For a 9000th post, some thoughts on politics and other matters.

[saltpoint]

“The gross national product is rising above $800 billion a year but that figure does not measure the health of our youth, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not measure the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.” (Robert Kennedy, 1968)

“I’m surprised a bank teller doesn’t eat a check.” (Salvador Dali)

“The nation that controls magnetism controls the universe.” (Dick Tracy)

“I doubt if there is anything in the world uglier than a midwestern city.”
(Frank Lloyd Wright, address in Evanston, Illinois, 1954)

“Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?” (Ronald Reagan)

“What are our schools for if not indoctrination against Communism?” (Richard M. Nixon)

“Is democracy so frail that conformity is needed to strengthen it? Is it so frail that criticism can undermine it?” (Tom Wicker)

“Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people... it is true that most stupid people are conservatives.” (John Stuart Mill)

“Nixon, at least, was blessed with a mixture of arrogance and stupidity that caused him to blow the boilers almost immediately after taking command. By bringing in hundreds of thugs, fixers and fascists to run the government, he was able to crank almost every problem he touched into a mindbending crisis.” (Hunter S. Thompson)

“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. It’s easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.”
(Hermann Goring, Nazi High Command at Nuremburg)

“What a waste it is to lose one’s mind, or not to have a mind as being truly wasteful. How true that is.” (Vice President Dan Quayle, 1990, mangling the slogan of the United Negro College Fund)

“Never kick a fresh turd on a hot day.” (Harry S. Truman)

“No one can blame the policeman. He is the way he is because Americans have never understood the Bill of Rights.” (Gore Vidal)

“Richard Nixon is a no-good lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he’d lie just to keep his hand in.”
(Harry S. Truman)

“According to Orrin Hatch, it’s ok to destroy a frozen embryo because the embryo is only a person if it’s in a woman. This location theory of personhood is obviously unsatisfactory: You put the cells in the woman, it’s a person, you take them out, it’s not a person, you put them back in, voila!--it’s a person again. You might as well say Orrin Hatch is a person in his office but not in his car. If, as anti-choicers like to claim, what makes personhood is a full set of chromosomes--rather than, say, possession of a gender, a body, a head, a brain--then a clump of cells in an ice cube tray is at least as much a person as Trent Lott. Maybe more.”
(Katha Pollitt, in The Nation, August 20/27, 2001)

“Each of us is all the sums he has not counted; subtract us into nakedness and night again, and you shall see begin in Crete four thousand years ago the love that ended yesterday in Texas. The seed of our destruction will blossom in the desert, the alexin of our cure grows by a mountain rock, and our lives are haunted by a Georgian slattern, because a London cutpurse went unhung. Each moment is the fruit of forty thousand years. The minute-winning days, like flies, buzz home to death, and every moment is a window on all time.”
(Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward Angel)

--and last,

-- a paraphrased exchange between a male reporter and Gloria Steinem, c. 1975:

Male Reporter: "With all your strongly-held feminine views, is it true you're a lesbian?"
Steinem: "I am if you're the alternative."

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Thanks to all on DU from Admins to rank & file. This is a great place. Now let's flip the House and Senate blue in November.

[swag]

1. Nice commemorative compendium.

Congratulations.

Many more, please.

[saltpoint]

7. Hi to you, swag, and kind thanks for the kind words.

I'll try to pop in to DU from time to time. I've been around lately but travels beckon and I'm not sure when next we'll meet. Sure appreciate your posts on these boards and I hope you are doing well.

All good wishes.

[babylonsister]

2. My friend, Old Crusoe, , deserves a kick!

Rank and file here, but I 'get ya'. !

[saltpoint]

8. I'm rank & file from the cradle to right now, and I'm a blue-votin'

son-of-a-gun as well.

Nice to see you here in the wee hours of a Wednesday, babylonsister. You rock and you rock totally.

We'll meet again.

[JeffR]

3. Well done

Congratulations!

:patriot:

[saltpoint]

9. JeffR, I like it that you bring Joni with you on your posts. Which means

BOTH of you keep excellent company.

Thanks, and I'll look forward to your thoughts on DU as the November blue wave begins to roll in.

[JeffR]

13. As I look forward to yours

:toast:

[MuseRider]

4. Congrats on 9000!

Great list. Some I had not heard before. Bookmarking this one for the gems. Thanks.

[saltpoint]

10. Ah, MuseRider. Thank you. I find myself thinking a bit about your

comments the other night during the storm, and your impulse to go out and check on those horses.

I kept trying as hard as I could to imagine what they thought when they saw you drive up.

I bet they were damned glad to see you. I don't think I blame 'em, either.

Good steps to you.

[MuseRider]

18. LOL actually

they ignored me! They are used to me being a bit over protective. "Oh yes, here she comes, right on schedule. Everybody pretend you don't see her and she will feel bad and leave us an extra flake of hay." But just once you be late for their breakfast or dinner. They will all be standing in a line at the fence tapping their little hooves and looking at their little pastern watches :eyes:

LOL, horses are very interesting animals. Real cards sometimes, love them to death.

[saltpoint]

19. Well damn it all! And here I had the whole cinematic layout, too!

I HATE it when that happens! :)

[MuseRider]

21. NEVER trust a horse.

They will blow your expectations every time while they slyly smile and bat their eyes! Gotta love that.

[saltpoint]

22. You speak a deep truth with a clear voice. A friend raises Arabians

in Tennessee. Skittish and edgy-nerved creatures they are, but my god so beautiful, too.

"They're insane, you know," my friend told me early on. "Horses."

[MuseRider]

25. They are so beautiful

but too skittish for me although I have met some very nice, calm Arabians. Boy you can't beat that face can you? Graceful creatures. Fairy creatures. I always wanted an Arabian and a Morgan, another beautiful faced creature.

Mine are Quarter Horses, sturdy cowboy stock and foundation solid. Bred for cattle cutting, fast as they come, like riding a rocket. Many is the time that you could see daylight between me and the saddle!

I have one of the smartest horses I have ever known. Funny and bullheaded but smart, you can see the ideas as they hatch. He is a constant source of need for repairs because he is just too smart and busy. If I had the time I am certain I could teach that one to do about anything. He smiles, kisses, answers questions and dances when I sing the Scarecrow song from the Wizard of Oz. :shrug:

Your friend is right but I would temper that with kind. I have never been hurt by one purposefully. I love this time of year when it is cool and windy. They are easily excited into a great pasture run and they always run right past me rather than over me. The smart one always manages to rip the hat right off my head as he speeds by and had never so much as removed a hair when doing it.

[saltpoint]

26. What an envious life you have with those horses. Yours does sound

smart. (Certainly smarter than the average Republican!) "Kind" is true also. And the faces are as you say they are. Out of legend.

And who knew horses like musicals? Well, he probably likes the affection in your singing. Animals ae awfully good at picking that up. Plus, you probably sing a mean version of that song.

You and those beautiful, fast quadropeds hang in there.

[MuseRider]

27. Been nice chatting

about horses, you are right that they are smarter than the average Republican!

Mine are all named musical names (except the ones that came to me with names already) so they each have a special song so yes, they do like musicals! That and the AAR they get in the barn 24/7.

[Swamp Rat]

5. "I am if you're the alternative."

Luv it! :D

Congrats Old Crusoe! :applause:

[omega minimo]

6. Oh holy fukkin shit

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :cry:

you have outdone yersel again, mon cher :hug:

[Swamp Rat]

12. merci beaucoup, mon cher

:hug:

Actually, it's not quite finished. I want a different font in the talk bubble. I suppose I'll get to it sooner or later... :)

I made another draft version for Easter too: :D

[saltpoint]

11. I wholly agree with omega minimo, Swamp Rat. Those two pictures

out-do a lot of things on any political blog there is. We have to laugh and be cynical (the Washington-saying 'Moran' pic) or we'd blow our brains out under this administration. And the second pic reminds us that the cost of bad presidencies is always in human terms before it is gauged any other way.

This president has forgotten that, or never learned it to begin with. You've known it always, is my guess.

Hang in there. We'll cross paths again on DU.

[Swamp Rat]

14. thank you

:hi:

Here's my gallery, in case you're interested:

http://news.globalfreepress.com/gallery/index.php?cat=10002

[saltpoint]

15. Thanks for the link. I'll explore.

[MuseRider]

20. I never knew

you had that gallery! A treasure to be sure. Just now bookmarked it. Amazing stuff my super talented friend. You amaze me.

[omega minimo]

16. Speaking of.........

"We have to laugh and be cynical (the Washington-saying 'Moran' pic) or we'd blow our brains out under this administration."



Congrats, Old Crusoe. Thanks for the aspartame-free food-for-thought. :toast:

[saltpoint]

17. Hi right back, and I'll buy the second round for a long toast to your

consistently insightful and beautifully written posts on these boards, omega minimo.

The privilege of a large number of people on DU is not the range and variance of approaches and expressions, but the opportunity to learn from others, especially keen others, who make anyone reading these threads a more informed voter and a less-alone progressive.

You fill the bill.

Many thanks & good steps to you.

:toast:

[omega minimo]

23. oh my

much obliged OC. Now you've gone and encouraged me (in the nick of TIME!) to think there IS a point to all this:

"reading these threads a more informed voter and a less-alone progressive."

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:


We're informed........
we vote.............
now if we could just get rid of the one-armed vote bandits!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :bounce: :grouphug:

[saltpoint]

24. Yes. If only. Another thread tonight on DU suggested a Boston Tea Party

style event with the Diebold machines. We could just toss those babies into the drink.

And down they go to the murky bottom, glurk, glurk, glurk, thunk.

Although my personal choice -- a selfish imposition I readily confess -- would involve a rather deep crevice and several earth-moving machines. "Vote Republican? In you go."

And there again, I concede that there would be legal impediments to burying Bush supporters alive in a great trench.

But the idea stays with me...

[omega minimo]

36. Some more quotes for you

“Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.”

"The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be... The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

[saltpoint]

37. Thank you for the quotations from Dr. King. I worked for a brief

period for a close friend of his daughter, Yolanda in New York City. It would be difficult to find a more inspired group of friends more attuned to the spirit of this country -- including the steps to meaningful reform still left to be done.

'Appreciate the quotations, omega minimo. I defend creativity at all ends of its spectrum, but am drawn to the Kings, the Dalis, the daVincis, the Gabriel Marquezes, and even, in his Socialist role, Jesus of Galilee. He must have had something temporal and potent on the ball or the no-balls authorities wouldn't have had him killed. That's always an important gauge: how much are "the authorities opposed?" Lenny Bruce. Harvey Milk. Nina Simone. And the Chinese man who stood in front of the government tanks in Tiannamen Square.

Thank you again... look forward to reading your posts on these boards.

[omega minimo]

38. Balls or no, the radical, temporal, potent message is always the same

Altruism

[saltpoint]

39. Yes.

[troubleinwinter]

28. "If you've seen one tree, you've seen them all."~ Calif. Gov. R. Reagan

Unfortunately, I recall when he said it. It was somewhat later that he shut down our mental facilities and turned people out into the streets.

[saltpoint]

30. Not a great moment for environmentalism, and not so good for

the country overall either.

The dark, twisted, brain-numbing days of the Reagan White House.

Yuck!

Thanks, troubleinwinter. The tree quotation is a standout.

[LibertyorDeath]

29. Cheers on 9k .!

Congrats ! :bounce::toast::bounce:

Some really great quotes there,

One of my favorites is not a quote but an epitaph
Woody Allen's epitaph... goes something like this

"I knew sooner or later something like this was bound to happen" :)

[saltpoint]

31. Thanks, LibertyorDeath. Woody Allen is such a fine writer. I think

the films are good, too, but his early writings are funny.

Great image of Dubya and the corporate logos plastered all over his clown self.

And just about perfect pitch politically, to, sad to say. We need to get this bunch out of office.

All good wishes to you.

[LibertyorDeath]

33. Burning the midnight oil I see

Yes these 2 are pee your pants laughing good!





"More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly."
Woody Allen

Cheers

[EFerrari]

32. "I am if you're the alternative."

:rofl:

What a great collection.

:toast: to you.

[saltpoint]

34. Hey there. Thank you. And I'm glad you liked these quotations.

Keep posting on DU so I can keep running into you here.

:hi:

[bigwillq]

35. Congrats on 9000!

:toast: