Love The Game

First, the facts: LeBron James passed my scoring record and now is the leading scorer in NBA history.  It takes unbelievable drive, dedication, and talent to survive in the NBA long enough to rack up that number of points when the average NBA career lasts only 4.5 years.  It's not just about putting the ball through the hoop, it's about staying healthy and skilled enough to climb the steep mountain in ever-thinning oxygen over many years when most other players have tapped out.

It's also about making sure your team gets their moments to shine and thrive and pursue their own greatness.  A record is nothing if you used other players' careers as stepping stones just for self-aggrandizement.  For me, I strove to play at the highest level I could in order to be a good teammate. The points -- and the record -- were simply a by-product of that philosophy.

I think LeBron has the same philosophy.

Bottom line about LeBron and me: LeBron makes me love the game again.  And he makes me proud to be part of an ever-widening group of athletes who actively care about their community.

-- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (16 April 1947 -), "What I Think About LeBron Breaking My NBA Scoring Record", SubStack, 8 February 2023

We Are Not Bystanders

My fellow Americans, we meet tonight at an inflection point.  One of those moments that only a few generations ever face, where the decisions we make now will decide the course of this nation and of the world for decades to come.

We are not bystanders to history.  We are not powerless before the forces that confront us.  It is within our power, of We the People. We are facing the test of our time and the time for choosing is at hand.

We must be the nation we have always been at our best.  Optimistic.  Hopeful.  Forward-looking.

A nation that embraces, light over darkness, hope over fear, unity over division.  Stability over chaos.

We must see each other not as enemies, but as fellow Americans.  We are a good people, the only nation in the world built on an idea.

That all of us, every one of us, is created equal in the image of God.  A nation that stands as a beacon to the world.  A nation in a new age of possibilities.

Because the soul of this nation is strong, because the backbone of this nation is strong, because the people of this nation are strong, the State of the Union is strong.

-- President Joe Biden, State of the Union Address, 7 February 2023

Hurry History?

A wise man does not try to hurry history.  Many wars have been avoided by patience and many have been precipitated by reckless haste.

-- Adlai Ewing Stevenson II (1900 - 1965), American politician and statesman, Speeches of Adlai Stevenson (1952), p. 39

Art Of Persistence

The art of love is largely the art of persistence.

-- Albert Ellis (1913 - 2007), American psychologist and psychotherapist

Just Another Step

When Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope.  Yet we know that winter is just another step in the cycle of life.  But standing here among the people of Punxsutawney and basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn't imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter.

-- Bill Murray as Phil Connors in the movie Groundhog Day (1993), written by Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis

The Heaven Of Animals

Here they are.  The soft eyes open.   
If they have lived in a wood
It is a wood.
If they have lived on plains
It is grass rolling
Under their feet forever.

To match them, the landscape flowers,   
Outdoing, desperately
Outdoing what is required:
The richest wood,
The deepest field.

-- James Lafayette Dickey (2 February 1923 - 19 January 1997), popular American poet and novelist, appointed eighteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1966, "The Heaven of Animals" from The Whole Motion: Collected Poems 1945-1992

Queen Of The Skies

If you love this business, you've been dreading this moment.  Nobody wants a four-engine airliner anymore, but that doesn't erase the tremendous contribution the aircraft made to the development of the industry or its remarkable legacy.

-- Aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia, as Boeing delivers its final 747 jumbo jet, #1547, as quoted by Gene Johnson, USA Today, 31 January 2023

Im See

Im See                        In The Lake

Heute ist das Wetter warm,          Today the weather is warm,
heute kann's nicht schaden,         today it can't hurt,
schnell hinunter an den See,        quickly down to the lake,
heute gehn wir baden!               Today we go swimming!

Eins, zwei, drei -- die Hosen aus,  One, two, three -- pants off,
Stiefel, Wams und Wäsche!           Boots, doublet and underwear!
Und dann -- plumps ins Wasser rein! And then -- plop into the water
Gerade wie die Frösche!             Just like the frogs!

Und der schönste Sonnenschein       And the most beautiful sunshine
brennt uns nach dem Bade            burns us after the bath,
Brust und Buckel knusperbraun,      breast and hump crispy brown,
braun wie Schokolade!               brown like chocolate!

-- Adolf Holst (1867 - 1945), German educator, author, and publisher of children's books, quoted in German How To Speak And Write It by Joseph Rosenberg (1960)

[Early in my 5 years of high school German, the first poem I memorized auf Deutsch was the above, ca. ~1974.  I still remembered good chunks, but not nearly all of it.]

Nothing More Certain

Age may have one side, but assuredly Youth has the other.  There is nothing more certain than that both are right, except perhaps that both are wrong.

-- Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894), Scottish novelist and poet, "Crabbed Age and Youth" (1878), Virginibus Puerisque, II 

A Good Action

It is the mark of a good action that it appears inevitable in the retrospect.

-- Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894), Scottish novelist and poet, "Reflections and Remarks on Human Life", VI: Right and Wrong, published in Works: Letters and Miscellanies of Robert Louis Stevenson -- Sketches, Criticisms, Etc. (1895), p. 628

The Swing

How do you like to go up in a swing,
   Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
   Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
   Till I can see so wide,
Rivers and trees and cattle and all
   Over the countryside --

Till I look down on the garden green,
   Down on the roof so brown --
Up in the air I go flying again,
   Up in the air and down!

-- Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894), Scottish novelist and poet, "The Swing" from A Child's Garden of Verses (1885)

[I received this collection of poetry as a gift on 16 September 1968.  When I had a school assignment to memorize a poem, this is the poem I chose.  When I pulled the book off the shelf just now, I found a bookmark on this page.]

Our Last Cruise

Old and young, we are all on our last cruise.

-- Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894), Scottish novelist and poet, "Crabbed Age and Youth" (1878), Virginibus Puerisque, II 

The Cruelest Lies

The cruelest lies are often told in silence.

-- Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894), Scottish novelist and poet, Truth of Intercourse

Nothing So Strange

There is nothing so powerful as truth -- and often nothing so strange.

-- Daniel Webster (1782 - 1852), United States Senator and Secretary of State, famed for his ability as an orator, Argument on the murder of Captain White (1830)

RIP David Crosby

[E]very time, man, that I get stoned and put on a guitar and somebody points me at a microphone, I have -- I can't say every time -- 99 times out of a hundred -- I have as good a time as most people do balling.  And wouldn't you want to do that?  And wouldn't anybody want to do all they could?  I want to do it all I can, 'cause it gets me off.  I love it.

-- David Van Cortlandt Crosby (14 August 1941 - 19 January 2023) was an American singer-songwriter and musician. In addition to his solo career, he was a founding member of both the Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash, as quoted by Ben Fong-Torres in "David Crosby: The Rolling Stone Interview", Rolling Stone, 23 July 1970

The Best

Information is not knowledge.  Knowledge is not wisdom.  Wisdom is not truth.  Truth is not beauty.  Beauty is not love.  Love is not music.  Music is THE BEST.

-- Frank Vincent Zappa (1940 - 1993), American musician, composer, and satirist, "Joe's Garage Acts II & III" (1979)

Hope To Understand

Whenever we proceed from the known into the unknown we may hope to understand, but we may have to learn at the same time a new meaning of the word "understanding."

-- Werner Karl Heisenberg (1901 - 1976), German physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the founders of the field of quantum mechanics, Physics and Philosophy (1958)

Up To Us

A lot of people are waiting for Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi to come back -- but they are gone.  We are it.  It is up to us.  It is up to you.

-- Marian Wright Edelman (1939 -), American activist for civil rights and children's rights; founder and president emerita of the Children's Defense Fund; as quoted in The Art of Winning Commitment : 10 Ways Leaders Can Engage Minds, Hearts, And Spirits (2004) by Dick Richards, p. 11

No Matter The Starting Point

Knowledge can be acquired by a suitable and complete study, no matter what the starting point is.  Only one must know how to "learn."

-- George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (13 January ca. 1866 - 29 October 1949), Greco-Armenian mystic and spiritual teacher, All and Everything: Views from the Real World (1973)

It Is Evident

May God save the country, for it is evident that the people will not.

-- Millard Fillmore (1800 - 1874), thirteenth president of the United States, serving from 1850 until 1853, and the last member of the Whig Party to hold the nation's highest office, Letter to Henry Clay (11 November 1844), as quoted in Presidential Wit from Washington to Johnson (1966) edited by Bill Adler

RIP Jeff Beck

I'm an experimenter.  It's rich because every album I've done, except for a couple of techno-y records, are different.  Really you've got to hand it to the Fender Strat, because there are songs in [that guitar].  It's a tool of great inspiration and torture at the same time because it's forever sitting there challenging you to find something else in it, but it is there if you really search.

It does respond to touch and the tonal variation is unlimited really, especially with the whammy bar.  I have it set up so it becomes almost like a pedal steel.

My Strat is another arm, it's part of me.  It doesn't feel like a guitar at all.  It's an implement which is my voice.  A Les Paul feels like a guitar and I play differently on that and I sound too much like someone else.  With the Strat, instantly it becomes mine so that's why I've welded myself to that.  Or it's welded itself to me, one or the other.

-- Geoffrey Arnold (Jeff) Beck (24 June 1944 - 10 January 2023), English rock guitarist, in an interview with Total Guitar magazine (2016)

Honorable Beginnings

Honorable beginnings should serve to awaken curiosity, not to heighten people's expectations.  We are much better off when reality surpasses our expectations, and something turns out better than we thought it would.

-- Baltasar Gracián y Morales (1601 - 1658), Spanish Jesuit author regarded as one of the most accomplished prose stylists of the Baroque era, The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647), Maxim 19 (p. 12)

RIP Charles Simić

Widespread ignorance bordering on idiocy is our new national goal.  It's no use pretending otherwise and telling us ... that educated people are the nation's most valuable resources.  Sure, they are, but do we still want them?  It doesn’t look to me as if we do.  The ideal citizen of a politically corrupt state, such as the one we now have, is a gullible dolt unable to tell truth from bullshit.  An educated, well-informed population, the kind that a functioning democracy requires, would be difficult to lie to, and could not be led by the nose by the various vested interests running amok in this country. 

-- Dušan "Charles" Simić (9 May 1938 - 9 January 2023), Serbian-American poet, 1990 Pulitzer Prize winner, and poet laureate of the United States from 2007 to 2008, "Age of Ignorance" New York Review of Books, 20 March 2012

Most Readable

Perl is designed to give you several ways to do anything, so consider picking the most readable one.

-- Larry Arnold Wall (1954 -), American computer programmer, best known as the creator of the Perl programming language, in "Perl style guide" perldoc.perl.org, (2005 - 2013)

RIP Pope Benedict XVI

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

After the great Pope John Paul II, the Cardinals have elected me, a simple and humble labourer in the vineyard of the Lord.

The fact that the Lord knows how to work and to act even with inadequate instruments comforts me, and above all I entrust myself to your prayers.

Let us move forward in the joy of the Risen Lord, confident of his unfailing help.  The Lord will help us and Mary, his Most Holy Mother, will be on our side.  Thank you.

-- Pope Benedict XVI (born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger; 16 April 1927 - 31 December 2022), prelate of the Catholic Church who served as the head of the Church and the sovereign of the Vatican City State from 19 April 2005 until his resignation on 28 February 2013, Full text of his first public speech as pope, upon his presentation as Pope Benedict XVI (19 April 2005)

One More Year

No one is so old as to think that he cannot live one more year.

-- Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC), Roman philosopher, politician, and political theorist, Cato Maior de Senectute - On Old Age (44 BC) section 24

A Speaker Has Not Been Elected

No persons having received a majority of the whole number of votes cast by surname, a speaker has not been elected.

-- Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives for the 117th Congress Cheryl L. Johnson, the 36th individual to serve as Clerk, and who previously served during the 116th Congress, on the occasion of the Republican Majority in the House failing for the first time since 1923 to elect a speaker on the first ballot, 3 January 2023

RIP Barbara Walters

I can have respect and admiration for famous people, but I have never had a sense of fear or awe.

-- Barbara Jill Walters (25 September 1929 - 30 December 2022), American broadcast journalist, author, and television personality. Walters was a working journalist from 1951 until 2015.  As quoted in "Barbara Walters, trailblazing TV icon, dies at 93" by Luchina Fisher and Bill Hutchinson, ABC News (30 December 2022)

Not Older

We turn not older with years, but newer every day.

-- Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (1830 - 1886), American poet, Letter to Frances and Louise Norcross, late 1872

RIP Pelé

Every kid around the world who plays soccer wants to be Pelé.  I have a great responsibility to show them not just how to be like a soccer player, but how to be like a man.

-- Edson Arantes do Nascimento (23 October 1940 - 29 December 2022), known as Pelé, Brazilian professional footballer who played as a forward; he is widely regarded as the greatest player of all time; quoted in "SI Flashback: Soccer's greatest genius" Sports Illustrated, (1 June 1999)

Not Policymakers

But the current border crisis is not a COVID crisis.  And courts should not be in the business of perpetuating administrative edicts designed for one emergency only because elected officials have failed to address a different emergency.  We are a court of law, not policymakers of last resort.

-- Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, dissenting in Arizona et al v Secretary of Homeland Security, in which the majority left in place Title 42 restrictions on immigrants seeking asylum, pending further hearings, 27 December 2022

The Veil

I am on the edge of mysteries and the veil is getting thinner and thinner.

-- Louis Pasteur (27 December 1822 - 28 September 1895), French microbiologist, chemist, and inventor of the process of Pasteurization, Letter (December 1851), as quoted in The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague In History (2004) by John M. Barry

Merry Christmas

My kids had their family Christmas celebrations yesterday on the day.  Many of us gathered at my house today -- 3 of my 5 daughters, and 9 of 11 grandkids.  I hope you all had a fun and fulfilling holiday season, spent with those you care about, and who care about you.

It Came Just The Same

He HADN'T stopped Christmas from coming!
IT CAME!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!
And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so?
"It came without ribbons!  It came without tags!
"It came without packages, boxes, or bags!"
And he puzzled and puzzled, till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!
"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store.
Maybe Christmas ... perhaps ... means a little bit more."

-- Theodor Seuss Geisel (1904 - 1991), American children's author, political cartoonist, illustrator, and poet, known for his work writing and illustrating more than 60 books under the pen name Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957)

Warm?

Can a man who's warm understand one who's freezing?

-- Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (1918 - 2008), Russian philosopher, novelist, dramatist, and historian, 1970 Nobel laureate in Literature, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962)

RIP InSight

My power's really low, so this may be the last image I can send.  Don't worry about me though: my time here has been both productive and serene.  If I can keep talking to my mission team, I will -- but I'll be signing off here soon.  Thanks for staying with me.

-- NASA's InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport) lander, which has been conducting scientific explorations on the Martian surface for nearly four years, 11 December 2022

I Regret

I'm sorry for everything that happened and I regret that I was in Stutthof at the time.  That's all I can say.

-- 97-year-old Irmgard Furchner, a former Nazi camp secretary, convicted of complicity in the murder of more than 10,000 people at the Stutthof camp in occupied Poland, speaking to the regional court in the northern town of Itzehoe at the end of what is expected to be the last Nazi war-crimes trial, 20 December 2022

Ensure Accountability

Today, beyond our findings, we will also show that evidence we've gathered points to further action beyond the power of this committee or the Congress to help ensure accountability under law -- accountability that can only be found in the criminal justice system.

-- Representative Bennie Thompson (D-MS), chairman of the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, in a statement announcing criminal referrals to the Department of Justice of Donald Trump and others

Understand More

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.  Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.

-- Marie Curie (1867 - 1934), Polish-born scientist, first woman to win the Nobel Prize (for Physics in 1903); first person to win a second Nobel Prize (for Chemistry, 1911), as quoted in Our Precarious Habitat (1973) by Melvin A. Benarde, p. v

Fulfilled My Oath

The Republican Party used to believe in a big tent which welcomed the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.  Now, we shelter the ignorant, the racist, who only stoke anger and hatred to those who are different than us. ...

When one party's megaphone echoes calls for a civil war, and the other tacitly and in some cases openly supports it then we are clearly lost, Mr. Speaker.  Much like the Titanic on its maiden voyage if Republicans and Democrats don't urgently course correct, I fear we will hit the iceberg right in front of us. ...

Had I known standing up for truth would cost me my job, friendships and even my personal security, I would -- without hesitation -- do it all over again.  I can rest easy at night, knowing that I fulfilled my oath to the office.

I know many in this institution cannot do the same. 

-- Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL-16), in his final floor speech to Congress, 15 December 2022

Counter With Water

If your opponent strikes with fire, counter with water, becoming completely fluid and free-flowing. Water, by its nature, never collides with or breaks against anything. On the contrary, it swallows up any attack harmlessly.

-- Morihei Ueshiba (14 December 1883 - 26 April 1969), philosopher, martial artist, author, and the creator of the discipline of Aikido, The Art of Peace (1992)

Nothing Is More

Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in.

-- Gustave Flaubert (12 December 1821 - 8 May 1880), influential French writer who was perhaps the leading exponent of literary realism of his country, Sentimental Education (1869) Pt. 1, Ch. 5

Inertial Confinement

This result is a major breakthrough in fusion science.  The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory uses the largest laser in the world to compress heavy hydrogen to conditions similar to those in the centre of the sun.  The lasers enter the ends of a centimetre-scale cylinder, hitting its inner walls, making them glow x-ray hot.  These x-rays then heat a sphere at the centre that contains the nuclear fuel.  The outside of the sphere vaporises and becomes a plasma, that rushes off the surface, creating an imploding "spherical rocket" which in a few billionths of a second reaches velocities of order 400 kilometres per second.  The subsequent "crunch" at the centre is tailored in a specific way to make a hot spark in the middle, and the density of the compressed "fuel" surrounding the spark is so great that the nuclear fusion reaction takes place in about a tenth of a billionth of a second -- faster than the tiny hot sphere can fly apart.  It is thus confined by its own inertia, and thus this method of fusion is called inertial confinement fusion.

-- Professor Justin Wark, Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford and Director of the Oxford Centre for High Energy Density Science, in comments about recent advances in nuclear fusion at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 12 December 2022

The Drop

The weakest living creature, by concentrating his powers on a single object, can accomplish something.  The strongest, by dispensing his over many, may fail to accomplish anything.  The drop, by continually falling, bores its passage through the hardest rock.  The hasty torrent rushes over it with hideous uproar, and leaves no trace behind.

-- Thomas Carlyle (1795 - 1881), Scottish essayist, historian, and philosopher, The life of Friedrich Schiller: Comprehending an examination of his works (1825)

As We Shall Return

Bob, this is Gene, and I'm on the surface; and, as I take man's last step from the surface, back home for some time to come -- but we believe not too long into the future -- I'd like to just (say) what I believe history will record.  That America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow.  And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind.  "Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17."

-- Eugene Andrew "Gene" Cernan (1934 - 2017), American astronaut, naval aviator, electrical engineer, aeronautical engineer, and fighter pilot, eleventh and final human being to walk on the Moon, on his final lunar excursion, 14 December 1972

An Indispensable Step

It is doubtful whether there is such a thing as impulsive or natural tolerance.  Tolerance requires an effort of thought and self-control.  Acts of kindness, too, are rarely without deliberation and "thoughtfulness."  Thus, it seems that some artificiality, some posing and pretense, is inseparable from any act or attitude which involves a limitation of our appetites and selfishness.  We ought to beware of people who do not think it necessary to pretend that they are good and decent.  Lack of hypocrisy in such things hints at a capacity for a more depraved ruthlessness.  Pretense is often an indispensable step in the attainment of genuineness.  It is a form into which genuine inclinations flow and solidify.

-- Lee Jun-fan (1940 - 1973), commonly known as Bruce Lee, Hong Kong American martial artist and actor, Tao Of Jeet Kune Do (1975), p. 218

Heckuva Fight

I am not going to make any excuses now because we put up one heckuva fight.

-- Herschel Junior Walker (1962 -), American former football running back and Republican nominee in the 2022 United States Senate election in Georgia, in a statement to supporters conceding defeat against incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock, 6 December 2022 (h/t fivethiryeight.com)

To Be A Teacher

To be a teacher in the right sense is to be a learner.  Instruction begins when you, the teacher, learn from the learner, put yourself in his place so that you may understand what he understands and the way he understands it, in case you have not understood it before.  Or if you have understood it before, you allow him to subject you to an examination so that he may be sure you know your part.

-- Søren Kierkegaard (1813 - 1855), Danish Christian philosopher and theologian, as quoted in Kierkegaard Anthology by Robert Bretall (1946), page 335

Anew Each Day

The autonomous individual is stable only so long as he is possessed of self-esteem.  The maintenance of self-esteem is a continuous task which taxes all of the individual's power and inner resources.  We have to prove our worth and justify our existence anew each day.  When, for whatever reason, self-esteem is unattainable, the autonomous individual becomes a highly explosive entity.  He turns away from an unpromising self and plunges into the pursuit of pride, the explosive substitute for self-esteem.  All social disturbances and upheavals have their roots in crises of individual self-esteem, and the great endeavor in which the masses most readily unite is basically a search for pride.

-- Lee Jun-fan (1940 - 1973), commonly known as Bruce Lee, Hong Kong American martial artist and actor, Tao Of Jeet Kune Do (1975), p. 217

Transparent Or Opaque

To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.  Whether this being different results in dissimulation or a real change of heart, it cannot be realized without self-awareness.  Yet, it is remarkable that the very people who are most self-dissatisfied, who crave most for a new identity, have the least self-awareness.  They have turned away from an unwanted self and, hence, never had a good look at it.  The result is that most dissatisfied people can neither dissimulate nor attain a real change of heart.  They are transparent and their unwanted qualities persist through all attempts at self-dramatization and self-transformation.  It is the lack of self-awareness which renders us transparent.  The soul that knows itself is opaque.

-- Lee Jun-fan (1940 - 1973), commonly known as Bruce Lee, Hong Kong American martial artist and actor, Tao Of Jeet Kune Do (1975), p. 216