When I started this blog, less than a year ago, I thought I'd also post one "quote of the day," either from that file or from something I'd read online (many good quotes are just too long to be used as an email "fortune cookie"). And so, that's what I've been doing.
Frankly, I don't know if any readers have even noticed. After all, you needed to scroll down the screen to see the Quote of the Day, and why would you? These "quotes" ended up being excerpts from columns and articles - often by Paul Krugman, Jonathan Chait, David Brin, PZ Myers, and other people I read frequently - complete with a link to the source.
In other words, they were basically the same kinds of things I comment about in the body of this blog. But I can't comment about everything. It's funny, but when I started this blog, I worried about finding enough to write about. Instead, I'm swamped with topics! I'm only short of time.
There's a lot of good commentary on the internet, and I like the idea of pointing out some of it. (There's no way I can even come close to doing more than that.) So I still like this quote of the day idea. But as I say, I doubt if anyone has even noticed it before now. I change the quote every single day, and probably for nothing.
So I'm going to remove that part of my blog and, instead, add the quote of the day as an ordinary post. I won't add any commentary of my own - it will just be an excerpt and a link - though I might write about the subject later (but I've got hundreds - literally - of saved links that I always intend to write about... someday).
These posts will be tagged "QOTD." And I suppose I'll have to think of a title for them. But otherwise, it will be the same thing I've been doing all along, except that they'll be here permanently, rather than disappearing after a day. And they'll be a lot easier to see.
I'll start with this post, as an example. I actually posted a quote from the first part of this column yesterday. And though I rarely quote twice from the same source, I suppose this will make a good transition to the new format:
Kennedy the cold warrior was also the president who created the Peace Corps, which Ted Sorensen, who died just last month (and whose daughter Juliet was a Peace Corps volunteer), described as the epitome of Kennedy’s call for service and sacrifice. The life of the young men and women who joined the Peace Corps would not be easy, Kennedy said, but it would be “rich and satisfying.” The volunteers would live and work among the indigenous people in developing countries, eating their food, speaking their language and helping them “meet their urgent needs for skilled manpower.”
The response to this call for service was both robust and long-lasting. The Peace Corps was one of the great successes of Kennedy’s administration.
While the myriad issues facing the U.S. have changed and changed again since Kennedy’s time, the importance of being guided by the highest principles and ideals has not. We are now in a period in which cynicism is running rampant, and selfishness and greed have virtually smothered all other values. Simple fairness is not a fit topic for political discussion and no one dares even mention the poor.
The public seems fearful and cowed. People unworthy of high office are arrogantly on the march.
You can say whatever you’d like about the Kennedy era and the ’60s in general, but there was great energy in the population then, and a willingness to reach beyond one’s self.
Kennedy spoke in his acceptance speech of a choice “between national greatness and national decline.” That choice was never so stark as right now. There is still time to listen to a voice from half a century ago. - Bob Herbert
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