Top 05 Memento Mori of 05

Like I do every year I've been saving and marking old quotes or scraps I stumbled across that made me shake my head or laugh in recognition. I always hope to find some inspiration by them but maybe this is the year I finally admit it's pointless.

History's bunk/ I've got no past/ In the future we'll invent more junk.

Source: Gang of Four, "History's Bunk"

Yes. I should drink canola oil and sleep less to ruin my memory and be happy.

During the 1927 Great Flood, 700,000 people were displaced, including 330,000 African-Americans who were moved to 154 relief camps. Many African-Americans were detained and forced to labor at gunpoint during flood relief efforts.

Source: Wikipedia

I'm sure that worked out very well for them in that guns rather than whips were used.

(Canning) was a radical conservative who took pleasure in Napoleon's coup of 18th Brumaire since it gave England a clearly despotic enemy to arouse its combative juices-- "he held that Napoleon's course had absolved England from ordinary rules of morals."

Source: Garry Wills, "Henry Adams and the Making of America"

We're not the first to justify destroying principles in order to preserve them. Great.

Sen. Kerry has been busy on the stump criticizing President Bush on Iraq...but more than 60% of television commercials from the Kerry campaign and other groups aligned with him have been about health care.

Source: Joe Flint, WSJ, October 13, 2004

I don't remember it this way. How many campaigns were there-- 120 million?

We don't consider Henry Wallace the menace that some think him to be, nor the messiah that others think him to be...So we urge upon the Vice-President, who has plenty of reason to be proud of being called an idealist,  that he keep his feet on the ground as he proceeds on his crusade.

Source: Editorial, El Paso Herald-Post, July 26, 1943

Oh, right-- pompous Moderates scold and hold themselves above the mob.

BUT:
Even if History is bunk it is written by the winners AND the game is still on. White supremacy dies off little by little. Neo-Conservatism is being exposed. Sure, confusion is demoralizing-- but if too many people get pushed down and out the majority shifts...and when anger overwhelms calmer heads might temper excess.

I have friends I've never met and plenty of index cards.

SO:
I'll go around one more time. Here's to a New Year.