Even I can't make this stuff up

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/PJ_O%27Rourke_1.jpg

I checked this five times and it appears to be true - the writer P.J. O'Rourke has a very treatable form of anal cancer, not colon cancer mind you but anal cancer - cancer of the anus,(a malignant hemorrhoid).

Here is a partial quote from the man himself:

I looked death in the face. All right, I didn't. I glimpsed him in a crowd. I've been diagnosed with cancer, of a very treatable kind. I'm told I have a 95% chance of survival. Come to think of it -- as a drinking, smoking, saturated-fat hound -- my chance of survival has been improved by cancer.

I still cursed God, as we all do when we get bad news and pain. Not even the most faith-impaired among us shouts: "Damn quantum mechanics!" "Damn organic chemistry!" "Damn chaos and coincidence!"

Read the rest of his article here:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-orourke28-2008sep28,0,3317114.story

Once and for all - God is a comedian.

Today in History -

September 30, 1452 -


It's the anniversary of the printing of the Gutenberg Bible in Mainz, Germany on this date. It was the first book ever printed with movable type. What made Gutenberg's invention revolutionary was not that it allowed you to print letters on paper, but that you could print an infinite number of different pages from a small number of letter blocks simply by rearranging them.

The first section of the Bible came out on this day. He printed 180 copies on expensive Italian paper. It was designed to be used for public reading in the dining halls of monasteries. But within three decades there were print shops all over Europe, and Gutenberg's invention launched a revolution in education.

Today about four dozen copies of the Gutenberg Bible survive. One of the most recent copies to come on the market was auctioned in New York in 1987 and sold for more than $5 million.

September 30, 1630 -
Pilgrim John Billington, who arrived on the Mayflower, is hanged at Plymouth for killing John Newcomen with a musket. Billington is the first Englishman executed in New England.

September 30, 1927 -
Babe Ruth hit his 60th home run of the season,on this day. (Mark McGwire was born on October 1, 1963, however, so this no longer matters.)



September 30, 1938 -


The Germans occupied the Sudetenland in late summer of 1938. This enraged the British and the English, who both feared for the loss of the Sudetenland's celebrated pea crops. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew to Germany to meet Hitler at Bertesgaden to discuss the situation, on this date. Hitler assured him that there would be plenty of peas to go around, and Chamberlain returned to England with the famous proclamation of Peas in Our Time. World War II was therefore avoided and did not break out until some time later.



September 30, 1955 -
Teen idol James Dean was killed in a car accident that probably could have been avoided if he had had his car inspected and tuned up regularly, obeyed all posted highway signs, and driven only when alert and sober (Remember kids, if you are going to drink til you drop, drop where you drink), on this date. On the other hand, if he had survived, today James Dean would probably be tottering aimlessly around celebrity golf tournaments, pimping life insurance or antacids, and writing tell-all memoirs.



September 30, 1970 -
The Presidential Commission on Obscenity and Pornography releases its 646-page report concluding that all sexually-explicit films, books, and magazines aimed at adults should be legalized. One publisher, William Hamling, sells 100,000 copies of the report with 546 additional "illustrations," for which he receives four years in
prison.

September 30, 1982 -


Cheers, the comedy television series that ran eleven seasons from 1982 to 1993, premiered on this date. It was produced by Charles-Burrows-Charles Productions in association with Paramount Television for NBC, having been created by the team of James Burrows, Glen Charles, and Les Charles. It was nearly cancelled during its first season when it ranked dead last in ratings. However, Cheers eventually became a highly rated television show in the United States, earning a top-ten rating during eight of its eleven seasons, including one season at #1, and spending the bulk of its run on NBC's "Must See Thursday" lineup.



And so it goes.