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;void(0)) . . . BICYCLES see: "ENTERTAINMENT, HOBBIES, & LEISURE ACTIVITIES" for related links see: "TRAVEL" for related links Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do! I'm half crazy, all for the love of you! It won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage, But you'll look sweet upon the seat Of a bicycle built for two! --Harry Dacre (18601922) English songwriter. _Daisy Bell_ [1892] When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hopes hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go for a good spin down the road, without thought of anything but the ride you are taking. --Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (18591930) Scottish-born writer of detective fiction. Quoted in _The American Bee Keeper_ [May 1895]. A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle. --Irina Dunn (b. 1948) Australian educator and journalist. Graffito scribbled on two bathroom doors [1970]. The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart. --Dame Jean Iris Murdoch (19191999) Anglo-Irish novelist and philosopher. _The Red and the Green_ [1965] Bicycles are good exercise. And so is swinging through trees on your tail. Mankind has invested more than four million year of evolution in the attempt to avoid physical exertion. Now a group of backward-thinking atavists mounted on foot- powered pairs of Hula-Hoops would have us pumping our legs, gritting our teeth, and searing our lungs as though we were being chased across the Pleistocene savanna by saber-toothed tigers. Think of the hopes, the dreams, the effort, the brilliance, the pure force of will that, over the eons, has gone into the creation of the Cadillac Coupe de Ville. Bicycle riders would have us throw all this on the ash heap of history. --P.J. O'Rourke (b. 1947) American political satirist. "A Cool and Logical Analysis of the Bicycle Menace", in _Republican Party Reptile_ [1987]. The bicycle is just as good company as most husbands and, when it gets old and shabby, a woman can dispose of it and get a new one without shocking the entire community. --Ann Strong, "Minneapolis Tribune" [1895] When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. --attributed to H.G. Wells (18661946) English novelist. - SQUASH HIM LIKE A TRUFFLE This item was reported on NPR's "Car Talk" [c. 1996] Cecile Porc drove for eight miles with a cyclist spread-eagled across her windscreen, refusing to stop because she thought he was a mugger. Madame Porc, 83, hit the man at a crossroads near Valence [France], catapulting him onto the bonnet where he clung for dear life. As she accelerated to 70 miles an hour, she was shouting "Murderer, Murderer" said the victim. He hammered on the windscreen and screamed "I'm a cyclist" but she just turned on the windscreen wipers. She was eventually stopped by a police roadblock but remained unrepentant. "My only regret," she later declared, "is that I didn't drive into a wall and squash him like a truffle." -  ;void(0)) BIG BUSINESS . . see: "CAPITALISM" for related links The other day, by a vote of five to four a kind of craps game come seven, come 'leven they [the U.S. Supreme Court] declared the child labor law unconstitutional a law secured after twenty years of education and agitation on the part of all kinds of people. And yet, by a majority of one, the Supreme Court, a body of corporation lawyers, with just one exception, wiped that law from the statute books, and this in our so-called democracy, so that we may continue to grind the flesh and blood and bones of puny little children into profits for the Junkers of Wall Street! And this in a country that boasts of fighting to make the world safe for democracy? The history of this country is being written in the blood of the childhood the industrial lords have murdered. --Eugene V. Debs (18551926) American socialist leader. Speech [16 June 1918] [Five years before Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac faced a crisis:] These two entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not facing any kind of financial crisis. ...The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing. --Barney Frank (b. 1940) American politician. "New York Times" [11 September 2003] The road east from Belen [New Mexico] doesn't bend an inch through twenty miles of big-time rangeland. You know it's big-time range (1) when you can't see across it, and (2) when the signs at the gates are not little home-made ones that say 'Bar-J Ranch' or something like that, but big printed ones that say something like 'New Mexico Cattle Company' instead. And add, as an afterthought, 'Keep Out!' --Charles Kuralt (19341997) American journalist and broadcaster. _Charles Kuralt's America_ [1995] "November: Rio Grande Valley" Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation's troubles and use as a justification of its own demand for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen. --Ayn Rand (19051982) Russian-born American writer. _America's Persecuted Minority_ [1961] The growth of a large business is merely a survival of the fittest. . . The American beauty rose can be produced in the splendor and fragrance which bring cheer to its beholder only by sacrificing the early buds which grow up around it. --John D(avison) Rockefeller Sr. (18391937) American capitalist and philanthropist. Quoted in William James Ghent _Our Benevolent Feudalism_ [1902]. The biggest big business in America is not steel, automobiles, or television. It is the manufacture, refinement and distribution of anxiety. --Eric Sevareid (19121992) American news commentator. _This is Eric Sevareid_ (New York: McGraw-Hill) [1964] ----- maquiladora (noun) [mκ-ki-lκ-'do-rκ] A US- or foreign-owned assembly plant just south of the US-Mexico border that employs low-cost labor to assemble products and ship them back, usually tariff-free, to the country of origin. ;void(0)) BIGOTRY . . see: "ANTI-SEMITISM" see: "INTOLERANCE" see: "NARROW-MINDEDNESS" see: "PREJUDICE" see: "RACISM" see: "HURTING (SOMEONE)" for other related links In America today, the only respectable form of bigotry is bigotry directed at religious people. --William J. Bennett (b. 1943) American poiltician and author. Quoted in John Bolt, _A Free Church, A Holy Nation: Abraham Kuyper's American Public Theology_, Eerdmans [2001]. BIGOT, n. One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain. --Ambrose Bierce (18421914) American newspaperman, wit, and satirist. _The Cynic's Word Book_ [1906] (Retitled in 1911 as _The Devil's Dictionary_.) The superstition in which we were brought up never loses its power over us, even after we understand it. --Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (17291781) German dramatist. Attributed in J. K. Hoyt & Anna L. Ward (eds.) _The Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations_, p. 412 [1881]. The doctrine which, from the very first origin of religious dissensions, has been held by bigots of all sects, when condensed into a few words and stripped of rhetorical disguise, is simply this: I am in the right, and you are in the wrong. When you are the stronger, you ought to tolerate me, for it is your duty to tolerate truth; but when I am the stronger, I shall persecute you, for it is my duty to persecute error. --Thomas Babington Macaulay (18001859) English politician and historian. "Mackintosh's History of the Revolution", essay in _Edinburgh Review_ [1835]. Personally, I hate to have to think of a man as of a definite race, creed, or color; so few men are really worth knowing that it seems a shameful waste to let an anthropoid prejudice stand in the way of free association with one who is. --attributed to H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. Catholic baiting is the anti-Semitism of the liberals. --Peter Viereck (19162006) American poet and historian. _Shame and Glory of the Intellectuals_, ch. 3 [1953] - ... reminded me of my own son's kindergarten profundity...he had a new *best friend*. I had heard much about John. Then the class photo came home. "Which one is John?" says I. "Oh that's easy," says my son.."he is the only one with the big stripes on his T-shirt." John was also the only black Jamaican face in a sea of white ones. --anon. ^ How do you spot an anti-Semite? An old joke tells the story of an elderly traveler at the Vienna train station asking passersby whether they hate Jews. After a score of indignant "No's," one fellow finally admits that, why yes, he does hate them. "Thank goodness for an honest man!" exclaims the traveler. "Would you mind looking after my bags while I run to the men's room?" ^ . . see: "FREEDOM" for related links The right to be let alone is the underlying principle of the Constitution's Bill of Rights. --Erwin N. Griswold (19041994) American lawyer and professor of law. _Address, Northwestern University Law School_ [11 June 1960]. A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference. --Thomas Jefferson (17431826) American statesman and president [18011809]. Letter to James Madison [20 December 1787]. - The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's good-bye to the Bill of Rights. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. _Minority Report: H.L. Mencken's Notebooks_, p.273 [1956] When things get so balled up that the people of a country got to cut loose from some other country, and go it on their own hook, without asking no permission from nobody, excepting maybe God Almighty, then they ought to let everybody know why they done it, so that everybody can see they are not trying to put nothing over on nobody. All we got to say on this proposition is this: first, me and you is as good as anybody else, and maybe a damn sight better; second, nobody ain't got no right to take away none of our rights; third, everyman has got a right to live, to come and go as he pleases, and to have a good time whichever way he likes, so long as he don't interfere with nobody else. That any government that don't give a man them rights ain't worth a damn; also, people ought to choose the kind of government they want themselves, and nobody else ought to have no say in the matter. That whenever any government don't do this, then the people have got a right to give it the bum's rush and put in one that will take care of their interests. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. The Declaration of Independence in American First printed as "Essay in American" in the _Baltimore Evening Sun_ [7 November 1921]. The Bill of Rights was designed trustfully to prohibit forever two of the favorite crimes of all known governments: the seizure of private property without adaquate compensation and the invasion of the citizen's liberty without justifiable cause and due process. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. _Prejudices: Fourth Series_ [1924] "On Government" - - It is the Soldier, not the minister Who has given us freedom of religion. It is the Soldier, not the reporter Who has given us freedom of the press. It is the Soldier, not the poet Who has given us freedom of speech. It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer Who has given us freedom to protest. It is the Soldier, not the lawyer Who has given us the right to a fair trial. It is the Soldier, not the politician Who has given us the right to vote. It is the Soldier who salutes the flag, Who serves beneath the flag, And whose coffin is draped by the flag, Who allows the protester to burn the flag. --Charles M. Province "It Is the Soldier - . . see: "AUTOBIOGRAPHY" see: "KNOWLEDGE" for other related links [Of Robert E. Lee:] And kept his heart a secret to the end From all the picklocks of biographers. --Stephen Vincent Benιt (18981943) American poet and novelist. _John Brown's Body_ [1928] The art of Biography Is different from Geography. Geography is about maps, But Biography is about chaps. --Edmund Clerihew Bentley (18751956) English novelist and humorist. _Biography for Beginners_ [1905] A well-written Life is almost as rare as a well-spent one. --Thomas Carlyle (17951881) Scottish historian and political philosopher. "Jean Paul Friedrich Richter", essay in _The Edinburgh Review_ [June 1827]. One anecdote of a man is worth a volume of biography. --William Ellery Channing (17801842) American Unitarian clergyman and author. Attributed in _The Bookseller_ [28 February 1866]. Wouldst thou find my ashes? Look In the pages of my book; And, as these thy hands doth turn, Know here is my funeral urn. --Adelaide Crapsey (18781914) American poet. "The Immortal Residue" [1915] All history becomes subjective; in other words there is properly no history, only biography. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882) American philosopher and poet. _Essays_ "History" [1841] Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time. --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (18071882) American poet. "A Psalm of Life" [1838] To be ignorant of the lives of the most celebrated men of antiquity is to continue in a state of childhood all our days. --Plutarch (A.D. 46?119?) Greek philosopher and biographer. Attributed in Julia B. Hoitt _Excellent Quotations For Home and School_, p. 6 [1890]. Everyone realizes that one can believe little of what people say about each other. But it is not so widely realized that even less can one trust what people say about themselves. --Dame Rebecca West [Cecily Isabel Fairfiield] (18921983) English journalist, novelist, and critic. "Sunday Telegraph" (London) [1975] ----- hagiography (noun) 1. biography of a saint or the saints 2. biography that treats its subject with undue reverence ;void(0)) BIRDS . . see: "ANIMALS" for related links A robin red breast in a cage Puts all Heaven in a rage. --William Blake (17571827) English poet. _Auguries of Innocence_, l. 5 [c. 1803] But birds that are canorous and whose notes we most commend, are of little throats, and short necks, as Nightingales, Finches, Linnets, Canary birds and Larks. --Sir Thomas Browne (16051682) English writer and physician. _Pseudodoxia Epidemica_ [1646] - Birds of a feather will gather together. --Robert Burton (15771640) English scholar, cleric, and author. _The Anatomy of Melacholy_, pt. III, sec. I [1621] & note: Birdes of a feather will flocke togither. --John Minsheu (1559/601627) English linguist and lexicographer. _A Spanish Grammar_ [1599] - A bird does not sing because it has an answer ... it sings because it has a song. --Chinese Proverb God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages. --Jacques Deval (18951972) French writer and director. _Afin de vivre bel et bien_ [1970] Better one byrde in hand than ten in the wood. --John Heywood (14971580) English playwright. _Proverbs_, pt. 1, ch. 11 [1546] - [...] This is not to say that I dislike birds in general. For the most part, I find them to be interesting and even entertaining. From time to time, my wife, Bun, and I have gone to great trouble and risk in order to see and record the sighting of what to us at least was a rare and unusual specimen. Once, in Australia, we drove nearly a thousand miles to a lake for the purpose of observing the avian life that abounded there, at least according to our guidebook. When we arrived at what we thought was the place, only a sandy basin confronted us. We stopped at a nearby country store to ask proper directions to the lake. The lady at the store explained that we had indeed found the right place but the lake was dry. "You should have come after a wet," she said. "All kinds of birds here then." "When was the last wet?" Bun asked. "Seven years ago." --Patrick F. McManus (b. 1933) American humorist who writes about the outdoors. _How I Got This Way_ [1994] - A wonderful bird is the pelican, His bill will hold more than his belican. He can take in his beak Food enough for a week, But I'll be damned if I see how the helican. --Dixon Lanier Merritt (18791972) American editor and poet. "The Pelican" [1910] - "The Canary" by Ogden Nash (1902-1971) The song of canaries Never varies, And when they're molting They're pretty revolting. "The Grackle" by Ogden Nash (1902-1971) The grackle's voice is less than mellow, His heart is black, his eye is yellow, He bullies more attractive birds With hoodlum deeds and vulgar words, And should a human interfere, Attacks that human in the rear. I cannot help but deem the grackle An ornithological debacle. - A bird sang a solo from nearby, a cunning blackbird in a dark hedge giving thanks in his native language. I listened and agreed with him completely. --Flann O'Brien [Brian O'Nolan] (19111966) Irish humorous writer. _The Third Policeman_ [1967] Birds should be saved because of utilitarian reasons; and, moreover, they should be saved because of reasons unconnected with any return in dollars and cents. A grove of giant redwoods or sequoias should be kept just as we keep a great and beautiful cathedral. The extermination of the passenger pigeon meant that mankind was just so much poorer; exactly as in the case of the destruction of the cathedral at Rheims. --Theodore Roosevelt (18581919) American Republican statesman and President [19011909]. "Bird Reserves at the Mouth of the Mississippi." _A Book Lover's Holiday in the Open_ New York: Charles Scribner's Sons [1916] There is as much chance of repealing the Eighteenth Amendment [prohibition] as there is for a humming-bird to fly to the planet Mars with the Washington Monument tied to its tail. --Morris Sheppard (18751941) American politician who served as U.S. Senator from Texas [19131941]. 1930 comment, as quoted in Charles Merz _The Dry Decade_ [1931]. - He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ring'd with the azure world, he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls. --Alfred, Lord Tennyson (18091892) English poet. "The Eagle" l. 1 [1851] - We think caged birds sing, when indeed they cry. --John Webster (c.1580c.1625) English dramatist. _The White Devil_, 5.4 [1612] I think we're in real trouble. I don't know how this started or why, but I know it's here and we'd be crazy to ignore it...The bird war, the bird attack, plague - call it what you like. They're amassing out there someplace and they'll be back. You can count on it... --dialogue, _The Birds_ [1963] Screenplay by Evan Hunter. -- Did you ever wonder why there are no dead penguins on the ice in Antarctica - where do they go? It is a well known fact that the penguin is a very ritualistic bird which lives an extremely ordered and complex life. The penguin is very committed to its family and will mate for life, as well as maintaining a form of compassionate contact with its offspring throughout its life. If a penguin is found dead on the ice surface, other members of the family and social circle have been known to dig holes in the ice, using their vestigial wings and beaks, until the hole is deep enough for the dead bird to be rolled into and buried. The male penguins then gather in a circle around the fresh grave and sing: "Freeze a jolly good fellow." -- ----- aerie or eyrie [EYE-ree], noun: 1. The bird's nest built on a lofty place, such as a cliff or mountaintop. 2. A dwelling or stronghold located in a lofty place. albatross (noun) ['ζl-bκ-trahs] Any one of fourteen species of very large seabirds; metaphorically, a guilty burden. bevy [BEV-ee], noun: 1. A group; an assembly or collection. 2. A flock of birds, especially quails or larks; also, a herd of roes. nidicolous (adj.) [ni-'di-kκ-lκs] Nest-dwelling, nesting, usually referring to birds whose offspring are helpless at birth and must remain in a nest until they mature. unfledged [uhn-FLEJD], adjective: 1. Lacking the feathers necessary for flight. 2. Not fully developed; immature. end page | BABIES - BARTENDERS | BASEBALL | BASTARDS - BEATLES (THE) | BEAUTY | BED - BEGINNINGS | BEHAVIOR - BELIEF | BENNY (JACK) - BIBLE | BICYCLES - BIRDS | BIRTH - BITTERNESS | BLAME - BLOGGING | BLONDES - BOOK BURNING | BOOKS | BOOMERS (THE) - BOXING | BOYS - BREAKING UP | BREASTS - BRITAIN | BROADWAY - BROTHERLY LOVE | BUGS BUNNY - BUREAUCRACY | BURMA SHAVE - BUSYBODIES | | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The Reviews | |
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