Day 242 - the last Wednesday of the month

 Today is the 4th day of the 35th week, the 30th day of the 8th month, the 242nd day of 2023, and:

• Frankenstein Day
• Independence Day - Tartarstan from Russia [not formally recognized]
• International Cabernet Sauvignon Day
• International Day of the Disappeared
• International Whale Shark Day
• National Beach Day
• National Grief Awareness Day
• National Holistic Pet Day
• National Toasted Marshmallow Day
• Slinky Day
• Willing-to-Lend-a-Hand Wednesday
• the moon is full at 9:37PM EDT, a rare blue moon and a super moon, a combination that won't be seen again for 14 years  
• and Voyager 1 is 22h 17m 08s of light travel time from Earth 

Quote of the day:

" Daily life may seem trivial and routine, but in fact it contains a multitude of incidents, at once rich, expansive, and touching. "

~ Yu Hua, China in Ten Words

Wednesday is supposed to be the day that everyone is in the office, but between vacations, meetings, and other needs, we have only managed to all be here a few times - as of today, eight to be exact, the second time this month, appropriately once in a blue moon.  What is so much 'fun' about these days is that people sit at their desks, those with offices closing their doors, and very little is even said.  Bossman has not been able to explain, to me at least, why spending 1/2 to 1 1/2 hours to get here just to sit at a workstation proves our commitment to the company and insures he is "getting his money's worth" from each of his employees.  

The morning commute is on everyone's mind this morning as three of the seven got caught up in one of those Capitol Beltway snarls that also backs up all the side streets.  Today, as I sat in the line of traffic, I watched a motorcycle [Frank, who use to own a 'hog' would've dismissed it as a 'rice burner' instantly recognizable by that lack of engine growl], calmly drive thru the lanes of stopped cars.  Then I caught up to him at a light, where I turned, and found that he had decided to get off the main road as well - an interesting choice since he had been in the righthand lane sitting at the light when I turned left - and he zoomed past me over a double yellow line going up a hill [he was lucky and no one was coming in the other direction].   Then I watched him turn at the light and eventually lost sight of him as he zoomed away while I turned.  The point of this little story?  Despite the risks he was taking, at no point did he get more than about three cars at the most ahead of me!  But his level of frustration with the traffic was just too great to abide sitting still a bit.  I hope his luck held and he made it to work safely.  His odds of survival, and all of our time this morning, would've been better spent had we all just working from home, neh?

On this day in 1957, just 66 years ago, then US Senator Strom Thurmond ended his filibuster, the longest in the history of the US Senate, after 24 hours 27 minutes.  He was speaking against The Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first such bill to be passed since the days of Reconstruction, that was signed into law by Eisenhower ten days later.  Up until  the 1970's, the Senator actually had to speak on the chamber floor - but now a Senator can simply announce they are blocking a bill and the only way to overcome that flat statement is to get 60 other senators to vote for cloture - and the opposition gets two swings at continuing the blockage, one on the motion to proceed and the second on the actual vote itself.  It isn't difficult to see how in this day and age of non-bipartisan cooperation, anything that is remotely controversial becomes stalled and stymied forever, is it?  It is a great way for the minority to impose its will, and neither party is willing to give that potential club up, so we end up with the kind of brinkmanship that led to the US' credit rating being downgraded. 

It's been a long day