Friday, April 10, 2026

An Exception

Every man, in his own opinion, forms an exception to the ordinary rules of morality.

-- William Hazlitt (1778 - 1830), English writer remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism, Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823) No. 305

Thursday, April 09, 2026

People With Control

People with real power never fear of losing it.  People with control think of little else.

-- Joseph "Joss" Hill Whedon (1964 -), American screenwriter, film and television director and producer, "Mom, He's Doing It Again..", at Whedonesque.com (10 November 2007)

Wednesday, April 08, 2026

Stubborn

Facts are stubborn things.

-- Tobias George Smollett (1721 - 1771), Scottish novelist, translator, historian, and editor, Gil Blas (1749), Book X, Chap. 1

Tuesday, April 07, 2026

A Thin Red Line

There's only a thin red line between the sane and the mad.

-- James Jones (1921 - 1977), American author, The Thin Red Line (1962) "Old midwestern saying" created by Jones for his story, as stated in James Jones: An American Literary Orientalist Master (1998) by Steven R. Carter

Monday, April 06, 2026

Pulling Us Back

From the cabin of Integrity here, as we surpass the furthest distance humans have ever traveled from planet Earth, we do so in honoring the extraordinary efforts and feats of our predecessors in human space exploration.  We will continue our journey even further into space before Mother Earth succeeds in pulling us back to everything that we hold dear.  But we most importantly choose this moment to challenge this generation and the next to make sure this record is not long-lived.

-- CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft during the Artemis II test flight around the Moon, traveling 248,655 miles from Earth, surpassing the record for human spaceflight's farthest distance previously set by the Apollo 13 mission in 1970 (6 April 2026)

Friday, April 03, 2026

Family Vacation

The family is always the family but during vacations it is an extended family and that is exhausting.

-- Gertrude Stein (1874 - 1946), American expatriate writer, poet, feminist, and playwright, Paris France (1970), p. 107

Thursday, April 02, 2026

Authoritarianism And Secrecy

Authoritarianism and secrecy breed incompetence; the two feed on each other.  It's a vicious cycle.  Governments with authoritarian tendencies point to what is in fact their own incompetence as the rationale for giving them yet more power.

-- Josh Marshall (1969 -), American political journalist and blogger, Talking Points Memo (17 January 2006)