Rob Lifford

Last night I completed Crunk Juice in my dining room recording cave. There’s a full write-up over on the page. I didn’t manage to get a song released in the first month of the year per my secret New Year’s resolution, but getting the first one out on my birthday isn’t bad either.

If you have comments, leave ’em over on that page; I’m turning them off here.

Today we threw a little party for Violet’s 5th birthday, and I just had to post our thanks and a big recommendation to Brittany at Parties by design, LLC. It was a truly wonderful day for Violet, and having a party planner come in with decorations, props, etc. made the whole day so much easier on us (especially since the kiddo was so excited about her birthday that she woke us up no less than four times between two and four a.m.—we are zombies right now)… Thanks again, Brittany, and I hope we can refer some new customers your way soon!

[Note: the post title is stolen from the always-hilarious Tom Pearson]

So, Houston has elected its first openly gay mayor, Annise Parker. I wish her and the city very well, but let’s all remember that things aren’t really as they should be until this piece of information about the mayor-elect is not newsworthy.

This is the part of the article that raised my eyebrows:

After the mayoral race entered a runoff, conservatives and anti-gay activists mounted an intense campaign against Parker. Houston residents received flyers in the mail that highlighted Parker’s support from gay groups and her relationship with her partner.

Oh, you mean her 19-year relationship with her partner? I wonder how many people who received the flyer—hell, how many of the people who helped fund and send the flyer—had marriages that didn’t last 19 years?

Observing the bloody fray that is U.S. health care reform, Andrew is about as fed up as I am: “the way we write legislation is stupid,” he notes.

I couldn’t agree more. And tonight, it seems that the only means I have to make myself feel better about this smoking train wreck that is our government is to re-imagine it a little bit.

Since the American people already expect a clear legislative agenda from their presidential candidates, let’s go ahead and let the president drive the legislative process, and restructure the rest of the government to complement that approach:

• The chief executive forms committees of aides and invited experts in fields relevant to the legislative agenda, and the committees draft bills to advance that agenda, in clear accordance with the campaign issues that the American people paid attention to and voted on.
• Turn the entire Legislative Branch into something new: call it the Representative Branch, maybe. Keep this branch ideologically balanced: one representative per state from each major party (define a “major party” as, say, one that can claim something like 10% of registered voters in all 50 states). The representatives lobby the president’s legislative committees to help ensure sure the interests of their constituents are being heard, and communicate with these constituents about what’s taking shape in the legislation. (It goes without saying, of course, that any draft legislation should be available to the public at the very earliest stages and offer opportunities for comment as well.) Allow a two-thirds majority of the representatives to torpedo a draft bill as something that’s not truly in the interest of the American public.
• Expand the role of the Supreme Court: if the Representative Branch can’t get the votes to reject a bill, it goes to the Supreme Court for a Constitutionality Review. Either a bill pass this review and becomes law, or it goes back to the President’s legislative committees. The Court could still hear cases where the Constitutionality of existing laws is challenged, but review of new legislation would become its essential function. (Noted: Presidential appointment of Supreme Court Justices will probably need to change under this model).

Today, we have a situation where the desired direction for the country is pretty clearly expressed in the presidential elections, but then Congress turns everything to shit by either starting off with legislation that does really not jibe with that desired direction, or by failing to generate the bipartisan support it needs to pass anything of substance. (We’re actually seeing both of these problems in the current health care debacle.)

In my proposed model above, Congress doesn’t get that opportunity. In the default case, legislation based on campaign promises should sail through the Representative review process, while strictly partisan objections will simply fall by the wayside. If the president’s legislative submissions clearly diverge from the campaign promises, the a bipartisan coalition can be built to prevent their passage, with the added security of a Constitutionality check before any bill becomes law.

Something about that just feels right. I’m batshit crazy, probably, but I’ll need you to tell me why.

[This post is really more for personal scrapbooking purposes than for communicating with friends and family; please forgive its somewhat self-obsessesed tone. –Ed.]

On Saturday, 2009/08/08, I played at the downtown farmers’ market for the first time as my own act—by that, I mean as the leader of a group that performed nothing but my own original material (unofficial band name for the day: “The Other Dharma Initiative”). I was thrilled and lucky to have two really incredible musicians playing with me for the show: Sick on fiddle and Kevin Willette on mandolin and dobro. This was totally unrehearsed; the guys just showed up at the appointed time, took a glance at the charts I’d prepared, opened their ears, and tore it up. I was grinning from ear to ear listening to these guys play my tunes. For my own future reference, I’m taking note of which tunes we actually played.

Set 1:

• Fat Cats *
• Knockin’ ‘Em Down *
• Flip & Edie
• Lunchbreak at the Lumbermill
• Grey Matters *
• The Alligator Song
• Burning Boxcar *

Set 2:

• Waiting on Carlos *
• 50 Acre Road
• Murray
• After the Ballgame *
• Pick up the Pieces *
• Billiard Ball
• Urban Breakdown

(* = first-ever live performance)

My only regret is that I didn’t make appropriate plans to get the whole thing recorded. Next time. Mostly I’m just glad to say that the whole thing was satisfying and fun enough that I’m going to make the effort to make sure there is a next time.

Tonight I got my motivation up to build a very simple Firefox extension that I’ve been wanting for a while. It’s all explained over here on its own page: http://rob.lifford.org/typeaheadtoggle/