Inspiration

 

Democracy is not something you believe in or a place to hang your hat, but it’s something you do. You participate. If you stop doing it, democracy crumbles.       - Abbie Hoffman

 

I’m completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.

George Carlin, May 12, 1937 - June 22, 2008

4/30/08
Sometimes the universe sends along something you need. Last night Alan Bean, astronaut and artist, was the Lowell Lecture speaker at the Boston Museum of Science. He spoke about his unique ability to record his experiences on the moon and in the space program via his paintings. He creates textures underneath the paintings with his moon boots and geology hammer and embeds pieces of his spacesuit patches and pieces of burnt heat shields and other scraps from the missions in as well. One of the most important things he learned in the space program was how to get along with others and how to find something good about everyone. Some tidbits from his talk:

“We’ve got a song to sing, we’ve got a story to tell. Each of us has a unique task to do. As human beings we’re the dreamers, we’re the doers… if anything is going to happen on this earth, it’s got to be us…

You never take a test that says what you can do in your life…

We’ve been given this wide open gift to do anything that we’re really willing to do.

We’ve got to overcome being embarrassed making mistakes.

I know that everyone in this room is better than they think.

We’re living in the garden of eden right here [earth].

Do the best you can do every day, particularly the things that you don’t like.

The only limits that we have are the ones we give ourselves. We’ve been given a gift. We can all reach for the stars.”                                                                                                   - Alan Bean

 

RIP
Martin Luther King, Jr. January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968

 

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.

Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.

Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on. It is not man.

The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be
demanded by the oppressed.