Is there hope in bad times?

 

I found this compelling quote a few years ago, and thought to myself: things are so bad right now, how can anyone believe this? Now, several years later, in many or most ways, things seem far worse.

I am heartened only by my grandkids, teenagers with exuberant, productive lives. I don't see apathy. I don't see drugs. I don't see phone addiction or online danger. Am I blind here? I don't think so. It's so refreshing to see them grow and change, and at the same time, so utterly heartbreaking as their childhood slips away.

They have been my "hope in bad times", but what will be next? I once wrote a piece and posted it here, and immediately lost several long-term subscribers. Since then, I have been leery of posting anything too honest. And yet, others receive hundreds of thousands of views for the very same kind of thing. There is something about MY honesty that, for reasons unknown, people just don't want to see.

I don't want to contemplate my life, what went right or wrong, and when I look back and see "wrong", much of it is things I couldn't help. But it's hard to see that. When I look back on bounty and joy, I am sad, even crushed that those days are all over.

And yet, I have hope, or at least on good days, days when a glossy, sassy red-winged blackbird flies down to eat out of my hand, days when I see my beautiful granddaughters dance exquisitely and move me to tears, days when I perceive true and undiscouraged purpose in the next generation (when I asked Caitlin what she wanted to be when she grew up, she said, "A forensic criminologist," and so she will be, if she so desires).

Quotes like these - and I don't know when this was written, or even who Howard Zinn is or was -  seem almost naive now, but they're needed. I don't know what is going to happen politically - a second Trump term seems almost inevitable, as the cult is obviously now in charge of the free world. Even Australia just voted in an extreme conservative, and it won't be long until Justin Trudeau will be routed for someone with a mind snapped shut.

So I try to get on with my day, wondering what will happen when this round of blessings runs its course, as they always do. More has always been given to me up to now, but will those blessed things very soon run dry? I don't know. I'm no good at the future, which doesn't exist anyway. "If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something." Cults stop human growth, and attract those who are afraid of growth and change and want someone to stop it, or even reverse the clock. Somehow, some way, can we get out from under the forces that are pressing down on true freedom like a giant thumb? We may not have to wait for some grand utopian future - but the clock is ticking, and time is running short.

Truth in three takes

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The greatest President God ever created

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt

Now the trumpet summons us again–not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need–not as a call to battle, though embattled we are–but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, “rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation”–a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself. Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind? Will you join in that historic effort? In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility–I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it–and the glow from that fire can truly light the world. And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you–ask what you can do for your country.

John F. Kennedy

If you want more justice in the justice system, then we’ve all got to vote -- not just for a president, but for mayors, and sheriffs, and state’s attorneys, and state legislators. That's where the criminal law is made. And we’ve got to work with police and protesters until laws and practices are changed. That's how democracy works. If you want to fight climate change, we’ve got to engage not only young people on college campuses, we've got to reach out to the coal miner who’s worried about taking care of his family, the single mom worried about gas prices. If you want to protect our kids and our cops from gun violence, we’ve got to get the vast majority of Americans, including gun owners, who agree on things like background checks to be just as vocal and just as determined as the gun lobby that blocks change through every funeral that we hold. That is how change happens.

Barack Obama

Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist
and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes,
OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart
—you know, if you're a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if,
like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the
smartest people anywhere in the world—it's true!—but when you're a
conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that's
why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went
there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my
like credentials all the time, because we're a little disadvantaged—but
you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me—it would
have been so easy, and it's not as important as these lives are (nuclear
is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the
power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of
what's going to happen and he was right—who would have thought?),
but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners—now it
used to be three, now it's four—but when it was three and even now, I
would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because,
you know, they don't, they haven't figured that the women are smarter
right now than the men, so, you know, it's gonna take them about
another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians
are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.

When I said that Obama, and of course, I’m being sarcastic. They know that, because after I said that, I said he’s the MVP, he is going to collect his MVP award. So I said Obama is the founder of ISIS, the founder, and these dishonest media people they say did he mean that, and after that, I’d say a lot, in fact, they like him so much because he’s been so weak and so bad. I mean, he let this happen. They had eight states. They had eight countries. They’re now in twenty-eight countries. They’re expanding. So I said the founder of ISIS. Obviously, I was being sarcastic, then, then but not that sarcastic to be honest with you.

That’s one of the nice things. I mean, part of the beauty of me is that I’m very rich. So if I need $600 million, I can put $600 million myself. That’s a huge advantage. I must tell you, that’s a huge advantage over the other candidates.

I dealt with Gaddafi. I rented him a piece of land. He paid me more for one night than the land was worth for two years, and then I didn’t let him use the land. That’s what we should be doing. I don’t want to use the word ‘screwed’, but I screwed him. That’s what we should be doing.

Washington (CNN)

Donald Trump said Thursday that he meant exactly what he said when he called President Barack Obama the "founder of ISIS" and objected when a conservative radio show host tried to clarify the GOP nominee's position.

Trump was asked by host Hugh Hewitt about the comments Trump made Wednesday night in Florida, and Hewitt said he understood Trump to mean "that he (Obama) created the vacuum, he lost the peace."

Trump objected.

"No, I meant he's the founder of ISIS," Trump said. "I do. He was the most valuable player. I give him the most valuable player award. I give her, too, by the way, Hillary Clinton."


Hewitt pushed back again, saying that Obama is "not sympathetic" to ISIS and "hates" and is "trying to kill them."

"I don't care," Trump said, according to a show transcript. "He was the founder. His, the way he got out of Iraq was that that was the founding of ISIS, okay?"

Hewitt and Trump went back and forth after that, with Hewitt warning Trump that his critics would seize on his use of "founder" as more example of Trump being loose with words.

Clinton later hit back on Thursday on Twitter, saying it was Trump who was unfit to be president.

"It can be difficult to muster outrage as frequently as Donald Trump should cause it, but his smear against President Obama requires it," Clinton tweeted. "No, Barack Obama is not the founder of ISIS. ... Anyone willing to sink so low, so often should never be allowed to serve as our Commander-in-Chief."

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When you're 90, you can say any goddamn thing you want!

90 Prince Philip Quotes for the Ages 

1 After being told that Madonna was singing the Die Another Day theme in 2002: “Are we going to need ear plugs?”

2 To a car park attendant who didn’t recognise him in 1997, he snapped: “You bloody silly fool!”

3 To Simon Kelner, republican editor of The Independent, at Windsor Castle reception: “What are you doing here?” “I was invited, sir.” Philip: “Well, you didn’t have to come.”

4 To female sea cadet last year: “Do you work in a strip club?”

5 To expats in Abu Dhabi last year: “Are you running away from something?”

6 After accepting a conservation award in Thailand in 1991: “Your country is one of the most notorious centres of trading in endangered species.”

7 At a project to protect turtle doves in Anguilla in 1965, he said: “Cats kill far more birds than men. Why don’t you have a slogan: ‘Kill a cat and save a bird?’”

8 To multi-ethnic Britain’s Got Talent 2009 winners Diversity: “Are you all one family?”

9 To President of Nigeria, who was in national dress, 2003: “You look like you’re ready for bed!”

10 His description of Beijing, during a visit there in 1986: “Ghastly.”

11 At Hertfordshire University, 2003: “During the Blitz, a lot of shops had their windows blown in and put up notices saying, ‘More open than usual’. I now declare this place more open than usual.”

12 To deaf children by steel band, 2000: “Deaf? If you’re near there, no wonder you are deaf.”

13 To a tourist in Budapest in 1993: “You can’t have been here long, you haven’t got a pot belly.”

14 To a British trekker in Papua New Guinea, 1998: “You managed not to get eaten then?”

15 His verdict on Stoke-on-Trent, during a visit in 1997: “Ghastly.”

16 To Atul Patel at reception for influential Indians, 2009: “There’s a lot of your family in tonight.”

17 Peering at a fuse box in a Scottish factory, he said: “It looks as though it was put in by an Indian.” He later backtracked: “I meant to say cowboys.”

18 To Lockerbie residents after plane bombing, 1993: “People say after a fire it’s water damage that’s the worst. We’re still drying out Windsor Castle.”

19 In Canada in 1976: “We don’t come here for our health.”

20 “I never see any home cooking – all I get is fancy stuff.” 1987

21 On the Duke of York’s house, 1986: “It looks like a tart’s bedroom.”

22 Using Hitler’s title to address German chancellor Helmut Kohl in 1997, he called him: “Reichskanzler.”

23 “We go into the red next year... I shall have to give up polo.” 1969.

24 At party in 2004: “Bugger the table plan, give me my dinner!”

25 To a woman solicitor, 1987: “I thought it was against the law for a woman to solicit.”

26 To a civil servant, 1970: “You’re just a silly little Whitehall twit: you don’t trust me and I don’t trust you.”

27 On the 1981 recession: “A few years ago, everybody was saying we must have more leisure, everyone’s working too much. Now everybody’s got more leisure time they’re complaining they’re unemployed. People don’t seem to make up their minds what they want.”

28 On the new £18million British Embassy in Berlin in 2000: “It’s a vast waste of space.”

29 After Dunblane massacre, 1996: “If a cricketer suddenly decided to go into a school and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat, are you going to ban cricket bats?”

30 To the Aircraft Research Association in 2002: “If you travel as much as we do, you appreciate the improvements in aircraft design of less noise and more comfort – provided you don’t travel in something called economy class, which sounds ghastly.”

31 On stress counselling for servicemen in 1995: “We didn’t have counsellors rushing around every time somebody let off a gun. You just got on with it!”

32 On Tom Jones, 1969: “It’s difficult to see how it’s possible to become immensely valuable by singing what are the most hideous songs.”

33 To the Scottish WI in 1961: “British women can’t cook.”

34 To then Paraguay dictator General Stroessner: “It’s a pleasure to be in a country that isn’t ruled by its people.”

35 To Cayman Islanders: “Aren’t most of you descended from pirates?”

36 To Scottish driving instructor, 1995: “How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?”

37 At a WF meeting in 1986: “If it has four legs and it’s not a chair, if it’s got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane and if it swims and it’s not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.”

38 “You ARE a woman, aren’t you?” Kenya, 1984.

39 A VIP at a local airport asked HRH: “What was your flight, like, Your Royal Highness? Philip: “Have you ever flown in a plane?” VIP: “Oh yes, sir, many times.” “Well,” said Philip, “it was just like that.”

40 On Ethiopian art, 1965: “It looks like the kind of thing my daughter would bring back from school art lessons.”

41 To a fashion writer in 1993: “You’re not wearing mink knickers,are you?”

42 To Susan Edwards and her guide dog in 2002: “They have eating dogs for the anorexic now.”

43 When offered wine in Rome in 2000, he snapped: “I don’t care what kind it is, just get me a beer!”

44 “I’d like to go to Russia very much – although the bastards murdered half my family.” 1967.

45 At City Hall in 2002: “If we could just stop the tourism, we could stop the congestion.”

46 On seeing a piezo-meter water gauge in Australia: “A pissometer?”

47“You have mosquitoes. I have the Press.” To matron of Caribbean hospital, 1966.

48 At a Bangladeshi youth club in 2002:“So who’s on drugs here?... HE looks as if he’s on drugs.”

49 To a children’s band in Australia in 2002: “You were playing your instruments? Or do you have tape recorders under your seats?”

50 At Duke of Edinburgh Awards scheme, 2006. “Young people are the same as they always were. Just as ignorant.”

51 On how difficult it is in Britain to get rich: “What about Tom Jones? He’s made a million and he’s a bloody awful singer.”

52 To Elton John on his gold Aston Martin in 2001: “Oh, it’s you that owns that ghastly car, is it?”

53 At an engineering school closed so he could officially open it, 2005: “It doesn’t look like much work goes on at this university.”

54 To Aboriginal leader William Brin, Queensland, 2002: “Do you still throw spears at each other?”

55 At a Scottish fish farm: “Oh! You’re the people ruining the rivers.”

56 After a breakfast of bacon, eggs, smoked salmon, kedgeree, croissants and pain au chocolat – from Gallic chef Regis Crépy, 2002: “The French don’t know how to cook breakfast.”

57 To schoolboy who invited the Queen to Romford, Essex, 2003: “Ah, you’re the one who wrote the letter. So you can write then?”

58 To black politician Lord Taylor of Warwick, 1999: “And what exotic part of the world do you come from?”

59 To parents at a previously struggling Sheffield school, 2003: “Were you here in the bad old days? ... That’s why you can’t read and write then!”

60 To Andrew Adams, 13, in 1998: “You could do with losing a little bit of weight.”

61 “Where’s the Southern Comfort?” When presented with a hamper of goods by US ambassador, 1999.

62 To editor of downmarket tabloid: “Where are you from?” “The S*n, sir.” Philip: “Oh, no . . . one can’t tell from the outside.”

63 Turning down food, 2000: “No, I’d probably end up spitting it out over everybody.”

64 Asking Cate Blanchett to fix his DVD player because she worked “in the film industry”, 2008: “There’s a cord sticking out of the back. Might you tell me where it goes?”

65 “People think there’s a rigid class system here, but dukes have even been known to marry chorus girls. Some have even married Americans.” 2000.

66 After hearing President Obama had had breakfast with leaders of the UK, China and Russia, 2010: “Can you tell the difference between them?”

67 On students from Brunei, 1998: “I don’t know how they’re going to integrate in places like Glasgow and Sheffield.”

68 On Princess Anne, 1970: “If it doesn’t fart or eat hay, she isn’t interested.”

69 To wheelchair-bound nursing-home resident, 2002: “Do people trip over you?”

70 Discussing tartan with then-Scottish Tory leader Annabel Goldie last year: “That’s a nice tie... Do you have any knickers in that material?”

71 To a group of industrialists in 1961: “I’ve never been noticeably reticent about talking on subjects about which I know nothing.”

72 On a crocodile he shot in Gambia in 1957: “It’s not a very big one, but at least it’s dead and it took an awful lot of killing!”

73 On being made Chancellor of Edinburgh University in 1953: “Only a Scotsman can really survive a Scottish education.”

74 “I must be the only person in Britain glad to see the back of that plane.” He hated the noise Concorde made flying over Buckingham Palace, 2002

75 To a fashion designer, 2009: “Well, you didn’t design your beard too well, did you?”

76 To the General Dental Council in 1960: “Dontopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it, which I’ve practised for many years.”

77 On stroking a koala in 1992: “Oh no, I might catch some ghastly disease.”

78 On marriage in 1997: “You can take it from me the Queen has the quality of tolerance in abundance.”

79 To schoolchildren in blood-red uniforms, 1998: “It makes you all look like Dracula’s daughters!”

80 “I don’t think a prostitute is more moral than a wife, but they are doing the same thing.” 1988.

81 To female Labour MPs in 2000: “So this is feminist corner then.”

82 On Nottingham Forest trophies in 1999: “I suppose I’d get in trouble if I were to melt them down.”

83 “It’s my custom to say something flattering to begin with so I shall be excused if I put my foot in it later on.” 1956.

84 To a penniless student in 1998: “Why don’t you go and live in a hostel to save cash?”

85 On robots colliding, Science Museum, 2000: “They’re not mating are they?”

86 While stuck in a Heriot Watt University lift in 1958: “This could only happen in a technical college.”

87 To newsreader Michael Buerk, when told he knew about the Duke of Edinburgh’s Gold Awards, 2004: “That’s more than you know about anything else then.”

88 To a British student in China, 1986: “If you stay here much longer, you’ll go home with slitty eyes.”

89 To journalist Caroline Wyatt, who asked if the Queen was enjoying a Paris trip, 2006: “Damn fool question!”

90 On smoke alarms to a woman who lost two sons in a fire, 1998: “They’re a damn nuisance - I’ve got one in my bathroom and every time I run my bath the steam sets it off.”

The perpetually burning building

Quote of the day

   

The world is not respectable: favorite quotes

An artist, a man, a failure, MUST PROCEED. Proceed: not succeed. With success, as any world or unworld comprehends it, he has essentially nothing to do. If it should come, well and good: but what makes him climb to the top of the tent emphatically isn’t ‘a billion empty faces’. Even success in his own terms cannot concern him otherwise than as a stimulus to further, and a challenge to more unimagineable, self-discovering – ‘The chairs will all fall by themselves down from the wire’; and who catches or who doesn’t catch them is none of his immortal business. One thing, however, does always concern this individual: fidelity to himself.

- e. e. cummings

The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns.

- George Santayana

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.

- Henry Miller



This is the greatest mystery of the human mind - the inductive leap. Everything falls into place, irrelevancies relate, dissonance becomes harmony, and nonsense wears a crown of meaning. But the clarifying leap springs from the rich soil of confusion, and the leaper is not unfamiliar with pain.

- John Steinbeck

So long as men praise you, you can only be sure that you are not yet on your own true path but on someone else’s.

–Friedrich Nietzsche


You wouldn’t be so concerned about what people think of you if you knew how seldom they did.

- Anon.

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

The gospel according to Woody Allen

(A big p. s. The above quote has also been attributed to George Carlin and Andy Rooney. Pick one. To be honest, my bet's on Carlin.)

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

Cheap Trick of the Day

Let us now diss famous dames. . . These quotes are, of course, borrowed. But the person who originally used them must've borrowed them too, eh? Truth is, it's Monday and I don't feel like writing anything. So I will let famous people speak for me, saying colorfully nasty things about women of note. This was a long list and I winnowed out the clinkers, noticing that the only really good ones belonged to another time and place. The art of the gorgeous insult is apparently wearing thin. Please note: in keeping with my latest obsession, we could not avoid including several choice Levant quotes. I don't think he sat around inventing these: they just spontaneously sailed out of his bizarre and fevered intellect, and straight over everyone's head. She was incredibly ugly, uglier than almost anyone I had ever met. A thin, withered creature, she sat hunched in her chair, in her heavy tweed suit and her thick lisle stockings, impregnable and indifferent. She had a huge nose, a dark mustache, and her dark-dyed hair was combed into absurd bangs over her forehead. - - - Otto Friedrich (about Alice B. Toklas)   I loathe you. You revolt me, stewing in your consumption . . . you are a loathsome reptile - I hope you die. - - - D. H. Lawrence (to Katherine Mansfield)   Zsa Zsa Gabor       She not only worships the golden calf, she barbecues it for lunch. - - - Oscar Levant (about Zsa Zsa Gabor) The only person who ever left the Iron Curtain wearing it. - - - Oscar Levant (about Zsa Zsa Gabor) You can calculate Zsa Zsa Gabor's age by the rings on her fingers. - - - Bob Hope Katherine Hepburn       She has a face that belongs to the sea and the wind, with large rocking-horse nostrils and teeth that you just know bite an apple every day. - - - Cecil Beaton (about Katherine Hepburn) She ran the whole gamut of emotions from A to B. - - - Dorothy Parker (about Katherine Hepburn) Marilyn Monroe Her body has gone to her head. - - - Barbara Stanwyck (about Marilyn Monroe) She has breasts of granite and a mind like a Gruyere cheese. - - - Billy Wilder (about Marilyn Monroe) She's a vacuum with nipples. - - - Otto Preminger (about Marilyn Monroe) Elizabeth Taylor Elizabeth Taylor looks like two small boys fighting underneath a thick blanket. - - - Mr. Blackwell Every minute this broad spends outside of bed is a waste of time. - - - Michael Todd (about Elizabeth Taylor) Other Actresses Her hair lounges on her shoulders like an anesthetized cocker spaniel. - - - Henry Allen (about Lauren Bacall, 1994)   I treasure every moment that I do not see her. - - - Oscar Levant (about Phyllis Diller)   Miscellaneous In feathered hats that were once the rage, she resembles a petrified parakeet from the Jurassic age. A royal wreck - - - Mr. Blackwell (about Camilla Parker-Bowles) (More) Literary Legends A fungus of pendulous shape. - - - Alice James (about George Eliot, pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans) George Eliot has the heart of Sappho; but the face, with the long proboscis, the protruding teeth of the Apocalyptic horse, betrayed animality. - - - George Meredith (about George Eliot, pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans) Every word she writes is a lie, including "and" and "the." - - - Mary McCarthy (about Lillian Hellman) Isn't she a poisonous thing of a woman, lying, concealing, flipping, plagiarizing, misquoting, and being as clever a crooked literary publicist as ever. - - - Dylan Thomas (about Dame Edith Sitwell) I am fairly unrepentant about her poetry. I really think that three quarters of it is gibberish. However, I must crush down these thoughts, otherwise the dove of peace will shit on me. - - - Noel Coward (about Dame Edith Sitwell) In her last days, she resembled a spoiled pear. - - - Gore Vidal (about Gertrude Stein) She was a master at making nothing happen very slowly. - - - Clifton Fadiman (about Gertrude Stein) Virginia Woolf's writing is no more than glamorous knitting. I believe she must have a pattern somewhere. - - - Dame Edith Sitwell (about Virginia Woolf) (Favorites? Am I prejudiced in favor of Oscar Levant? His jibes  shouldn't have worked because they were full of unlikely words like 'barbecue' and 'Iron Curtain', but they win the prize for originality and sheer goofiness. In second place, the "nothing very slowly" about Stein, who really seems to get it in these things. Also, did you notice the similarity in pose between Dylan Thomas and Marilyn Monroe? Each of them whoring in their own special way.)