Our language

Overheard at a grocery store by someone waiting in line behind a woman speaking on her cellphone in another language. Ahead of her was a white man. After she hung up, the man speaks up.

Man: "I didn't want to say anything while you were on the phone, but you're in America now. You need to speak English."

Woman: "Excuse me?"

Man: *very slowly* "If you want to speak Mexican, go back to Mexico. In America, we speak English."

Woman: "Sir, I was speaking Navajo. If you want to speak English, go back to England."

Panta rhei

"No man ever steps in the same river twice."

- Heraclitus

Natives

"Savages we call them, because their manners differ from ours, which we think the perfection of civility; they think the same of theirs."

- Benjamin Franklin: Autobiography

Money

"The use of money is all the advantage there is in having money."

- Benjamin Franklin: Autobiography

Right on the spot

"Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one."

 - Benjamin Franklin: Autobiography

What the...

"Any growing interest in soccer can only be a sign of the nation's moral decay." 

- Ann Coulter: Americas favorite national pastime: hating soccer

Illusion

"In a country such as China the limitations of freedom are clear to everyone, with no illusions about it. In the US, however, formal freedoms are guaranteed, so that most individuals experience their lives as free and are not even aware of the extent to which they are controlled by state mechanisms."

- Slavoj Zizek: How WikiLeaks opened our eyes to the illusion of freedom, The Guardian, 06/18/2014

Old values

"It is hard to promise, but it is easy to perform."

-  Count Gyula Andrassy, Foreign Minister of Austria-Hungary

Precious

- A sign in front of my local library.

Scary stuff

"Bush has failed more than any predecessor in memory to express or embody a unifying sense that he, too, has a stake in the greatness of this country, in the real war on terror, in the economy, and in the fact that we are in this together. Instead, it's: "I know what's best, I'm the Decider. Trust me. Be very afraid, but keep shopping. And don't you dare question my judgment."
Scary stuff, boys and girls."

- Jack Cafferty; It's getting ugly out there, pg. 17

Land of the free...

"How can the country, that murders its own children and discriminates between them daily because of the color of their skins, a country that allows murderers of Negroes to go free, actually protects them and punishes the Negroes for demanding respect for their lawful rights as free human beings, claim to be a guardian of liberty?"

- Jon Lee Anderson; Che Guevara: A revolutionary life, pg. 617

Real fear

"I'm afraid of a world run by adults who were never spanked as kids and got trophies for just participating."

- John Ruggiero; Linkedin

Golden rule

"In a system where money is considered speech, and corporations are people, this trend is inevitable. Elections become not a system of participatory engagement determining how the country is run, but the best democratic charade that money can buy. People get to vote; but only once money has decided whom they can vote for and what the agenda should be. The result is a plutocracy that operates according to the golden rule: that those who have gold make the rules."

- Gary Younge; The Guardian 04/06/2014

Tempurpedic

The biggest scam in the home furnishings history. The most expensive mattress made from the least expensive components (or at least the least expensive manufacturing process).

- MG

Cultural chauvinism

Americans wear blue jeans and sneakers;
Scottish guys wear kilts;
Muslim women wear burqas;
Indonesians wear white shirts;
Russians wear fur coats and hats;
Arab men wear long dresses;
Sikhs wear turbans;
Bantus wear almost nothing;
Indian women wear saris...

So, any time someone objects to what other cultures wear, he or she confesses about their own ignorance and intended dominance of their culture over the rest.

MG

Joke of the month

Otišli Mujo i Fata u Ameriku. Dobili sve potrebno za život, samo im rekli da kad dobiju dijete moraju mu dati neko američko ime.
Rodila Fata sina i otišao ga Mujo upisati u knjigu rođenih. Kada se vratio pita ga Fata: "Koje si mu ime dao?"
"Sjedinjene Američke Države", odgovori Mujo!
"Pa, kako ćemo ga, bolan ne bio, zvati?"

ESADEEEEEEE........

Human Animal

"Cities, like forests, have their dens in which hide all their vilest and most terrible monsters. But in cities, what hides thus is ferocious, unclean, and petty, that is to say, ugly; in forests, what hides is ferocious, savage, and grand, that is to say, beautiful."

- Victor Hugo: Les Miserables