A Rock, A River, A Tree Hosts to species long since departed, Marked the mastodon. The dinosaur, who left dry tokens Of their sojourn here On our planet floor, Any broad alarm of their hastening doom Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages. But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly,…
Add this to the Quote of Note file: Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Diaz: To destroy a library is to destroy the dream of civilization. To destroy the NY Public Library is to destroy our sixth and best borough; that beautiful corner of New York City where all are welcome and all are equals, and…
An excellent description of life in my house growing up, by Garrison Keillor of Salon magazine: A college graduate just sent me an e-mail asking about a band that "one" a contest, wishing she had been "their" to see it. Misspelling drives me nuts. You young people learned spelling by the Close Enough method. As…
"Americans too often teach their children to despise those who hold unpopular opinions. We teach them to regard as traitors, and hold in aversion and contempt, such as do not shout with the crowd, and so here in our democracy we are cheering a thing which of all things is most foreign to it and…
I admire Richard Dawkins’ mind very much. His delivery, well, not as much. That said, this observation is sheer brilliance: "We are going to die and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they’re never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in…
Something else I found while looking at the past posts on Andy’s website: What Democrats will Do In Their First 100 Hours in Congress. To paraphrase, they say they would: · Put new rules in place to "break the link between lobbyists and legislation."· Enact all the recommendations made by the commission that investigated the terrorist attacks of…
For today’s most instructive Quotes of Note, I refer you to the Treasurer of the DNC. Yes, I can speak more plainly that this, but I think the point is well made. Vote tomorrow for something completely different. You’ll be glad you did.
"One way to see the difference between schoolbooks and real books like Moby Dick is to examine different procedures which separate librarians, the custodians of real books, from schoolteachers, the custodians of schoolbooks. To begin with, libraries are usually comfortable, clean, and quiet. They are orderly places where you can actually read instead of just…