Just a few quick notes, then I’m gonna go to bed. (Or, more accurately, I’ll go to couch. Dagmar’s in bed and I hate to disturb her when she’s sleeping. She reminds me of a cat when she sleeps – completely, 100%, utterly content and relaxed. It’s a thing to behold.)

Things have been busy lately! The Smokin’ Clams had two gigs this past weekend, which kept us hopping. Guitarist Monte Erickson got a phone call during the gig Saturday night – his wife went into labor. So he skeedaddled on back to Sioux City, and the rest of us finished the gig the best we could. A healthy Eric Robert Erickson was born Sunday. Both Dagmar and I are all excited… It’s just plain cool.

Dagmar was away to a conference most of last week – I’m happy she’s home again!

I’m on day 23 without a cigarette. It’s getting easier, but it still seems like I spend the majority of each day struggling. I imagine I’ll be fairly normal again by Halloween…

Too tired to think, really. (Not that I think much when I’m alert, actually…) More later!

Has anyone been following the elections in Ohio? A republican (Jean Schmidt) won by a narrow margin a few days ago. The democrat, Paul Hackett, was a Major in the Marines, voluntarily served in Iraq, and is also a lawyer. That sets the stage…

Rush Limbaugh, well-known right-wing talk show host, criticized Hackett for his service in Iraq, saying he was a “staff puke” who never saw combat. In fact, Limbaugh said this repeatedly. That made me wonder what Limbaugh’s military record holds. Did Limbaugh see combat? Is that why he seems so bitter that Hackett volunteered to go to Iraq and ended up serving in a non-combat role? Is Limbaugh traumatized by his service in Vietnam?

Well, it turns out that Limbaugh never did serve in the military. During his year (singular) in college, Limbaugh naturally had a college deferment (2-S). After his year in college, Limbaugh was given a 1-Y classification, meaning that he was eligible for military service only in case of emergency. (This was later changed to 4-F.) Limbaugh’s classification as not eligible for military service is due to Limbaugh submitting his doctor’s report to the draft board. It turns out that Limbaugh suffered from (and presumably still suffers from) a pilonidal cyst on his posterior. (Limbaugh, by the way, has told people on his radio show that he was ineligible for the draft due to a high school football injury to his knee. His coach, however, does not remember Limbaugh suffering any knee injury in the one season Limbaugh played football.) source

So, a man who got out of military service in Vietnam because of a boil on his butt very loudly called a Major in the Marines, who volunteered for service in Iraq, a “staff puke” and condemned him for not serving in a combat role.

Limbaugh, incidentally, called the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse “a good time.” In fact, the exact quote is: “I’m talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of need to blow some steam off?” Blowing off steam for me is having a beer with the guys, not lining up naked prisoners in sexual positions. Limbaugh followed with: “have you people noticed who the torturers are? Women! The babes! The babes are meting out the torture.” source Maybe Limbaugh just needs to be spanked? Oh yeah, the boil. I forgot.

In news closer to home, I found out today that Woodbury County is the most polluted county in Iowa, and is releasing more toxins than any other county in the state. The culprit? MidAmerican Energy. source The top five polluters in Woodbury County are:

1. MidAmerican Energy, Sergeant Bluff plant.
2. MidAmerican Energy, Salix plant.
3. Terra Nitrogen, Sergeant Bluff.
4. Ag Processing Inc., Sergeant Bluff.
5. Sioux City Brick and Tile, Sergeant Bluff.

Maybe we could write some letters to MidAmerican? You can contact them here. (I’m sure MidAmerican does a good job at what they do – I have no complaints about their service – but I’m sure they can find a way to clean up their act.)

First off, a public “Thank You” to fellow Smokin’ Clam Tim Schenzel – one of our cars developed a flat tire, and Tim was gracious enough to drag his very own personal air compressor all the way across town. Not only did he fill the tire, but he put goop in it, too. And he broke the stem of his compressor hose. And he scraped up his knuckles. And I thank him! Unfortunately, despite Tim’s best ministrations, the tire won’t hold air. Ma and Pa are bringing their little itty-bitty portable air tank in to town for me so I can pump the tire up in the morning and sprint the car the three blocks to Ben Fish Tire to get it fixed. Thanks, folks!

The Clams had a good gig Friday night – we played at Rhonda’s here in town. It felt like we played well. We had a good crowd! I’m still working on getting the pictures on the Clam’s website. I should have them on-line by tomorrow…

Watch your drug interactions. My beloved bride Dagmar started taking a dietary supplement last Tuesday. Since then, she’s been very confused (she went to the store and couldn’t remember her PIN number and had to come home to get cash), emotional (she’s had at least one inexplicable, public crying jag), headachy (“I don’t have a headache,” she told me, “but my brain hurts like it’s burning on top”), and gradually getting more and more ill (icky tummy and cramps and stuff). It took us quite a while to realize that all these things might be related, and even longer to track down the problem. She quit taking the dietary supplement and she’s been rapidly improving. The moral? Read the labels!

Two weeks, no cigarettes. It doesn’t bother me much, except when I’m awake… (Actually, it’s getting easier. When I’m at home I hardly ever think about smoking any more, but when I’m at work or with the band it’s MUCH harder. But manageable. I’m estimating, based on past experience, that I have another couple weeks before I start to feel truly comfortable again, and in six to eight weeks I should be at the point where I can function normally in public.)

Here’s a question for you… Our government claims to be anti-tobacco. So why is it that a pack of cigarettes is so much cheaper than a pack of nicotine gum, or the patch? Did you know that Zyban costs well over a hundred dollars for one month? They recommend you take it for three months… It’s hard for a smoker to rationalize something like that. “Hmmm… Do I spend over three hundred dollars for medication to help me do something I don’t want to do? Or do I spend four bucks on a pack of cigarettes? Hmmm…” If the government TRULY wanted us off nicotine, they’d subsidize the various cures so the average smoker could afford to quit instead of subsidizing the tobacco farmers. Between 2000 and 2003 the government has given out more than $530,000,000 to tobacco farmers. source In 1999 alone, the government gave $328,000,000 to tobacco farmers to make up for their lost profits due to declining cigarette sales. source (Nothing against the tobacco farmers, mind you, they’re just trying to make a living. But instead of the government giving them money to grow tobacco, wouldn’t it be better if the government gave them money to grow something else?)

I read in a “quit smoking” forum recently that a newspaper once published a list of doctors in that area who owned tobacco stock. What a way to make money! Invest in something that will eventually bring business coughing to your door. Wow. I’d like to find out if it’s still true…

Here are some of the stranger things I’ve heard and/or read in the past few days.

“…some people don’t want [insurance] – like the Amish.” – Republican Senator Rick Santorum (Harrisburg Patriot, 10 June 1997)

This is just plain spooky. Senator Santorum, a man in power, believes that millions of people don’t have insurance because they don’t want it? Tell that to the people in MY neighborhood…

“The notion that college education is a cost-effective way to help poor, low-skill, unmarried mothers with high school diplomas or GEDs move up the economic ladder is just wrong.” – Republican Senator Rick Santorum in his book It Takes A Family.

Oh. Hmmm… So, poor, low-skill, unmarried mothers with high school diplomas or GEDs can move up the economic ladder… how? Evidently, not by learning a skill or furthering their education.

“…the question about lobbying on the questionnaire did not trigger a memory…” – Supreme Court nominee John Roberts in a letter to Senator Patrick Leahy.

Turns out that Roberts was a political lobbyist for the Cosmetics, Toiletries and Fragrances Association. But somehow, when he saw a question asking “have you ever been a lobbyist,” it just didn’t trigger a memory. Funny, if someone asked me, “have you ever worked as a circus clown,” chances are I would remember…

“Rafael Palmeiro is a friend. He testified in public and I believe him. He’s the kind of person that’s going to stand up in front of the klieg lights and say he didn’t use steroids, and I believe him. Still do.” – U.S. President George Walker Bush

Unfortunately, President Bush said this after baseball star Palmeiro (who testified in front of a House committee last March, saying he’d never used steroids) tested positive for steroid use. I don’t understand this one. The man has steroids in his system, yet the President insists the guy’s innocent. How odd. Maybe the steroids got into his system by divine intervention?

In other odd news, Republican Senator Bill Frist pulled the year’s defense spending bill off the floor, saying that it was wrong for the Senate to question ANY defense spending during a time of war. (Just out of curiosity, who are we at war with anyway? Didn’t we win Iraq a long time ago? The War On Terror has been changed to The Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism, so that’s not a war any more…) In other words, Senator Frist is unhappy that people would want to trim defense spending, even though last year the United States spent more on its military than the rest of the world combined spent on military. Evidently that’s not good enough. Republican Senator John McCain, along with two other Senators, wanted to tack an amendment on the budget regulating the Pentagon’s interrogation and prosecution of prisoners (remember Abu Ghraib?), but President Bush promised to veto any bill with any amendment that restricts the military. McCain, incidentally, was held prisoner in Vietnam for five years. And tortured.

What’s wrong with the Geneva Conventions? When did we decide to quit abiding by them? The U.S. originally signed the first Geneva Convention way back in 1882. As recently as a few years ago, Donald Rumsfeld (rightly) threw a ruckus claiming the Iraqis were violating the Geneva Conventions when they videotaped five American prisoners. (This would fall under the “Prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity” clause of the 1949 Convention.) But, for some reason, Rumsfeld didn’t see anything wrong with the United States’ photographing Iraqi prisoners in shackles and hoods. Hmmm… Mr. Rumsfeld later claimed that the detainees don’t qualify for the Geneva Conventions because they are “unlawful combatants.” This seems to be a category that Rumsfeld has invented on his own – it’s not found in any language in the Geneva Conventions, nor in any other international treaty. source

So, the upshot of all of this is that our government has abandoned ethical treatment of prisoners of war and “detainees,” and will veto any attempt by our legislatures to rectify that situation. While I have no love for those who have committed acts of terror against the U.S., I think that this position our government has assumed sets a very dangerous precedent. I would certainly hate to be taken prisoner by our enemies now that they know we’re not treating prisoners well here…

I’ve not smoked for a week and a half now. I’m starting to mutter rude things under my breath (and over my breath, and occasionally into a microphone, unfortunately) and throw things at people. Lord, please give my friends patience… I kinda like ’em.

Last Monday President George Walker Bush appointed John Bolton as Ambassador to the United Nations. To me it seems like a blatant abuse of power. Consider – President G. W. Bush first mentioned Bolton as a candidate for the post five months ago. Immediately, red flags went up – not just with the Democrats, but also with the press, Washington insiders, and some Republicans. For five months, we’ve heard plenty about Bolton, not much of it good. The man has been abusive to subordinates, he has asked his subordinates to change the facts in their reports to match his personal view, he has pushed to find the names of confidential sources – sources who HELPED the U.S., he once said in public that the United Nations was “irrelevant” and that the U.N. consisted of one member – the U.S. This is not a good way to make friends. Republican Senator George Voinovich said Bolton is “the poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be.” source Hmmm…

President George W. Bush needed 60 Senatorial votes to get the Bolton nomination approved (as I understand the situation). He did not have the necessary votes. So, using a little-known clause in the Constitution, Mr. G. Walker Bush simply waited until the lawmakers were gone and pushed through a recess appointment. While legal, in my opinion this action is neither ethical nor moral. A recess appointment was meant to cover emergencies – not as a way to get an unpopular nominee into power. President Bush remarked that he took this action because the U.S. should not have a vacancy in the U.N. during a time of war. True… But the post has been vacant for six months already, and the Senate will be in session again in just one month (I think). Mr. Bush also commented that the legislature was unfairly blocking and stonewalling the nomination. Well, Mr. Bush’s political party is in the majority, so getting 60 votes shouldn’t be a problem if the nominee were fit for the post – and from what I hear, the only reason the nomination stalled is that the Bush administration refused to release certain documents about Mr. Bolton. If President Bush would have turned over these documents, the Senate could have given Mr. Bolton an up or down vote. Simple as that.

How does this affect us? After all, I live in Iowa – far, far away from all this ruckus.

Well, this appointment does several things for the United States. First, it shows to the rest of the world that we are a nation divided, and that our President and his administration truly don’t care about that division. Secondly, he’s putting a man who many feel is unfit and unqualified into a position where he represents the United States to the rest of the world. Thirdly, Mr. Bush’s appointment of a man who openly snubbed the United Nations TO the United Nations (sounds like a bad joke) shows to the rest of the world that the Bush administration honestly thinks that the United States is the only nation in the world – that the administration thinks of the U.N. as a powerless joke. That is unfortunate indeed.

Did you know that member nations of the United Nations pay dues? Did you know that in 2004 the U.N. was $2.4 billion in debt. Did you know that nearly half that debt is because the United States has consistently failed to pay dues? The U.S. pays somewhere around 22% of the administrative budget of the U.N. and 27% of the peacekeeping budget source. That averages to about 25% of the U.N.’s total budget (I think – this is unverified), but the U.S. is responsible for HALF the U.N.’s debts. We’re slackers. The U.S. is a deadbeat dad – has been since the Reagan administration.

Now we’ve appointed Mr. John Bolton to the U.N. to represent us. I’m sure the rest of the world is giddy with glee… Especially as the United Nations is going through a period of rebuilding itself. The U.S. is pushing certain items on the agenda – notably blocking several nations from the proposed Security Council expansion. There are currently 15 members on the Security Council, but for the past ten years there have been negotiations and such to expand the Council to 25 seats. From what I’ve heard of Mr. Bolton, he’s probably not going to be very polite or diplomatic in stating the administration’s position that this should NOT happen. (India, one of the nations pushing the proposal, is an important trading partner of the United States. And they have nukes. We should at least be polite to them – they’re our friends!) The U.N. is also involved in mucking about with Korea’s nuclear armament. I’m worried that Mr. Bolton may poison those talks as well.

In short, it’s a worrisome development. I apologize if I have any of my facts wrong – I’m writing this off the top of my head for the most part. If there are any errors, they’re unintentional.

Well, I’m going on day ten without smoking. It’s getting a little easier, but I think it’s going to continue to be a challenge for quite some time. I’m fighting over twenty years of accumulated habits and mindsets… The reason I’m awake at five in the morning is that I keep dreaming of cigarettes. It’s easier to be awake.

I seem to have picked up a case of the Screamin’ Gottahaveits. For some reason, I gotta have an iPod. To be honest, I don’t know what I’d do with one if I managed to get my grubby little paws on an iPod, but I gotta have one. (Actually, it’d be nice to have in the car or on the bike or when the band’s setting up or when I’m mowing or shovelling snow.) Kind of a bummer they’re $400… That’s more than my weekly paycheck. I need to talk myself out of this, but I’m notorious for not being able to do that. If a cool gadget comes along, sooner or later I’ll end up with one. I positively HATE talking on the phone, but I have a neat little flip-open cell phone that I can take pictures with. I also have a digital camera, though until six months ago I’d shown no interest in photography. I have to admit, though, that I use the phone quite a bit, and Dagmar and I take between 150 and 200 photos a week with the camera – so the gadgets DO get used.

But I really don’t need an iPod. I think I may be falling prey to marketing. For the price of an iPod I could make a pretty good credit card payment. I must keep in mind that iPods will still be around in fifteen or twenty years when I get all my credit cards payed off. THEN I can get a toy.

What put me on this little iPod rant this morning was an e-mail I got about Cheerios. “Take our survey and get a year’s supply of Cheerios,” said the e-mail. Being the cynic I am, I went to the Internet and Googled “Cheerios Survey.” I found that the company doing the survey seems to give away a lot of stuff – “seems” being the operative word. There were many complaints on the web from people who were waiting for their “prizes” or “promotional offers” from the survey company. So I declined to take the survey, though I do like Cheerios quite a bit (oh, those tasty O’s). But, whilst researching a year’s supply of Cheerios, I ran across an inordinate number of websites claiming to give away free iPods to people who take their survey or answer their questions. I just can’t believe it’s true, so I’m not gonna do it. But I have to admit I’m curious as to how the scam works. If I figure it out, I’ll let you know…

On a completely different (and slightly more important) subject – our government has managed to throw an energy bill together. It seems that they’re using the “Patriot Act” theory of pushing things through the government – three paragraphs of bold print, followed by hundreds of pages of fine print. How many of our esteemed Senators or Representatives do you think actually read the 1,725 page bill?

A few things I’ve learned whilst searching the Internet… The bill gives $3.1 billion in tax incentives to renewable energy sources. That’s laudable and good. The bill also gives $2.6 billion to the oil companies. That’s not so good. Compare the $2.6 billion the oil companies get to the $200 million the bill gives to research bio-based fuels and you know where our administration’s heart lies. (A billion is one thousand million, mind you. The difference is considerable.) According to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, the bill as passed will save the U.S. one-half of one percent of 2020 oil use. That’s not much.

There are good things in the bill as well, though. Daylight Savings Time will be a month longer now. And someone’s getting $10 million to promote commuting by bicycle. There will be a boost to Midwest agriculture, as the bill is expected to double the use of ethanol and biodiesel. But, in my admittedly casual research, I’ve not run across any provision in the bill that truly promotes hydrogen as a fuel, or anything that will considerably lessen our dependence on foreign oil – both things that President Bush has promised us.

We WILL run out of oil in my lifetime. (Current estimates are 25 years.) That WILL cause our economy, as it is now, to collapse. Remember, oil isn’t just used for fuel – plastics, my boy, plastics! We need to pull our heads out of the sand – soon.

Noonish
Day four without a cigarette. It’s not getting any easier. I still feel short of breath constantly, but I’m always close to hyperventilating at the same time. My heart starts pounding so hard I’m surprised people around me can’t feel it. Bits and pieces of me go numb for no apparent reason from time to time. Three and a half days and I’ll be through the first week. Things should get easier then.

I hope I get my sense of humor back someday.

10:30 p.m.
Hey, I made it through rehearsal without too much of a problem! (Thanks Dan!) Things are starting to look up. A couple more months and I should be done with this silly smoking thing…

Day three of not smoking. It’s 1:37 a.m. and I’ve already been up for an hour…

I’m not looking forward to today at all. It’s been said that the third day is the hardest – something about the body being in the last throes of the physical addiction. (Ever notice that nothing is ever in the first throes? It’s always the final throes or the last throes…) It’s an odd feeling – the heart races, I find myself holding my breath so I don’t hyperventilate, odd shots of adrenaline at strange times, my skin feels like it’s crawling off me sometimes. I’ve even caught my eyes trying to cross every now and then. Strange little surges of anger at random times. Last time I quit smoking I had to find a completely new set of friends – I hope that doesn’t happen this time!

On a completely unrelated topic – it looks like our 95+ temperatures are finished. We’ve been in the upper 90s or lower 100s for a few weeks now. With any luck I’ll be able to get the bike out again! (Riding in this weather is like, oh, sitting in front of your TV watching the Travel Channel, holding a blow dryer in front of your face.) Tomorrow’s high is 73. It’s been weeks since I’ve been able to do any yardwork – it’s just been too hot! So I mow tomorrow. Then I trim. Then I sweep. Then I mow again. (I have a reel mower. It’s nice, but not the most efficient mower when the grass is long. Sometimes I gotta mow the same patch three times.)

It’s now 2:05 a.m. – I’ve managed to fill 28 minutes without smoking. Only 22 more hours and I’m done with day three.

6:18 a.m.
Slept a few hours – the cat snoozed on my feet. I just heard one of the dumbest things I’ve heard in a long time. I can understand banning smoking in SMALL restaurants, but New Jersey is trying to draw a new line in the sand. They’re trying to fine people $250 for smoking in their own cars. To me, that’s government intrusion at its worst. If they can prove, scientifically, that smoking in a car increases the chance of an accident, then fine – BAN CARS. Make ’em all drive Segways. Let’s face it – as long as we all insist on driving cars, there will be those that insist on driving drunk or on a cell phone. One of my goofy little daydreams is to sit in a hydrogen powered fuel cell car reading a book whilst it tootles itself down an automated highway.

Having grown up in the midwest, I have ridden on mass transit systems five times in my life (not counting the school bus when I was a kid). A bus trip and two airplane trips for the military, a plane trip for a band, and an Amtrack trip for Boy Scouts. That makes me sad. I’m almost 40. Would I take advantage of mass transit? Not the way it is now in Sioux City… I would, though, if there was a bus or train to Omaha or Sioux Falls from here. At today’s gas prices, it’d even make a certain amount of sense to take a bus to Omaha and hire a taxi to take you where you needed to go.

Well, that little rant distracted my nicotine-deprived brain for 20 minutes. I am REALLY looking forward to being a non-smoker, but the first few weeks are gonna suck. I thank God that Dagmar is being VERY patient and supportive. Of all the people, she’s my favorite.

11:58 a.m.
Almost halfway through day three. Of course, I cheated. No I didn’t smoke a cigarette, but I didn’t go to work either. Dagmar’s home ill today, and, to be honest, I wouldn’t be much good at work anyway. All I’m doing is staring at my computer, holding my breath, trying not to smoke, feeling my wisdom teeth grind, and trying telekinesis to move my my “bad” cholesterol into my toenails where it can’t do any damage.

Dagmar told me this morning that she read somewhere that the average craving lasts thirty seconds. “Great,” I replied. “But my cravings are only twenty seconds apart!”

Refrigerator

5:04 p.m.
The new low cholesterol diet seems to be going okay. Last night we had salad (with basalmic vinegar and olive oil – no dressing) with boiled chicken mixed in. I liked it. For breakfast we had oatmush with apple chunks, walnuts and organic maple syrup mixed in. I didn’t like it so much. For lunch we had chicken mango wraps (whole grain tortillas) with red peppers and onions and stuff. I really liked that! Dagmar’s in the kitchen right now messing around with some butterfly chops (fat removed) she’s gonna bake somehow. Our refrigerator has never looked healthier. Dagmar keeps opening the fridge door and peering inside, proud of all the health food.

The no-smoking thing is still challenging, especially after a meal. I’m afraid to eat, to be honest, because the craving for a cigarette is so bad afterwards. So I’m holding my breath a lot… Tomorrow should be better. In an hour or two I’m gonna take a sleepy-pill and go to bed – maybe I can sleep it off.

My jaw is sore – the wisdom teeth are still bothering me. The dentist told me yesterday, “…if you were nineteen, I’d tell you to get them all pulled. But, at your age… Well, let’s just see what happens…” So I’m teething, and I’m not happy about it. One of my bottom wisdom teeth is coming in sideways, which is pushing all my other teeth around. The other bottom one is coming up underneath one of my molars. That should be fun… The top ones are “erupting” already, but they seem to be coming in straight, anyway.

High cholesterol, quitting smoking, and wisdom teeth all in the same few days. Life’s gonna be different. I don’t think I’ll have any problems with any of it, once I get through the next week or so without cigarettes and stop being twitchy and weird.

Okay, now this is just plain miserable. Two days without a cigarette.

I had to go to work today. That means I had to leave the house, walk past the table my ashtray used to sit on, get in my car where I chain-smoked, and go to my office, where I’d take a break every hour on the hour to smoke a cigarette. Reminders everywhere.

But, I’m through the first two days. They say things start getting easier on the fourth day. We’ll see about that. All I know for sure is that Day Two was just plain miserable. Icky miserable. Sucky, even. I was okay at work as long as I stared at my computer screen and did non-vital busy work. My attention span can now be measured in seconds rather than minutes. Every time I stood up to start another project, my feet would try to lead me outside to the loading dock, otherwise known as the company’s smoking area. I went through three packs of gum.

Tomorrow may be bad, too, but I’m optimistic that this will get easier. (They say it’s easier to quit heroin or cocain than it is to quit tobacco. Dunno if that’s true or not, but it makes me feel better somehow.)

The doctor told me last week that I had dangerously high cholesterol levels. That’s fun. So now I’m on medication and a funky diet. Today the dentist told me my wisdom teeth are “erupting.” That sounds like fun. Though the doctor seems to think I’ll be on meds for life for cholesterol, I’m hoping that a combination of diet, exercise and quitting smoking will get me off the medication. It’s expensive stuff!

Geeze, it’s gonna be a tough gig this weekend, sans cigarettes… Whimper whimper whine.

But, when I woke up this morning, I could breathe. I haven’t had a coughing fit all day, and that funny little pain in my chest has gone away.

Quit smoking today. Haven’t had a cigarette since I got home from last night’s gig in Lawton. It’s not bad today, but I’m afraid to leave the house. As long as I sit right here and play on the computer and keep distracted, I’m okay.

Wish me luck.

Recently I was party to an e-mail conversation regarding the lack of voter participation among younger voters. The consensus amongst us was that most younger voters are too busy with general life to give much thought to politics, and that the voting process itself can be daunting and confusing. The next day, Dagmar quizzed my historical knowledge of the voting process. It got me thinking… I didn’t really know as much as I thought I did about the history of voting. So, here I am, researching.

According to the Constitution of the United States of America, Article I, Section 2 (or part of it at least):

In other words, the Constitution tells us that we get to elect Representatives every two years, and that each states gets one Representative for every 30,000 people. The 30,000 people per Representative, though, aren’t just people – they have to be “free persons.” Native Americans don’t count. The phrase “three fifths of all other persons” makes one pause for thought. Slaves counted as three-fifths of a person.

Section 3 deals with the other house, the Senate.

“The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.

“…No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.”

This is interesting. What they mean is that each state gets two Senators, but the Senators are not voted into office, they’re chosen by the Legislature. (Obviously, that’s changed – we do have a direct vote on Senators now.

Now for the Presidential procedures, according to the Constitution, Article II, Section 1:

“The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:
“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

“The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; A quorum for this purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice President.
“The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.

“No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”

Okay, so we get to elect a President for four year terms. Or do we? It certainly sounds like “We The People” don’t particularly get a say in this whole mess… Instead we get to appoint “a number of electors” (the number of which is the total of each state’s Representatives and Senators) to vote. Ahhh… so THIS is where the electoral college came from! We go vote, but our votes don’t particularly mean we’re voting for a President – instead, our votes indicate to our state’s “electors” how THEY should vote. Hmmm…

It’s interesting to note that quite a bit of our Constitution was formed from “The Virginia Plan,” written by James Madison and presented to the Constitutional Convention May 29, 1787 by Edmund Randolph. The Virginia Plan also had two houses, Representative and Senate, but the terms of service were longer. The Virginia Plan also had that goofy “Indians don’t count” clause as well as some people only being worth three-fifths of other people.

In 1791 the Bill of Rights happened. The very first article read:

“Article the first… After the first enumeration required by the first article of the Constitution, there shall be one Representative for every thirty thousand, until the number shall amount to one hundred, after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall be not less than one hundred Representatives, nor less than one Representative for every forty thousand persons, until the number of Representatives shall amount to two hundred; after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall not be less than two hundred Representatives, nor more than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons.”

Oddly enough, this article was never ratified.

In 1863 whilst in the process of ending the Civil War and beginning to think of Reconstruction, President Abraham Lincoln was presented with the Wade-Davis Bill. Part of this bill gave freed slaves the right to vote and did away with that silly three-fifths of a person clause. Unfortunately, Lincoln did not sign the bill, opting instead to veto. (Part of the Wade-Davis Bill stated that in order for a state to rejoin the Union over fifty percent of the white male population had to take a loyalty oath to the Union, disavowing the Confederacy. Lincoln thought this was too harsh, and was hoping to get a modified version of the bill passed whereupon only ten percent of the white men in a state had to take the oath.) The harsher Wade-Davis Bill did get passed after Lincoln’s assassination the following spring.

This was followed by the 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, which stated (almost in entirety):

“Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude—
“Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

So, all the black people get to vote now, right? Well… no. Remember, no women were allowed to vote yet, and for years whites came up with all sorts of goofy plans to keep blacks and minorities from voting.

In 1919, the sixty-year long Suffragette movement came to fruition with the 19th Amendment:

“JOINT RESOLUTION

“Proposing an amendment to the Constitution extending the right of suffrage to women.

“Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislature of three-fourths of the several States.
“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

Shoot, it’s getting late. I’m gonna have to finish this later…