#crapshoot

[yourpixieandbuddy]

⋆｡𖦹°‧★ pattern release day ☆⋆｡𖦹°‧

i should probably post this in the morning when the world is awake, but after several months of testing/writing and 16 years of crocheting my first pattern ever is now available

i doubt when i was a teenager and sent to live with my cousins as “punishment” for the summer my parents thought i would use the crochet lessons i had that faithful august as a means to be a full time artist making weirdo little clowns, but here we are in my 30s still hooking bb.

happy birthday crapshoot 🤡

Crapshoot The Spiral Clown pattern by pixie allen

a fun amigurumi for new and seasoned crocheters who love vintage vibes, cost effective materials, less fiber fill, and clowning around

[deadpresidents]

I know that presidents and vice presidents have had a range of different working relationships over the course of US history, from very amicable to very fractious. Is there any book that examines the relationship between the president and the VP in various regimes?

Here are a few books that are not just general histories of the Vice Presidency, but examine some of the President-Vice President relationships through the years:

•First in Line: Presidents, Vice Presidents, and the Pursuit of Power (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) by Kate Andersen Brower [2018]

•American Roulette: The History and Dilemma of the Vice Presidency by Donald Young [1972]

•Crapshoot: Rolling the Dice on the Vice Presidency by Jules Witcover [1992]

•The American Vice Presidency: From Irrelevance to Power (BOOK | KINDLE) by Jules Witcover [2014]

•The White House Vice Presidency: The Path to Significance, Mondale to Biden (BOOK | KINDLE) by Joel Goldstein [2016]

And these are even more directly focused on specific Administrations:

•Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) by Gordon S. Wood [2017]

•Jefferson's Vendetta: The Pursuit of Aaron Burr and the Judiciary (BOOK | KINDLE) by Joseph Wheelan [2005]

•The President and the Apprentice: Eisenhower and Nixon, 1952-1961 (BOOK | KINDLE) by Irwin F. Gellman [2015]

•Ike and Dick: Portrait of a Strange Political Marriage (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) by Jeffrey Frank [2013]

•The Johnson Eclipse: A President's Vice Presidency by Leonard Baker [1966]

•In His Steps: Lyndon Johnson and the Kennedy Mystique by Paul R. Henggeler [1991]

•Very Strange Bedfellows: The Short and Unhappy Marriage of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew (BOOK | KINDLE) by Jules Witcover [2007]

•Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) by Peter Baker [2013]

•Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) by Barton Gellman [2008]

•The Long Alliance: The Imperfect Union of Joe Biden and Barack Obama (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) by Gabriel Debenedetti [2022]

[roughridingrednecks]

Crapshoot

[lichi-rin]

craps (poopy) table

[fabulousfangirling]

Bear with me here, Upper East Siders. What if after a failed fashion stint, Jenny Humphrey took a post at Constance Billard, changed her name for anonymity, and when she saw students that reminded her of Blair & Serena, she played dumb and allowed Gossip Girl to re-emerge; with her @ the helm.

Just letting my brain run wild here 😂 The resemblance is strong

[outofcontextstevedangle]

[deadpresidents]

Are there any good books you've read on the various Vice Presidents(specifically Biden)?

For Biden, I can’t give a high enough recommendation to Joe Biden: A Life of Trial and Redemption (BOOK | KINDLE) by Jules Witcover. It’s a fantastic look at Biden’s tragic yet inspirational life, most of which has been spent in the service of others. Here’s my review of it from when it was released.

Richard Ben Cramer’s What It Takes: The Way to the White House (BOOK | KINDLE) is a book about the 1988 Presidential election and a half-dozen of the top candidates during the cycle, but it’s also a very revealing look at Biden, and probably more so when it comes to his personal life than his unsuccessful candidacy for the 1988 Democratic Presidential nomination. As I warn everyone when recommending What It Takes, you better pack a lunch if you decide to read it because it’s a massive book (over 1,000 pages) and Cramer’s style isn’t for everybody. However, it’s also the best book ever written about Presidential campaigns.

Some other recommendations for books about the Vice Presidents or institution of the Vice Presidency include two more titles from Jules Witcover, who is probably the foremost Vice Presidential historian (and a damn good political journalist and Presidential historian, as well). Witcover’s older book is Crapshoot: Rolling the Dice on the Vice Presidency, written during the Vice Presidency of the infamous Dan Quayle who gave Witcover plenty of material. Witcover’s more recent book is The American Vice Presidency: From Irrelevance to Power (BOOK | KINDLE), released in 2014 and including biographical sketches on VP from John Adams to Joe Biden.

Another more recent book is Joel K. Goldstein’s The White House Vice Presidency: The Path to Significance, Mondale to Biden (BOOK | KINDLE), which focuses on the Vice Presidency since it finally became a truly influential position beginning with Walter Mondale in the Carter Administration. The modern Vice Presidency that we are familiar with today and seems to gain more power and influence with each new Administration would be unrecognizable to nearly every Vice President in American history who served prior to the 1970s.

Veeps: Profiles In Insignificance: The American Vice Presidential Pantheon from Adams to Cheney written by Bill Kelter and illustrated by Wayne Shellabarger is an extremely entertaining and, yes, fun book about our Vice Presidents -- many of whom have been super weird dudes. It features individual profiles on the first 46 Vice Presidents and a handful of some of the more memorable would-be Vice Presidents who were on the wrong side of the Electoral College tally after Election Day. If you’re looking for something really fun to read and packed full of fascinating, odd, and all-around surprising facts about VPs, this is the book to get.

One last recommendation is actually a free one that you can check out online. Since one of the Vice President’s few Constitutional roles is as President of the Senate, the United States Senate has a GREAT resource on the institution of the Vice Presidency along with information on the Vice Presidential Bust Collection and in-depth individual biographical profiles on every Vice President in U.S. history. And, like I said, the best part of it is that it’s free on the U.S. Senate’s website along with a ton of other awesome historical resources put together and made available by the Senate Historical Office. Definitely take some time to check that site out.

[datsouledone]

the crapshoot

i never thought that i would write this blog but i need to blow off some steam and release some pressure. i have been mulling over thoughts of my mortality and find myself coming back to the same conclusion over and over again. it is not fair, why me, why this and wind up in a mental tailspin each time. i know we do not fully have control over each aspect of our lives but i thought i had tapped…

the crapshoot