We Do Not Need

We do not need presidents who are bigger than the country, but rather ones who speak for it and support it.

-- Eugene McCarthy (1916 - 2005) American politician, poet, and 22-year member of the US Congress (D-MN), The New York Times (11 December 2005)

Limitless

We are not just guides; we are trailblazers.  Let this be a call to every Sherpa to see the dignity in our work, the power in our heritage, and the limitless possibilities in our future.

-- Nima Rinji Sherpa, 18, standing atop Tibet's Mount Shishapangma as the youngest person to have scaled all 14 mountains that the International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation (UIAA) recognises as more than 8,000 metres above sea level, 9 October 2024.  The previous record holder is Mingma Gyabu 'David' Sherpa, who achieved it at the age of 30 in 2019

Forgive Me My Nonsense

Forgive me my nonsense as I also forgive the nonsense of those who think they talk sense.

-- Robert Frost (1874 - 1963), American poet and winner of four Pulitzer Prizes, Letter to Louis Untermeyer (7 August 1915)

Underlying Purpose

The underlying purpose of AI is to allow wealth to access skill while removing from the skilled the ability to access wealth.

-- Joseph Browning via Facebook (10 July 2024) cited by jeffowski on Mastodon & Twitter

Early Autumn

It was autumn, and he always liked autumn.  Something about early autumn, when the leaves began to flee before a northern breeze and the days shortened, gave an extra edge to existence.

-- Brian Aldiss (1925 - 2017), English writer of general fiction and science fiction, "Steppenpferd", Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine (February 2000)

Your Experience Of Me

I see you, and you see me.  I experience you, and you experience me.  I see your behaviour.  You see my behaviour.  But I do not and never have and never will see your experience of me.  Just as you cannot "see" my experience of you.

-- Ronald David (R.D.) Laing (7 October 1927 - 23 August 1989), Scottish psychiatrist who wrote on mental illness and the experience of psychosis, The Politics of Experience (1967) Chapter 1 : Experience as evidence

All The Colors Of Poetry

All the colours of poetry, however splendid, can never paint natural objects in such a manner as to make the description be taken for a real landscape.  The most lively thought is still inferior to the dullest sensation.

-- David Hume (1711 - 1776), Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)

The Answer To That Question

The defendant asserts that he is immune from prosecution for his criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election because, he claims, it entailed official conduct.  Not so.  Although the defendant was the incumbent President during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one.  Working with a team of private co-conspirators, the defendant acted as a candidate when he pursued multiple criminal means to disrupt, through fraud and deceit, the government function by which votes are collected and counted -- a function in which the defendant, as President, had no official role.  In Trump v. United States, 144 S. Ct. 2312 (2024), the Supreme Court held that presidents are immune from prosecution for certain official conduct -- including the defendant’s use of the Justice Department in furtherance of his scheme, as was alleged in the original indictment -- and remanded to this Court to determine whether the remaining allegations against the defendant are immunized.  The answer to that question is no.

-- Special Counsel Jack Smith, in the opening paragraph of his 165-page filing in United States of America v Donald J. Trump, 2 October 2024

And Only Then

[F]or many women, their pregnancy was unintended, unexpected, and often unknown until well after the embryonic heartbeat began.  Yet that's too late under the LIFE Act's strictures: these women are now forbidden from undoing that life-altering change of circumstances -- before they even knew the change had occurred.

For these women, the liberty of privacy means that they alone should choose whether they serve as human incubators for the five months leading up to viability.  It is not for a legislator, a judge, or a Commander from The Handmaid's Tale to tell these women what to do with their bodies during this period when the fetus cannot survive outside the womb any more so than society could -- or should -- force them to serve as a human tissue bank or to give up a kidney for the benefit of another.  Considering the compelling record evidence about the physical, mental, and emotional impact of unwanted pregnancies on the women who are forced by law to carry them to term (as well as on their other living children), the Court finds that, until the pregnancy is viable, a woman's right to make decisions about her body and her health remains private and protected, i.e., remains her business and her business alone.  When someone other than the pregnant woman is able to sustain the fetus, then -- and only then -- should those other voices have a say in the discussion about the decisions the pregnant woman makes concerning her body and what is growing within it.

-- Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert C.I. McBurney, deciding SisterSong Women Of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, et al v State of Georgia in favor of the plaintiff, ruling that Section 4 of the LIFE Act is unconstitutional and unenforceable

HBD, Jimmy Carter

I can't deny I'm a better ex-president than I was a president.

-- Former President Jimmy Carter (1 October 1924 -), who turned 100 years old today, Cited by The Independent "Presidents’ Day: What America’s leaders did next after leaving the White House" The Independent (London, 21 February 2022).  Interview with reporters, as quoted in "Carter condemns abortion culture" The Washington Times (3 November 2005)