Stephen was supposed to come with me to visit his aunt and uncle. He didn't. I went alone, with Lily for company. While there, I purchased more cabinets for my kitchen project. My son-in-law put an ad in a local paper. Ruth answered the ad. The kitchen now has all the upper cabinets and one base cabinet. All that is left to purchase, are more base cabinets. If no one answers the ad, than I will wait and purchase new metal base cabinets from St. Charles company...as soon as their production process is up and running.
Beth and I bought a ton of groceries. We planted flowers together in her flower bed. The short vacation went by too quickly.
The cost of traveling is very soon reaching a point where people will chose to stay home. Just gas and thruway tolls totaled $100. Add to that, take out food on the way, money spent for the cabinets, taking the family out to dinner. My truck gets nearly 27 miles to the gallon. How do people driving gas guzzlers get around? They park it. I think my family will do the same thing. Bet they don't visit me this summer. We will keep in touch via letters and phone calls.

The presidential campaign continues on, giving me a headache. It is way too long, too expensive, and too aggressive. I solve this problem by turning off the TV set when the debates are scheduled. In this way, I close my mind to propaganda.

This process was conceived in horse and buggy days. Candidates had to travel the countryside to get their message across. The public had to see what the candidates looked like. In those days, women were not allowed to vote.

Much has changed. We can vote now. We have access to communication medias unheard of in the past. We have the Internet and We have television.

Therefore, I make the following suggestions for change to the political process:

1. In TV debates, ALL tho candidates shall take part. That means even the lunatic fringe. Have faith in the American Populace. They can think for themselves. All they need is clear information. The media have controlled who gets heard. The media shall be required to have all candidates in the debate, not just the front runners. The amount of money raised to campaign shall not keep minority party candidates off the debate platform. Did you ever see a debate that included the Green Party, Libertarian Party, Communist Party, Ralph Nader independent? Neither did I. Excluding some candidates affects the vote. This should be illegal.

2. All primaries are held on the same day. Primary day can't be more than 2 months before the public votes for the president. Candidates can campaign on TV and on the Internet. This saves a lot of shoe leather for candidates. They don't have to go a whole year without sleep. Much money can also be saved. Wouldn't this reduce the leverage of the moneyed few? Isn't that a good thing?

3. The start of the presidential campaign shall be limited to the last six months before the primaries.

4. Those special delegates to the convention shall be eliminated. The general public vote is what gets counted.

5. He or she who wins the popular vote is the one that is declared president. No more Gore disasters. He won the popular vote. As far as the people are concerned, George Bush is not their president. If the popular vote president turns out to be ineffective, We shall have no one but ourselves to blame. I personally think We will do a better job than letting political professionals do the job.

6. The office of the President shall not steal authority granted to congress in the Constitution. Congress can declare war, not the president. In fact, We need to take a long hard look at all our laws to see if they are constitutional. Much is written that has no legal basis. Our government continues to grow without constraint. This is not what our founding fathers had in mind. In fact, it is the very danger that our constitution is supposed to address. Congress ignores the constitution.

7. Just as an aside: There is no such thing a safety. Safety is what is promised to us as We have our liberty taken from us. . Who said, "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."?