Quotes that prompted this post

This year's pears looking like a good crop--like this one a few years ago.

               Turning once more to a compendium, The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said, by Robert Byrne, I stopped on this jewel (?) from Woody Allen: “I’m astounded by people who want to ‘know’ the universe when it’s hard enough to find your way around Chinatown.”

                I want to know about the universe. In high school & college, I took only the General Science courses. Now, I must Google questions about the universe that come to mind. Or that I read about in the newspaper.

                This spring, I capitalized a phrase in my journal: WORLD/UNIVERSE: "It takes more than an hour for Spacecraft Cassini signals to travel the approximately one-billion miles between Saturn and Earth. The gap between the rings of Saturn and the top of Saturn’s atmosphere is between 1200 and 1500 miles across. The D ring is the innermost ring. Cassini was launched in 1997 from Cape Canaveral and reached Saturn in 2004." (– from the Associated Press.)

                I can’t fathom such distances and the technology it took (and takes) to achieve such a feat.

             Here is a second “saying” that prompted a response: “Is life worth living? That depends on the liver.” – Unknown author.

This went in a different direction for me because of what I recently learned about the human liver. “The liver is always flush with blood holding about 13 percent of the body’s supply at any given time.” (N. Angier, New York Times) “Everything you put in your mouth must go through the liver before it does anything useful elsewhere in the body.” (Dr. A. Lok, U-Michigan)

                “Gemish is the total soup of the liver. The liver oscillates and regenerates itself. It’s “to-do” list is second only to the brain, and it numbers well over 300 items “to do.” (U. Schibler, U-Geneva)

                Would I be one of the “liverati”?

                   Finally, I’ll quote from some of the previous presidents, or what others have said about previous presidents. “Nixon is a shifty-eyed ******* liar. . . . He’s one of the few in the history of this country to run for high office talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time and lying out of both sides.” – Harry S. Truman.

                “I would have made a good pope.” – Richard M. Nixon.

                “Jerry Ford is a nice guy, but he played too much football with his helmet off.” – Lyndon Baines Johnson.

                “Ronald Reagan is not a typical politician because he doesn’t know how to lie, cheat, and steal. He’s always had an agent for that.” – Bob Hope.

                “Ronald Reagan is the Fred Astaire of foot-in-mouth disease.” – Jeff Davis

                “Well, I would—if they realized that we—again if—if we led them back to that stalemate only because that our retaliatory power, our seconds, or strike at them after our first strike, would be so destructive that they couldn’t afford, that would hold them off.” – Ronald Reagan when asked if nuclear war could be limited to tactical weapons.

                We think we're in uncertain times. Clarence Darrow (1857-1938) said, "When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe it."

Carolyn Hoggard, photo