As Well As You Possibly Can

[G]o into the arts.  I'm not kidding.  The arts are not a way to make a living.  They are a very human way of making life more bearable.  Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake.  Sing in the shower.  Dance to the radio.  Tell stories.  Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem.  Do it as well as you possibly can.  You will get an enormous reward.  You will have created something.

-- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922 - 2007), American novelist known for works blending satire, black comedy, and science fiction, A Man Without a Country (2005)

Laws Of Motion

Laws of Motion, I: Every body perseveres in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed thereon.

Laws of Motion, II: The alteration of motion is ever proportional to the motive force impressed; and is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is impressed.

Laws of Motion, III: To every action there is always opposed an equal and opposite reaction: or the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts.

-- Sir Isaac Newton (1643 - 1727), English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)

At Our Best

[O]urs is a country worthy of service, as many Republican presidents and Democratic presidents have shown over the years.  We're not perfect, but at our best, we face head on the good, the bad, the truth of who we are.  We look in the mirror and ultimately never pretend we're something we're not.  That's what great nations do.

We get up.  We carry on.  We never bow.  We never bend.  We speak of possibilities, not carnage.  We're not weighed down by grievances.  We don't foster fear.  We don't walk around as victims.  We take charge of our destiny.  We get our job done with the help of the people we find in America, who find their place in a changing world, and dream and build a future that not only they but all people deserve a shot at.

We don't believe, none of you believe America is failing.  We know America is winning.  That's American patriotism.  It's not winning because of Joe Biden.  It's winning.

-- President Joe Biden, speaking at a campaign event at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell, PA (5 January 2024)

Better

I've been poor and I've been rich.  Rich is better!

-- Beatrice Bakrow Kaufman (1895 - 1945), American editor, writer, and playwright, in Leonard Lyons' column, The Washington Post, 12 May 1937

Faithful Adherents

There is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather its faithful adherents who will defend it to the death.

-- Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992), Russian-born American biochemist who was a prolific writer of both fiction and non-fiction, The Stars in Their Courses (1974), p. 36

The Something

I am only one, but I am one.  I can not do everything, but I can do something.  I must not fail to do the something that I can do.

-- Edward Everett Hale (1822 - 1909), American author and Unitarian clergyman, in a statement published in A Year of Beautiful Thoughts (1902) by Jeanie Ashley Bates Greenough, p. 172

Hello, 2024

The world population grew by 75 million people over the past year and on New Year's Day it will stand at more than 8 billion people, according to figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday.

The worldwide growth rate in the past year was just under 1%.  At the start of 2024, 4.3 births and two deaths are expected worldwide every second, according to the Census Bureau figures.

The growth rate for the United States in the past year was 0.53%, about half the worldwide figure.  The U.S. added 1.7 million people and will have a population on New Year's Day of 335.8 million people.

-- Mike Schneider, "World population up 75 million this year, standing at 8 billion on Jan. 1", Associated Press, 28 December 2023

Goodbye, 2023

When a thing is done, it's done.  Don't look back.  Look forward to your next objective.

-- General George C. Marshall (1880 - 1959), American army officer and statesman, Chief of Staff of the US Army under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense under Truman, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953, as quoted in "George C. Marshall and the Marshall Plan: A Model of Transformational Diplomacy" (2005) by Tom Callahan

Checks And Restraints

Those in power need checks and restraints lest they come to identify the common good for their own tastes and desires, and their continuation in office as essential to the preservation of the nation.

-- William O. Douglas (1898 - 1980), Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, longest-serving justice with a term lasting 36 years and 209 days; We the Judges: Studies in American and Indian Constitutional Law from Marshall to Mukherjea, New York: Doubleday (1956) p. 256

A Little Kinder

Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight: always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?

-- Sir James Matthew Barrie (1860 - 1937), Scottish novelist and dramatist, more commonly known as J. M. Barrie, most famous as the author of the play Peter Pan, The Little White Bird (1902) Ch. 4

Aware

[T]he aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.

-- Henry Valentine Miller (1891 - 1980), American writer and artist, The Wisdom of the Heart (1941) "Creative Death", p. 2

Happy Christmas

So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
A new one just begun

And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear ones
The old and the young

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fears

-- John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Happy Christmas (War Is Over), Imagine (1971)

To Will The Good

To love is to will the good of the other.

-- Saint Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225 - 1274), Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, Catholic priest, and Doctor of the Church, Summa Theologica (1265–1274) I-II, q. 26, art. 4

Buggier

Certainly it constitutes bad news if the people who agree with you are buggier than batshit.

-- Philip K. Dick (1928 - 1982), American writer, whose published works mainly belong to the genre of science fiction, VALIS (1981)

The First Time

Anything done for the first time unleashes a demon. 

-- David Victor Sim (1956 -), Canadian comic-book writer and artist, Church & State volume I (1987) Cover and title of Cerebus #65, August 1984, collected in Church & State I, p. 7 and 273

Little Room

To live is so startling, it leaves but little room for other occupations.

-- Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), American poet, The Letters of Emily Dickinson (1958), edited by Thomas H. Johnson

W00t!

Congratulations to my daughter Tia who on Saturday graduated with a Bachelors in Health & Human Services from Eastern Illinois University.  On Sunday, she received word that she has been accepted into the Masters in Social Work program at the University of Illinois.  It was a busy weekend.

Destruction Of The Tea

This is the most magnificent movement of all!  There is a dignity, a majesty, a sublimity, in this last effort of the patriots that I greatly admire.  The people should never rise without doing something to be remembered -- something notable and striking.  This destruction of the tea is so bold, so daring, so firm, intrepid and inflexible, and it must have so important consequences, and so lasting, that I can't but consider it as an epocha in history!

-- John Adams (1735 - 1826), American lawyer, author, statesman, and diplomat, second president of the United States (1797-1801), first vice president (1789-1797), and as a Founding Father was a leader of American independence from Great Britain, on the Boston Tea Party which took place 250 years ago Saturday, 16 December 1773 (quote from 17 December 1773)

Strong Message

The Senate's vote today to pass my bipartisan bill to prevent any U.S. President from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO reaffirms U.S. support for this crucial alliance that is foundational for our national security.  It also sends a strong message to authoritarians around the world that the free world remains united.

-- Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), regarding a provision he co-sponsored with Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) in the Defense Authorization Act passed today requiring an act of Congress or Senate approval to withdraw from NATO, Business Insider, 14 December 2023

Not Accidents

Pluralist societies are not accidents of history.  They are a product of enlightened education and continuous investment by governments and all of civil society in recognizing and celebrating the diversity of the world's peoples.

-- The Āgā Khān IV (13 December 1936 -), 49th hereditary Imam (spiritual leader) of the Ismaili Muslims, in a speech on Democratic Development, Pluralism and Civil Society delivered at the Nobel Institute, Oslo, Norway (7 April 2005)

Some Things

There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm. 

-- Willa Cather (1873 - 1947), American author and novelist, The Song of the Lark (1915), Thea, in Part VI, Ch. 7

Method And Principle

Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence.  Any man who has once proclaimed violence as his method is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle.

-- Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (11 December 1918 - 3 August 2008), Russian philosopher, novelist, dramatist and historian, 1970 Nobel laureate in literature, Nobel lecture (1970), as quoted in Solzhenitsyn: A Documentary Record (1974) edited by Leopold Labedz

Invisible And Intangible

Your most precious, valued possessions and your greatest powers are invisible and intangible.  No one can take them.  You, and you alone, can give them.  You will receive abundance for your giving.  The more you give -- the more you will have!

-- William Clement Stone (1902 - 2002), American businessman, author, and philanthropist, Be Generous

Peace

A man settles where he finds his peace.  Not beauty, not money, not status, not anything else but peace.

-- Denzel Washington (1954 -), American actor, director, and producer, attributed

Anything

[A]nything you don't understand is dangerous until you do understand it.

-- Larry Niven (1938 -), American science fiction author, most famous as the author of Ringworld (1970) and Niven's laws, Neutron Star (1968), Flatlander (p. 164)

Warm Weather

'Tis very warm weather when one's in bed.

-- Jonathan Swift (1667 - 1745), Anglo-Irish writer and satirist, Journal to Stella (8 November 1710)

You Will Be Assimilated

After 1,358 days since the WHO declared a global covid pandemic, I tested positive for covid on Saturday.  My Garmin watch agrees that today has been better than all of last week.  I'm bummed, but I've experienced worse.  Still, not recommended.

RIP Sandra Day O'Connor

Reasonable minds can disagree about how to apply the Religion Clauses in a given case.  But the goal of the Clauses is clear: to carry out the Founders' plan of preserving religious liberty to the fullest extent possible in a pluralistic society.  By enforcing the Clauses, we have kept religion a matter for the individual conscience, not for the prosecutor or bureaucrat.  At a time when we see around the world the violent consequences of the assumption of religious authority by government, Americans may count themselves fortunate: Our regard for constitutional boundaries has protected us from similar travails, while allowing private religious exercise to flourish. [...]  Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: Why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?

-- Sandra Day O'Connor (26 March 1930 - 1 December 2023), American jurist, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 until 2006, serving as the first woman on the Supreme Court, McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union, 545 U.S. 844 (2005) (concurring)

Deaths And Suffering

Henry Kissinger.  While many in the United States still see Nixon and Ford's former secretary of state as an elder statesman, the rest of the world sees him as a war criminal responsible for the deaths and suffering of millions in Chile, Vietnam, Laos, Argentina, East Timor, and Cambodia, to name a few.

-- Amy Goodman (1957 -), American broadcast journalist, author, and co-founder (1996) and main host of Democracy Now!, a progressive global news program broadcast daily on radio, television, and the Internet, The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them (2004)

RIP Henry Kissinger

We fought a military war; our opponents fought a political one.  We sought physical attrition; our opponents aimed for our psychological exhaustion.  In the process we lost sight of one of the cardinal maxims of guerrilla war: the guerrilla wins if he does not lose.  The conventional army loses if it does not win.  The North Vietnamese used their armed forces the way a bull-fighter uses his cape -- to keep us lunging in areas of marginal political importance.

-- Henry Alfred Kissinger (27 May 1923 - 29 November 2023), German-American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presidential administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, "The Vietnam Negotiations", Foreign Affairs, Vol. 48, No. 2 (January 1969), p. 214

Leader

A leader takes people where they want to go.  A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to be.

-- Eleanor Rosalynn Carter (née Smith) (18 August 1927 - 19 November 2023), First Lady of the United States from 1977 to 1980, as the wife of President Jimmy Carter, as quoted in Successful Leadership: 8 Essential Principles You Must Know (2007) by Barine Kirimi, p. 165

Beginner's Mind

In Japan we have the phrase, "Shoshin," which means "beginner's mind."  Our "original mind" includes everything within itself.  It is always rich and sufficient within itself.  This does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind.  If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything.  It is open to everything.  In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.

-- Shunryu Suzuki (1904 - 1971), Sōtō Zen monk and teacher who helped popularize Zen Buddhism in the United States, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (1973)

Joy Of Living

When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living.  If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.  

-- Tecumseh (1768 - 1813), Native American Shawnee warrior and chief, as quoted in A Sourcebook for Earth's Community of Religions (1995) by Joel Diederik Beversluis (disputed)

More Truly

For what I have received may the Lord make me truly thankful.  And more truly for what I have not received.

-- Margaret Ethel Storm Jameson (1891 - 1986), English journalist and author

Conscious Of Our Treasures

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.

-- Thornton Niven Wilder (1897 - 1975), Pulitzer prize winning American author and playwright, The Woman of Andros (1930)

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving provides a formal context in which to consider the instances of kindness that have enlightened our lives, for moments of grace that have gotten us through when all seemed lost.  These are fine and sentimental subjects for contemplation.

-- Jon Carroll, San Francisco Chronicle (24 November 2005)

Fit For More

Be fit for more than the thing you are now doing.  Let everyone know that you have a reserve in yourself -- that you have more power than you are now using.  If you are not too large for the place you occupy, you are too small for it.

-- James A. Garfield (1831 - 1881), 20th president of the United States of America in 1881, and the second U.S. president to be assassinated, "Elements of Success", as published in President Garfield and education: Hiram college memorial (1882), compiled by B. A. Hinsdale, p. 327

Communicators

The business of software building isn't really high-tech at all.  It's most of all a business of talking to each other and writing things down.  Those who were making major contributions to the field were more likely to be its best communicators than its best technicians.

-- Tom DeMarco (1940 -), author, teacher, and speaker on software engineering topics, Why Does Software Cost So Much?: And Other Puzzles of the Information Age (1995), p. 218

That Bubble Is Me

In infinite time, in infinite matter, in infinite space, is formed a bubble-organism, and that bubble lasts a while and bursts, and that bubble is me.

-- Leo Tolstoy (1828 - 1910), Russian writer, philosopher and social activist, Anna Karenina, C. Garnett, trans. (New York: 2003), Part 8, Chapter 9, p. 729

Apology For Printers

Being frequently censur'd and condemn'd by different Persons for printing Things which they say ought not to be printed, I have sometimes thought it might be necessary to make a standing Apology for my self, and publish it once a Year, to be read upon all Occasions of that Nature. 

I request all who are angry with me on the Account of printing things they don't like, calmly to consider these following Particulars.  ...

That if all Printers were determin'd not to print any thing till they were sure it would offend no body, there would be very little printed.  ...

That if all the People of different Opinions in this Province would engage to give me as much for not printing things they don't like, as I can get by printing them, I should probably live a very easy Life; and if all Printers were every where so dealt by, there would be very little printed.  ...

I consider the Variety of Humours among Men, and despair of pleasing every Body; yet I shall not therefore leave off Printing.

-- Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790), one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, and statesman, Apology for Printers, The Pennsylvania Gazette, 10 June 1731 (h/t Zandar)

Code Of Conduct

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

STATEMENT OF THE COURT

REGARDING THE CODE OF CONDUCT

The undersigned Justices are promulgating this Code of Conduct to set out succinctly and gather in one place the ethics rules and principles that guide the conduct of the Members of the Court. For the most part these rules and principles are not new: The Court has long had the equivalent of common law ethics rules, that is, a body of rules derived from a variety of sources, including statutory provisions, the code that applies to other members of the federal judiciary, ethics advisory opinions issued by the Judicial Conference Committee on Codes of Conduct, and historic practice. The absence of a Code, however, has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that the Justices of this Court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules. To dispel this misunderstanding, we are issuing this Code, which largely represents a codification of principles that we have long regarded as governing our conduct.

-- Introduction to the statement of the court announcing a code of conduct for the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, 13 November 2023

Haidong Gumdo Seminar #2

This past weekend I participated in my second Haidong Gumdo (Korean swordsmanship) seminar with Grandmaster Jeong-Woo Kim (Chief of Education for the World Haidong Gumdo Federation).  We first trained with him in April of this year.

We quickly reviewed the material presented at his previous visit.  The rest of the weekend was spent learning the remaining six sword forms that complete the requirements for First Degree Black Belt.  

Master Kim will return in another 6 months or so to review our progress.  If at that time we are able to demonstrate all of the skills taught so far, then we will be allowed to begin teaching Haidong Gumdo.  I believe mandatory training for instructor certification will continue until we reach Second Degree Black Belt.

The eleven-hour seminar was exhausting, and my wrists and forearms are still sore, but I believe I picked up a lot of new knowledge.  Good times.

I Rise

I rise only to say that I do not intend to say anything.  I thank you for your hearty welcomes and good cheers.

-- Ulysses S. Grant (1822 - 1885), 18th president of the United States of America, from 1869 to 1877, and Commanding General of the U.S. Army during the American Civil War, U.S. Grant's "perfect speech" which he used on several occasions beginning in 1865, as quoted in Grant: A Biography (1982) by William S. McFeely, p. 234

Infallible

Reversal by a higher court is not proof that justice is thereby better done.  There is no doubt that if there were a super-Supreme Court, a substantial proportion of our reversals of state courts would also be reversed.  We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final.

-- Robert Houghwout Jackson (1892 - 1954), United States Solicitor General (1938-1940), United States Attorney General (1940–1941) and an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court (1941–1954).  He is the only person in US history to have held all three of those offices, concurring in Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 540 (1953)

Good Ancestors

Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors.

-- Jonas Salk (1914 - 1995), medical researcher and author, inventor of the Salk vaccine against Polio, and founder of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, as quoted in Learning from the Future : Competitive Foresight Scenarios (1998) by Liam Fahey and Robert M. Randall, p. 332

Deceive Ourselves Twice

We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love -- first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.

-- Albert Camus (7 November 1913 - 4 January 1960), French Pied-Noir author, absurdist philosopher, and winner of the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature, A Happy Death (1938), first published as La mort heureuse (1971), as translated by Richard Howard (1972)

Engineers

On the sixth day God saw He couldn't do it all, it read, so He created engineers.

-- Lois McMaster Bujold (2 November 1949 -), American author of science fiction and fantasy works, Falling Free (1988), Chapter 1 (p. 14)

No Art Or Learning

No art or learning is to be pursued halfheartedly ... and any art worth learning will certainly reward more or less generously the effort made to study it.

-- Murasaki Shikibu (c. 973 - c. 1014 or 1025), Japanese novelist, poet, and lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court in the Heian period, The Tale of Genji

It Just Gets More So

One thing you don't really get until middle age is this absolutely wild perspective where you've seen people go from zero to twenty five and others from twenty five to fifty and from fifty to seventy five and seventy five to dead. 

It used to be I'd seen people of every age, now I've seen people span wide swaths of their lives.  It's beautiful and intense and scary and rich and immense. 

I imagine it just gets more so.

-- Hank Green, Long-time Internet guy, posting on Twitter as @hankgreen, 2 November 2023

Texas Rangers Win World Series

The Texas Rangers have claimed their first World Series title in team history.

They bested the Arizona Diamondbacks in Game 5 on Wednesday night, 5-0.

It's a first in the 63-season history of a franchise that started as the expansion Washington Senators in 1961.

The team did not lose a postseason game on the road this year, finishing it out 11-0.  

-- The Associated Press, "Texas Rangers are World Series champs for first time in team's 63-year history" (1 November 2023)