February 2016 Quotations (60)

"[Bernie's] message has such power that Clinton has chosen to recycle parts of it."
~~ Robert Borosage

"People don't write music. It's given to them."
~~ Hank Williams [1923-53]

"The problems of victory are more agreeable than the problems of defeat, but they are no less difficult."
~~ Sir Winston Churchill [1874-1965]

"I figured out my main health issue: premature aging. I'm too young to be this old."
~~ G.E. Nordell

"Seek freedom and become captive of your desires, seek discipline and find your liberty."
~~ Frank Herbert [1920-86], in "Dune" [1965 novel]

"No Gains Without Pains" :: title of circa 1870s book by Helen Cross Knight [1814-1906]

"Out beyond right and wrong, there is a field. I will meet you there."
~~ Persian poet & mystic Rumi [1207-73]

"What the imagination can't conjure, reality delivers with a shrug."
~~ screenwriter Dalton Trumbo [1905-76]

"Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other."
~~ Abraham Lincoln [1809-65]

"America has believed that in differentiation, not in uniformity, lies the path of progress. It acted on this belief: it has advanced human happiness and it has prospered."
~~ Justice Louis D. Brandeis [1856-1941]

"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality."
~~ Cheshire Cat, as written by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) [1832-98]

"It is said that science fiction and fantasy are two different things. Science fiction is the improbable made possible, and fantasy is the impossible made probable."
~~ Rod Serling [1924-75]

“Is there anything better than coffee? Chocolate, maybe, and sex ranks very close I suppose.”
~~ A.R. Miller

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.”
~~ Greek philosopher Plato [427-347 BCE]

"The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today."
~~ Elbert Hubbard [1856-1915]

"The roots of true achievement lie in the will to become the best that you can become."
~~ Harold Taylor

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
~~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-68]

"Refuse to be average. Let your heart soar as high as it will."
~~ Aiden Wilson Tozer [1897-1963]

"Concentrate all your thoughts on the task at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus."
~~ Alexander Graham Bell [1847-1922]

"A visionary is one who can find his way by moonlight, and see the dawn before the rest of the world."
~~ Oscar Wilde [1854-1900]

“History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance.”
~~ James A. Madison [1751-1836]

“Issue of currency should be lodged with the government and be protected from domination by Wall Street. We are opposed to…provisions [which] would place our currency and credit system in private hands.”
~~ Theodore Roosevelt [1858-1919]

“Money plays the largest part in determining the course of history.”
~~ Karl Marx [1818-83], in "The Communist Manifesto" [1848]

“Money is a new form of slavery, and distinguishable from the old simply by the fact that it is impersonal – that there is no human relation between master and slave.”
~~ Count Leo Tolstoy [1828-1910]

"Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are."
~~ Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin [1755-1826]

"Remember, if you don’t like it, you’re wrong."
~~ Amos Vernon

"Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything."
~~ artist George Lois

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated thru you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique."
~~ dancer Martha Graham [1894-1991]

"Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work."
~~ Vince Lombardi [1913-70]

"There is nothing higher-class than real craftmanship, diversity, originality, and the service of skilled human hands."
~~ Bryant McGill

"I ran and ran and ran every day, and I acquired this sense of determination, this sense of spirit that I would never, never give up, no matter what else happened."
~~ Olympic athlete Wilma Rudolph [1940-94]

"Desire is the key to motiviation, but it is determination and commitment to an unrelenting goal – a commitment to excellence – that will enable you to attain the success [that] you seek."
~~ racecar driver Mario Andretti

"If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude."
~~ Gen. Colin Powell

"Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper."
~~ golfer Gary Player

"We don't want equal injustice for all."
~~ Kevin Alexander Gray

"Make no mistake, the Paris Agreement establishes the framework [that] the world needs to solve the climate crisis."
~~ President Barack Obama

“I meant to write about death, only life came breaking in as usual.”
~~ British author Virginia Woolf [1882-1941], in her diary (entry dated 17 February 1922)

"Organize, agitate, educate, must be our war cry."
~~ suffragist Susan B. Anthony [1820-1906]

"Work is not a curse. It is the prerogative of intelligence, the only means to manhood, and the measure of civilization."
~~ Calvin Coolidge [1872-1933]

"What I've told Speaker Boehner directly is: If you're really concerned about my taking too many executive actions, why don't you try getting something done thru Congress?"
~~ President Barack Obama, in 2014

"There's nothing like real love. Nothing."
~~ Shirley Temple {Black} [1928-2014]

"I'm not going to apologize for trying to do something while [Congress is] doing nothing."
~~ President Barack Obama, in 2015

"When I die, I hope to go to Heaven, whatever the Hell that is."
~~ philosopher Ayn Rand [1905-82]

"I don't care what you think about me. I don't think about you at all."
~~ Coco Chanel [1883-1971]

"Doctors are just the same as lawyers; the only difference is that lawyers merely rob you, whereas doctors rob you and kill you too."
~~ Anton Chekhov [1860-1904]

"Cutting libraries in a recession is like cutting hospitals during a plague."
~~ Eleanor Crumblehulme

Coffee: Starter fluid for the morning impaired. :: recent poster

"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something [that is] completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools."
~~ Douglas Adams [1952-2001]

"We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses."
~~ Abraham Lincoln [1809-65]

"Love is not affectionate feeling but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained."
~~ C.S. Lewis [1898-1963]

"An actor has to burn inside with an outer ease."
~~ Michael Chekhov [1891-1955]

"I understand the concept of optimism, but I think [that] with me what you get is a lack of cynicism."
~~ actor Tom Hanks

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."
~~ diarist Anne Frank [1929-45]

"San Francisco has only one drawback –'tis hard to leave."
~~ Rudyard Kipling [1865-1936]

"You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul."
~~ George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950]

"I found [that] I was repeating myself. It is the beginning of the end when you discover [that] you have style."
~~ Dashiell Hammett [1894-1961]

"Let yourself be drawn by the strange pull of what you love. It will not lead you astray."
~~ Persian poet & mystic Rumi [1207-73]

"Frame thy mind to mirth and merriment, which bars a thousand harms, and lengthens life."
~~ William Shakespeare [1564-1616]

"Always be a little kinder than necessary."
~~ playwright J.M. Barrie [1860-1937]

"Learning is a gift. Even when pain is your teacher."
~~ Maya Watson

"Everyone's life is a fairy tale written by God's fingers."
~~ Hans Christian Anderson [1805-75]

"Talk is cheap. . . It is the way [that] we organize and use our lives every day that tells what we believe in."
~~ César E. Chávez [1927-93]

{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}

Year-End Website Statistics for 2015

Last year I proudly posted year-end web stats on January First, but 46 days in hospital (see blog post just below) delayed this year's posting until weeks later.

The basic numbers from the year of 2015 are that I coded 200 new pages - for an all-site total of 1,509 - and 2,004 new covers (linked to Amazon); I now have 548 connections on LinkedIn, 151 friends (up 40) on my two Facebook accounts, and 21 new postings here on my blog {all-time total now 328}.

Anyone who wants to see the detail can go to http://www.genordell.com/webstats.htm.

Back From 46 Days in Hospital

At 10:40 am on 28 December last, I slipped on ice on my driveway on the way to the mailbox across the street. Broke both arms and hit my forehead on the driveway curb.

A ten-year-old named Andrew heard the ruckus and came over; I told him to call 911, and he ran to get his sister.

Making the long story short-ish, ambulance took me 40 miles to the E.R. at the V.A. in Albuquerque (Valencia County has NO hospital for its 75,000 residents). Transferred to V.A. third floor for 3 days for observation, then on New Years Eve to the OnPointe Medical Resort for rehab. 42 days there on morphine (mostly) ended yesterday at Noon. Medicare pays for 20 days in total, the other 22 days are costing me co-pay of $161 per day. (Well, at least it is not the retail price, and I am told that Medicaid may reimburse.)

So I am now home and dealing with withdrawal from pain pills, remaining pain, inability to reach above my head, lousy balance, and changes to my domicile by a former friend.

I estimated that I would find 2,000 new emails upon my return and I was damn close: 1962, plus a couple dozen since.

I expect to retrieve 10 to 25 pounds of paper mail from the local P.O. tomorrow, which will include bills that I need to catch up on. (I managed some simple BillPay online banking while at rehab.) ADDED 2/13: Actual weight of snail mail was 12.2 pounds.

Car battery was completely dead, AAA started it, then I drove on the freeway for two hours to recharge it. So I expect that I will be able to drive myself to MRI and other appointments at the V.A., to the dentist, and to start working out on the old people machines at the local senior center gym.

Because the narcotics did not really reduce the pain, I lost all appetite, and some days ate almost nothing; the result is that I now weigh 26 pounds less than when I fell. (What's that saying? "Thorns have roses.") And I am clearer about not needing to eat on any special schedule to prevent diabetes. If I allow myself to Count Carbohydrates, I can reduce my weight even more. (Eating only 50 carbs per day is guaranteed to reduce weight by 10 pounds per month; I did this in the Summer of '76 and dropped 50 pounds, becoming a long-haired hunk for a short time.)

I plan to be in action again soon, this could be America's last federal election (if the idiot voters elect more Republicans), so there is much work ahead.

"The battle against ignorance and apathy and magical thinking is a full time job."

~~ G.E. Nordell