REFLECTIONS

When the politicians complain that TV turns the proceedings into a
circus, it should be made clear that the circus was already there, and that
TV has merely demonstrated that not all the performers are well
trained.
-- Edward R. Murrow

Men have become the tools of their tools.
-- Henry David Thoreau

Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They
seem more afraid of life than death.
-- James F. Byrnes

"I slept and dreamt that life was joy,
I awoke and saw that life was service,
I acted and behold, service was joy."
Rabindranath Tagore

For three days after death hair and fingernails continue to grow but
phone calls taper off.
-- Johnny Carson

"Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom."
General George Patton

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to
see it tried on him personally. -- Abraham Lincoln

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to
see it tried on him personally.
-- Abraham Lincoln

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the
world; the humorist makes fun of himself.
-- James Thurber, in Edward R. Murrow television interview

Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on
the roof and gets stuck.
-- George Carlin

We aren't passengers on Spaceship Earth, we're the crew. We aren't
residents on this planet, we're citizens. The difference in both cases is
responsibility.

Rusty Schweickart, Apollo 9 astronaut

Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties,
nations and epochs, it is the rule.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read
and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
-- Alvin Toffler

A cartoon cannot say "on the other hand," and it cannot be defended
with logic. It is a frontal assault, a slam dunk, a cluster bomb.
Journalism is about fairness, objectivity, factuality; cartoons use unfairness,
subjectivity, and the distortion of facts to get at truths that are
greater than the sum of the facts. Good cartoonists are also the point men
for the First Amendment, testing the boundaries of free speech. If they
are doing their job, their hate mail runneth over.

Doug Marlette. In Your Face: a Cartoonist at Work. Houghton-Mifflin,
1991.

When you look at yourself from a universal standpoint, something inside
always reminds or informs you that there are bigger and better things
to worry about.
-- Albert Einstein, The World as I See It.

Human beings are defined by their solidarity with others, especially
when the
others are threatened or wounded.

-- Elie Wiesel (Parade Magazine, October 2001)

Ron Ebert wrote a review of Taner Edis' book, "The Ghost in the
Universe." Here is a brief quote:

'Many theists will say that morality must come from God, but Edis shows
us
that there is a much more sensible origin for our morality. Norms of
morality or any other kind make no sense apart from the purposes that
they
serve. Our interests set those purposes, and those interests in turn
are
determined by our biology and our culture. Different social and
cultural
environments will have different moral standards. We learn through
moral
examples ­- what will serve our interests and what won't. Moral
thinking
draws on our ability to envision different actions and their
consequences
-- it is an imaginative activity....Science dispels the religious myths
that would impose moral order on an accidental world.

'Edis ends his book on a hopeful note. Our gods do not belong in our
explanations or even in our hopes, but they should be at home in our
stories and our songs. We can appreciate the stories of gods regardless
of
whether they are remotely true, morally uplifting, or practically
significant.'