A Book With Many Pages

I do not mistrust the future; I do not fear what is ahead.  For our problems are large, but our heart is larger.  Our challenges are great, but our will is greater.  And if our flaws are endless, God's love is truly boundless.

Some see leadership as high drama, and the sound of trumpets calling, and sometimes it is that.  But I see history as a book with many pages, and each day we fill a page with acts of hopefulness and meaning.  The new breeze blows, a page turns, the story unfolds.  And so today a chapter begins, a small and stately story of unity, diversity, and generosity -- shared, and written, together.

-- George Herbert Walker Bush (12 June 1924 - 30 November 2018), American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States (1989–93), and the 43rd Vice President of the United States (1981–89), Inaugural Address, 20 January 1989

Newton Was The One

I'm not smart.  I try to observe.  Millions saw the apple fall but Newton was the one who asked why.

-- Bernard Mannes Baruch (1870 - 1965), American financier, stock market speculator, statesman, and presidential advisor, New York Post (24 June 1965)

Times That Were

The illusion that times that were are better than those that are, has probably pervaded all ages.

-- Horace Greeley (1811 - 1872), American editor of a leading newspaper, New York Tribune, a founder of the Liberal Republican Party, a reformer and a politician, as quoted in The American Conflict, A History of the Great Rebellion (1864)

InSight

This was an amazing, amazing day.  To be in the room when the data stops and to know how quiet it gets ... and then once the data comes back, the elation. ... Every milestone is something that happened 8 minutes ago.  It's already history.

-- NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine on the agency's InSight Mars explorer, his first landing as head of the agency, at a news conference; because it takes more than eight minutes for light signals to travel 100 million miles to Earth, scientists have no control over the 7-minutes between entering the atmosphere and landing; Washington Post, 26 November 2018

Find The Punch

I wasn't in a mood to find the punch.

-- World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen, explaining why he offered challenging U.S. Grandmaster Fabiano Caruana a draw in Game 12 of the World Chess Championship; the players have reached a draw in all 12 scheduled games, triggering a series of rapid games Wednesday to determine the winner, 26 November 2018

Perverse Games

The relations between rhetoric and ethics are disturbing: the ease with which language can be twisted is worrisome, and the fact that our minds accept these perverse games so docilely is no less cause for concern.

-- Octavio Paz Lozano (1914 - 1998), poet, writer, diplomat, and winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Mexican writer to become a Nobel Laureate, El mono gramatico (The Monkey Grammarian), ch. 4 (1974)

Happy Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving (Wednesday) I had the pleasure of hosting all 5 of my daughters, all 10 of my grandchildren, and 3 out of 4 sons-in-law, for a grand total of 20 people at my house for a traditional turkey dinner.  The farthest-travelled were my #3 daughter who rode the train from Louisiana to Champaign, and her husband who flew to Champaign from Boston, where he was working.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Reflect And Be Thankful

Thanksgiving is not an anachronism whose time is past.  It is much more than a holiday to celebrate a meal shared between the Pilgrims and Native Americans.  It is a time to reflect and be thankful for what we have -- not for what we cherish, desire or envy.

-- Theodore Anthony "Ted" Nugent (13 December 1948 -), American musician, singer, songwriter, hunter, and political activist, America Rocks (28 November 2002)

An Opinion

God is not the name of God, but an opinion about Him.

-- Pope Sixtus I (42–125), Bishop of Rome from c. 115 to his death c. 124, succeeding Pope Alexander I, The Ring (c. 120), attributed

Urban Conflagration

This is the kind of urban conflagration Americans thought they had banished in the early 20th century.  It's like watching measles or polio return.

-- Fire historian and Arizona State University School of Life Sciences Professor Stephen Pyne, writing for Slate about the California wildfires, 10 November 2018

All The Evidence They Need

Most people think the world is out to get them, because they have all the evidence they need -- they don’t get enough of what they want.  But that doesn't make it so.

-- John Barnes (1957-), American science fiction author, Mother of Storms (1994) p. 104

Not My Fill

I speak the truth, not my fill of it, but as much as I dare speak; and I dare to do so a little more as I grow old.

-- Michel de Montaigne (Michel Eyquem, lord of the manor of Montaigne, Dordogne) (1533 - 1592), influential French Renaissance writer, generally considered to be the inventor of the personal essay, Essais (1595) Book III, Ch. 2

No Reason

It's too bad I won't get to see all the illogical and pathetic reasons people will put in my mouth as to why I did it.  Fact is I had no reason to do it, and I just thought....(expletive), life is boring so why not?

I hope people call me insane (two smiley face emojis) would that just be a big ball of irony?  Yeah...  I'm insane, but the only thing you people do after these shootings is "hopes and prayers"... or "keep you in my thoughts".

Every time...and wonder why these keep happening... -- (two smiley face emojis).

-- Gunman David Long, in a series of Instagram posts made during his attack on the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, California, 7 November 2018, as reported by ABC News

RIP Stan Lee

Another definition of a hero is someone who is concerned about other people's well-being, and will go out of his or her way to help them -- even if there is no chance of a reward.  That person who helps others simply because it should or must be done, and because it is the right thing to do, is indeed without a doubt, a real superhero.

-- Stan Lee (born Stanley Martin Lieber,  28 December 1922 - 12 November 2018), American comic book writer, editor, producer, and publisher; editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics, cyberspacers.com

Twice As Far

For some reason troops can throw a live grenade twice as far as a practice one.

-- Leonard James, 1st Regiment Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, in an on-line discussion of military training, 9 November 2018

Reason Alone

Reason alone does not suffice.

-- Carl Gustav Jung (1875 - 1961), Swiss psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology, The Undiscovered Self (1958) p. 98

I Am Submitting

Dear Mr. President,

At your request, I am submitting my resignation.

-- Jefferson B. Sessions III, Attorney General of the United States, in his resignation letter, 7 November 2018

Instrument And Symbol

Vote, n. The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.

-- Ambrose Bierce (1842 - ~1914), American short story writer, journalist, and poet, The Devil's Dictionary (1948), p. 359. Originally published in 1906 as The Cynic's Word Book

Rock The Vote

Rock the vote, people!

It Will Haunt You

If you do anything useful it will haunt you forever after, and if you have a major success you get decades of hard manual labor -- meaning you have to work on the manual.

-- Bjarne Stroustrup (30 December 1950 -), computer scientist and creator of the C++ programming language, Google+ C++ QA Community Event with Bjarne Stroustrup, 20 August 2014

How To Solve The World's Problems

The semiliterate on the next bar stool will tell you with absolute, arrogant assurance just how to solve the world's problems; while the scholar who has spent a lifetime studying their causes is not at all sure how to do this.

-- Edwin Thompson Jaynes (1922 - 1998), physicist and statistician, Probability Theory: The Logic of Science (2003)