quote/unquote: Barkley on Mahorn, Brazil president on white people, Rick Perry on secession, David Simon on newspaper owners

(Editor's note: "quote/unquote" is a regular feature of The Brazosport News as long as Wilson in St. Louis keeps aggregating it. That is all.)

"Rick Mahorn couldn't fight a lick. Now if it was over a hamburger, he'd beat the heck out of you."
--- Charles Barkley, on TNT last night, when asked if he and Mahorn (pictured above committing a "hard foul") had fought during an NBA game

“This crisis was caused by the irrational behavior of white people with blue eyes, who before the crisis appeared to know everything and now demonstrate that they know nothing. I do not know any black or indigenous bankers so I can only say [it is wrong] that this part of mankind which is victimized more than any other should pay for the crisis."
--- Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, on March 27, in a press conference with Gordon Brown

“Texas is a unique place. When we came into the union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that. My hope is that America and Washington in particular pays attention. We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, who knows what may come of that.”
--Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, recently

"You know, there's a lot of the general tone in journalism right now is that of martyrology. . . we were doing our job. Making the world safe for democracy. And all of a sudden, terra firma shifted, new technology. Who knew that the Internet was going to overwhelm us? I would buy that if I wasn't in journalism for the years that immediately preceded the Internet because I took the third buyout from the "Baltimore Sun." I was about reporter number 80 or 90 who left, in 1995. Long before the Internet had had its impact. I left at a time-- those buyouts happened when the "Baltimore Sun" was earning 37 percent profits. You know, we now know this because it's in bankruptcy and the books are open. 37 percent profits. All that R&D money that was supposed to go in to make newspapers more essential, more viable, more able to explain the complexities of the world. It went to shareholders in the Tribune Company. Or the L.A. Times Mirror Company before that. And ultimately, when the Internet did hit, they had an inferior product-- that was not essential enough that they could charge online for it. I mean, the guys who are running newspapers, over the last 20 or 30 years, have to be singular in the manner in which they destroyed their own industry. It-- it's even more profound than Detroit making Chevy Vegas and Pacers and Gremlins and believing that no self-respecting American would buy a Japanese car in 1973."
-- David Simon, writer/producer of The Wire, on Bill Moyers Journal,