Revelation 8 - How a Bill Becomes a Law

When a Senator or a Representative introduces a bill, he sends it to the Clerk of the House (whose name is Mort, consider sending him a card for his birthday) who gives it a number and title ("Led Zeppelin IV" as Mort is always disappointed to find, is already taken) This is called the first reading and the bill is then referred to the proper committee (one not staffed, note, by lumberjacks).

Rules for dealing with Congressional Committees Staffed by Lumberjacks:

Don't look lumberjacks directly in the eye while they are feeding. Lumberjacks are bearded, brawny men and should not be challenged when they are "gettin' they grub on."

Unless they are eating spiral cut ham. But then, only look in the left eye of the lumberjack. The left eye of the lumberjack who consumes an entire spiral cut ham is captivating. It's enchanting. It's a dreamworld of magic and will take you to a transcendent place much like ecstasy or ramming your head over and over into the refrigerator.

Quit that, by the way. That's not cool.

Lumberjacks do not know the meaning of the word "naugahyde." Do not lord this over them. They are simple, hardworking folk and they don't cotton to you big city types and your 'tudes.

Do not taunt lumberjacks. Your words crack their souls.

The committee may decide the bill is unwise or unnecessary and table it, thus killing it immediately.

I was tabled once.
Best weekend of my life.

Or it may decide the bill is worthwhile and hold hearings to listen to facts and opinions presented by experts and other persons of interest (I, for example, am interested in Moby. His head so round and shiny…it haunts me in the nighttime. Come to me, Moby. Come to me, be with me, let my powerful arms envelope you and keep your tears at bay. Sweet, beautiful, heartbreaking Moby. Let me sing to you my song of love.)

Oh, Moby. Well you came and you gave without taking but I sent you away,

oh Moby

well you kissed me and stopped me from shaking And I need you today, oh Moby

After members of the committee have debated the bill and perhaps even offered amendments (for example, I continually write my congressman hoping to get the following jingle from the Kewpies restaurant in Lima, Ohio as the replacement National Anthem for the overly militaristic Star Spangled Banner:

Hamburg, pickle on top
Makes my heart go flippity-flop)

...a vote is taken; and if the vote is favorable, the bill is sent to the floor of the house. The clerk (Happy Birthday, Mort!) reads the bill sentence by sentence to the house, and this is known as the second reading (in cooking class in 8th grade, I made twice baked potatoes...I recall them as being tasty, but I was a chubby kid, so the bar wasn't real high with me..in sewing, I made a shirt, it was blue with a yellow collar, I wore it, it was scratchy. Hey, here's a good story, I took square dancing in 9th grade gym. I'll tell you that one sometime…no, not you, you I won't tell…you, yeah, you, I'll tell you.) Members can then debate the bill and offer amendments. In the House of Representatives, the time for debate is limited by a cloture rule (cloture is a great smart guy word for time limits - next time you're in a position where you want to get rid of someone who has overstayed his welcome, say, you know some random dude who you have desperately tried to let down gently, but, for some unknowable reason, just won't get the hint, invoke cloture on his ass. You don't got to go home, but you can't stay here, people.) but there is no such restriction in the Senate for cloture, where 60 votes are required (I voted 60 times for that Katherine McPhee to win American Idol, for example. Goddamn Taylor Hicks. Why do bad things happen to good people? My God – Why Hath Thou Forsaken Hotass Katherine McPhee?). This makes possible a filibuster in which one or more opponents hold the floor to defeat the bill.

I swore I’d stop talking about Katherine McPhee. I may need to invoke cloture on this blog.

The third reading is by title only ("Led Zeppelin IV?" Mort whispers hopefully) and the bill is put to a vote, which may be by voice or roll call depending on the circumstances and parliamentary rules (Rule 128 of Robert's Rules of Order - all meetings will begin with a kickass acoustic rendition of The Killers' "Mr. Brightside".) Members who must be absent at the time but who wish to record their vote may be paired if each negative vote has a balancing affirmative one (this one time, at band camp....I don't know how that fits there, but it struck me funny to say).

The bill then goes to the other house of Congress, where it may be defeated or passed with or without amendments (With or Without Amendments, best U2 song on parliamentary procedure ever). If the bill is defeated, it dies (can we have a funeral for it in the backyard, Daddy? Will the bill go to heaven with grandma and Red Auerbach?) If it is passed with amendments, a joint Congressional committee must be appointed by both houses to iron out the differences (I don't own an iron, but I do have this wrinkle remover spray thing that doesn't contain any ingredient listings...what type of magical aerosol substance exists that removes wrinkles and can I make sweet love to it? These are the questions on the minds of the American public, I am just the messenger. If there's one thing, as the midterm election approaches, that the average American cares about, it's how many canned consumer products exist into which Jim can insert his mighty dong and when do they go on sale?)

After its final passage by both houses, the bill is sent to the President. If he approves, he signs it, and the bill becomes a law ("that's right, bitches, now I'm a law - suck on that, you loser bills") However, if he disapproves, he may veto the bill by refusing to sign it and sending it back to the house of origin with the reason for the veto ("this bill is crackin' on my sexy" or "it doesn't contain a single mention about Jack Griffin, NCAA amateur wrestling champion in 1910 at 118 pounds" or "BaBa Booey"). The objections are read and debated and a roll call vote is taken. If the bill receives less than a two-thirds vote, it is defeated and goes no farther (farther's a funny word, say it five times, people, just let it roll around your throat, it's funny to say). But if it receives a two-thirds vote or greater it is sent to the other house for a vote. If that house also passes it by a two-thirds vote, the veto is overridden.

Should the President decide neither to sign nor veto the bill, he may retain it for ten days, Sundays excepted, after it automatically becomes a law without signature. However, if Congress has adjourned within those ten days, the bill is automatically killed, that process of indirect rejection being known as a pocket veto.

I said…a pocket veto.

The process of indirect rejection known as a pocket veto…

I had a pocket veto once.

Best weekend of my life.

And that's how a bill becomes a law.

The Greatest Major League Baseball Players Ever #194-193, TONY PHILLIPS AND FRANK TANANA

#194 TONY PHILLIPS Uti Tigers

1982-99

OPS+ 109

BFW 18.7

WARP3 103.5

Guys who can play multiple positions tend to be undervalued historically. Phillips gets this spot ahead of Heine Groh.

#193 FRANK TANANA P Angels/Tigers (LH)

1973-93

ERA+106

PW 12.8

WARP3 106.5

First pitcher on the list; gets spot ahead of Ed Walsh.

Revelation 7 - My Cat is My Emergency Contact Part One

My cat is my emergency contact.

Just let that wash over you for a second.

My cat is, in point of fact, my emergency contact. She wasn't the first choice, but the black roadie for Psychedelic Furs isn't very dependable in a crisis.

The reason I mention this is that I had a moment a few months ago when I was bathing in my own blood, and it struck me that some nurse was going to get stuck trying to get my cat to answer the phone, which is a bit of a problem considering the whole opposable thumbs debacle (put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. Darwin; if, in fact, laws of natural selection require that traits necessary for species survival are propagated, why is it my kitten still can't recognize that my special "I'm bathing in my own blood" ringtone, "You Light Up My Life", means she needs to step up and bring my insurance card to the emergency room?)

You'd think the kitten would be able, even though thumbless, to manipulate my brand new Verizon chocolate LG celly: With its sleek and stylish silky-smooth slide design, the Chocolate offers a rich array of features that include V CAST Music, glowing touch-sensitive navigation keys, and a superlative music/video player (that's product placement son, or haven't you noticed that the advertising tentacles around here grow a little more every day)– and that's because she demonstrably can easily handle a 9 mm semiautomatic pistol (as it's conceivable my kitten used it to assassinate Barbara Mandrell back in 1986…and if you don't think the methamphetamine fueled sadomasochistic homicide of Barbara Mandrell is the functional equivalent of killing a head of state – say of Rwandan Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, killed in 1994 by future CNN newsreader Soledad O' Brien – then you've never been to Nashville during the High Mandrell Holy Days, in which scores of virgins in Vince Young jerseys are swaddled, goo-goo cluster-like, in luscious caramel, smooth creamy marshmallow, fresh roasted peanuts and pure milk chocolate and set forth to sing "Sleeping Single In a Double Bed" in every church, synagogue, mosque, and pagoda in Nashville.)

If you've never been to a Tennessee pagoda, you don't know what you're missing.

But, not only does she just shrug the functional equivalent of her cat shoulders when asked to answer the phone; what I know, and that ER nurses never will, is that the cat would not step up if called upon. I mean, she'd understand she was speaking with a medical professional – but my cat is not a cat of action but a cat of thoughts – a thoughtcat, if you will, and she'd immediately vault into a discussion of sickness as less biological event and more of a social phenomenon. Historically, my cat would opine, when you consider diseases from yellow fever to heart disease to cancer to AIDS, sickness has taken place within a social context wherein the behavior of the sick was held to be transgressive. My kitten would discuss my bathing in my own blood as emblematic of my weakness of character, the ire of my disappointed ancestors as I continue to squander my limitless potential on puroresu and auto-erotic manipulation, "the body is a system of dynamic interactions with the environment, Jividen's bloodletting results from a cumulative interaction between his weak constitutional endowment and poor environmental circumstance," my kitten would say. "He gets what he deserves. If he dies…he dies. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow.

Meow….

Meow……..

…. Meow…….

…..Meow~"

Revelation 7, Part Two - My Cat is My Emergency Contact

I don't really want to go into what led to the dramatic loss of blood (craniocerebral trauma caused by my 'copter getting shot down over the Sea of Japan) from that night several months ago, I'm keeping my inner architecture secret from you people, can't let you roam inside my head and all that; and it's really incidental to the point of this story, which was the revelation I had while waiting in an inner city ER at 2 in the morning on a Friday night in January…

…Oh, Oh, Oh…do you have any idea the types of people you encounter at 2 in the morning on a Friday night in January? Toddlers mauled by rhesus monkeys; Marla Maples, who has been out of public view since struck with neurofibromatosis; a reed thin African-American woman claiming to be the Maharajah of Gaipajama and demanding a soul kiss from a vending machine containing nothing but garbanzo beans, sweetbreads, half eaten Ore-Ida tater tots, and breastmilk from the still lactating corpse of Vic Tayback, tethered to the machine by a byzantine series of pulleys and levers (a joke that works much better, readers, if you pronounce lever with a long e, like "Leave it to Beaver" or "Don't Fear the Reaper.")

In fact, that's exactly what my blog needs…more cowbell.

It's my own fault, winding up in the ER on Friday night, bathed in my own blood and wondering how I got to a place in my life where the only possible call that could be made on my behalf was to a cat; truth is you're more likely to find Betty Rubble in a bottle of Flintstones chewable vitamins than I am someone in south Florida who would come to the ER to scrape me up.

And the injury, mysterious though we will leave it, was my fault as well.

I've always tended toward the clumsy. I broke my right arm in soccer practice in third grade, I tore multiple ligaments in my right ankle when I was 15 in full tilt celebration of Sugar Ray Leonard's improbable victory over Marvelous Marvin Hagler. I fractured my left kneecap taking some shrapnel while directing my third…no, fourth, Viennese snuff film in '98; my silicone ass implants, which I got when going all method during my street theater days as a Beyonce impersonator, ruptured during a particularly fevered version of "Crazy In Love" in the median of I-95 just a year and a half ago. None of that had anything to do with the revelation I had while my vital fluids were seeping from an open wound that Friday night in January – that had to do with the peculiar understanding of matters right and wrong held by those in power in the United States government.

You sure have heard, since September 11, 2001 particularly, a lot of good/evil speak emanating out of Washington.

Let's see if I have the scorecard right. Feel free to correct me:

It's wrong, apparently, to utilize warehoused embryos to conduct life saving research.

It's right, apparently, to bomb civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It's wrong, apparently to sign the global emissions Kyoto protocols.

It's right, apparently, to drive cars bigger than the sky.

Tax cuts for the wealthy are right.

Increasing the minimum wage and providing health care for American children is wrong.

Warrantless wiretaps = right.

Gay marriage = wrong.

Torture = Right!

Saying "Happy Holidays" = wrong

Right: In Guantanamo: no access to lawyers, no right to face one's accuser, no learning of charges against you.

Still What's right: Wages have stalled since 2000

While: Corporate profits have doubled.

So, so right: Tax cuts sliced a few hundred dollars off the tax bills of most Americans, they saved the richest one percent more than $44,000 on average.

Couldn't be more right: Once all of the tax cuts take effect, those with incomes of more than $200,000 a year -- the richest five percent of the population -- will take almost half of the money.

Oh, wow is this right: In 1969, General Motors was the largest corporation (aside from AT&T, which held a guaranteed monopoly) in the US. GM paid its CEO a salary of $795,000 -- the equivalent of $4.2 million today.

The average paycheck for production workers in the auto industry was almost $8,000 -- more than $45,000 today. GM workers also received health and retirement benefits.

Today, Wal-Mart is America's largest corporation, with 1.3 million employees; its chairman, is paid almost $23 million. On average, Wal-Mart's non-supervisory employees are paid $18,000 a year. Benefits?

Yeah, right.

The most right thing you'll ever read: According to the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the hourly wage of the average American non-supervisory worker is lower, adjusted for inflation, than it was in 1970. Meanwhile, CEO pay was less than thirty times the average wage back then …and is now almost 300 times the typical worker's pay.

Then there's 64 year old Thai Ngoc, who hasn't slept since 1973; Sanju Bhagat, whose twin brother spilled out of his stomach, having taken up residence his entire life as an unknown fetal parasite; Mehran Karimi Nasseri, who has lived at the Charles de Gaulle Airport since 1988; and Yoshiro Nakamatsu, who has photographed every single meal he has eaten for the last 34 years.

What do any of those people have to do with the ethics of the Bush Administration?

Nothing.

But, as I sat in the ER Friday night, bathed not only in my own blood but my feelings of moral righteousness -- I realized that none of those guys – not a single one of them –

…has his cat as his emergency contact.

Top 200 Major League Baseball Players Ever - #196-195 HANK GREENBERG and SHOELESS JOE JACKSON

#196 HANK GREENBERG 1B Tigers

1930-47

OPS+ 157

BFW 32.6

WARP3 77

Greenberg's at the bottom of the list and if you're waiting for Koufax, you'll be waiting a long time. This is a coincidence. My apologies for it. Greenberg gets this spot ahead of Norm Cash.

#195 SHOELESS JOE JACKSON LF/RF Indians/WSox

1908-20

OPS+ 169

BFW 38.3

WARP3 77.4

Joe Jackson could rake. Next best corner OF, not on the list, whose value was in his bat - Albert Belle. You got Belle/Shoeless Joe in the middle of your lineup, you're gonna score some runs.