quote/unquote ...

(Ed. note: Another in a continuing series from St. Louis, MO)

"The credit system, which has its focal point in the allegedly national banks and the big money-lenders and usurers that surround them, is one enormous centralization and gives this class of parasites a fabulous power not only to decimate the industrial capitalists periodically but also to interfere in actual production in the most dangerous manner * and this crew knows nothing of production and has nothing at all to do with it."
*- Karl Marx (fanciful portrait, above), "Capital", volume 3, chapter 33

"It thrashes your guts and your lungs and your thighs. That's why I like it."
* Sarah Palin, whose father was a high school cross country coach, on why she likes running up steep hills


"At times like the present, when the evils of unsound finance threaten us, the speculator may anticipate a harvest gathered from the misfortune of others, the capitalist may protect himself by hoarding or may even find profit in the fluctuation of values; but the wage earner * the first to be injured by a depreciated currency and the last to receive the benefit of its correction * is practically defenseless."
* President Grover Cleveland, circa 1888

"Other campaigns have lied, and yes, Democratic ones as well as Republican. But none I've ever covered has lied like this one and told lies about the lies and then gone and played the victim to its base voters and then, as a parting shot, shut off all serious press inquiries so that it didn't really have to answer any difficult questions about its lies. John McCain, of 'straight talk' fame, hasn't spoken with the reporters on his plane in more than a month....But you can't have an argument with people who play according to these rules. They enforce no code of decency upon themselves, and no one exists to enforce it. The 'objective' media? Stop joking. They're powerless to stop it; all they really do, as NPR did this morning, is give more air time to the victim-playing about the lies about the lies. We're down the rabbit hole. If these people win, we'll be in a worse place than that."
* Michael Tomasky, Manchester (UK) Guardian, Sept. 17

"The Kentucky coach (Adolph Rupp) was stiff, formal, and predictable. He liked Lawrence Welk and dark Cadillacs and, even if he had not been bald, never would have let his hair down. He was notoriously thrifty and loved to discuss his many accomplishments. "(Rupp) was the biggest egotist that I've ever known," said Kentucky's president John Oswald.. His suits were always brown, his pajamas were always red and his teams, with only two exceptions in 42 years, were always white.
"(Texas Western Coach Don) Haskins hunted, fished, gambled and could drink most men under the table. He fussed and fidgeted so badly his friends had difficulty imagining him asleep. "Tarzan with his loincloth on fire," is how Eddie Mullens, then Texas Western's sports information director, described him. He tipped well, he drove pick-up trucks, and had no detectable ego or fashion sense. "What you see is what you get," said friend Jimmy Rogers. "He is the most unpretentious person you'll ever meet."
--"And the Walls Came Tumbling Down *Kentucky, Texas Western
and the Game That Changed American Sports" by Frank Fitzpatrick
( Haskins died last week.)