Quotes and Stuff

[xoxoxoBruce]

Nietzsche never saw me dance. xoxoxoBruce

[Gravdigr]

We are always the same age inside.

~Gertrude Stein


I find this to be true, in my case. Even today, I still feel like I am 20-ish. Not physically, by any means, not even emotionally. Would that be spiritually, then?

[glatt]

You feel 20? Old man.

I still feel like I'm 9.

[Gravdigr]

He died three days later. When the man was done, he was done.

I admire that.

[Gravdigr]

A man can't ride your back unless it's bent.

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

[Gravdigr]

According to a 2011 survey by Travelodge, about 35 percent of British adults still sleep with a teddy bear.

~ Wikipedia article on 'Comfort Object'

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

~ Wikipedia article on 'Comfort Object'

We're just good friends!
That bear lies!

[Gravdigr]

"(Only) if everybody else stayed home."

~Richard Petty (upon being asked if Danica Patrick will ever win a NASCAR Cup race)

[DanaC]

Oh that's lovely.

[Gravdigr]

"One of the most disappointing regrets of my career is not having the Medal of Honor awarded to the most outstanding soldier I've ever had the privilege of commanding."

~Maj. Gen. Lloyd B. Ramsey (U.S. Army, retired), speaking (in an affidavit) of the late Lt. Garlin Murl Conner, Clinton County, KY, the second-most highly decorated soldier of World War II*, who, it appears, will not be receiving the Medal Honor, due to a filing technicality.

*The most highly decorated being Audie Murphy.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Bummer, but He doesn't care now.

And the people who claim they're doing it for him, where've you been for 70 years? Day late and a dollar short, people, what did you do for him when he was alive? Take him to a ball game, or feed the ducks at the park, maybe just sit and talk to him. He was 79 and in poor health when he died, I'm sure he could have used some company the last year or three.

[Gravdigr]

His wife has been working on this for 17 years. She didn't know there was a statute of limitations on it. And as far as 'company the last year or three', nowhere does it say he died alone or lonely.

Also: Regarding "he doesn't care now", I seriously doubt Conner was the kind of man who would've worried about a medal.

I have to admit to being a little baffled by the perceived tone of Bruce's post. Perhaps I've inadvertently struck a nerve...

[xoxoxoBruce]

Reading about this guy, and all the shit he did, I think he got short changed, but didn't strike me as the type of guy that felt entitled to the CM or resented not getting it. Now he's dead so he doesn't care either way.

His wife has been working on this for 17 years.

Sure, a good ewe wife will do that you know.
17 years... wonder why? Did he ask her to? For him? For her? Doing it out of love? Perceived obligation?

Two military historians dug into it, talked to witnesses, are thoroughly convinced the man deserved it. But back in the day he pissed somebody off, or they decided he had enough medals, or they were busy trying to get home. Out of sight out of mind, war's over, let's get on with life.

You can, however, bet the farm, when this stuff makes the news the politicians will be front and center smiling for the camera and shaking his hand off. And Ramsey, how did he help besides dictating a glowing appraisal?

I've seen so many of these WW II vets struggle with health issues for their last few years. They get isolated for lack of mobility, friends are dropping like flies, and the TV becomes their companion. Then they die and people who hadn't given them a thought come out of the woodwork singing hosannas.

I certainly don't want you to think I have anything against Conner, far from it. He was a hero in the finest sense of the word, and got shortchanged. But the people rushing to "honor" him, make me wonder what their motive is? How will what they are doing to "honor" him, help them?

[wanderer]

Moo may represent an idea, but only the cow knows.

- Mason Cooley

[DanaC]

I could fill a page with quotes from the late, great Tony Benn. They just don't make them like that any more.

The Guardian's been putting together favourite Benn quotes, here's a couple:

7) “Hope is the fuel of progress and fear is the prison in which you put yourself”

Tony Benn thought any meaningful change could only come from below, and felt apathy was openly encouraged by those in positions of power. “The Prime Minister said in 1911, 14 years before I was born, that if women get the vote it will undermine parliamentary democracy. How did apartheid end? How did anything happen?”

6) “I think there are two ways in which people are controlled. First of all frighten people and secondly, demoralise them.”

Another quote from Tony Benn’s interview with Michael Moore in Sicko, in which he highlighted poverty and healthcare inequality as a democratic issue. “The people in debt become hopeless, and the hopeless people don’t vote... an educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern,” he said.

9) “There is no moral difference between a stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. Both kill innocent people for political reasons.”

After his retirement from parliament, Benn became the public face of the Stop the War coalition. In a particularly spiky edition of BBC Question Time, his exchanges with US Republican John Bolton included this broadside:

I was born about a quarter of a mile from where we are sitting now and I was here in London during the Blitz. And every night I went down into the shelter. 500 people killed, my brother was killed, my friends were killed. And when the Charter of the UN was read to me, I was a pilot coming home in a troop ship: ‘We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind.’ That was the pledge my generation gave to the younger generation and you tore it up. And it’s a war crime that’s been committed in Iraq, because there is no moral difference between a stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. Both kill innocent people for political reasons.

From elsewhere:

"When you think of the number of men in the world who hate each other, why, when two men love each other, does the church split?"

On equal marriage and the Church of England.