quotes

Thought for the week

This particular tweet has stuck in my head all week long because I need to remember it when I’m considering other folks and things they do that I don’t understand.

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Quotable

Stephanie, on why she doesn’t want to see Titanic in 3-D:

I thought it was overhyped in the first place. And at the scene were the ship hits the iceberg, and the guy says “How long do we have?!” I looked at my watch and said “You have an hour and a half.”

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Personal Truth

I’ve posted this quote before, but it came up in conversation recently, and I was struck again by how very beautiful it is.

May Sarton, from Journal of a Solitude:

“My own belief is that one regards oneself, if one is a serious writer, as an instrument for experiencing. Life–all of it–flows through this instrument and is distilled through it into works of art. How one lives as a private person is intimately bound into the work. And at some point, I believe one has to stop holding back for fear of alienating some imaginary reader or real relative or friend, and come out with personal truth. If we are to understand the human condition, and if we are to accept ourselves in all the complexity, self-doubt, extravagance of feeling, guilt, joy, the slow freeing of the self to its full capacity for action and creation, both as human being and artist, we have to know all we can about one another, and we have to be willing to go naked.”

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links for 2010-01-21

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Barack Obama on saggy pants

In an MTV interview – Obama tells you to pull up your pants. He does it more politely than I do to teenagers in target.

Sway: Our next question comes from Eric out of Huntington Beach, California: “There are numerous cultures and subcultures in the United States today. Powers-that-be set statutes with monetary penalty on how people wear their clothes. Do you find it intrusive on civil liberties to create such ordinances?” And you know I got ‘locks.

Obama: I wasn’t going to pass a law, man. You look tight.

Sway: I know people have piercings, tattoos. Eric, in particular, is talking about a ban on sagging pants. Do feel like people should be penalized?

Obama: Here is my attitude: I think people passing a law against people wearing sagging pants is a waste of time. We should be focused on creating jobs, improving our schools, health care, dealing with the war in Iraq, and anybody, any public official, that is worrying about sagging pants probably needs to spend some time focusing on real problems out there. Having said that, brothers should pull up their pants. You are walking by your mother, your grandmother, your underwear is showing. What’s wrong with that? Come on. There are some issues that we face, that you don’t have to pass a law, but that doesn’t mean folks can’t have some sense and some respect for other people and, you know, some people might not want to see your underwear — I’m one of them.

Sway: In regards to piercings, tattoos, I had a friend who worked for UPS and he had ‘locks. He almost lost his job, but he fought for it. In regards to those things, how do you feel?

Obama: It’s one thing if an employer discriminates on the basis of gender or sexual orientation or, obviously, race or ethnicity. I think employers can set standards. Now you got ‘locks, but it looks clean, man, it’s tight, and my little girl has twists, Malia, and to me, it looks great. Obviously I would be upset if she were discriminated against on that basis. On the other hand, if you are working at a fancy store and you show up to work in jeans and a shirt and you have a tattoo across your neck like Mike Tyson, for them to say, you know, “That is not the kind of image we are trying to project,” obviously, that is in their rights as well. I think any business has the right to say, “This is the kind of tone we want to set,” as long as they aren’t discriminating on the basis of things people can’t control.

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David Sedaris on Undecided Voters

From this week’s New Yorker:

Then you’ll see this man or woman– someone, I always think, who looks very happy to be on TV. “Well, Charlie,” they say, “I’ve gone back and forth on the issues and whatnot, but I just can’t seem to make up my mind!” Some insist that there’s very little difference between candidate A and candidate B. Others claim that they’re with A on defense and health care but are leaning toward B when it comes to the economy.

I look at these people and can’t quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention?

To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

I mean, really, what’s to be confused about?

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Quotes of the Day: “the fundamentals of our economy are strong”

John McCain – speaking THIS MORNING on today’s financial markets meltdown:

“You know that there’s been tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and Wall St. And it is — people are frightened by these events. Our economy, I think still — the fundamentals of our economy are strong. But these are very, very difficult times.”

And for counterpoint:

“The man most responsible for the financial services and banking deregulation that made today possible, fmr. Sen. Phil Gramm, is the man John McCain wants to put in charge of the whole economy.” — Josh Marshall

Continue ReadingQuotes of the Day: “the fundamentals of our economy are strong”