Harder To Take

It is harder to take someone's eyeball than someone's user ID and password.

-- Steve Ellis, who helped develop eye scan technology for Wells Fargo, on the need to move away from personal identification information because of the growing number of data breaches, New York Times, 22 June 2016

A Good Lawyer

The earth needs a good lawyer.

-- Tag line at earthjustice.org, a nonprofit environmental law organization

Determined

Today on behalf of the 27 leaders, I can say that we are determined to keep our unity as 27.

-- European Union President Donald Tusk, reacting to the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, 24 June 2016

Ring Tones

Do we assign cell phone ring tones to our kids based upon what we perceive their personalities to be, or do their personalities evolve to fit the ring tones we assign them?

-- Ray Spooner, Bubbles, 31 May 2016

 https://rayslittleride.com/2016/05/31/bubbles/

A Trip Takes Us

A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike.  And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless.  We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.

-- John Ernst Steinbeck III (1902 – 1968), American writer, 1962 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Travels with Charley: In Search of America (1962), p 4

Double Dipping

Tomorrow is a double big day for me.  At 9:00 AM I get my 37th and final radiation treatment.  W00t!

And at 11:00 AM I get on the bus for 12 days in Europe.  My "trvth" notes will therefore take a 2-week hiatus.  See you on the funway!

Inclusive, Thoughtful, And Principled

As the Presidential campaign progressed, I was hoping the rhetoric would tone down and reflect a campaign that was inclusive, thoughtful and principled.  While I oppose the Democratic nominee, Donald Trump's latest statements, in context with past attacks on Hispanics, women and the disabled like me, make it certain that I cannot and will not support my party's nominee for President regardless of the political impact on my candidacy or the Republican Party.

-- Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL) in a press release, 7 June 2016

https://kirkforsenate.com/news/senator-kirk-statement-presidential-race/

A Total Eclipse

Clay comes out to meet Liston and Liston starts to retreat,
if Liston goes back an inch farther he'll end up in a ringside seat.
Clay swings with his left, Clay swings with his right,
Look at young Cassius carry the fight
Liston keeps backing, but there's not enough room,
It's a matter of time till Clay lowers the boom.
Now Clay lands with a right, what a beautiful swing,
And the punch raises the Bear clean out of the ring.
Liston is still rising and the ref wears a frown,
For he can't start counting till Sonny goes down.
Now Liston is disappearing from view, the crowd is going frantic,
But radar stations have picked him up, somewhere over the Atlantic.
Who would have thought when they came to the fight?
That they'd witness the launching of a human satellite.
Yes the crowd did not dream, when they put up the money,
That they would see a total eclipse of the Sonny.

-- Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., 17 January 1942 - 3 June 2016), American boxer and Heavyweight Champion of the World three times between 1964 and 1979, in a poem composed prior to his 1964 match with Sonny Liston, as quoted in "Brash Clay waxed poetic in 1963 visit to Nashville" by Bill Traughber in Nashville's The City Paper (4 June 2002)

Noise And Impudence

There are seasons in every country when noise and impudence pass current for worth; and in popular commotions especially, the clamors of interested and factious men are often mistaken for patriotism.

-- Alexander Hamilton (1755 or 1757 – 1804), Founding Father of the United States, first Secretary of the Treasury (under President George Washington), founder of U.S. financial system, Father of the US Coast Guard, and founder of The New York Post

Vote For The Meteor

It's kind of like two football teams and you want both of them to lose.  Maybe a meteor will hit the stadium.  This is the opportunity for the American people to vote for the meteor.

-- Libertarian Party Chairman Nicholas Sarwark on the role of his party, at their convention in Orlando, Florida, 30 May 2016

You Can Do It With Either Hand

I made a fist of my right hand -- you can do it with either hand, by the way -- and put my arms around her.

-- Dr Henry J Heimlich, 96, on using the Heimlich maneuver to save an 87-year-old woman who was choking at their senior residence community in Cincinnati, New York Times, 28 May 2016

Perspective

A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points.

-- Alan Kay (17 May 1940 -), computer scientist

Not Equal

All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.

-- Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001), English author and satirist, The Salmon of Doubt (2002)

Right At The Top

The higher up you go, the more mistakes you are allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it's considered to be your style.

-- Fred Astaire (1899-1987), dancer, actor, singer, musician, and choreographer, in The Notorious Landlady, written by Blake Edwards and Larry Gelbart (1962)

RIP Morley Safer

It makes me uneasy.  It is not natural to be talking to a piece of machinery.  But the money is very good.

-- Morley Safer (8 November 1931 - 19 May 2016), CBS television correspondent and mainstay of the network's newsmagazine "60 Minutes" for almost five decades, in a recent interview

Faced With The Prospect

Obituaries & In Memoriam

NOLAND, MARY ANNE

NOLAND, Mary Anne Alfriend.  Faced with the prospect of voting for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, Mary Anne Noland of Richmond chose, instead, to pass into the eternal love of God on Sunday, May 15, 2016

-- Richmond Times-Dispatch, Richmond, VA, 17 May 2016


http://www.richmond.com/obituaries/article_c21b60bc-1153-5abd-b3c8-268cfd32eb57.html

The Last Thing

The last thing a parent teaches a child is how to die.

-- John DeVore, The Moth podcast, May 2016

All Will Be Lost

We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

-- Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE (1889-1977), English comic actor and filmmaker, in The Great Dictator (1940)

Easier Than You Think

It's far easier than you think to manipulate a nation of naive, self-absorbed sheep who crave instant gratification.

-- Anonymous Congressman X, allegedly a sitting congressman, in The Confessions of Congressman X (2016)

Because America

We are embarking on what should be the most patriotic summer that this generation has ever seen, with Copa America Centenario being held on U.S. soil for the first time, Team USA competing at the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

-- Budweiser Vice President Ricardo Marques, announcing that Budweiser is renaming its beer "America" through the presidential election in November, 9 May 2013