Uncle John’s 24-Karat Gold Bathroom Reader® (73 page)

SCENARIO #2: The vice president does something really bad

The Constitution says that the vice president (like the president) can be impeached for “treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors.” If this were to happen, the House of Representatives would be responsible for listing the crimes the vice president was accused of committing. The Senate would then try the vice president in a manner very similar to a court of law. There’s one problem: The Constitution states that one of the vice president’s duties is to preside over the Senate. If the vice president were ever impeached, he would be responsible for presiding over his own impeachment. Now, if this ever actually happened, the vice president
would most likely resign: That’s what Richard Nixon’s VP Spiro Agnew did when he was facing impeachment for bribery in 1973. But technically, he (or she) doesn’t have to.

Only fictional character with an obituary in the
NY Times
: Agatha Christie’s detective Hercule Poirot. (His death in her last novel won him an article on page 1.)

SCENARIO #3: The VP is in a
really
tight race for president

As Senate president, the vice president is also tasked with breaking tie votes. Ties in the Senate are rare but critical. In particular, if no candidate wins a majority of electoral votes in a presidential election, the Senate is responsible for deciding who wins. This has happened only once, in 1828. But if it had happened in, say, 2000, and Vice President Al Gore had tied Governor George W. Bush in the electoral college, the Senate would have voted to break the tie...and Gore would almost certainly have voted for himself.

SCENARIO #4: The Speaker of the House isn’t in the House

Every two years, the House of Representatives elects a Speaker as its presiding officer. That person becomes very influential in promoting (or blocking) legislation. Since the days of Washington and Jefferson, the Speaker of the House has been either a respected senior member of Congress or an influential party leader. However, the Constitution doesn’t actually require that the Speaker be chosen from among the members of the House of Representatives. It gives
no
specifics about who can hold the job. Congress has never clarified the Speaker’s qualifications, either. So by a literal reading of the Constitution, even
you
could be Speaker.

SCENARIO #5: The president goes nuts

The Constitution is clear on who becomes president in the case of death, impeachment, or resignation, but it’s a little fuzzier regarding insanity. The document states that the president must step down if he is deemed “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” Who makes that determination? The Constitution says that it’s either “the vice president and a majority of the principal officers of the executive departments” or any “other body as Congress may by law provide.” That means that Congress can form a body of officials to decide whether or not the president is well enough to stay in office. Who would Congress pick? Probably a panel of respected doctors, psychiatrists, and other medical professionals...but they could pick anyone.

FAKE CITY QUIZ

These fictional towns were located in real states...but can you match them to their book, game, movie, or TV show? (Answers on
page 542
)
.

Barbie’s hometown, according to Mattel, is Willows, Wisconsin.

TREE-GO-NOMETRY

Have you ever wondered just how tall the tallest tree in your yard is? If you’re afraid to climb all the way to the top, fear not: There’s a way to measure its height without ever leaving the ground
.

W
HAT YOU NEED
A tape measure and a sunny day.
You’re going to estimate the height of the tree by comparing the length of its shadow to the length of your own shadow. And there won’t be any shadows if it’s foggy, overcast, or 2:00 in the morning.
Level ground.
The flatter it is, the better your estimate will be.

WHAT TO DO

• Lay the tape measure on the ground and measure your shadow. To keep the math simple, let’s assume your shadow is 9 feet long (108 inches), and you are 6 feet tall (72 inches).

• Measure the tree’s shadow. Let’s say it’s 50 feet long.

• Visualize a triangle created by you, your shadow, and a straight line running from the top of your head to the end of your shadow. Using trigonometry, the study of triangles, you’re going to compare your triangle with the one made by the tree and its shadow.

• The tree’s triangle is the exact same shape as your triangle; only its size is different. That’s because the sun’s rays are coming from the same direction when they create both shadows.

• Because the triangles are the same shape, the ratio of your height to your shadow’s length (72 in. ÷ 108 in. = 0.67) will be the same as the ratio of the tree’s height to its shadow.

• Since your height is 0.67 the length of your shadow, the tree’s height will be 0.67 the length of its shadow. That’s 0.67 x 50 feet = 33.5 feet, so the tree is approximately 33 feet 6 inches tall.

• Why approximately? Because the position of the sun in the sky gradually changes as the Earth rotates. That means the lengths of the shadows are slowly changing too. Take your measurements quickly! The faster you work, the more accurate you’ll be.

More Americans (4.2 million) are employed as retail sales clerks than any other occupation.

BEFORE THEIR TIME

Neil Young sang that it’s “better to burn out than to fade away.” These folks were on their way to making it big before they were 25...and then they died, leaving us wondering what else they would have done
.

E
DDIE COCHRAN (1938–60)
Cochran was an early star of rock ’n’ roll, who, like Elvis Presley, helped craft the young art form with a combination

of electric guitars and a rockabilly sensibility. He was only 18 when he started his music career, but he was among the first to experiment with studio tricks such as multitrack recording and overdubs on hits like “C’mon Everybody,” “Twenty-Flight Rock,” and the song for which he’s most famous, “Summertime Blues.” In late 1959, Cochran recorded a song called “Three Stars,” about the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens, and eerily, it would be one of the last songs he ever recorded. In April 1960, he embarked on a European tour. Late one night in London, he was riding in a cab with his girlfriend. The car blew a tire and careened into a light post. Cochran was sitting in the middle of the backseat and apparently tried to block his girlfriend from being thrust forward. But there were no seatbelts then, and when the car hit the post, Cochran flew out the window and died on impact. He was 21.

HANK GATHERS (1967–90)

Only three players ever led college basketball in both scoring and rebounds in the same season. Two of them, Kurt Thomas and Xavier McDaniel, went on to moderately successful NBA careers, but the one who was primed to be a superstar was the third one, Hank Gathers. A 6’7” power forward for Loyola Marymount University in California, Gathers averaged 32.7 points and 13.7 rebounds per game in his 1988–89 junior year. His numbers in the next season were almost as good—29 points and 10.8 rebounds per game. NBA prognosticators predicted that Gathers would be selected high in the 1990 NBA draft, likely in the top ten. Having so promising a future is probably why Gathers kept his health problem a secret. In December 1989, he had collapsed at the
free-throw line during a game. While hospitalized, he learned he had an irregular heartbeat, a potentially fatal condition. But Gathers kept on playing, leading LMU to the conference championship tournament. He also stopped taking the medication—a beta blocker—that helped the heart trouble, believing it made him weaker and affected his play. In the first half of a game against the University of Portland on March 4, 1990, Gathers dunked on an alley-oop, and then while running down the court, he staggered and fell. As trainers rushed to his aid, he yelled, “I don’t want to lay down.” Then he stopped breathing. He died in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. He was 23.

Only .000000000000001% of the stars in the known universe are visible from Earth.

PINETOP SMITH (1904–29)

Clarence “Pinetop” Smith began his career as a blues pianist-for-hire at age 15. At first he made his living playing at house parties, bars, and brothels in Pittsburgh. From there, he joined the black vaudeville circuit, performing occasionally as a comedian, sometimes as a solo pianist, and finally as an accompanist for major blues singers like Mamie Smith and Ma Rainey. Smith still played the occasional house party, and at one of them in St. Louis in 1928, he invented a new style of music: 12-bar piano blues with an improvised melody (right hand) over a steady rhythmic bass figure (left hand). He called it “boogie-woogie.” A blues label called Vocalion signed Smith to make some recordings, the first of which was in the style he’d just invented, called “Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie.” Over the music, he spoke instructions on how to do a boogie-woogie dance, which he’d also just come up with. Altogether, Smith recorded eight songs at Vocalion’s Chicago studios in three sessions—one in December 1928 and two in January 1929. Two months later, while still in Chicago, Smith was at a local dancehall for a gig. A fight broke out, guns were drawn, and Smith got caught in the crossfire. He was 24 years old. No photos of Pinetop Smith are known to exist, but his influence is still being felt. The style of music he invented gave way to hot jazz, rhythm and blues, and in the eyes of many music historians, rock ’n’ roll.