Quotations of the day

Nothing had been so hateful in the sight of these mobs as the man of learning, at first because they had served the princes, but then later because they refused to join in the bloodletting and tried to oppose the mobs, calling the crowds "bloodthirsty simpletons."

Joyfully the mobs accepted the name, took up the cry: Simpletons! Yes, yes! I'm a simpleton! Are you a simpleton? We'll build a town and we'll name it Simple Town, because by then all the smart bastards that caused all this, they'll be dead! Simpletons! Let's go! This ought to show 'em! Anybody here not a simpleton? Get the bastard, if there is! --Walter M. Miller, Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz


I hope [the committees] will reconsider funding [of the Smithsonian Institution]. After all, why should the working class pay for the leisure, e.g., going to museums, of the upper class? We don't subsidize professional wrestling, yet the working class has to pay for the leisure of the rich. --William Donohue, Catholic League president

Donohue (no relation!) pushed the point further in an NPR interview that I'm trying to find a transcript of, in which he states baldly that only "elites" visit museums. "Regular" people simply prefer professional wrestling and shun museums. He himself never visits them, he says.

That may come as surprise to my father, who grew up on a farm, and my mother, who worked part-time in the local town hall and was otherwise a full-time mom. Neither attended college, though my mom went to secretarial school. (Does that make her an elite? I'm not sure where the lines are drawn these days.) They drove me down to Washington, D.C., and we saw the Capitol, the U.S. Mint, and, yes, the Smithsonian. I loved, loved, loved the Air and Space Museum, and that trip was one of the highlights of my youth. I remember it vividly, decades later.

Does Donohue even believe the crap he spouts? Does he really think schoolkids don't get inspired by seeing Betsy Ross' flag or the lunar module and would be better off seeing an exhibit of Randy Savage's singlets? I suspect it's just condescending bullshit to get donations from the rubes, but what do I know? (I do believe him, though, when he says he never visits museums.)

I despair. Truly.


UPDATE: Here is the quote from NPR:

"Why should the working class pay for the leisure of the elite when in fact one of the things the working class likes to do for leisure is to go to professional wrestling? And if I suggested we should have federal funds for professional wrestling to lower the cost of the ticket, people would think I'm insane. I don't go to museums any more than any Americans do," Donohue said. --NPR

Emphasis mine. (Way to recycle a quote, Bill.)

UPDATE UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan on the exhibit in question. He describes the item that offended Donohue toward the bottom.

Quotation of the day

We may please ourselves with the prospect of free and popular governments. But there is great danger that those governments will not make us happy. God grant they may. But I fear that in every assembly, members will obtain an influence by noise not sense. By meanness, not greatness. By ignorance, not learning. By contracted hearts, not large souls ... —John Adams, from a letter dated April 22, 1776, while serving in the First Continental Congress

(Source: John Adams by David McCullough, here. As mentioned in a letter to the editor in the Times this morning. )

Yeah, well, that happens the first time

Ugh. This is what the race for New York's governor's office has sunk to:

--Republican Carl Paladino sends out racist and porn-filled e-mails to pals with approving messages.

--He has a 10-year-old daughter from an affair with a staffer, which he kept secret from his family for many years. Then he told his other children, but made them not tell their mother. Finally, he told his wife.

--He also makes comments along the lines of "Welfare recipients should be made to live in prison-like dorms and forced to take hygiene classes."

--He made accusations that Andrew Cuomo cheated on his wife. Then he took them back. Then he trotted them out again. Then he made a video in which he said his private life should be off limits, but that "Andrew's prowess is legendary."

--Last weekend, he gave a speech in front of orthodox rabbis in Brooklyn that included hateful passages on gays.

--He spent two days defending those remarks, and calling himself the "family values candidate."

--Suggested campaign slogan for Paladino, and, really, I want credit for this if he starts using it: Carl Paladino: His family values are so strong that he actually has two of them.

--Finally, he walked the anti-gay comments back ... a little, and very half-heartedly.

Now, via the Times, comes word that the orthodox rabbis he spoke in front of are not happy:

Rabbi Levin said he was especially upset that Mr. Paladino gave him no notice that he planned to back away from the comments.

"I was in the middle of eating a kosher pastrami sandwich," Rabbi Levin said. "While I was eating it, they come running and they say, 'Paladino became gay!' I said, 'What?' And then they showed me the statement. I almost choked on the kosher salami."

Oy. Well, at least I get a Quote of the Day out of it.


PS: The world has become so topsy-turvy that pastrami is turning into salami before choking you. I believe this is among the signs of the apocalypse listed in the Book of Revelation.