Keith Richard's School of Optimism

"I always look at life as a syringe half-full."

Credit should be give to Amy Dickenson on the January 18^th broadast of National Public Radio quiz show “Wait, Wait ... Don’t Tell Me!”.  In checking her names I found a NY Times article about her marriage to a childhood friend which included this:

She kept those thoughts to herself until March, when the couple visited New York. As they walked by the church designed by Mr. Schickel’s great-grandfather, he asked where she saw the relationship going. “She was silent for about a minute — completely silent,” Mr. Schickel said. “Then she said: ‘I’m sorry. I want to get married.’”  

Mr. Schickel needed no apology. He proposed on the spot.

The passage should serve as inspiration for an adult romantic comedy.

More Quotes, Turns of Phrase, and Jokes

" I knew that the actual objectives of war were always camouflaged by well-designed lies that exploit collective fear and perpetuate national myths." -  by SINAN ANTOON "Fifteen Years Ago, America Destroyed My Country" https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/opinion/iraq-war-anniversary-.html

"... Canonical is still committed to pushing envelopes others are only now learning to lick and fold." From http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10things/10-things-the-linux-desktop-can-be-proud-of/3093.

She: I want to get drunk and do something stupid.
He: I'm something stupid.  Do me.

Paraphrased and stolen from Prairie Home Companion:

• What he took for a gleam in her eye was only her special contacts.
• Marriage is like bridge: you start with a heart and a diamond and end with a club and a spade.
• If the going gets tough look for the nearest exit.
• Multi-tasking means reading on the toilet.
• The difference between death an marriage is that when you're dead you don't wish you were married.
• A paranoid schizophrenic though he was following someone
• Did you hear about the paranoid schizophrenic? He always thought he was following someone.
  

From Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me:  Rick Santorum has nothing to boast about.  Caligula's horse was also a senator.

From http://www.jokesplace.com/joke/mentalhealth.html:

• If you suffer from paranoid schizophrenia, we know who you are and what you want. Stay on the line so we can trace your call. 
• If you have obsessive compulsive disorder, press 1 repeatedly.  
• If you are hearing voices, listen carefully and a small voice will tell you which number to press.
• If you are dyslexic, press 96969696969696.

From Car Talk: The difference between death and marriage: When you're dead ...

Socratic Backfire

The article "Socratic Backfire?" by Kaustuv Basu in the October 31, 2011 issue of Inside Higher Ed discussed the case of Steven Maranville whose denial of  tenure seemed to be based on his use of the Socratic method.  Specifically his students objectioned to being asked questions even though they hadn't raised their hands and being required to work in groups.

I would have thought that being business students this would be regarded as training for corporate life.  Silly me.

In a comment, Larry Gillis proposed a warning label:

WARNING: this course may make you think. Occasional discomfort or, in rare cases, actual embarrassment, may occur. If thoughtfulness lasts more than four hours, please consult your physician.

 Of course there is more to it.  The professor is blind.  He gave up a tenured position to at the University of Houston to move to Utah Valley University.  It seems that department chair and an associate dean approved his teaching style.

We'll see how the plot thickens.

It reminds me of text that faculty have found important to include in their syllabus from the use of electronic devices and deportment to their grading rubrics.  More than one instructor felt it necessary to include in the syllabus an advisory that the syllabus was work in progress subject to change or that the syllabus contained material which needed to be mastered, but would not necessarily be covered in class.  

On this last point the instructors usually justify not covering material in class by saying that if the student knows the material the student's time will be wasted by having the instructor go through it one more time.  A more constructive approach is to assign material with exercises.  If the student has difficulty or questions about the exercises it became the student's responsibility to ask the instructor to cover the material or elucidate a problem. 

With some of the technology available to us a short video that helps the one student this semester may help half the class two semesters from now. 

If any of you cry at my funeral...

"If any of you cry at my funeral, I'll never speak to you again."  Stan Laurel as cited in The Funeral Of Stan Laurel also on http://www.lettersfromstan.com/.

From Wikipedia I got these quotes: "You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be led." (Laurel, Brats) and "I was dreaming I was awake, but I woke up and found meself asleep." (Laurel, Oliver the Eighth)

What was impressive about the life of Stan Laurel was that when he realized that he and Oliver Hardy would not be able to make the films they wanted to make he stopped working.  There were some appearances here and there, but he seemed content in retirement.  Nice if you can do it.

Arthur Conan Doyle Quote

The September 27, 2011 of the NY Times reported that Arthur Conan Doyle's first novel, "The Narrative of John Smith" will be publish on October 3rd by the British Library. The original got lost in the mail, was reconstructed from memory, but was never published during his lifetime.

Regarding the loss of the original manuscript, Doyle sad, "My shock at its disappearance would be as nothing to my horror if it were suddenly to appear again — in print ".

"Dualing" Law Suits Over Sexuality Identity Question

In response to an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education concerning Elmhurst College's including a question about sexual orientation and gender identity on its undergraduate admissions application poster 1272784 wrote:

So now, we wait for the conservative lawsuit that says they are discriminating, and the liberal lawsuit that says they're invading privacy, right? "Dualing" lawsuit time.

Clever, I thought.

Some Quotes and Rock is Dead

From Nancy deWolf Smith's article, "Somebody Out There Hates Us" in the March 11th 2011 Wall Street Journal:

"In Housewivesland, dogs are small; kids are rude and on heroin or some other path to perdition; and men tend come [sic] in only a few basic models: control freak, leech, loser—or payer of alimony."

"Rock is dead.  Long live Paper and Scissors!" I wrote this on the back of an envelope.  A web search showed that it is a popular slogan on T-shirts (the first I found on a web search was on Zazzle), infant onesies, and a live journal blog by"sarasaloser".

 

"Obama has now fired more cruise missiles than all other Nobel Peace Prize winners combined."

A good witticism makes the rounds of the web.  

And here are some political quotes from the February 21, 2010 New York Times (yes, still behind in my reading):

"You can lead a man to Congress, but you cannot make him think." Milton Berle as quoted by Evan Bayh.

"Republicans lead in the wrong direction and Democrats are unable to lead in any direction at all." - Lincoln Chafee, a former Republican, but an independent at the time of the comment.

Krista Tippett paraphrasing part of a poem by Rilke, "the ephemeral nature of things is they're [sic] very fragrance." in an interview with Joanna Macy. (Transcript at http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2010/wild-love-for-world/transcript.shtml) 

subpoena duces tecum –noun Law a writ directing a person court to bring some document described in the writ.

Garage sale copy: "Boy meets girl...girl moves in....boy and girl have way too much stuff."

"I've seen better film on my teeth." - Berzerkirsrage (a comment on IMDB to the film Devil's Double before the film was officially released).

"I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger....then it hit me." -JohnT Fitzgerald (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?127117-Biesemeyer-fence-versus-SS-T-Glide)

"You know, if talk was criminal, you'd lead a life of crime,
Because your mind is on vacation and your mouth is working overtime.
~Your Mind Is On Vacation",  Mose Allison

Woody Guthrie once said, “Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple.”

Voltaire on medicine: "The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease." Maureen Dowd, NY Times 9/28/2011.

"Watched code never compiles." Maximilien on http://www.codeproject.com/Lounge.aspx?msg=4172152#xx4172152xx.

A Quotes & a Stock Market Graph

That urgent push—"panic" is such an ugly word—to involve every single employee in acquiring and retaining customer also shows signs of driving down.
Kim S Nash, CIO, December 15, 2010, p34.

I thought this was an interesting graph.

The market's previous close was somewhat below 12,100.  The market is up 40 points.  Simple math says that something less than 12,100 + 40 should be something less than12,150, but look at the graph from finance.yahoo.com on February 8, 2011 about a little after 1 PM.

Ummm and then in the process of putting up this post I realized that I was looking at the previous day's graph.  Yahoo! hadn't  updated the image.  Is it odd that I expected the graph to be update without refreshing the screen myself?  It definitely was not odd that I would be so oblivious.  As I write (and finish my lunch in case anyone wonders if I'm slacking off at work), this is the current graph:

I'm guessing that the Dow text is updated continuously, but the graph isn't.  The 40 points shown in the first image represented the gain from the previous close near 12,160.

No mystery solved. 

Forwarded Insults

I received a forwarded email from a friend (see below) entitled "When Insults Had Class‏".  I was annoyed for several reasons:

• My friend didn't have enough courtesy to remove all the other names when forwarding e-mail or to use a BCC.
• The famous poison quote between Winston Churchll and Lady Astor was probably mangled.
• All the quotes seemed to come from a single web site.  I thought it would have been more intellectually honest to include several quotes and a link to the web site with the quotes: http://msbookish.com/the-art-of-the-insult/.  
• One of my favorite quotes was mangled and mis-attributed.

 The Churchill response to Astor was probably "I would take it." or "I would eat it."  I remember Churchill's phrasing seemed odd.  Also I do not believe Astor used conjunctions.

Instead of the phrase "unspeakable disease" the original of my favorite insult was closer to "Sir, you will surely die on the gallows or of the pox." ("The pox" referred to syphilis.")  Although the exchange may have been recycled to address Disreali, the original was surely earlier.  See for example: http://www.rateitall.com/i-42795-egad-sir-i-do-not-know-whether-you-will-die-on-the-gallows-or-of-the-pox-that-will-depend-my-lord-on-whether-i-embrace-your-principles-or-your-mistress-john-wilkes-to-the-earl-of-sandwich.aspx.  (This insult was a personal favorite of mine after hearing a review of a book I thought was called, "The Art of the Insult".  I have been unable to find a book of that name.)

I found a web site which had the same text as the forwarded e-mail and asked my friend why the guy who sent him the list of insults (which is a worthy list, make no mistake about that), didn't just send the URL (http://msbookish.com/the-art-of-the-insult/).  

There are plenty of links which turn up if you search for "When Insults Had Class‏", most contain the same insults, but he one I found missing was Jack E. Leonard's "There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure."

Of course, if one wants to be witty, there's this wonderful caution from Dorothy Parker's:

If, with the literate, I am
Impelled to try an epigram,
I never seek to take the credit;
We all assume that Oscar said it.

How about this?  I thought it was associated with the British politician Fox:  When a British politician was dying, one of his critics came to visit.  The critic was turned away by the houseman who explained that his master was indisposed.  When the politician was told who had come calling, he said, "If he calls again show him up.  If I am alive I will be glad to see him.  If I am dead he will be glad to see me."

And although it was probably much wittier in French, it works well in English.  Voltaire replied to a critic:  "Sir, I am in the smallest room in my house.  Your letter is before me.  It will soon be behind me."  (The translation may be inaccurate because I don't believe indoor plumbing was available in Voltaire's day.  The original might be closer to the smallest room I own, and the translation makes it more accessible to us now.  Be that as it may, I love it.)

---

When Insults Had Class These glorious insults are from an era before the English language got boiled down to 4-letter words. The exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor: She said, "If you were my husband I'd give you poison." He said, "If you were my wife, I'd drink it." A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease." "That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "whether I embrace your policies or your mistress." "He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." - Winston Churchill "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."  Clarence Darrow "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway). "Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." - Moses Hadas "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.." - Oscar Wilde "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend.... if you have one." - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill "Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second.... if there is one." -  Winston Churchill, in response. "I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." - Stephen Bishop "He is a self-made man and worships his creator." - John Bright "I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial" - Irvin S. Cobb "He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others." - Samuel Johnson "He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." - Paul Keating "In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily." - Charles, Count Talleyrand "He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." - Forrest Tucker "Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" - Mark Twain "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." - Mae West "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.." - Oscar Wilde "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts.. . for support rather than illumination. " - Andrew Lang (1844-1912) "He has Van Gogh's ear for music." - Billy Wilder "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." - Groucho Marx