Another batch of thought-provoking quotes

I don't write them; I merely collect them. There's no particular topic. These are some of the quotes I've enjoyed and collected over the past couple of months: "I like rice. Rice is great if you're hungry and want 2000 of something." Mitch Hedberg (1968 - 2005) "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it." Upton Sinclair (1878 - 1968) “Tell people there’s an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure.” George Carlin “First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. Then they build monuments to you.” — Nicholas Klein Trade Union Address for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, 1918 "A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking." Jerry Seinfeld (1954 - ) "There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all." Peter Drucker (1909 - 2005) "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." John Steinbeck "If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us." Hermann Hesse (1877 - 1962) "Be careful who you pick as your enemies as you have a tendency to become like them". Bill Russell/Boston Celtics "You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." Ray Bradbury “The world is a dangerous place. Not because of the people who are evil; but because of the people who don't do anything about it.” Albert Einstein “We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.” Ben Franklin "I live on Earth at present, and I don't know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing — a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process — an integral function of the universe." ---Buckminster Fuller “Religion. It's given people hope in a world torn apart by religion.” ― Jon Stewart "Freedom isn't free. It shouldn't be a bragging point that "Oh, I don't get involved in politics," as if that makes you somehow cleaner. No, that makes you derelict of duty in a republic. Liar s and panderers The government would have a much harder time of it if so many people didn't insist on their right to remain ignorant and blindly agreeable." Bill Maher "We can do nothing of good in the way of regulating and supervising these corporations until we fix clearly in our minds that we are not attacking the corporations, but endeavoring to do away with any evil in them. We are not hostile to them; we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as to subserve the public good. We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth." Teddy Roosevelt "It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake." Frederick Douglass "Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so." Gore Vidal (1925 - ) "You probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do." Olin Miller “Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders…and millions have been killed because of this obedience…Our problem is that people are obedient allover the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves… (and) the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.” ― Howard Zinn "That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." Christopher Hitchens.

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The efficiency of fish as a multi-faceted lesson

How can I be more efficient, both at work and elsewhere? How can I focus my efforts to be one of those people who gives annoying cliche, "110% effort?" I was recently reminded of a book that provides a metaphor for my personal quest to be efficient, but it also provides a powerful lesson on the topic of artificial boundaries. First, a bit of background. About 12 years ago, I had the opportunity to audit several graduate-level seminars taught by philosopher Andy Clark while he was on the faculty at Washington University in St. Louis. Andy often stressed that cognition should not be conceptualized as merely the firing of neurons within a human skull. This idea is central to his writings. In a book Andy wrote in 1997, Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again, he tells a fish story. It is the scientific story of the astounding swimming efficiency of fish, and it is also a caveat that we humans are so utterly interconnected with our environments that we need to stop characterizing those things outside of our bodies and brains as obstacles to our accomplishments. The following excerpt is from page 219-220, the beginning of the chapter titled "Minds, Brains, and Tuna: a Summary and Brine."

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Faith in secular sacred things

Ever since I was a teenager, it has been my quest to not rest until I figured out everything I could about why I existed and what it meant to live a moral life. This made loads of sense to me, since I couldn't know how to live my life until I knew the rules of the game. But now I'm 56, and I need to admit that it doesn't look likely that I'll have everything figured out before I die. In fact it looks like I'll be lucky to scratch the surface before I die. In writing this, I'm not demeaning the work of thousands of scientists. We've learned an incredible amount about human animals. It's just that each answer to each question seems to raise another question or two. Part of my strategy has been to take a close look at the things people deem to be sacred. These things have always been the head-scratchers for me (e.g. the claim that a virgin could have a baby or the claim that a country that is so politically dysfunction could be deemed "the world's greatest democracy." I’m not certain whether it is helpful in the long run to directly question others' non-questionable beliefs, but that is my faith--I believe that more knowledge is better for all of us, and that exploring these enigmas will help us to understand the kinds of animals we are. Attempting to understand human animals is one of my own sacred endeavors. The saying of Socrates constantly resonates with me: "The unexamined life is not worth living."

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Bill Moyers: On Memorial Day we should honor our soldiers by honoring the rule of law

We send our soldiers out to fight and die for principles we ignore and disparage. Bill Moyer and Michael Winship suggest that we take time this Memorial day to acknowledge that our government engaged in ruthless and perverse torture in our names. Unless we do this, we will forever be locked to our immoral past:

Facing the truth is hard to do, especially the truth about ourselves. So Americans have been sorely pressed to come to terms with the fact that after 9/11 our government began to torture people, and did so in defiance of domestic and international law. Most of us haven’t come to terms with what that meant, or means today, but we must reckon with torture, the torture done in our name, allegedly for our safety. In this photo of a sketch by courtroom artist Janet Hamlin and reviewed by the U.S. Department of Defense, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed reads a document during his military hearing at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in Cuba, Saturday, May 5, 2012. (AP Photo/Janet Hamlin) It’s no secret such cruelty occurred; it’s just the truth we’d rather not think about. But Memorial Day is a good time to make the effort. Because if we really want to honor the Americans in uniform who gave their lives fighting for their country, we’ll redouble our efforts to make sure we’re worthy of their sacrifice; we’ll renew our commitment to the rule of law, for the rule of law is essential to any civilization worth dying for.

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