5 election items on which we can agree

We're near the finish line of the longest presidential race since Chester Arthur and Rutherford B. Hayes ran 850 miles from Dodge City, Kansas, to Tombstone, Arizona, as part of the 1876 Centennial celebration.

This year's election is between the owner of the United States Football League's New Jersey Generals and the first lady of Arkansas (based on 1985, the last time I paid attention), but once we finish, it's time to turn our attention to real problems.

That's a great thing about democracy. We can vote on such things as whether we should pay taxes on soda, who should win "American Idol" and who should start in the NBA All-Star Game. Additionally, the number of rights we have has been expanded by such freedom fighters as the Beastie Boys (the right to party, 1986) and KFC (the right to chicken done right, 1988), who showed that we can always improve our lives.

With that in mind, and with the election season ending, I hereby present five proposals on which we should vote next election season – all of which would make our lives better.

Merge directional states: Do we really need two Dakotas? Seriously? What about the Virginias? And the Carolinas? Under this proposal, multidirectional states would be required to merge into single entities, temporarily dropping to 47 the number of the United States. (I suggest adding Puerto Rico as a state, which would allow us to break out all the 48-star flags we put away in 1959.) And if you feel bad for the Dakotas, consider this: Even with this new plan, the state of Dakota (population 1.6 million) would have as many United States senators as California (population 38.8 million). That's still unfair, but I'll wait to introduce my plan to merge Dakota with Montana and Wyoming (creating Wykotana, population 3.1 million).

Speed up baseball: I love the sport, but do we really need more relief pitchers and pitching changes? The World Series was great, but slow. Change the rules to require relief pitchers to face at least three batters. Limit catcher visits to the mound to twice per inning. And install a trap door on the mound (with alligators underneath) that opens when a pitcher works too slowly. Bring back some speed! (And create jobs for alligator trainers.)

Coffee ordering simplicity: Allow only three sizes: Large, medium and small. Limit choices to just a few options: Lattes, mochas, regular coffee. Add a requirement that a cup of coffee can't cost more than a gallon of gas. And impose a limit on the number of fluffy pastries near the checkout counter.

Cable TV unbundling: Everyone agrees: We should be able to pick what channels we want on our cable TV (or satellite dish). Give us an a la carte menu of TV channels, with specific prices. If I only want the Lifetime Movie Network, FX, The Food Network and ESPN Classic, I should be able to create my own package. Actually, you can keep the bundles if you also offer the a la carte menu.

Whatnot prevention: Make use of the word "whatnot" punishable by not less than five years in a federal penitentiary, since it's a lazy word that makes you sound like a rube . . . and whatnot.

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.