Lou Gehrig's Farewell Address
"Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the
face of this earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement
from you fans.
"Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn't consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day?
Sure, I'm lucky. Who wouldn't consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball's greatest empire, Ed
Barrow? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years with that
outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy? Sure, I'm lucky.
"When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift - that's something. When
everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies - that's something. When you
have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter - that's something. When you have a
father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body - it's a blessing. When you have a wife
who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed - that's the finest I know.
"So I close in saying that I might have been given a bad break, but I've got an awful lot to live for."
- Lou Gehrig
Einstein’s Letter to Phyllis
The Riverside Church
January 19, 1936
My dear Dr. Einstein,
We have brought up the question: Do scientists pray? in our Sunday school class. It began by asking whether we could believe in both
science and religion. We are writing to scientists and other important men, to try and have our own question answered.
We will feel greatly honored if you will answer our question: Do scientists pray, and what do they pray for?
We are in the sixth grade, Miss Ellis's class.
Respectfully yours,
Phyllis
---------------------January 24, 1936
Dear Phyllis,
I will attempt to reply to your question as simply as I can. Here is my answer:
Scientists believe that every occurrence, including the affairs of human beings, is due to the laws of nature. Therefore a scientist
cannot be inclined to believe that the course of events can be influenced by prayer, that is, by a supernaturally manifested wish.
However, we must concede that our actual knowledge of these forces is imperfect, so that in the end the belief in the existence of a
final, ultimate spirit rests on a kind of faith. Such belief remains widespread even with the current achievements in science.
But also, everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that some spirit is manifest in the laws of
the universe, one that is vastly superior to that of man. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort,
which is surely quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.
With cordial greetings,
your A. Einstein
Address to the Nation on the Terrorist Attacks
September 11, 2001
Good evening. Today our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly
terrorist acts. The victims were in airplanes or in their offices: secretaries, business men and women, military and Federal workers,
moms and dads, friends and neighbors. Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror.
The pictures of airplanes flying into buildings, fires burning, huge structures collapsing have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness,
and a quiet, unyielding anger. These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our Nation into chaos and retreat, but they have
failed. Our country is strong.
A great people has been moved to defend a great nation. Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but
they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shattered steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve. America
was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light
from shining.
Today our Nation saw evil, the very worst of human nature. And we responded with the best of America, with the daring of our
rescueworkers, with the caring for strangers and neighbors who came to give blood and help in any way they could.
Immediately following the first attack, I implemented our Government's emergency response plans. Our military is powerful, and it's
prepared. Our emergency teams are working in New York City and Washington, DC, to help with local rescue efforts.
Our first priority is to get help to those who have been injured and to take every precaution to protect our citizens at home and
around the world from further attacks.
The functions of our Government continue without interruption. Federal agencies in Washington which had to be evacuated today
are reopening for essential personnel tonight and will be open for business tomorrow. Our financial institutions remain strong, and
the American economy will be open for business as well.
The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. I've directed the full resources of our intelligence and law
enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists
who committed these acts and those who harbor them.
I appreciate so very much the Members of Congress who have joined me in strongly condemning these attacks. And on behalf of the
American people, I thank the many world leaders who have called to offer their condolences and assistance.
America and our friends and allies join with all those who want peace and security in the world, and we stand together to win the
war against terrorism.
Tonight I ask for your prayers for all those who grieve, for the children whose worlds have been shattered, for all whose sense of
safety and security has been threatened. And I pray they will be comforted by a power greater than any of us, spoken through the
ages in Psalm 23: "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me."
This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down enemies
before, and we will do so this time. None of us will ever forget this day. Yet, we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and
just in our world.
Thank you. Good night, and God bless America.
NOTE: The President spoke at 8:30 p.m. in the Oval Office at the White House. The Office of the Press Secretary also released a Spanish
language transcript of this address.
This is the King's Speech which George VI broadcast to his people in Britain, and throughout the Empire,
immediately after Britain's Declaration of War against Germany on September 3, 1939.
In this grave hour, perhaps the most fateful in our history, I send to every household of my peoples, both at home and overseas, this
message, spoken with the same depth of feeling for each one of you as if I were able to cross your threshold and speak to you myself.
For the second time in the lives of most of us, we are at war.
Over and over again, we have tried to find a peaceful way out of the differences between ourselves and those who are now our
enemies; but it has been in vain.
We have been forced into a conflict, for we are called, with our allies, to meet the challenge of a principle which, if it were to prevail,
would be fatal to any civilized order in the world.
It is a principle which permits a state, in the selfish pursuit of power, to disregard its treaties and its solemn pledges, which sanctions
the use of force or threat of force against the sovereignty and independence of other states.
Such a principle, stripped of all disguise, is surely the mere primitive doctrine that might is right, and if this principle were
established through the world, the freedom of our own country and of the whole British Commonwealth of nations would be in
danger.
But far more than this, the peoples of the world would be kept in bondage of fear, and all hopes of settled peace and of the security, of
justice and liberty, among nations, would be ended.
This is the ultimate issue which confronts us. For the sake of all that we ourselves hold dear, and of the world order and peace, it is
unthinkable that we should refuse to meet the challenge.
It is to this high purpose that I now call my people at home, and my peoples across the seas, who will make our cause their own.
I ask them to stand calm and firm and united in this time of trial.
The task will be hard. There may be dark days ahead, and war can no longer be confined to the battlefield, but we can only do the
right as we see the right, and reverently commit our cause to God. If one and all we keep resolutely faithful to it, ready for whatever
service or sacrifice it may demand, then with God's help, we shall prevail.
May He bless and keep us all.
from Slow Food Nation
Fast food is killing us--our environment, our politics and our culture. To change who we are as a nation, we must
first change how we eat.
By Alice Waters
AUGUST 24, 2006
…It’s no wonder our national attention span is so short: We get hammered with the message that everything in our lives should be
fast, cheap and easy–especially food. So conditioned are we to believe that food should be almost free that even the rich, who pay a
tinier fraction of their incomes for food than has ever been paid before in human history, grumble at the price of an organic peach–a
peach grown for flavor and picked, perfectly ripe, by a local farmer who is taking care of the land and paying his workers a fair wage!
And yet, as the writer and farmer David Mas Masumoto recently pointed out, pound for pound, peaches that good still cost less than
Twinkies. When we claim that eating well is an elitist preoccupation, we create a smokescreen that obscures the fundamental role
our food decisions have in shaping the world. The reason that eating well in this country costs more than eating poorly is that we
have a set of agricultural policies that subsidize fast food and make fresh, wholesome foods, which receive no government support,
seem expensive. Organic foods seem elitist only because industrial food is artificially cheap, with its real costs being charged to the
public purse, the public health and the environment.
from King Coal: Reigning in China
GEORGE F. WILL
Thursday, December 30, 2010
…Half of the 6 billion tons of coal burned globally each year is burned in China. A spokesman for the Sierra Club, which in recent years
has helped to block construction of 139 proposed coal-fired plants in America, says, "This is undermining everything we've
accomplished." America, say environmentalists, is exporting global warming.
Can something really be exported if it supposedly affects the entire planet? Never mind. America has partners in this crime against
nature, if such it is. One Australian company proposes to build the Cowlitz facility; another has signed a $60 billion contract to supply
Chinese power plants with Australian coal.
The Times says ships - all burning hydrocarbons - hauled about 690 million tons of thermal coal this year, up from 385 million in
2001. China, which imported about 150 million tons this year, was a net exporter of coal until 2009, sending abroad its low-grade
coal and importing higher-grade, low-sulfur coal from, for example, the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana. Because much
of China's enormous coal reserves is inland, far from coastal factories, it is sometimes more economical to import American and
Australian coal.
Writing in the Atlantic on China's appetite for coal and possible aptitude for using the old fuel in new, cleaner ways, James Fallows
quotes a Chinese official saying that the country's transportation system is the only serious limit on how fast power companies
increase their use of coal. One reason China is building light-rail systems is to get passenger traffic out of the way of coal trains.
Fallows reports that 15 years from now China expects that 350 million people will be living in cities that do not exist yet. This will
require adding to China's electrical system a capacity almost as large as America's current capacity. The United States, China, Russia
and India have 40 percent of the world's population and 60 percent of its coal
from Richard Nixon's Checkers Speech
September 23, 1952
Eisenhower's vice president, Richard Nixon, counters critics who claim he took a $18,000 contribution and used it for
personal expenses, though he admits that his family dog, Checkers, was a political gift.
… What did we do with this money? What do we have today to show for it? This will surprise you because it is so little. I suppose as
standards generally go of people in public life.
First of all, we've got a house in Washington, which cost $41,000 and on which we owe $20,000. We have a house in Whittier,
California which cost $13,000 and on which we owe $3,000. My folks are living there at the present time.
I have just $4,000 in life insurance, plus my GI policy which I have never been able to convert, and which will run out in two years.
I have no life insurance whatever on Pat. I have no life insurance on our two youngsters Patricia and Julie.
I own a 1950 Oldsmobile car. We have our furniture. we have no stocks and bonds of any type. We have no interest, direct or indirect,
in any business. Now that is what we have. What do we owe?
Well, in addition to the mortgages, the $20,000 mortgage on the house in Washington and the $10,000 mortgage on the house in
Whittier, I owe $4,000 to the Riggs Bank in Washington, D.C. with an interest at 4 percent.
I owe $3,500 to my parents, and the interest on that loan, which I pay regularly, because it is a part of the savings they made through
the years they were working so hard -- I pay regularly 4 percent interest. And then I have a $500 loan, which I have on my life
insurance.
Well, that's about it. That's what we have. And that's what we owe. It isn't very much. But Pat and I have the satisfaction that every
dime that we have got is honestly ours.
I should say this, that Pat doesn't have a mink coat. But she does have a respectable Republican cloth coat, and I always tell her she
would look good in anything.
One other thing I should probably tell you, because if I don't they will probably be saying this about me, too. We did get something, a
gift, after the election.
A man down in Texas heard Pat on the radio mention that our two youngsters would like to have a dog, and, believe it or not, the day
we left before this campaign trip we got a message from Union Station in Baltimore, saying they had a package for us. We went down
to get it. You know what it was?
It was a little cocker spaniel dog, in a crate that he had sent all the way from Texas, black and white, spotted, and our little girl Tricia,
the six year old, named it Checks.
And you know, the kids, like all kids, loved the dog, and I just want to say this, right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we
are going to keep it.
from CrackBerry Congress
Ruth Marcus
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Mr. Speaker, please don't.
Go ahead, if you must, and cut taxes. Slash spending. Repeal health care. I understand. Elections have consequences. But BlackBerrys
and iPads and laptops on the House floor? Reconsider, before it's too late.
The current rules bar the use of a "wireless telephone or personal computer on the floor of the House." The new rules, unveiled last
week, add three dangerous words. They prohibit any device "that impairs decorum."
In other words, as long as you've turned down your cellphone ringer and you're not strolling around the floor chatting with your
broker or helping the kids with their homework, feel free to tap away.
If the Senate is the world's greatest deliberative body, the House is poised to be the world's greatest tweeting one.
A few upfront acknowledgements. First, I'm not one to throw stones. I have been known to sneak a peek, or 10, at my BlackBerry
during meetings. For a time my daughter had my ringtone set to sound like a squawking chicken; when I invariably forgot to switch
to vibrate, the phone would cluck during meetings. In short, I have done my share of decorum impairing.
Second, let's not get too dreamy about the House floor. John Boehner, the incoming speaker, once passed out campaign checks from
tobacco companies there. One of his former colleagues once came to the chamber with a paper bag on his head to dramatize his
supposed embarrassment at fellow lawmakers' overdrafts at the House bank. Worse things have happened on the House floor than a
game of Angry Birds - check it out! - on the iPad.
Nonetheless, lines have to be drawn, and the House floor is not a bad place to draw them. Somehow, it has become acceptable to email away in the midst of meetings. Even Emily Post has blessed what once would have been obvious rudeness, ruling that "tapping
on a handheld device is okay if it's related to what's being discussed."
The larger war may be lost, but not the battle to keep some remaining space in life free of gadgetry and its distractions. I'm not
talking Walden Pond - just a few minutes of living the unplugged life. There are places - dinner table, church, school and, yes, the
House floor - where multitasking is inappropriate, even disrespectful
General Dwight D. Eisenhower (Ike) D-Day Message
Order of the Day: 6 June 1944
Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!
You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon
you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-inarms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the
oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.
Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle hardened. He will fight savagely.
But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the
Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity
to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and
placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to
Victory!
I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory!
Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.
SIGNED: Dwight D. Eisenhower
Letter from Toni Morrison, the only black female winner of the Noble Prize in Literature, endorsing Senator
Obama’s bid for the presidency.
Dear Senator Obama,
This letter represents a first for me–a public endorsement of a Presidential candidate. I feel driven to let you know why I am writing
it. One reason is it may help gather other supporters; another is that this is one of those singular moments that nations ignore at their
peril. I will not rehearse the multiple crises facing us, but of one thing I am certain: this opportunity for a national evolution (even
revolution) will not come again soon, and I am convinced you are the person to capture it.
May I describe to you my thoughts?
I have admired Senator Clinton for years. Her knowledge always seemed to me exhaustive; her negotiation of politics expert.
However I am more compelled by the quality of mind (as far as I can measure it) of a candidate. I cared little for her gender as a
source of my admiration, and the little I did care was based on the fact that no liberal woman has ever ruled in America. Only
conservative or “new-centrist” ones are allowed into that realm. Nor do I care very much for your race[s]. I would not support you if
that was all you had to offer or because it might make me “proud.”
In thinking carefully about the strengths of the candidates, I stunned myself when I came to the following conclusion: that in addition
to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or
gender and something I don’t see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals
wisdom. It is too bad if we associate it only with gray hair and old age. Or if we call searing vision naivete. Or if we believe cunning is
insight. Or if we settle for finessing cures tailored for each ravaged tree in the forest while ignoring the poisonous landscape that
feeds and surrounds it. Wisdom is a gift; you can’t train for it, inherit it, learn it in a class, or earn it in the workplace–that access can
foster the acquisition of knowledge, but not wisdom.
When, I wondered, was the last time this country was guided by such a leader? Someone whose moral center was un-embargoed?
Someone with courage instead of mere ambition? Someone who truly thinks of his country’s citizens as “we,” not “they”? Someone
who understands what it will take to help America realize the virtues it fancies about itself, what it desperately needs to become in
the world?
Our future is ripe, outrageously rich in its possibilities. Yet unleashing the glory of that future will require a difficult labor, and some
may be so frightened of its birth they will refuse to abandon their nostalgia for the womb.
There have been a few prescient leaders in our past, but you are the man for this time.
Good luck to you and to us.
Toni Morrison