159. State Identities

State identities are something I really appreciate, even if I don’t know the reason behind half of their claims to fame. There are fifty states with unique identities and some of those are as different as can be—almost as if the states themselves were on different continents. I live in the Northwest and the five northwestern states would seem to have strong similarities because of their shared geography, but in reality, all five of those states even have their own internal divisions because of geography.

Washington is the evergreen state because of its vast evergreen forests, yet if you are in the Columbia Basin you would be hard pressed to even find a tree, let alone an evergreen tree. Oregon is the beaver state and the only reason I think that might be the case is because of early trappers. It is also famous for the Columbia River (Oregon being a supposed early name of that river) yet the Columbia only flows along its northern border with Washington. Probably its greater fame should be from all of its berries and fruits and abundant farmland in the Willamette River valley that requires little to no irrigation—a rarity in the vast arid lands of the west.

My own Idaho is the gem state because of its mining history and the gems such as the star garnet that are found here. Yet it is probably best known for its potatoes, and I personally think it should be well known for its abundant forests as the most wooded of the eleven contiguous western states. But sometimes the secrets a state holds are just as much a part of its identity as are those aspects of fame.

Of course, Montana is known for its copper and mountains and Wyoming for its cowboys. Massachusetts is the Bay State, Vermont is the Green Mountain State. Alaska is the last frontier and Hawaii is the Aloha State. Ohio is the Buckeye state and I don’t even know what that means. I have been to all fifty of the states and each holds a unique identity. I love them all but of course I have my favorites and they are all right around Idaho where I live. I enjoy each state’s claim to fame and I appreciate their unique identities that help to form our e pluribus unum. 

158. Philanthropic Organizations

America is full of philanthropic organizations that provide a great deal of help to our population. Many of these organizations have been started by religious groups or churches, others have been started by people who have financial resources and see needs, while others have been started by people in need banding together to work toward a common goal. These organizations are a great part of our country.

There are so many small community libraries that were founded by the Carnegie Corporation. Much of what we know about diseases has been funded by philanthropic foundations made up of people who have often been affected by that particular disease such as the Mitochondrial Disease Foundation which I support because my son has a mitochondrial disease. The food bank here in my home town was started by an Eagle Scout and continues to this day through a foundation directed by the local churches. These philanthropic organizations are designed to meet individual needs and collective needs to better our society and our individual lives.

Here in my own community there are a couple of homes that were built by Habitat for Humanity volunteers, an organization that helps families buy their first home through volunteer labor and donations. The organization believes home ownership is the best way to escape poverty.

There are also plenty of established organizations that contribute to philanthropic missions. Churches often make contributions to the public good. Labor Unions frequently support worthy causes such as firemen supporting the Muscular Dystrophy Foundation. My own local teachers’ union helped build those Habitat houses I mentioned.

The United States is filled with good people who support worthy causes in a variety of ways and I am very thankful that they band together in philanthropic organizations that make themselves known to be available to assist in a variety of causes. They are not government entities but organizations that support life to its fullest made up of wonderful American people. 

157. The American Election Process

For the past twenty years or so here in the United States the national elections have often been very close, sometimes so close that they have been contested at the Supreme Court. We have had foreign powers do their best to persuade the American people to vote one way or another, sometimes to great effect. But every time the election has been peaceable, the transfer of power has been accepted and ballots have been recounted over and over. I love this process, no matter how contested it may be at times because we, the people, have agreed to it.

Each state has conducted its election process in slightly different manners from the other states. Some can make the process rather onerous, making voters stand in lines for hours at polling places. Some ballots have been punch-cards that can be easily read by computer scanners, though I believe after the Florida hanging chad fiasco in the Bush-Gore election most states have done away with that type of ballot. Some states require photo identification when you vote. Some states now vote only by mail. Some states require that you register to vote well before the election while others have same day registration.

All states allow absentee voting, though that makes no difference in the states that only vote by mail. Some states require that you declare an acceptable reason to vote in absentia while other states have no such requirements. Certainly, the least restrictive laws regarding voting seem to me to be the most likely places to have the higher turnout.

We also have primary elections to determine who the final nominees from each party will be for the general election. This, of course, makes the voting process long, somewhat annoying, and definitely tiresome. But I think all of this is necessary because of the size and scope of our country. I suppose before all of the media blitz in the old days it was not really so ever present on people’s minds as it is now.

One thing that can be concerning about the election to me is all the focus that gets placed upon the president and vice president while the local offices—those that have the more dramatic effect on people where they live—can be overlooked. Of course, the national media is never going to take the time to cover county commissioner races or even state legislative races, but those offices can wield a great deal of power over the national scene so it is important to stay on top of those local issues. It is always a challenge to keep the public aware of issues so that obfuscation doesn’t blind us to what is really occurring and that’s why staying abreast of the issues is so important to the American democratic process as is the freedom of the press to keep us informed.

I love the American electoral process, though there are things about it that clearly were a compromise by the founding fathers, such as the electoral college. I don’t know how we could do much better with the size and diversity of our country. I also believe that our democracy rests upon the knowledge of we, the people, and it is absolutely essential that we bolster our education system and support our news outlets because any attack against those institutions is likely a subtle way to perform voter suppression which erodes the foundations of this nation.