People Who Famously Did Nothing
I wondered today about how many famous incidents centered around a person doing absolutely nothing. Now, I'm not talking about people who got famous even though they do nothing of artistic merit (Paris, you know who you are), but rather points in time when doing nothing had famous consequences.Here's what I've got so far:
God: On the seventh day he rested from making the world, thus creating the first weekend. We are all eternally grateful!
Marie Antoinette: "Let them eat cake" was a famous quote that proceeded her beheading, but it was attached to a refusal to feed the starving commoners of France. They killed her for it.
Hitler: This one has always fascinated me. Hitler had the French and British army on the run on the coast of Dunkirk and instead of attacking them and cutting them off, he famously did nothing and let 300,000+ enemy soldiers escape to fight again.
David Blaine: Street magician and all around weirdo decided to sit in a plexiglass box hoisted up in the air over the Thames River in London and starve himself. And he was in the news every single day for it. *rolls eyes*
This is a tiny, tiny list, I realize, of the famous nothings accomplished in history, but I only have so much time to devote to it today. Please add your own... or don't. : )
posted by k_sra at 5/18/2007 11:57:00 AM
3 Comments:
A few off the top of my head:
The patent for the electric battery that was used in the EV-1's, which was sold to Exxon and killed (ok, there are lot of those throughout history)(See that "Who killed the electric car?" movie for more details).
The cancellation of the Superconducting Super Collider, 2 billion dollars after the project started, though I forget what wise Congressperson led that effort.
-World
(no, that name shouldn't be added to the list, however appropriate for someone that spends time reading blogs)
(oh, and you can blame damn Blogger for my recent change to anonymous, since it's now such a pain to change accounts)
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