Quote of the Day #20

"Poetry should be passionate and outrageous and political and most of all revolutionary.''
-Gerald Stern

I think Stern's poem below stays true to this ideal:

My Sister's Funeral

Since there was no mother for the peach tree we did it
all alone, which made the two of us closer
though closeness brought its loneliness, and it would
have been better I think sometimes to be sterile
from the start just to avoid the pain
which in my life this far has lasted seventy
years for I am in love with a skeleton
on whose small bones a dress hung for a while,
on whose small skull a bit of curly hair
was strung, and what is dust I still don’t know
since there was no mother to turn to then and ask
what else was she wearing, did she have on shoes,
and were the two trees from Georgia, and was it
true somebody said the other peach
should have died instead of her; and I could
imagine the nose going first though forty years later
the trees were still there and not as big as you’d think;
and it was my cousin Red with the flabby lips
who said it, he had red eyes, a red monstrosity,
a flabby body, half the house was filled with
male cousins, they were born in rooms a
short distance from the rats, I can’t remember
which ones had the accents nor what his
Hebrew name was, nor his English.

Quote of the Day #19

"Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind—even if your voice shakes."
-Maggie Kuhn

Quote of the Day #18

What better can one say on Thanksgiving?

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them."
-John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Quote of the Day #17

"I'm a pretty harsh critic of 99 percent of America's meat system, but there is that 1 percent I think is important to defend, because first there are good environmental reasons to eat meat in a limited way.

If you believe strongly in building up local food economies, there are places where meat is the best way to get protein off of the land. It's too hilly, too dry. Having animals is very important for sustainable agriculture. If you're going to have animals on the farm, they're going to die eventually, and you're going to eat them.

But I have enormous respect for vegetarians. They're further ahead than most of us. They've gone through the thought process in making their eating choices. They've just come out in a different place than I have.

I think we're going to focus on meat-eaters the way we have on SUV drivers. There will be a lot of pressure and education to show that a heavy meat diet is a big contributor to climate change, and that there are many good reasons to eat less meat."
-Michael Pollan

Quote of the Day #16

"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. "
- Mark Twain

It's been a long time since I felt like supporting the federal government. I'm finally inclined that way now, but I reserve the right to be disappointed.

Quote of the Day #15

And I thought John McCain was mentally shaky before this comment:

"You know, the other night in the debate with Senator Obama, I said his eloquence is admirable, but pay attention to his words. We talk about offshore drilling and he said he would quote, consider, offshore drilling. We talked about nuclear power, well it has to be safe, environment, blah, blah, blah."
-John McCain, at Northern Iowa University, 10/26/08

In all seriousness, the Republican presidential nominee is mocking his opponent's concern about the safety of atomic energy! After Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, to characterize nuclear power as needing anything less than the utmost in caution is beyond reckless. We must do better on November 4.

Quote of the Day #14

"A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful"
-Warren Buffett, October 17, 2008

Quote of the Day #13

“Debate is the death of conversation.”
-Kitty O'Neill Collins

Quote of the Day #12

In honor of the holiday:

"But the funniest thing was
When I was leavin' the bay
I saw three ships a-sailin'
They were all heading my way
I asked the captain what his name was
And how come he didn't drive a truck
He said his name was Columbus
I just said, 'Good luck.'"
-Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan's 115th Dream

Quote of the Day #11

"Sooner or later people are going to figure out that if all you run is negative attack ads you don't have much of a vision for the future, or you're not ready to articulate it."
-John McCain, 2000

Quote of the Day #10

"A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes."
- Hugh Downs

Quote of the Day #9

"A man's health can be judged by which he takes two at a time--pills or stairs."
-Joan Welsh

Quote of the Day #8

Alisher Usmanov

"In America today profit is privatized but risk is increasingly socialized. It's a form of crony capitalism that would make Russian oligarchs blush."
-Paul Campos, of Lawyers, Guns and Money, on the AIG bailout

Quote of the Day #7

God Bless America/Pat McDonald Must Die

By James McMurtry, © 2008

Look yonder coming, mercy me
Three wise men in an SUV
Corporate logo on the side
Air-conditioned, quiet ride

That thing don't run on french fry grease
That thing don't run on love and peace
It takes gasoline to make that thing go
Now bring your hands up nice and slow

Take us to the land of milk and honey
Sing and dance all night long
Whatcha gonna do with all that money?
Whatcha gonna do when that money's all gone?

Negotiation's just no fun
And it don't serve our interest none
Gonna turn up the heat 'til it comes to a boil
So we can go get that Arab oil

And we'll suck it all up through the barrel of a gun
Everyday's the end of days for some
Republicans don't cut and run
Tell me, ain't you proud of what we've done?

Take us to the land of milk and honey
Sing and dance all night long
Whatcha gonna do with all that money?
Whatcha gonna do when that money's all gone?

You keep talking that sh** like I've never heard
Hush, little president, don't say a word
When the rapture comes and the angels sing
God's gonna buy you a diamond ring

Take us to the land of milk and honey
Sing and dance all night long
Whatcha gonna do with all that money?
Whatcha gonna do when that money's all gone?

Take us to the land of milk and honey
Sing and dance all night long
Whatcha gonna do with all that money?
Whatcha gonna do when that money's all gone?

Quote of the Day #6

"In a world in which people are paid to spin every utterance so that it seems more and less than it is, a writer is someone who is un-spinning words, who is unashamed of the complexity of truth, who is not interested in dumbing down for the benefit of the sound bite"

-Baron Wormser

Quote of the Day #5

"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."
- Milan Kundera

Quote of the Day #4

"Success is not fame or money or the power to bewitch. It is to have created something valuable from your own individuality and skill—a garden, an embroidery, a painting, a cake, a life."

- Abraham Lincoln

Quote of the Day #3

"[Americans have] always thought of education as good if it gets you a better job, but bad if it makes you think too much."
- Susan Jacoby

Quote of the Day #2

"In the 21st century, nations don't invade other nations."
-John McCain, August 2008

Quote of the Day #1

"Money may be the husk of many things, but not the kernel. It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine but not health; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not loyalty; days of joy, but not peace or happiness."

-Henrik Ibsen