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The Blighty blog pointed me to an excellent item in The Guardian by a John Harris; nothing at all mind-blowing (to you or me) but on-point all the same. All worth a read, but this is probably the bon mot highlight:

The world arguably needs a new Marx, but it keeps creating Malcolm Gladwells, pirouhetting around their flipcharts and ignoring the real problems.

Basically. Anywho, let’s see what else I can find among my collection of ascii scraps to piece together another quotes post.

Ah, here we go; speaking of bon mots and The Economist, here’s a recently-acquired gem: “Other factors allow Canada to be more inviting [toward immigrants]. The country has little reason to worry about illegal immigration. Like the United States, it shares a long southern border with a country suffering from high levels of crime, unemployment and income inequality. But there aren’t millions of Americans yearning to get into Canada.” -E.G.

And here’s one which makes a nice complement to Harris’ article, from nearly a hundred years ago when Teddy Roosevelt said (when a Republican ex-president could say, for that matter) “Americans have fought one war to win their independence and another to preserve the Union. Now they face a new war, between the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess.” (As quoted in Go Down Together.)

From another book I’ve reviewed here, The Beautiful Cigar Girl, we have this summation of the realities of life as a creative professional, by Edgar Poe. “I have not only labored solely for the benefit of others (receiving for myself a miserable pittance) but have been forced to model all my thoughts at the will of men whose imbecility was evident to all but themselves.” Maybe it isn’t always that bad, but sadly, it isn’t far off the mark.

Environment quote, from Kevin Drum: “Maybe the oceans will die. Sorry about that, kids, but fixing it would have cost 2% of GDP and we decided you’d rather have that than have an ocean. You can thank us later.” Nothing to add to that.

One still tries to have dreams, though. Mine is similar to the life described by author Lindsey Davis: “I sometimes hear from the people in the office where I was a [fellow peon], and they are wonderfully envious of my present life, just as I hoped bitterly that they would one day be…” Maybe not quite as bitter. (You don’t believe me of course.)

This one makes me laugh. “Newer cemeteries are often too symmetrical, like they’re being controlled by a particularly tight undead homeowners association.”

Finally, let’s not have a quote post without getting Warren Ellis in here too. Ellis on a failing computer: “My current machine, the Little Black Book, had been making wheezing sounds through much of 2010, and just before New Year it started making the clear sign that it’s praying for death to deliver it from more beatings.”

And, a good note on which to wind up, Ellis on preparing for another day: “Alive, in considerable pain, off to the pub for Red Bull, which the adverts tell me will give me wings. I’ll settle for a pulse.”

I’m mostly going to bother posting this just because hey, “our” President is in the White House at present and in all honesty, we might as well enjoy that as much as possible, particularly now with so many other government offices taken away from “us.”

And with that in mind I do want to credit Obama for delivering what seems to me like an excellent argument today, one I’d sure like to hear more often:

…when standards like these have been proposed in the past, opponents have often warned that they would be an assault on business and free enterprise. [...]

Early drug companies argued the bill creating the FDA would “practically destroy the sale” of “remedies in the United States.” That didn’t happen. Auto executives predicted that having to install seat belts would bring the downfall of their industry. It didn’t happen. The president of the American Bar Association denounced child labor laws as “a communistic effort to nationalize children.” That’s a quote.

Exactly. This applies to pretty much every progressive advance, ever, really. Medicare, right to form unions, clean air laws, votes for, well, pretty much every group to which the franchise has ever been extended. Generally, reactionaries seem to get a free pass on this… as I’ve noted and as NPR (and to be fair, many others) demonstrated again today by burying this at the end of a post in their politics-nerd blog where we can be sure it will be read by as few people as possible… but hey, it still seems worth at least trying to make this point a little bit more often.

Unless it isn’t. I mean, I like hearing this and it seems persuasive to me, but knowing me as we do, that could actually be evidence that this line of argument is absolutely futile with the “average voter.” I don’t know.

But thank you anyway, Mr. Obama. As long as you felt it necessary to reach out to the odious U.S. Chamber of Commerce (which some of America’s most popular and successful businesses like, say, a little company called Apple have actually seen fit to distance themselves from) it’s heartening that you were unwilling to check reality at the door.

I’m still not going to join the stampede to pontificate about the Tucson shooting; it hasn’t even been one week for chrissakes. Honestly, I’m tempted to just not even bother with the issue, ever. I probably will, but in the meantime, I find a post I had considered writing has basically written itself: on Monday, I considered venting my disgust at the ridiculous charade which was new Ohio Governor John Kasich’s inauguration speech, but didn’t get around to it.

Today, however, I found that (in a departure from its heretofore fawning propaganda for the man) The Plain Dealer has actually published an item critical of Johnny K; what’s more, Kasich’s own quotes in this new article pretty much perfectly rebut his own inaugural address.

Kasich on Monday: “My inauguration is your inauguration. I want everyone to understand that I hope you can realize we accept this responsibility together.”

Today: “Gov. John Kasich is on pace to be the first Ohio governor since 1962 to have an entire Cabinet without any racial diversity.“

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