Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Current Reading Status

At the beginning of the year, I set a reading goal of 50 books. This seems like a low bar considering how many I read last year (65). When setting the goal for this year, I realized that I wanted to focus on diversifying my efforts a bit, to pursue some of my other interests with more gusto.

To that end, I managed to finish the first revision of my NaNoWriMo book earlier this month, and I'd like to keep writing more consistently (look for a future blog entry on my experimentation with fountain pens). I've started running again, and have kept up the habit fairly well so far. I also have a goal of necessity: I want to become more flexible. My muscles and joints tend to ache more now than they used to, and I think that increasing my flexibility (or at least focusing on stretching/warming down properly) will help mitigate that.

The good news is that I'm making progress along all of the above fronts, and am enjoying doing them as well. But reading... Reading might have been a catalyst to help me figure out that I needed to spend a little more time doing things that expand my mind and make me happy, especially in light of so much that might cause distress day-to-day. (insert politics/economics/other miscellaneous worries here)

It's the last day of February, and I have managed to finish reading eight books so far this year. They are:

  1. The Backwards Mask, by Matt Carson
  2. The Heart of What Was Lost, by Tad Williams
  3. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
  4. The Hero With a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell
  5. The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth
  6. Tales of Pirx the Pilot, by Stanislaw Lem
  7. Side Jobs: Stories From the Dresden Files, by Jim Butcher
  8. Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few, by Robert Reich
I liked all of the above very well, and encourage you to pick them up if you haven't. 

I think it's interesting to see the distribution as well. Two of these are non-fiction (one philosophy, one political economics), two are sci-fi, four are fantasy (with two urban and one alternate history). Additionally, two of them are collections of short stories (Side Jobs and Pirx the Pilot).

Strangely, my to-read list never seems to decrease, despite a consumption rate of one book a week. My long-lost love for reading has definitely been rediscovered, and is being pursued passionately.

Whatever inspires you, I hope you get a chance make the time to do more of it in the days to come. :-)

Saturday, February 4, 2017

Checks and Balances

Given the current political goings-on, I decided to refresh my memory concerning what the branches of our federal government are actually supposed to be doing. Here’s a quick overview of what I learned/relearned, without (much) commentary. I hope you find this as refreshing and enlightening as I did!

Our federal government’s powers are separated into three branches: the legislative, the executive, and judiciary. They are listed in this order in the Constitution because the framers considered them to be in this order of importance.


The legislative branch is described in Article 1 of the Constitution. It is embodied by Congress, which itself is made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Its main job is to make laws.



The executive branch, described in Article 2 of the Constitution, is supposed to execute the laws created by the legislature. It is embodied principally by the President of the United States.


The judiciary is described in Article 3 of the Constitution. It is made up of the Supreme Court as well as the federal courts. Its job is to interpret the laws created by the Congress and executed by the President.

Given that the powers are separated into these three branches, each branch also has the ability to limit (or check) the other two branches to some degree. This ability is what helps create and maintain the balance of power between the branches.

The legislature has the greatest number of checks against the other two branches. The framers of the Constitution were concerned with the possibility of the President becoming a dictator in the manner of King George III (their former sovereign).

To check the executive branch, the legislature can:

  • Impeach the President (House of Representatives)
  • Remove the President (Senate: if 2/3 vote for impeachment)
  • Reject appointment of officials
  • Override vetoes (2/3 vote in both houses required)
  • Refuse to pass laws the President wants
  • Refuse to appropriate funds for Presidential programs


To check the judiciary, the legislature can:

  • Impeach and remove judges
  • Reject judicial nominees
  • Change the court system by adding or removing federal courts
  • Change the jurisdiction of federal courts
  • Pass new laws that override Supreme Court decisions (as long as the decisions weren’t based on the Constitution)
  • Propose amendments to the Constitution


The executive branch has the next highest sets of checks. To check the legislative branch, the executive can:

  • Veto Congress’s laws
  • Call Congress into special session (but can’t force them to pass new laws)
  • Carry out laws in ways that are contrary to the intent of the Congress
  • Break ties in the Senate


To check the judiciary, the executive can:

  • Nominate Supreme and federal court justices
  • Pardon people convicted by the courts
  • Refuse to carry out court decisions


Finally, the judiciary has really limited checking power. To check the legislative branch, the judiciary can:

  • Declare laws unconstitutional
  • Preside over impeachment trials (remember, they’re carried out in the Congress)


To check the executive branch, the judiciary can:

  • Declare executive actions unconstitutional
  • Issue warrants in federal crime cases


(I'm sure there's a pretty picture that lays all this out at a glance, but I'd already typed it out before I began searching for images...)

These concepts are described in greater detail in The Federalist Papers, No. 51, written by James Madison. Read through it when you can — it’s worth a gander.