Wednesday, August 26, 2009

First Televised Major League Baseball Game

On this day in 1939, the first televised Major League baseball game is broadcast on station W2XBS, the station that was to become WNBC-TV. Announcer Red Barber called the game between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, New York.

At the time, television was still in its infancy. Regular programming did not yet exist, and very few people owned television sets--there were only about 400 in the New York area. Not until 1946 did regular network broadcasting catch on in the United States, and only in the mid-1950s did television sets become more common in the American household.

In 1939, the World's Fair--which was being held in New York--became the catalyst for the historic broadcast. The television was one of fair’s prize exhibits, and organizers believed that the Dodgers-Reds doubleheader on August 26 was the perfect event to showcase America's grasp on the new technology.

Read More Here

Ralph Waldo Emerson meets Thomas Carlyle

On this day in 1838, Ralph Waldo Emerson met influential British writer Thomas Carlyle, with whom he would correspond for 38 years. Carlyle and the English romantic poets would have an important effect on Emerson's work.

Ralph Waldo Emerson came from a long line of American ministers. He enjoyed a sheltered childhood in Boston, and attended Harvard Divinity School. Although Emerson accepted a position as pastor of a Boston Church in 1829, the death of his wife in 1831 deepened his existing religious doubts. He resigned two years later, explaining to his congregation that he had started to doubt the sacraments.

Read the story Here.

Quote for the Day

“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.”

~ Kahlil Gibran

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Brett Favre Is Dead To Me

I was willing to let this Favre thing go. In a way, I was happy he exposed the Vikings for what they were—desperate and willing to put one man before the team.

Then I heard him utter these words: "Real Packers fans understand."

Really, Brett? Because I have been a real Packers fan my whole life, before you even knew who we were, and let me tell you what I understand:

  1. I understand you jerked us around every year and were not committed enough in the team to stay within the game plan all those years, or maybe you would have won more than one Super Bowl.
  2. I understand that you are now playing for the division rival you promised to hold your breath until you got to last season.
  3. I understand that you are spitting in the face of the greatest franchise in the history of sports....
Read the whole story Here.

Quote for the Day

"[W]ith respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age..."

--Thomas Jefferson

Monday, August 24, 2009

Quote for the Day

"We are, heart and soul, friends to the freedom of the press. It is however, the prostituted companion of liberty, and somehow or other, we know not how, its efficient auxiliary. It follows the substance like its shade; but while a man walks erect, he may observe that his shadow is almost always in the dirt. It corrupts, it deceives, it inflames. It strips virtue of her honors, and lends to faction its wildfire and its poisoned arms, and in the end is its own enemy and the usurper's ally, It would be easy to enlarge on its evils. They are in England, they are here, they are everywhere. It is a precious pest, and a necessary mischief, and there would be no liberty without it."

--Fisher Ames, Review of the Pamphlet on the State of the British Constitution, 1807