Confused about the title? Good. You're a pretty normal type of person.
However, our American Senate is not composed of normal-type people. Not in the "normal" sense that I'm using. They're pretty weird. In fact, the American Political system is so filled with loopholes and crannies and ways to get around the rules that were set up by the Founding Fathers that its pretty likely that a bunch of the predecessors of our nowaday politicians were just as nutsy.
Which brings us to filibustering! Do you know what that means? I didn't really until today. I'd heard about it before, but I didn't quite understand the significance. Let's check out the definition:
filibuster [(fil-uh-bus-tuhr)]
A strategy employed in the United States Senate, whereby a minority can delay a vote on proposed legislation by making long speeches or introducing irrelevant issues. A successful filibuster can force withdrawal of a bill. Filibusters can be ended only by cloture.
In case that dictionary-speak wasn't quite clear (and it often isn't to me), I'll explain further.
Filibustering is when a politician or groups of politicians do not want a bill to pass or a legislation to go through the senate, and to keep the bill from passing or the legislation from going through, a Senator yaks a good long while and stalls. As the U.S. Senate has a policy of allowing its senators unlimited speech on a subject while they have the floor, no one can stop them.
Ridiculous, right? My mom heard tell of a politician that read the telephone book to stall. The telephone book! Seriously.
The longest recorded instance of filibustering in American History is by Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, when he filibustered for 24 hours and 18 minutes straight to keep a bill that prevented racial segregation from passing. That's pretty long, and to keep something good from happening. :(
There's a bright spot, though. In the definition above, the last sentence said that, "Filibusters can only be ended by cloture." Cloture is the bright spot. A Senator is allowed to call for a vote to reduce the time of the Senator who has the floor to one hour, and once the Cloture rule has been invoked the bill or legislation has to be resolved within 30 hours.
Unfortunately, Cloture can only be invoked fully if the vote the Senator calls for is passed by 60 votes, i.e. 3/5's of the Senate. Sad.
Confusing stuff, huh? Politics is like a tangled web. I've always thought that, in general, but I didn't realize that our system allowed Senators to get up and read out of a telephone book for something like 24 hours straight, just to get their way. It's sad.
Pray for our justice system and our political system; just our government in general!
Love,
Tina
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Can't breathe...
Without you. But I have to.
Just thought I'd do a post title that was completely unrelated to the content of my post. 'Cause while I DO have "Breathe" by Taylor Swift stuck in my head, my mind is running more in the direction of filmmaking than of country music.
Today was the second day of filming for a movie that my friends and I are making. Believe you me, It was nuts. I went into the venture vowing not to become stressed because I was the director, and then, wouldn't you know it, I got stressed about trying not to be stressed about being the director. Seems as though I can't win, eh?
Perhaps a better plan would have been to accept that I would get stressed, but to have plans for dealing with it rather than trying frantically to keep it out of my head. We got alot done, though; only four scenes left to film.
The movie is called The Wishing Well, by the way. It's a little script that I wrote up, inspired by some great books by Edward Eager. I must admit, I had alot more fun writing the script than directing the movie. After the crazy, "5, 4, 3, 2, 1, ACTION!" day was finished and I was feeling about as tightly wound as a kite string, I wondered why exactly I didn't like directing as much as I thought I would. I think I've figured it out.
ONE: I was not merely directing. I was deciding who got recorded, and where every shot would be taken. I was being the cinematographer as well as the director. Cinematographer=add on extra work and stress.
TWO: I was recording the shots, being the camera woman as well as the director and cinematographer. Camera woman=add on more work and stress.
THREE: I was not only recording the shots. We only have one camera, and in order for the shots to look nice and have different shots per scene, we had to move the camera and often record the same scene again. And again. And again. So technically, I was a team of camera people. Team of camera people= add on lots more work and stress.
So what does that add up to? A grumpy Tina at the end of the day. I suppose that this blog post is just a complaint soaked internet page. But then and again, I think it really does do me good to write out my feelings- so maybe one complaint soaked internet page will ensure that there will be less complaint soaked internet pages in the future. And maybe that makes my title make sense in a weird way:
Perhaps I have to keep taking deep breaths and calm myself down. Or maybe its that I have to accept the stress that I've got and work through it. You know, how Taylor Swift can't breathe without her man, but she has to? Heh heh, yeah...
Anyhow, have a good night, and wish us luck on filming tomorrow!
-Tina
Just thought I'd do a post title that was completely unrelated to the content of my post. 'Cause while I DO have "Breathe" by Taylor Swift stuck in my head, my mind is running more in the direction of filmmaking than of country music.
Today was the second day of filming for a movie that my friends and I are making. Believe you me, It was nuts. I went into the venture vowing not to become stressed because I was the director, and then, wouldn't you know it, I got stressed about trying not to be stressed about being the director. Seems as though I can't win, eh?
Perhaps a better plan would have been to accept that I would get stressed, but to have plans for dealing with it rather than trying frantically to keep it out of my head. We got alot done, though; only four scenes left to film.
The movie is called The Wishing Well, by the way. It's a little script that I wrote up, inspired by some great books by Edward Eager. I must admit, I had alot more fun writing the script than directing the movie. After the crazy, "5, 4, 3, 2, 1, ACTION!" day was finished and I was feeling about as tightly wound as a kite string, I wondered why exactly I didn't like directing as much as I thought I would. I think I've figured it out.
ONE: I was not merely directing. I was deciding who got recorded, and where every shot would be taken. I was being the cinematographer as well as the director. Cinematographer=add on extra work and stress.
TWO: I was recording the shots, being the camera woman as well as the director and cinematographer. Camera woman=add on more work and stress.
THREE: I was not only recording the shots. We only have one camera, and in order for the shots to look nice and have different shots per scene, we had to move the camera and often record the same scene again. And again. And again. So technically, I was a team of camera people. Team of camera people= add on lots more work and stress.
So what does that add up to? A grumpy Tina at the end of the day. I suppose that this blog post is just a complaint soaked internet page. But then and again, I think it really does do me good to write out my feelings- so maybe one complaint soaked internet page will ensure that there will be less complaint soaked internet pages in the future. And maybe that makes my title make sense in a weird way:
Perhaps I have to keep taking deep breaths and calm myself down. Or maybe its that I have to accept the stress that I've got and work through it. You know, how Taylor Swift can't breathe without her man, but she has to? Heh heh, yeah...
Anyhow, have a good night, and wish us luck on filming tomorrow!
-Tina
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