Life is a Story, Yann Martel
George Takei and Flesh Colored Crayons
This picture of flesh colored crayons is George Takei’s Facebook meme a few days ago, and it’s a fitting one in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
My first thought in response to the image: “Because only Nixon could go to China.” There are lots of inferential leaps from
Mario Cuomo on A Tale of Two Cities
It’s the same shining city for those relative few who are lucky enough to live in its good neighborhoods. But for the people who are excluded, for the people who are locked out, all they can do is stare from a distance at that city’s glimmering towers.
– Mario Cuomo, 1984 DNC
RIP 1/1/2015
Eight Maxims – A listicle to live by
Maxims are codes that we parrot, but rarely pause to consider. They bespeak what our culture values, as much as they teach us a lesson in sparse, bumper-sticker phrasing. Here is a list of eight maxims that I’ve stolen, applied, or ignored to my later regret.
Crandon Resident on Weather at the Wall
So it’s going back to the old ways. It’s what it used to be.
– Crandon resident commenting on the early snowstorm of 11/11/14 at WJFW.Com
Proof that Rhinelander is The Wall
(You know nothing, Jon Snow.)
Huey Long on Elections
They’ve got a set of Republican waiters on one side and a set of Democratic waiters on the other side, but no matter which set of waiters brings you the dish, the legislative grub is all prepared in the same Wall Street kitchen.
Salman Rushdie on Hollow Men
Perhaps it’s because they are hollow that our imaginations can occupy them so easily. That is to say, it is their anti-heroism, their apparent lack of Great Qualities, that make them our size, or even smaller, so that we can stand among them as equals, like Dorothy among the Munchkins.
– Salman Rushdie, Step Across the Line
Referring to the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Cowardly Lion of the Oz movie
Saul Alinsky on the 1%
As long as you don’t organize to have the power to act, 1% will run the whole damned world.
– Saul Alinsky
Mitt Romney on the Hope of the Earth
Fellow-citizens, we can not escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free–honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just–a way which if followed the world will forever applaud and God must forever bless.
– Abraham Lincoln, Second Annual Message to the Senate and House of Representatives, 1862
Romney quoted Abraham Lincoln on the emancipation of slaves to advance an agenda for the 1%. Must be his love for bayonets and horses that inspired him.