chaos Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Cat caused chaos

One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor

For about 15 minutes, there was bedlam in my house on Sunday, May 26. The cat caused chaos. Of course, it was Midnight.

My daughter was about to take a shower. Midnight had become fixated on the tub, trying to get water from the faucet. I will acknowledge that at least one person in our household, frequently finding him in the tub, would gently turn on the water. After all, he seemed to enjoy drinking the water that way. Moreover, it was a way to clean his grody feet, especially his rear paws.

But when she wanted to shower, she later said she couldn’t get him to leave. He CAN be onery. So he stayed. Afterward, she texted me, noting that he peed on the floor and a couple of pieces of her clothes.

At the time she was leaving the bathroom, my wife had come home from a visit to her mother’s. So, simultaneously, my daughter is asking me to clean the upstairs bathroom floor AND my wife is calling me, quite insistently, to come downstairs. Plus I was scheduled to talk to my sisters on ZOOM in about five minutes.

There was water in the downstairs bathroom, leaking from the ceiling. When my daughter washed her clothes in the upstairs sink, water got into the hole that stopped the sink from overflowing. The water, I discovered, didn’t have anywhere to go except into the cabinet below and, subsequently, the downstairs bathroom ceiling.

The ceiling dripped for a couple of days, but much of the water was absorbed by the now-sagging ceiling tiles above the downstairs toilet. Ah, another home repair to deal with. When you’re the homeowner, you can’t call the landlord.

Reciprocity

Here’s something dumb that the blogger did more recently (May 30). My CDs are in a library file cabinet I bought from the Albany Public Library when they were renovating a few years ago.

For no good reason, the lowest three drawers were open. There was clutter in front of them, but still. I opened the second drawer from the top and the file cabinet, with about 2,000 CDs, started tipping over.

I called to my wife, “Help me!” She thought it involved the cats; we’d been away for two days. Then I screamed, “HELP! ME!!” as I leaned into the cabinet. She closed the upper drawer, then one of the lower ones.

If it had crashed, I feared it would put a hole in the floor. That goes in the category of things I’ll never do again.

Chaos as Civics Lessons

Emoluments

I’ve been trying to reframe the last few years. Maybe we should embrace the chaos as civics lessons.

ITEM: There were discussions about whether the previous guy in the White House was profiting off the office. “Generally, these anti-corruption provisions, the so-called Emoluments Clauses, prohibit the president from receiving any profit, gain, or advantage from any foreign or domestic government. Impeachment, as outlined by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 65, is a political remedy (though not the only remedy) for a president’s egregious violations of these prohibitions.”

Alas, in January 2021, the justices of the Supreme Court “dismissed two cases about then-President Trump’s alleged violations of the Emoluments Clauses… In doing so, the Court forfeited a golden opportunity to clarify just what these mandates mean for future presidents. And its refusal to rule one way or another may inadvertently encourage another president to brazenly leverage his or her power for profit.”

I dare say most readers had never heard of the word “emoluments” before 2017. So the citizenry is better informed, right?

Counting the electoral votes

ITEM: Did you know that Congress meets on the 6th of January after the Presidential election to count the electoral votes? Well, since 2021, NOW you do. It’s right there in 3 U.S. Code § 15.

As an old poli sci major, I was aware of it, but I never paid any attention until 2001, when there was some noise about challenging the Bush victory, but it was all bluster. I did follow it in 2009 because I couldn’t believe, in a good way, that Barack Obama was going to become President. But I all but forgot in 2005 and 2013, after W and Obama were reelected.

I noted it in 2017 because I couldn’t believe, in a not-so-good way, that djt was going to become President. Then I heard him, in his idolatry, say that Mike Pence could overturn the 2020 election results.

Still, the 2021 event was supposed to be largely ceremonial, with Pence, Nancy Pelosi, and others bringing their families to watch the beginning of the peaceful transfer of power. That didn’t work out as well as it might have.

And the US has exported political chaos to Brazil as Bolsonaro backers stormed government buildings in a January 6-style attempted coup. The country’s President, Congress, and its top court have jointly said the actions were terrorist acts. Last I checked, Bolsonaro had taken refuge in Florida.

Picking the Speaker

ITEM: Electing a Speaker of the House is usually a pretty straightforward process, though some horsetrading takes place. For instance, when Nancy Pelosi was up for the job in early 2019, she agreed to limit her tenure to two two-year terms. (I remembered that, but I also read it in a right-wing publication trying disingenuously to show that Kevin McCarthy’s difficulties weren’t all that uncommon.)

Well, a 15th ballot is rather unusual.

I knew one did not need to be a member of the House of Representatives to be the Speaker, though I believe it’s always been a Congressperson. So when Matt Gaetz nominated djt, there was no specific prohibition against that.

What ARE the legal requirements?

“Constitutionally, a current member of the Executive branch is prohibited from simultaneously holding office in the Legislative Branch. The Ineligibility Clause (Article 1, Section 6, Clause 2 states:

No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.

But I could find nothing SPECIFICALLY that indicates whether the Speaker must be a certain age; members of the House have to be 25. I suppose someone too young to vote could be selected.

Incidentally, during the first week in January, C-SPAN Was America’s Hottest TV Drama.

Music. Birthday. Roger. Chaos. 67.

Annie Haslam, Judy Collins, Odetta

Roger.babe We have the convergence of Saturday, when I generally write about music, and March 7, which is my birthday. Save for the obvious, there is isn’t much I play every year.

Now there WAS a song I played on March 8, a lot. Have a Good Time from my favorite Paul Simon album.

Yesterday it was my birthday
I hung one more year on the line
I should be depressed
My life’s a mess
But I’m having a good time

I’ve been trying to remember what music I have received on my birthday. A couple years back, I received an album of Odetta singing Bob Dylan. A couple of those tracks appear here.

There was an album I got on my 16th birthday called Who Knows Where the Time Goes by Judy Collins. I wrote about it back in 2008, but somehow all the YouTube links got mucked up. So here it is again.

I was thinking about a particular song from the album, The Story of Isaac, written by Leonard Cohen. It’s because my Bible guys have been rereading the book of Genesis. Specifically Genesis 22, when Abraham is tested by God.

In 1977, I was in Charlotte, NC, crashing on my parents’ sofa. What I wanted for my birthday was the album Scheherazade & Other Stories by Renaissance. I played it. Don’t think my family appreciated as much as I did. So it goes.

Anyway, 67 suggests sixes and sevens. Chaos. Or at least that’s how I’ll remember how old I am.