The Election

I came into the voting booth about 2003 November 4 0620 in the morning. The big race that was talked about all over the place was the Bermuda District Supervisor race. So that was the one I was concerned about. I thought there would be other races, but no one ever talked about any of them. No TV show, no newspaper, no signs littering the landscape said anything about any other race. So when I walked into the booth I was surprised to be confronted with about 10 different elections! There were unopposed races for state assemblyman and senator. I was opposed to both unopposed candidates so I took the action that was suggested by someone at the Toastmasters convention I want to last weekend. The winner of the Humorous contest spoke with a title of "Vote for Me", where he said what he would do if he were running for Governor of Virginia. That someone suggested the idea of writing him in. The election PTB (powers that be) will be befuddled by this one person getting votes in several counties and cities. So I did it. I wrote him in on my ballot.

But there were other races. There was county treasurer, school board, county sheriff, and a couple of others. I did not know anything about these people, and some of these were contested. I just skipped them. I had wanted to know about these before the election. The hypermedia centered in this one race in Bermuda and perhaps a few others and completely ignored the others. I think they did the people of Chesterfield County, Virginia a disservice. It used to be that the local newspaper (Richmond Times-Dispatch) would list all these ballots, but I saw absolutely no sign of this in the past Sunday paper. Now maybe they squirreled it away under some ads, but I could not find it. I think from now on the hypermedia should quit harping about contested races and tell us about all the candidates who are running. The first duty of a citizen is to be in the know about who is running the government or who is running for running the government, and the media made it hard for the citizen to fulfill this duty.

Longhorn: What I would like to see

The history of computers over the past decade or so has been a history of version after version of Microsoft Windows coming out. There was Chicago (Windows 95), and then Memphis (Windows 98?) and Cairo (Windows 2000) and Windows ME. Then Whistler (Windows XP). Each one came with its own set of conniptions. Some things became better. Others became worse. Many items have shifted from place to place, from the Control Panel to Explorer to the Desktop Menu in a dizzying circle. People can't find things because they have been shifted around so much.

In particular for Windows XP, I find that the Find utility has been dumbed down and is no longer as valuable. I had to download Effective File Search to get an adequate search replacement for Windows Find, which I find sometimes does not find when it should. Windows insists on throwing up these dumb huge icons in its Explorer windows, which means I can't see the items on the list but must shift through visually through a forest of symbols. You have to explicitly set for each Explorer window whether to bigicon the files or to list them in a detailed list. In one version I have seen, deleting a tray icon deleted a desktop icon and vice versa. That I don't like. It means I either have to give up my desktop's usefulness, or I have to give up the taskbar.

So what would I like to see in a new version of Windows? I want to see DOS maintained and all DOS programs runnable. I want a Find and an Explorer similar to previous versions, not to XP. I want the Classic interface to return as the default. Luna means you can't find what you are looking for. I want the default for Explorer to be to include the file extension. That is an important part of the file name. MyData.txt is different from MyData.doc is different from MyData.csv is different from MyData.xls. I don't want all four of them to appear in a list entitled "Mydata". That is mass confusion. Most of all I want it to support all types of programs including standard Java. I don't want .NET and only .NET, which is where Microsoft seems to be headed.

But I don't know if I will get these items. Most likely I will get an operating system that will discombobulate much of what I have, and will cost me more frustration and time than having to put up with the signs of aging of an older interface would.

Chesterfield County elections

An important election is that of Bermuda District, Chesterfield County, Virginia, USA, supervisor. This supervisor is one of a board of five supervisors, one for each of the districts in Chesterfield County. There are three candidates: an incumbent independent Jack McHale, a Democrat Ree Hart, and a Republican Dickie King. So which of these am I going to vote for?

National affiliation. That an Independent is the incumbent is a wonder to behold. That is in Jack McHale's favor. He's been at the job for 12 years! I tend to favor Democrats over Republicans but I take each case separately. Nevertheless this would have me favoring Ree Hart over Dickie King.

Developers. This is a serious issue. The developers come in here, plow down our trees, removing our landscape's beauty and destroying the habitat for a number of species, build houses and sell them via realtors to people who clog the highways with children who crowd the schools. The politicians talk about school problems. They talk about highway needs. No. That's not the main point. Both of these problems will be resolved if the developers are kept in check. Which candidate is best for doing that? Well, since I have seen all sorts of development here, that disfavors McHale, the incumbent.

Schools. Jack McHale has voted to decrease property taxes, and this supposedly hurts the schools. Only if the politicians let it. They can decrease property taxes and increase them somewhere else or cut back on other budget items. Further, the main problem is not taxes or schools but developers.

Roads. There are several needs for roads in the county, and traffic jams are on the increase. Limiting development is the best way to deal with road problems.

But the biggest issue for me is the refusal by the board to allow Cyndi Simpson, a Wiccan, to give invocations to the Board of Directors, while allowing Christian and Muslim religious leaders to give invocations. I want to vote for a candidate that will allow her to give invocations. Apparently Jack McHale has not been with the rest of the board on this. When I asked Ree Hart about it, she was wishy-washy about it and said she was Christian. So I am not certain about her. Dickie King appanretly thinks the Board is a private club for whom the invocations serve only it, not the rest of the community. Mr. King, the Board is a public institution. There is no privacy on the board. If you let a Christian give an invocation, you must let Ms. Simpson give one too. As far as I am concerned, Dickie King is out.

That leaves Jack McHale and Ree Hart. I feel that Dickie King's stand on the invocation issue is so extreme that the first priority is to defeat him. That means choosing which of Ree and Jack is most likely to win. From what I hear, Ree is. So I may vote for her. But in truth, this is a difficult decision to make between these two. I am sure either is capable of serving us well.