The post I did last evening about the XXV Amendment to the Constitution was inviting people to become familiar with Sec. 4.
Well, by golly, Congress is going to try to put it in place. Heard it on the radio this morning.
WOW!
Category: Uncategorized
25
No, I’m not going to write about what I was doing in 1977. Not that it was boring, it’s just that amendment XXV to our Constitution is something all have heard of but most can discuss only Section 1. There are four.
We all know that the 25th amendment to the Constitution, ratified 0n February 10, 1967, Discusses what actions to follow when the President is incapacitated. Ronald Reagan was almost fatally shot March 30, 1981. Bleeding and under anesthesia, he could not write a letter invoking the 25th. Clearly he could not draft a memo to Congress saying George H. W. Bush needed to step up. Wasn’t done, and Al Haig, then Secretary of State, took over insisting he was in charge, because he was next in presidential line of succession. And people listened to him.
George W. Bush twice used it and gave power to Dick Cheney when under conscience sedation. He could have been awaken
Sorry, Sir, than you were just a little farther down the list of presidential succession. The first pinch hitter is the VP. If he (or she coming to you soon.) If the VP cannot serve, the Speaker of the House becomes acting president. Hey, Nancy, at this time, you are right after the two idiots who are each one taco short of a combination plate. You could actually be the first female president. After Speaker of the House, if she cannot serve, next in line is the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, at this time, Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa. The President of the Senate is the VP of the country. Then, Al, it goes down the list of cabinet members, first being the Secretary of State. Ding, ding, ding! Al, step up, you’re on. General Al Haig died in 2010. General, a grateful country honors your career in the military.
The first three sections of the 25th Amendment explain this further, but section one is the one people can rattle off.
The 25th amendment has a fourth section that explains what to do when the first three sections are not applicable. For instance, Reagan was unable to draft a memo when he was shot. No shame when you have a bullet one cm. close to your heart. The shame now is no one suggesting to the very ill Trump that he’s so freaking crazy, use the 25th, and let Mike Pence say he was POTUS. He could pick a VP, but honestly, folks, the clock is ticking.
Mr. and Mrs. Khan, who are Gold Star parents, loosing a son in Iraq. At the last presidential campaign in 2016, he was all over Trump about not letting Muslims into the country, and become citizens. Then Mr. Khan pulled out his pocket a small copy of the full Constitution. A lawyer, he passes them out to people.
I have one of these, available at any bookstore, which I kept in my purse or on the table in the TV room. I got this idea when talking to one of my students. He opened his wallet and pulled out his copy.
With all the episodse of the Keystone Kops running around trying to erase our best in the world way of life, even Trump’s doctor lies about his patients probably because he is a commander in the Navy, and his patient is the Commander-In-Chief, who sees into a crystal ball and says he is cured after two days at Walter Reed. Sorry citizens, HIPAA does not apply to the President. It is a matter of national security.
Trump is nuts, that can’t be argued. Going home from the hospital, fully made up and his hair wrapped in its typical roadkill style, took off his mask to show America gasping for breath. The he stood at attention saluting. Norman Rockwell he’s not.
If Pence and others mentioned in Section 4, that can get the 25th in place, and let the Emperor try on his new clothes and convalesce in the WH. It can be done. He’s already backed out of a safely run debate (I think he’s still very ill and could not go through with it.) There IS a solution to what is going on now, it’s all in the book. We need Republicans to read it. We know Trump never has.
May her memory be a blessing
L’Shana Tova (Happy New Year-the greeting we say on erev Rosh Hashanah) This comes at sundown tonight.
Tonight we mourn the not unexpected loss of a liberal lion of the Supreme Court, Madam Justice Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I can’t write much, but I will use one of my two my favorite poems, written by while dying by John Gillespie MaGee, Jr in WWII.
HIGH FLIGHT
Oh to have slipped the surly bonds of Earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds-and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of-wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark or even eagle flew-
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
Justice, you are now with Marty, the love of your life. You will always be in my heart.
Dog surgery 101
Hello, this is Ivy here. I had my dog surgery yesterday. It wasn’t bad-everyone was so nice. But Mom had left! Would I ever see her again? Oh well, they love me at the dog hospital because I am sooooo pretty.
I already had blood work, so all they had to do was the procedure. I was taken back to the work area. I got a peek at the room where I was going to be. The nice women who work in the back put a thing called a catheter in my arm, and started a bag of some liquid going into ME!
Next was the night night drug. Ahhhhhh. I was gone. I only remember waking up and I was whining. I don’t whine!
So here is what was done to me after I was asleep: I had a tube in my throat so gas would keep me asleep. My right hind leg was shaved and cleaned, and I guess I was taken into that scary-looking room with the huge light fixture.
The doctor made a cut, incision it’s called, around the tumor on my leg. It didn’t take very long to cut it out and label the edges for the pathologist to check margins to see if they are clean. I don’t understand all this stuff, but Mom explained it.
Mom picked me up a couple of hours later. I was pretty loopy, and those people put the “cone of shame” on my neck. Mom hates those, so she took it off, and to stop me from biting the staples in my skin, put some stuff called bitter apple around the staples.
I slept all day yesterday. I looked so comfy that Mom decided to sleep with me on her bed. And here came Frank.
Today, I can run a little, but am stopped from doing that, and I am not ‘3-legged lame.’ I still love to sleep on the patio. The new house we are moving into has a smaller patio, and Mom talked to a man who is going to build me a dog pen. The new house is not what something called an HOA says it should be, so she had to get plans into the HOA.
I have to be still until the staples come out, so I’ll just chill, and watch Downton Abbey, my fave. Gosh, I wish the theater would let me in to see the movie. Guess I’ll wait until Mom gets the DVD.
Keep you posted on the pathology report.
Love,
Ivy
Ivy’s promise
I ruffled my fingers through Ivy’s mop-headed curls, my face close to hers. “Such a good dog,” I gushed. “You’re the bestest dog in the whole world.” As Ivy wriggled, overflowing with happy puppy energy, a wave of guilt washed through me, leaving behind a familiar ache.
It wasn’t Ivy’s fault. She’s an adorable ball of beautiful fur. From the very beginning, it was obvious that she was smart, loving, and loyal. She was the first puppy I’d raised by myself, and I was (and am) sloppy in love with her.
Ivy came into my life eight years after my husband Earl died. Over the 27 years of our marriage, we’d raised and loved two dogs, both huskies. Keli was our first. Fourteen years later, about a year before Keli died, we added Tipper. Tipper lived a long time too, and died ten days before Earl did.
What do you do when you lose the best dogs of all time, then years later, adopt a fuzzy little puppy who is also the best dog of all time? Is it disloyal to the huskies to tell the newcomer that she’s the greatest dog in the world?
There are some who would pooh-pooh these feelings of disloyalty and my worry that I was betraying my beloved Keli and Tipper. “The dog doesn’t know,” they’d point out. True enough, but just because Ivy doesn’t know the sorrow I still carry doesn’t mean I don’t feel the ache of that loss.
At first, I thought I could stay loyal to the memory of the huskies if I told Ivy that she’s the “greatest dog born in this century,” but that didn’t ring true. It was like telling her, “You’re the best—but oh, wait, I had these two huskies, and you’re not the same—but don’t worry, you’re also a good dog.” Things would get tangled in my head, too. I’d say, “What a good husky,” or call her Tipper.
I slowly began to understand that this was less about grief and more about comparison. What are the parameters by which we compare our pets, and our love for them? Should we compare them?
As Ivy’s first birthday approached, the answer finally emerged: there is no comparison, and there should be none. I didn’t need to let my love of Tipper and Keli go. I didn’t need to qualify my joy for Ivy. All three dogs in their times were the greatest dog of all time. From now on, no comparing one dog to another, no trying to gauge my love to prove it was equally deep for each.
I sat Ivy down and looked into her big round eyes. I told her how much I loved the huskies, and that I’d never forget them or the things we’d done together that made sharing my life with them so much fun.
“These memories are for remembering, not comparing,” I told her. “I promise to never compare you to them. I promise to not add ‘born in the twenty-first century’ when I say you’re the best dog.”
I’ve kept my promise. The ache is still there, but it’s softer, thanks to the memories of Keli’s and Tipper’s love and antics, combined with—not compared to—the new memories Ivy and I have been making for almost three years.
I did it, Mom
Dear Mom (Carol, as I called you when we worked together),
Today I found out that my book, Drinking from the Trough: A Veterinarian’s Memoir won three awards just from one competition. Judy, my coach and editor, took a stack of books to send in to many competitions. She said winners are often announced close to a year later.
Yet here we are, three months after the book launch, and I got word this morning of the three awards from Beverly Hills Book Awards. Here they are: Winner: Animals and Pets; Winner-Regional Non-Fiction-West; and Finalist: Memoir. Finalist is just as good as Winner.
You were the greatest writer I ever knew. I think we can thank Northwestern School of Speech (now called School of Communications) for that, where you got your undergraduate degree. For me, my Master of Arts from the Graduate School (now called School of Education and Social Policy, SESP) helped me.
I remember your starting a writer’s column for a little Highland Park paper, the name of which escapes me-it wasn’t the Highland Park News. One time, entries were slow, so you wrote the most exciting short story I’ve ever read. I wish I could find it. The ending was no less unexpected than a Stephen King work.
I miss you so much. This March 12 will be 40 years since you took your leave. In 1979, there were set visiting hours at the hospital, otherwise I would have stayed with you longer than that evening. Instead, the phone rang early the next morning with tragic news. It was unfair to lose my best friend when I was 26. When I have a birthday now, I count how many more years it is since your 56 years of life.
I know we communicate. Doing well on my first book I owe all to you. Thanks, Mom.
Love you, “Cara”
“Mara”
Ask Frank
Today in Ask Frank, Franklin is a little cranky.
Things are happening to Drinking Out of the Trough!
I haven’t blogged in some years, so it’s a whole new ballgame for me. Guess what! It’s becoming a book. I don’t know when it will be published, or even if it will be published, but I have many stories not on this blog that are part of the book, Drinking Out of the Trough. Of course, there are many animal stories, and my experiences as a veterinarian. I’m so excited-I want it published tomorrow! Not going to happen. I’ll keep chugging along, both in Colorado and Arizona, where I spend part of the winter. I take my cats down there with me, so look for Ask Frank, as Franklin is still a feline writer. Happy reading!