Yesterday got away from me and I never blogged. I went to make one call before I started and it lasted three and a half hours. I’m not complaining. That’s the kind of thing that makes quarantining manageable. I’d rather have done that than blogged, but I’d rather remember what I was planning on writing instead of having to vamp today. Yesterday was Wednesday so I do need to do my weekly statement that The Expanse might be the best TV show ever. It’s certainly the one that I’ve been the most invested in since the first three seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s like bacon, every time I experience it I can’t believe how good it is. It’s always fresh. I value things like that always have new car smell, whether it be food, music, TV shows, or people, especially people.
I love my easy dinner last night. I had leftover pork loin and mac & cheese and popped it in the microwave. I enjoy cooking but I also enjoy not cooking. Sometimes I just want things easy. I have a friend that I’ve been trying to talk to for weeks now. He’s not good about calling right back. He waits for days. The first time he called back was during the inauguration. I was busy watching it with friends on zoom. As soon as it was over I called him. He returned that call exactly a week later, when I was on my three-hour phone call. That was so long I didn’t call right back as I was hungry and had the aforementioned dinner instead. See it all comes around in the end.
I didn’t write yesterday so I couldn’t tell you to listen to Gord’s Gold on Folk Music Notebook but I can now tell you to listen to the latest installment, along with three older ones, on Mixcloud. You should listen, the spotlight is on Fred Smith, Oliver Esposito, Rod Picott, and Sam Baker. I believe I’ve featured more women than men on the show, so this was a strange collection by chance. Ollie is transmale so at least there’s some diversity. I almost change the mix but decided to make it easy on myself and just pick the first three as listed in the file folder. It should be chronological but for some reason many got changed to the same date. It’s not worth the effort to untangle it. I forgot that you don’t even have to follow the link, I can embed the player here.
I got to this point and the friend called me and we talked for an hour and five minutes. I should say about one hour and five minutes. I should say about 1:05:02. That’s the accuracy my phone gives it to but that’s just to the nearest second. That is enough accuracy for my purposes, but I just didn’t want to claim accuracy I didn’t possess. We were trying to figure out where we knew Alicia Witt from. I checked on IMDB and she wasn’t in anything that we saw together. Maybe we saw her on a musical bill with someone we knew. Our combined memories were, “cute redhead,” and her name. This from people who can give exact quotes from numerous grade Z movies and obscure TV shows. If you have a question about Robot Monster ask us. If you have not seen Robot Monster, stop what you’re doing and correct that. The king of so bad that it’s good movies. The titular monster is a gorilla in a diving helmet.
There are certain bad arguments I see all the time and rather than rant I should calmly explain why they are bad arguments. How often do you see people saying that they key to reform is abolishing the senate? Anyone who says that loses my attention immediately. I have hated the idea of the senate since I was old enough to understand how it works. The idea that Wyoming’s 600,000 people get the same representation as California’s 40,000,000 is completely undemocratic. If I feel that way why do I stop listening when people talk about abolishing it as a practical solution? Because we can’t. Article I Section 3 of the constitution states, “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State,… .” So, can’t we amend the constitution to change that? Two problems with that. The first is to amend the constitution requires ratification of ¾ of the states. Do you think we can get ¾ of the states to approve of what would weaken the power of most states in the senate? Even if we could there’s another problem, Article 5 of the constitution, “… no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.” It’s the one part of the constitution that can’t be amended. If you are discussing abolishing the senate then you are not discussing anything practical. We have to find another way.
Why is there that strange to modern thinking clause in Article V? Because many of the creators of the constitution looked at the United States very differently that we do now. They thought of it as organization of separate sovereign nations. It was akin to the European Union where each state, no matter how large or small, has an equal say. Our bicameral legislature is a compromise between that view and one that views the US as one sovereign nation with constituent parts. The senate represents the states, the house the people. The last thing that the representatives of the small states wanted was to be dominated by the larger states so that compromise was enshrined in the country’s founding document. It’s unfortunate. It’s undemocratic. It’s grossly unfair. We can’t change it, so concentrate on what we can change.
That’s one specific idea that I could back with easy research, the text of the constitution. There are many arguments where I am in total accord with the speaker’s or poster’s sentiment, but their proposals are unworkable. There are of course many cases where it’s not as clear what is workable and what is unworkable. Those are useful discussions. Where I have to show self-restraint is when people conflate thinking something is impractical with being against the goals. If someone said that we can’t replace fossil fuels with perpetual motion machines, it doesn’t mean they don’t think we need to fight like hell to stop climate change. I said perpetual motion because it’s physically impossible. The practicality of renewable energy is something that changes with time. It’s getting more and more practical and many on the right don’t see that. The progress is so great that I’m starting to get optimistic. You make energy cheap enough and the possibilities are enormous. You can share someone’s goals without thinking their methods would work.
Wise Madness 