The Presidency is Not What you Think

Yep, sorry. Just a bit more politics for this year for those who are interested. One of the things that I am amazed with in this election is the lack of understanding when it comes to the political system or the rules of the government. In recent months I have listened to Mister Trump discuss how the delegate system used by the Republic National Convention is rigged (Whitesides, 2016) or how unfair delegate distribution is in the super PACs for Mrs. Clinton (Norton, 2016). Either way, the first thing that comes to mind is both parties are complaining about rules they knew existed before entering the contest. I mean, that's the equivalent of playing checkers and then complaining how unfair it is to allow a king piece to go backwards while all the other pieces who are not king-ed cannot. It's the rules of your party, deal with it or get them changed before you run. Of course, I could go in to a long dissertation on this, but that's not my intent for this blog post.

What I want to cover today is the seeming belief that the presidency is going to be the silver bullet that is going to fix everything that is wrong with our country. Zealots on both sides of the aisle are backing their political white knight with this crazed idea that if they are elected they will either secure our borders and economy or finally make jobs perfect and fair all around (among other things). I am sorry to disappoint you, but that is not how the presidency works.

The job of the president is to act as a negotiator between the congress and the courts by his use of the veto and approval of laws. The president is also to engage the people of the congress to try and get them to work together to pass the laws that he believes is best for the country. The president is not supposed to be using executive orders to do all this and make unilateral decisions from his seat in the White House. Do not get me wrong, I understand how much frustration President Obama has been experiencing with a rather annoying congress, but I have to wonder if he has really tried to work with the congress? I see him give rather pointed speeches and then just walk away then when the congress does not do it, he writes an executive order. Even now, these executive orders are being challenged and being over turned as unconstitutional (Slattery, 2014) with his largest executive order on immigration coming up for review by the Supreme Court (Wofford, 2016). There is a good chance that the Supreme Court in June may say that executive orders have no basis in domestic policy and should only be used with foreign policy. If Senator Sanders, Mister Trump, or Missus Clinton plan to use that ability, they could find it severely curtailed by the time they get in.

Now, this next part is personal opinion, but I feel that citizens of our country are trying to fix it the wrong way, by finding the perfect person to sit as president. The problem is that trying to get the president to change the laws is the equivalent of trying to have an football coach teach baseball. The congress is the governing body that makes all the laws we love and hate and if we want to see changes in the bills put forward, we need to start changing who represents our states. If we replace the politicians who are preferring to fight the president instead of taking care of the country with politicians who want to help, if the next president is willing to work with those who opinions differ, we might finally start seeing some improvement overall. No one person's opinion is paramount over another and that is what everybody needs to start realizing.

If this does not change, I do not see any hope for anyone who takes office as he will simply inherit the mess that President Obama has been fighting and in case of some who are hated by the congress, they'll find themselves facing even harder odds to do anything effective in their term. Our Republic and democratic process is not the place for single minded, unilateral decisions of personality, but what is best for our country. If people do not start getting that, things are only going to get worse.


References

Norton, B. (2016, April 12). This system is so rigged: Outrage as undemocratic superdelegate system gives clinton unfair edge over sanders | salon.com. Retrieved from http://www.salon.com/2016/04/12/this_system_is_so_rigged_outrage_as_superdelegate_system_undermines_democracy_giving_clinton_unfair_edge_over_sanders/

Slattery, E. (2014, June 26). Supreme Court Rules Obama’s Recess Appointments Violated the Constitution. Retrieved from http://dailysignal.com/2014/06/26/supreme-court-rules-obamas-recess-appointments-violated-constitution/

Whitesides, J. (2016, April 12). Trump blasts 'rigged' rules on picking republican delegates| Reuters. Retrieved from http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-idUSKCN0X81HE

Wofford, T. (2016, January 19). Obama's immigration executive orders to receive supreme court review. Retrieved from http://www.newsweek.com/obama-executive-orders-immigration-scotus-417386

What is the Flavor of this Election? Anger and Hatred

Honestly, I was going to make some comment about how I usually do not write about political things on my blog. Going through my old stuff I find that  election years always got quite a few posts. So why fight it, right?

Since my first election where I paid attention to the candidates that I was going to vote for (that would be President George W. Bush's first term. Yeah, I know I'm old). Since then I have seen the elections become steadily worse, going from political discussions of belief to what we have now. I firmly believe that the U.S. government is no longer interested in politics, but only in rhetoric. I am not just saying those who are presently in office and part of the establishment, I am saying everybody.

That being said, people should understand what this election is really about. This election is about changing the status quo. Thanks to the continued deadlock for over twelve years starting in President Bush's second term, the American people have grown tired of the ineffective nature of the leadership (Steinhauser, 2014). This is the reason why Mister Trump, Senator Cruz, and Senator Sanders are doing so well. They both are seen as outside of the government and so have garnered this folk hero like persona. This is also why both Senator Rubio and Mrs. Clinton are having trouble. They are perceived as establishment and a threat to change.

The people of our country have become afraid of the world around them and they feel that the government has not protected them like they should have. Americans are being killed on our own soil now and all the government does is focus on policies that (in their perception) will not fix the problem. It is almost like the house is burning down and the government is arguing over what flavor of water to use to put it out.

The watchwords for this election is anger and hatred and the front runners of both parties reflect the version of their constituents. Those who back Mister Trump are loud and full of explosive anger, the Cruz follows much more controlled in their display of it. The followers of Senator Sanders' have a much more subtle more seething rage that shows in the way he forms his speeches. Presently Americans have only a measly 45% faith in the government when it comes to international issues and even worse 38% when it comes to domestic issues (Gallup, Inc., n.d.). Nobody trusts the government anymore and those who support them are going to fail in this election.

There is a revolution coming. The question is, whose revolution is it going to be?

References

Gallup, Inc. (n.d.). Trust in Government | Gallup Historical Trends. Retrieved March 9, 2016, from http://www.gallup.com/poll/5392/trust-government.aspx

Steinhauser, P. (2014, August 8). CNN Poll: Trust in government at all-time low – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs. Retrieved March 9, 2016, from http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/08/08/cnn-poll-trust-in-government-at-all-time-low-2/

Guns or No Guns: How about We use some Common Sense First?

I was about to start this blog post with a comment that I'm not usually political on my blogs, but looking back at the past few posts, I realize that I am much more political than I thought. I guess that I like to write about what is on my mind and I like discussing it with people.

Today, the subject I want to focus on is gun control. I am not going to be writing a piece about which side is better, I want to write and tell you all about the arguments that BOTH sides use that are flat out incorrect or they are cherry picking the data for their own use. It is a sin that is become so common in the TV, social media, and in normal conversation. People are choosing hyperbole and inflammatory language instead of common sense and reason (hence both Mister Trump and Senator Sanders are doing so well in the polls. They are beacons for their side of the inflammatory culture we have today).

I would ask those who are both pro and anti-gun is “what do you want to stop?” Violence or violence caused by guns? The reason I ask is that there is no causal data to show that lowering violence done by guns even lowers the violence overall (Farley). The United Kingdom has virtually no gun crimes in their nation BUT they are the highest for violent crimes and that statement is vague because the United States and the United Kingdom classify violent crime completely different (Bier).

Every study I found has shown that restricted gun ownership may lower the amount of violence done with guns, but it has little to no impact on violent crimes itself (Robertson). The National Research Council has said, "In summary, the committee concludes that existing research studies and data include a wealth of descriptive information on homicide, suicide, and firearms, but, because of the limitations of existing data and methods, do not credibly demonstrate a causal relationship between the ownership of firearms and the causes or prevention of criminal violence or suicide."(Wellford, Pepper, and Petrie 6).

The issue is not gun violence, or sexual violence, or child violence. It's violence, plain and simple. The pro and anti-gun proponents are like two firefighters arguing over if a hand held fire hose is more useful to fighting fires than one hooked in to the city system. Meanwhile, the house is burning to the ground. We need to focus on what is important. Violence and work on trying to curb it instead of tools that are used in their commission. You take away guns, people will still find ways to kill each other. Congratulations on lowering gun violence, but you still have yet to make a dent in the violence all around you.

Only when the two mindsets start looking at the preverbal fire and go, "We need to find a way to fight this" instead of fighting over which method is better at fighting, we are still going to have people dying. So, to anti-weapons and pro-weapons, please, stop arguing and work together.

Works Cited

Bier, Daniel. "By the Numbers: Is the UK Really 5 times more Violent than the US?" The Skeptical Libertarian. N.p., 12 Jan. 2013. Web. 12 Jan. 2016. <http://blog.skepticallibertarian.com/2013/01/12/fact-checking-ben-swann-is-the-uk-really-5-times-more-violent-than-the-us/>.

Farley, Robert. "Gun Rhetoric Vs. Gun Facts." FactCheck.org. N.p., 20 Dec. 2012. Web. 12 Jan. 2016. <http://www.factcheck.org/2012/12/gun-rhetoric-vs-gun-facts/>.

Robertson, Lori. "Gun Laws, Deaths and Crimes." FactCheck.org. N.p., 4 Oct. 2015. Web. 12 Jan. 2016. <http://www.factcheck.org/2015/10/gun-laws-deaths-and-crimes/>.

Wellford, Charles F, John Pepper, and Carol Petrie. "Executive Summary." Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review. 2nd ed. Washington: National Academies Press, 2005. 1-10. PDF File.

Meet the Villains

"She had always found villains more exciting than heroes. They had ambition, passion. They made the stories happen." Soman Chainani, The School for Good and Evil


Before I start I would like to thank Jonathan Snyder for allowing me to write a guest post on his blog. It's a great honor for me, and I hope you will enjoy this little excursion.


Villains are the spice of the stories we read, the movies we watch, the campfire legends we are told. But writing a villain is a really difficult thing to do! Why is that? For me personally it is, because I have a problem to identify with them. We meet people we can use as a blueprint for characters all the time, but how many villains do we meet to do the same?

We might know the one or other bitch or jerk, someone who makes your life hard, a poor misunderstood soul or someone who had a bad day. That is a good start. But usually when we meet them, it is a rather one-sided and subjective image we paint them in. What would make them an effective counterpart in a story?

I've been thinking and researching, talked with readers and authors and have compiled a small check-list that helps me to determine if my villain is someone I'd be interested in reading more about.

• One dimensional villains often get boring.
• To do evil just to do evil makes it hard to identify with them, which also can lead to disinterest in reading their parts. There are stories of course in which that is appropriate - use your best judgement.
• Villains need a motive. That ties in with the last item, but even if someone is evil to be evil, they have a reason for it. He it mentally, something in their past, a certain trigger etc.
• Nobody is born evil. Show what made this happen.
• Villains are people too. Sometimes we want to know more about them. Their life, their thoughts, the ins and outs. In some cases the villain is just a regular person, that nobody would suspect, so show that environment.
• Some readers also mentioned that they want to understand villains and why they do what they do. That ties in with some of the points I have mentioned.
• Make the villain believable. If s/he has special powers, make sure they fit in the setting. If they have super skills make sure to explain how they got them. They also make mistakes, don't be afraid to show that, it is a great tool for character building. Even a villain does not 'magically' know everything about the hero and their plan. They had to have time to research and plan. Where did they get their information from and so on.
• There is no black or white. Not everyone is only good or only evil. Actually that's a rarity. So sometimes you want to make your reader guess, or surprise them about who your villain is.
• When it comes to the Villain / Hero interaction there are two things that have been mentioned many times, which I personally find important as well:
• A villain who cannot be beat, gets frustrating. It is no fun for the reader to see that no matter what the hero does, they fail because the villain just is perfect and too strong. Make sure that there is a way to beat him at his game. He is fallible to and might make a small mistake, or a big one. Either way don't make him unbeatable.
• A villain who loses at the Hero's first attempt, is boring. He wouldn't be a good villain if he can't even hold out for that long. That just makes him a regular person who is not very smart.
• So a balance is important: Not too strong, not too weak. Enjoy some cat and mouse play between them, make it smart and interesting, but don't stretch it out too long or make it impossible to beat. If you plan on a re-occurring bad guy, let the hero have small victories and the villain learn from them. But in the end the bad guy should be beatable, unless you plan on a story that ends with the hero being the loser that is.

Some of these might make you wonder. Why should a villain be relatable or why should I understand them? Please note that every kind of story can have a different kind of villain to work with. For me personally there are a few types of villain that I enjoy to read about:

1. The kind of villain that makes me want to crawl into the story to beat the crap out of them.
2. The kind of villain, that makes me hate to hate them. Someone that I can relate to, understand and think 'But he had a good reason!' or 'It was a good cause'.
3. Someone who is like me, faced the same hardships or others that I can relate to.
4. The surprise villain. Someone I had not expected to be 'it', but when I think about it, it makes a lot of sense.

All of these are pretty vague and can be about anyone in any role in any kind of story. Different examples for villains I have found all over the net and the list varies depending on who writes it. Neither list is finished by any means, they can be pretty extensive. Tastes are different but pretty much everyone has this one thing in common:

Make the villain interesting!

I have some Questions about the Syrian Refugee Situation.

Politics. Boy, has this become much more of a mess and polarized than when I first started covering it so many years ago (like President George W. Bush's first term. A LONG time ago.) In a way, it seems that our representatives in both the house and the senate, plus our legislative branch have begun a war of worlds about what "they" want than following, what I would assume, is common sense. I wanted to focus on the whole immigration question that seems to have been filling facebook and the rest of the Internet.

The war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria also known as ISIS or ISIL, the L being for Levant.  Originally a splinter group from al Qaeda (Yearout, 2014) that has become a much larger, well-known organization including its recent attack on Paris. (Callimachi, 2015, para.1)

Why do I bring this up? Well, I want you to understand one of the reaons behind the United States not wanting to accept Syrian refugees coming in to the country (Kingsley, 2015) and that even though it seems cruel and unjustifiable, there is a solid reason behind it (even if you do not like it).

Though the majority of politicians are using this as a political campaign, which also does not help the present situation, there is a legitimate threat that ISIS and their members might be using the refugee move from the Syrian civil war to cross in to other nations. (Lester, 2015, para. 16)

Yes, the U.S. government has a very strong vetting process being put in to place (Altman, 2015), but how do you run background checks of citizens of a country when the FBI has stated that it would be near impossible to do a thorough one? (Poole, 2015, para. 1)

Even with all this, President Obama decides to berate those people with concerns (AP, 2015) and I wonder if both sides are just choosing sides to irritate the other? Why have we not focused on trying to find a better way to bring them in?

Another issue, why are we bringing in refugees when there are other islamic countries, closer to their beliefs? Saudia Arabia has a complete empty camp ready for refugees and they stand empty!(McHugh, 2015) Europe is already collapsing because they cannot handle the onslaught of those looking for safety (Kingsley, 2015) and these countries, who by the Qoran calls them brothers, will not help. (Abdel, 2004, p. 439)(Kinninmont, 2015, para. 4) I'm not saying that we should block them on their religious beliefs, but I know many people who are far more comfortable around those who believe the same way.

Let's try to focus on the important parts, getting the true victims of this war in to our country and taking the necessary steps to protect us from those who would do us harm.

All my political posts have comments disabled because I refuse to allow trolls and others to start a political storm here just because they want to. If you want to discuss this, take the link and go to a forum that discusses politics. 

Works Cited

Abdel, H. M. "Common Kindnesses (Al-Maun)." The Qurʼan. 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 439. Adobe PDF.

Altman, A. "Syrian Refugees: Here's How the Screening Process Works." N.p., 17 Nov. 2015. Web. <http://time.com/4116619/syrian-refugees-screening-process/?xid=fbshare>.

AP. "Obama berates GOP over Syrian refugees - CBS News." N.p., 18 Nov. 2015. Web. 18 Nov. 2015. <http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-berates-gop-over-syrian-refugees/>.

Callimachi, R. "ISIS Claims Responsibility, Calling Paris Attacks are First of the Storm - The New York Times." N.p., 14 Nov. 2015. Web. 18 Nov. 2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/world/europe/isis-claims-responsibility-for-paris-attacks-calling-them-miracles.html>.

Kingsley, P. "10 truths about Europe’s migrant crisis | UK news | The Guardian." N.p., 10 Aug. 2015. Web. 18 Nov. 2015. <http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/aug/10/10-truths-about-europes-refugee-crisis>.

Kinninmont, J. "Why Aren’t Gulf Countries Taking in Syrian Refugees? | Newsweek." N.p., 9 Sept. 2015. Web. 18 Nov. 2015. <http://www.newsweek.com/why-arent-gulf-countries-taking-syrian-refugees-370189>.

Lester, D. "FBI: Impossible to Do Background Checks On All Syrian Refugees - SamePageNation." N.p., 23 Oct. 2015. 
Web. 18 Nov. 2015. <http://samepagenation.com/2015/10/done-fbi-not-possible-background-checks-syrian-refugees/>.

McHugh, J. "Refugee Crisis 2015: Saudi Arabia Criticized For 100,000 Air Conditioned Tents Not In Use." N.p., 14 Sept. 2015. Web. 18 Nov. 2015. <http://www.ibtimes.com/refugee-crisis-2015-saudi-arabia-criticized-100000-air-conditioned-tents-not-use-2095403>.

Poole, P. "Homeland Security, FBI Can’t Get Story Straight on Screening Syrian Refugees : U.S. Congressman Louie Gohmert." N.p., 28 Oct. 2015. Web. <http://gohmert.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=398267>.

Yearout, K. "ISIS vs ISIL - what's the difference?" N.p., 11 Sept. 2014. Web. 18 Nov. 2015. <http://www.wcsh6.com/story/news/local/2014/09/10/isis-vs-isil-islamic-state-iraq-syria/15403133/>.

The Staff (Belaria Series #1) Review

The Staff (Belaria Series #1)

Science fiction and fantasy. They are the books that I like the most so when A.J. Chaudhury's Belaria Series came up for review, I was optimistic in trying it. To say the least, I was not disappointed. The first book of the series deals with the main character Charlz as he gets caught up in a conspiracy around the Staff of Belaria. I'm not going to go in to detail, but it is an exciting story filled with twists and turns like you would not believe. 

What stands out the best to me is how Mister Chadhury created a fantasy world the feels familiar, yet exotic thanks to the influence of his own country of India. The Staff is a great story to curl up by the fire with and read and an author to continue to pay attention to. 

Sra'Kalor (Ashwood Falls #1) Review

Sra'Kalor (Ashwood Falls #1)

I am not a big supernatural fantasy fan, but I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised in what I found in those pages. A good friend of mine asked me to read her book and it turned out to be a great suggestion! Jessica Werner's Sra'Kralor, the first book in the Ashwood Falls series is a very interesting take on the supernatural creatures living in our world theme. It follows the story of Alana who has a mysterious ability that her family cannot deal with and when she turns eighteen, she is placed on a bus and sent to the nearby city of Ashwood Falls. If she thought her life could not get stranger, she would be in for a big surprise.

Jessica Werner has a very short way of saying things, but packs a lot of meaning in each word she chooses. Though English is not her first language, you can tell that Jessica is doing her best to capture her world in a foreign language. At times you can tell, but not enough to take away from the story. It is an adventure that any supernatural romance reader would love to add to their read lists and one you should not miss out on.

For those who have read the first release, I highly suggest giving the book a second try as it has become a great piece of writing!