Quote of the Day
cn | 22 April, 2007 14:34
There is no security in this life. There is only opportunity.
- Douglas MacAurthur
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Quote of the Day
cn | 20 April, 2007 14:41
To be on a quest is nothing more or less than to become an asker of questions.
- Sam Keen
source: http://www.wisdomquotes.com/cat_travel.html
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Quote of the Day
cn | 19 April, 2007 16:37
This might be my new favorite quote...
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.source: http://www.parrotsmeow.com/IQ/
- Mark Twain
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Quote of the Day for Sunday
cn | 15 April, 2007 13:40
We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.- John Hope Franklin quotes
source: http://thinkexist.com/quotations/travel/2.html
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Quote of the Day Returns!
cn | 14 April, 2007 13:25
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
- Marcel Proust
source: http://thinkexist.com/quotations/travel
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What to do what to do...
cn | 10 March, 2007 23:01
I've been thinking a lot lately about what's going on in the world and what's going on with people in the world and why things are how they are. I have certain beliefs about liberty and freedom and the general rights of all people that, based on events in the world, are not beliefs that are shared by other people...obviously.
I think there are so many things that influence peoples' moment-to-moment beliefs and decisions that people often are not fully aware of what they are supporting or choosing. As a result, in the moment they hear a public figure speak or read a news article, they are impassioned, they are caught up in the rhetoric of the moment and forget the implications of the action they are about to support or the action or stance that the public figure is taking.
The media and those people who exist in the public eye and have established themselves in positions of power are well aware of their own capacity to sway public opinion and belief and choose to do so in a way that will entrench enough of the general public on their own side and keep the masses at bay, as it were. You see, I believe that if most people fully understood the implications inherent in restricting our rights defined in the Constitution - especially restricting them in the manner in which the government is currently proceeding - people would to a great extent oppose the direction in which our society is moving.
But how will people come to understand what is really going on in the world? How will they come to move beyond the immediate blood and gore of the front page of the newspaper or the meaningless yet emotionally moving speeches of politicians to see the real issues? I have some opinions about this but essentially it all comes down to objectivity and respect for the general public.
It would seem that most politicians have one of two driving beliefs in place:
- the general public is ignorant and even if given all the information they will make poor choices, therefore as I (the politician) must misinform them in order to protect them from themselves.
- the general public is smart, but if I (the politician) give them all the relevant information they will not support me and I will lose my power/money/etc, therefore I must misinform them in order to maintain my position of power.
Not to say that all politicians fall into one of these two camps, but it would seem that a great many wish to present only one side of data or not data at all when presenting their ideas.
The obvious question would be 'How do we change this?' But perhaps a more important question would be: 'Why change it?' or phrased with less brevity: 'Is it even important or necessary to change it?'
I suppose that depends on one’s greatest desires in life – what one sees as important and how far into the future one looks. If all in the world I care about is the material possessions I have at this moment or the idea that I have a job today and will (I believe) have a job tomorrow, then what the goes on in the world does not concern me, so long as I’m continually assured that I can have my stuff and will have my job tomorrow. But let’s say that today I am told by an unassailable source that I can have my job forever – until I die or retire – and can keep everything I have now forever – until I die or give it away – but in exchange for these graces granted by this almighty entity I must subjugate myself and forfeit all my freedoms – those of speech, those of choice, those of religion, those of self-determination – to the whims of this unassailable source. What do I choose? I put forth that we as a culture, as a civilization, are choosing to forfeit ourselves to the unassailable source, a source which at any moment could decide to take what little it grants us, yet we continue down this road unseeing.
What will it take to see? What will it take for us as a culture and nation to step back and look down upon ourselves and ask: ‘Is this how humanity is meant to live? Is this all we can muster?’
Things for us as a society are very good right now but it seems to me that we are at a precarious position and can choose to step to the side of fear and veiled totalitarianism or to the side of freedom. The only catch is that we have to actually do something. And it might mean less TV or fewer Walmarts or more expensive gas. But that could all be gone tomorrow anyway if we choose to continue in the direction we’re headed.
I leave you with this:
First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the sick, the so-called incurables, and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't mentally ill.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left
to speak up for me
- Pastor Martin Niemoller
The poem has a few versions – learn about them here.
Read an adapted modern version here.
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Academy of Achievement - A Great Site
cn | 05 March, 2007 13:21
Ken K. sent me a link to this Academy of Achievement site last week and I just got a chance to look at it and I must say that it represents something I'd love to see more of in the world. A clip from their 'About' section:
The Academy of Achievement is like no other organization in the world. For more than 40 years, this unique non-profit entity has sparked the imagination of students across America and around the globe by bringing them into direct personal contact with the greatest thinkers and achievers of the age.
The site itself is beautiful and includes an 'Achiever Gallery' that has profiles of and sometimes interviews with some amazing people in the world from all walks of life - people including Rosa Parks, Oprah Winfrey, Willie Mays, Jonas Salk, Johnny Cash, etc.
The site is a great representation of upholding people who create true value in the world and who are working to move it in a positive direction.
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Quote of the Day - Feb 23rd
cn | 24 February, 2007 00:13
So in some technical glitch, my quotes from the past two days have not displayed...don't know who's piloting this ship, but I'm going to have to have a word with him about it...
Anyway, today's quote is a submission from sean c:
We must end violence in our own hearts and in our dealings with each other: and then we can resolve our domestic problems and will have found an alternative to war.
- Jeannette Rankin
Thanks sean!
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Quote of the Day - Feb 19th
cn | 19 February, 2007 18:25
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
- Helen Keller
source: about.com
This is a rare quote by a woman. And by rare I don't mean quotes by women are rare, I mean rare for this website. I've been focusing on liberty, courage, freedom-type quotes and my sources have been quite thin on women. So if any of you out there have any good ones by women, submit them here! I'd love to post a more balanced representation.
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Quote of the Day - Feb. 18th
cn | 18 February, 2007 23:47
Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
- Aristotle
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Quote of the Day!
cn | 18 February, 2007 01:31
All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.
- Alexis de Tocqueville
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Your State's Lobbyist to Legislators Ratio
cn | 16 February, 2007 23:16
The Center for Public Integrity recently published a list of the ratio of lobbyists to legislators in each state. No real surprises on the list with this year's 'winner' with the highest ratio being.....New York! With twenty lobbyists to every one legislator (4264 lobbyists to 212 legislators). And the state with the lowest? Again, no surprise here - New Hampshire with only slightly more than 1/2 lobbyist per legislator.
New Hampshire, incidentally, is home to the Free State Project whose newsletter I originally found this information in.
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Nashville Mayor Stands Up for True American Values
cn | 14 February, 2007 10:58
The Nashville, TN Metro Council passed (23-14) a bill that would require all government communication to be in English - which to me basically amounts to a vote for exclusion. Not only are open immigration and willing assistance to those who can not easily communicate with English-speakers a great boost for the growth and prosperity of our country, but it also exemplifies what I believe the true core values that the foundation of our country was built on: acceptance, equality, and humanity. Lucky for the side of freedom, the Nashville mayor took a similar stand (from cnn.com):
Even supporters acknowledged that the bill to make English the official language of Nashville was mostly a symbolic slap at illegal immigration.
But even that was too much for Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell. He vetoed the measure, saying it was unconstitutional, unnecessary and mean-spirited.
...Purcell said his legal staff had advised him the measure violated the U.S. and state constitutions, and likely legal challenges would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend -- "for no good reason."
..."If this ordinance becomes law, Nashville will become a less safe, less friendly and less successful city," Purcell said. "And as mayor, I cannot allow that to happen."
The first section of the above quote speaks quite volumes for the mindset of what I would consider, more or less, the status quo of government practice - creating an exclusionary bill that would be little more than "a symbolic slap at illegal immigration".
If the media and the government took a big-picture look at not only the implications of closing down immigration, but of what it means - what values we are upholding - by passing and promoting measures such as this, I believe it would create a much more tolerant, safe, and productive mindset with the general public. As it stands, even productive, intelligent, and resourceful people from Canada and Mexico have an extraordinarily hard time working in the United States and, as history shows, nearly all of the greatest contributors to our growth and prosperity in modern history have come from other countries, or their parents have, or their parents' parents have.
If we attract the motivated, the intelligent, the excluded from other countries around the world, we will grow and prosper because those people will create opportunities for all of us. If we shun those same people, it will likely lead only to decline.
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Quote of the Day - Feb. 13th 2007
cn | 12 February, 2007 18:27
Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others.
- Sir Winston Churchill
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Quote of the Day - February 12th, 2007
cn | 12 February, 2007 12:52
It behoves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.
source: http://www.worldofquotes.com/
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