Authors are a strange beast, many of them think bulk over quality. The likes of Tom Clancey and J. K. Rowlings go on my personal wall of shame. One of these days I am going to do a Google Maps mashup and show how much of the worlds rain forests have been destroyed in the production of their overly long and generally boring adventures into the world of literature. A book does not need to be 500 pages, it is merely a vehicle to convey an idea, it can be fact or fiction, it matters not one iota, it is a learning tool.
How To Make Your Vote Count is currently available in eBook form only, but should be required reading in every high school in the nation. At under 60 pages it is hardly a rain forest destroyer, but it is an illuminating look at our current governmental system. I doubt that many would argue that over the past 40 years there has been a steady growth in the size of government and power of our elected officials wield. I have even heard it argued successfully that the entire 9/11 devastation was in actual fact a great boon for the government, 9/11 represented the best opportunity in decades to further the needs of the government.
Author Arthur F. Woodrow makes a compelling case. If you take a long hard look at the political spectrum what do you see? Career politicians, this was not what the founders of the constitution had foreseen, being a representative of the people should be a temporary engagement, not a life long career. Yet we have many career politicians today, Arthur points out that something like 90% of incumbents get re-elected, this is a staggering figure.
Equally worrisome is the sheer size of the government and the staggering amount of waste, the author points out that over a $billion of ‘stuff’ cannot be accounted for in the Iraq conflict alone.
Another problem area are the special interest groups and their attendant lobbyists, Arthur Woodrow calculates that for every member of the house there are over 70 lobbyists. Their tactics are nothing short of legalized bribery, pouring millions of dollars into campaign funds and hosting lavish events.
Then we have the actual elected officials, in order to ingratiate themselves with their electorate they slip earmarks into bills that benefit their local communities. The one that has made the press lately is the ‘Bridge To Nowhere’ belonging to Sarah Palin.
The author has a rather unique solution to fixing the entire problem, enact a one term limit on every elected official. This one change would have a huge effect on all aspects of what is currently wrong. The special interest groups would not be able to build long term relationships, earmarking would subside, as there would be little to gain. He also recommends that in the short term everyone should avoid voting for an incumbent.
Arthur has a web site http://www.democracyconservator.org/ which explores his ideas in greater depth.
While I seriously doubt any politician would wish to adopt his strategies it is great to see someone speak out and tell it the way it really is. Keep up the good work Arthur!
Simon Barrett
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3 users commented in " eBook Review: How To Make Your Vote Count by Arthur F. Woodrow "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackSimon, good points. While I may agree that authors like Clancy and Rowling have not helped global warming, it is the publishers we should blame not the authors for any ecological repercussions.
I am grateful that such authors’ efforts have increased the interest in reading for adults and children alike. In a country that must apologize for a functional illiteracy level of close to 25%, it is that type of easily digestible fare that improves the attention span of readers enough so that they might actually absorb a 60-page piece of non-fiction that has, luckily, been rendered eco-friendly by its publishing format.
A friend of mine is a Shakespeare professor and she always uses contemporary movie versions to introduce her students. For one thing it makes it more relevant (something Shakespeare also did by putting Antony and Cleopatra in Elizabethan attire or updating other stories that had roots in history or mythology). And since the plays were designed to be performed and not read, that also is a more appropriate delivery format for the audience. I have used the same devices myself in teaching – we cannot afford to be purists at the beginning when we grab the attention of the audience.
With the popularity of electronic media and its more widespread availability and increasing economy, we can hope that it will become the preferred media of choice soon.
Until then, regardless of the type of messenger used, I say get them in the door and hope they will become addicted enough to information or knowledge that they will become more discriminating about the content later.
oh, as a postscript – let’s remember there are plenty of elements designed for appeal to the masses in authors we deem “classics” like Shakespeare and Dickens and the like.
Who knows what history will decide to venerate as being true literature?
Comparing two fiction novelists known for writing epic tales and a non fiction book is a mistake. That comparision, which opens your review, is flawed in its premise.
What voters and a lot of commentators don’t seem to understand is that we do, in effect, already have term limits. It is up to the voters to keep track of how long somebody has been in office and eject them when they have been in too long.
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