March 8, 2014: Hitchhikers, Holmes, and the other side...

March 8: today in history (from Wikipedia)

1917 – "The United States Senate votes to limit filibusters by adopting the cloture rule." The filibuster isn't very democratic, but neither is a simple Senate majority when California has 70 times as many people as Wyoming and yet is equally represented in the Senate. Cloture implies that passage of a law  may have the "consent" of Senators representing most states and a majority of the American people.

1978 – "The first radio episode of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, is transmitted on BBC Radio 4." I think the franchise ran out of steam, but the Hitchhiker's first three novels are brilliantly funny.

1983 – "U.S. President Ronald Reagan calls the Soviet Union an "evil empire." Several American politicians want to call Russia that today, whereas many across the world would assign the USA that title.


Notable quotes (from BrainyQuote unless otherwise noted)

"The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books."

"I despise making the most of one's time. Half of the pleasures of life consist of the opportunities one has neglected."

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (March 8, 1841 – March 6, 1935)

"[If you're] going to have an industrial society you must have places that will look terrible. Other places you set aside -- to say, ‘This is the way it was." - John McPhee  (born March 8, 1931)  Source:  http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/40.John_McPhee

"TV serves us most usefully when presenting junk-entertainment; it serves us most ill when it co-opts serious modes of discourse - news, politics, science, education, commerce, religion." - Neil Postman (March 8, 1931 – October 5, 2003)


Song of the Day

Happy 35th, Tom Chaplin of Keane!