RIP Robert Forster

You learn to take whatever jobs there are and make the best you can out of whatever you've got.  And anyone in any walk of life, if they can figure that out, has a lot better finish than those who cannot stand to take a picture that doesn't pay you as much or isn't as good as the last one.  Attitude is everything.

-- Robert Wallace Forster Jr. (born Robert Wallace Foster Jr.; 13 July 1941 - 11 October 2019), American actor known for his role as Max Cherry in Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown (1997), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, in an interview with Todd Gilchrist for Indiewire, 4 October 2011

We Will Resist

We will resist.  We have been at war for seven years, so we can continue the war for seven more years.

-- Mazlum Kobani, commander of the Kurdish-led militia, in response to President Trump's abrupt withdrawal of US forces from Syria, in an interview with The New York Times, 9 October 2019

Same Bag

When people put drummers like John Bonham, Mitch Mitchell and Keith Moon in the same bag as me, it's really insulting.  I have a gift, and none of them is even on the same street as me.  The fact that I can still play is a miracle, isn't it?

-- Peter Edward "Ginger" Baker (19 August 1939 - 6 October 2019), English drummer and co-founder of the rock band Cream, Wall Street Journal, "Ginger Baker's Beef" by Marc Myers, 7 October 2013

Complexity

Fools ignore complexity.  Pragmatists suffer it.  Some can avoid it.  Geniuses remove it.

-- Alan Perlis (1922 - 1990), American comlputer scientists, first recipient of the ACM Turing Award, "Epigrams on Programming" (1982) (h/t Sukay)

Rewrite Their Teens

You couldn't get hold of the things you'd done and turn them right again.  Such a power might be given to the gods, but it was not given to women and men, and that was probably a good thing.  Had it been otherwise, people would probably die of old age still trying to rewrite their teens.

-- Stephen Edwin King (21 September 1947 -), American author, screenwriter. 2003 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Book Awards, The Stand (1978)

Making It Come True

There is no great harm in the theorist who makes up a new theory to fit a new event.  But the theorist who starts with a false theory and then sees everything as making it come true is the most dangerous enemy of human reason.

-- Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874 - 1936), prolific British writer, The Flying Inn (1914)

A Taste

It's a taste -- I'm telling these young guys -- it's a taste of what you'll chase for your whole career.  Once you taste that champagne in your beard or feel that burn of cold beer going down your back, there's nothing like it.  The top of your head going numb.  You can't replicate that in any other situation.

-- St Louis pitcher Adam Wainwright, after the Cardinals clinched the NL Central Division championship on the last day of the season, mlb.com, 29 September 2019

Romaine

If this was romaine lettuce our shelves would be empty.

-- Illinois mother Ruby Johnson, whose 18-year-old daughter was hospitalized after vaping, speaking at a congressional hearing on the dangers of e-cigarettes, 24 September 2019

A Lot Of Problems

The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, with largely corruption, all of the corruption taking place and largely the fact that we don't want our people like Vice President Biden and his son creating the corruption already in the Ukraine, and Ukraine has got a lot of problems.

-- President Donald Trump, explaining the nature of a 25 July 2019 phone call with newly-elected Ukrainian President Zelensky that is the apparent subject of a whistle-blower complaint, speaking to reporters at the White House, 22 September 2019

We'll Be Watching You

This is all wrong.  I shouldn't be up here.  I should be back in school, on the other side of the ocean.

You all come to us young people for hope.  How dare you?  You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words, and yet I'm one of the lucky ones.  People are suffering.  People are dying.  Entire ecosystems are collapsing.

You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency.  But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that.  Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil.  And that I refuse to believe.

You are failing us, but young people are starting to understand your betrayal.  The eyes of all future generations are upon you.  And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.

-- Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, 16, speaking at the Climate Action Summit at the UN in New York, 23 September 2019

The Older I Get

The older I get, the more dead people I know.

For An Hour

... Any one of a million things could fail and cause our complex civilization to collapse for an hour, for a day, or however long.  That's when you find out the extent to which you are reliant on technology and don't even know it.  That's when you see that it's so interdependent, that if you take one thing away, the whole thing falls down and leaves you with nothing.

-- James Burke (1936 -), British science historian, author, and television producer best known for his documentary television series focusing on the history of science and technology leavened with a sense of humor, Connections "The Trigger Effect" (1979)

Memorable Life Moment

Finishing a Grand Tour is a memorable life moment for any rider, surviving a gruelling 21-day stage race is a big win even if you haven't crossed the finish line first at any point.

But Burgos-BH's Jesús Ezquerra made it an extra special day on the processional stage 21 into Madrid when he proposed to his girlfriend mid-race.

Race footage shows Ezquerra riding up to his team car, which he has organised for his girlfriend to travel in for the final stage, with the 28-year-old also informing the tv cameras of his intentions so they can be there to capture the moment.

Taking out a ring, he pops the questions and his girlfriend says yes.

-- From CyclingWeekly.com, "Vuelta a España rider proposes to girlfriend during final stage 21", 15 September 2019

Shallowness

We're in such a hurry most of the time we never get much chance to talk.  The result is a kind of endless day-to-day shallowness, a monotony that leaves a person wondering years later where all the time went and sorry that it's all gone.

-- Robert Maynard Pirsig (1928 - 2017), American philosopher and novelist, most famous for his novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in which he proposed what has become known as his Metaphysics of Quality (MoQ), Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Ch. 1 (1974)

The Moon, Full-Orbed

The moon, full-orbed, forsakes her watery cave,
And lifts her lovely head above the wave;
The snowy splendours of her modest ray
Stream o'er the glistening waves, and quivering play;
Around her, glittering on the heaven's arched brow,
Unnumbered stars, enclosed in azure, glow,
Thick as the dew-drops of the April dawn,
Or May-flowers crowding o'er the daisy lawn;
The canvas whitens in the silvery beam,
And with a mild pale-red the pendants gleam;
The masts' tall shadows tremble o'er the deep;
The peaceful winds a holy silence keep.

-- William Julius Mickle (1734 - 1788), Scottish poet, The Lusiad (1776), Book I, line 417

Turning The Page

So I plan on spending tonight talking with you about my plans to address the problems that keep you up at night. But first, I have a few words for Donald Trump, who we all know is watching. ...

[H]ere's what you don't get: What you don't get you is that the American people are so much better than this.  And we know that the vast majority of us have so much more in common than what separates us, regardless of our race, where we live, or the party with which we're registered to vote.  And I plan on focusing on our common issues, our common hopes and desires, and in that way, unifying our country, winning this election, and turning the page for America.

-- Senator Kamala Harris [D-CA], in her introductory remarks at the Democratic debate, 12 September 2019

A Lot Of Work

We started making our way down to the Trade Center.  I saw the building burning.  I looked over to my colleague Mike Garcia and I go, "I guess we’re going to get a lot of work in today."

-- Detective David Brink, New York City Emergency Service Squad 3, early in the morning of 11 September 2001, as quoted by Garrett M. Graff in "The Only Plane In The Sky"

To Get Free

We have to hate our immediate predecessors to get free from their authority.

-- David Herbert Lawrence (1885 - 1930), English novelist, poet, and playwright who published as D. H. Lawrence, Letter to Edward Garnett (1 February 1913)

I Have A Complaint

Ive had quite a few complaints lately from people who like it when I complain about things.  They say I havent complained about anything lately.  So tonight, for you complaint fans, I have a complaint.

-- Andrew Aitken "Andy" Rooney (1919 - 2011), American radio and television writer, most notable for his weekly broadcast "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney," a part of the CBS News program 60 Minutes from 1978 to 2011, Years of Minutes (2003)

La Vuelta Helicopter Finds Grow Op

We received information thanks to the images that individuals posted on social media that had been taken from the helicopter of La Vuelta.  That has helped us to seize 40 marijuana plants.  No one has been arrested, but the investigation is still ongoing to find those responsible.

-- A police spokesperson speaking to ESPN, per an article at Deadspin.com, 4 September 2019


The Deadspin article continues:

Catalan cops seized over 40 cannabis plants from a rooftop near Barcelona yesterday thanks to information from an unexpected source: a TV helicopter broadcasting this month's Vuelta a España.  Stage 8 of the race finished in the town of Igualada on Saturday, and as the race made its way through the city streets at the end of the stage, helicopter footage showed a whole bunch of (presumably) dank weed on someone's rooftop.