Quotations Weblog

There is a lot of finger pointing going on. I’ve seen fingers pointed at the politicians in office that voted to forego the levee repair and strengthening. I’ve seen fingers pointed at President Bush for his apparent lack of empathy. I’ve seen fingers pointed at the war in Iraq blaming it for the lack of helicopters. I don’t see anyone pointing their fingers at themselves.

When Mike and I bought our first condo, we attended the yearly condo association budget meeting. The association was trying to raise condo fees to pay for the soon to be necessary improvements. The condos were over twenty years old. Some of the balconies were precarious. The swimming pool was in disrepair. The windows were aluminum frame and leaked air like they were screens. You’ve never seen an angrier bunch of retirees. They didn’t want to pay one penny more in condo fees and they were willing to argue and scream and threaten the board members.

We kept that condo for three years. We sold at the height of the market right before the Olympics and got top dollar for a condo with a rotting balcony. The president of the board resigned in frustration and the new board members adopted a strict, “Don’t fix it unless they threaten to sue” policy. We got out of there before it was obvious that things were falling apart all around us.

Mike and I took a drive through the condo park last week. They have replaced those dangerous balconies with cheap vinyl fencing that is neither aesthetic nor secure. The air of decay has set into that once lovely neighborhood all because the owners of the association didn’t want to raise the condo fees.

I suspect something similar happened in New Orleans. Politicians try their best to do what their constituents want. The fact that National Geographic was able to predict this disaster with such accuracy means that no one was really in the dark about the danger.

After the devastation of Hurricane Katarina, I have heard a lot of talk about what to do to help the victims. President Bush is promising that “a lot of help is coming.” A lot of help is really nice, but I feel overwhelmed by trying to think of all that needs to be done to help the victims down there.

One small difference after another is something that I can tackle.

• American Red Cross – Donate to the Disaster Relief Fund

It doesn’t take a lot of money from you to help these people. It takes a little bit of money from a lot of people. Be one of those people right now. Even one dollar is plenty if enough of us give.

Other ways to help during this crisis:

• If you live near Houston, Texas, the animal shelters there are housing the few animals that the shelter in New Orleans was able to save. Please adopt one of these animals.

• If you were planning on a long drive over the Labor Day weekend, reconsider staying at home. Many of the oil drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico were damaged. Conservation begins with us.

What other things can we do to help the victims of Hurrican Katarina? Post them here on the comments. It’s up to you to make that one small difference today.

USA Today has an article about questionable quotations from technology leaders—if you’ve ever heard the quotation above, or heard about IBM’s founder saying there was a world market for only five computers, or Bill Gates saying nobody could possibly need more than 640K of memory, read the article to see why you shouldn’t believe everything you read.

As for the “Everything has been invented” quote, this is one of those classic misquotations that persists because people want it to be true. Everyone loves to hear stupid words from the past that were later proven very wrong.

Of course, like many such quotations, it’s too good to be true. This one has been misquoted for literally more than a century, and pretty thoroughly debunked as early as 1940. Nevertheless, thanks to the Internet, it persists… Here’s lots more information about this misquote.

[via Ed Bott]

From Google News within the last 24 Hours:

The Seattle Times – “Twist of Faith”: Facing the demons of clergy abuse

Albany Times Union – Clergy officials buck Jennings

Ahmedabad – Clergy, AIMPLB come under attack

Sofia News Agency – Bulgarian Clergy Opposes Seaside Gay Fest

Welcome to the first of the Quotations in the News series, which will cover quotable items from recent news stories.

Just about everyone I talk to about Daylight Saving Time seems to agree that it’s an odd, archaic tradition that confuses everyone and makes little sense. Congress is apparently unaware of our opinion, because they just voted to extend Daylight Savings by another month. That should make it much less confusing.

I was worried that Congress might be out of touch with reality, but apparently they’ve put a great effort into in-depth analysis of the potential energy savings and the impact on our existing societal traditions and infrastructure, as evidenced by this unbelievable quote:

Also, they’re doing it For The Children. “Kids across the nation will soon rejoice,” because they’ll get another hour of daylight trick-or-treating, says Rep. Fred Upton. That’s odd, I thought the traditional time for trick-or-treating was “when it gets dark.”

At least I’m in good company. Here’s Canadian author Robertson Davies on Daylight Saving: