old snippets 2007

Probably written down between 2000-2002, can't remember where this originally came from:

A bather whose clothing was strewed

By breezes that left her quite nude

Saw a man come along

And, unless I'm quite wrong,

You expected this line to be lewd.

John Wesley's Rule 2007

Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.

source forgotten, amusingly enough 2007

Remember me
is all I ask
and if remember be a task
forget me

My fabulous universe 2005

On Muni, a man with a button reading: First Choice for a Second Language - Esperanto!
Everyone's got a cause.

In the mailbox, a flyer from Guitar Center reading "Enter to Win... One-Way Ticket to Rock... and Back".
Um...

The dry wit of Mr. Cronkite 2004

Just before railing against the Christian right's objection to gay marriage -- "That's about as obnoxious a thing as has ever happened" -- Cronkite was asked at the Ritz to what he attributed the longevity of his own marriage to Betsy.

"I do think one of the factors was we were of different sexes." He looked delighted as the laughter billowed around the room. "That doesn't mean I wouldn't have been happy to be married to several friends I had of the same sex," he followed. "It just never came up in our particular relations."

from the San Francisco Chronicle

My grandfather would have loved that subtle humor.

Uh oh. 2004

And another good one from Larry:

Statistics show that of those who contract the habit of eating, very few survive.
--Wallace Irwin

Well, I wouldn't buy an SUV or diamonds, anyhow. 2004

To suppose as we all suppose, that we could be rich and not behave as the rich behave, is like supposing that we could drink all day and stay sober. --Logan Pearsall Smith

[quotey goodness from Uncle Larry]

Let it go 2004

There is no need to hold on to what's obsolete: One never loses what one tosses away deliberately.

- Veronique Vienne, The Art of Growing Up

The next Discardia starts March 19th, by the way.

Kai's Example Dilemma 2004

A good analogy is like a diagonal frog. - Kai Krause

[Found via a link on kottke.org to the Edge's interesting list of laws]

***

Also from that article are these by Tor Nørretranders which make me want to read more of his writing:

Nørretranders' Law of Symmetrical Relief

If you find that most other people, upon closer inspection, seem to be somewhat comical or ludicrous, it is highly probable that most other people find that you are in fact comical or ludicrous. So you don't have to hide it, they already know.

Nørretranders' Law of Understanding Novelty

The difficulty in understanding new ideas originating from science or art is not intellectual, but emotional; good ideas are simple and clear, but if they are truly new, they will be hard to swallow. It is not difficult to understand that the Earth is not at the center of the Universe, but it is hard to believe it. Science is simple, simply strange.

***

Also of amusement is Steve Grand's

Grand's Third Law

The more carefully one makes contingency plans, the more bizarre the actual
circumstances will turn out to be.

***

The Alan Alda bit is really good too.

Alda's First Law of Laws

All laws are local.

In other words, something is always bound to come along and make you rethink what you know by forcing you to look at it in a broader context. I've arrived at this notion after interviewing hundreds of scientists, and also after being married for 46 years.

I don't mean that laws are not true and useful, especially when they have been verified by experiment. But they are likely to continue to be true only within a certain frame, once another frame is discovered.

Some scientists will probably find this idea heretical and others may find it obvious. According to this law, they'll both be right (depending on the frame they're working in).

Another way of saying this is that no matter how much we know about something, it is just the tip of the iceberg. And most disasters occur by coming in contact with the other part of the iceberg.

Alda's Second Law of Laws

A law does not know how local it is.

Citizens of Lawville do not realize there are city limits and are constantly surprised to find out they live in a county.

When you're operating within the frame of a law, you can't know where the edges of the frame are—where dragons begin showing up.

***

And I like this one by Esther Dyson

Dyson's Law

Do ask; don't lie.

***

Oh, and this one from Philip W. Anderson

Anderson's Law

More is different.

Damn, this is a good article.

Acceptance of Ambiguity 2004

It is not a bad thing in a tale that you understand only half of it. --Isak Dinesen

[Thanks to Uncle Larry for the quotey goodness]

tick tock 2004

There are no beautiful clocks. Everything to do with Time is hideous.

-- Robert Aickman

Thanks to Hudak for quotey goodness.

Let's not mince words 2003

"War is a sign of failure. A putative war leader is someone who has failed. Failed at diplomacy, failed at compromise, failed to make his point, failed to persuade. Failed."

- Sir Ian McKellen circa February 2003 (cited in a nice little interview in the Independent)

On the tip of my tongue 2003

I don't remember enough of this quote to find it via Google apparently, so I'll try the more quirky power of human memory. I think it was from an interview with a comic book writer, Grant Morrison or Neil Gaiman or Alan Moore, and it was something about how it was no surprise that superheroes were always beating each other up what with those tight spandex outfits, incredible bodies and never getting any sex.

Gah.

It was funny when he said it.

The current administration, for example 2003

If people were not wicked I should not mind their being stupid; but, to our misfortune, they are both.

--George Sand

[Thanks to Uncle Larry as usual for quotey goodness]

I've got three! 2003

Uncles, and aunts, and cousins, are all very well, and fathers and mothers are not to be despised, but a grandmother, at holiday time, is worth them all.

--Fanny Fern

[Thanks to Uncle Larry for the quotey goodness]

More Memorials Like This, Please 2003

This is the field where the battle did not happen, where the unknown soldier did not die. This is the field where grass joined hands, where no monument stands, and the only heroic thing is the sky.

- William Stafford

Are you using that? 2003

He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.

- Albert Einstein

Exercising comes to mind... 2003

There are so many things that we wish we had done yesterday, so few that we feel like doing today. --Mignon McLaughlin

[thanks to Uncle Larry for quotey goodness]

Well, That Explains The Blog... 2003

Once the disease of reading has laid hold upon the system it weakens it so that it falls an easy prey to that other scourge which dwells in the ink pot and festers in the quill. The wretch takes to writing. --Virginia Woolf

[thanks to Uncle Larry for the quotey goodness]

Enough, George. 2003

Bleed, bleed, poor country!
Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure
For goodness dare not check thee.
I think our country sinks beneath the yoke.
It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash
Is added to her wounds.

Macbeth Act IV Scene III

Plebdazzle 2003

Just came across this term in this week's dose of snarky news from the U.K. (hey! it's Need To Know - that means it's Friday again!) and since a Google search only yielded 4 hits, I guess it's just the latest thing the kids are saying these days.

So, anyone got a good definition of "plebdazzle" for me? Is it exclusively useful for bad television shows or has it other applications?

So, what action will you choose? 2002

The practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is to a more violent world.
--Hannah Arendt

[another fine quote from Larry]

A Tad Close To The Bone 2002

We might as well give up the fiction
That we can argue any view.
For what in me is pure Conviction
Is simply Prejudice in you.
--Phyllis McGinley

[YAQFUL, yet another quote from Uncle Larry]

Not entirely true for me, but a great quote. 2002

I have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it.
-- Groucho Marx

[thanks to Mum for that one]

If you're not part of the solution... 2002

In high school, when I first heard of entropy, I was attracted to it immediately. They said that in nature all systems are breaking down, and I thought, What a wonderful thing; perhaps I can make some small contribution to this process, myself.
--George Carlin

[again from Uncle Larry, quote king]

Huh? 2002

I don't grasp things this early in the day. I mean, I hear voices, all right, but I can't pick out the verbs.
--Jean Kerr

[thanks, Larry!]

A Perfectly Reasonable Approach 2002

The Onion: Did you ever have any kind of formal acting training?

William Shatner: Not really. I just did it until everybody stopped objecting.

A Situation I Choose To Avoid 2002

"Having a baby is like suddenly getting the world's worst roommate, like having Janis Joplin with a bad hangover and PMS come to stay with you."
--Anne Lamott

[thanks again, Larry!]

Mea culpa 2002

Yet another good quote from Uncle Larry's email signatures:

"There are only three types of drivers: the too fast, the timid, and oneself." --Virginia Graham

Beware of the monkeys. 2002

In response to this person's bad dream, the feller I'm particularly keen on said:

"Perl is The Official Crack Monkey Language of the Internet."

But they're such happy little monkeys...

The hard part is getting beyond lip service 2002

It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it.

--Eleanor Roosevelt

Words to live by... 2002

When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.

--Ursula K. Le Guin

I really ought to read some of Tolstoy's works... 2002

We must repudiate one of the two, either Christianity with its love of God and one's neighbor, or the state with its armies and wars.
--Leo Tolstoy (1909)

Well. It'd be a start, anyhow.

Sad, but true. 2002

In order to obtain and hold power a man must love it. Thus the effort to get it is not likely to be coupled with goodness, but with the opposite qualities of pride, craft and cruelty.
--Leo Tolstoy

Insert foot... 2002

If a man is a fool, the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking.
--Woodrow Wilson

I'm with Newdow. 2002

It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot we must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.
--Voltaire

Not only that, but apparently now many folks think you also must believe in God to believe in your country. I believe profoundly in freedom of belief, in the principle of the separation of church and state. The conservative trend in this country is frightening.

You do not have to believe in God. It doesn't mean you don't believe in good.

You do not have to abandon logic if you do believe in God. Many Christians I know think evolution isn't too tricky a notion for their God to have thought up.

You do not have to recite the pledge, any pledge. Think for yourself. Express your beliefs. Keep your mind open.

Enforced patriotism isn't true patriotism. Mandatory homage isn't real tribute.

Close to the bone 2002

"Dick Cheney's Primer on the Constitution:

So what's it called if during war you criticize the President for any reason?

Treason.

And how long does this war go on (and this is where this theory's really pretty clever)?

Forever."

- Calvin Trillin

Scared by that? It's nothing compared to the threat of war between two nuclear powers. We must all prevent war. Now. Before it's too late.

The only way to live humanly - still - is in resistance to war. The prevention of war, in the nuclear age, must be a central purpose of every person's life. Scientists, physicians, lawyers, bishops, mothers, students, writers - where are you? We must remember what we learned already, but forgot; what the leaders of India and Pakistan are showing us again: If we human beings leave this problem to governments, we are doomed.

[Another great quote and a call to action courtesy of Larry]

This couldn't possibly apply to me ever, heavens no. 2002

Pedantry crams our heads with learned lumber, and takes out our brains to make room for it.
--Charles Caleb Colton

[Thanks to Larry for this & the prior quote.]

Indefinable 2002

"A picture is an intermediate something between a thought and a thing."

--Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Seems like you could say the same thing of software.

Minimum standards 2001

"We're in trouble when even cross-dressers lack snap, friends."
- the shocking state of the world in The Bleat

Pretty Boy 1999

Peter looked absolutely divine last night: pearly fingernails matching the pearly buttons on his cowboy shirt. He is the GSSM's GSSM*.

And he said

Wow, I'm having a really cool post-apocalyptic vision of Hobee's!

*GSSM=gay-seeming straight man