Vote, vote, vote! Participate in the selection of the leadership of our local, State, and Federal Government. I am not an advocate for any candidate but I am an advocate for citizen participation in the election. What good is an un-exercised and ignored right? People have suffered and died to gain you the right to select your leaders, do not say that they have suffered or died in vain by not voting.

Recent additions to the list of blogs on The Brazil Times website include blogs by the Chief of the Brazil Police and the Clay County Sheriff. This was a surprise to me, but a welcome one. I would bet that most correspondence or communications received by the people in these positions involve problems and a few compliments. The public rarely hears of what has been said except by word of mouth. Once in a while, something might be considered newsworthy enough to be published in the paper or on the television and radio, but only rarely does the public come in contact with the police and Sheriff's departments in a venue that allows for open two-way communication.

We had a saying in the Marines that there was only two people involved in the digging of a hole who knew what was going on, the General who wanted the hole and the Private digging the hole. Everyone between the two in the chain of command was just "passing the word" and most of the time the message got "garbled in transmission"! Our government, even at the local level, can do a lot of things that the public just doesn't understand when they are not explained. The opposite is also true, something that looks, to the public, like something that should be done may well be detrimental to the public. I received an e-mail recently concerning English as the official language and a vote in the Senate. At face value, it looks like a good idea. With a little research, it became apparent that if our government restricts itself to doing business only in English, it would be almost impossible to do government business with people who enter the country with intent to become American citizens if they cannot communicate with the government. Restricting government to communicating only in English is a bad idea. There was a vote taken shortly after to "promote the use of English as the common, unifying language in America" that was passed with almost the reverse vote count. While the government will promote and encourage the use of English, the requirement to do business only in English was removed. A much better idea, I believe.

As Americans, we have the opportunity to interact and communicate with our government. I find it refreshing that Dave Archer and Mike Heaton have taken the opportunity open another communication channel to our government, one in a public forum where the reader can see both the question and the answer at their leisure.

Don't forget to VOTE!!