Saturday, January 31, 2009

Smart

"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer."
--Albert Einstein (1879-1955, German-born American Physicist)

Friday, January 30, 2009

Framing

"In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed, and in the next place, oblige it to control itself".
--Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804) American statesman

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Banking II

"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." --Henry Ford (1863-1947) Founder of Ford Motor Company

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Second

"You can't steal second base and keep you foot on first."
--Frederick Wilcox, writer

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Learning III

"Learning is not compulsory, but neither is survival."
--W. Edwards Deming, quality expert

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Hope II

Dogs are notorious for hope.
Dogs believe that this morning, this very morning, may begin a day
of fascination, easily grander than any day in the past.
Perhaps the work did go badly yesterday, perhaps the humans are
wild with sulks and rages, but this morning can yet be saved:
don't humans understand anything?

Every morning, in dog pounds all over America, hundreds
of dogs awake to their last day with gladness in their hearts.

--From "Nop's Hope" by Donald McCaig

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Cats

"The problem with cats is that they get the same exact look whether they see a moth or an ax-murderer."
--Paula Poundstone

Friday, January 23, 2009

Edge

"I've believed ever since that living on the edge, living in and through your fear, is the summit of life, and that people who refuse to take that dare condemn themselves to a life of living death."
--John H. Johnson (American Businessman, Founder of Johnson Publishing)

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Busy

"It's not so much how busy you are, but why you are busy. The bee is praised. The mosquito is swatted."
--Mary O'Connor, Romance author

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Prologue

[Bethesda Navy Hospital corpsman James] Jenkins said his experience of the president's autopsy changed forever his view of his own government.

"I was 19 or 20 years old, and all at once I understood that my country was not much better than a third world country. From that point on in time, I had no trust, no respect for the government".

The process of killing President Kennedy and covering up the conspiracy relied on parties whom the plotters knew in advance they could count on to enter into a conspiracy of silence. Those few witnesses who courageously broke the silence, such as Dr. Charles Crenshaw, suffered the consequences of being isolated and singled out. But the Dallas and Bethesda doctors who changed their testimony under stress, who lied out of fear for their lives or who followed orders in not probing wounds, and then stonewalling questions, were not alone. They joined in a larger conspiracy of silence that would envelop our government, our media, our academic institutions, and virtually our entire society from November 22, 1963, to the present.

The promoters of the systemic evil involved in killing President Kennedy counted on our repression and denial of its reality. They knew that no one would want to deal with the elephant in the living room. The Dallas and Bethesda doctors who saw the truth staring up at them from the president's dead body, and who then backed away from it, were not unique. They are symbolic of us all.

Source: "JFK And The Unspeakable: Why He Died And Why It Matters" by James W. Douglass, p. 315.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Schooling

"School is the advertising agency which makes you believe that you need the society as it is."
--Ivan Illich (1926-2002) Austrian philosopher, author, social critic

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Shackles

"We have stricken the shackles from 4,000,000 human beings and brought all labourers to a common level, but not so much by the elevation of former slaves as by reducing the whole working population, white and black, to a condition of serfdom. While boasting of our noble deeds, we are careful to conceal the ugly fact that by our iniquitous money system we have manipulated a system of oppression which, though more refined, is no less cruel than the old system of chattel slavery."
--Horace Greeley (1811-1872) Editor of the New York Tribune, ran against Ulysses Grant for presidency

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Concensus

"Reaching consensus in a group is often confused with finding the right answer." --Norman Mailer (1923-2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director

Friday, January 16, 2009

Change V

"We must take change by the hand or rest assuredly, change will take us by the throat." --Winston Churchill, Former British prime minister

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

R.I.P., Ricardo Montalban and Patrick McGoohan

Ricardo Montalban, November 25, 1920 - January 14, 2009

''The Spanish-speaking American boy sees Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid wipe out a regiment of Bolivian soldiers. He sees `The Wild Bunch' annihilate the Mexican army. It's only natural for him to say, `Gee, I wish I were an Anglo."
--Ricardo Montalban, 1970 interview
____________________________

[W[hen asked to play the grandfather in ''Spy Kids 2'' and ''Spy Kids 3,'' Montalban told filmmaker Robert Rodriguez in his self-effacing way: ''I'm old. I'm in a wheelchair. And I have a Mexican accent. Three strikes and you're out,'' recalled Joel Brokaw, another of the actor's spokesmen.

''But Robert Rodriguez idolized Ricardo, and came up to his home in the Hollywood Hills to convince him to do the role,'' Brokaw said. He did, and despite his obvious pain while waiting to do a scene, ''something miraculous would happen,'' Brokaw said. ''As soon as Rodriguez said 'Action,' his pain would completely disappear, time and time again. I asked him about this. He smiled and said, 'It's impossible for my mind to do two things at once.'''

Source: NY Times

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Patrick McGoohan, March 19, 1928 - January 14, 2009

"We're run by the Pentagon. We're run by Madison Avenue. We're run by television. And, as long as we accept those things and don't revolt, we'll have to go along with the stream to the eventual avalanche.

"As long as we go out and buy stuff, we're at their mercy. We're at the mercy of the advertiser. And, of course, there are certain things we need, but a lot of the stuff that is bought is not needed. We all live in a little village. Your village may be different from other people's villages, but we are all prisoners."
--Patrick McGoohan

The Prisoner: By numbers
--17 episodes broadcast between October 1967 and February 1968.
--11 million viewers each week during an era of only two terrestrial channels.
--6 the gentleman hero played by McGoohan.
--1 the hero's elusive and unidentified captor.
--25 annual conventions held in Portmeirion by Six of One, the show's official appreciation society.

Source: Independent UK

Winning

"We didn't lose the game; we just ran out of time."
--Vince Lombardi: Was a famous American football coach

Monday, January 12, 2009

Education II

"What's the difference between a bright, inquisitive five-year-old, and a dull, stupid nineteen-year-old? Fourteen years of the British educational system."
--Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) Philosopher, educator

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Desire

"Remember that not always getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck."
--Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

Wish

"What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite."
--Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English Philosopher, Mathematician, Essayist

Friday, January 09, 2009

Cooperation

"Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good." --Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)

Thursday, January 08, 2009

Challenges

"Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand."
--Baruch Spinoza

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Eccentric

"Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd."
--Edith Sitwell, Taken Care Of ,1965

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Education

"Men had better be without education than be educated by their rulers; for their education is but the mere breaking in of the steer to the yoke; the mere discipline of the hunting dog, which, by dint of severity, is made to forego the strongest impulse of his nature, and instead of devouring his prey, to hasten with it to the feet of his master."
--Thomas Hodgskin Source: Mechanics' Magazine , 11 October 1823, Ref: Class and Conflict in Nineteenth-century England, 1815-1850, by Patricia Hollis

Monday, January 05, 2009

Realization

"The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today."
--Franklin D. Roosevelt

Sunday, January 04, 2009

Dining

"I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized."
--Henry David Thoreau

Saturday, January 03, 2009

Fashion

"A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic."
--George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Irish-born English Dramatist, Novelist, Critic

Friday, January 02, 2009

Force II

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action."
--George Washington

Thursday, January 01, 2009

Imagery

"Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favour of his image, because the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be."
--Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) Canadian Communications Scholar