Puzzles, Enigmas, And Allegories

There's something in the human personality which resents things that are clear, and conversely, something which is attracted to puzzles, enigmas, and allegories.

-- Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999), American film director, quoted by Thomas Allen Nelson, in Kubrick: Inside a Film Artist's Maze (2000) p 10

Who's Doing It?

We are not powerless.  We have tremendous potential for good or ill.  How we choose to use that power is up to us; but first we must choose to use it.  We're told every day, "You can't change the world." But the world is changing every day.  Only question is -- who's doing it?  You or somebody else?

-- J. Michael Straczynski (1954-), American writer and producer of television series, author, "At The Midpoint (Spoilers For Everything)" (1995)

Tour de France 2014

Props to the winner(s) of this year's 101st Tour de France.

Vincenzo Nibali won, with a margin of 7 minutes, 37 seconds, the widest margin since at least 1999.  He is 29, and has now won all 3 grand tours, Italy 2013, Spain 2010, and now France.

Peter Sagan won the best sprinter's Green jersey, his third in a row, and he's just 24 years old.  He won the jersey despite never winning a stage in this year's Tour.

Poland's Rafal Majka, another 24 year old, won the best climber's Polka Dot jersey, and provided quite a show in winning stage 17.

The first two Frenchman to finish on the podium since 1997, in 2nd and 3rd place, were 37 year old Jean-Christophe Peraud and 24 year old Thibaut Pinot, who also won the White jersey as best young rider.

The best placed American was Tejay van Garderen, who is 25, and finished 5th.  I expect we'll be hearing a lot about all the 25 and under's in this note for years to come.  This should be fun to watch.

Training

Recently, I was asked if I was going to fire an employee who made a mistake that cost the company $600,000.  No, I replied, I just spent $600,000 training him.  Why would I want somebody to hire his experience?

-- Thomas J. Watson (1874-1956), industrialist, president of IBM

Given Freely

Advice is given freely because so much of it is worthless.

-- James Geary, American aphorist and journalist; quote from James Geary website (2009)

Nets

When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight.  You talk to me of nationality, language, religion.  I shall try to fly by those nets.

-- James Joyce (1882-1941), Irish novelist and poet, A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man, Chapter 5 (1916)

Valor Was Everywhere That Day

Valor was everywhere that day, and the real heroes are the nine men who made the ultimate sacrifice so the rest of us could return home.  It is their names, not mine, that I want everyone to know.

Spc. Sergio Abad, Cpl. Jonathan Ayers, Cpl. Jason Bogar, 1st Lt. Jonathan Brostrom, Sgt. Israel Garcia, Cpl. Jason Hovater, Cpl. Matthew Phillips, Cpl. Pruitt Rainey, and Cpl. Gunnar Zwilling.  The Chosen Few.

-- Former Army staff sergeant Ryan M. Pitts, after receiving the Medal of Honor for his actions during combat in Afghanistan, 21 July 2014

Secrets Of Literature

One of the secrets of literature that every writer knows is that any life will do.  It's not necessary to go bathe one's feet in the Ganges and travel around the world and work on a steamer to be a poet.  Meaning is in small things.

-- Marvin Bell (1937-). American poet

Political Capacity

We must either breed political capacity or be ruined by Democracy, which was forced on us by the failure of the older alternatives.  Yet if Despotism failed only for want of a capable benevolent despot, what chance has Democracy, which requires a whole population of capable voters.

-- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish playwright, Nobel laureate in Literature, Man and Superman, Epistle Dedicatory (1903)

Border Crisis

I don't feel like we have to solve the border crisis for a terrified child to be shown some compassion.

-- Dallas County, Texas Judge Clay Jenkins, who is leading efforts to house 2,000 immigrant children in the county, New York Times, 17 July 2014

I'm Joe Biden

I probably shouldn't say this, but then again I'm Joe Biden.  No one ever doubts I mean what I say, but the problem is I sometimes say all that I mean.

-- Vice President Joe Biden, joking about his reputation for making gaffes, at the National Governors Association, 11 July 2014

Diminishment

In light of the constitutional debates, we have concluded that the provision was aimed at protecting the right to receive the promised retirement benefits, not the adequacy of funding to pay for them.

-- 6-1 Majority decision of the Illinois Supreme Court, ruling that the state constitution's pension protection clause bars any diminishment of health care benefits for retired state employees, 3 July 2014

#selfie

Standing in the middle of the road with your back turned while 200 cyclists come at you, just to take a selfie.  #think #TDF2014

-- American cyclist Tejay van Garderen (@tejay_van), complaining about self-indulgent fans at this year's Tour de France, 6 July 2014

Practical Reason For Freedom

The practical reason for freedom is that freedom seems to be the only condition under which any kind of substantial moral fiber can be developed -- we have tried law, compulsion, and authoritarianism of various kinds, and the result is nothing to be proud of.

-- Albert Jay Nock (1873-1945), American author, social critic, and libertarian conservative, "On Doing the Right Thing", in The American Mercury (1925)

Obviously Wrong

I do not envy people who think they have a complete explanation of the world, for the simple reason that they are obviously wrong.

-- Salman Rushdie (1947-), Indian-born British author, Salman Rushdie -- Talking with David Frost (1993)

All We Have Of Freedom

All we have of freedom, all we use or know --
This our fathers bought for us, long and long ago.

-- Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), British author and poet, "The Old Issue" (1899)

Just Don't Want To

If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we've got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.

-- Stephen Colbert (1964-), American political satirist, "Jesus is a Liberal Democrat", The Colbert Report, 16 December 2010

Suck It Up

Quantum mechanics is just counterintuitive and we just have to suck it up.

-- Seth Lloyd, quantum physicist at MIT, quoted in "Fluid Tests Hint at Concrete Quantum Reality", Natalie Wolchover, Quanta Magazine, 24 June 2014

Where Is The Stopping Point?

And where is the stopping point to the "let the government pay" alternative?  Suppose an employer's sincerely held religious belief is offended by health coverage of vaccines, or paying the minimum wage or according women equal pay for substantially similar work.  Does it rank as a less restrictive alternative to require the government to provide the money or benefit to which the employer has a religion-based objection?

-- Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her dissent to the court's decision to allow Hobby Lobby to refrain, on religious grounds, from providing contraceptive coverage as required by Obamacare, 30 June 2014

Maybe There Is No Solution

I think the same questions could be asked of those who supported the Iraq War.  You know, were they right in their predictions?  Were there weapons of mass destruction there?  That's what the war was sold on.  Was democracy easily achievable?  Was the war won in 2005, when many of these people said it was won?  Um, they didn't really, I think, understand the civil war that would break out.  And what's going on now, I don't blame on President Obama.  Has he really got the solution?  Maybe there is no solution.  But I do blame the Iraq War on the chaos that is in the Middle East.  I also blame those who are for the Iraq War for emboldening Iran.  These are the same people now who are petrified of what Iran may become, and I understand some of their worry.

-- Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), when asked, "Do you think Dick Cheney is a credible critic of this president?" by Host David Gregory on NBC's Meet the Press, 22 June 2014

Mock That Belief

The best way to solve a problem is to identify the core belief that causes the problem; then mock that belief until the people who hold it insist that you heard them wrong.

-- Scott Adams (1957-), American cartoonist and satirist, famous for Dilbert, DNRC Newsletter #58 (11 November 2004)

Unless The Phone Is

That is like saying a ride on horseback is materially indistinguishable from a flight to the moon.  Both are ways of getting from point A to point B, but little else justifies lumping them together.  Modern cell phones, as a category, implicate privacy concerns far beyond those implicated by the search of a cigarette pack, a wallet, or a purse. ...

A cell phone search would typically expose to the government far more than the most exhaustive search of a house: A phone not only contains in digital form many sensitive records previously found in the home; it also contains a broad array of private information never found in a home in any form -- unless the phone is.

-- US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority in a ruling that a search of an arrestee's cellphone requires a warrant, 25 June 2014

Privacy

If privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy.

-- Philip Zimmermann (1954-), creator of Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), the most widely used email encryption software in the world, Why I Wrote PGP (1991)

Forget Each Other's Sentences

I'm gay for marijuana.  We met in high school and we've been together ever since.  Sometimes we forget each other's sentences.

-- Bill Maher (1956-), American comedian and actor, interview with Conan O'Brien, 12 February 2013

Crayola Bomb

Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon.  A happiness weapon.  A Beauty Bomb.  And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one.  It would explode high in the air -- explode softly -- and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air.  Floating down to earth -- boxes of Crayolas.  And we wouldn't go cheap either -- not little boxes of eight.  Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in.  With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest.  And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination instead of death.  A child who touched one wouldn't have his hand blown off.

-- Robert Fulghum (4 June 1937 -), American author, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (1986)

No Hard Feelings

No hard feelings, but my job is to make their job hard.

-- Eric Grosse, Google's security chief, on the company's opposition to helping U.S. government surveillance, New York Times, 7 June 2014

grandKids += 2;

Congratulations to my #2 daughter Sheena and her husband Cody on the birth of their son and daughter this morning.  Cutlyr Michael came first at 8:32, weighing 6 lbs 10 oz, and Layton Emalee followed at 8:33, weighing 6 lbs 13 oz; both were 20 inches.  The twins have two older sisters, ages 6 and 2.

All are doing fine.  They should all come home together this weekend.

Not Economical

It is not economical to go to bed early to save the candles if the result is twins.

-- Chinese Proverb

Times Are Bad

Times are bad.  Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.

-- Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC), Roman philosopher, statesman, orator, and writer, attributed

Inheritance

The best inheritance a parent can give to his children is a few minutes of their time each day.

-- Orlando Aloysius Battista (1917-1995), Canadian-American chemist and author

Child / Parent / Child

Most parents learn to be parents by being children. ...  All the time a person is a child he is both a child and learning to be a parent.  After he becomes a parent he becomes predominantly a parent reliving childhood.

-- Dr. Benjamin Spock (1903-1998), American pediatrician and author

Selective Ignorance

Selective ignorance, a cornerstone of child rearing.  You don't put kids under surveillance: it might frighten you.  Parents should sit tall in the saddle and look upon their troops with a noble and benevolent and extremely nearsighted gaze.

-- Garrison Keillor (1942-), American novelist, humorist, and public radio personality, Leaving Home (1987), page 19

Having A Piano

Having children makes you no more a parent than having a piano at home makes you a pianist.

-- Michael Levine (1954-), American publicist, author, and motivational speaker, "Lessons at the Halfway Point" (1995)

Secure Your Weed

For crying out loud, secure your weed.  If you can legally possess it, that's fine.  But it has no place in an elementary school.

-- John Gates, a director of school safety and security in northern Colorado, New York Times, 1 June 2014

A Liberating Force

Technology has been a liberating force in our lives.  It allows us to create and share the experiences that make us human, effortlessly.  But in secret, our very own government -- one bound by the Constitution and its Bill of Rights -- has reverse-engineered something beautiful into a tool of mass surveillance and oppression.  The government right now can easily monitor whom you call, whom you associate with, what you read, what you buy, and where you go online and offline, and they do it to all of us, all the time.

In the long, dark shadow cast by the security state, a free society cannot thrive.

-- Edward Snowden in a statement supporting "Reset the Net", a site advocating increased use of strong passwords and encryption by individuals to counter government surveillance, 5 June 2014

https://pack.resetthenet.org/

Better Than You Think

A good design is better than you think.

-- Rex Heftman, cited in Jef Raskin's "The Humane Interface" (2000)

Imagination

Imagination has brought mankind through the Dark Ages to its present state of civilization.  Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity.  Imagination has given us the steam engine, the telephone, the talking-machine, and the automobile, for these things had to be dreamed of before they became realities.  So I believe that dreams -- day dreams, you know, with your eyes wide open and your brain machinery whizzing -- are likely to lead to the betterment of the world.  The imaginative child will become the imaginative man or woman most apt to create, to invent, and therefore to foster civilization.  A prominent educator tells me that fairy tales are of untold value in developing imagination in the young.  I believe it.

-- Lyman Frank Baum (1856-1919), American author, actor, and creator, with illustrator William Wallace Denslow, of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Introduction to The Lost Princess of Oz (1917)

Right To Be Forgotten

A simple way of understanding what happened here is that you have a collision between a right to be forgotten and a right to know.

-- Eric Schmidt, Google's executive chairman, on the decision by a European court that search engines must consider individuals' requests to remove links to information about them, New York Times, 30 May 2014

What They Seem

Things do not pass for what they are, but for what they seem.  Most things are judged by their jackets.

-- Baltasar Gracian y Morales (1601-1658), Spanish Jesuit author, Practical Wisdom for Perilous Times

A Single Aspiration

Just as a cautious businessman avoids tying up all his capital in one concern, so, perhaps, worldly wisdom will advise us not to look for the whole of our satisfaction from a single aspiration.

-- Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Austrian neurologist and psychologist, "Civilization and its Discontents" (1930) [SE, XXI, p.83]

RIP Maya Angelou

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

-- Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Ann Johnson (4 April 1928 - 28 May 2014), African-American poet, A Brave And Startling Truth (1995)

Rolling Drunk

Dear future generations:  Please accept our apologies.  We were rolling drunk on petroleum.

-- Kurt Vonnegut, @Kurt_Vonnegut on Twitter, 22 May 2014

Printer's Ink

Printer's ink has been running a race against gunpowder these many, many years.  Ink is handicapped, in a way, because you can blow up a man with gunpowder in half a second, while it may take twenty years to blow him up with a book.  But the gunpowder destroys itself along with its victim, while a book can keep on exploding for centuries.

-- Christopher Morley (1890-1957), American journalist, novelist, poet, and playwright, The Haunted Bookshop (1919)

Progressively Unnecessary

A good teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.

-- Thomas Carruthers (?-1925), British Physician and educational theorist

NovaNET's Pad

A society made up of the individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable.  The pressure of ideas would simply drive it frantic.

-- Henry Louis (H. L.) Mencken (1880-1956), American writer, satirist, and cultural critic, Minority Report : HL Mencken's Notebooks (1956)

Beliefs

Some people look to their beliefs for the truth, others look to the truth for their beliefs.

-- Robert Haston, rescue helicopter pilot, author, at quora.com, 26 March 2013

What Is The Use Of A House

What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?

-- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) American writer and philosopher, letter to Harrison Blake (20 May 1860); published in Familiar Letters (1865)

That's Real

No one gets realer than parents.  They compliment you behind your back, but talk shit to your face.  That's real, man.

-- Zaid Ali (@Za1d) on Twitter, 26 April 2014

A Race

History becomes more and more of a race between education and catastrophe. ...  Yet, clumsily or smoothly, the world, it seems, progresses and will progress.

-- H. G. Wells (1866-1946), British novelist, The Outline Of History (1920), Chapter 41

We Were Together

We were together; I forget the rest.

-- Walt Whitman (1819-1892), American journalist and poet



The line above, which I really like, appears to be a condensed version of the following line from Whitman's "Once I pass'd Through a Populous City", from "Leaves of Grass" (1855)

Day by day and night by night we were together -- all else has long been forgotten by me.