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Quote of the Day: These Times
In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these. – Paul Harvey
Yes, things are going crazy. Someone in an article on a news site commented that this year has been tumblr fan fiction weird. It has.
Yet this has not been the first crazy year ever — or necessarily the craziest year. Remember 2008? The world was going to end due to the housing bubble collapsing, followed by Obama’s election. How is that for weird? (Remember McCain’s bizarre suspension of his campaign?) How about 2001? The dot-com bust followed by 9-11. Or how about the Y2K craziness in 1999? Going to the year 2000 was going to end civilization. (It didn’t but a couple of friends nearly bankrupted themselves buying prepper supplies in anticipation. 1991 was another year the crazy was strong with the Gulf War followed by a recession triggered by taxing the rich. So was 1987 with a stock market crash triggered by computer trading. (I knew those things hated us.)
I could go on. 1986 saw the Challenger disaster. That was a personal exercise in challenging times. I was working mission control at the time — after a contract change — and suddenly there were no missions to fly. Oops.
To say nothing of historical years of crazy times: 1961 (Cuban Missile Crisis), 1941 (Pearl Harbor), 1929 (Black Monday), 1883 (Krakatoa explosion), and much, much more.
Crazy is the normal state of human endeavor. My advice? Sit back and watch the ride. Do what you can to mend your corner of the universe. And remember — in times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these.
Published in General
Fine wisdom. It’s always a crazy time. The details just change.
I would add the French Revolution. The frenzy to behead aristocrats built until there were no aristocrats left. But the frenzy was still there, the stirred up population turned on itself. Those who fomented the revolt suddenly found themselves under the guillotine. And then the those stirring the crowd for those heads suddenly found themselves going under. And so it went until the madness subsided.
All lefty agitators, cheering Antifa, cheering the attacks on leaders in restaurants, cheering all this violence in the name of Social Justice, had better consider wearing an iron collar.
I agree, but I gave up after going back to 1883, and really only picked examples back to then. Like I said, every decade has its share of crazy. You can make yourself crazy trying to list them all.
No matter how terrible things seem, they can’t possibly be as bad and as terrifying as the Revolutionary and Civil Wars and World Wars I and II. I’m sure those seemed like the darkest of times for Americans.
I watched that, and burst into tears, knowing it would be the near end of our incredible space program. I had a gentleman friend from a different country who worked at HP with communication stalactites. When he came to pick me up, I was a basket case. He wanted to know “why” I and everyone at HP was so upset about loosing a space capsule. I tried to explain, but I don’t think I succeeded. I had the knowledge, but not the technical language. But almost every knowledgeable American was crushed.
If I was devastated, I can only imagine @Seawriter your reaction. I would bet you are still not completely over it.
Definitely have to watch out for the volcanoes.
And then France went mad with Napoleon. France didn’t recover until the Belle Époque of the 1870’s, by which many alive during the 1789 Revolution would be dead.
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But really, it all started in Laki.
That’s why we have whisky.
And lots of varieties of it.
And living in the city of Rome in 69 a.d. would have been no picnic
We are going through a revolution in knowledge acquisition and information dissemination which we haven’t seen since the late 1800’s when public school system and newspapers became popular, and before that, the 1500’s, when the printing press and literacy for the masses were introduced.
The late 1800’s/early 1900’s are when America’s “laissez-faire” economic policies were abandoned, and progressivism started to rear its ugly head, while overseas, monarchies in Europe were on their last legs, about to swept away by the events of World War 1.
And that’s almost calm compared to what happened in the 1500’s and 1600’s when the masses got their hand on a Bible as started to question the divine right of kings and bishops, and things only settled down (relatively speaking) once the Treaty of Westphalia was signed and post-feudalist governments could be formed.
Question: What would a post-Westphalian governmental system look like, and is that where we are headed?
Or, to quote Dame Shirley Bassey,
The week before the Challenger went down, I had this ominous feeling. I was not at the time given to those. (America was a much happier place back then.)
I decided that my son and his close friend E were in danger. I actually got E’s mom to have both of them spend Friday at her house, as I had to work. Both she and I called the kids in sick to school so they weren’t out on their bikes or anything.
But the feeling of dread persisted. I felt very bad about Saturday, but sixth graders won’t stay inside more than a day.
On Tuesday morning, my one morning off, I turned on the TV. I still wanted a distraction from the idea something terrible was going to happen. On CNN, I saw these bold gorgeous con trails floating in the sky. The CNN announcers kept saying the whole East Coast was in an uproar over what had happened. It was a good few minutes before one commentator said “So sad to realize we lost the Challenger and its crew.”
As I began to cry, I realized my unusual premonition was about this extended family, not my own.
I remember hearing Paul Harvey say that several times, and he was right.