"How scientific achievements are employed is not a matter to be decided by a handful of experts. It is for all people to determine. In fact, all people must involve themselves with it."
--Fumiko Yonezawa

"Sometimes I try to beat other people's achievements but on many occasions I find it's better to beat my own achievements. That can give me more satisfaction. I don't feel happy if I am comfortable. Something inside me pushes me when I get comfortable. It makes me go farther and I want to keep pushing."
--Ayrton Senna da Silva (1960-1994)

"Criminal reporting doesn't factually convey the anguish of reporters in writing about people. Writing about other people should be a painful job for reporters. The media are supposed to have the function of checking the government to protect justice and freedom. If so, journalists should write about other people with anguish."
--Etsuko Yamada (Japanese schoolteacher found innocent of murder after 25 years of trials and investigations)

Food for thought, especially with the news in baseball:
Mitchell Report Coverage on MLB.com

"Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of any hand. Anyone may gather it and no limit is set."
--Mother Teresa

Here's one that feels inspirational today, after several days of long hard slogging at the day job:

"If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven played music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well."
--Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

I actually spotted this one myself, several years ago:

"Absolutely NO Stairway."
--Sign at a guitar display in a Costco store


And yes, after getting thoroughly hooked on it a couple months back at a friend's house, Joe and I last night got our own copy of Guitar Hero -- the latest version, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, to be specific. Wireless ax and all.

I spent a little time playing on it, trying to work out "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" as I had worked out "Shout At the Devil" at our friend's. For me, it is a very slow process -- my learning curve on hand/eye coordination tasks is tough.

But I don't think I've ever had so much fun with a game I suck at so badly.

Originally written in a sports context, I think this is sadly applicable to many fields of endeavor these days.

"It's not necessarily the vehicle that's the problem here. It's the direction in which it is driving us. The death of original thinking is only part of it.... Being original is hard work. So is aiming high. It's so much simpler to grab your crotch, or do a little dance on someone else's ego."
--Gary Peterson

"The Internet, I'm trying to point out, is a kooks' paradise. Anybody with a keyboard and a modem can spread fear, loathing, and just plain asinine ideas among hundreds of thousands of people with the click of a button. Discouraging, but true."
--David Emery

"The world is mostly composed of pleasant people. They are particularly likely to be nice if you are nice to them. This is now some kind of secret wisdom, because the culture of fear preaches the opposite message."
-- Jon Carroll

A revisit, for this Veterans/Armistice/Remembrance Day:
(yes, I know it was actually yesterday, but there are still plenty of observances going on today, so ...)

"Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives. You are now living in the soil of a friendly country therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours. You, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well."
-- Mustafa Kemal, written on a war memorial on the battlefield of Gallipoli

And this is well worth checking out too:
For Better or For Worse comic for November 11, 2007

"We have cats the way most people have mice."
--James Thurber

I've always loved cats, and when Joe and I moved to a place where we could have a cat, a decade ago when we came to Oregon, we had one. In reality, Mina had adopted us before we had even moved, a few weeks before when we were in Anaheim. Quite unexpectedly, in early December of that year, she presented us with a litter of kittens. I'm not sure I ever looked back.

At the moment, we have five cats in residence. If you're curious, they have a set of webpages here.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, because there are not a lot of them and usually they get blamed for everything."
--Jon Carroll

"People do not deserve good writing, they are so pleased with bad."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Seems like this quote, which illustrates one of the things the union is up against, is about as close as I can get, for the moment, to showing my solidarity with the hardworking folks of the Writers Guild of America. Stand strong!

"A diplomat should have both the mind of an internationalist and the heart of a patriot. And, when I say patriotism, I don't mean bigoted nationalism."
--Japanese diplomat Naoko Saiki

And it appears that at least a few US diplomats are practicing this principle. Or at least, exercising some enlightened self-interest:
Rice Answers Anger Over Iraq Service

Food for thought when it comes to many of today's celebrities.

"As much as you might want to ignore Mike Tyson you cannot. Nuts tend to attract your attention."
--Boxing columnist Ron Borges

I'm not exactly a fan of George Will; the vast majority of the time his political views are widely divergent from mine. But you know the saying about even a broken clock being right twice a day? I think this is one of these moments.

And I can never resist sharing a good quote that strikes me as being perfectly dead-on.

Speaking of self-proclaimed "social conservatives" (aka the Religious Right), on This Week with George Stephanopolis, and quoted on the excellent Crooks and Liars:

"But there’s a vanity in this group right now. They call themselves 'values voters.' I’ve news for them: 100% of the American electorate are values voters; they vote their values … And this, this, kind of semantic imperialism that they have where they say 'we vote values'. Everyone else votes what?"

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"If you dig it, do it. And if you really dig it, do it twice."
--Jim Croce

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Somewhere around seven years ago, give or take, I was really impressed with the idea of message boards. Several of my friends had started them and I was, well, digging it. So I decided to start one of my own.

The Starlight Teahouse has passed through a couple of different board providers over the years but has resided comfortably with an outfit called Forumer for almost exactly three years now. We have a lovely forum logo by the inimitable seian, and an easy-to-remember domain name: Starlightteahouse.com.

We have forums for discussing anything from Dubya to Doctor Who to knitting. There are also a number of forums devoted to playing a variety of different role-playing games. There's even a place to talk tea! To post messages, you will need to complete a simple registration -- it's free, and once registered, there's no advertising on the board.

The Teahouse has been very quiet of late, and I'd like to extend an invitation to anyone who hasn't been there -- or hasn't been around in a while -- to give the Teahouse another try. Maybe you'll dig it too!

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"Those that just talk are also the ones that say, 'Why don't they do this?' and 'Why don't they do that?' Well, they're they. We're all they, and we can all do a little something."
--Betty White

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A word from my boss (well, he would have been, if I had started in the job I now have just a few years earlier):

"Don't be encumbered by history. Go off and do something wonderful."
--Robert N. Noyce

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"I think writing about unhappiness is probably the source of my popularity, if I have any. After all, most people are unhappy, don't you think?"
--Philip Larkin

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