An Excuse

[M]ost propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all.

-- Michael Rivero (1952 -), American film worker, from his IMDB bio

Survival Rate

On a long enough timeline the survival rate for everybody drops to zero.

-- Charles Michael "Chuck" Palahniuk (1962 -), American satirical novelist and freelance journalist, Fight Club (1996)

Debacle

A major power can afford a military debacle only when it looks like a political victory.

-- Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921 - 1990), Swiss author and dramatist, Portrait of a Planet (1971)

Pay Our Debts

We can pay our debts to the past by putting the future in debt to ourselves.

-- John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir (1875 - 1940), Scottish novelist, poet, and politician, Address to the people of Canada on the coronation of George VI (12 May 1937)

Remembrance

Remembrance wakes with all her busy train,
Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain.

-- Oliver Goldsmith (1728 - 1774), Irish novelist, playwright, poet, and physician, The Deserted Village, 1770, l. 81

Living Well

Living well is the best revenge.

-- George Herbert (1593 - 1633), English poet, Jacula Prudentum (1651) Full title: Jacula Prudentum; or Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, &c. Selected by Mr. George Herbert, Proverb 520; from The Complete Works in verse and prose of George Herbert: Volume III, Prose (1874)

Each Of Us

Americans have a strong interest in supporting democratic movements and respect for human rights around the world because free societies elsewhere contribute to our own security and prosperity here at home.  But that interest is undermined when others see our own house in disarray.  The world will not wait for us to address our problems, so we must both continue to strive toward a more perfect union and help those abroad looking for U.S. leadership.

Each of us has a role to play and responsibilities to uphold.  Our elected officials must lead by example and govern effectively in ways that deliver for the American people.  This, in turn, will help to restore trust in public service.  The rest of us must engage in civil dialogue; respect democratic institutions and rights; uphold safe, secure, and accessible elections; and contribute to local, state, or national improvement.

-- A statement from 13 presidential centers, signed by Obama Foundation, George W. Bush Presidential Center, Clinton Foundation, George & Barbara Bush Foundation, The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, The Carter Center, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, Richard Nixon Foundation, LBJ Foundation, John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, Truman Library Institute, Roosevelt Institute, Hoover Presidential Foundation (7 September 2023)

I'm Looking

The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away.  Puzzling.

-- Robert M. Pirsig (6 September 1928 - 24 April 2017), American philosopher and novelist, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974) Ch. 1

Totally Screwed Up

Guns, knives, and martial arts skills do not ward off danger.  They help you deal with it more effectively and only in select circumstances.  Never forget that self-defense is really about not being there, using awareness, avoidance, and de-escalation to eliminate the need to fight.  Fighting is what you do when you've totally screwed up your self-defense.  

-- Lawrence A. Kane and Kris Wilder, The Little Black Book Of Violence (What Every Young Man Needs To Know About Fighting), Section 3, Aftermath Of Violence, Handling Blows To Your Self Esteem, p 249 (2009)

Solidarity

The most important word in the language of the working class is solidarity.

-- Harry Bridges (1901 - 1990), Australian-born American union leader, first with the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), quoted in Glass, Fred (2016). From Mission to Microchip: A History of the California Labor Movement

Experience And History

What experience and history teach is this -- that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.

-- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 - 1831), German philosopher, Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1832) Volume 1, Introduction, as translated by H. B. Nisbet (1975)

RIP Volition

The Volition team has proudly created world-class entertainment for fans around the globe for 30 years.  We've been driven by a passion for our community and always worked to deliver joy, surprise, and delight.

This past June, Embracer Group announced a restructuring program to strengthen Embracer and maintain its position as a leader in the video game industry.  As part of that program, they evaluated strategic and operational goals and made the difficult decision to close Volition effective immediately.

To help our team, we are working to provide job assistance and help smooth the transition for our Volition family members.  We thank our customers and fans around the world for all the love and support over the years.  You will always be in our hearts.

 -- Volition Games, in a message posted to Volition's official LinkedIn page, GEMATSU.com, Volition Shuts Down After 30 Years, 31 August 2023

Criticize & Praise

Criticize by category -- praise by name.

-- Warren Buffett (1930 -), American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist, "CNBC's Becky Quick interviews Warren Buffett", CNBC Television (25 February 2019), YouTube (quote at 48:00 of 2:00:00)

The Last Link

An aphorism is the last link in a long chain of thought.

-- Marie Freifrau von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830 - 1916), Moravian writer, Aphorisms (1890), p. 19

Speed Up That Day

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, Black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last.  Free at last.  Thank God almighty, we are free at last.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 - 1968), African American clergyman, civil rights activist, and Nobel laureate, final paragraph of his "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as part of the March on Washington, 28 August 1963

Chandrayaan-3

India is now on the moon.  India has reached the south pole of the moon -- no other country has achieved that.  We are witnessing history.

-- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in comments on the success of India's Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission, launched July 14th.  The mission cost just $75,000,000, and today successfully deployed a lunar rover, 25 August 2023

P01135809

The most basic principles of a strong democracy are accountability and respect for the Constitution and rule of law.  You either have it, or you don't.

-- Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, commenting on the indictment of former president Donald Trump, The New Republic, 15 August 2023

Least Disappointing

Vote for the man who promises least; he'll be the least disappointing.

-- Bernard Baruch (1870 - 1965), American financier, stock market speculator, statesman, and presidential advisor, as quoted in Meyer Berger’s New York (1960)

Not A Fool Today

We think, I'm not a fool today.  I've learned my lesson.  I was a fool yesterday but not this morning.  Then tomorrow we find out that, yes, we were a fool today too.  I think the only way we can grow and get on in this world is to accept the fact we're not perfect and live accordingly.

-- Ray Douglas Bradbury (22 August 1920 - 5 June 2012), American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer, The Illustrated Man (1951) No Particular Night or Morning

No Education

There is no education like adversity.

-- Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield (1804 - 1881), British politician, novelist, and essayist, twice UK Prime Minister, Endymion (1880) Ch. 61

Not Be Attached

Most people find attachment being to something that they love.  But you can also attach yourself to something that you hate.  And I think we need to learn to let go of the thing, to find a process to let that go, and not be attached. 

-- Ken Gullette of Internal Fighting Arts, on the Kung Fu Conversations podcast, Episode #41 (18 August 2023)

Tardy Pace

Justice, though moving with tardy pace, has seldom failed to overtake the wicked in their flight.

-- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 BC - 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace, leading lyric poet in Latin, Carmina, III. 2. 31

One Great Advantage

The fool has one great advantage over a man of sense -- he is always satisfied with himself.

-- Napoléon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821), French military general who became the ruler of France, Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916), Ch. II : Psychology and Morals

Grace

That Trump will be tried for his coup attempt is not a violation of his rights.  It is a fulfillment of his rights.  It is the grace of the American republic.  In other systems, when your coup attempt fails, what follows is not a trial.

-- Yale History Professor Timothy Snyder (18 August 1969 -), posting on Twitter as @TimothyDSnyder, 3 August 2023 (h/t Josh Paley)

Clean And Healthful

Today, for the first time in US history, a court ruled on the merits of a case that the government violated the constitutional rights of children through laws and actions that promote fossil fuels, ignore climate change, and disproportionately imperil young people.  This is a huge win for Montana, for youth, for democracy, and for our climate.  More rulings like this will certainly come.

-- Julia Olson, chief legal counsel and executive director of Our Children’s Trust, which brought the case, after District Court Judge Kathy Seeley ruled that a provision in the Montana Environmental Policy Act has harmed the state’s environment and the young plaintiffs by preventing Montana from considering the climate impacts of energy projects, violating a clause in the state constitution that guarantees citizens the right to a "clean and healthful environment", CNN.com

Traffic Theory

The person who invented the stop sign, the pedestrian crosswalk, the traffic circle, the one-way street, the taxi stand, and the pedestrian safety islands, William Phelps Eno, never learned to drive.

-- Summary of the life of William Phelps Eno (1858 - 1945) by Midnight Fact on Facebook [Fact-checked for accuracy]

Avoidable Misery

Philosophers should consider the fact that the greatest happiness principle can easily be made an excuse for a benevolent dictatorship.  We should replace it by a more modest and more realistic principle -- the principle that the fight against avoidable misery should be a recognized aim of public policy, while the increase of happiness should be left, in the main, to private initiative.

-- Sir Karl Popper (1902 - 1994), Austrian-British philosopher, academic and social commentator, As quoted in 1,001 Pearls of Wisdom (2006) by David Ross

Such Character

It is fortunate to be of high birth, but it is no less so to be of such character that people do not care to know whether you are or are not.

-- Jean de La Bruyère (1645 - 1696), French essayist and moralist, Les Caractères (1688) Du mérite personnel, Aphorism 21

Without Undue Haste

There is no road too long to the man who advances deliberately and without undue haste; there are no honours too distant to the man who prepares himself for them with patience.

-- Jean de La Bruyère (1645 - 1696), French essayist and moralist, Les Caractères (1688) Des jugements, aphorism 108

Deep Springs Of Life

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

-- Samuel Ullman (1840 - 1924), American businessman, poet, and humanitarian, Youth (1918)

Friendship

Friendship makes prosperity more shining and lessens adversity by dividing and sharing it.

-- Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC), Roman philosopher, politician, and political theorist, De Amicitia - On Friendship (44 B.C.)

A Fair Trial

I can guarantee everybody that there will be a fair process and a fair trial in this case.

-- Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya, speaking to the court during the arraignment of Donald Trump, 3 August 2023

A Good Question

My mother made me a scientist without ever intending to.  Every other Jewish mother in Brooklyn would ask her child after school: So? Did you learn anything today?  But not my mother.  "Izzy," she would say, "did you ask a good question today?"  That difference -- asking good questions -- made me become a scientist.

-- Isidor Isaac Rabi (1898 - 1988), American physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1944 for his discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance, which is used in magnetic resonance imaging, as quoted in "Great Minds Start With Questions" in Parents Magazine (September 1993)

This Time

The Defendant, DONALD J. TRUMP, was the forty-fifth President of the United States and a candidate for re-election in 2020. The Defendant lost the 2020 presidential election.

Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power. So for more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false. But the Defendant repeated and widely disseminated them anyway -- to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election.

-- Introduction to the most-recent Federal indictment of Donald Trump, this time for his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, 1 August 2023

Once In A Lifetime

Youth comes but once in a lifetime.

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882), American poet and one of the five members of the group known as the Fireside Poets, Hyperion (1839), Book II, Chapter X

It Worked

It worked!

-- Julius Robert Oppenheimer (1904 - 1967), American physicist and scientific director of the Manhattan Project, exclamation after the Trinity atomic bomb test (16 July 1945), according to his brother Frank Oppenheimer in the documentary The Day After Trinity

Loudest

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

-- Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983), American writer on social and political philosophy, The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955) Section 70

A Fair Question

Who am I to talk?  That's a fair question, and one which deserves a better answer than I can give you.

-- Grace Allen (1895 [year uncertain] - 1964), American comedian, actress, singer, dancer; and the comedic partner and wife of George Burns, How to Become President (1940) Ch. 1 : Government jobs pay big money

Emmett Till And Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument

NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by the authority vested in me by section 320301 of title 54, United States Code, hereby proclaim, set apart, and reserve as the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument (monument), the objects identified above and all lands and interests in lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States within the boundaries described on the accompanying maps entitled "Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument Boundary," which are attached to and form a part of this proclamation, for the purpose of protecting those objects.   The reserved Federal lands and interests in lands within the monument's boundaries encompass approximately 5.7 acres, which is the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected.

-- Proclamation on Establishment of the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument, enacted on what would have been Emmett Till's 82nd birthday, 25 July 2023

I'm Happy

Tadej Pogacar is the best rider in the world.  He can do everything: the classics, the one-week races, the Grand Tours.  Not me.  On the Tour de France, I'm happy to have been the best for the past two years.

-- Jonas Vingegaard (10 December 1996 -), Danish professional cyclist who rides for UCI WorldTeam Team Jumbo-Visma, after winning the Tour de France for the second year in a row, referring to Slovenian cyclist Tadej Pogacar, who came second both years after winning in 2020 and 2021, 23 July 2023

You Can't Always

You can't always explain everything you do to everybody, you know.

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

Irrationalities

The whole art of politics consists in directing rationally the irrationalities of men.

-- Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr (1892 - 1971), American Protestant theologian most famous for his efforts to relate the Christian faith to the realities of politics and diplomacy. as quoted in his obituary in The New York Times (2 June 1971)

Education Is

Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.

-- Burrhus Frederic Skinner (1904 - 1990), American behaviorist, and social philosopher, "New methods and new aims in teaching", in New Scientist, 22(392) (21 May 1964), pp.483-4

I'd Rather Be Silly

The world may be utterly crazy
   And life may be labour in vain;
But I'd rather be silly than lazy,
   And would not quit life for its pain.

-- James Clerk Maxwell (1831 - 1879), Scottish mathematical physicist, who formulated the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, bringing together for the first time electricity, magnetism, and light as manifestations of the same phenomenon, Quotations from The Life of James Clerk Maxwell (1882) by Lewis Campbell and William Garnett, Part III Poems, Tune, Il Segreto per esser felice (24 March 1858)

By The Other, Virtue

Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body.  As by the one, health is preserved, strengthened, and invigorated: by the other, virtue (which is the health of the mind) is kept alive, cherished, and confirmed.

-- Joseph Addison (1672 - 1719), English politician and writer, The Tatler (1711–1714) No. 147

It Is What It Is

May it please milord Hero, the world is not what we wish it to be.  It is what it is.  No, I have over-assumed.  Perhaps it is indeed what we wish it to be.  Either way, it is what it is.

-- Robert Anson Heinlein (1907 - 1988) popular and influential author of science fiction, Glory Road (1963), Star, Empress of the 20 Universes, Ch. 10

Three Dog Night

Tonight I enjoyed a concert by Three Dog Night at Champaign's Virginia Theater.  Despite now being in their 70s and 80s, they put on a great show.  The three vocalists fronting the group tonight were Danny Hutton, David Morgan, and Paul Kingery, along with Timothy Hutton on bass, Pat Bautz on drums, and Howard Laravea on keyboards.

All of the songs played tonight were Top 40 hits, and they mentioned that they had a run of 21 consecutive singles that made it into the Top 40.  It was good to see them having a good time, and the music took me back to junior high.

RIP Milan Kundera

We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.

-- Milan Kundera (1 April 1929 - 11 July 2023), Franco-Czech novelist born in Brno, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic), The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984) Part One: Lightness and Weight

Anthropocene

Couplets of organic matter capped by calcite precipitated each summer in alkaline surface waters of Crawford Lake accumulate undisturbed below the chemocline of this 23-m-deep meromictic lake in Ontario, Canada.  This records fallout from nuclear and thermonuclear testing, with strong activity during 1952–1953 CE and levelling associated with the fluctuations in yield, notably testing cessation between November 1958 and February 1961. 

The Anthropocene Working Group of the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy is working towards formally defining an Anthropocene epoch/series, and its associated age/stage commencing in the mid-20th century.  

Given the intensity, magnitude, planetary significance and global isochroneity of the [observed effects], it provides a suitable level for recognition of the base of the Anthropocene as a series/epoch.  The chronostratigraphic Anthropocene, defined in strict accordance with ICS approved nomenclature and procedures, provides a clear and stable meaning to stratigraphic use of the term "Anthropocene".

-- Francine MG McCarthy, et al, "The varved succession of Crawford Lake, Milton, Ontario, Canada as a candidate Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point for the Anthropocene series", 4th International Congress on Stratigraphy 11-13 July 2023.  This paper asserts that measureable nuclear fallout in the strata beneath Crawford Lake provides evidence of the geological impact of mankind, marking the start of a new geological epoch dubbed "Anthropocene" (recent age of man)

Corners On The Curving Sky

Our earth is round, and, among other things, that means that you and I can hold completely different points of view and both be right.  The difference of our positions will show stars in your window I cannot even imagine.  Your sky may burn with light, while mine, at the same moment, spreads beautiful to darkness.  Still we must choose how we separately corner the circling universe of our experience.  Once chosen, our cornering will determine the message of any star and darkness we encounter.  These poems speak to philosophy; they reveal the corners where we organize what we know.

-- June Millicent Jordan (1936 - 2002), African-American bisexual political activist, writer, poet, essayist, and teacher, born in Harlem, New York, to Jamaican immigrants, Introduction to the "Corners on the Curving Sky" section of the book Soulscript (1970) compiled by Jordan