What Song the Superman Sang: Commonplace Book of Quotations for February 2009

"Life isn’t divided into genres. It’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
- Alan Moore

“I always offend someone by asserting that the reason the death of a pet is worse than the death of a human is that you have mixed feelings about all people.”
-- Dick Cavett

"I think that by retaining one’s childhood love of such things as trees, fishes, butterflies, and -- to return to my first instance -- toads, one makes a peaceful and decent future a little more probable… At any rate, Spring is here, even in London N.1, and they can’t stop you enjoying it. This is a satisfying reflection. How many a time I have stood watching the toads mating, or a pair of hares having a boxing match in the young corn, and thought of all the important persons who would stop me enjoying this if they could. But luckily they can’t. So long as you are not actually ill, hungry, frightened or immured in a prison or holiday camp, Spring is still Spring. The atom bombs are piling up in the factories, the police are prowling through the cities, the lies are streaming from the loudspeakers, but the earth is still going round the sun, and neither the dictators nor the bureaucrats, deeply as they disapprove of the process, are able to prevent it."
-- Orwell

“This town [Washington,DC] talks to itself and whips itself into a frenzy with its own theories that are completely at odds with what the rest of America is thinking.”
– David Axelrod


-- image by Sleestak, for his blog Lady, That's My Skull


“Faith is at best morally neutral, and at worst a vile mental distortion. Our habits are to respect people of faith, but I think we’ve been forced to question those habits. The powers of sweet reason look a lot more attractive post-9/11 than the beckonings of faith, and I no longer put them on equal scales.”
-- Ian McEwan, profile in The New Yorker


“The search for an impartial and neutral tool to mitigate the disruptive effect of factionalism was an important feature of political life in Italian city republics. As Waley (1991) maintains, the political scene in medieval Italy was characterized by factionalism fueled by intense competition for political office. The citizens were driven by an ardent desire to obtain the "honors and benefits" of office (Manin 1995). To overcome factional strife, most Italian communes adopted the institution of podesta, a foreigner endowed with judicial and administrative powers. The podesta was usually hired for a year and played the role of military leader, judge, and administrator. An important attribute of the podesta was that he had to be a foreigner so that he could be neutral to the internal "discords and conspiracies"
-- via Steve Clemons, The Washington Note

“The aim of literature is the creation of a small object covered with fur which breaks your heart.”
-- Donald Barthelme

"I’m confused now, because I thought Lindsey Graham was DC’s official angry chimp."
-- comment by Sassette on the "dead chimp cartoon" controversy at Wonkette


"In Final Crisis 7, Superman finally kills Darkseid [by singing a song into the newly constructed Miracle Machine. Morrison doesn't let the reader know exactly what song Superman sings, but instead leaves it up to the reader to fill in this particular gap."
-- Meme explained in Dr. K's 100-Page Super Spectacular Blog, with links to other examples. (For the record, it is the opinion of this writer that this song would only lengthen Darkseid's reign.)

SEND ORWELL to CONGRESS! BOOKS for BOZOS! CONTRIBUTIONS WELCOME

From an unsigned editorial in the Oakland Tribune December 23rd:

".... We think it's time for Congress to heed the warning of George Orwell.
"To that end, we're asking for your help: Mail us or drop off your tattered copies of "1984." When we get 537 of them, we'll send them to every member of the House of Representatives and Senate and to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
"Feel free to inscribe the book with a note, reminding these fine people that we Americans take the threat to our liberties seriously. Remind Congress that it makes no sense to fight a war for democracy in a foreign land while allowing our democratic principles to erode at home.
"Remind President Bush that ours is a country of checks and balances, not unbridled power. Perhaps our nation's leaders can find some truth in this fiction and more carefully ponder the road we're traveling.
"Bring or mail your books to the Oakland Tribune, 401 13th St., Oakland CA 94612. Doors are open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m."

I finally replaced my rummage sale, falling apart copy of "1984" (BTW, anybody know how to underline or italicize text on Blogspot?) with a newer paperback. It shouldn't be that much trouble to do this directly.
Poor George Orwell/Eric Blair must keep spinning in his unquiet grave. Everyone wants to claim him. This is relatively easy to do, if you only read the parts that you want. Myself, I'm including him in The Lungers' Hall of Fame, a sort of Valhalla where I'll play cards with Blair, Doc Holliday, Dashiell Hammett, O'Neill, Proust, Mimi and Camille, and all the other tuberculars and asthmatics of history. Why do we cough so much? Because the world is suffocating us.

Orwell Award Nominees, August 2005

Poor George Orwell; to have his name forever connected with what he hated most.

THE WHIRLIGIG AWARD, for STATEMENT MOST LIKELY TO MAKE ERIC BLAIR SPIN IN HIS GRAVE: Donald Rumsfeld, finding a new way to describe dead American soldiers: "The lethality, however, is up." (Aug. 19, 2005)

THE JOSEPH GOEBBELS AWARD, given for attempts to ALTER INCONVENIENT FACTS BY SMEARING THE TRUTH TELLER goes to the Rove/Libby/Plame/Wilson affair, the best summary of which can be found in the Lost Angeles Times. And why isn't Robert Novak in jail yet?

EVIL MASQUERADING AS VIRTUE, ANTICHRIST DIVISION: Pat Robertson, nominally a Christian: ""You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war, and I don't think any oil shipments will stop. We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with." (Monday)

BALD FACE CHUTZPAH AWARD: Wednesday: nominal "Christian" Robertson denies having called for Chavez to be killed and said The AP misinterpreted his remarks. "I didn't say 'assassination.' I said our special forces should 'take him out.' 'Take him out' could be a number of things including kidnapping."

Perhaps 'take him out for dinner'; a Last Supper might be nice.

'GOD CAN'T STRIKE THEM DEAD, BECAUSE PAT ROBERTSON HAS KIDNAPPED JESUS' AWARD: Tombstones for American war dead may include the name of the war they served in, as in "WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam". Now instead of place names like "Iraq" or "Afghanistan", the Pentagon names operations with phrases like "Enduring Freedom" that will inspire or imply public support for conflicts.

These nominees have invited themselves into our homes and posed as experts, while receiving vast sums of money for swimming pools and second homes. They have to expect a bit of impertinence from the Flyover states.

Finally, our equivalent of the Jean hirscholt Humanitarian Award, BEST DEFENSE from DOUBLESPEAK:The gentleman in this photo, Bill Moyer, served in WWII, Korea and Vietnam. Here he is shown listening to President Bush address the VFW in Salt Lake City.