Voting

Today is the first Tuesday in February in Illinois, which makes it Primary Election Day. Our state has thus started the round of Primary Elections in 2010. Woo Illinois!

Gretch and I both voted today. It is always amusing to talk to someone after you have voted. Some of the candidates we both voted for (mostly because I have been telling everyone to vote for Bill Brady for the Republican Governor nomination). Some of them we did not. There are times when that happens that I wonder if voting is an exercise in futility, after all.

Because, when you think about it, if I vote for Candidate A and my wife votes for Candidate B, and her dad votes for Candidate C, while her mom votes for Candidate D, then, really, what's the point?

The point is that, in our small ways, we are making our voices heard. We are saying that not one candidate truly stood out as the one we all agreed upon. This further indicates that each candidate had something to offer that piqued our interests enough to vote for him or her, and that the other candidates did not. And that this was true for all of them.

I think that, in some ways, I like the Primary Elections even more than the General Elections. Even though the United States pays lip-service to the concept of the "third-party", we all know that we are a two-party nation. So When 2,000,001 people vote, and the vote goes 999,999 votes for Candidate A and 1,000,002 votes for Candidate B, then, really, We are looking at no votes for A and 3 votes for B. But not really. Really, it means that the people voting were so evenly split that either candidate would perform equally well. And this is generally what happens. As my rather jaded father-in-law would say, although perhaps not in these words, they all suck equally.

However, the Primary Election allows for a wider selection of candidates, and this is how we see what the voting public really thinks. Each vote represents a viewpoint on a particular issue. I wonder what would happen if we did away with our current electoral system and adopted a broader system, like other nations have, where members of the legislature are forced to form a coalition to accomplish anything. I would like to think that we would have more effective change.

But we still have a two-party system, and if you live in Illinois, you should have voted. If you haven't, you have, as of the writing of this post, approximately three hours to do so. So go vote. Make your voice heard! And, if you are voting on the Republican ballot, vote for Bill Brady!

Today Isn't Anything Important

I am sure that most of you have noticed by now that Gretch doesn't blog. It was her idea to make this blog, although I am certain it was stolen from our many recently-married friends who were joint-blogging. But she says she just doesn't blog much. This is true. When she had to blog for her classes at Parkland, she created the blog and made all of the entries over a weekend, then posted them once a week.

So the responsibility of blogging for us both has been left to me. Unfortunately for Gretch, this means that I have free reign on what I want to write about, and you are all stuck reading it, if you so choose. I assume, however, that lots of folks just ignore the blog, or they see the titles (especially if they are relevant to current news and political currents) and then move on. But the thing is, Gretch told me that this blog is supposed to be about us. For me, that means it is about the things that interest us. I am deeply interested in the world around me, and, after growing up in a home where we discussed politics, philosophy, and religion at the dinner table, it should be no surprise that these topics are of major interest to me. Gretch does not care for these things. She is, thanks in large part to her father, politically apathetic, although, in moments of weakness, she has held her own on ranting about politics. And I have even caught her watch the Fox News Channel alone. So maybe she's just sporadically interested (much as her father is, although I am sure he'll deny it).

One of the many, many, many things I love about my wife is that she loves me enough to put up with my quirks, my interests, and, yes, my borderline obsessive-compulsiveness. She may enjoy torturing me by referring to my letter openers as "knives" (letter openers are as much knives as Snoopy is an insurance salesman), and she laughs at my OCness. But she supports me in all I do. And I support her in all she does. Even if I tease her about the piles of unfinished artwork in the basement, and poke fun of her disinclination to read two or three books a month like I do (at a minimum), I still love her and I still support her.

Which is why, for her birthday, I took it upon myself to find some nice frames for her painting that were hanging in the basement. And for my birthday, she bought me a toolbox, so that my tools are no longer in an ungainly pile at the bottom of the basement stairs. Yes, my birthday isn't until this Tuesday, and her birthday isn't until this Thursday. We both got our presents earlier. I actually picked out my tool box, after at trip to Rural King, which is now on my list of favourite stores. I was planning on waiting until Thursday to give Gretch her gifts, except I forgot to toss the cardboard boxes for the frames, and she saw them on the dining room table. (They were all ripped up, otherwise I would have reused them.)

I'll leave you with a quote from John Crawford:

"The spice [of marriage] is having someone you trust to put up with your quirks and having the joy of putting up with another's. The spice is getting to be a part of someone else's plan without feeling or being used. The spice is giving oneself over to another, taking the risk of intimacy and having it work out."

Today isn't anything important. It isn't my birthday, her birthday, our first anniversary or our second anniversary. It isn't Valentine's Day or Sweetest Day or Non-Denominational Capitalist Gift-Giving Day. It is just Saturday, 23 January 2010. We are going to dinner tonight with the members of our bishopric, and we may be having a photo shoot this afternoon, since Gretch's friend Hannah loves taking our pictures. Today is just one of those many days in which I woke up hours before Gretch. And on this 582nd day of marriage, I am glad that the spice is still there.

Teaching in the Church

Gretch and I are Primary teachers in church. More specifically, we teach the Sunday School class for children who are ten-turning-eleven. This has been a fantastic calling for us. Our class last year apparently adored us, although they seemed reluctant to admit so in class. (The only reason I know this is because most of their parents mentioned this at one time or another, and some of them mentioned it several times. Sometimes on the same day!)

Anyway, we are looking forward to another year of teaching the precious (and precocious) children. We've talked about changes we want to make in our teaching methods this year, and, about the same time, there has been a series of posts over at By Common Consent by John Crawford on Everything That is Wrong with LDS Gospel Teaching. The series is in three parts, and includes probably close to three hundred comments, most of which are very relevant. I highly recommend the reading, but be ready for a long read!

I have been actively participating in the conversation, and I am heartened to know that, with all that is supposedly wrong with LDS gospel teaching, there is a lot right. And despite the doom and gloom that is suggested, I think that things are not as bad as they appear. One of the key points that was made, on several occasions, was that LDS gospel teachers need to pull themselves away from the lesson manuals and focus more on the primary sources (Scriptures and teachings of Latter-day prophets, especially). At some point, after someone mentioned modern pedagogical practices, someone else claimed that such practices have little to no room in LDS gospel teaching. I wholeheartedly disagreed, and shared how the suggestions being made on how to improve teaching are completely support by pedagogy.

I hope to be able to implement some of the ideas from the articles in our teaching efforts this year. I hope that we will be able to help our kids really dig in deep to the teachings of the Scriptures and come to a greater understanding of how to learn and understand the Gospel.

I also hope to remember a statement that John made in the comments in part one: "While crazy is always interesting, I don't think it makes for a good pedagogical model."

The Most Wonderful Time

I'm not really sure why Christmas is called "the most wonderful time of the year" - here in East Central Illinois, it is cold, drab, and grey. Snow won't typically show up until mid-January. Some folks are extra cheery, but they tend to be the folks who are cheery all year long anyway. Folks say that people are more caring and more willing to give during the holiday season, but these days, with the economy still depressed, I don't know that I particularly see it.

Lots of people complain about the commercialisation of Christmas, but that is a complaint that has been around for decades. I admit that I don't understand why Christmas decorations show up in department stores in early November (or even late October). I understand that consumers don't buy stuff for Thanksgiving, but that doesn't really explain why the stores have to jump straight from Halloween to Christmas.

All that being said, I do enjoy the holiday season. It is the time of year that I get new socks, which is always exciting. I like winter, so the added bonus of the eventual dumping of snow on the ground is awesome, and it is just about the only time of the year that I can justify consuming large quantities of hot chocolate.

On top of all that, there are the religious implications. Christmas is the time of year in which we can take time to give especial thought to the birth of Christ, to His life, and His teachings. Of course we should be thinking of Him throughout the year, but this is the one time that we really focus on His birth, which was miraculous, in and of itself. The account given in the Gospel According to St. Luke contains some beautifully written poetic prose (I don't think it was prose originally, but the style in which it is written these days certainly is).

Sometimes it seems that the hardest part of Christmas is being able to answer that age-old question: "What do you want this year?" But, really, my list hasn't really changed much over the past several years. In fact, I could probably pull up my post from a year ago and it would still be valid. However, I don't want a hippopotamus now, as my baby sister got one for us already. I do know that Gretch has decided we need the complete Pixar collection. It is considered a short-coming of ours that we do not own any of them. We do have a couple of the DreamWorks Animation films (Bee Movie, Flushed Away, and Shrek) though. Me, I want a hula hoop.

Economics and Business

President Obama recently held a "Job Summit" to discuss how to get the economy rolling again. Presumably without flooding the market with money that nobody seems to have seen yet. It has been somewhat difficult to track down what was actually accomplished during the job summit, though. I did find a bunch of videos on the White House web site that showed what they talked about, but, of course, all it was was talk.

Looking at them, though, I was struck by something that Linda Chavez wrote on this same subject: "If the president were really serious, he'd put more money back in the hands of those capable of creating jobs — and far more efficiently than government can — individual investors and private business." I concur.

While recognising that part of the growth of our business depends upon the amount of work we have available, there are also limits to the number of employees we can hire. Simply put, our business only has so much money. And when we have to spend X amount of it on taxes and Y amount on paying financial obligations, Z amount on paying for equipment and supplies, there is only so much left over to pay employees.

So, President Obama, if you want businesses to be able to create more jobs, you need to allow businesses to have the capital to pay employees for doing those jobs.

In the meantime, we need to stop spending money we don't have for programs we can't afford. Tighten the belt, cut the spending, and ask everyone in America to contribute equally.

Quotes

"If data cause a re-examination of previously held assumptions, so be it." ~Larry Elder

"Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong." ~Ayn Rand

Discuss.

Changes To The Blog

Due to a recent spat of unwanted visitors to the blog, Gretch and I have decided to turn on comment moderation. For the most part, this won't affect anyone. Only those who choose to spam or otherwise annoy either myself or my wife.

We thought about making the blog private, but then it'd be hard for folks to find us. So as long as you don't say mean things about us or offend my wife, comments will be approved.

Oh, and in case anyone cares, I have gone back and edited at least one post to correct some information, remove some other, more private, information, and clarify some ideas. Have fun figuring out which one I changed!