Monday, May 18, 2009

Our Senile Leaders

What is wrong with the following sentence? Robert C. Byrd, 91 and the longest-serving senator in history, was hospitalized last Friday with a temperature spike evidently caused by a minor infection, his office announced Monday. Don't see it yet? How about the one below? Byrd has been in Congress since 1952 and was first elected to the Senate six years later. How about a little perspective? In 1952:
  • Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected President - this is PRE-Nixon era, people.
  • TV first acknowledges pregnancy on I Love Lucy - and now there's a policy limiting how many times you can say "shit" or see boobies on primetime.
  • The typical U.S. grocery store carries about 4,000 different items - WalMart has that number in just one aisle
  • Ernest Hemingway publishes The Old Man in the Sea - which was probably on your classics reading list in college

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Other Events of 1952:
– The Today Show premieres on NBC.
- The Diary of Anne Frank is published.
– Washington D.C. is "buzzed" by several alleged UFOs tracked on multiple radars. Jets scramble on several occasions and the objects take evasive action, only to return after the jets leave the area.
August
– The New York Daily News carries a front page story announcing that Christine Jorgensen, a transsexual woman in Denmark, has become the recipient of the first successful sexual reassignment operation.

ahhh the good ol days..

Buddy Stone.