quote/unquote: pirates, Palin, Harry Truman, Sal Paolantonio & George Will

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

"We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits those who illegally fish in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas. We are simply patrolling our seas. Think of us like a coast guard."
*- Sugule Ali, spokesman for the Somali pirates, in a telephone interview, after hijacking a Ukranian ship

"Oh no, it's nothing negative at all. He's got a lot of experience and just stating the fact there, that we've been hearing his speeches for all these years. So he's got a tremendous amount of experience and, you know, I'm the new energy, the new face, the new ideas and he's got the experience based on many many years in the Senate and voters are gonna have a choice there of what it is that they want in these next four years."
* Sarah Palin, when asked by Katie Couric about her saying she's listened to Biden's speeches since 2nd grade

"I am going on at length here, and probably shouldn't, but I am terribly disturbed, not only about our foreign affairs but our domestic situation. This tight money program of the special interest people has almost put a stop to home construction and industrial expansion. The powers that be abolished the Reconstruction Finance Corporation because it prevented a tight money market, and unless Congress takes some constructive action in the matter, we will continue down the road to another 1929. I do not believe the Executive Department understands national finance, international relations, or national defense. If Congress held a series of hearings * and it should * you would find exactly how little they do know. . . I say it is incredible. Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce and Calvin Coolidge are paragons of energy and decision alongside him. Lyndon, for God's sake, get hold of Sam and John McCormack and do something!"
*---Letter by Harry S Truman (see picture) to Sen. Lyndon Baines Johnson, Dec. 11, 1956, referencing Eisenhower

"There are many contenders for the title of worst sports book ever. But I reckon Sal Paolantonio's just-published How Football Explains America has to be a serious contender. A belated response to Franklin Foer's How Soccer Explains the World, Paolantonio's cocksure parochialism is embodied in the very title. Foer argues that soccer can be used to explain an entire planet. Paolantonio * while beating his chest, waving old Glory and strutting like a cockerel * boasts that American football can be used to explain why one corner of it is, like, awesome....The actual chapters of How Football Explains America are all but unreadable. Paolantonio rehashes a game or a heartwarming football-related anecdote with the gusto of the true bore. Then he explains why this explains how football explains the battle of Midway. Or Davy Crockett. Or manifest destiny. Each chapter more tedious than the last."
*- Steven Wells, Manchester Guardian, Oct. 1, '08

"Football combines the two worst things about America: it is violence punctuated by committee meetings."
*-- George Will