Web Robin

Wise Words

Quote for the day

Rallying the Mexican people to come to the aid of their countryman, President Calderon said, "Nobody can stand around with his arms crossed." Read about the flood in the state of Tabasco, Mexico in today's news.

Quote for the Day

There is a metaphysics of reading that has to do with a great deal more than any simple broadening of the mind.  Rather, it involves a change of state and inner orientation, and if we contemplate the reading process in this light we can hardly get away from introducing the word soul (or something very like it) into the conversation.        - Sven Birkerts (1951-  )

Quote for the Day

Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.  They are engines of change, windows on the world, lighthouses erected in the sea of time.  -- Barbara Tuchman (1912-1989)

Good world, bad times

from the poems of Emily Dickensen
    "Hope" is the thing with feathers
    That perches in the soul--
    And sings the tune without the words--
    And never stops-- at all--

Sometimes I worry that when a catastrophically tragic event unfolds, like yesterday's shootings, that the younger generation will despair and lose hope. I remember how after 9/11 teens and young adults wondered how could it possibly be right to expect happiness? to marry and bring children into a troubled world?

It wouldn't be hard to immerse oneself in news of crimes madmen commit, whether isolated cases like the Virginia Tech shooting, or prolonged seiges like genocide and jihad that we're aware of internationally. I remember reading an article years ago that discussed how gifted children, especially, were tormented by events out of their control, and how important it was for parents and teachers to help them find ways they could have a positive, measurable impact on the world around them.

Just recently, I read in Newsweek (so many of you probably saw the article, too) about Angelina Jolie and her work as a goodwill ambassador for the UN. I was impressed that she found a way to use her fame on behalf of the helpless. While none of us is likely to attain the power her fame brought her, I'm convinced that each of us can be "goodwill ambassadors" in our own way, even if it's to one person at a time.

What are your thoughts on this topic?

Quote for today

"In a very real sense, people who have read good literature have lived more than people who cannot or will not read. It is not true that we can have only one life to live. If we can read, we can live as many lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish."
                    --S. I. Hayakawa

good v-day quote

"Love doesn't make the world go 'round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile."
                                         --Franklin P. Jones, author

Quote for today

"Wag more, bark less"

(seen on a colleague's chat status message)

Quote for today

"Truth is incontrovertible, ignorance can deride it, panic may resent it, malice may destroy it, but in the end there it is."
                                        --Winston Churchill

Quote For The Day

"I was a Republican until they lost their minds."

-- Potential Alabama Gov. Charles Barkley