otoh

Since most of the elections are over in most places… I’m hoping I won’t be motivated to post about politics again any time soon. But just to clean up a bit I want to get this out of my Drafts list:

I never got into watching The West Wing when it was on TV, but I’ve seen this clip a few times and I can see why so many people liked it so much.

And back here I posted some quotes. These are the sources:

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939):
Jefferson Smith: You see, boys forget what their country means by just reading The Land of the Free in history books. Then they get to be men they forget even more. Liberty’s too precious a thing to be buried in books, Miss Saunders. Men should hold it up in front of them every single day of their lives and say: I’m free to think and to speak. My ancestors couldn’t, I can, and my children will. Boys ought to grow up remembering that.

The Manchurian Candidate (1962):
Dr. Yen Lo: His brain has not only been washed, as they say… It has been dry cleaned.

All the President’s Men (1976):
Deep Throat: Follow the money.

Dave (1993):
If you’ve ever seen the look on somebody’s face the day they finally get a job, I’ve had some experience with this, they look like they could fly. And its not about the paycheck, it’s about respect, it’s about looking in the mirror and knowing that you’ve done something valuable with your day. And if one person could start to feel this way, and then another person, and then another person, soon all these other problems may not seem so impossible. You don’t really know how much you can do until you, stand up and decide to try.

The Pelican Brief (1993):
Gray Grantham: Do you want to talk about the brief?
Darby Shaw: Everyone I have told about the brief is dead.
Gray Grantham: I take my chances.

The American President (1995):
Sydney Ellen Wade: Yeah… I gotta nip this in the bud. This has catastrophe written all over it.
Beth Wade: In what language? Sydney, the man is the leader of the free world. He’s brilliant, funny, handsome. He’s an above-average dancer. Isn’t it possible our standards are just a tad high?

My Fellow Americans (1996):
Matt Douglas: Look, Joanna, if the book goes, if it doesn’t go, I don’t really care. I’m only writing it ’cause, frankly, I don’t know what else to do.
Joanna: I’m sure you’ve got plenty of options.
Matt Douglas: Not really. But I’ll tell you one thing, I’ll never be like Kramer, running around the country sucking up every dime that isn’t nailed down. Now Jimmy Carter, there’s a class act. He goes around building homes for poor people with his own hands. That’s classy.
Joanna: Well, you could do that.
Matt Douglas: Yeah, yeah. Maybe in a couple of years, but, uh, right now, my attitude is, they didn’t vote for me, let ‘em freeze.

Dick (1999):
Arlene Lorenzo: We have a very important school report on turquoise jewelry due in two days, and we can’t find any books on it, and the President’s having us followed. It’s too much pressure.

The Contender (2000):
Shelly Runyon: Greatness is the orphan of urgency, Laine. Greatness only emerges when we need it most… in time of war or calamity. I can’t ask somebody to be a Kennedy or a Lincoln. They were MEN created by their times. What I… What I can ask for… is the promise of greatness. And that, Madam Senator… you don’t have.
Laine Hanson: Well, then… I just wouldn’t be using sex as leverage… if I were you, Sheldon. Because, you know, there’s one thing you don’t want. It’s a woman with her finger on the button who isn’t getting laid.

Head of State (2003)
Mays Gilliam: I live in a neighborhood so bad, you can get shot while ya gettin’ shot.

Welcome to Mooseport (2004):
Monroe Cole: [Monroe regarding a telephone talk with his embittered and greedy ex-wife who is demanding more of his fortune] Seven million!
Grace Sutherland: It’s a negotiation.
Grace Sutherland: You’ve handled dictators. You’ve handled terrorists.
Monroe Cole: Terrorists were easier, I swear to God!

The Manchurian Candidate (2004):
Raymond Shaw: I served under him. He was a good man.
Eleanor Shaw: Well, that’s what the neighbors always say about serial killers.

“Commander in Chief” (2005):
Grace Bridges: If Moses had been a woman, leading the Jews out of Egypt, she’d have stopped to ask for directions. They would’ve found Israel within a week.

Politically Incorrect ~ Bill Maher:
[the quote that some say got the show canceled] We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it’s not cowardly.

Some years ago I worked part time at a home building supply store. Occasionally I had to work the customer service desk and write up merchandise return tickets. We always had to ask why the customer was returning the item. One day a man was returning a storm door. When I asked why he said, “It keeps banging my wife.”

[blink...blink....]

“Yes sir. I just need to get a manager to sign this….”

I got his in email and it was uncredited. If anyone knows the source, let me know. And I hope you get a chuckle from it in any case!

Campaign Trains

Because [obviously] the world was in dire need of this product, the folks from Garment Guard disposable underarm shields introduce subtle butt disposable gas neutralizers.

And really, what else can I say?

Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. In the spirit of the day, I wore an eye patch. Because I’m… weird, I wore it in the middle of my forehead. You know, over my third eye.

I also [and I don't know where I got the strength to do this] resisted the urge to talk like a media pirate. You know, instead of Ahoy, me hearty!, Aaarrr, and Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum, I wanted to say things like Napster, Bit torrent, and mp3 file sharing. Not that anyone listens to me anyway….

Not that you need yet another site to read [or that you care, probably] but I’ve been posting some Words I Can Dance To.

But this is just between you and me, okay?

You can take that to the bank!

Just doesn’t have the same ring to it any more, does it?

It looks like Hurricane Ike is going to miss Central Florida. Of course, the Gulf coast area where it seems to be headed doesn’t need it any more than we do. The other night someone told me that if her son Kyle is any indication then Hurricane Kyle is likely to be the most destructive of this season.

“You know,” I told her, “some teachers can’t have children because they’ve run out of names that they don’t hate….”

Really. Sometimes I slay me….

And I don’t remember whether I ever passed on this bit of wisdom that I read over the summer:

Electricity come from electrons. Morality comes from morons.

Something like this may have happened once: I assisted a woman in getting her car started in the grocery store parking lot. But, even if it did happen, I would probably never tell you that. I would however very likely say, “I jumped a blonde at Publix.” But, you know, only if it happened to come up in conversation….

And if at some other time in a different place some totally different woman asked for help with her car because she couldn’t get the hood up and thinks it needs water and when she tried to drive it, it just sort of stalled and… sure enough the hood latch was broken and I had taken my tools out of my car because I was moving some things into storage and did you say it did start and then stalled? And if she started it up and put it in gear and it didn’t move and I looked underneath to make sure it wasn’t caught on something before I asked, “Is the parking brake on?” … And if she said, “Oh, yeah… I’m going to try to make it home now….” I would say, “Good luck.”

But that’s not exactly what I was thinking. Of course you didn’t hear it from me….

I decided to err on the side of caution and sent the Silvertein poem to ALL my colleagues… with a revised prologue. While including a wider audience might seem reckless, I based this decision on the assumption that if I sent it only to certain individuals they might [not incorrectly, perhaps] conclude that I intended criticism as much as humor. The dozen or so replies I got were universally positive and appreciative leading me to believe I chose wisely. [For once... go me!]

In a bit of synchronicity, I received an email today from a colleague that included this pearl of wisdom:

If you can’t be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.

Exactly!