Anatole has his new political commentary site (sobersecondthought.com) up and running, so I've linked to it in the right-hand column of this page. In his first entry, he talks about the Canadian origins of the phrase "sober second thought," and it got me looking for general upper vs. lower house of parliament information. I came across the following wonderful anecdote on a page of quotes about the Senate.
"His [Sir John A. Macdonald’s] view of the necessity for a second chamber may be expressed briefly by the story told of Washington, which Sir John was fond of relating. It is said that on his return from France Jefferson called Washington to account for having agreed to a second chamber.
‘Of what use is the Senate?’ he asked, as he stood before the fire with a cup of tea in his hand, pouring the tea into his saucer as he spoke. ‘You have answered your own question,’ replied Washington. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Why did you pour that tea into your saucer?!’ ‘To cool it,’ quoth Jefferson. ‘Even so,’ said Washington, ‘the Senate is the saucer into which we pour legislation to cool.’ " (J. Pope, Memoirs of the Rt. Hon. Sir John Alexander Macdonald, [Ottawa, 1894] vol. II, p. 233). . .
I've surprised myself a little by not compulsively following the details of the Columbia disaster investigation. At first I thought it might just be a wildly improbable lack of interest. Yesterday, though, people at lunch were discussing it and playing armchair mission controller, and I very nearly got up to leave the table. It turns out that I just don't want to talk about it, yet. Luckily, the topic changed relatively quickly to a discussion of space elevators, and I was able to stop being moodily silent.
Posted by madhava at February 4, 2003 11:52 AM