"One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of

"One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways."
Bertrand Russell
English mathematician-philosopher (1872-1970)
Today is Thursday, Sept. 4, the 247th day of 2003. There are 118 days left in the year. On this date in 1781, Los Angeles is founded by Spanish settlers.
In 1888, George Eastman receives a patent for his roll-film camera and registered his trademark: Kodak. In 1893, English author Beatrix Potter first tells the story of Peter Rabbit in a "picture letter" to Noel Moore, the son of Potter's former governess. In 1917, the American expeditionary force in France suffer its first fatalities in World War I. In 1944, during World War II, British troops enter Antwerp, Belgium. In 1948, Queen Wilhelmina abdicates the Dutch throne for health reasons. In 1951, President Truman addresses the nation from the Japanese peace treaty conference in San Francisco in the first live coast-to-coast television broadcast. In 1957, Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus calls out the National Guard to prevent nine black students from entering Central High School in Little Rock. In 1957, Ford Motor Co. begins selling its ill-fated Edsel. In 1967, Michigan Gov. George Romney tells a TV interviewer he'd undergone a "brainwashing" by U.S. officials during a 1965 visit to Vietnam -- a comment that apparently damages Romney's bid for the Republican presidential nomination. In 1971, an Alaska Airlines jet crashes near Juneau, killing 111 people.