Welcome to November

Holiday of the Month: Thanksgiving.

"Americans are a race of convicts and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging." -- Samuel Johnson.

At least we're great

Columbus Day.

"America is a mistake, a great mistake." -- Sigmund Freud.

The curse of the drinking class

Happy Labor Day!

"I think there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous." -- Bertrand Russell.

Happy Fourth of July!

“Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.” – George Bernard Shaw.

Armed Forces Day

"The existence of the soldier, next to capital punishment, is the most grievous vestige of barbarism which survives among men." -- Alfred de Vigny.



Also on this day, in 1763, James Boswell met Samuel Johnson.

"That he (Boswell) was a coxcomb and a bore, weak, vain, pushing, curious, garrulous, was obvious to all who were acquainted with him."

Holiday of the Month: Mother's Day

"The mother cult is something that will set future generations roaring with laughter." -- Gustave Flaubert.

A majority is always wrong

April Fools Day.

"Haint we got all the fools in town on our side? And haint that a big enough majority in any town?" -- Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn.

Happy Easter!

"The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one." -- David Hume.

Merry Christmas!

"Several hundred million people get a billion or so gifts for which they have no use, and some thousands of shop-clerks die of exhaustion while selling them, and every other child in the western world is made ill from overeating -- all in the name of the lowly Jesus." -- Upton Sinclair (circa 1925).

Miraculously, his name survives

Christmas Eve. Matthew Arnold, English poet and critic, born on this day in 1822. He wrote:

"Miracles do not happen."

Holiday of the Month: Christmas

"If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, hear what he had to say, and make fun of him." -- Thomas Carlyle.

No damn WMDs, and no damn sense

Veterans Day.

Today is Kurt Vonnegut's birthday. The American novelist who was a cult figure in the late 60s and 70s died last year at the age of 85, and he was writing up until the end.

In "Cat's Cradle," one of Vonnegut's first novels, two characters were having a conversation. "No wonder kids grow up crazy," one said. "A cat's cradle is nothing but a bunch of X's between someone's hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X's..."

"And?" the other one said.

"No damn cat, and no damn cradle."

Vonnegut's best book, probably, was "Slaughterhouse-Five." Its subject was war. Vonnegut had this to say, apropos of veterans: "We had forgotten that wars were fought by babies. We had imagined that they were fought by aging men like ourselves. When I saw those freshly shaved faces it was a shock. 'My God, my God,' I said to myself. 'It's the Children's Crusade.'"