CSotD: Sit You Down, Father. Rest You.
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Today’s headline is a quote from King Lear, or possibly from I Am The Walrus, and everyone having done a good job yesterday, we’ll skip politics and relax today.
Except that Doonesbury points out something that keeps getting lost in the discussion: The 25th Amendment allows for the President to declare himself unable to continue holding office, or, specifically:
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, 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.
So unless Congress — which can’t find a budget with both hands — agrees to replace the President, it’s up to the Cabinet. Either way, we end up with President Vance, who argued the other day with George Stephanopolous that just because there is a tape of Tom Homan accepting a bag of money, that doesn’t mean that Tom Homan accepted a bag of money, because he didn’t, so there.
The quote from Lear/Walrus was proof that Paul McCartney was dead, but I forget how and he seems to have gotten better. And we had a lovely day of peaceful demonstrations, my favorite part being that when I was walking from Vermont to New Hampshire I saw a pair of beavers cavorting in the Connecticut River.
They obviously had picked up on the vibe.
So enough politics and stop calling for the 25th Amendment to be invoked because you wouldn’t like it.
Just sit you down and rest you.
And don’t wait for Batman to come resolve things because he only comes out at night and then only if he happens to be looking up. I find it easier to believe that Paul blew his mind out in a car and didn’t notice that the light had changed.
Juxtaposition of the Season
We’re in the midst of a drought and Kearney is right: The autumn foliage has been disappointing, as a lot of leaves just shriveled up and fell to the ground without ever becoming spectacular. So it goes some years, though the apples have been excellent and autumn continues to rock.
And the geese finally got the message and it’s nice to see them overhead or hear them pass by in the night.
Arlo and Janis are putting their house on the market and moving to the coast, and today Janis announced that you can’t afford it.
I’m a firm believer in the Dead Vegetable Rule. Never mind “location, location, location.” If you are driving through the countryside and you see a house with dead vegetables nailed to the door, it means they know how much the place is worth and you can forget about getting any kind of bargain.
This BC hit just after I heard a Charlie Sykes podcast with Paul Rieckhoff in which Rieckhoff contends that constant phone engagement has made young people unable to look you in the eye and carry on an in-person conversation.
It’s not hostility, but a lack of experience in active, in-person engagement. Call for a back-up!
Over at Betty, Junior successfully lobbied to set his own bedtime, but she countered that he needs to put in an hour of reality, which I think is an excellent idea. I would also assume he doesn’t get to take his phone to bed.
I’m so old I can remember when we advised parents to set up the family’s computer in the living room so they could keep an eye on what their kids were up to. In fact, I’m even older than that: I remember when we warned against letting kids have televisions in their bedrooms.
At this point, raising your own kids is like raising your own vegetables. It sounds admirable but only a very few people bother.
People don’t do all that much better raising dogs. They’ll get a golden retriever and then be upset because it keeps jumping into the river, or they get a beagle and wish it wouldn’t bark so much.
My award for Best Rescue Group is Basenji Rescue and Transport, which includes this fabulous page, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, and you should scroll down past the Good for some laughs and shudders. I’d sooner let an orangutan loose in my house, but they provide plenty of warning. I wish every breed club were this frank.
Speaking, as we were, of bedtimes, I no longer have to go to bed when it’s still light out, not because I’m older but because it’s autumn.
In order to get this thing posted by 8 a.m. each morning, I’m up at 2, which means I turn in around 7 p.m. which is only dark half the year. It could be worse. I could live in Alaska, where light and darkness work in six-month shifts and I’m told that always-light drives people crazy.
As for bedtimes, there being seven kids in the family, my mother kept a notebook with bedtimes, allowances and chores for each age. It cut down on the whining.
And it meant that, when I read Cheaper By The Dozen and Belles on Their Toes, I realized we had dodged several bullets, though I thought Frank’s strategy of teaching his kids Morse code by putting jokes in code on the bathroom wall was brilliant.
I didn’t do that to my boys, but once they hit junior high, I stuck a copy of The Underground Guide to the College of Your Choice in there.
We’re coming up on the 45th Anniversary of the first story I had picked up by the Associated Press.
Betty reminds me that my first freelance job had been about six years earlier, writing scripts for a kitchen designer’s display at the Denver Home Show.
I do not believe this is what they mean by “industrial music,” but if you go to enough trade shows, you’ll hear something like it:
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