Why Tomorrow Blows Dead Bears
Thu Jan 03, 2008 at 04:16:26 PM PDT
"A second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience."
Samuel Johnson
January - a whole new month in a whole new year.
New beginnings, new resolve, new hopes and dreams.
..and how is that working out for you so far?
Today's theme on WTBDB is the
Triumph of Experience over Hope.
(Note - I was going to post WTBDB as usual on Thursday, but I'm starting something new tomorrow. I'm very hopeful about it, needless to say.)
January is always full of inflated hopes: from that doofus on the treadmill beside you at the health club, who actually thinks he'll drop those pounds before the cardiac arrives...
...and that the unlikely prospect of his actually losing a few inches of suety midriff will make up for his complete lack of personality;
...to his long suffering girlfriend who changes her phone and e mail listing, but then sabotages her break up by making sure that his mom gets the new listings.
I'm sure you can come up with other examples...
Lets take a peek at why tomorrow is a particularly noxious example of defeated dreams in the making.
January 4, 1995 Newt Gingrich becomes speaker of the House
Anyone remember this?
FIRST, require all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply equally to the Congress;
I hear tell Tom Delay and others took a wide stance on this issue...
SECOND, select a major, independent auditing firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Congress for waste, fraud or abuse;
I know just the man for the job of selecting! Quick, yell down this tube to get his attention!
THIRD, cut the number of House committees, and cut committee staff by one-third;
...and we could farm out writing legislation to those nice lobbyists!
FOURTH, limit the terms of all committee chairs;
...or, as it turns out, wait for 2006.
FIFTH, ban the casting of proxy votes in committee;
SIXTH, require committee meetings to be open to the public;
<Snork>
SEVENTH, require a three-fifths majority vote to pass a tax increase;
How 'bout the same for a tax decrease or a War spending bill?
EIGHTH, guarantee an honest accounting of our Federal Budget by implementing zero base-line budgeting.
Hey, Newt, this must make you wanna hurl chunks!
January 4, 1991 Iraq agrees to send Aziz to Geneva to meet Baker on Jan 9th
Where are they now, I wonder?
January 4, 1983 U.S. Football League holds its 1st player draft
That Donald Trump. Such a visionary!
January 4, 1982 Bryant Gumbel became co-host of NBC's "Today Show"
...and...
January 4, 1982 Chris Wallace becomes co-anchor of the Today Show
How could one show contain such talent???
Its the first time I truly feel sympathy for Willard.
In the Department of Irony Department...
January 4, 1939 Hermann Goering appoints Reinhard Heydrich head of Jewish Emigration
Well, we have the necessary, unavoidable and obligatory invocation of Godwin's Law out of the way.
Thank God for the Czech resistance.
January 4, 1932 British East Indies Viceroy Willingdon arrests Gandhi and Nehru
Thereby vouchsafing the Jewel in the Crown. Pip Pip.
January 4, 1923 Lenin's "Political Testament" calls for removal of Stalin
...and didn't we all benefit from that?
January 4, 1896 Following Mormon abandonment of polygamy, Utah admitted as 45th state
Thereby guaranteeing that, no matter how lame, a GOP Preznitential candidate gets at least 5 Electoral College votes.
January 4, 1887 Thomas Stevens is first man to bicycle around the world (SF-SF)
...ushering in a new era of clean, efficient, healthy personal transportation!
January 4, 1493 Columbus left new world on return from 1st voyage
...dreams of being Viceroy of India dancing in his head.
January 4, 871 Battle at Reading: Ethelred of Wessex beats Danish invasion army.
Ethelred - the poster boy of the
Triumph of Experienceover Hope.
Of all the kings in English history, Ethelred II has perhaps the worst reputation. By the end of his reign, he'd managed to lose almost all of England to Viking Invaders.
Ethelred II is mostly commonly known these days as Ethelred "The Unready". This is a modification of "Ethelred Unread" a pun that was probably used during the king's lifetime. Ethelred in the old Anglo-Saxon language meant "noble council"; Unread meant "without council". Perhaps the original meaning of without council is a bit fairer than the later unready, but it matters little. The truth is that under the reign of Ethelred, England went from a unified Anglo-Saxon kingdom, to a confused political wreck, a fief of the Danish Empire. The problems and disunity that were created during this time would not be fully healed until after William the Conqueror came and destroyed the entire noble class of the country.
Ah, but here is the kicker.
January 4, 2007 Nancy Pelosi is elected Speaker of the House, by a vote of 233-202
To be fair to Ms. Pelosi, it does remain to be seen if hope was truly unfounded.
But to put the issue into relief for her, let's finish with another quote from the great Doctor Johnson:
"He [or she] who waits to do a great deal of good at once, will never do anything."
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