 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Home |
Credits |
Cast |
1 |
2 |
3 |
End |
Reviews |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Home |
Credits |
Cast |
1 |
2 |
3 |
End |
Reviews |
|
|
|
. . . Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American Democratic statesman, President [1963-1969] see "POLITICS" for related links see "PEOPLE" for related links - ^ There is a wonderful anecdote about the election of 1960: the evening of the election, Johnson called up Kennedy and said, 'I see that I'm winning Texas, you're losing Ohio, and we're doing all right together in Pennsylvania.' --Robert Dallek in Brian Lamb _Booknotes: Stories From American History_ [2001] ^ ^ My favorite story is about [Lyndon] Johnson going to visit Harry Truman in the waning days of Johnson's presidency. He met with Truman in Independence, Missouri, and said to him, 'Harry, you and Bess are living in this old house here in Independence. You're getting on in years. You may become ill. You ought to have an army medical corpsman living here at the house with you.' Truman was supposed to have replied, 'Really, Lyndon! Can I have that?' Johnson supposedly said, 'Of course, Harry. My God, man, you're an ex-presiden of the United States. I'll arrange it. About six months after Jonson got out of the White House, a reporter caught up with him one day at the ranch and said, 'Mr President, is it true that you've got an army medical corpsman living here on the ranch with you?' Johnson said, 'Of course it's true, Harry Truman has one.' --Robert Dallek in Brian Lamb _Booknotes: Stories From American History_ [2001] ^ As increasing numbers of Americans died in the fighting [Vietnam War] and Johnson couldn't appear in public without risk of protests, he became emotionally distraught. By 1967, Georgia senator Richard Russell, a Johnson mentor, couldn't bear to see Johnson alone at the White House, because the President would cry uncontrollably.... --Robert Dallek, in Robert A. Wilson, _Character Above All; Ten Presidents _ [1999] - There was a dark side to Johnson. He was unscrupulous. In Texas politics, where he acted as a fund-raiser for FDR, he was closely linked to his contractor ally, Brown & Root, for which he had negotiated enormous government contracts to build the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station. The company illegally financed Johnson's unsuccessful 1941 Senate campaign, and from July 1942 IRS agents began to investigate both them and LBJ himself. They found overwhelming evidence not only of fraud and breaches of the Hatch Act in the use of campaign money, but of lawbreaking in many other aspects of Brown & Root's business, including tax evasion of over $1 million. Both LBJ and Herman Brown, head of the firm who had begun life as a two-dollar-a-day rod carrier for a surveyor, could have gone to jail for many years. The investigation was derailed as a result of the direct intervention of FDR himself, January 13, 1944, and the matter ended with a simple fine: no indictment, no trial, and no publicity. After this, LBJ was involved in various Texan political intrigues of a more or less unlawful nature and in building up a personal fortune (most of it in the name of his wife, the long-suffering 'Lady Bird' Johnson) in radio-TV stations and land. There was also the case of Robert G. ('Bobby') Baker, a gangling South Carolinan who had served Johnson as secretary and factotum in the years when he was Senate leader. Baker was known, on account of his power and influence, as 'the hundred and first Senator,' and LBJ said of him, fondly: 'I have two daughters. If I had a son, this would be the boy ... [He is] my strong right arm, the last man I see at night, the first one I see in the morning.' In the autumn of 1963, a private suit against Baker in a federal court, alleging that he had improperly used his influence in the Senate to obtain defense contracts for his own vending- machine firm, provoked a spate of similar accusations against his probity, and in a number of them LBJ was involved. The accusations were so serious that, just before his assassination, Kennedy was considering dropping LBJ from his 1964 ticket, even though he feared that to do so would imperil his chances of carrying Texas and Georgia. At Republican urging, the Senate agreed to investigate the case. But by that time LBJ was president and the full weight of his office was brought to bear to avoid the need for testimony either from Johnson himself or from his aide Walter Jenkins, who possessed a good deal of guilty knowledge. The Senate committee, on which Democrats out- numbered Republicans six to three, voted solidly on party lines to protect the President. --Paul Johnson (1928- ) British conservative historian, _A History of the American People_ [1997] pp. 870-871 - In this age when there can be no losers in peace and no victors in war -we must recognise the obligation to match national strength with national restraint - we must be prepared at one and the same time for both the confirmation of power and the limitation of power. --Lyndon B. Johnson All I have I would have given gladly not to be standing here today. --Lyndon B. Johnson (First address to Congress as President [27 November 1963] If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: PRESIDENT CAN'T SWIM. --Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American Democratic statesman, President [1963-1969] -  . . Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English poet, critic, and lexicographer see "PEOPLE" for related links see also: "WRITING" But the great Dr. Johnson was one in a century, and I count myself honored to have tasted the wine of his speech, even though put to my mouth through the goodness of his friend. For that Englishman is not to be read with the eyes alone, but read out, as with the Word, with a good voice, and a rolling of the tongue, so that the rich taste of magnificent English may come to the ears and go to the head, like the perfumes of the Magi, or like the best of beer, home brewed and long in the cask. --Richard Llewellyn [Richard Dafydd Vivian Llewellyn Lloyd] (1906-1983) Welsh novelist and playwright, _How Green Was My Valley_ [1939] I can read every word that Dr. Johnson wrote with delight, for he had good sense, charm, and wit. No one could have written better if he had not wilfully set himself to write in the grand style. He knew good English when he saw it. --W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer, _The Summing Up_ [1938], Chapter XII I at once and for ever recognized in him a man entirely sincere, and infallibly wise in the view and estimate he gave of the common questions, business, and ways of the world. I valued his sentences not primarily because they were symmetrical, but because they were just, and clear...No other writer could have secured me, as he did, against all chance of being misled by my own sanguine and metaphysical temperament. He taught me carefully to measure life, and distrust fortune; and he secured me, by his admantine common-sense, from being caught in the cobwebs of German metaphysics, or sloughed in the English drainage of them. --John Ruskin (1819-1900) English art and social critic, _Praeterita_ [1885-1887] - The pioneering lexicographer Samuel Johnson declared in his 1755 dictionary that the "bon" was French for "good" (which it is), and therefore "bonfire" obviously meant "good fire" (which it doesn't). What makes Dr. Johnson's error especially surprising is that when "bonfire" had first appeared in English in the 15th century, everyone understood that the "bon" meant "bone," and that a "bonfire" was originally a fire made of bones, usually animal bones that had accumulated over the course of a year. --The Word Detective, http://www.word-detective.com . . see "HUMOR" for related links Post September 11, suddenly the world feels bi-polar again, and one of the things being directed at us along with irrationality, hatred of women, religiosity, and fanaticism, is humourlessness. Humour is the obverse of common sense. As Clive James said, "Humour is common sense dancing." And without humour there can be no common sense. Humourless people aren't just the people that don't laugh at jokes; I mean they can't be trusted with anything. I don't know how they get across the road without getting knocked over, it seems to me such a basic human quality, so it's important to assert comedy and laughter in the face of its opposite. --Martin Amis (1949- ) British novelist and son of Sir Kingsley Amis, discussing _Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million_ in "The Hindu" [6 October 2002] I believe you can joke about anything. It all depends on how you construct the joke. What the exaggeration is. Because every joke needs one exaggeration. Every joke needs one thing to be way out of proportion. --George Carlin (1937- ) American stand-up comedian and author A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections. --George Eliot [Mary Ann Evans] (1819-1880) English novelist, _Daniel Deronda_ [1876] Anyone who has at any time had occasion to enquire from the literature of aesthetics and psychology what light can be thrown on the nature of jokes and on the the position they occupy will probably have to admit that jokes have not received nearly as much philosophical consideration in view of the part they play in our mental health. --Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) Austrian psychiatrist A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents. --Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799) German scientist and drama critic _Omissis jocis_ (Joking aside.) --Pliny the Younger or Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (62-c.115) Roman senator and author of a famous collection of letters. There are only a handful of possible jokes. The chief members of this joke band may be said to be: the fall of dignity [and] mistaken identity. --Mack Sennett (1880-1960) Canadian-born innovator of slapstick comedy in film. - Another well-known example of spontaneous intuitive insights are jokes. In the split second where you understand a joke you experience a moment of "enlightenment." It is well known that this moment must come spontaneously, that it cannot be achieved by "explaining" the joke, i.e. by intellectual analysis. Only with a sudden intuitive insight into the nature of the joke do we experience the liberating laughter the joke is meant to produce. The similarity between a spiritual insight and the understanding of a joke must be well known to enlightened men and women, since they almost invariably show a great sense of humour. Zen, especially, is full of funny stories and anecdotes, and in the Tao Te Ching we read, "If it were not laughed at, it would not be sufficient to be Tao." --_The Tao of Physics_  JONES, CHUCK . . Chuck [Charles Martin] Jones (1912-2002) American animator, cartoon artist, and director of animated films BUGS BUNNY CARTOON CHARACTERS see "PEOPLE" for related links If Walt Disney was the first animator who taught me how to fly in my dreams, Chuck Jones was the first animator who made me laugh at them. --Steven Spielberg (1947- ) American film dierector and producer . . see "HAPPINESS" for related links One joy scatters a hundred griefs. --Chinese Proverb We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them. --Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) Lebanese poet. In _The Book of Positive Quotations_, {comp. by John Cook}, p.. 354 [2007]. Enjoy what you can, endure what you must. --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) German poet, novelist, and playwright. The tide recedes but leaves behind bright seashells in the sand, The sun goes down but gentle warmth still lingers on the land. The music stops, and yet echoes on in sweet refrains...For every joy that passes, something beautiful remains. --M.D. Hughes The trick is not how much pain you feel--but how much joy you feel. Any idiot can feel pain. Life is full of excuses to feel pain, excuses not to live, excuses, excuses, excuses. --Erica Jong (1942- ) American novelist. _How To Save Your Own Life_ [1977] Sleep, riches, and health, to be truly enjoyed, must be interrupted. --Jean Paul Richter (1763-1825) German novelist. _Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces_ , ch. VIII. Shared pain is lessened; shared joy is increased; thus do we refute entropy. --Spider Robinson, "Post Toast", _Callahan's Chronicals_ Abstaining so as really to enjoy, is the epicurism, the very perfection, of reason. --Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) French philosopher and novelist. A thing seriously pursued affords true enjoyment. --Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C.- 65 A.D.) Roman philosopher and poet. _Epistles_, XXIII, 3, 4 How much better it is to weep at joy than to joy at weeping. --William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist. _Much Ado About Nothing_ [1598-1599] There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want, and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second. --Logan Pearsall Smith (1865—1946) American-born man of letters. _Afterthoughts_ [1931] Gaiety is the outstanding feature of the Soviet Union. --Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (1879—1953), Soviet Communist leader and head of the USSR from the death of V. I. Lenin (1924) until his own death. (1935 comment.) Joy and grief are never far apart. In the same street the shutters of one house are closed, while the curtains of the next are brushed by shadow of the dance. A wedding- party returns from church, and a funeral winds to its door. The smiles and the sadness of life are the tragi-comedy of Shakespeare. Gladness and sighs brighten and dim the mirror he beholds. --Robert Aris Willmott (1809-1863) English editor and author. ----- blithe (adjective) [bLIdh] Joyous, spiritedly if not giddily happy; happy to the point of ignoring reality. end page | IDAHO - IDIOTS | IDLENESS - IMMATURITY | IMMIGRATION & IMMORALITY | IMMORTALITY - IMPOSTORS | IMPRESSIONABLE - INDECISION | INDEPENDENCE - INDIANA | INDIFFERENCE - INDIVIDUALITY | INDOCTRINATION - INFORMATION | INGRATITUDE - INNOVATION | INNUENDO - INSPIRATION | INSULTS - INTENTIONS | INTERESTED(ING) - INTUITION | INVENTIONS - ITCHING | JACKSON - JOGGING | JOHNSON (LYNDON) - JOY | JOURNALISM | JUDGE (TO) - JUSTICE | | H | I - J | K - L | M | N - O | P - Q | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The End | The Reviews | Photos | |
||