The Tumult Soon Subsides

Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not YET sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favour; a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.  But the tumult soon subsides.  Time makes more converts than reason.

-- Thomas Paine (1737-1908), English-American political writer and activist, Common Sense, Introduction (10 January 1776)

Uneasy

I'm kind of glad that nobody got in this year.  I feel honored to be in the Hall of Fame.  And I would've felt a little uneasy sitting up there on the stage, listening to some of these new guys talk about how great they were. ... I don't know how great some of these players up for election would've been without drugs.  But to me, it's cheating.

-- Baseball Hall of Famer Al Kaline (1934-), as for only the second time in 40 years no one was elected on this year's ballot, rejecting first-time nominees Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Sammy Sosa, all accused of steroid use, 9 January 2013

Valuable

The most valuable thing you can make is a mistake - you can't learn anything from being perfect.

-- Adam Osborne (1939-2003), American entrepreneur

Not Every Mistake

Non enim omnis error stultitia est dicenda.
We must not say that every mistake is a foolish one.

-- Marcus Tullius Cicero (3 January 106 BC - 7 December 43 BC), De divinatione ii, 43, as cited in Cicero: a sketch of his life and works, by Hannis Taylor, Mary Lillie Taylor Hunt, second edition (1916), p. 481

Dance Dance

Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit.
[No one dances sober, unless he is insane.]


-- Marcus Tullius Cicero (3 January 106 BC - 7 December 43 BC), also known by the anglicized name Tully, in and after the Middle Ages) orator and statesman of Ancient Rome, Pro Murena Ch. vi, sec.  13

Until I Got Here

I didn't realize how much I didn't want to be here until I got here.

-- Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), on returning to the Capitol, New York Times, 27 December 2012

Palace Intrigue

Americans are tired of the palace intrigue and political partisanship of this congress, which places one upmanship ahead of the lives of the citizens who sent these people to Washington DC in the first place.

-- Governor Chris Christie (R-NJ), on the failure of the House of Representatives to vote on aid for victims of Hurricane Sandy, 2 January 2012

I Am Disappoint

Today is the final day in the 13th Bak'tun, the 144,000-day cycle (~5122 years; this one started 11 August 3114BC) of the ancient Mayan Long Count Calendar -- otherwise known as the Mayan apocalypse.

I am disappoint.

So Late So Soon?

How did it get so late so soon?  It's night before it's afternoon.
December is here before it's June.  My goodness how the time has flewn.
How did it get so late so soon?

-- Theodor Seuss Geisel (1904-1991), aka Dr. Seuss, American writer and cartoonist

RIP Dan Inouye

Democracy is an imperfect concept slowly seeking perfection.

However, I note that we Americans have been quite impatient with people of other lands who have not embraced our democracy.  In some cases, we have officially condemned these nations in very harsh terms, and, in some, we have even used military force.

The question we Americans have debated over the decades is simple but profound: "Should we impose our will upon other lands?  Or should we adopt a more peaceful path in convincing others of the goodness of our system and philosophy?" I suppose this matter will be debated for as long as we exist.

-- Daniel Ken Inouye (7 September 1924-17 December 2012), Hawaii's first Representative and 6-term Senator, in office since statehood, Medal of Honor awardee; Commencement Address, American University, 8 May 2005

missing

I miss the part of me that died when he died.  The innocent...the joyful. The part of me that couldn't wait to take pictures of the kids and hang them on the wall...the part of me that was always hoping someone would ask me how many children I had...the part of me that woke up every morning feeling overwhelmed with blessings.

-- Mark's Mommy, missingmarkallen.blogspot.com, 1 October 2012











[tribute to the victims of the 14 december 2012 shooting at sandy hook school in newtown, ct]

Three Legs Of The Stool

There are three legs of the stool; spending, entitlements and making the tax code fair and equitable.  That's the three legs of the stool.  If we do all of those in a responsible, bipartisan way, I think the American people would all be very, very happy.

-- Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill (24 July 1953-)

We Can't Have Both

We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.

-- Louis Brandeis (1856-1941), U.S. Supreme Court Justice, quoted by Raymond Lonergan in Mr. Justice Brandeis, Great American (1941), p. 42

RIP Ravi Shankar

I have always encouraged the creativity of an artist. But one has to have solid knowledge and know the rules to break it. Improvisation does not mean tampering with the authenticity of a classical raga. I was probably way beyond my time when I first started to experiment with western instruments and western musicians. Contrary to popular belief, I never performed with the Beatles. George Harrison came to me as he was so taken by our music and became my student. It was not a fad for him, he loved it until the end and became very very dear to me. John Coltrane was so impressed by my music and had a few lessons from me, and again was so moved that he named his son after me.

-- Ravi Shankar (7 April 1920 - 11 December 2012), often referred to by the title Pandit, Indian musician and composer who played the sitar, from a conversation between Raviji and Satish and Shashi Vyas, June 2007

Space-Faring Species

If God wanted man to become a space-faring species, He would have given man a Moon.

-- Krafft A. Ehricke, "Lunar Industrialization and Settlement -- Birth of a Polyglobal Civilization," Lunar Bases and Space Activities of the 21st Century (1985), 827-855

Too Much Energy

The more energy you build up in a system, the more likely it is that that energy will be dumped in an undesirable way.

-- Don Appleman, 16 December 2005

Widely Grokked

It is widely grokked that cats have the hacker nature.

-- Eric S. Raymond (4 December 1957-), American computer programmer and author, The Jargon File

Some Lessons

Some lessons you can't learn from your parents; you have to learn them from your kids.

-- Don Appleman, 8 November 2012

Obvious

[W]e have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.

-- George Orwell (1902-1950), pen name of British novelist, essayist, and journalist Eric Arthur Blair, review of Power: A New Social Analysis by Bertrand Russell in Adelphi (January 1939)

Shindig

How I spent my weekend: 1,534 miles driving (23:20 on the road, including stops) in a 60-hour weekend, to Arlington, VA to celebrate Big Ed Cohen's 50th birthday with Dan LaBerge and 100 others.  It had a theme; everyone was to wear black, white, or black and white, as part of a costume, or simply as a color scheme.  Quite a shindig.