quote/unquote

(Ed.'s note: Quote/unquote is a continuing series of miscellaneous quotes compiled by a reader in St. Louis.)

"Like I was saying to the [Dallas Morning News reporter], it has nothing to do with what I do as far as basketball, when I go out there and perform. That's how I feel about it. What I was stating was just [in response to] a random question he asked me about the marijuana use. I just let him know that most of the players in the league use marijuana and I have and do partake in smoking weed in the offseason sometimes and that's my personal choice and my personal opinion. But I don't think that's stopping me from doing my job."
* Josh Howard of the Dallas Mavericks on the Micheal Irvin talk show in Dallas, last week

"Gimme champagne when i'm thirsty,
gimme reefer when i want to get high. . .
Well you know there shouldn't be a law
For people who wanna smoke a little dope. . .
Well you know it good for your head,
And it relax your body don't ya know."
*- "Champagne and Reefer" by McKinley Morganfield (Muddy Waters) circa 1977

"As dumbness has been defined downward in American public life during the last two decades, one of the most important and frequently overlooked culprits is the public's increasing reluctance to give a fair hearing -- or any hearing at all -- to opposing points of view.....Whether watching television news, consulting political blogs or (more rarely) reading books, Americans today have become a people in search of validation for opinions that they already hold. This absence of curiosity about other points of view is the essence of anti-intellectualism and represents a major departure from the nation's best cultural traditions."
*- "Talking to Ourselves" by Susan Jacoby, LA Times, April 20, '08

"The most important--and unfortunately the least debated--issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country. Few among them send their children to public schools; fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars. They own most of our stocks, making the stock market an unreliable indicator of the economic health of working people. The top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980. The tax codes protect them, just as they protect corporate America, through a vast system of loopholes."
*--- Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA), Wall Street Journal op-ed, Nov. 15, '06