Clever turns of phrase, special splashes of wit, provocative insight — all in a sentence or two.
“Still, Indians have a way of surviving. But it’s almost like Indians can easily survive the big stuff. Mass murder, loss of language and land rights. It’s the small things that hurt the most. The white waitress who wouldn’t take an order, Tonto, the Washington Redskins.”
Sherman Alexie, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
Another. “‘Your father was always half crazy,’ my mother told me more than once. ‘And the other half was on medication.'”
“Even our closest relatives, the great apes, move smoothly from their juvenile to adult life phases – so why do humans spend an agonising decade skulking around in hoodies?”
“So Democrats want to kill granny, Sarah Palin’s kid, and Ted Kennedy, for those of you keeping score at home.”
Daily Kos (Thanks to Avelino for the tip).
“The conservative activist who claims he was beaten up by union thugs in St. Louis while protesting against health care reform is accepting donations towards his medical care because he was laid off recently and … has no health insurance.”
“True parenting is going out into the rain to search through the paper recycling bin by torchlight for your son’s missing collectible trading cards, and then resisting the urge to strangle him when he finds they were in his coat pocket all the time.”
“I think about retirement until I’m at home and nobody wants to listen to me.”
Or take the health care debate we’re presently having: members of Congress have recessed now so they can go home and “listen to their constituents.” An urge they should resist because their constituents don’t know anything. At a recent town-hall meeting in South Carolina, a man stood up and told his Congressman to “keep your government hands off my Medicare,” which is kind of like driving cross country to protest highways.
It’s a funny column — I had a hard time choosing a best line.
How about?
And I haven’t even brought up America’s religious beliefs. But here’s one fun fact you can take away: did you know only about half of Americans are aware that Judaism is an older religion than Christianity? That’s right, half of America looks at books called the Old Testament and the New Testament and cannot figure out which one came first.
“I was asked to congratulate a guy’s son for making Eagle scout. BSA doesn’t allow Atheists or gays, so I said no. He was pissed at me.”
Penn Jillette (pennjillette) on Twitter (July 19th)
“Biologists argue that the purpose of the orgasm and the accompanying oxytocin is to create an emotional bond between two people so they’ll stay together. Well, it turns out there’s evidence that when people listen to music together or sing together, oxytocin is released then, too. So music forms a social bond in the same way orgasms may, which benefits us as a species.”
Daniel J. Levitin, author of The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature
“It has been, for Dobbs, a Kafka-like metamorphosis from WASPy establishmentarian to angry-populist cockroach.”
“Why is General Motors, which is supposedly owned by the government, i.e., you and me, advertising on Sean Hannity’s radio show?”
“Anybody who can’t make enough money off that shouldn’t be allowed to operate a hot dog stand, much less a media corporation.”
Athanae at First Draft, on the estimation that people spend 26.4 million hours per day reading the print edition of The New York Times.
“The actor (Ryan O’Neal) admits he took comfort in the arms of a ‘beautiful blonde woman’ who came up and embraced him after the (funeral) service, and he didn’t realize it was his own daughter Tatum.”
He admits to Vanity Fair that he hit on his own daughter. At the funeral for Farrah Fawcett.
Ew.
Source: SFGate: Daily Dish : O’Neal opens up about Fawcett split
“[Vin] Scully also adheres to a maxim of the late Rep. Tip O’Neill: Speak only if it improves the silence.”
The Chicago Tribune’s Phil Rosenthal quoted at The Daily Fix.
“Some dismissed the event as a mere photo op, but surely there is a place for symbolic gesture in the effort to instill in future generations the importance of facing racial difficulties with relaxed, respectful conversation. It seems that message is being received loud and clear. When asked what he learned this week, third-grader Billy Etherington, of Plano, Texas, said, ‘If you have fights or problems or whatever, you can usually fix them with drinking.’”
The Cartoon Lounge : The New Yorker
My own best beer talk line: “Obama should have ordered a Dos Equis; Lou Dobbs’s head would have exploded.”
“I have been married to Ed for more then 20 years. I can truthfully say that I love him more today than on either of the two times I married him (long story). Having admitted that, there are times I would gladly trade him for an iced venti cafe mocha with an extra shot from Starbucks.”
“On the Web, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.”
— David Weinberger, with a play on Andy Warhol’s maxim, as quoted by Nicholas Lemann in The New Yorker.
“I plan on having a beer summit with friends tomorrow night at some bar in #ABQ. Alert the media! It will be a teachable moment.”
“Bud Light is considered a ‘lawn mower’ beer, perfect for after mowing the lawn or when you get home from work. It’s one step up from a nice, tall glass of ice water and generally one of the lightest pale lagers made in the United States.”
Matt Simpson who teaches “Beer Education” at Emory University. He goes on to say:
“Red Stripe is also a pale lager, but it’s an official handmade product, with a little more flavor and flair. And Blue Moon is also mass-produced, but it’s an ale. It’s a more flavorful beverage, with some floral character and hints of coriander and orange peel. None of these are microbrews or craft beers, but the closest is Blue Moon, a tasty beer that’s a macrobrewer’s attempt to join the craft beer market.”
“Some genius at Newsweek thinks George W. Bush should be Obama’s Middle East envoy.
“There really is something wrong with our elite journalistic institutions.”
“Also, pro golfers, unlike baseball, football or basketball players, have no fixed salaries. They eat what they kill.”
Tom Friedman in an appreciation of Tom Watson.
“Play one round of golf with someone and you will learn everything you need to know about his character.”
“[K]eep your government hands off my Medicare.”
Man at a recent town-hall meeting in Simpsonville, S.C., to Rep. Robert Inglis (R-S.C.). “I had to politely explain that, ‘Actually, sir, your health care is being provided by the government,’ ” Inglis recalled. “But he wasn’t having any of it.”
“The new study … found that when the drivers texted, their collision risk was 23 times greater than when not texting.”
“If English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for Texas schoolchildren.”
Texas Governor Ma Ferguson while vetoing a bill to authorize Spanish primary grade instruction during the 1920s.
Story told during Stanford University course Historical Jesus available at iTunes U for free. [link opens iTunes] The course consists of 10 audio files; each runs from 90-100 minutes.
The opening lecture in the series is “Call Me Yeshua.” If his mother had called the person we know as Jesus in his native Aramaic, Yeshua is most likely what she would have called. The name Jesus is a Latin translation of a Greek name which was derived from the Aramaic. The modern equivalent of Yeshua is Joshua.
“I wouldn’t urinate down his throat if his heart was on fire.”
James Carville, referring to independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader in 2004.
If I’d written about, say, the Cleveland (61-101) Indians in August of 1987 as though the team were a serious pennant contender, I’d have been fired before I got back to the hotel. And yet, there they were on Charlie Rose: serious political pundits, talking seriously about what a power Sarah Palin is in the Republican party without any of them pointing out that the very fact that she is a power is prima facie evidence that the party is a festival for fruitcakes.
