People Will Vote

In times of stress and strain, people will vote.

-- Author unknown.  Attributed to parliamentary debates, Great Britain (1857)

Impostor Syndrome

Some years ago, I was lucky enough invited to a gathering of great and good people: artists and scientists, writers and discoverers of things.  And I felt that at any moment they would realise that I didn't qualify to be there, among these people who had really done things.  On my second or third night there, I was standing at the back of the hall, while a musical entertainment happened, and I started talking to a very nice, polite, elderly gentleman about several things, including our shared first name.  And then he pointed to the hall of people, and said words to the effect of, "I just look at all these people, and I think, what the heck am I doing here?  They've made amazing things.  I just went where I was sent." And I said, "Yes.  But you were the first man on the moon.  I think that counts for something." And I felt a bit better.  Because if Neil Armstrong felt like an imposter, maybe everyone did.

-- Neil Gaiman (10 November 1960 -), English author of science fiction and fantasy short stories and novels, graphic novels, and comics, remarks on "Imposter syndrome" on Tumblr (12 May 2017)

Leadership Vacuum

Covid-19 has created a crisis throughout the world.  This crisis has produced a test of leadership.  With no good options to combat a novel pathogen, countries were forced to make hard choices about how to respond.  Here in the United States, our leaders have failed that test.  They have taken a crisis and turned it into a tragedy. ...

Anyone else who recklessly squandered lives and money in this way would be suffering legal consequences.  Our leaders have largely claimed immunity for their actions.  But this election gives us the power to render judgment.  Reasonable people will certainly disagree about the many political positions taken by candidates.  But truth is neither liberal nor conservative.  When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent.  We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs.

-- Editorial signed by 34 editors of The New England Journal of Medicine who are United States citizens (one editor is not), "Dying in a Leadership Vacuum", 7 October 2020

RIP Eddie Van Halen

I can't believe I'm having to write this, but my father, Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, has lost his long and arduous battle with cancer this morning.

He was the best father I could ever ask for.  Every moment I've shared with him on and off stage was a gift.

My heart is broken and I don't think I'll ever fully recover from this loss.

I love you so much, Pop.

-- Wolf Van Halen, posting on Twitter as @WolfVanHalen, announcing the death of his father, Guitar God Eddie Van Halen (26 January 1955 - 6 October 2020).  I'm so glad to have seen Eddie in concert, and I still remember listening for the first time to the first song ("Runnin' with the Devil") of the first side of the debut Van Halen album.  Love at first listen (h/t Steve Gray for playing that album that day).

[I am not enjoying posting so many trvth obituaries.]

RIP Bob Gibson

[Bob Gibson] won both the National League's Most Valuable Player Award and the Cy Young Award, as the league's best pitcher, in 1968, when he won 22 games, struck out 268 batters, pitched 13 shutouts and posted an earned run average of 1.12, still the lowest since the advent of the lively ball in 1920 and the fourth-lowest in major league history.  The next year, even though Major League Baseball lowered the pitchers' mounds to give batters a break, Gibson won 20 games and struck out 269.

He won at least 20 games five times and struck out 3,117 batters.  He threw 56 career shutouts and captured a second Cy Young Award in 1970.  He was an eight-time All-Star, won a Gold Glove award for fielding nine times and pitched a no-hitter against the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1971.

Pitching for three pennant-winning Cardinal teams, Gibson won seven World Series games in a row, losing only in his first and last Series starts.  [H]e holds the records for most strikeouts in a World Series game, 17, and in a single World Series, 35, both against the Detroit Tigers in 1968.

He was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981, his first year of eligibility.

-- New York Times recap of the career of St Louis Cardinals pitching legend Bob Gibson (9 November 1935 - 2 October 2020), on the occasion of his passing

I Voted

I voted.

I parked my car in front of the courthouse and went in to vote in person.  It was just like voting on election day, except I was at the courthouse instead of my local precinct, and there were no other citizens there, so no lines and no waiting.

Eight minutes after parking I was back in my car, sending a text to my kids telling them how easy it was to vote.

Opportunities and methods of voting vary, mostly by state.  Illinois has early voting from 24 September through Monday 2 November.  My Louisiana daughter tells me they have an early voting window of one weekend, Thursday through Tuesday.  Find out the rules in your area, and plan your vote today.  You can literally google "How to vote".  Then vote today, if you can and you're ready.

Don't forget to vote.

Embrace This

I am going to comment as the CDC director, that face masks, these face masks are the most important, powerful public health tool we have.  And I will continue to appeal for all Americans, all individuals in our country, to embrace these face coverings.  I've said it, if we did it for six, eight, 10, 12 weeks, we'd bring this pandemic under control.

These actually, we have clear, scientific evidence they work, and they are our best defense.  I might even go so far as to say that this face mask is more guaranteed to protect me against COVID than when I take a COVID vaccine, because the immunogenicity may be 70%.  And if I don't get an immune response to vaccine, it's not going to protect me.  This face mask will.  So, I do want to keep asking the American public to take the responsibility, particularly the 18 to 25 year olds, where we're seeing the outbreak in America continue to go like this.  Because we haven't got the acceptance to personal responsibility that we need for all Americans to embrace this face mask.

-- CDC Director Robert Redfield testifying before the Senate on the coronavirus response, 16 September 2020

RIP Helen Reddy

I am woman, hear me roar

In numbers too big to ignore

And I know too much to go back an' pretend

'Cause I've heard it all before

And I've been down there on the floor

No one's ever gonna keep me down again

-- Helen Maxine Reddy (25 October 1941 - 29 September 2020), Australian-American singer, songwriter, and actress.  I Am Woman (1971)

[I confess, Helen Reddy was one of the first live concerts I saw at the UI Assembly Hall, apparently 8 February 1975]

Unanswerable Arguments

I never knew any debatable point not maintained on both sides by unanswerable arguments.

-- Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802 - 1838), English poet and novelist, better known by her initials L. E. L., Romance and Reality (1831), Vol. II, Chapter 21

Nothing. Zero.

Hannity: Now everybody keeps saying down at Occupy Wall Street, the 1% -- which I'm sure you're a part of -- doesn't pay any taxes.  Do you not pay any taxes?  I didn't know that.

Trump: No, I pay tax.  I pay a lot of tax.  I just signed a big fat check recently for a lot of tax.  I paid literally, I paid a lot of tax and you know, look, I don't mind.  I'm proud to pay it up.  If I owe it, I pay it.

The amazing thing is that half of the country is paying nothing.  Zero.  And even if you don't make a lot, you should have to pay something.  Just something to be a part of the game.  Half of the country's paying nothing.

-- Donald Trump, in a 2011 radio interview with conservative host Sean Hannity, as quoted by CNN.  It was recently revealed that Trump paid no federal income taxes in 10 out of 15 years beginning in 2000

The Educator Inside You

The most worthwhile form of education is the kind that puts the educator inside you, as it were, so that the appetite for learning persists long after the external pressure for grades and degrees has vanished. Otherwise you are not educated; you are merely trained.

-- Sydney J. Harris (1917 - 1986), syndicated essayist and drama critic, Pieces of Eight (1982)

Bipartisan In Washington

If there is one thing that is bipartisan in Washington, it is brazen hypocrisy.

-- Thomas Sowell (1930 -), American economist and political commentator with a libertarian conservative perspective.  He taught economics at Cornell University, the University of California, Los Angeles, and since 1980 at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he is currently Senior Fellow, "Supreme Hypocrisy", 29 March 2016

Intolerable

Ce n'est pas un grand malheur d'obliger des ingrats, mais c'en est un insupportable d'être obligé à un malhonnête homme.

It is not a great misfortune to be of service to ingrates, but it is an intolerable one to be obliged to a dishonest man.

-- François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld, le Prince de Marcillac (1613 - 1680), French author of maxims and memoirs, Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678), Maxim 317

Lead Others

Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.

-- Ruth Joan Bader Ginsburg (15 March 1933 - 18 September 2020), Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 1993. She was the second female justice (after Sandra Day O'Connor) and one of three female justices serving on the Supreme Court (along with Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan). Statement of advice on being presented the Radcliffe Medal, as quoted in "Honoring Ruth Bader Ginsburg" by Colleen Walsh, in The Harvard Gazette (29 May 2015)

Upside Down

Before the time trial, I thought I was going to finish second and I was happy with that result and the best young rider jersey.  The night before, in the parking lot, I’d watched the mechanics prepare a special white bike for me to arrive on the Champs-Élysées.  But then the time trial turned everything in my life upside down, and everything is still upside down inside me.

I think the secret of my success is that I started without believing for a single moment that I could win.  I was free spirit, I didn’t even have a power meter.

-- Tadej Pogačar (21 September 1998 -), winner of the 2020 Tour de France in a surprise, penultimate stage upset, overcoming a 57-second deficit to win by 59 seconds.  In addition to winning the overall Yellow jersey in his debut Tour, he also won the Polka Dot jersey for King of the Mountains, and the White jersey for Best Young Rider as the youngest victor since 1904, in an interview with L'Equipe, via cyclingnews.com, 20 September 2020

RIP, RBG

Our Nation has lost a jurist of historic stature.  We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague.  Today we mourn, but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her -- a tireless and resolute champion of justice.

-- Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr, in a statement announcing the death of Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 18 September 2020

Not Real Magic

"I'm writing a book on magic," I explain, and I'm asked, "real magic?"  By real magic people mean miracles, thaumaturgical acts, and supernatural powers.  "No," I answer: "Conjuring tricks, not real magic."

Real magic, in other words, refers to magic that is not real, while the magic that is real, that can actually be done, is not real magic. 

-- Lee Siegel, conjurer and author of Net of Magic: Wonders and Deceptions in India, quoted in Noesis #206, September 2020

Human-To-Human Relations

In my view, anything that makes the Middle East more like the European Union and less like the Syrian civil war is a good thing. ...

I can't predict how it will all play out, but when the most technologically advanced and globalized Arab state, the U.A.E., decides to collaborate with the most technologically advanced and globalized non-Arab state in the region, Israel, I suspect new energies will get unlocked and new partnerships forged that should be good for both Arab-Israeli and Jewish-Muslim human-to-human relations.

-- Thomas L. Friedman, The Love Triangle That Spawned Trump's Mideast Peace Deal, New York Times, 15 September 2020

Evidence And Science

Scientific American has never endorsed a presidential candidate in its 175-year history.  This year we are compelled to do so.  We do not do this lightly.

The evidence and the science show that Donald Trump has badly damaged the U.S. and its people -- because he rejects evidence and science.

-- Scientific American Editorial Board, in the October 2020 Issue

A/C

Energy demand from air conditioning worldwide is projected to triple to 6,200 terawatt-hours by 2050, which is the equivalent of a quarter of the total annual electricity consumption today. This is one reason many are trying to make more efficient air conditioning tech, as the current units have not seen the massive leaps in efficiency seen in other electrical technology like solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicles, and with billions of new air conditioners awaiting purchase in the decades to come, the sooner the better. In Los Angeles alone, rising temperatures could increase peak summertime electricity demand by 51 percent by 2060 under the worst case scenario. India is projected to install 1.1 billion AC units by 2050, which would make air conditioning account for 45 percent of peak electricity demand in the nation compared to 10 percent today.

-- Walt Hickey in NumLock News, citing James Temple, MIT Technology Review, 2 September 2020

9/11 Generation

Never before in our history has America asked so much over such a sustained period of an all-volunteer force.  So I can say without fear of contradiction or being accused of exaggeration, the 9/11 generation ranks among the greatest our nation has ever produced, and it was born -- it was born -- it was born right here on 9/11.

-- George W. Bush (1946 -), 43rd President of the United States, Obama: America does not give in to fear, msnbc.com (11 September 2011)

Settled In

Judgments on the president's pandemic leadership have settled in.  It was inadequate and did harm.  He experienced Covid-19 not as a once-in-a-lifetime medical threat but merely a threat to his re-election argument, a gangbusters economy.  He denied the scope and scale of the crisis, sent economic adviser Larry Kudlow out to say we have it "contained" and don't forget to buy the dip.  Mr. Trump essentially admitted he didn't want more testing because it would result in more positives.

And the virus rages on, having hit blue states first and now tearing through red states.

-- Margaret Ellen "Peggy" Noonan (1950 -), columnist for The Wall Street Journal, former speechwriter for U.S. presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, "The Week It Went South for Trump", The Wall Street Journal (25 June 2020)

The Enemy Of Free Speech

What happens when the Second Amendment meets the First Amendment?  

The First Amendment loses. 

Here we have the full flowering of the First Amendment -- free speech about matters of public urgency -- marching headlong the unbridled expansion of the Second Amendment -- citizens openly brandishing loaded rifles, often semiautomatic ones, in public places. 

These two cherished American principles do not meet on equal footing, because a gun is the opposite of speech.  A loaded weapon discourages speech, intimidates, and demands compliance.  Even someone who intends no harm with a gun -- and I believe that these counterprotesters intend no harm -- is quashing the free speech of those around them, because it is impossible to speak openly when someone who hates your opinion is holding a loaded gun near you and telling you to shut up and leave. 

It's right-wing cancel culture. 

-- David Plotz (1970 -), American journalist, Guns are the enemy of free speech, Insider Today, 28 August 2020

Spirit Of Liberty

Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it.  While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it.  And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women?  It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes.  That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow.  A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few -- as we have learned to our sorrow.

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interest alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded.

-- Learned Hand (1872 - 1961), American judge and judicial philosopher, in an address to a crowd of 1.5 million at a ceremony where 150,000 people were becoming American citizens, in Central Park in New York City, "I Am An American Day" 21 May 1944

[Your humble editor recommends you read the whole thing here.  I have quoted just under half.]

Labor Day

On this day -- this American holiday -- we are celebrating the rights of free laboring men and women.  The preservation of these rights is vitally important now, not only to us who enjoy them -- but to the whole future of Christian civilization.

-- Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882 - 1945), American statesman and political leader who served as the President of the United States from 1933 to 1945, speech on Labor Day, 1 September 1941

He Serves Best

The President of the United States of necessity owes his election to office to the suffrage and zealous labors of a political party, the members of which cherish with ardor and regard as of essential importance the principles of their party organization; but he should strive to be always mindful of the fact that he serves his party best who serves the country best.

-- Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822 - 1893), 19th President of the United States (1877-1881).  As president, he oversaw the end of Reconstruction, began the efforts that led to civil service reform, and attempted to reconcile the divisions left over from the Civil War and Reconstruction.  Inaugural Address (5 March 1877)

Voluntary

There are conditions of blindness so voluntary that they become complicity.

-- Paul Charles Joseph Bourget (1852 - 1935), French novelist and critic, Cosmopolis, Ch. 5 "Countess Steno" (1892)

Poor Choices

Over these past few days, the irresponsible actions of a small number of students have created the very real possibility of ending an in-person semester for all of us.  Their poor choices have led to a concerning and rapid increase in the number of new undergraduate COVID-19 positive cases. ...

We have created the most extensive testing process of any university in the country.  We have extensively modeled to make the best science-driven decisions.  We have invented a new COVID-19 test.  We've created a new app to ensure building access and academic standing are linked to testing compliance.  Seven teams have worked since the spring to do everything we could possibly think of to make your Illinois experience as normal as possible.

We've given ourselves a real chance to come together and to stay together.  But the decision to do so is in your hands.  We stay together.  Or we go home.

-- Excerpts from a message to undergraduate students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2 September 2020

Just Desserts

Between "just desserts" and "tragic irony" we are given quite a large scope for our particular talent.  Generally speaking, things have gone about as far as they can possibly go when things have gotten about as bad as they can reasonably get.

-- Sir Tom Stoppard OM CBE FRSL (1937 -), Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter, knighted in 1997, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990)

Public Safety

The more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is for the very clear choice on who's best on public safety and law and order.

-- White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, describing a campaign strategy that believes Trump benefits from social violence, in an interview on "Fox and Friends", 27 August 2020

No One Knows

Weapons are like money; no one knows the meaning of enough.

-- Martin Amis (born 25 August 1949) is a British novelist, essayist, and short story writer, Einstein's Monsters, "Introduction: Thinkability" (1987)

A Moment Of Crisis

Our Convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation.  The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life.  Any politician who does not grasp this danger is not fit to lead our country.

Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities.  Many have witnessed this violence personally, some have even been its victims.

I have a message for all of you: the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end.  Beginning on January 20th 2017, safety will be restored.

-- Donald Trump, accepting the Republican presidential nomination, 21 July 2016

Storm Surge

STORM SURGE: The combination of a dangerous storm surge and the tide will cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by rising waters moving inland from the shoreline.  The water could reach the following heights above ground somewhere in the indicated areas if the peak surge occurs at the time of high tide...

[Sea Rim State Park TX to Intracoastal City LA...10-15 ft] ...

Unsurvivable storm surge with large and destructive waves will cause catastrophic damage from Sea Rim State Park, Texas, to Intracoastal City, Louisiana, including Calcasieu and Sabine Lakes.  This surge could penetrate up to 40 miles inland from the immediate coastline, and flood waters will not fully recede for several days after the storm.

-- US National Weather Service, Hurricane Laura Intermediate Advisory Number 28A, 26 August 2020

Senate Confirmed

The Department has a long-standing policy of limiting participation in partisan campaigns by its political appointees in recognition of the need for the U.S. Government to speak with one voice on foreign policy matters.  The combination of Department policy and Hatch Act requirements effectively bars you from engaging in partisan political activities while on duty, and, in many circumstances, even when you are off duty. ...

Senate-confirmed Presidential appointees may not even attend a political party convention or convention-related event.

-- December 2019 memo to all State Department employees, written by a department legal adviser and approved by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, detailing guidelines on if and when State Department employees may engage in partisan activities.  Tonight (25 August 2020) Secretary Pompeo speaks to the Republican National Convention in remarks recorded in Jerusalem while on official travel.  politico.com

Think They're Thinking

If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.

-- Donald Robert Perry Marquis (1878 - 1937), American humorist, from archy and mehitabel (1927)

On The Ballot

All elections are important.  But we know in our bones this one is more consequential.  America is at an inflection point.  A time of real peril, but of extraordinary possibilities.

We can choose the path of becoming angrier, less hopeful and more divided.  A path of shadow and suspicion.  Or we can choose a different path, and together, take this chance to heal, to be reborn, to unite.  A path of hope and light.

This is a life-changing election that will determine America's future for a very long time.  Character is on the ballot.  Compassion is on the ballot.  Decency, science, democracy.  They are all on the ballot.  Who we are as a nation.  What we stand for.  And, most importantly, who we want to be.  That's all on the ballot.

-- Democratic presidential candidate Joseph R. Biden, in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, 20 August 2020

Profoundly Concerned

We are former national security officials who served during the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and/or Donald Trump, or as Republican Members of Congress.  We are profoundly concerned about the course of our nation under the leadership of Donald Trump.  Through his actions and his rhetoric, Trump has demonstrated that he lacks the character and competence to lead this nation and has engaged in corrupt behavior that renders him unfit to serve as President.

For the following reasons, we have concluded that Donald Trump has failed our country ...

[10 enumerated reasons, omitted]

While we -- like all Americans -- had hoped that Donald Trump would govern wisely, he has disappointed millions of voters who put their faith in him and has demonstrated that he is dangerously unfit to serve another term.

-- Statement by former Republican national security officials, 20 August 2020

It's A Given

To the young people who led us this summer, telling us we need to be better -- in so many ways, you are this country's dreams fulfilled.  Earlier generations had to be persuaded that everyone has equal worth.  For you, it's a given -- a conviction.  And what I want you to know is that for all its messiness and frustrations, your system of self-government can be harnessed to help you realize those convictions.

-- Former President Barack Obama, in his speech to the Democratic National Convention, 19 August 2020

Nineteenth Centenary

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

-- Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, proposed by Congress 4 June 1919, ratified 18 August 1920

Tribalism Abhors Reality

Tribalism is now not just one force in American politics, it's the overwhelming one, and tribalism abhors reality if it impugns the tribe.  But you can't have both tribalism and public health.  When you turn wearing a simple face mask into a political and cultural symbol of leftism, when you view social distancing as a concession to your enemies, you deeply undermine the power of millions of small impediments to viral outbreak.  What we are seeing is whether this tribalism can be sustained even when it costs tens of thousands of lives, even when it means exposing yourself to a deadly virus, even when it is literally more important than your own life.

-- Andrew Sullivan (1963 -), libertarian conservative author and political commentator, "With Trump, the Pathology Is the Point", New York magazine (22 May 2020)

Chips Are Down

If, when the chips are down, the world's most powerful nation, the United States of America, acts like a pitiful, helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world.

-- Richard Milhous Nixon (1913 - 1994), 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974.  Address to the nation on the situation in Southeast Asia (30 April 1970); in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard Nixon, 1970, p. 409

Opposite Of Loneliness

The opposite of loneliness, it's not togetherness.  It is intimacy.

-- Richard Bach (1936 -), American writer, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970), The Bridge Across Forever: A Lovestory (1989), p. 184

The Villain

People in power are trying to convince us that the villain in our American story is each other.  But that is not our story.  That is not who we are.  That's not our America.  Our United States of America is not about us versus them.  It's about We the people!  And in this moment, we must all speak truth about what's happening.

-- Kamala Devi Harris (20 October 1964 -), American attorney and politician serving as junior United States Senator for California since 2017, and now Democratic candidate for Vice President of the United States, Official announcement as candidate in 2020 Presidential election, Oakland, California (27 January 2019)

Big 10

We know how significant the student-athlete experience can be in shaping the future of the talented young women and men who compete in the Big Ten Conference.  Although that knowledge made this a painstaking decision, it did not make it difficult.  While I know our decision today will be disappointing in many ways for our thousands of student-athletes and their families, I am heartened and inspired by their resilience, their insightful and discerning thoughts, and their participation through our conversations to this point.  Everyone associated with the Big Ten Conference and its member institutions is committed to getting everyone back to competition as soon as it is safe to do so.

-- Big Ten Collegiate Sports Conference Statement, postponing the 2020-21 Fall Season, 11 August 2020

Especially When It's Inconvenient

The truth is that, promoting science isn't just about providing resources, it's about protecting free and open inquiry.  It's about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology.  It's about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it's inconvenient, especially when it's inconvenient.  Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us.

-- President-elect Obama's Weekly Address (20 December 2008)

More Good Trouble

I'd like to say this is some good and necessary trouble.  

-- Hannah Watters, 15, who was suspended from North Paulding High School in the Atlanta suburbs after she shared images of a crowded campus hallway jammed with mostly maskless classmates.  The suspension was revoked today.  CNN and The Washington Post, 7 August 2020

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

If I had foreseen Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I would have torn up my formula in 1905.

-- Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955), theoretical physicist, in a conversation of 1948, as quoted in Einstein and the Poet : In Search of the Cosmic Man (1983) by William Hermanns, p. 112

The Same Tale

And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -- if all records told the same tale -- then the lie passed into history and became truth.  "Who controls the past," ran the Party slogan, "controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."  And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered.  Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. 

-- George Orwell (1903 - 1950), pen name of British novelist, essayist, and journalist Eric Arthur Blair, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), Chapter 3

Ordinary People Matter

In the long run, a society's strength depends on the way that ordinary people voluntarily behave.  Ordinary people matter because there are so many of them.  Voluntary behavior matters because it is hard to supervise everyone all the time. ...  Successful societies -- those which progress economically and politically and can control the terms on which they deal with the outside world -- succeed because they have found ways to match individual self-interest to the collective good.  The behavior that helps each person will, as a cumulative ethos, help the society as a whole.

-- James Fallows (2 August 1949 -), American print and radio journalist.  He was also one of Nader's Raiders at Public Citizen and Jimmy Carter's chief speechwriter for the first two years of his presidency, More Like Us : Making America Great Again (1989), p. 13

Thanks For Flying SpaceX

Splashdown.  Dragon Endeavor has returned home.  Welcome back to planet earth, and thanks for flying SpaceX.

-- SpaceX Mission Control as Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley returned to Earth in the first water landing by an American space crew since 1975, completing the first astronaut trip to orbit by a private company, 2 August 2020