Archive for May, 2021

MURPHY’S SLAW

AGAIN!

I promise this will be the last reminder that Murphy’s Slaw will be released on Tuesday, June 1.

I will throw in a bonus of reminding us where the play on words started: with Murphy’s LAW:

Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

Some specific examples:

• If you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal and someone always answers.

• If there are only two people in a locker room/theater, they will have adjacent lockers/seats.

• Any item, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.

And here’s a link to a host of others!

The 8th Wonder

Who doesn’t recognize the Brooklyn Bridge?

(OK, maybe not everyone has its image on mugs, plates, kitchen towels, T-shirts. And a magnet. And  I’m sure I’m forgetting something.)

The bridge opened on May 24, 1883, and has been called the Eighth Wonder of the World.

This article probably has more than you wanted to know, but take a look!

(How many of my readers have crossed the Brooklyn Bridge? By foot? Car? Taxi?)

We were wrong

Here’s a quote, attributed to Carl Sagan (1934-1996), that seems apt today:

In science it often happens that scientists say, ‘You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,’ and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.

I feel obliged to point out one counterexample: In 1992, Pope John Paul II officially declared that Galileo was right, that the earth indeed moves around the sun and not vice versa. A reversal that took only 359 years.

Image by Reimund Bertrams from Pixabay

I’m looking for a counterexample in politics. Any ideas?

May 6 in History

Sometimes I get carried away reading summaries of history. I wish I’d paid more attention in high school history classes.

• WPA. You have to be a certain age to know that these letters were a household reference. The Works Progress Administration was signed into operation on May 6, 1935, to put millions of unemployed Americans back to work.

• In 1937, the Hindenburg exploded over New Jersey, killing 36.

• BOB HOPE. In 1941, Bob Hope did his first USO show before a crowd of servicepeople, from Riverside, CA.

• and so on.