The United States is not a Democracy, it is a Republic: we democratically elect Federal, State, and local, representatives to legislatures and the executives who will exercise their own judgment in the management of our common interests while we go on about our business, knowing that, if we had a machine at every corner to which we would go to vote on every proposal, we would collapse from over-work, overwhelming incompetence, and “me-ism.”

Every election in many states, includes citizen’s initiatives, especially in California. This is a feature of a Democracy. California’s Republican Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has, since finding it difficult to get his wishes from our representatives, promotes “Citizen’s initiatives” in all elections, which makes Arnie an oxymoron: A “Republican Democrat“, and California, a circus, which, of course, it is in any case.

Our present money-driven election system produces self-interested representatives and administrators at all levels of government, too many of whom serve the interest of their financial supporters whenever they think they can get away with it. As long as we have this system, Arnold needs Democratic initiatives to serve his Republican interests. Actually, it *is* necessary.

“You can’t legislate controls on business owners if you need contributions from them to continue in office. “

I had written a novel to promote a way to eliminate money-driven elections without taxpayer-financed individual campaigns of hogwash, and misdirection.
I had also accidentally created a way to compel elected officials to do my bidding and bring into existence a system I believe will make us a perfect Democratic Republic; we need to hope it is not really possible. All I can do is dream that FECMA (without the novel’s method) will become a reality, because - trust me - politicians would kill to prevent it.

Just the idea of our representatives doing their jobs full time without having to spend time and energy throughout their terms to raising reelection financing to running a re-election campaign during the last half, would produce better government. “FECMA” is the only way to make that possible. And we all would no longer have to deal with horrendously moronic TV, radio ads and annoying phone solicitations.

))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

“Political leaders everywhere have come to understand that to govern they must learn how to act . . . who are we really voting for? The self-possessed character who projects dignity, exemplary morals, and enough forthright courage to lead us through war and depression, or the person who is simply good at creating a counterfeit with the help of professional coaching, executive tailoring, and the whole armory of pretense that the groomed president can now employ? Are we allowed anymore to know what is going on, not merely in the candidate’s facial expression and his choice of a suit, but also in his head? Unfortunately. . . This is something we are not told until the auditioning ends an he is securely in office. . . As with many actors, any resemblance between the man and the role is purely coincidental.”
Arthur Miller, playwright.

What follows is a proposed end to the spectacle we tolerate

The FECMA Conspiracy
A novel, by
Burton S. H. Ridgeway
(www.BurtonRidgeway.com)

INTRODUCTION

A murder in Avocado County, California, in 2008 looks on the surface like a simple burglary turned deadly, but Sergeant Marty Jacobs thought otherwise, so he called Talford.
An old man is dead among more books than in any home Hitch Talford had known. A search that appears to have born no fruit; a murderer who left no clues, a deceased with checking accounts in the capitals of thirty-eight states, and assets of over a million dollars willed to the leading politician in Avocado County who has no idea why a man he hardly knew would leave him anything. Or does he?
Lieutenant Talford, the son of a deceased nationally known psychic, and a reader of emotions himself, attempts to reduce the case to an accident during a burglary, but is driven by instinct to the nation’s capital, where he comes across people who project the strongest hostile emotions he had ever encountered. He passes people he perceives to be murderers, witnesses one take out others, then watches that killer removed in an freak accident . Washington DC. seemed like a war zone.
As he later goes through the motions of closing the case in the old man’s home, he comes across notes describing an invention that threatens the security of the nation. The old man had used it to successfully blackmail members of Congress, and legislators of thirty-eight states, to pass an amendment to the Constitution, followed by a bill that modified the way we elect our national leadership.
The product of that bill, the Federal Election Campaign Management Administration, who’s authority went into effect at the time of the murder, is the basis for the action behind this story.
The American people have gone wild; the majority of citizens were drawn out of their passivity to become so involved with the election of the next President, members of Congress, a second-term FECMA Directorate, and the new right to submit national ballot initiatives, that they are turning the nation into a madhouse.
We meet the Directors of this new election system, and watch the media watch them do their thing, and how they feel about it. We meet intelligent people, and stupid ones. We also hear about other ideas bouncing around this new revitalized, and volatile, democracy.
During his search for a solution to this case, Hitch Talford is faced with his own faults, and he must resolve them. We meet diminutive Boris Rothman who makes us laugh, but also gives us pause to consider the value of honor and trust in business. We meet John Maxwell Flesch who effects people as another George Washington. Will he live up to the dreams of his murdered father? Is he really meant for active politics? He has no alternative but to move ahead, or Jake Magnuson will be Governor, and a version of organized crime will run rampant. Then there’s Flesch’s future Presidency, for which, without a hint from anyone, FECMA had been created.

The Definition Amendment freed the nation of one horrendous problem: money as political speech, and gave it another: the citizens right to make federal law. What does a politics-hating police lieutenant do with devastating information only he has? Thirty-year-old Hitchman Andrew Talford is faced with a decision no ordinary person should have to make. Will he reveal to the nation what had happened ten years before, or will he decide to live his life with a burden of knowledge only a person of powerful inner-strength could carry?

The book
“The FECMA Conspiracy”
375 pages

Found at all dot.com booksellers, and your local bookstore.

*******************

Progressive societies outgrow institutions as children outgrow their clothes."

Henry George, “Social Problems,” 1883

"This country's political system has grown from puberty to it's teens, to thirty-something, and on into middle-age, masturbating all the way. We’re anything but grown-ups when it comes to maturing our only real common interest.”

A pub philosopher, 1983

This book is dedicated to readers on who’s shoulders rests responsibility for the American election system; those who want the elimination of political influence on legislation by money most Americans can’t, or don’t want to, pay, will find FECMA to be the “holy grail.“

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The first amendment to the Constitution of the United States dictates the freedom to speak, and to petition the government for redress of grievances, among other rights. Unfortunately, the entire document leaves it to the Court to define its terms.

In 1976, the Supreme Court declared the giving of money to political candidates and parties to be a form of speech.

In 1998, Congress passed the twenty-eighth amendment to the constitution. The required minimum of thirty-eight states ratified it. It officially defined the word speech, and expanded the meaning of the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
This is the story of that amendment, the legislation that followed, it's effects on the American people, and how such an amendment had made it through the wringer. ( Remember, this is fiction!)

AMENDMENT XXVIII

(1) The term, Speech, means written, or oral, communication of thought. . . .

CHAPTER ONE

The Southern California day began with the usual July humidity for Avocado County. It had not yet bothered Talford because his mind was on the previous day’s murder. It was an outrage. The killer had not stepped out of line in his forty years, and the victim was known to avoid political arguments. Yet, the owner of a restaurant threw a knife into the heart of a good customer during a political argument. Talford’s twenty-fifth murder investigation would bother him for at least a week, and he knew he would have trouble accepting its cause for a much longer time. The new election system was harvesting corpses, dammit!
Hitch Talford drove up the ramp to the freeway and slid into the controlled lane. From behind him a twenty-year old Chevy pickup in need of a new muffler passed him on the left, drowning out the reporter's voice. He raised the radio's volume to hear the 8:00 AM news.

". . . so, this is the initial year of citizen management of federal elections. Our poll shows the voters divided, forty-eight point three percent in favor, to forty-eight point two percent opposed. These are the same figures as those at the time FECMA was put into effect in twenty-o-two. Less than two percent still have no opinion. President Garanella, when asked to comment on the low level of apathy since FECMA said, and I quote, 'We complained about voter apathy, now we have voter lunacy.' After six years in organization, FECMED has taken over.”

Talford turned off the radio, mumbling, "Crazy politics." The sensor on his front hood made the car buck slightly as it closed-in on a Cadillac in front; the sensor on the Buick behind held him in place. He pushed a button to connect his Lincoln Pasha to the electronic road, and keyed in Exit 21, still not confident the warning buzzer would indeed sound off five hundred yards before the off-ramp. After three weeks, he still felt insecure with the new freeway system. He cut the ignition, and rotated his seat to face the custom-made desk behind him, and began to review his plans. The argument that resulted in the death of one good man and the prosecution of another would not stop irritating him, so he returned to the forward position, dismissed his concerns about the freeway, locked his eyes onto the control panel, and went into a trance.

Lieutenant Talford parked behind the two police cars at the curb and made his way around the cluster of civilians and past the patrolman who stood in the walkway. The humid heat began to soak his collar. He promised himself, for the fifth time in two days, he would liberate his lighter suit from the cleaner.
Sergeant Jacobs stood in the doorway waiting for him. Jacobs’ broad shoulders and barrel chest supported a rock-solid head on an expansive plateau. The few strands of hair on his head still held on to life. They lay on the crown in a broad wave that narrowed almost to a point as it poured down over the second of three folds of his forehead. The flow died for lack of substance before reaching the third.
Talford was a foot-and-a-half taller than Jacobs, and lanky. The lower half of his right cheek had been scarred by fire when he was a boy, but it did nothing to ruin his youthful good looks.

Jacobs watched him approach, reflecting on a conversation he had overheard among the women in the department. They were turned-on by the imperfection. He could not understand that, but his wife did. "A perfect face is no face at all." She had said. She promptly added that his face had so much character she had to marry him. He smiled as he recalled his beautiful wife's reason for saying yes to a homely man.

Talford planted each foot securely on the ground before taking another long stride. It looked as if he was testing for a sinkhole, though he was examining his surroundings, committing it all to memory. He would be able to describe everything in and around the house long after he put the case to bed.

Jacobs recalled being shocked to discover years before, when he first met him, that the kid saw and memorized everything that was, or happened, around him; he missed nothing. The boy, as he still did, never walked any place without being fully aware of everything he approached, as if preparing for a test, aiming for a perfect grade.

As the Detective moved up the path, he wrapped the strings of a surgical mask around his head and tied them together with one hand.
"Always prepared aren't you. Lieutenant?" Jacobs said, grinning.
"Makes for efficiency, Sergeant." Here it comes, Talford thought.
"Now that's foresight! Carry a stock of them with you all the time, do you?" Jacobs’ grin expanded.
"I keep a box of them in the car, Sergeant."
Talford returned Jacobs’ smile as he came up to the older man who stood aside for him. The Sergeant was jabbing at his former trainee and Talford enjoyed it. The near-by patrolman’s presence lead them to address each other formally, but Jacobs never let formality get in the way of humor.
"Oh!, and those fingers of yours are something. Does performing your magic act for the kids at the hospital keep them limber?" Jacobs said, as he moved behind the detective and followed him through the door trying not to step on the Lieutenant's heels.

Talford began to slip both his hands into plastic gloves while Jacobs played with him in a singsong voice. One of many. The Lieutenant smiled affectionately and returned the banter.
"It helps, Sergeant. My mother told me to be ready with my dad's act in case whatever work I took up didn't pan out. Everyone should have two callings, she always said."

Talford noticed the damaged door-lock. A stench made it through the mask. It was the usual odor of deteriorating flesh with a heavy mix of un-flushed toilet.
He scanned the living room, a standard twentieth-century middle-class design: a box. It made him think of his home when he was part of a family. It seemed to him, whenever he reminisced, his memory was divided into two parts, before and after family. When he thought of the box he had lived in during the first part, he was reminded that death was a dividing line of his life: it ended the first part, and defined the second. From kid to cop. He dismissed his musing as his heart became involved.
"What do we have here, Marty? Why me?" He asked, in a low voice.
"An old man. Couple days dead. First room to the right. I don’t know why, but there’s something fishy here.”
Jacobs nodded in that direction while rubbing his eyes with the index finger and thumb of his left hand. Then he pulled the gloves on both hands tighter. “I can’t put my finger on it.”
"Not natural?"
"Nope! It looks like a beating with fists and a messer."
"A what?"
"A knife, Lieutenant. I've told you a dozen times if I've told you once. Messer is Yiddish for knife."
"I'm not going to convert, Jacobs." Talford laughed.
"I've got to try. You've got the nose for it. Besides, my bride has another girl for you, if the one Homer's wife dug up doesn't work out. The girl wants a member of the tribe, but a convert would do. Particular she aint."
Jacobs chortled to himself. His chest and stomach heaved several times, then relaxed. Though he spoke perfect English, he would sometimes use an old stereotype New York speech pattern for humor. He had once told Talford that he wanted to be a night club comic when he was young. He liked to convert sense to nonsense.
After aiming a smile at a man he thought of as an uncle, Talford moved toward the room to which Jacobs hairy hand pointed, glancing over a chess board with pieces in play. He removed a notepad from his inside coat pocket as he walked, sliding his pen from his shirt pocket with the thumb of the same hand.
Jacobs smiled at the maneuver as he waddled alongside, favoring his right hip. A fresh pool of what looked like beef stew lay in front of the entrance to the death scene.
"Whew!" Rough, Talford exclaimed, as he stopped beside the stew and craned his neck around to see the inside of the room without stepping into it.
"What's that from?" Talford nodded at the mess.
"The kid who called it in." Jacobs rendered his report in a droning voice. "Emptied his stomach the minute he saw this. He's out in front. Name's Jamie . . . Jamison Rogers. Lives on the next block. Talked and played chess with the old man almost every day. The kid was visiting relatives up-coast the last two weeks. He stopped to say hello on his way to school and the door opened to his touch. He walked in, detected the smell, and expected to find a sick man. Poor kid is going to be out of it for a long time. Say's he liked the man strongly."
"Strongly?"
"Strongly! I guess that's love if you're unwilling to admit it. The chessboard," Jacobs nodded toward the living room, "is the game they were into before he left to visit the mishpucha?"
"The mish . . . Oh yeah!, family." Talford worked at hiding the effect on him by Jacobs' analysis of Love.
"Hey, there's hope yet!" Jacobs threw a toothy grin at him.
Talford returned the grin, though his nerves were shaken a bit. The kid liked the man strongly! He quickly began to examine the room, preferring not to dwell on it. Emotion was not his thing either. He began to make sketches and notes of his observations, which he didn't need for himself, but a written record was required, and it was a way of getting his mind off the unexpected reference to emotion.

The body lay in the middle of the small room. "The windows are closed, yet there's a couple of flies in here." Talford said, as he looked around for others.
Jacobs nodded his head, "Yeah, they were probably drawn by the odor through the crack in the front door. The kid said it was not quite shut." Talford began to examine the death scene from the door. "Forensics is sure taking their time!"
"Yeah!" Jacobs said, as he strolled back into the front room. He bowed down to see through the half-drawn louvers.
"Talk about shitting in your pants. Wonder what the man ate!" Talford said, covering his mask with his palm as he eyed Jacobs' angled stance, "How's your hip?"
"Good! Thanks for asking." Jacobs half smiled.
"Will it be normal?"
"Not perfect." He looked down at the floor, sullen.
"Lousy break, that shootout." Talford murmured, feeling a sudden ache in his chest.
"Yeah. So be it, Hitch. The wife isn't too active anymore, and I never was, so I'll live with it. At sixty, I can do OK. Makes a good exit. On my feet. I killed the bastard. That's not a bad walk-off." He spoke quickly to get it out before he could do any editing; he rarely used expletives, but the subject was not conducive to the humor he usually projected at a murder scene; he avoided sorrow in the presence of horror for fear of going too far. Talford remembered the case years before that had produced a flood of tears: mother and three young daughters. . ., well, Jacobs would never do that again.
Talford knew the man hated to draw his weapon. Jacobs was an intellectual, a humanist. He belonged in social work. The respect of his peers was essential to his position, and many of his peers were gung-ho cops, so he spoke their language.
Some of them looked forward to shooting at real targets, a chance to take down a killer. When shooting needed to be done, Jacobs shot, for center, and would not permit himself to feel it was not absolutely necessary. Thinking otherwise would destroy him. The man was a ball of contradictions. Talford thought Death of a Salesman's plot evoked a number of ideas, even if unintended: one was not to get too good at doing what you don't like doing. It may grow on you, and you may become better at it than most. That would make retirement, not personal satisfaction, the goal.
"Yeah. He was a lunatic!" Talford said to his Sergeant. He didn't want to disagree, but he thought the killer could have been taken down at his legs. Talford was one of a few in the department who believed that killing killers was not always justifiable. He didn't think of himself as religious. He rarely thought about it. He ignored religion, except to know it existed for others. His parents lived it to a degree. He hadn't been to church since the Christmas before the accident that had taken them from him. He simply believed that preventable killing was wrong for an American cop.

The Lieutenant was brought out of his musing by the odor. It reminded him of sewage. Pools of dried blood surrounded the dead man's head and ran along his side to his waist. The corpse lay on a hardwood floor, in the only open space within the one-hundred-and-fifty square feet of a room that was an office, with a desk, swivel chair, and file cabinets. Shelves blocked most of the only window in the room. Two bookcases jutted about an inch into the doorway from both sides, reaching the ceiling. Books, from massive to the size of a large hand, lay along shelves in disarray. Many others were spread over the floor and several leaned against the body. Some looked from the distance to be old and expensive.
Talford let a short laugh escape through his nose as the case of the kid being afraid to say, "love", came back to him. That was something he could identify with. He returned his gaze to the room, surprised that his mind pulled back the kid's expression, until he realized that it was always there; he was hanging on to it, reluctant to let go of a thought he wanted to pursue, but kept putting off.
"I assume the whole house is this way."
"Right. Every room's a mess." Jacobs said. “But, this isn’t a burglary, Hitch. It’s something, but not an ordinary break-in. What’s caught my eye isn’t clear, maybe I’m catching your disease.”
"Don’t ask for it, you may get your wish. Looks like the search got no results. Let’s have a look.”
Talford glanced around the small room, examining everything with fingers of both his hands entwined in front of himself to prevent touching anything; he was an instinctive toucher. He could see nothing Marty would spot, but there was definitely something in the air. He sensed it. The Lieutenant could no longer take the heat and pungent odor. He lunged into the living room to look through the window.
"OK, they're here!"

Three men barged through the door carrying bags and cameras. They stopped momentarily to look at Talford. He nodded his head toward the death scene. They jolted toward it, passing Jacobs, to whom they almost bowed. Jacobs swiveled at his hips as they passed him, and smiled. "Bruce. Sam. Max. Howz it goin'?"
"Great Cap . . . Sarge." Said all three as they moved, grinning back at Jacobs.
Talford strolled over to the room across the hall from the death scene. It was twice the size of the first. Shelves and tables occupied most of it leaving narrow aisles with a footstool in each. Dust covered all but a few volumes on each shelf, and was still on most of those strewn on the floor.
There were lamps on the top of each bookcase looking down on the aisles like vultures. It was like a study room in a university, and the sole student who used it obviously respected his eyes. Several reference books lay open on a table beside the door. They were surrounded by a dozen yellow legal pads covered with scribbling.
Talford bent forward toward the closest pad, with his gloved hands in his hip pockets. He found the handwriting difficult to read, not just for the distance. The texts from which the notes were extracted appeared to be on the local elections, and political history of California. Another book lay at the far end of the table: the year 2007 issue of Who's who in Avocado County.
One wall was covered with newspaper and magazine pictures of the President of the United States, and the first five candidates to be accepted to run against her in the upcoming election. It looked like a wall in a campaign headquarters.

He strolled through the rest of hallway and marveled at the number of books in each room, once on shelves, cabinets and tables, now scattered over the floors. He almost touched several articles to sense something from them, but drew back. It looked to him as if these rooms probably held the largest personal collection of political, economic and social science books in Southern California. There were also sections with classical music tapes, maps of every kind, and a volume on how to destroy your opponent at chess. He wondered why an opponent had to be destroyed instead of simply defeated, then laughed at himself for his prudishness; he knew that chess is mental combat, pure and simple.
Busts of Shakespeare, Lincoln, John Kennedy and one with sharp Germanic features he did not recognize sat around the rooms. They rested partially on dust, revealing clean spaces. He concluded that the killer had to be looking for something that could be hidden in, or under, a statuette.
He returned to the corridor and headed toward the rear of the house, craning his neck for a double take as he passed the bathroom, amused to see shelves of art books on the walls. In front of the commode was a low unfinished, well-made wood bookcase with a portable writing desk as its top. Below the removable desk-top were partitions for pens, pencils, a ruler, paper clips, index cards, and rubber bands. Several legal pads, a dictionary and a thesaurus lay on shelves immediately below them. Here was a man who would not allow bowel movement to take him from his studies, Talford thought. He laughed quietly. Respectfully.

The mesmerized detective continued slowly along the hallway -- the space made narrow by shelving on one side. He stopped after every stride to glance at a book on a shelf, or the floor. He could tell that the weight of some called for both hands. He lowered himself to a squat for a closer look at the bottom shelf, and spotted Jackson Hobber's The Political Game. He once tried to read it, but had given up by the fifth chapter. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't work up an interest in the subject.
Several old tomes by Solzhenitzen, and the current President of Russia stood in what was obviously reserved for nations that had formerly constituted the Soviet Union. Talford felt that his own libraries on criminology and magic were dwarfed by the dedicated accumulation that filled this house.
He reached for a worn leather bound volume lying open on the floor, touched it, then pulled his hand back. He got on both knees, and tried to read it while resting the weight of his body on both sets of fingers.
"Hitch, The carnivore just drove up."
"Yeah. Dad, I'll be right down."
"I like you a lot, but you're too old to adopt, Hitch."
Talford looked up and focused his eyes at Jacobs' face for a second before realizing the what and where of the situation. "Good grief! Marty, what the hell am I doing down here?"
Jacobs craned his neck to read the book, "Looks like you're grading a recruit's exam from Jack The Ripper's day."
Jacobs had to jump back as the detective's head shot for the ceiling.
"God! I haven't been into so many books in a house since I was a kid." Talford said, laughing in embarrassment that he had called Jacobs, "Dad”, and “Marty.”

"Well, what's for din-din? Smells great!" Raphael Perco stood at the far end of the hallway with a medical bag dangling from one set of stubby fingers while the other set scratched his crotch. He gazed over the wide frame and thick lenses of his eyeglasses. The frame sat precipitously on his stubby nose as his jet black eyes scanned the surroundings.
"Migod! Is this a branch of the county library?" He said. His voice was falsetto; the shriek almost took it off the register. The officers, photographer, and the man's fellow scientists cringed. Perco didn't wait for an answer. His shoulders dropped toward his protruding stomach, and his round head topped by a wild gray-flecked mop lurched toward the room to which his nose directed it. It appeared to Talford that he was being pushed by feet that were trying to arrive first.
Talford and Jacobs watched the Assistant Medical Examiner stalk the bulk, after the men from forensics nodded their assent. He accidentally kicked a couple of books aside, frowned, glanced at the officers, and nodded an apology.
"Whoever dispatched this fellow was a mean one, it looks like. Passion! A really passionate act. Like a chick in the throws of multiple orgasms beating my back to go, go, go. You know what I mean?"
He looked at both officers, from one face to the other, and back again, as if waiting -- pleading, for a laugh. Talford, and Jacobs grimaced at each other, but said nothing. The men from forensics moved around them and into the hallway. Talford then moved into the death scene, around the corpse to the desk, stuffed several large manila envelopes with papers from the drawers, stopped to take note of the dark-red dent at the corner of the desk, and headed for the front door on the run.
"It's all yours," Talford shouted back, as he left Jacobs to suffer the man everyone in the department detested.
Jacobs checked himself from trying to recover the papers from Talford. He realized that the Lieutenant did not yet realize what he had done. Jacobs the veteran, not only in the wars of police work, but in the years of exposure to this unusual young man, knew Talford's unconscious mind was in control of him. How else did he know the files were in the drawer, and the ring binders had something to say? That was reason enough for Jacobs to ignore it.
Jacobs saw Jack the photographer look at the Lieutenant, then at him, raise a brow, then quietly return to his work. Jack Asark also knew: most effective police work resulted from standard procedure, but a lot came from instinct, and Talford had more dependable instinct than ten of the best cops in the state. The Lieutenant stopped at the front door to look back at the home of a probable genius. The place had the feel of a 1960's movie. Why not?, he thought, the man had lived his life in the previous century, and his mind was in all the centuries that had gone before it.
He saw two electronic engineering texts sitting on the coffee table alongside the unfinished chess game, and wondered at the strangeness of a man of science not having a single state-of-the-art convenience. Just a well-worn computer with floppy disks and a very old record player, but when it came to the written word, paying for, and storing it, was probably the man's only use for money.
Talford was eager to see what the computer disks held, but it would have to wait for forensics to finish. He suddenly looked down at the things he carried. "Shit!" he whispered. "Well. . .” He turned back to check if Jacobs noticed, and saw no indication of it.
Several picture frames standing on the lamp table beside the couch caught his eye. One was of a man with an uncanny resemblance to the Chairman of the County Board of Supervisors, but was larger and older. Another appeared to be a recent eight-by-ten of the victim: a ruddy complexion, high forehead, full red beard, a solid nose, a powerful looking face. The eyes seemed to penetrate the glass of the frame and lock onto something over Talford's right shoulder. Talford almost turned to see what the man was staring at.

He exited the door, nodded to the patrolman who had his eyes glued on the young witness, and headed for the sick-looking, overfed teenager standing on the lawn, with his lower back against a tree trunk and a stack of school books at his feet. He seemed to be trying to satisfy the dozen inquisitors demanding more information than he could provide. But for his well-fed shape he looked like the figure at the far right of Rodin's statue, "Burghers of Calle," a miniature of which Talford had bought the previous week for his new fireplace mantel.
The neighbors informed Talford that they didn't know the victim. They didn't see or hear anything either. The investigator took the boy aside and let him know that county police Detective-Lieutenant Hitchman Talford understood what he had experienced. The boy was impressed. He suddenly relaxed. Words flowed. "He was very humble . . . kind of sorry for something. Like he was not sure if he should be proud of himself. Like he finished his career and was waiting for the end, and thought God may not be happy with him."
Talford felt a sudden fullness in his head. He’d felt it many times before, whenever he unconsciously had an idea that had no basis. He knew it would return when the basis found company.
Jamie shifted his weight from one leg to the other, "He almost told me things a lot of times when he was kind of solemn, but stopped. As if he shouldn't tell a secret. I thought he may have been with the CIA, you know? "And, Wow! He knew everything about everything. He helped me with my homework on every subject. Talked philosophy with me as if I were a grown-up, and boy, could he play chess!"
The boy's face opened wide, and his eyes bulged. Like a seven-year-old seeing anything "really neat" for the first time. But it was momentary, for the teenager knew his report had to be mature. "He was a kind and considerate mentor with the patience of Job. More like a Granddad to me. Really great. Jeece! Why?, Uhh, I mean. .”
The youngster dropped into a dismal posture -- a switch to the Burgher on the far left. The Detective understood what attracted the old man to the boy: His IQ. Talford liked the idea that a high IQ didn't get in the way of being a kid, if a kid is what you are. He set his hand on the boy's shoulders, "I'll find out. You can be sure of that, Jamie. He nudged the lad with a mop of golden hair toward school. He had his address. Nothing more to say, he reasoned. He headed for the car, went into a U-turn for the freeway to headquarters and pulled at the knot of his tie, as he watched Jamie walk down the street.
Talford felt suddenly queasy at a reminder of himself twenty-three years before. Heat suddenly flowed up through his collar. He reversed direction. A change of packaging demanded priority. Wow! He finally remembered.

CHAPTER TWO

The warning buzzer wrenched him from the novel. Talford dropped the book and spun around to disconnect from the road, restarted the engine and shot into the uncontrolled lane to his right forcing a truck to slow down. Though he knew the controls allowed him lots of time for the transition, he could not check his impulse to cut loose from it. The driver showed him his index finger. Talford nodded approval of its size, and began to maneuver into position for a swift egress on "Offramp 02, Civic Center." . . . .

* * *

This book has the perfect solution to our election problems, along with a lot of fun seeing how an old man had made fools of hundreds of politicians with unbelievable imagination, and a frightening invention that may actually exist, with its creator waiting for the means to use it effectively.
For soft cover, at all your local booksellers, to be in your hands quicker than on-line; the state tax should be less than shipping and handling charges, and they pay taxes in your town. Support your local everything.

September, 1998
Dear reader, if you like the first line of the Definition Amendment, tell everyone about this book, especially your local media, and your representatives in the House and Senate. We must first define “speech.” The FECMA itself, or a version thereof, must wait. Only a tidal-wave of citizen demand will give us this amendment.

Social Security
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Another tax idea:
Taxes
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Who’s body is it, anyway?:
Abortion
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We need a better approach:
"The War on Drugs"
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Our kids are in trouble:
Public Education
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Are we destined to go on and on about the right to own an arsenal?
Guns and the 2nd amendment
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Is it really a threat?
National ID Card
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A commentary on the not-so-little things about our legal system.
Law and Order
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The solution:
Health Care
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Our cities are terrible!
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Proposed changes in the Constitution
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A commentary on miscellaneous issues and questions:
Misc.
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Rev./Rab./Fr. Burton
at the pulpit
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On Near-east problems
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For your funny bone:
Thoughts too minor for serious people
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Home page

STUFF

6/93
"Nowhere in anything I've read analyzing the Bill of Rights, have I found reference to campaign contributions to candidates and parties as a thing to be included in the right to speak. “The only reference I've read is to support candidates as we will. But according to every example given by our founders, that meant to stand and speak, and print, in support of a candidate or party. That's verbal, and written, not just financial."
Local cocktail-lounge intellectual

7/93
“It’s not in our interest for challenged incumbents to use their positions to advantage. It’s in our interest to have all applicants for the job on an even playing field during the whole selection process?”
“Look Bunkie! Anyone sleeping with government, to any degree, ain’t about to support elimination of their advantage without blackmail or torture.”
During a convention at the nineteenth hole

12/96
". . .big money paying a tithe to keep a friendly President in office."
An observation on a TV program.

1/9/98
"The cost of Senate investigations over alleged abuses such as Democrats' fund raising in the White House. . . has averaged more than $60 million a year since the Republicans took control of the chamber in 1995. The Secretary of the Senate reported that the cost of investigations reached $188.7 million through September 1997."
Associated Press. Washington.

1/10/98
San Diego Mayor Susan Golding withdraws from race for the U.S Senate, "The difficulty of juggling the fund raising rigors of a top-level statewide campaign with the demands of running a city. . .” (An extremely wealthy opponent had pushed her out) "If everyone in the race had had to raise money, I would still be in the race because I could compete equally."
(The wealthy guy lost. Voters had been deprived of the opportunity to judge Golding, and others. Money had stood in the way of providing voters with more choices.)
12/97
"It's an election year, which means politicians are preoccupied with campaigns rather than doing the public's business. . ."
Dan Walters, California columnist.

1/97
"In the last campaign, people essentially did whatever they wanted, because they knew they'd get away with it. Millions of dollars were changing hands, and the Federal Election Commission couldn't, and wouldn't, do anything."
Don Simon, EVP, Common Cause

11/97
"The report (Center for Responsive Politics: The 1996 elections were the most costly in American history ) notes that, 'because of the rising costs of election campaigns, both parties are actively recruiting potential candidates who can afford to jump-start their campaigns with their own money . . . the incumbent’s cash reserves certainly kept many potential challengers from even entering the race."
Jack Germond & Jules Witcover column.

1/98
"We believe supporters of the Right-To-Life need to be assured that hard-earned dollars they contribute to an organization are not used to support candidates who hold positions on abortion which they abhor."
A man named Tate.

1/98
"Winning nomination to run for President by accumulating favors from party members who run for office over several years is not, to my thinking, winning voters' approval. I'd like to see people who want to run for office have us nominate them, not people with money."
A citizen during a conversation about past Presidents, Bush & Nixon

1/98
"An ego trip, like any addiction, is very hard to end, without help."
A salesperson

1/98
"After more than a year of agonizing, U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein announced yesterday she would not run for governor this year because she did not relish another grueling statewide campaign . . . Just didn't want to subject herself to another year of mudslinging and non-stop fundraising . . . ‘Campaigns in California have deteriorated to such a point that there is very little uplifting or constructive about the process, and I would rather spend this next year working on issues that can contribute to our future and our nation.’ Feinstein's prolonged indecision may have frozen the race for so long as to make it too late for other Democratic hopefuls to organize campaigns and raise the money necessary to be competitive." Article, San Diego Union-Tribune

2/98
Former White House Chief of Staff Leon Pinetta said he will not run for governor of California because Diane Feinstein's too-late withdrawal left him with no time to raise at least the $30 million for a chance to win against wealthy front-runner.

2/98
"Buoyed by reports that show millionaires with five times as much money in the bank as . . . (candidate's) campaign manager . . . 'Matt Fong is irrelevant . . . there are . . . candidates with more cash on hand than Matt Fong. . .'"
Statement by campaign manager of a wealthy man

A FECMA would be financed to a large degree with the elimination of tax-deductibility of campaign contributions.

2/98 "WASHINGTON -- Legislation to overhaul campaign finance fell to a Republican filibuster in the Senate yesterday, leaving the issue doomed for the foreseeable future despite the abuses uncovered since the 1996 election. . .there will be more indictments and there will be people going to jail . . . (said by Senator John McCain) . . . Opponents, who contend the legislation would violate the free speech guarantee of the Constitution. . ."
A News article 5/98

6/98
Labor Secretary Alexis Herman was accused of soliciting campaign contributions to the Democratic National Committee from foreign nationals in return for favorable government actions. Attorney General Reno requested an Independent Council to investigate. Additionally, President Clinton had been accused of personal involvement in accepting contributions from foreign nationals for his first campaign.
Part of a televised conversation among news people

12/98
“I think it’s impossible for a sitting Governor of California to be a candidate for President because, if you give this job the attention that it requires, then it it’s a full-time proposition and then some. I found that I was shortchanging the campaign by campaigning only on weekends.

9/98
U. S. Senator and former astronaut, John Glenn, on his retirement, ...the joy of no longer having to fund-raise, the foundation of his earthly existence for 24 years...” I’d rather wrestle a gorilla than ask anybody for another 50 cents.