rants and ramblings of utter randomness

By way of newleaf31:

"Obama is not a brown-skinned anti-war socialist who gives away free healthcare. You’re thinking of Jesus.”— John Fugelsang

I dunno who Mr. Fugelsang is (and I should really look this up), but yay for him!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going for a walk, because it is sunny and warm and SPRING outside.

RIP Howard Zinn.

I had the honour and privilege of hearing him speak in person a few years ago. What an amazing guy. The person who will carry on his legacy (and I hope to the four winds there is someone) is gonna be stepping into some really big shoes. He is truly one of my heroes, and has been since I can remember.

Some things he's said:

“Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people,
can transform the world.”


"Historically, the most terrible things - war, genocide, and slavery - have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience."

"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."


"If you don't know history, it is as if you were born yesterday."


"We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world."

"Nations are not communities and never have been. The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals the fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex. And in such as world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners."

Farewell, Teacher.

Way cool quote meme, by way of aukestrel:

Go here and find ten quotes, or just think of ten quotes from memory or somewhere else. Then post them, easy as pie.

I sort of collect quotes, so narrowing them down to ten isn't easy. This list by no means represents all of my favourites.

• The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.
  
  --Thomas Paine
  
  So much for If You're Not With Me You're With the Terrorists. Oh, Thomas Paine, how I do love you.
  
  
• Only enemies speak the truth; friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty.
  
  --Roland Deschain, from The Gunslinger by Stephen King
  
  Roland, you keep speaking truth whether I want to hear it or not. Thankee-sai.
  
  
• When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical may be madness. To surrender dreams, this may be madness. To seek treasures where there is only trash...Too much sanity may be madness, and maddest of all is to see life as it is and not as it should be.
  
  --Miguel De Cervantes, Don Quixote de la Mancha
  
  This book keeps showing up in my life, so I think the universe wants me to read it.
  
  
  
• We look like a geography, but just scratch us and we bleed history.
  
  --Miriam Waddington, on Canada
  
  Definitely one of my top five or so quotes, so ( I will carry on about it. )
  
  
  Canadians on my flist, you may now mock me.
  
  
  
  
• We have a secret in our culture...
  and it's not that birth is painful. It's that women are strong.
  
  --Laura Stavoe Harm
  
  ( small rant thisaway )
  
  
  
• ( The Paradoxical Commandments )
  
  
  Reportedly this quote hung on the wall of Mother Theresa's orphanage, and is often attributed to her. In my own version of Fraser!canon, it's on his wall, too. :D
  
  
• After the last tree has been cut down,
  After the last river has been poisoned,
  After the last fish has been caught
  Only then will you find
  That money cannot be eaten.
  --Cree Prophecy
  
  The prophecy is coming true with abandon, all over the world. We should have listened to the Cree.
  
  
• When one comes to think of it, there are no such things as divine, immutable, or inalienable rights. Rights are things we get when we are strong enough to make good our claim on them."
  --Helen Keller
  
  Helen is my hero. I've loved her from a very young age; two of the first books I remember reading were The Story of Helen Keller and Helen Keller's Teacher. I completely obsessed on her when I was little. And that's before I realized that a whole hunk of her life story had been kept from me by the media. Helen was a suffragist and an ardent socialist who actively protested US involvement in World War I, fought for women's rights, and basically spent her whole life in service to other people. She was also very much a woman, and her sexuality and romantic life is also handwaved. It pisses me off that TPTB chose (and still do to a point) to censor such a rich part of her story from the world.
  
  
  
• Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.
  --Oscar Wilde.
  
  Despite my Oscar Wilde love, I didn't know about this quote until I heard Tom McLaughlin say it. Oscar had a flair for hiding truth in a humorous epigram, getting people to listen by stealth means.
  
  
  
• And I believe in the future we shall suffer no more
  Maybe not in my lifetime but in yours I feel sure
  --Paul Simon, "The Cool, Cool River"
  
  I could have done an all-Paul Simon quote list and not even touch the hundreds of favourite lyric quotes. I especially love this one because it's so optimisitic. I should sing it to Amelia. :)

Copied from patchfire's LJ:


"Through the act of controlling birth, we disassociate ourselves with its raw power. Disassociation makes it easier to identify with our 'civilized' nature, deny our 'savage' roots and connection with indigenous cultures. Birth simultaneously encompasses the three events that civilized societies fear - birth, death, and sexuality."

- Holly Richards, "Cultural Messages of Childbirth: The Perpetration of Fear."



Also, I feel a long fileshare post coming on. Probably tonight. This could be good or bad, and all.

Also#2, can anyone get me the lyrics to the Headstones' "Nickels for Your Nightmares"? That would be the song itself, not the entire album, natch. Um.

I don't need the song file; I have it already. For some weird reason I can't find the lyrics anywhere on Google, which means either Google sucks or I do. I'm going with teh Google. Either that or it's some weird conspiracy between the interwebz and a shadow government of some terror state, the focus of which is entirely dedicated to make sure I never learn the words to this one particular song, because it might end up being like that "Louie Louie, ohhh, ohhh, we gotta go, yeahyeahyeahyeahyeahyeah" debacle, and OMG THAT WOULD BE TERRIBLE. [/blithery randomness]