Hilariousness

Over there at Elizabeth Vicary’s chess blog, they’re having a great time as always. Tom Panelas wants Barack Obama to pick Elizabeth as his vice-presidential candidate. Hear, hear! We definitely need a chess coach in the White House, particularly because Mr. Obama has not made his support for chess well known. Of course I would also love to have my former student so near to the levers of power.

There’s a question of eligibility, of course. Is Elizabeth 35 yet? Hmm. I taught her in … when was it? 1987? 1988? She would have been about 14 years old then. So I’m guessing that she was born in about 1973, so she is just about old enough. If not, a little Photoshopping of her birth certificate should solve that problem.

Tom also mentions that maybe Elizabeth was born in the U.K. That makes her run afoul of the famous Schwarzenegger Clause in the U.S. Constitution, in which our Founding Fathers either:

(a) Paranoidly assumed that anyone born on foreign soil was a closet monarchist, or

(b) Realized with breathtaking foresight that the governor of a state that did not yet exist (California) would be the most popular person in a party that did not yet exist (Republican) some 220 years later, and so they made up a special clause to keep him from becoming President.

Tom suggests that we should amend the Constitution to allow foreign-born people to be President. That shouldn’t be hard; half of Americans are monarchists anyway, to judge by their endless fascination with Prince Charles and Lady Diana and the rest of the British royal family.

When you’re done giggling over Tom’s post, please also check out out Elizabeth’s wonderful post on the ways that scholastic chess is different from regular chess. There’s some discussion afterward about whether the differences she described really have to do with the players being kids, or just beginners. Well, whatever… It’s a funny list, and clearly based on a lot of practical experience with kids.