Senator Daniel Inouye, Hawaii’s senior Senator and an American war hero, died today at the age of 88. He suffered complications from a respiratory problem and was in the hospital for the past few days.

Inouye was the President pro tempore of the Senate – fourth in line for the Presidency.

I don’t remember my reactions to the stories themselves so much as what came after — a lifelong love of both Bradbury’s work and science fiction in general. I read everything by him I could find, from his horror and sf through to his more conventional works about life in Ireland. As a boy, I loved his paeans to boyhood and the joy of fresh new sneakers in Dandelion Wine. I read The Martian Chronicles over and over, breaking the spines of multiple copies.

This week marks the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. A documentary on HBO tonight will remember the event, where 146 garment workers died in a fire at their factory. The managers of the factory had locked the doors to the exits, a typical tactic to force long workdays in a time before laws outlawing the practice. The Triangle Fire led directly to worker safety laws and the growth of the ILGWU garment worker’s union.

David Broder, a longtime writer and columnist for the Washington Post, passed away today due to complications from diabetes.

I think it’s a worthwhile exercise, instead of pointing fingers, to look inward, to ask ourselves what we could do better with the limited time we have on Earth, how we can do our part to build a better America. This call to service is a feature of Obama’s rhetoric.

At 92, Robert Byrd lived a full life, over half of it in the United States Congress. He was an institution in West Virginia and probably did more to keep that state alive as any man in America. His checkered history aside (acknowledged and regretted by him but continually brought up by conservatives losing an argument), he was a massive presence in the Senate, someone who treated the office with dignity. RIP.