James Leroy Wilson's one-man magazine.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

March 20, 2014: Einstein, AIDS, Iraq, the best movie song ever...

March 20: today in history (from Wikipedia)

1916 – "Albert Einstein publishes his general theory of relativity." After that, physicists gained the reputation of being the smartest people on the planet, although baseball sabremetricians may have surpassed them now.  

1964 – "The precursor of the European Space Agency, ESRO (European Space Research Organization) is established per an agreement signed on June 14, 1962." There's a European Space Agency?

1987 – "The Food and Drug Administration approves the anti-AIDS drug, AZT." To say "better late than never" is no consolation to loved ones of those who died because they were denied medicine by their own "government."

2003 – "2003 invasion of Iraq: In the early hours of the morning, the United States and three other countries (the UK, Australia and Poland) begin military operations in Iraq." Until it actually happened, I held on to the belief that NOBODY could be foolish enough to actually go through with this. 

Notable quotes

"I think that comedy really tells you how it is. The other thing about comedy is that - you don't even know if you're failing in drama, but you do know when you're failing in comedy. When you go to a comedy and you don't hear anybody laughing, you know that you've failed." - Carl Reiner (born March 20, 1922)

"In politics, madame, you need two things: friends, but above all an enemy." - Brian Mulroney (born March 20, 1939)

"A champion needs a motivation above and beyond winning." - Pat Riley (born March 20, 1945)

"Growing up, if I hadn't had sports, I don't know where I'd be. God only knows what street corners I'd have been standing on and God only knows what I'd have been doing, but instead I played hockey and went to school and stayed out of trouble." - Bobby Orr (born March 20, 1948)

"Sometimes people call me a success for all the reasons that make me think I'm a failure." - William Hurt (born March 20, 1950)

"A lot of times you get credit for stuff in your movies you didn't intend to be there." - Spike Lee (born March 20, 1957)

Song of the Day

Jerry Reed (March 20, 1937 – August 31, 2008) would have been 77 today. He co-starred in Smokey and the Bandit, and co-wrote (with Dick Feller) and performed perhaps the greatest plot-specific movie song ever:



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