26 Reds And a Bottle of Wine

If I understand things I read online correctly - stop laughing! - CBGBs is either toast or about to be toast, and Hilly's taking the place apart brick by brick to reassemble in Vegas. In theory, that is fantastic, and one day I'll be able to revisit my personal Mecca. By the time I'm ready to be Polyester Edna on permanent Vegas vacation, the mosh pit would be filled with surviving junkies - too mean to die; will be found sunning themselves on rocks after our impending nuclear winter - and tank top-clad, leathery retirees. Don't break a hip!

Let's hope no one touches the bathrooms without hazmat suits and the thought of reassembling them in all their indescribably filthy glory occurs to no one outside the Centers for Disease Control. If Scrubbing Bubbles could clean that we'd see a glimmer of hope for the Lincoln Tunnel. Speaking of strange and improbable, this amendment covers more stinking turf than sod on McMansion-infested former farmland.

Amendment XIV
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

I like the sound of that, baby! Whether or not the framers intended to, these words assert firmly we are all the same stuff, legally. Now it's Miller Time! Oh, wait -

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.

Crap, I hate it when we get into this fractions of whole people nonsense, let alone counting frat boys for House seats. Moving on, then -

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Can't be elected Dogcatcher after joining an armed insurrection against Dogcatchers. Got it.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

That explains why the Civil War Reconstruction went, um, so well and people speak of it glowingly. Damned Dogcatchers!

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Well, yeah. Otherwise, Congress is like the Mom that says, "You kids! Sit down and eat. Sit down and eat your dinner. Sit down and eat your dinner or tomorrow you're not having your play dates with you cousins Wednesday and Pugsley. Sit down and eat! I mean it, sit down and eat your dinner or I'm calling Uncle Gomez and you're not blowing up any trains. I mean it this time! Aw, what the hell, I'll clean up."

But we're lucky to live now, when that never happens.

Added: Mr. Wolcott, I love you.

Technorati tags: u.s. constitution, bill of rights,
bush, impeach bush, CBGBs, CDC, scrubbing bubbles.