Look, we play the Star Spangled Banner before every game. You want us to pay income taxes, too? -Bill Veeck-

So I will go as far as I can into rock and roll carrying my Christian banner. -Cliff Richard-

Easy divorce does not lessen marriage responsibility. -Anna Garlin Spencer in “The Family and it’s Members”-

Who wants to hear actors talk? -H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927-

Vague and insignificant forms of speech, and abuse of language have so long passed for mysteries of science; and hard and misapplied words, with little or no meaning, have, by prescription, such a right to be mistaken for deep learning and height of speculation, that it will not be easy to persuade either those who speak or those who hear them, that they are but the covers of ignorance, and hindrance of true knowledge. -John Locke, “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” (1690)-

The trouble with political correctness is not that it leads to totalitarian forms of thought control, as its critics on the right maintain. The trouble with political correctness is that it is too easily learned; it can create a veneer of civility and make us think that things are getting better when, in fact, they are getting worse. -Alan Rutkowski, Toronto “Globe and Mail” 8 February 1995-

This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is, inherently, of no value. -Western Union internal memo, 1876-

Part II: A light snow was falling, and the little girl with the tattered shawl had not sold a violet all day. ¶ At that very moment, a young intern at City Hospital was making an important discovery. The mysterious patient in Room 213 had finally awakened. She moaned softly. ¶ Could it be that she was the sister of the boy in Kansas who loved the girl with the tattered shawl who was the daughter of the maid who had escaped from the pirates? ¶ The intern frowned. ¶ “Stampede!” the foreman shouted, and forty thousand head of cattle thundered down on the tiny camp. The two men rolled on the ground grappling beneath the murderous hooves. A left and a right. A left. Another left and right. An uppercut to the jaw. The fight was over. And so the ranch was saved. ¶ The young intern sat by himself in one corner of the coffee shop. He had learned about medicine, but more importantly, he had learned something about life. ¶ THE END

Living our brief lives between the scales much bigger than an atom, yet much smaller than a galaxy, we forge our tools out of electricity, magnetism, and mathematics, and try to figure out how the whole thing works. We reach deep into the heart of matter for clues about the origin of the universe, and look to energetic messengers from the depths of space for reassurance that our curiosity will do us no harm, puzzling at the wonder and the unity of it all. -Stephen Reucroft and John Swain, Globe Correspondents (10/11/99)-

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. -C. S. Lewis-