Quote of the Day - Lazarus vs. Trump

"Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name MOTHER OF EXILES. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. 'Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!' cries she With silent lips. 'Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!'"

~Sephardic Jewish-American Emma Lazarus' "The New Colossus" written in 1883

"Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?" 

~ German-American Donald J. Trump stated in 2018

Quote of the Day - Dixon PD

I spotted this on Twitter the other day and had to chuckle:

"If anyone has the #MayweatherMcGregor fight on at their home and also has a warrant, let us know.

We're super chill.#TweetAlong pic.twitter.com/kBOFBvz8od "

— Dixon Police (@DixonPolice) August 27, 2017

Quote of the Day - Emerson

Periodically my mother quotes this great Emerson line sans the "Thou must bleed for me" part. It is great but each time I intend to look it up and find the author and share it here I can't remember enough of it accurately enough to find it, even with the help of the Google monster. Today, she mentioned it again in conversation and this time I made a point of recording it verbatim in the notes app on my iPhone. With that, here it is:

"Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself. Thou must bleed for me."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quote of the Day - Emerson

I saw this posted on a high school classmate's Facebook page earlier this week and it has stuck with me since then.
"The dice of God are always loaded."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quote of the Day - Count Galeazzo Ciano

The following quote came up today in the course of events. Before today, I had believed it was the late Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's line and apparently most people who know this quote believe it to have originated with the late U.S. president John F. Kennedy. However, as it turns out, the line comes from the pen of Count Galeazzo Ciano, the late son-in-law of the late Fascist leader Benito Mussolini. It originally appeared in Italian, written in his diary two years before his execution.

 "Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan (La victoria trova cento padri, a nessuno vuole riconoscere l'insuccesso)."

Quote of the Day - William Arthur Ward

"The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires."
~ William Arthur Ward, American writer (1921-1994)

Quote of the Day - Detective Thorne

Tonight I watched the entirety of the 1973 dystopian movie Soylent Green and was struck by this comment by Charlton Heston's Detective Thorne early in the movie:

"I know. Sol. You told me before. A heat wave all year long. A greenhouse effect. Everything is burning up."
~ Detective Thorne

Indeed, throughout the movie it is made clear that a permanent heat wave is in place in New York City in 2022. This is but one more anecdote that gives the lie to the Conservative myth that climate change advocates in the 1970s were exclusively worried about a coming ice age and global warming was not yet "a thing."

Quote of the Day - Dolores Abernathy

The past couple of weeks I have become addicted to the new HBO series Westworld whose first season I finished watching tonight. I have long loved the original 1973 movie Westworld starring Yul Brynner as the rogue robotic killer running amok in the futuristic fantasy park originally contrived by Michael Crichton. Any movie or television program or song or poem that makes one think about it for days after encountering it is something special. This Westworld television series is something special. It is good on every level from storywriting to casting to acting sets and shooting localities to special effects. My newest crush is Evan Rachel Wood as the unforgettable Dolores Abernathy. She repeats the Shakespearan line below (from Romeo & Juliet) which her "father" tells her which has the same effect on her as it does on the person she shares it with and it spreads like a virus. She was neither the first or last to say it but to me her telling of it is the most memorable. I will not say more as to not spoil it for you but this is must-see-tv!

"These violent delights have violent ends." ~ Dolores Abernathy

Quote of the Day - Cicero

In my methods class today our professor placed this quote up on the board and used it to open up a brief discussion to start the class session. This was my first exposure to this wonderful quote and leads to Cicero's first appearance on this blog. My written response to this in class was: "We are a nation of children."

"To be ignorant of what came before you were born is to remain always a child." ~ Cicero

Quote of the Day - Friedrich Nietzsche

This afternoon as I drove home downloading my day by way of absorbing the painful developments of the previous 24 hours and 24 days and 24 months and 24 years,  I felt strangely strong and stable. At some point during my mind-wrapping-around session, this quote from Neitzsche came to mind. I hope I am not guilty of hubris but rather that quite legitimately I have acquired hard-won resiliency.

"From life's school of war: what does not kill me makes me stronger"

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Quote of the Day - Thomas Jefferson

Given Thomas Jefferson's questionable relationship with God, I was surprised to discover this quote only just in the past dozen minutes or so. This thought rings ominous and true in 2016 given how long ago it was conceived and uttered by this man and how our cup gets fuller every day.

"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever"

~ Thomas Jefferson

Quote of the Day - Death Valley Scotty

I have always loved this quote from legendary raconteur and racketeer Walter E. Scott, but had forgotten it until reminded of it on Twitter this morning. By the way, my late grandfather Dr. J. Vernon McGee met this man who was also known as "Death Valley Scotty" at Scotty's Castle back in the middle part of the 20th century.

"...Don’t give advice---nobody will take it anyway. Don’t complain. Don’t explain.”
~ Death Valley Scotty

Quote of the Day - Stephen Hawking

In 2011 at Google's Zeitgeist Conference, physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking declared:

“Most of us don't worry about these questions most of the time. But almost all of us must sometimes wonder: Why are we here? Where do we come from? Traditionally, these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophers have not kept up with modern developments in science. Particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.” 

In speaking thus, Stephen Hawking transformed himself into a philosopher.

Quote of the Day - Benjamin Franklin

Life's tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late. ~ Benjamin Franklin

Quote of the Day - Socrates

Today in the World History classes in which I taught (for the first time in my life) at Atascadero High School, we discussed this famous quote from Socrates. I didn't remember until today which is not to say I have not ever seen it or heard it, which seems unlikely, but rather it never meant anything to me previously. However, now upon my discovering or rediscovering it, I find that it now resonates strongly with me and I wholeheartedly agree with its primary point even if the specifics of what Socrates was actually saying in their original context can be argued to be somewhat melodramatic, vainglorious, self-important, and stubborn.

   "The unexamined life is not worth living." ~ Socrates

Quote of the Day - Hiam Ginott

A week ago today, Atascadero High School hosted two major staff meetings in the Ewing Gymnasium. The first one was emceed by AUSD superintendent Tom Butler addressed the entirety of staff of AUSD from teachers at all school levels to classified staff to admins with a rousing ra-ra speech competitively comparing AHS to the other two main school districts in the North County against which it compares favorably. The second meeting of the morning involved only the staff at Atascadero High School and was emceed by Principal Bill Neely who gave a similar speech but relating specifically to Atascadero High School.

At one point in his speech he pointed to a quote on a piece of card stock paper placed at each place setting at each table. Neely revealed that his brother-in-law, former AHS and AJHS coach Mark Anderson shared the quote with him. I was blown away by both the insightfulness of the quote and the fact Anderson ever took any interest in it let alone shared it with anybody. I still remember the day back in Fall 1984 or Spring 1985 at Atascadero Junior High School when Anderson caught young stoner Jason Flood spitting on the blacktop near the P.E. offices and grabbed him, yelled at him, and either forced him to lick up his spittle or choose between that and suffering some major administrative sanction. I suppose he matured and mellowed with time and in later years would have handled the situation differently given his interest in this quote from the late Haim Ginott.

“I’ve come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom.
It’s my personal approach that creates the climate.
It’s my daily mood that makes the weather.
As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous.
I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or heal.
In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized.”

Quote of the Day - Lincoln

Okay, clearly former President Abraham Lincoln did not say this, but he seems like the kind of guy who would if he could. The message of these meme/macro is obvious and so very salient at present given the preponderance of sheeple posting alleged quotes on social media websites that are false or misleading. This image is an internet meme/maco and accurately attributing its creator is impossible.

Quote of the Day - John F. Kennedy

Earlier today I noticed this John F. Kennedy quote on The Economist's Twitter feed (today was his birthdate). I immediately thought of how apropos this is in light of the current Trump Phenomenon. However, it is just as valid in the context of the ongoing theme with which I have been emphasizing for a number of years now, to wit, that people mostly elect to live in their own comfortable little cultural bubble and selectively choose their sources of information and cherry-pick which facts they will acknowledge. Hence, this quote from the Yale University Commencement on June 11, 1962, aside from being relevant in the current political season is also a timeless principle.

~ "We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."

Quote of the Day - Aristotle

As I recall, I first encountered this quote from Aristotle a year or two ago and found it rather quite intriguing.

"The worst form of inequality is to make unequal things equal."

Desirous to share it here tonight I did a modicum of research regarding it beforehand and discovered the previous quote is a paraphrase and the actual quote goes like this:

"But that the unequal should be given to equals, and the unlike to those who are like, is contrary to nature, and nothing which is contrary to nature is good." ~ Aristotle

Quote of the Day - Rosetti

I saw The Economist Tweet this just now and found the comment interesting on multiple levels:

"The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank."

~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti - English painter and poet.