Month: September 2019

25th Amendment hashtag

Ford and Rockefeller

25th amendmentThe 25th Amendment to the US Constitution, initiated by Congress in 1965 and ratified by 3/4s of the states in 1967, has four parts. I expect that the part that people are posting about online is referring to the fourth.

Briefly, the other three. Section. 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

This is alluded to in Amendments 12 and 20 but is much clearer here. JFK’s assassination in 1963 was surely on the minds of the citizenry.

Section 2. “Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.”

Gerald Ford (under Nixon) and Nelson Rockefeller (under Ford) became Veep under this provision.

Section 3. “Whenever the President transmits to [Congress] his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.”

The 25th Amendment has been used 3 times to relieve presidents deemed unfit to govern — each case involving physical health.

Section 4, as noted, is the item most discussed. As early as May 2017, the question was whether the vice president, Cabinet, and Congress would determine that the current White House resident was “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

It is not easy, but it is convoluted. “Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide [let’s say the Cabinet], transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

“But when the President transmits to the [Congressional leaders] his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and [the Cabinet] transmit within four days to the {Congressional leaders] their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

Then “Congress shall decide the issue… [if by a] two-thirds vote of both Houses [determine] that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.”

One can argue that the removal SHOULD happen. It won’t. I have serious doubts that, even if the House voted to impeach, the Senate would vote to convict. Ultimately, the only solution is the ballot.

Alphanumeric jumble: Canada

H0H 0H0

Canadian postal district
Creator:OnTheWorldMap.com
Information extracted from IPTC Photo Metadata; H is Montreal, N is Toronto
Meh. No US states, Canadian provinces, or territories starting with J. I could punt, but I decided to go arcane. Thus the alphanumeric jumble that is the Canadian postal codes.

When the US came up with ZIP Codes back in 1963, it made sense to me. Canada followed with postal codes in the early 1970s, which also exist in parts of Europe. The Canadian codes are “in the format A1A 1A1, where A is a letter and 1 is a digit, with a space separating the third and fourth characters.”

In the United States, large cities had zones for mail delivery as early as 1943. Chicago 9, Illinois was the location of the Spiegel catalog, I recall from many game shows. When ZIP Codes came into being, the third address line was: Chicago, IL 60609.

Likewise, large cities in Canada had zones, with Toronto starting way back in 1925, Montreal in 1944, and other cities in the 1960s. The powers that be started a three-digit code in Toronto in 1969, but then quickly abandoned it, inconveniencing businesses and residents alike.

In the Canadian system, the first three characters represent the forward sortation area. The FSA is “a geographical region in which all postal codes start with the same three characters. The first letter of an FSA code denotes a particular ‘postal district’, which, outside Quebec and Ontario, corresponds to an entire province or territory.”

The latter three characters represent the Local Delivery Unit.

“Postal codes do not include the letters D, F, I, O, Q or U.” I assume this is to avoid confusion, the D, O, Q, and U with a zero, F with E, and the I with a one.

I love the Santa Claus postal code, which is H0H 0H0. “The postal service responds each year to tens of thousands of children’s letters from around the world,” in the writers’ own language. The address, in case you need it:
SANTA CLAUS
NORTH POLE H0H 0H0
CANADA

or

PÈRE NOËL
PÔLE NORD H0H 0H0
CANADA

You DO see the significance of the postal code, yes/oui?

For J on ABC Wednesday

Dustbury: Charles G. Hill (1953-2019)

I didn’t even know what blogging WAS in 1996

Charles Hill.Myspace
stolen from his MySpace page
Dustbury, a/k/a Charles G. Hill, had been blogging since 1996. I didn’t even know what blogging WAS in 1996. He had been posting every day since about 2002, usually two or three times daily.

It was therefore weird that when I visited his site on September 5, there hadn’t been a post since the 3rd. Then I see in the comments: “Terrible news: My friend and GOAT Oklahoma blogger @Charles G. Hill was in a terrible auto accident on Tuesday. He is in the trauma ICU … It appears he has paralysis from the neck down.”

This was dreadful news for a couple of reasons. He had been having serious physical limitations of late that were frankly ticking him off. Alive and paralyzed I suspect would have enraged him.

On September 8, his friend Dan wrote: “I’m very sorry to report that Charles has died of his injuries.” His post from September 2 has now frankly freaked me out, in retrospect.

I know quite a bit about popular music from the last half of the 20th century. Dustbury probably knew twice as much. In fact, I discovered him because I was interested in Warner Brothers Loss Leaders and I actually provided him some information he did not know.

Charles was the person most likely to comment on a piece I wrote about music. He would add an anecdote or an obscure detail. Or write about it himself.

He once asked me if I were annoyed by his insertions; the answer was always no. And he knew WAY more about current tunes, from Taylor Swift to Rebecca Black of Friday fame, than most sextagenarians.

He wrote about local (OKC) politics. He wasn’t exactly a liberal, but in the Sooner State, he clearly liked to pick the person rather than the political party.

Charles loved My Little Pony stuff and gave great analyses of Oklahoma City Thunder basketball games.

He helped me tremendously via email with finding me a new website provider, and subsequently answered technical questions I didn’t understand. Most notably, he told me about the Classic Editor plugin that overrode the awful WordPress 5 “improvements.”

Yet, I always felt he didn’t think he had done enough in this world.

Charles has participated heavily on Quora, dealing with the scammers that he put in their place. But one particular post from August 23 touched me greatly.

To the question Who among your blogging peers do you consider the best and why? He wrote: “Easy: Roger Green of rogerogreen.com. He is always thoughtful, never crass, and he has something new to say just about every day.”

Had I answered the question first, I would have said Dustbury. But I didn’t want it to look as though I were merely reciprocating. I DO feel bad that I never told him how much I appreciated his comment.

A POEM

Our friend fillyjonk wrote this about her father’s recent death. Charles liked it, as do I. It seems appropriate here:

Grief is like a garment of variable size.

At times, it is a heavy wool cloak, enveloping, engulfing, it weighs you down.

At others, it is that t-shirt with the annoying tag you cannot rip out and that only gets worse if you cut it

It is never light and comfortable

It is usually too hot and saps your energy

It is a flattering color on no one.

It cannot be removed, cannot be dropped by the side of the road.

Laundering does not help it, nor does washing it in tears.

It will not rip; you cannot remove it; it is as if it is the enchanted

Shoes from that fairy tale; it has molded to your body.

Aloha, Dustbury.

Take and Seal It: Acts 1

make a difference in the world now

ActsThe last few hours of Triennium in West Lafayette, IN meant packing. After breakfast, the adults check on the teenagers’ rooms. Then we store ALL our stuff in one room as we go to the final worship.

The Scripture was about the Ascension of Jesus, in Acts 1:6-11. The intent of the sermon, which was quite inspirational, is how do we make a difference in the world now. The subtext is that you don’t worry about that “heaven” stuff; it’ll take care of itself.

You know how you go to a meeting or conference and come back with all sorts of great ideas that fall to the side in fairly short order? I know it’s quite possible that could happen here too for some people. Yet the building blocks of most of the days gives me some hope that the some of the lessons learned will stick for a while.

At bare minimum, the kids from the Albany Presbytery made some new friends from other churches. I know my daughter is still texting a number of them a couple months later.

We depart, but we don’t go far, as we eat in town at some sandwich shop. Then on the road. We stop at Napoleon, OH for a bathroom break. I step off the bus and get blasted by a scirocco, a hot wind that was not at all refreshing, but rather, oppressive.

It becomes apparent that we’re going to get back to Albany far earlier than the promised 8 a.m. arrival. We stop for dinner in Ashtabula County, OH, recalibrate our trip, and determine we’re going to get home about four hours earlier. Time to call our rides with the news. Ah, the lightning strikes in front of us do not bring rain for us.

I knew this before, but it was reconfirmed: seeing four episodes of Scooby-Doo in a row will rot your brain, even if you’re not actively watching it.

We stop at Amsterdam c. 3 a.m., about 45 minutes from Albany, so two families don’t have travel as far. Then onto Albany. When we got back to the church parking lot, there was a lot of goodbye hugs. My wife took us home. My daughter and I blew off church that morning. In addition to the fact we were dead tired – I didn’t sleep at all that night – we had attended church five times since the previous Sunday, so we figured we had a little worship latitude.

More music meme themes

produced by Ry Cooder

I think I’ll knock off a few of these music meme themes today.

A song that moves you forward

Whatever that means

Janis Joplin
Janis Joplin

Express Yourself – Charles Wright and The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band, #12 pop, #3 for four weeks RB in 1970. One of the few soul artists on the Warner Brothers roster at the time. This song was often covered or sampled. Famously, N.W.A sampled it for their 1989 song with the same title.” A member of N.W.A., Eazy-E, is a nephew of Wright.”

99 and a Half – Mavis Staples. From the GREAT 2007 album, We’ll Never Turn Back, produced by Ry Cooder.

A song you think everyone should listen to

I reject the premise. People should listen to whatever they want.

Crying – Roy Orbison and k.d. lang The best version, better than either of them by themselves. Damn thing makes me sob, especially when lang sings “crying” in the chorus. From the film Hiding Out, starring Jon Cryer and Annabeth Gish.

No More Tear-Stained Makeup – Martha and the Vandellas. Lyrics by Smokey Robinson. I wrote about it here.

A song by a band you wish was still together

Here’s the thing – I’m not that romantic about these things. Bands come and go. Still, I became aware that neither my wife nor my daughter was aware of the Ramones, not even this popular track played at sports arenas.

Blitzkrieg Bop – Ramones

A song you like by an artist you wish were still alive

Mercedes Benz – Janis Joplin. Janis had the second posthumous #1 pop song in Me and Bobby McGee. Also from that Pearl album is a song written by the singer herself. When I was singing it on a factory floor many years ago, someone asked me if it were a song by the Temptations.

Ain’t that Peculiar – Marvin Gaye, #8 pop, #1 RB in 1965. Because it’s Marvin, with background singing, I believe, by the “no-hit Supremes.”

Nobody Told Me – John Lennon, #5 pop in 1984. My absolute favorite song from the posthumous Milk and Honey album (1984). I’ve long wondered how he and Yoko made the determination which songs went to that album and which ones to Double Fantasy (1980)

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