Left Out?

May 21, 1997

Well, folks, I’ll be on vacation over the next few days, but I promise to be back in time with a new edition on Friday, June 6th. I have to take a vacation from my calendar. I’m left-handed, so someone gave me a Left-Handers’ Calendar last Christmas. Supposedly this thing is written by lefties about lefties and for lefties. However, we’re nearly halfway through the year, and here are a few samples to give you an idea of what most of these things are like:

• In ancient Japan, a man could divorce his wife if he discovered she was left-handed.

• Some scientists believe it’s an injury in the womb that causes left-handedness.

• In France, "passing the weapon to the left" means to die.

• Jack the Ripper was left-handed.

• Italian psychiatrist Cesare Lombroso claimed that lefties are psychologically prone to violence and degenerate behavior.

Is this all they could find? Isn’t there anything GOOD about lefties? It’s no wonder lefties are violent degenerates–nobody can say anything NICE about us. Argh, it just makes me want to dress up like an armadillo and rob a liquor store. Then I got this one:

• The Left Bank district in Paris has traditionally been associated with the unconventional, nonconforming lifestyle of artists, writers, and freethinkers.

I’m glad they finally got something right.

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QUOTES ON THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE

Carl Zwanzig: "Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together…."

Douglas Adams: "There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."

Albert Einstein: "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former."

Unknown: "Astronomers say the universe is finite, which is a comforting thought for those people who can’t remember where they leave things."

Edward P. Tryon: "In answer to the question of why it happened, I offer the modest proposal that our Universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time."

John Andrew Holmes: "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."

Max Frisch: "Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that man doesn’t have to experience it."

Kilgore Trout: "The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest."

Woody Allen: "I’m astounded by people who want to ‘know’ the universe when it’s hard enough to find your way around Chinatown."

Douglas Adams: "In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."

William J. Broad: "The crux… is that the vast majority of the mass of the universe seems to be missing."

Rich Cook: "Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning."

Fred Hoyle: "There is a coherent plan in the universe, though I don’t know what it’s a plan for."

Ray Bradbury: "We are an impossibility in an impossible universe."

Christopher Morley: "My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed."

Edward Chilton: "I’m worried that the universe will soon need replacing. It’s not holding a charge."

Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson): "The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us."