It's not for me to preach politics in this column. Just turn the pages of this newspaper or press the remote on your TV if you want somebody to tell you who to vote for or who not to vote for in the upcoming election.

Just imagine if you lived on Mars for the past few years and you've come back to earth just before Election Day in November. You don't even know the names of the presidential candidates.At the voting booth, you're given a sheet of paper with no names or parties attached. It's a list of what each anonymous candidate intends to do if elected.You choose your candidate all by yourself.That's obviously not how it is. With rhetoric everywhere about who's this and who's that, when I walk into the booth to vote, am I really selecting who I want or who Fox News wants or who this newspaper wants or who Harry from Facebook wants?I'm tired of the circus that surrounds politics these days. Someone recently told me not to vote for a certain candidate because if elected, he's going to throw us into a world war while his wife and daughter walk into the East Room in the White House and demand that the picture of that funny-looking guy named George be removed from the wall.Then somebody else told me not to vote for the other candidate because she's a liar, a criminal, and she's shaken the hands of leaders of terrorist organizations.It seems to me that it doesn't matter who's elected anyway because it will leave 50 percent of this country upset and angry because their candidate lost.I also wonder if my vote really counts. After the election there will be much screaming about rigged elections, and finger-pointing toward people who were paid off to guarantee their candidate would win.So what can we do? We can't find the truth within the media's interpretation of anything it reports to us, and after the conventions, when each candidate slings mud at the other, we're going to think that Mickey Mouse is more qualified to lead this country than these major parties' choices.Will either candidate actually make any difference when there will be so much opposition to his or her ideas, especially about how to stop the violence in our streets?Perhaps it's time for political, cultural and religious leaders to come together in peaceful solidarity to ease fears and raise hopes so we can stop the madness that is destroying mankind.And where are the music and the Hollywood stars, black and white, who have been given millions of dollars from our pockets? While their devoted fans are afraid to walk down Any Street, USA, I don't hear about these public icons stepping up to the plate to help bring calm to our cities and towns in return for the gift of their wealth. Kudos to NBA stars LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony, however, for calling for a stop to the violence.Instead, all we hear is these lives matter. Those live matter. You have to wonder why more people expressed their outrage over police using force against uncooperative suspects than they did about the little girl who was shot to death last summer by a drive-by shooter while she was doing her homework in her room.Did her nine years of life matter?I watch my son and daughter play and laugh on our front lawn. They are unaware that their mother and I are terrified for their future. We are teaching them to be courteous to everyone, and we mean everyone, and to have compassion for those who suffer while the country they live in faces a real possibility of another civil war.I pray that they don't grow up and have to sleep with guns under their pillows.In the meantime, I've gotten myself so worked up over these issues, I forgot I have to be ready.If there's a rocket ship leaving for Mars, I'm buying four tickets. I'll book the economy flight, too, the one without those TV screens behind the seats.Rich Strack can be reached at

katehep11@gmail.com.