no. 149

"New Year's eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights."

Hamilton Wright Mabie

no. 148

no. 147

"Here’s what you need to realise about anti-racism: It’s not about you. It’s not about your feelings as a white person. What you just said is that you’ll entertain the idea of listening to POC talk about ways they’ve been fucked over by whiteness, white privilege, and white people as long as they don’t hurt your feelings.

To put it another way: you’re saying that not having your feelings hurt is more important to you than actually trying to understand PoC’s experiences of enduring racism—which is, itself, perpetuating racism. No, maybe you didn’t partake in whatever act of racism we’re talking about in this very moment, but if you’re white, then you are benefiting from the systemic racism that allowed it to happen, whether you like it or not.

Yes, listening to the ways that your privilege fucks over other people is uncomfortable. Yes, it can be embarrassing & lead to feelings of guilt, but it is not up to People of Color to censor ourselves to spare your delicate fee-fees. If you truly want to be considered anti-racist, you need to deal with those feelings with other white people & not add to the burden of PoC’s experiences of racism by saying that you won’t take us seriously unless we’re ‘nice’ about the emotional & psychological violence that we endure simply by being PoC in a racist society.

So literally, all I want you to do is understand that being anti-oppression (of any kind) is about understanding how the oppressed group is affected & then countering those systems, activities, mindsets, etc. It’s not about you being comfortable, because if you’re doing it right, it’s not going to be comfortable. Period."

findalaska commenting at Clever girl

no. 146

"Parents are not interested in justice — they want QUIET!

Bill Cosby, from the film "Himself"

no. 145

"Marriage is a human right, not a reward for being heterosexual."

Phillip Gulley from pulpit of Mayflower Congregational Church.

no. 144

"Gross ignorance is 144 times worse than ordinary ignorance."

Bennett Cerf

no. 143 - Merry Christmas!

"Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas."

Calvin Coolidge

no. 142

“Even as an adult I find it difficult to sleep on Christmas Eve. Yuletide excitement is a potent caffeine, no matter your age.”

Carrie Latet

no. 141

“I find it ironic that Republicans have such disdain for the lazy, and yet their solution to everything is do nothing. Their answer to wealth inequality? Do nothing. Healthcare? Do nothing. Climate change? Nothing. Racism? Doesn’t exist. For a group of people so head over heels in love with self-reliance, they sure do recommend a lot of sitting on (one’s) ass.

If A Christmas Carol was performed by the Tea Party Dramatic Society, it would be a cautionary tale about how the hero, Scrooge — a blameless job creator — is turned into a socialist through the corrupting influence of Tiny Tim. And the play would end with a simple, plaintive question from Mr. Scrooge: ‘Just how much of my wealth does Mr. Tim think he’s entitled to?’

And that is the great Republican fallacy of this election: that our economic problem are due not to Wall Street’s gambling, but because too many Americans are lazy. But there are 16 million unemployed, and we only created 80,000 jobs last month. The problem isn’t laziness — it’s math.

This is where the Republican Party is now: in favor of people dying because they don’t have health insurance. In favor of letting people go unfed if they won’t work. And if they wanna work, but are Mexicans, in favor of putting up a fence that electrocutes them.”

BILL MAHER, Real Time

no. 140

"Do you think that your 16 year old daughter hasn’t masturbated already? Like, do you really think there’s anything in that scene that this chick hasn’t already tried when the lights go out at night, or in the bathroom, or in the tub, or with the shower head or something like that? I’m telling you, man, I’m not teaching this broad anything new. If I were to create a rating system, I wouldn’t even put murder right at the top of the chief offenses. I would put rape right at the top, and assault against women. Because it’s so insanely overused and insulting how much it’s overused in movies as a plot device, a woman in peril. That, to me, is offensive, yet that shit skates."

Kevin Smith (director) on the ridiculousness of movies about sex receiving NC-17 ratings while extremely violent movies get by with R ratings.

no. 139

"And I am pretty sure that’s the point of reading fiction — so someone else can say, in a way you never would have, something you recognize immediately."

Curtis Sittenfeld

no. 138

"To me, there is no greater act of courage than being the one who kisses first."

Janeane Garofalo.

no. 137

no. 136

"What am I in the eyes of most people - a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person - somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then - even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion."

Vincent van Gogh, writing to Theo van Gogh, July 1882

"Irises"

no. 135

“[Women’s magazines]ignore older women or pretend that they don’t exist; magazines try to avoid photographs of older women, and when they feature celebrities who are over sixty, ‘retouching artists’ conspire to ‘help’ beautiful women look more beautiful, ie less than their age…By now readers have no idea what a real woman’s 60 year old face looks like in print because it’s made to look 45. Worse, 60 year old readers look in the mirror and think they are too old, because they’re comparing themselves to some retouched face smiling back at them from a magazine.”

Dalma Heyn

(via)

no. 134

"I don’t have an issue with what you do in the church but I’m going to be up in your face if you’re going to knock on my science classroom and tell me I got to teach what you’re teaching in your Sunday school. That’s when we’re going to fight… There’s no tradition of scientists knocking down the Sunday school door, telling the preacher ‘that might not necessarily be true.’ That’s never happened. There are no scientists picketing out front of churches. There’s been this coexistence forever, so to have religious communities knocking down the science door, there’s something wrong there."

Neil deGrasse Tyson - Distinguished astrophysicist, prominent skeptic and host of the PBS show NOVA scienceNow on religion and education

(via)

no. 133

"Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him. Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything —anything — be more ridiculous? And yet, this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in."

-Sam Harris

no. 132

"Science is far from a perfect instrument of knowledge. It’s just the best we have."

— Carl Sagan

no. 131

"This is not to suggest that all executives are psychopaths. It is to suggest that the economy has been rewarding the wrong skills. As the bosses have shaken off the trade unions and captured both regulators and tax authorities, the distinction between the productive and rentier upper classes has broken down. Chief executives now behave like dukes, extracting from their financial estates sums out of all proportion to the work they do or the value they generate, sums that sometimes exhaust the businesses they parasitise. They are no more deserving of the share of wealth they've captured than oil sheikhs."

George Monbiot, via

no. 130

"And this is one of the biggest problems with the GOP: they constantly push people who have more celebrity appeal than political experience to run for key government positions...then turn around and complain that government doesn't work correctly."

Pryme, discussing Michelle Bachmann's idea that Donald Trump would make a good vice president.

no. 129

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing."

Albert Einstein

no. 128

"The story of the redemption will not stand examination. That man should redeem himself from the sin of eating an apple by committing a murder on Jesus Christ, is the strangest system of religion ever set up."

— Thomas Paine - English-born American author and revolutionary leader. Theodore Roosevelt called him a “filthy little atheist.” Actually a deist; wrote the definitive text of deism, The Age of Reason, which used reason to establish a belief in Nature’s Designer, but attacked Christianity as a system of superstition that “produces fanatics” and “serves the purposes of despotism.” In England, sellers of the book were jailed for blasphemy. In dating his letters, instead of “A.D.,” wrote “since the fable of Christ.”

(via)

no. 127

no. 126

"Biting is excellent; it's like kissing, only there's a winner"

Suranne Jones as "Idris" in the Doctor Who episode "The Doctor's Wife"

no. 125

"The worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time".

Winston Churchill's description of democracy.

no. 124

"We need to just accept that there is no social movement so intelligent and articulate that there won’t be at least one asshole in a Guy Fawkes mask there."

Josh Macedo

no. 123

"You know... If the only Black people I knew were Clarence Thomas, Michael Steele, Tom Sowell and Herman Cain? (IOW - If I were a Republican?) If THAT was the extent of my sample population?

I'd probably be racist too."

"Niceguy" Eddie

no. 122

"It's plain that a deep river of nostalgia flows through most fantasy novels and films, especially those that dwell lovingly on feudal tropes and images. Chosen Ones. Prophecies. Kingly lineages that deserve to inherit rulership, by right of blood alone.

Ponder that, a moment. Millions of contemporary citizens of a free and scientific civilization - heirs of Enlightenment revolutionaries - now yearn for elvish mystics and secretive mages who never publish or share knowledge, nor open schools, nor turn palantirs into internets, nor offer the flea-ridden peasants flush toilets, nor even teach the germ theory of disease. Hierarchy and overall changelessness are somehow portrayed as romantically attractive. And always, there's that notion of better/wiser times, somewhere in the past."

David Brin

As should perhaps be obvious, Brin does not approve.

no. 121

"Everything and anything can be sex positive. Sex positivity is about a state of mind, not what you do in bed — a fundamental acceptance of what other people do, even if it isn’t for you, without an extra scoop of judgment on top."

Sinclair Sexsmith

no. 120

no. 119

What is forgiveness you ask?

Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past.

It’s the realization that the past cannot be changed, and that only a release of it shall create a better future and present. It’s a realization that holding on to what could have been is costraining you from what is and what can be.

That’s why when you forgive someone you suddenly feel lighter. For the past is heavy, and when you let go of it you’re weightless.

Mary Jean “Lily” Tomlin