no. 715

“Cruel men believe in a cruel god and use their belief to excuse their cruelty. 

Only kindly men believe in a kindly god, and they would be kindly in any case.”

~ Bertrand Russell

no. 714

 All conservative ideologies justify existing inequities as the natural order of things, inevitable outcomes of human nature. If the very rich are naturally so much more capable than the rest of us, why must they be provided with so many artificial privileges under the law, so many bailouts, subsidies and other special considerations - at our expense? Their "naturally superior talents" include unprincipled and illegal subterfuge such as price-fixing, stock manipulation, insider training, fraud, tax evasion, the legal enforcement of unfair competition, ecological spoliation, harmful products and unsafe work conditions. One might expect naturally superior people not to act in such rapacious and venal ways. Differences in talent and capacity as might exist between individuals do not excuse the crimes and injustices that are endemic to the corporate business system. ~Michael Parenti 

(Book: Blackshirts and Reds https://amzn.to/3cIDgEe)

(Art: Illustration by Jon Krause)

Stolen from Facebook

no. 713

 

“I like your Christ.  Your Christians?  Not so much.” 

Ghandi

no. 712

 "Any time someone puts a lock on something that belongs to you, but won't give you the key, that lock is not there for your benefit."

Doctorow’s First Law (Cory Doctorow)

no. 711

 “ Heat is such a daunting problem in part because the most effective, efficient coping mechanism for humans - doing nothing - is incompatible with capitalism. “

Ed Burmilla of Gin and Tacos

no. 710

 

“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.”

Joseph Campbell 

no. 709

 “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.“

Anatole France

no. 708

“Women’s total instinct for gambling is satisfied by marriage.”

Gloria Steinem

no. 707

 

Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad

no. 706

 “America’s immense heritage of idealistic ability is squandered by a system which divides all power between the prejudices of the ignorant many and the ruthlessness of the plutocratic few.”

— Bertrand Russell, Bertrand Russell's America: His Transatlantic Travels and Writings A Documented Account, Volume One 1896-1945, Part II. British and American Nationalism, p. 234

no. 705

 

Happy birthday Anthony Bourdain.

Your honesty, wit and humor are missed. 

“Eat at a local restaurant tonight. Get the cream sauce. Have a cold pint at 4 o’clock in a mostly empty bar. Go somewhere you’ve never been. Listen to someone you think may have nothing in common with you. Order the steak rare. Eat an oyster. Have a negroni. Have two. Be open to a world where you may not understand or agree with the person next to you, but have a drink with them anyways. Eat slowly. Tip your server. Check in on your friends. Check in on yourself. Enjoy the ride." 

 Anthony Bourdain

no. 704

 “There was always a minority afraid of something, and a great majority afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the past, afraid of the present, afraid of themselves and shadows of themselves”

Ray Bradbury 

no. 703

 

People have said that the MAGA Evangelical Church has hijacked Jesus but I don't believe that's true.

They have hijacked the word Christian. 

Jesus is of no use to them.

John Pavlovitz

no. 702

"The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very uncertainty. The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason. To such a man the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected. As soon as we begin to philosophize, on the contrary, we find that even the most everyday things lead to problems to which only very incomplete answers can be given."

— Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (1912), Ch. XV: The Value of Philosophy, p. 141 

no. 701

"All who are not lunatics are agreed about certain things. That it is better to be alive than dead, better to be adequately fed than starved, better to be free than a slave. Many people desire those things only for themselves and their friends; they are quite content that their enemies should suffer. These people can only be refuted by science: Humankind has become so much one family that we cannot ensure our own prosperity except by ensuring that of everyone else. If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy." 

 — Bertrand Russell, The Science to Save Us from Science, The New York Times Magazine (19 March 1950)

no. 700

“Andrew is gay,” Tilda said, “and Jeff is a great guy.”

“Andrew didn’t know this before he married Eve?”

“He says not. He says it was God’s way of making sure there was a Nadine.”

from Faking It, by Jennifer Crusie

no. 699

“There exist many willing to fight for the degradation of other human beings, and they are supported by a critical mass of comfortable people, because supporting injustice remains the path of ease.” ~@JuliusGoat

no. 698

“We never asked ourselves what was casting the shadow...we were too enamored with what it had been hiding...” Solomon Patreids, An Explanation of Quandaries of Which We Are Currently Beset

no. 697

“There is nothing Below that we cannot reveal in time...time and blood...for what are we but the abattoir of the past, suppliers for the merchants of our futures” Solomon Patreid, Tomorrow is Meat: A Treatise on Possibility and the Engine We Feed To Harvest It

no. 696

“The true bedrock of American religious dogma is, in the words of Frank Wilhoit: ‘exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protectes but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.’” @doctorow