Two Boston carters [were] hauling a wagonload of wood along a narrow snow-drifted road one wintry day in 1705 when they met the oncoming coach of the royal governor of Massachusetts and refused to pull aside.
The governor later testified that after he jumped from the coach and ordered them to clear the road, one of them “answered boldly, without any other words, ‘I am as good flesh and blood as you; I will not give way, you may goe out of the way.’”
When the governor drew his sword to assert respect for high office, the carter “layd hold on the governor and broke the sword in his hand.” It was “a supreme gesture of contempt for authority and its might,” Morgan writes.
One shudders to think what might happen to this stubborn working stiff and his supreme gesture in today’s world of terrifying political motorcades with their heavily armed bodyguards.
Morgen On The Inequality of Authority
Morehead on The Fountainhead
The first clue that Howard Roarke has something weirdly wrong with him comes early on. He's going out of business. A friend offers him a loan, and he refuses it. Okay. He has too much pride to take help. That's fine. But he says, "I never ask for nor give help."
What? He never "gives help"? He never helps anyone?
Yup. That's exactly what he means. He's anti-helping his fellow man. In his trial summation, six minutes of Gary Cooper giving a completely unhinged, turgid speech, he actually says, "Mankind is perishing in a sea of selflessness."
Whatever finishes off mankind, it won't be an excess of selflessness. The movie is pro-selfishness and egoism (which is just egotism misspelled), and anti-altruism. It preaches, at length and in a superior tone, that Altruism is Bad. And it means it.
Lurie On Our Shadow
This insane dynamic - the reluctance to accept parts of ourselves that don't fit the self-image that we've created, who we like to think that we are, and who we want to appear to others - is actually a universal human experience. The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung named it the "shadow", because it contains the thoughts and feelings that we've subconsciously sent to the dark shadows of our psyche, hoping not to be found, out of fear that our self-image will be challenged. If our self-image is, for example, I am self-sufficient, I am humble, I am caring, or I am spiritual, then natural thoughts and emotions which conflict with this self-image, such as feelings of incompetence, need for adulation, self-involvement, or anxiety about getting a train seat, will be disowned to the degree in which we identify with the self-image. We then lock these thoughts and emotions behind a wall in our psyche so that we can avoid looking at them, where they remain stagnant, stuck at the age when they were repressed, never growing, and never maturing. We may think that we've eliminated the unwanted feeling by locking it away, but there it waits, ready to emerge when provoked. If unaddressed, our shadow qualities can damage our relationships, limit our effectiveness, and make us anxious, depressed, and frustrated.
[...]
The good news is that we tend to unconsciously select spouses, friends, work and social situations that bring our shadow forward. We do this because, in our hearts, we want to be known and accepted for all of who we are, and we are drawn to these people and situations that we intuit will help lead us toward repair and wholeness. In this way, people who bring up our shadow side are our teachers, to whom, if we can, we ought to feel gratitude.
Pema On Buddhism
A much more interesting, kind, adventurous, and joyful approach to life is to begin to develop our curiosity, not caring whether the object of our inquisitiveness is bitter or sweet. To lead a life that goes beyond pettiness and prejudice and always wanting to make sure that everything turns out on our own terms, to lead a more passionate, full, and delightful life than that, we must realize that we can endure a lot of pain and pleasure for the sake of finding out who we are and what this world is, how we tick and how our world ticks, how the whole thing just is.
-Pema Chodron, as quoted by Jesse Kornbluth
Mother Guides Beth Hart
Mama
I know my face
Seems crazed and wild
But I got her eyes
A mama's child am I
She's blessed with grace
And is smooth as a line
And when I shade
She helps me shine
And she comes to me
When there's nothing I believe
And holds me so high
Yes I am free
Saying why hold the anger
It won't let you fly
Just remember
And I'll remember
Cause of Mama, Mama
And I'll get by
Tom Waits On Obsession
Lucinda
Well they call me William The Pleaser
I sold opium, fireworks and lead
Now I'm telling my troubles to strangers
When the shadows get long I'll be dead
Now her hair was as black as a bucket of tar
Skin was as white as a cuttlefish bone
I left Texas to follow Lucinda
Now I'll never see heaven or home
Amalia's Threat Scares Me Never Mind Her Daughter
If you leave my sight a man will come give you a bear hug and take you into the woods.
Sill's Imploring Jester
The Fool's Prayer
THE ROYAL feast was done; the King
Sought some new sport to banish care,
And to his jester cried: "Sir Fool,
Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!"
The jester doffed his cap and bells,
And stood the mocking court before;
They could not see the bitter smile
Behind the painted grin he wore.
He bowed his head, and bent his knee
Upon the monarch's silken stool;
His pleading voice arose: "O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!
"No pity, Lord, could change the heart
From red with wrong to white as wool;
The rod must heal the sin: but, Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!
"'T is not by guilt the onward sweep
Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;
'T is by our follies that so long
We hold the earth from heaven away.
"These clumsy feet, still in the mire,
Go crushing blossoms without end;
These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust
Among the heart-strings of a friend.
"The ill-timed truth we might have kept—
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung?
The word we had not sense to say—
Who knows how grandly it had rung?
"Our faults no tenderness should ask,
The chastening stripes must cleanse them all;
But for our blunders—oh, in shame
Before the eyes of heaven we fall.
"Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;
Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool
That did his will; but Thou, O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!"
The room was hushed; in silence rose
The King, and sought his gardens cool,
And walked apart, and murmured low,
"Be merciful to me, a fool!"
- Edward Rowland Sill
Conan O'Brien On The Auto Industry
Toyota is developing a miniature, environmentally-friendly car that is powered entirely by a rechargeable battery.
Meanwhile Detroit still hard at work on SUV that runs on rainforest trees and panda blood.
PeanutButterBreath Misquotes For Effect
Just come right out and say it, Neil.
Enterprise applications should run on dedicated, fully optimized hardware that can be bolted to employees faces.
Guysmiley777 On Cell Plan Options
In the United States you pick a cell phone plan based on which sized iron girder you want rammed up your ass repeatedly.
There's no good option, only "less rusty" vs. "less jagged".
Johnny On Misogeny
Delia's Gone
Delia, oh, Delia Delia all my life
If I hadn't have shot poor
Delia I'd have had her for my wife
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone
I went up to Memphis
And I met Delia there Found her in her parlor
And I tied to her chair
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone
She was low down and trifling
And she was cold and mean
Kind of evil make me want to Grab my sub machine
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone
First time I shot her I shot her in the side
Hard to watch her suffer
But with the second shot she died
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone
But jailer, oh, jailer Jailer,
I can't sleep 'Cause all around my bedside
I hear the patter of Delia's feet
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone
So if you woman's devilish
You can let her run
Or you can bring her down and do her
Like Delia got done
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone
Juliette Gordon Low's Legacy
I will do my best to be
honest and fair,
friendly and helpful,
considerate and caring,
courageous and strong, and
responsible for what I say and do, and to
respect myself and others,
respect authority,
use resources wisely,
make the world a better place, and
be a sister to every Girl Scout.
Can't Be Brains
Graaaiiins. Grrraaaaaiiinnss. Gggrraaaaaiiiiinnnnssss!Francis Church's Affirmation
Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS.
Williams' Snack Apology
This Is Just To Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
- William Carlos Williams.
Nash On Righteousness
You're so full of what's right that you can't see what's good.
-N .Richard Nash
Fletcher On Calculating Love
A macabre tale is told of the god Moloch. He came down to earth to the premier of one of the new nations in Africa, with an offer: "I will provide you with a modern highway network if you will sacrifice 45,000 people to me every year." The premier, aghast, cried, "No! Not a single, solitary soul!" "Phooie," retorted Moloch, "that is what I get in the U.S.A. annually."
[...] It is sentimenal, simplistic, and romantically backward to "feel" that love cannot or ought not calculate[...]
- Joseph F. Fletcher, Situation Ethics
The Longs On Prima Facie Evidence
Back when the rancid visage of George W. Bush first spittled its way into the national consciousness, we were sure he would never be elected. Our reason? "Just look at him!" You could see he was the most transparently unfit being to hold office since Caligula made his horse a Senator.
Megan's Muscle Rumour
I'm told that your body is limited by the amount of neurotransmitter it takes to fire all your muscles at once. Once those are gone, doesn't matter if your muscles are still good to go. I have not looked it up to confirm or deny this.
Lenard On Initiative
The first liar always sets the rules of the game.
-Roger X. Lenard [Ed: Not the Creati0nist of the same name]
Suskind Through The Looking Glass
The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
[...]
And for those who don't get it? That was explained to me in late 2002 by Mark McKinnon, a longtime senior media adviser to Bush, who now runs his own consulting firm and helps the president. He started by challenging me. ''You think he's an idiot, don't you?'' I said, no, I didn't. ''No, you do, all of you do, up and down the West Coast, the East Coast, a few blocks in southern Manhattan called Wall Street. Let me clue you in. We don't care. You see, you're outnumbered 2 to 1 by folks in the big, wide middle of America, busy working people who don't read The New York Times or Washington Post or The L.A. Times. And you know what they like? They like the way he walks and the way he points, the way he exudes confidence. They have faith in him. And when you attack him for his malaprops, his jumbled syntax, it's good for us. Because you know what those folks don't like? They don't like you!'' In this instance, the final ''you,'' of course, meant the entire reality-based community.
