) the Father of Children’s Literature. When he noticed a lack of appropriate literature for children, he decided to do something about it. He published and wrote over 200 books. Two are still notable, A Pretty Pocket-Book (1744), called the first children's book and The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes (1765), a Cinderella variant. He was a bookseller, too. He marketed his books with toys and bright colors. He was not only the first writer of children’s books, he was the first to make the endeavor profitable. And both titles are still in print.
   This year for the first time, a graphic novel took the Newbery Medal. Jerry Craft’s New Kid, according to Krishna Grady, Chair of the Newbery Medal Committee, “[is a] distinct, timely, and honest story [that] respects children and gives its readers a glimpse into what it means to be other.” The committee chose this book as the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children in the 2019 publishing year.
   Jerry’s comic strip, “Mama’s Boyz,” was distributed by King Features Syndicate from 1995 to 2013. He’s been working on picture books, middle-grade novels and graphic novels ever since. In his own words, “… I set out to create something that I would have fun doing, and I had an absolute blast!” In his new, award-winning book, he describes how a new black kid feels in a mostly white middle school. And he does it with humor.
   Truth is, I’ve never read a graphic novel. I’ve read my share of comic books, Archie and Veronica was my favorite. I’ve read the first four or five books in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinny and a few Captain Underpants titles by Dav Pilkey. Those aren’t really graphic novels, though. I just finished Kate Hannigan’s first book in her new series Cape, an action-packed story about three girls who discover their super powers. In this one, they help foil a Nazi plot. Like Diary and the Captain, it is also told partly in graphic novel style. So I’ve cut my teeth on those. I’m ready for New Kid.
   In this day and age of uncertainty underlined with fear and hatred, I’m proud that the American Library Association chose two books that feature African American subjects for their most prestigious awards. The Newbery is written and illustrated by an African American and the Caldecott, illustrated (and written) by two African Americans.
   Well done! and Congratulations to all!
-—stay curious! (and well-read)

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"Live life as the work of art you are."
Abraham Joshua Heschl (1907-1972)
Rabbi, Humanitarian, Peace Activist

Going to College…Electorially

Eeny Meeny Miney Mo!

What's a Deficit?

I Love an Award!

I'm a children's writer and poet intent on observing the world and nurturing those I find in my small space .

Archives

"Live life as the work of art you are."Abraham Joshua Heschl (1907-1972)Rabbi, Humanitarian, Peace Activist​

Going to College…Electorially

Eeny Meeny Miney Mo!

What's a Deficit?

I Love an Award!

I'm a children's writer and poet intent on observing the world and nurturing those I find in my small space .

Archives

"Live life as the work of art you are."
Abraham Joshua Heschl (1907-1972)
Rabbi, Humanitarian, Peace Activist