Sunday, November 30, 2014

Therapeutic

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive... To be 'cured' against one's will and cured of states which we may not even regard as disease is to be put on a level with those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals. For if crime and disease are to be regarded as the same thing, it follows that any state of mind which our masters choose to call 'disease' can be treated as a crime; and compulsorily cured. Even if the treatment is painful, even if it is life-long, even if it is fatal, that will be only a regrettable accident; the intention was purely therapeutic."
--C. S. Lewis
(1898-1963) British novelist
Source: "God of the Dock" (1948)

Saturday, November 29, 2014

Discomfort

"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."
--John F. Kennedy
 Commencement address, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, June 11, 1962

Friday, November 28, 2014

Libraries

"If this nation is to be wise as well as strong, if we are to achieve our destiny, then we need more new ideas for more wise men reading more good books in more public libraries. These libraries should be open to all — except the censor. We must know all the facts and hear all the alternatives and listen to all the criticisms. Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors. For the Bill of Rights is the guardian of our security as well as our liberty."
 --John F. Kennedy
Saturday Review, October 29, 1960, p. 44.

Thursday, November 27, 2014

Contributors

When we forget great contributors to our American history-when we neglect the heroic past of the American Indian-we thereby weaken our own heritage.  We need to remember the contributions our forefathers found here and from which they borrowed liberally.

When the Indians controlled the balance of power, the settlers from Europe were forced to consider their views, and to deal with them by treaties and to her instruments.  The pioneers found that Indians in the Southeast had developed a high civilization with safeguards for ensuring the peace.  A northern extension of that civilization, the League of the Iroquois, inspired Benjamin Franklin to copy it in planning the federation of States.

But when the American Indians lost their power, they were placed on reservations, frequently lands which were strange to them, and the rest of the nation turned its attention to her matters.

Our treatment of Indians during that period still affects the national conscience.  We have been hampered-by the history of our relationship with the Indians-in our efforts to develop a fair national policy governing present and future treatment of Indians under their special relationship with the Federal government.

Before we can set out on the road to success, we have to know where we are going, and before we can know that we must determine where we have been in the past.  Is seems a basic requirement to study the history of our Indian people America has much to learn about the heritage of our American Indians.  Only through this study can we as a nation do what must be done if our treatment of the American Indian is not to be marked down for all time as a national disgrace.

--John F. Kennedy
Introduction to "The American Heritage Book Of Indians"   

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Demonstrate

"I come here today...not just because you are doing well and because you are outstanding students, but because we expect something of you. And unless in this free country of ours we are able to demonstrate that we are able to make this society work and progress, unless we can hope that from you we are going to get back all of the talents which society has helped develop in you, then, quite obviously, all the hopes of all of us that freedom will not only endure but prevail, of course, will be disappointed. So we ask the best of you...I congratulate you on what you have done, and most of all I congratulate you on what you are going to do."

--John F. Kennedy
"Remarks in New York City to the National Convention of the Catholic Youth Organization (463)," November 15, 1963 

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Party III

"For this country is moving and it must not stop. It cannot stop. For this is a time for courage and a time for challenge. Neither conformity nor complacency will do. Neither the fanatics nor the faint-hearted are needed. And our duty as a Party is not to our Party alone, but to the nation, and, indeed, to all mankind. Our duty is not merely the preservation of political power but the preservation of peace and freedom."
--John F. Kennedy
Speech he planned to give at Texas Welcome Dinner at Municipal Auditorium, Austin, Texas, night of 11/22/1963.

Monday, November 24, 2014

Housing

"I have seen in many places housing which has been developed under government influences, but I have never seen any projects in which governments have played their part which have fountains and statues and grass and trees, which are as important to the concept of the home as the roof itself."
--John F. Kennedy
"Remarks at the Unidad Independencia Housing Project, City of Mexico (269)," June 30, 1962

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Last II

"Never before has man had such capacity to control his own environment, to end thirst and hunger, to conquer poverty and disease, to banish illiteracy and massive human misery. We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world - or make it the last."
--John F. Kennedy
"Address before the 18th General Assembly of the United Nations (366)," September 20, 1963, 

Saturday, November 22, 2014

Minutemen

"Today we need a nation of minutemen; citizens who are not only prepared to take up arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as a basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom."
--John F. Kennedy
"Message to Those Participating in Roosevelt Day Commemoration, 29 January 1961," 

Friday, November 21, 2014

Arts

"There is a connection, hard to explain logically but easy to feel, between achievement in public life and progress in the arts. The age of Pericles was also the age of Phidias. The age of Lorenzo de Medici was also the age of Leonardo da Vinci. The age Elizabeth also the age of Shakespeare. And the New Frontier for which I campaign in public life, can also be a New Frontier for American art." 

--John F. Kennedy, response to letter sent by Miss Theodate Johnson, Publisher of Musical America to the two presidential candidates requesting their views on music in relation to the Federal Government and domestic world affairs. Then-Senator John Kennedy's answer was dated September 13, 1960 and published in the October issue of the magazine.

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Out

"My grandmother wanted me to have an education, so she kept me out of school."
--Margaret Mead
(1901-1978) American cultural anthropologist and author

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Training II

"I have no medical training, but I can read."
--Author Unknown

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Hemp

"If the words 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' don't include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn't worth the hemp it was written on."
--Terence McKenna
(1946-2000) Writer, philosopher, and ethnobotanist

Monday, November 17, 2014

Leasing

"The system of leasing convicts to individuals or corporations to be worked by them for profit simply restores a state of servitude worse than slavery; worse in that it is without any of the safeguards resulting from the ownership of the slave".
--Mississippi State Legislative Committee, 1888

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Easier

"It is simple to follow the easy and familiar path of personal ambition and private gain. It is more comfortable to sit content in the easy approval of friends and of neighbors than to risk the friction and the controversy that comes with public affairs. It is easier to fall in step with the slogans of others than to march to the beat of the internal drummer- to make and stand on judgments of your own. And it is far easier to accept and stand on the past, than to fight for the answers of the future."

--Robert F. Kennedy
March 18, 1966
University Of Mississippi Law School Forum

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Don't

"What you dont know wont hurt you--it will kill you!"
--Al Cuppett

Friday, November 14, 2014

When

"When they took the 4th Amendment, I was quiet because I didn't deal drugs.
When they took the 6th Amendment, I was quiet because I am innocent.
When they took the 2nd Amendment, I was quiet because I don't own a gun.
Now they have taken the 1st Amendment, and I can only be quiet."
--Lyle Myhr

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Seduced

"The growth of drug-related crime is a far greater evil to society as a whole than drug taking. Even so, because we have been seduced by the idea that governments should legislate for our own good, very few people can see how dangerously absurd the present policy is."
--John Casey

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Carousels

"Those who suffer from conspiracy phobia are fond of saying: “Do you actually think there’s a group of people sitting around in a room plotting things?” For some reason that image is assumed to be so patently absurd as to invite only disclaimers. But where else would people of power get together – on park benches or carousels? Indeed, they meet in rooms: corporate boardrooms, Pentagon command rooms, at the Bohemian Grove, in the choice dining rooms at the best restaurants, resorts, hotels, and estates, in the many conference rooms at the White House, the NSA, the CIA, or wherever. And, yes, they consciously plot – though they call it “planning” and “strategizing” – and they do so in great secrecy, often resisting all efforts at public disclosure. No one confabulates and plans more than political and corporate elites and their hired specialists. To make the world safe for those who own it, politically active elements of the owning class have created a national security state that expends billions of dollars and enlists the efforts of vast numbers of people.”
--Michael Parenti, excerpt from his book, Dirty Truths.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Dancers

"There are 40,000,000 men under arms in the world today, and our statesmen and diplomats have the temerity to say that war is not in the making. Hell's bells! Are these 40,000,000 men being trained to be dancers?"
--Smedley Butler, "War Is A Racket" (1935)

Monday, November 10, 2014

Half III

"Half of the modern drugs could well be thrown out of the window, except that the birds might eat them."
--Dr. Martin Henry Fischer"

Sunday, November 09, 2014

Weather

[A]s science investigates the natural environment, it also modifies it, and that modification may have incalculable consequences for evil as well as for good...

[S]cience has the power for the first time in history to undertake experiments with premeditation which can irreversibly alter our biological and physical environment on a global scale.  The problem is difficult, because it is hard to know in advance whether the cumulative effects of a particular experiment will help or harm mankind.

--John F. Kennedy, October 22, 1963
Address at the Anniversary Convocation of the National Academy of Sciences. 

Saturday, November 08, 2014

Quiet II

"Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way."
--Roger Waters, "Dark Side Of The Moon"

Friday, November 07, 2014

Miseries

"At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice, and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols."
--Aldous Huxley

Thursday, November 06, 2014

Contempt II

Look, friends, the only possible way to enjoy life is not to be afraid to die. A zest for living requires a willingness to die; you cannot have the first without the second. The '60s and '70s and '80s and '90s can be loaded with the zest for living, high excitement, and gutsy adventure for any truly human person. "Truly human"? I mean you descendants of cavemen who outlasted the saber-tooth, you who sprang from the loins of the Vikings, you whose ancestors fought the Crusades and were numbered the Golden Horde. Death is the lot of all of us and the only way the human race has ever conquered death is by treating it with contempt. By living every golden minute as if one had all eternity.
--Robert Heinlein - Guest of Honor Speech at the XIXth World Science Fiction Convention, Seattle, 1961

Wednesday, November 05, 2014

Cow

"He who goes to law for a sheep loses his cow."
--Spanish Proverb

Tuesday, November 04, 2014

Repudiating

"Repudiating the virtues of your world, criminals hopelessly agree to organize a forbidden universe. They agree to live in it. The air there is nauseating: they can breathe it."
--Jean Genet

[Happy (S)election Day--TLC]

Monday, November 03, 2014

Coarse

"My plan of instruction is extremely simple and limited. They learn, on week-days, such coarse works as may fit them for servants. I allow of no writing for the poor. My object is not to make fanatics, but to train up the lower classes in habits of industry and piety."
--Hannah More
(February 2, 1745 - September 7, 1833)

The "School" Bond And Tax Increase Scam

The "schools", not just in Eureka, California, but throughout the country, are once again crying that they need more money "for the children".

http://supporteurekacityschools.org/?page_id=39

Apparently, they believe that their long-term mission to dumb-down Americans has been a complete success.

These are the same "schools" that are shoving "Common Core" down our throats, which takes an already-bad system and makes it even worse.  The same "schools" that force millions of children to take dangerous and toxic psychiatric drugs, the same "schools" that lie to parents about how "vaccines" are "safe and effective" and "must" be taken notwithstanding available legal Exemptions, the same "schools" that use construction monies to dole out favors to their friends and supporters.

For years, by their own tacit admission, the "schools" have failed to perform basic maintenance, and now want new toys that they can likewise break.  It is as if you asked for a new house periodically after letting your old one go to hell due to neglect.

Once again, the same-old song is brought out, that only Bonds and higher taxes will save the "schools".

But save them from what?  From consequences for their generations of complete, utter, irresponsibility.  From genuine reform.  From providing a genuine education where children are given facts rather than indoctrination and lies, where young minds are given critical thinking skills that would allow them to see through claptrap such as more Bonds and higher taxes.

You may have seen the 1912 Bullitt County 8th Grade Examination.  It bears repeating.  How many 8th Graders, High School Graduates, College Graduates, would do well on that test today?  And yet the "schools" come clamoring for more money so this long-term downward trend can continue.

http://www.bullittcountyhistory.com/bchistory/schoolexam1912.html


Historically, Japanese officials who had performed so poorly would have removed themselves from office permanently.  Since government officials in the US are so devoid of moral compasses, we must take the reins of power back starting with voting down their proposed Bonds and tax increases.

Then we must follow-up with Recall Petitions and finding principled people who have the time, energy, and morality, to run for office and restore public "schools" as institutions that provide at least some genuine education and critical thinking skills. 

TLC

Sunday, November 02, 2014

Ten

"There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life."
--Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Saturday, November 01, 2014

Lobby

"I have said that control of arms is a mission that we undertake particularly for our children and our grandchildren and that they have no lobby in Washington." 
--John F. Kennedy, November 1, 1963
"Statement by the President to American Women Concerning their Role in Securing World Peace (449),"