History of the Day: 10/30

Today is National Candy Corn Day. Mmmmm, candy corn, one of the few foodstuffs (and I say that loosely) you can still purchase from 1985 at Big Lots and no one will know the difference. Tonight is known as Mischief Night. Or, as my students know it, every day of their lives.

On this day in 1938, radio listeners heard this, Orson Welles broadcast of H.G. Well's The War of the Worlds. Reportedly, over a million listeners believed the report of the alien invasion to be true, while 1.2 million were "genuinely scared." These poor souls later discovered that there were no tripod beings from Mars invading Earth. However, 65 years later another presentation of the same story on film proved that, indeed, there were aliens on earth. Two words, Tom Cruise.

THE THETANS ARE COMING, THE THETANS ARE COMING!!!

The most important thing about this story is the Marvel Comics alternate history it spawned involving Killraven. See, all the humans were slaves of the Martians, but Killraven was genetically altered to control the Martians with his mind, except he didn't know it because the guy who did it to him was killed, but his brother, Deathraven, was also controlled by the Martians, and Killraven had to kill him and .... oh ... sorry ... moving on ...

Happy birthday to John Adams, another man who was concerned about alien invasions. He serves as a warning in this electoral season. Once upon a time, he seemed like a good guy, saying:

Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it.

Sounds kind of like Obama's thirty minute infomercial last night. But Adams, as president, put these ideas into practice by passing the Alien and Sedition acts which, in effect, allowed him to imprison or deport anyone who disagreed with him. Modern day Republicans call this The Patriot Act. Modern day Democrats call it Political Correctness. Later, in the presidential campaign of 1800, Adams went on to say that, if elected, Thomas Jefferson would murder his opponents, burn churches, destroy the country and teach "murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest."

Ah, fear. It works just as good in 2008 as it did in 1800.

To Adams credit, he and Jefferson did reconcile late in life. In fact, he and Jefferson both died on the same day, July 4th, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Adams feared that he would be forgotten by history. This excerpt is from the musician 1776, although it is based on real words that Adams wrote:

John Adams: . . . I mean, what will people think?
Ben Franklin: Don't worry, John. The history books will clean it up.
John Adams: It doesn't matter. I won't appear in the history books, anyway—only you. Franklin did this, Franklin did that. . . . Franklin smote the ground, and out sprang George Washington, fully grown and on his horse. Franklin then electrified him with his miraculous lightning rod, and the three of them—Franklin, Washington, and the horse—conducted the entire Revolution all by themselves.
Ben Franklin: I like it!

One of my favorite authors, Fyodor Dostoevsky, was a victim of . Normally, he's just a name thrown around by pretentious people, like existentialism or brie, but I really like him! I didn't read anything by him until late in life when someone gave me an excerpt from The Brother's Karamazov called Legend of the Grand Inquisitor. It became one of the most influential pieces of literature I had read. I still haven't read that much by him, but the more I read, the more I like. He wrote about all the darkness of humanity and humans, yet you come away from each book loving even the murderers and creeps in spite of their flaws. He said:

At some ideas you stand perplexed, especially at the sight of human sins, uncertain whether to combat it by force or by human love. Always decide, 'I will combat it with human love.' If you make up your mind about that once and for all, you can conquer the whole world.

But if, like most, you just don't have the time to read an entire work by Dostoevsky (I mean, what would you expect from the people who brought you Siberia?), here is his Crime and Punishment, Dr. Phil Style.

Finally, today is the feastday of St. Marcellus, patron saint of conscientious objectors. His passion is an interesting read.