Quotation of the day for January 31, 2010

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Quotation of the Day for January 31, 2010 friends I have a problem that I'd like to address and it may be peculiarly mine in these days of unemployment I am forced to confess yours truly's working overtime my phone is ringing madly they all want me oh so badly there's only one hitch I can see oh no! it's a benefit, not another benefit and when are they gonna benefit me I've played for day care, pro-choice, Greenpeace, world peace labour causes, unfair laws and Latin American solidarity I've stopped Spadina, failed to stop the Cruise, I've saved the whales and wolves, I've tried to save the NDP now ain't it kinda funny how we're always raising money for the things in life that ought to be free oh no! it's a benefit, not another benefit and when are they gonna benefit me - Marie-Lynn Hammond, from her song Not Another Benefit. [http://www.marielynnhammond.com/mlh_641.htm] Submitted by: Terry Labach Jan. 25, 2010

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Quotation of the day for January 30, 2010

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Quotation of the Day for January 30, 2010 "I've been blowing the heads off snowmen after a hearty breakfast of pheasant, moose, eggs and Crown Royal and this, I guess is what happens. Frosty's Revenge as it were. But I've got no regrets about all the maiming and decapitating. I'm pretty sure they would have killed me if they could." - Anthony Bourdain, chef, in "The Snowman's Revenge", from "Tony's Travel Journal". [http://anthony-bourdain-blog.travelchannel.com/read/the-snowmans-revenge] Submitted by: xman Jan. 28, 2010

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Quotation of the day for January 29, 2010

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Quotation of the Day for January 29, 2010 "In reflecting on the object of the construction of the pyramids, the gigantic pride which gave them birth appears more enormous even than their actual dimensions; and one hardly knows which is the most astonishing, the madness of tyrannical oppression, which dared to order the undertaking, or the stupid servility of obedience in the people who submitted to the labour." - Vivant Denon, in Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt, on seeing the pyramids while accompanying Napoleon's Egyptian campaign. [For "pyramids", we are tempted to read "Olympic Games" -eds.] Submitted by: Mike Krawchuk Jan. 20, 2010

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Quotation of the day for January 28, 2010

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Quotation of the Day for January 28, 2010 "Hosting 'The Tonight Show' has been the fulfillment of a lifelong dream for me and I just want to say to the kids out there watching: you can do anything you want in life, unless Jay Leno wants to do it, too." - Conan O'Brien, talk show host, Jan. 13 2010. Submitted by: D. Joseph Creighton Jan. 14, 2010

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Quotation of the day for January 27, 2010

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Quotation of the Day for January 27, 2010 "What passes for woman's intuition is often nothing more than man's transparency." - George Nathan, critic and editor. Submitted by: Terry Labach Jan. 20, 2010

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Quotation of the day for January 26, 2010

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Quotation of the Day for January 26, 2010 "It's an obvious reflection and end point of a culture that is not particularly complicated, that rarely looks at things with a long-term perspective or tries to get to the root of an issue, that is very much infantile.... "And what is more infantile than the blogosphere and chat rooms and YouTube?" - Hal Niedzviecki, author and cultural critic. [http://thepeepdiaries.com/home/] Submitted by: Terry Labach Jan. 25, 2010

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Quotation of the day for January 25, 2010

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Quotation of the Day for January 25, 2010 "Hot on the heels of the story in Publisher's Weekly that "publishers could be losing out on as much $3 billion to online book piracy" comes a sudden realization of a much larger threat to the viability of the book industry. Apparently, over 2 billion books were "loaned" last year by a cabal of organizations found in nearly every American city and town. Using the same advanced projective mathematics used in the study cited by Publishers Weekly, Go To Hellman has computed that publishers could be losing sales opportunities totaling over $100 Billion per year, losses which extend back to at least the year 2000. These lost sales dwarf the online piracy reported yesterday, and indeed, even the global book publishing business itself. "From what we've been able to piece together, the book "lending" takes place in "libraries". On entering one of these dens, patrons may view a dazzling array of books, periodicals, even CDs and DVDs, all available to anyone willing to disclose valuable personal information in exchange for a "card". But there is an ominous silence pervading these ersatz sanctuaries, enforced by the stern demeanor of staff and the glares of other patrons. Although there's no admission charge and it doesn't cost anything to borrow a book, there's always the threat of an onerous overdue bill for the hapless borrower who forgets to continue the cycle of not paying for copyrighted material." - Eric Hellman, offering a tongue-in-cheek comparison of online versus offline copyright piracy. [http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/2010/01/offline-book-lending-costs-us.html] Submitted by: Terry Labach Jan. 20, 2010

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Quotation of the day for January 24, 2010

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Quotation of the Day for January 24, 2010 "I am an enjoyer. I have enjoyed being a senator; I've enjoyed my children and my close friends; I've enjoyed books and music and well-prepared food, especially with a generous helping of cream sauce on the top. I have enjoyed the company of women. I have enjoyed a stiff drink or two or three, and I've relished the smooth taste of a good wine. At times, I've enjoyed these pleasures too much." - Edward M. Kennedy (1932-2009), U.S. Senator, from his memoir True Compass. [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121579176] Submitted by: Terry Labach Jan. 20, 2010

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Quotation of the day for January 23, 2010

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Quotation of the Day for January 23, 2010 "As soon as you walk into Shea, you don't know what you're inside of. You feel like you've been forgotten about, or perhaps eaten. Staircases, ramps, and escalators come out of nowhere and you can't see what they're attached to. There are no focal points or spaces, just lit ads and posters that someone seems to have put up a long time ago. "Sure the seats and rows are cramped, but I like them. You feel as if you're in the middle of other people's lives. You hear their conversations and nothing prevents you from joining them. You are along on the dates with the girls snuggling against the guys for warmth. The nut has to be lived with. The guy next to you on the edge of his seat can't sit still and therefore you can't either. At Shea you are attached to the crowd, physically and emotionally, and when people stand up and scream, you are pulled up with them because you can't pull away from them. "In the new stadium, I will probably like being closer to the action on the field. But I'm not really convinced that smaller is good. Try getting tickets for a game at Fenway. I like how big Shea is. I like it when it has 55,000 people in it. I like how noisy it can get. I like its awkward incoherent immensity, which never feels oppressive because so many things at Shea are so silly, like Mr. Met and the apple in the hat and the t-shirt launches and Lou Monte singing Lazy Mary at the seventh-inning stretch. Shea has a personality. It is big and goofy and unsophisticated. It inspires the stadium characters who come and go over the years, who make themselves famous by holding up signs or beating cow-bells. It inspires vendors and ushers to be characters. It inspires sentimentality and manic energy. It is very New Yorky in an old-fashioned way. The smaller, stylish stadium might preserve some of what Shea has. But I'll bet it won't be the same." - Dana Brand, author of The Last Days of Shea, a history of the final two seasons of the New York Mets baseball team in Shea Stadium. Submitted by: Terry Labach Jan. 20, 2010

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Quotation of the day for January 22, 2010

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Quotation of the Day for January 22, 2010 "All those canes, braces and crutches, and not a single glass eye, wooden leg, or toupee!" - Anatole France, attributed as saying this after seeing the objects cast off by visitors to Lourdes who claimed to have been healed of their infirmities. Submitted by: Mike McGuffin Jan. 15, 2010

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Quotation of the day for January 21, 2010

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Quotation of the Day for January 21, 2010 "Defenders of the short-sighted men who in their greed and selfishness will, if permitted, rob our country of half its charm by their reckless extermination of all useful and beautiful wild things sometimes seek to champion them by saying the 'the game belongs to the people.' So it does; and not merely to the people now alive, but to the unborn people. The 'greatest good for the greatest number' applies to the number within the womb of time, compared to which those now alive form but an insignificant fraction. Our duty to the whole, including the unborn generations, bids us restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations. The movement for the conservation of wild life and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method." - Theodore Roosevelt, in A Book-Lover's Holidays in the Open, 1916. Submitted by: Terry Labach Jan. 12, 2010

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Quotation of the day for January 20, 2010

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Quotation of the Day for January 20, 2010 Science wears a new suit To his coffee, toast and eggs But he has to skip the stairs now Because of two broken legs Whine, whine "I cannot climb" Every time's the same I'd be more inclined to help him If he could remember my name - Sarah Slean, from her song Lucky Me, recorded on her album Day One. Submitted by: Mike Krawchuk Jan. 19, 2010

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Quotation of the day for January 19, 2010

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Quotation of the Day for January 19, 2010 "Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children. Life is the other way around." - David Lodge, in The British Museum is Falling Down. Submitted by: Mike Krawchuk Jan. 13, 2010

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Quotation of the day for January 18, 2010

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Quotation of the Day for January 18, 2010 "Everyone wants to know what my plans are. All I can say is I plan to keep putting on a great show night after night while stealing as many office supplies as humanly possible. I'm going to rob this place blind." - Conan O'Brien, host of The Tonight Show, in his January 11, 2010 monologue. O'Brien is being pressured by his employers to shift his program to air after midnight. Submitted by: Terry Labach Jan. 13, 2010

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Quotation of the day for January 17, 2010

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Quotation of the Day for January 17, 2010 Computer games began, for me, in 1982. Which was precisely the right moment. I was seven, we'd had a Sinclair Spectrum for a month or two and into my life came The Hobbit text adventure game. My dad brought it home. "Look!" he said, "it comes with a copy of the book!" The game was hard: sometimes fun, sometimes frustrating. Commands had to be typed in using painfully simple English. Go west. Look. Examine Gandalf. We were simultaneously amazed by what the programme understood - and astounded by what it didn't. Question Gandalf. No. Threaten Gandalf. No. Angrily demand answers from Gandalf. No. In desperation, my dad typed: "Cut off Gandalf's ear." The game understood that. We were very impressed. We had discovered computer-game violence. Gandalf killed us. - Naomi Alderman, The Guardian, 7 January 2010. [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2010/jan/06/game-theory-player-naomi-alderman] Submitted by: Jean Rogers Jan. 14, 2010

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Quotation of the day for January 16, 2010

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Quotation of the Day for January 16, 2010 Do you think that the ink-on-paper book will eventually go away? I do. I don't know how long it will take. You know, we love stories and we love narrative; we love to get lost in an author's world. That's not going to go away; that's going to thrive. But the physical book really has had a 500-year run. It's probably the most successful technology ever. It's hard to come up with things that have had a longer run. If Gutenberg were alive today, he would recognize the physical book and know how to operate it immediately. Given how much change there has been everywhere else, what's remarkable is how stable the book has been for so long. But no technology, not even one as elegant as the book, lasts forever. Do you still read books on paper? Not if I can help it. - Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO, in a Newsweek interview. [http://www.newsweek.com/id/227751] Submitted by: Reddy, Michael Jan. 14, 2010

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Quotation of the day for January 15, 2010

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Quotation of the Day for January 15, 2010 "But it still isn't self-sustaining. You need a graduate or post-doc to come in the morning and feed it." - Steven Benner, biologist at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, on an artificial genetic system created at his institute. [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090323122437.htm] Submitted by: Terry Labach Jan. 12, 2010

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Quotation of the day for January 14, 2010

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Quotation of the Day for January 14, 2010 "The quintessential Palestinian experience, which illustrates some of the most basic issues raised by Palestinian identity, takes place at a border, an airport, a checkpoint: in short, at any one of those many modern barriers where identities are checked and verified." - Rashid Khalidi, historian. Submitted by: Mike Krawchuk Jan. 12, 2010

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Quotation of the day for January 13, 2010

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Quotation of the Day for January 13, 2010 "But the main idea is the first one: hanging on, staying alive. Canadians are forever taking the national pulse like doctors at a sickbed: the aim is not to see whether the patient will live well but simply whether he will live at all. Our central idea is one which generates, not the excitement and sense of adventure or danger which The Frontier holds out, not the smugness and/or sense of security, of everything in its place, which The Island can offer, but an almost intolerable anxiety. Our stories are likely to be tales not of those who made it but of those who made it back, from the awful experience -- the North, the snowstorm, the sinking ship -- that killed everyone else. The survivor has no triumph or victory but the fact of his survival; he has little after his ordeal that he did not have before, except gratitude for having escaped with his life." - Margaret Atwood, writer, in her book Survival, comparing the dominant symbols of the literatures of the United States (The Frontier), England (The Island), and Canada (Survival). Submitted by: Terry Labach Jan. 12, 2010

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Quotation of the day for January 12, 2010

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Quotation of the Day for January 12, 2010 "Art is not purity: it is purification. Art is not liberty: it is liberation." - Clarice Inspector Submitted by: Mike Krawchuk Jan. 11, 2010

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Quotation of the day for January 11, 2010

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Quotation of the Day for January 11, 2010 "The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, and all the sweet serenity of books." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Submitted by: Mike Krawchuk Jan. 8, 2010

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Quotation of the day for January 10, 2010

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Quotation of the Day for January 10, 2010 "My forebears have bequeathed to me the basic structure of my own particular pattern, both in my cells and in the underwater areas of my imagination. . . so the family portraits mean a great deal to me - as beacons to guide me." - Madeleine L'Engle Submitted by: Mike Krawchuk Jan. 8, 2010

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Quotation of the day for January 9, 2010

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Quotation of the Day for January 9, 2010 "The problem with Hitler was not his industrial policy--I mean, okay, fine, Hitler's industrial policy bad, right, but I could forgive him for that, you know? The thing that really bothers me about Hitler was the genocide. And I'm about as sure as I can be that Obama has no plans to round up millions of people, put them in camps, and find various creative ways to torture them to death. "If he does, look, I take it all back. Use the F-word freely. Hell, I'll hide you in our spare bedroom when the state police squads come looking for you. But until then, can we stick to less inflammatory terms? Surely creative and intelligent adults can find ways to critique Obama without pointing out that Hitler was also a very effective speaker." - Megan McArdle, on current usage of the word "fascism", in "Just say no to F-Bombs". [http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/03/just_say_no_to_f-bombs.php] Submitted by: Chris Doherty Apr. 2, 2009

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Quotation of the day for January 8, 2010

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Quotation of the Day for January 8, 2010 "Naive you are if you believe life favours those who aren't naive." - Piet Hein Submitted by: Duffy O'Craven Jan. 7, 2010

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Quotation of the day for January 7, 2010

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Quotation of the Day for January 7, 2010 "Ethnic or religious profiling is politically incorrect, of course, but so is (one hopes) blowing up airplanes." - George Jonas, in The National Post, Dec.30, 2009. Submitted by: Z.D. Hora Jan. 2, 2010

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