October 2017 Quotations (57)

"Somehow, I don’t feel like I’m being made great again."
~~ Adam Stuart, on Facebook 10/2017

"As I hurtled through space, one thought kept crossing my mind . . . every part of this rocket was supplied by the lowest bidder."
~~ astronaut-politician John Glenn [1921-2016]

"We all need reminding at times that the World Wide Web is only 27 years old."
~~ Simon Chan

"I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned."
~~ physicist Richard P. Feynman [1918-88]

"AB HONESTO VIRUM BONUM NIHIL DETERRET:
Nothing deters a good man from doing what is honorable."
~~ Seneca the Younger [4? B.C.E. - 65 A.D.]

"There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: Those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid [that] you will succeed."
~~ Ray Goforth

"¡La lucha sigue! The fight continues!"
~~ Senator Catherine Cortez Masto [Dem-NV]

"Ertznay to ouyay"
~~ intertitle on 1938 Disney "Silly Symphony" cartoon short

"Education is that whole system of human training within and without the school house walls, which molds and develops men."
~~ W.E.B. DuBois [1868-1963]

"We must face up to the unfaceuptoable."
~~ line on "The Simpsons" TV show

"The G.O.P. tax plan is ridiculous."
~~ Catherine Rampell, Washington Post columnist, 9/2017

"America is conservative in fundamental principles . . . but the principles conserved are liberal and some, indeed, are radical."
~~ economist Gunnar Myrdal [1898-1987]

"No Viet Cong ever called me 'n*gger'."
~~ boxing great Muhammad Ali [1942-2016]

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes."
~~ John Robert Colombo, in “A Said Poem”, 1970

"History never repeats itself, but the kaleidoscopic combinations of the pictured present often seem to be constructed out of the broken fragments of antique legends."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910], in 1874 edition of “The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-Day”

"Incompetence is a powerful tool."
~~ Kai Wright

"No one's wealth should come at the price of another's hunger, nakedness, or homelessness. Once that line is crossed, property becomes theft, and the practitioners become thieves."
~~ John Raby of New Hampshire, letter to The Nation Magazine, August 2017

“Cinema is universal, beyond flags and borders and passports.”
~~ Mexican film director Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu

"Remember that the most valuable antiques are dear old friends."
~~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

“Start building the future through a conversation for possibility.”
~~ philosopher Werner Erhard

“Real generosity is doing something nice for someone who will never find out.”
~~ writer & cartoonist Frank A. Clark [1911-91]

"There are seven days in a week. 'Someday' isn't one of them."
~~ popular Pinterest & t-shirt meme

“Holders of power, always and everywhere, are indifferent to the good or evil of those who have no power, except in so far as they are restrained by fear.”
~~ Bertrand Russell [1872-1970]

"There is a 1970 book by visionary R. Buckminster Fuller [1895-1983] with the title 'I Seem To Be A Verb", but I have recently decided that I seem to be a dangling participle."
~~ G.E. Nordell

"Prejudice is an emotional commitment to ignorance."
~~ Nathan Rutstein [1921-2006]

“Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge. A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.”
~~ Carlos Castañeda [1925-98]

"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices."
~~ French philosopher Voltaire [1694-1778]

"It is an unwavering rule for those in power that, when it comes to heads, it is best to cut them off before they start thinking."
~~ novelist José Saramago [1922-2010]

"Silence is the ultimate weapon of power."
~~ Charles de Gaulle [1890-1970]

"If you say what's on your mind in the language that comes to you from your parents and your street and friends, you'll probably say something beautiful."
~~ Grace Paley [1922-2007]

"Living in the past is for cowards."
~~ football coach Mike Ditka

"To be nobody-but-yourself – in a world which is dong its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight."
~~ American poet E.E. Cummings [1894-1962]

"I don't like to be out of my comfort zone, which is about a half-inch wide."
~~ TV personality Larry David

“Unless we remember we cannot understand.”
~~ British author E.M. Forster [1879-1970]

“It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.”
~~ Anne Sexton [1928-74]

"Don't argue with an idiot, they will just bring you down to their level and then beat you with experience."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910] and oft quoted by George Carlin [1937-2008]

“It is important that you get clear for yourself that your only access to impacting life is action. The world does not care what you intend, how committed you are, how you feel, or what you think, and certainly it has no interest in what you want and don’t want. Take a look at life as it is lived and see for yourself that the world only moves for you when you act."
~~ philosopher Werner Erhard

"Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible."
~~ Gen. Colin Powell

"Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total; of all those acts will be written the history of this generation."
~~ Robert F. Kennedy [1925-68]

"Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not."
~~ Oprah Winfrey

"Teamwork is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results."
~~ Andrew Carnegie [1835-1919]

"History is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn."
~~ Edmund Burke [1729-97]

"The recent meme 'Jews will not replace us (Nazis)' is easily countered. Replacing white supremicists with dog t*rds is an upgrade."
~~ G.E. Nordell

"Trump’s incompetence will not save us from his malevolence."
~~ Greg Sargent, Washington Post columnist

"History is just one damned thing after another."
~~ falsely credited to historian Arnold J. Toynbee [1889-1975]
original saying is "Life is just one damned thing after another."
~~ Elbert Hubbard [1856-1915]

“The minute you begin to do what you really want to do, it’s really a different kind of life.”
~~ visionary R. Buckminster Fuller [1895-1983]

"Indifference to the sublime wonder of living is the root cause of sin."
~~ Abraham Joshua Heschel [1907-72]

"The end of a picture is always an end of a life."
~~ director Sam Peckinpah [1925-84]

"Books are the quietest and most constant of friends, they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers."
~~ Charles W. Eliot [1834-1926]

"That which is false troubles the heart, but truth brings joyous tranquility."
~~ Persian poet & mystic Rumi [1207-73]

"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity."
~~ writer Dorothy Parker [1893-1967]

"There is not enough love and goodness in the world to permit giving any of it away to imaginary beings."
~~ Friedrich Nietzsche [1844-1900]

“Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”
~~ physicist Marie Curie [1867-1934]

"Don't wonder at those who are good without god. Pity those who need god to be good."
~~ meme on atheist websites

"You can't just say [that] there is a god because the world is beautiful. You have to account for bone cancer in children."
~~ Stephen Fry

"Forewarned, forarmed; to be prepared is half the victory."
~~ Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes [1547-1616]

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

Republicans to wreak havoc with civil liberties

Republican Party state legislators held a mock Constitutional convention over September 12-15 in Phoenix, Arizona; the practice topic was balancing the budget, but a real convention could add or delete any number of anti-worker, pro-fascist, anti-human rights, pro-discrimination changes to the U.S. Constitution.

Republicans control 32 of the country's state legislatures, two more would give them the leverage needed to call for such a convention, under Article V of the Constitution – and wreak havoc with American liberties.

Copyright 2017 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved

News Factoids for Third Quarter 2017

Facebook hit 2 billion users in June 2017 – their traffic has doubled since they hit 1 billion users in October 2012.

This year’s Social Security report projects that in 2017 Social Security will run an annual surplus of roughly $58.6 billion, bringing the accumulated surplus to about $2.9 trillion by the end of the year.

Dust isn’t the only thing your Roomba is sucking up. It’s also gathering maps of your house.

"The Great Recession never fully ended."
– Ryan Cooper, in The Week Magazine, July 2017
http://www.theweek.com/articles/714423/great-recession-never-ended

The Republican Party of Nevada is so intolerant of democracy that in August 2017 they launched three recall campaigns against three female members of the Nevada state legislature. Their first target is Nevada Democratic Senator Joyce Woodhouse; the second is Democrat-leaning Independent Patricia Farley; the third is new Nevada Democratic Senator Nicole Cannizzaro. The recall petitions do not specify any cause, the citizen signers did so on the simplistic basis that Democrats are not fascist Republicans.

According to a study by nearly 500 scientists from over 60 countries, 2016 was the warmest year in 137 years of record keeping. It replaced 2015 as the warmest year on record.

Coffee consumption in China tripled from 2012 to 2016. Starbucks Coffee already has 600 stores in Shanghai plus they are opening over 500 stores per year around China.

Nine billion tons of plastic has been produced since the 1930s - 7 billion tons were thrown away: 9% is recycled, 12% incinerated, leaving 79% in landfills, litter, and floating in the oceans. Europe recycles 30% of plastics, China recycles 25%, the U.S.A only 9%.

Hollywood had the worst summer box office results in 25 years: revenue fell 16%, attendance hit a 25-year low – analysts blamed the many 'really bad' sequels.

Copyright 2017 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved