If I Were President (Final Post)

Sadly, I have not posted since April.  I can adamantly say that I am going to stop this series. The primary reason is that I would not want the job of such a dysfunctional country.  Hopefully, I can pivot back to posting about fun things like poker, golf, puppies, or music.  Politics make me angry and I do not need anger in my life.

During this Covid-19 stay at home situation, it has become glaringly obvious to me that our two-party system is extremely flawed and enables polarization.  We will always be in the situation of having to choose the lesser of two evils.  We need to shift to a Preferential Voting strategy.  Do your homework if you want to know more.  Several states have shifted to this strategy.

I was playing golf last weekend. Two strangers, I played golf with brought up elections.  Their answer was to vote republican then we will figure things out.  To me, that is a clear signal of how divided we are.

I will restate that I have not voted for either of the two primary parties in the past 20 years.  Since I turned 18 years old and could vote I have voted in every election.  Bullwinkle the Moose will likely be my write-in candidate.  The sad news is that if I throw away my vote we will still have an incompetent leader elected as the POTUS.  Honestly, I am not sure what I am going to do, but I will vote.

The other thing that has me so disillusioned is declaring essentially declaring Marshall Law on cities that are lead by the opposite party.  Insanely poor leadership!

I am attempting to become more aware of Inclusion and Diversity.  I am reading some really thought-provoking books, White Fragility by Robin Deangelo and How to Be An Antiracist by Dr. Kendi.  I am almost done with White Fragility.  I think the biggest take away for me is that the game is rigged.  I used to equate the term White supremacy to organizations like KKK.  The book has made me realize it is much broader than that.  

White Fragility will be discussed this evening by a group of esteemed panelists at Southwestern University.

I had the opportunity to listen to Dr. Kendi speak and I was inspired to read his book based on the dialog.

I committed to listening to some podcasts delivered by "people of color".  Unfortunately, my first podcast has me asking more questions.  I was listening to Friends Like Us podcast specifically episode called All that Disparity and Inequality.  I enjoyed the energy and the conversation, but Marina the host made a comment that the "White man is the Devil".  I can only hope that this generalization has more context related to one of the comedians' stand-ups.  I sent Marina an email, but sadly no reply.  Based on my reading this is probably a legit sentiment, but I personally do not find statements like that to add value to the conversation.  It is a polarizing statement.  I hope Marina responds to my email.  I could learn so much from her and her humorous friends.  I will continue to listen to the podcast because as the books above the conversation makes me think.  Update:  Since I posted this I watched some of Marina's comedy on YouTube.  She is hilarious!  

Then once again I was following some current events.  Once again the media does us a huge disservice when they reported the Memphis story where parents dropped off 300 children at a miniature golf course.  The photos I observed seem to imply that is was a racial issue.  This could be my bias showing through. I am trying to work on my biases, but my trust in the media is so low that I wanted to know more. 

Regardless, I will continue my learning journey.  I will do my best to assume positive intent on everything I watch, read, or listen to.  

If I were President (Covid-19 Part 2)

I never thought I would get anxiety going for groceries.  So much as changed in the past 45 days or so.  I thought I would write weekly and continue this post and share perspectives on some of the tough things in our world like abortion, immigration, and health insurance.  Now I am not sure I will ever get to those posts nor if I want to spend the time writing those posts.

What have I learned since Covid-19? 

I started watching a Netflix series called Dirty Money.  I honestly had no clue how fucking corrupt our world really is.  I suspect the series is relatively truthful, but I honestly do not know.  Just the thought of what some of these people do to make money is disturbing.  A co-worker called out I was not setting a great tone during a virtual happy hour.  He was right, but these acts are shocking.  The episode on Guardianship absolutely broke me.

We also watched another series called "Broken".  As a former Environmental Chemist, I was appalled by the business tactics represented in this series.  A great documentary series but again highlights the evil in our world today.

These documentaries set the stage.

The United States (maybe the world) is so polarized that I am not sure we will ever recover.  As of today, I have decided I must stop using Facebook so frequently.  I may look once a week to see positive things, but even the diverse people I call friends have so much angst.    Especially when it comes to politics.  Family members are not even willing to have a deep conversation on topics.  There is such an "I (we) are right" and "you (y' all) are wrong" mindset.  I deleted the Facebook app from my phone. I am considering the same action for Twitter and Slack.  The always-on aspect of the digital age is starting to take a toll on me.

Special interests, corruption, and pure greed rule the day.  When it comes to Congress passing bills there are always contingencies that have nothing to do with the problem at hand.  The attitude seems to be I will sign the bill if you do this for me.   Oh wait, then you need to do that too.

Our economic system appears to be so fragile.  I would never imagine a virus would bring a global economy to its knees in such short order.  Our world is made up of monopoly money and we simply grab another game set to increase the amount.  Our daughter lost her first job that she absolutely loved.  She is heartbroken and so are we.  Millions of people are now unemployed and there is no money to support them all.  I am blessed to still be employed, but I am not happy.  Some talented people are now struggling to find their next opportunity.  Again this breaks my heart because they are great people.  I would like to try something new, but fear gets in the way.  Will we have good insurance to support our illnesses and age?  Will taking the risk of change generate enough income to at least sustain what we do today?  Probably a third of the retirement savings vanished.  I am afraid to look.  I would love to retire in 10 years, but I do not see it happening.  Under the current conditions, there is most likely a higher probability I will not make it to retirement.

People are hungry and some are unable to get food.  Covid-19 has exposed how vulnerable the food supply chain truly is.  I am eating less healthy than I should.  I used to walk at least 4 days per week, but now the motivation is hard to muster and I am lucky to go twice per week.  When I do go for a walk I hope I do not encounter other humans.  I do not like wearing a mask.  I do say good morning or Hi when I encounter others.

I am trying to remain positive, but when I glance at the future the only choices I see are not good.  I used to view politicians as role models and today they are the total opposite.  Social media and the general media cannot be trusted.  We are left to our own processing of data to form any sense of the madness.  What fucking sources do we trust?  I trust none of them. 

At the end of the day, I know what I stand for and what I have accomplished in life.  I am proud of these accomplishments and the family we have fostered.  I feel I could go on and on and on.  I will end with this.  Everyone should do at least one kind thing a day. 

I am starting to get lost.

If I Were President ( COVID-19 )

Based on my outline of topics this was certainly not present in the draft outline.  The first guide to all of the people is to be safe and respectful of others.

As President, the first thing to do is to assemble the most brilliant doctors and scientists to develop the right strategy for our country.  Based on limited reading this did not appear to happen.

In general, I struggle with the First Amendment as it pertains to potential national emergencies.  As the COVID-19 news broke there seemed to be so much misleading information in haste to get the news out.  The public seems confused and that should not happen.  The other negative is immediately the blame game emerged.  Depending on the media source there was finger-pointing at both primary parties.  I support the First Amendment, but I would welcome the opportunity to go back in time when facts and integrity were foundational to the news we receive.  Despite the news source, the facts should be the facts.  Speculation and sensationalism bring little value when we are facing a global problem.  I am truly perplexed on how a President, Government, or Society can correct this news ship.  I will have to come back to this concern in a future post.

For the past few months, I have been diligently studying resiliency as applied to software.  The one primary lesson for me is that in order to get a deep understanding of an incident is we must be blameless.  The term blameless seems to have become a cliche, but it is really true.  COVID-19 is an international incident and the world should inspect deeply all of the things that have emerged.  I thought humans were naturally resilient, but human factors are as complex as our biological chemistry.  It is perplexing that many times the first thing that happens is to blame.  We should form a strategy to mitigate the problem, then analyzing deeply what happened and what could change for the better.

I am puzzled by some of the human factors during this Global Incident.  Specifically the panic purchasing and the hoarding of goods.  This is a psyche that I do not understand.  Are we truly a global "me" society and not a "we" society.  I think this is the most disturbing aspect of the human factors influencing the COVID-19.  As a society are we going to instrument circuit breakers for groceries similar to the stock market.  I am going to have to talk with many people with varying views on this topic to better understand the psyche.  I am certain I have some sort of bias, but I am confident if I needed help some of my human networks would come to aid.  I hope those people who hoarded items, even fought over items, reflect on their actions.

If I were President, we would have to assemble strong business leaders to craft a strategy to help those who cannot work from home and temporarily would be without wages.  I would encourage businesses to continue to pay their employees so that we can survive this Pandemic. 

If I were President, I would have to thank everyone around the globe who is manning the hospitals.  Everyone who has chosen to self-quarantine.  All businesses that quickly took action with work from home policies to flatten the spread of this virus.  All of the experts who produced consumable data and facts that make sense.  All of the individuals who were disciplined and purchased what was needed.

Be kind to all!

If I Were President (Introduction)

This is intended to be a series of posts that I have been thinking about for some time.  I do not believe politics belong on Facebook or Twitter.  If you want to express political views write a blog, so join me on this journey.  Challenge any piece you wish with peaceful comments.

First of all the unfortunate truth is that I could never be President with the current state of things.  I am not a billionaire, a millionaire, nor willing to be bought by some damn greedy corporations.  The blogpost is over.  No, it is not!  What would need to change?

This past Tuesday was the primaries.  I had no primary to vote in.  The first thing that we should consider changing is that there should be a primary for all potential political parties.  For several elections in the past 20 years, I have abstained from the two primary parties or went into a party to demonstrate that I was willing to vote. The fact is that the two parties of power are simply not pragmatic and frankly they are polarizing.  The second thing that seemed truly frustrating about this recent primary was all of the ridiculous poll questions people were asked to weigh in on.  I think those need to move to a separate format so that voters can get things done quickly.  I read that some people in Texas waited 8 hours to vote.  The purpose of the primary becomes focused on reducing the number of candidates and that is all.  Maybe we use Survey Monkey to poll the people

The biggest obstacle to becoming President is money.  My proposal would be comprised of two key things.  The first is every Presidential candidate gets a fixed sum of money to campaign with.  The question is what might be an adequate sum of campaign funds for the primary.  I would propose $500k.  The candidates would complain that it is nowhere near enough money.  Candidates would have to get creative.  The second part of the proposal is that there would be taxpayer funding for public TV and radio channels for candidates to express their views and frankly have professional debates.  Each candidate gets the exact same amount of air time.   All debates are on these channels and all candidates are invited.  Prior to the primary, these debates would be party specific. As a side note, I recall during the last Presidential election there was a congress or senate race in Florida where the candidates spent almost $700 Million.  To me, that is a huge problem because think of all the social good we could do with that amount of money.  This is where the taxpayer-funded TV and radio channels come into play.  We have to stop individuals and corporations from buying elections.

So my party, The Pragmatic Party, now has a primary.  The candidates are all on the same footing as all other parties.  I convince the people that my ideas are reasonable.  The people select me as a candidate.

We move into the Presidential election.  The funding increases slightly $1M per party candidate.  There is more air time because we have fewer candidates.  The candidates have their portion of the air time to convince the people of their ideas.  These amounts can change but they would come from a balanced government budget.

I would require that we operate our government with a balanced budget.  Our monopoly money society has probably made this damn near impossible, but we need to do something.  I am not sure about everyone else, but I do not feel that the tax dollars I contribute are put to good use at all.  I feel the tax dollars are lining the pockets of the greedy or are supported by the greedy or are fueled yet by more greed.  I have worked hard and yes I do want to live a wonderful life. Today to have a good life takes money, but do we need millions or billions? 

While I am living in fantasy land there are a couple of other things I would require.  And the biggest one is term limits.  Two terms for the President make sense and should not change.  For congress, we should also apply the same term limit.  It is really a problem that we have had people in congress for 40 plus years.  People tell me the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again.

So I have been elected, we have formed a plan that will not spend more than we take in in tax dollars.  There is no corporate influence.  Ending lobbyists would be a good thing in my opinion. There is one more thing that must be done.  Bills flowing through Congress can have only a single purpose.  Riders and clauses cannot be added.  We vote on one thing at a time.  I just read today that the Covid-19 bill was denied because of the pork fat added in by our political heroes.  I was devasted years ago when a rider was added to the port authority act to halt online poker in the US.  Did Congress know that was part of the bill?  More importantly, did the public?  I am not the most informed, but I was certainly surprised.  There went my entertainment where I was actually making a small amount of supplemental income.

"IF I Were President" I would end daylight savings time!

Finally. "If I Were President", I would run our government using Agile methodologies.  We would be lean, transparent, and iterative.  We would have a public kanban board where everyone can see what we are working on.  Hopefully, we did a great job of socializing the why and the value of the outcomes.

There are many other complexities that I am probably naive to, but this is where I would start.  One last thing I would completely eliminate is all of the signage placed on fences, billboards, and popping up at voting centers.  This is nothing but pollution!

2018 is Here

What went well on New Year's Eve?

I was able to use my Big Green Egg for the first time to cook a couple of pork tenderloins.  I struggled to keep the correct temperature, but I think I am going to be able to make some amazing food on the Big Green Egg.

We had a nice bonfire and our son had some friends over to roast marshmallows and make S'mores.

I enjoyed a couple of glasses of wine, Lagavulin, and a shot of chocolate chili tequila.

I won a couple of small stakes Sit N Go tournaments.

What did not go so well?

Fireworks caused our dog to leave a trail of pee throughout the house.  Nothing like mopping up pee on New Year's Eve.  Fireworks are banned from our neighborhood but do not stop anyone.

What is ahead in 2018?

I think there is definitely some significant changes heading our way.  We shall see.

Happy New Year!

Invisibility

My current theory is that stop signs are invisible.

Yesterday coming back from the Farmers Market, a guy just turned left in front of me without ever stopping at the stop sign.  One must support the local farmers!

A few weeks ago someone was killed in our neighborhood while walking and another person was injured.

About a month ago my wife witnessed someone run 3 stop signs in a row.

Everyone should slow down, enjoy life, and see those stops signs.

Merry Christmas!

Global Poker

I have been playing for awhile on a site called GlobalPoker.com.  They had an interesting way of getting around the stupid appended amendment to the Port Authority act (circa 2006 maybe).  You buy gold coins and they give you "Sweeps cash".

I am a grinder at low stakes and have had many ups and downs.  This is a conspiracy theory, but I honestly question the randomness of their algorithm.  I wish I had tracked the number of times I have lost on the river.

Last night I hit the nut flush on the turn only to lose to quad 3's on the river.  Yes, it could be me just losing my ass and bitter.  It could be the fact that I play for low stakes so no one gives a shit and calls with anything.  Needless to say, it is frustrating.  I have had countless hours of fun!

Now that I am frustrated can anyone recommend other poker sites that permit US citizens to play for money?  Ideally, I would like a site that has freerolls so I can spin gold out of nothing.

Play On!