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POLLS
POLLUTION
POOR
POPE JOHN PAUL II

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POLLS

see: "OPINION"
see: "POLITICS" for related links


There is nothing that makes more cowards
and feeble men that public opinion.
--Henry Ward Beecher (1813—1887)
American Congregational minister;
[brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, son of Lyman Beecher.]
_Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit_ [1887]

If Rosa Parks had taken a poll before she sat down
in the bus in Montgomery, she'd still be standing.
--Mary Frances Berry (b. 1938)
American lawyer and administrator.
Quoted in Brian Lanker's _I Dream a World: Portraits of Black
Women Who Changed America_ [1989] "Mary Frances Berry."

-

"Fiasco in 1936 Survey Brought 'Science' To Election Polling"
by Cynthia Crossen
_The Wall Street Journal_ [2 October 2006]

President Alf Landon?

In the fall of 1936, the most influential poll in America, run by Literary Digest magazine, predicted that Mr. Landon, governor of Kansas, would trounce the Democratic incumbent, Franklin Roosevelt, with 57% of the popular vote. Literary Digest's poll was massive — it sent out 10 million ballots that year — and it had correctly forecast five previous presidential elections. There was widespread concern that the poll might create a bandwagon effect, giving Mr. Landon an even bigger victory.

The poll could hardly have been more wrong. Mr. Roosevelt won the election with more than 60% of the popular vote; Mr. Landon carried only two states, Maine and Vermont. The failure of the Literary Digest and other, smaller polls, "will undoubtedly revive agitation for their abolition or control," wrote the New York Times. Kenneth McKellar, a Democratic senator from Tennessee, called the Literary Digest poll "wicked," and promised to sponsor legislation to put polling under federal supervision.

Although by that time polling was not a young business, it was still operating in the statistical Dark Ages. First used around 1824, straw polls (named for the way farmers threw a fistful of straw in the air to see which way the wind was blowing) were often taken by traveling journalists or private citizens. They might ask everyone on a steamship or train how they intended to vote. [...]

Literary Digest, a general-interest weekly founded in 1890, began doing straw polls in 1916. It mailed ballots to its subscribers, gradually building up a list with publicly available names of people who owned telephones and cars. At its peak, the magazine sent ballots to 20 million people, and employed 400 clerks to tally the returns.

But magazine subscribers and owners of cars and telephones during the Great Depression tended to be more affluent than the average voter — and more Republican. Indeed, in its 1936 pre-election report, the magazine reported that a skeptic had called its office to ask, "Has the Republican National Committee purchased the Literary Digest?" Commented the magazine, "Absurd and amusing."

In its postelection report, however, the editors acknowledged that the poll undersampled some groups of voters. And whose fault was that? "We wonder why we get better cooperation in what we have always regarded as a public service from Republicans than we do from Democrats. Do Republicans live nearer mailboxes? Do Democrats generally disapprove of straw polls?"

Even among the subset of people who received ballots, there was an element of self-selection. People with ample leisure were more likely to take the trouble to help Literary Digest. But plenty of the "lower strata," as the magazine called them, voted that year.

There was at least one man who relished the Literary Digest fiasco: George Gallup. Mr. Gallup, a market researcher and syndicated columnist, had begun experimenting with so-called scientific methods of polling, and in July 1936, he predicted Literary Digest would call the election erroneously. He himself projected a Democratic victory, although his margin turned out to be way off.

Mr. Gallup, of course, was one of the leaders of the pack that predicted Thomas Dewey would beat Harry Truman in 1948. Pollsters' methods and tools — and confidence — had improved so much in the dozen years since 1936 that they decided they didn't need to collect more data after October. In a postelection poll by the Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan, 14% of Truman voters said they made up their minds in the two weeks before the election, and 3% said they decided on Election Day.

"Everyone believes in public-opinion polls," joked the radio comic Goodman Ace. "Everybody from the man on the street all the way up to President Thomas E. Dewey."

By 1948, Literary Digest was long gone. It had already been facing financial problems when its poll flopped; it suspended publication in 1938 and later merged with Time magazine.

Its editor in 1936, Wilfred J. Funk, derided Mr. Gallup's methodology, saying mockingly that the Digest's poll had never been able to discover "how many rich men, poor men, G-men, racketeers and candlestick makers" voted in any given election. Twelve years later, a reporter asked Mr. Funk to comment on the Truman-Dewey polls.

"I do not want to seem to be malicious," Mr. Funk said, "but I can't help but get a good chuckle out of this. ... I wonder if the word science will continue to be used with this type of public-opinion poll."

-

November saw China enter the [Korean War] with
a rush. MacArthur's armies were driven back almost
to Pusan again. Gallup polls of October had shown
64 percent of the public in favor of taking all Korea,
rather than stopping at the prewar line. By January
1951 they showed 66 percent for getting out of
Korea altogether.
--Gallup Poll as summarized by Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May
in _Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers_ [1986].

^

In cinema theatres up & down the United Kingdom newsreels
showing Adolf Hitler's troops rupturing the Treaty of Versailles
and the Locarno Pact by marching into the Rhineland were
received with murmurs of approval, applause and even cheers
as last week opened. Newsreels of Poilus marching up to
defend the French frontier were almost everywhere received
by Britons in silence. Inquiring reporters for Baron Beaverbrook
stopped 5,000 citizens to ask: "Do you on the whole prefer the
French or the Germans?" The answer, blazoned next day in
London's Daily Express, was that 21% had no preference,
24% preferred the French and 55% preferred the Germans.
--"Germans Preferred"
_Time_ [23 March 1936]

^

I wonder how far Moses would have gone if he had taken
a poll in Egypt? What would Jesus Christ have preached
if he had taken a poll in the land of Israel? ... It isn't polIs
or public opinion alone of the moment that counts. It is
right and wrong, and leadership — men with fortitude,
honesty and a belief in the right that make epochs in the
history of the world.
--Harry S Truman (1884—1972)
American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [1945—1953].
In William Hillman _Mr. President: The First Publication
from the Personal Diaries, Private Letters, Papers and
Revealing Interviews of Harry S. Truman_ [1952].

The voice of the majority is no proof of justice.
--Friedrich von Schiller (1759—1805)
German poet, historian, and dramatist.
_Mary Stuart_, II, iii [1800]

The so-called science of poll-taking is not a science at
all. ... People are unpredictable by nature, and although
you can take a nation's pulse, you cannot be sure that
the nation hasn't just run up a flight of stairs.
--E.B. [Elwyn Brooks] White (1899—1985)
American essayist and literary stylist.
In "The New Yorker" [13 November 1948].

^

If you were a member of Congress, would you
vote 'yes' or 'no' on a bill to open the doors of
the United States to a large number of European
refugees than are now admitted under our
immigration quotas?

No: 83.0%
Yes: 8.7%
Don't Know: 8.3%

--a 1938 _Fortune_ magazine poll, in Peter Jennings
and Todd Brewster _The Century_, p. 206 [1998].

^




Click picture to ZOOM
POLLUTION

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see: "NATURE" for related links


And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic mills?
--William Blake (1757—1827)
English poet.
_Milton_ [1810] "And did those feet in ancient time"

Over increasingly large areas of the United States,
spring now comes unheralded by the return of the
birds, and the early mornings are stangely silent
where once they were filled with the beauty of
bird song.
--Rachel Carson (1907—1964)
American marine biologist and author.
_Silent Spring_ [1962]

The sea is the universal sewer.
--Jacques Cousteau (1910—1997)
French underwater explorer.
Testimony before the House Committee on
Science and Astronautics [28 January 1971].

^^

Air quality had, for some time, been a concern of some cities: what kind of
stuff were people forced to gulp into their lungs? A few cities had smoke
ordinances as far back as the nineteenth century. Los Angeles became
infamous for its smog — a noxious haze that smothered the mountains,
hid the blue sky, and made people choke and wheeze. As is often the case,
a dramatic tragedy was a strong catalyst for the clean-air movement. On
October 29, 1948, a heavy fog or smog — the "Donora death fog"— enveloped
the town of Donora, Pennsylvania. In Donora there was literally darkness
at noon. People began to gasp for breath; they suffered from nausea and
abdominal pains. The basement of a community center became a temporary
morgue. A temperature inversion conspired with pollution from zinc and
steel factories to choke off the breathable air supply and replace it with a
thick, acrid, poisonous cloud. By most accounts, twenty people ended up
dead, and seven thousand people — half of the town's population — had to
be hospitalized. It was a national wakeup call. Federal and state health
agencies launched an investigation — the first important effort to pin down
the facts and dangers of air pollution.

--Lawrence M. Friedman (b. 1930)
_American Law in the 20th Century_ [2002], ch. 7 "War and Postwar"

^^

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One of the few natural resources China has in
abundance, coal accounts for three quarters of
total energy consumption. The country's power
stations and manufacturing plants are fueled
overwhelmingly by coal. Factor in coal's dominant
role in keeping people warm, along with the
primitive technologies often employed, and it's
no surprise that Chinese cities, especially in
the industrial, frigid north, have some of the
filthiest air on the planet.
--Mark Hertsgaard (b. 1956)
"Our Real China Problem", _Atlantic_ [November 1997]

Heavy pollution may kill you in a hundred
days, but without enough heat and food
you die in three.
--Chen Qi, op. cit.

-

They say oil causes pollution. A hundred years ago the
streets were ankle deep in horse excrement. What kind
of pollution do you want, anyway? Would you rather
die of cancer at eighty, or die of typhoid fever at nine?
--attributed to P.J. O'Rourke (b. 1947)
American political satirist.

In London this smoke is found to blight or destroy
all vegetation ... Other phenomena are produced by
its union with fogs, rendering them nearly opaque,
and shutting out the light of the sun; it blackens the
mud of the streets by its deposit of tar, while the
unctuous mixture renders the foot-pavement
slippery ... It must in a future age be ... difficult to
believe that the Londoners could have resided in the
dense atmosphere of coal-smoke above described.
--Sir Richard Phillips (1767—1840)
British author and publisher.
_A Morning's Walk from London to Kew_ [1817]

Approximately 80 per cent of our air pollution
stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation,
so let's not go overboard in setting and enforcing
tough emission standards from man-made
sources.
--Ronald Reagan (1911—2004)
American President [1981—1989] and former Hollywood actor.
_Sierra_ [10 September 1980]

As the king learns from the compaints of prelates
and magnates of his realm, who frequently come
to London for the benefit of the Commonwealth
by his order, and ... of his citizens and all his
people dwelling there ... that the workmen [in kilns]
... now burn them and construct them of sea-coal
instead of brush wood or charcoal, from the use of
which sea-coal an intolerable smell diffuses itself
throughout the neighbouring places and the air is
greatly affected to the annoyance of the magnates,
citizens and others there dwelling and to the injury
of their bodily health.
--Royal proclamation addressing the pollution from
industry [1307], in M.J. Cohan and John Major (eds.)
_History in Quotations_, p. 211 [2004].
Cohan & Major explain:
Despite fines on the first offence and the threat of
demolishing the furnaces on a second, London
was already — as it remained — a polluted town.

[After a tour of the Far East:]
I have seen the future of much of the Pacific Rim,
and I am scared out of my mind. One quarter of the
population of the planet, certainly about 1.2 billion
Chinese, are about to transform their standard of
living, and in the process, wreck a large proportion
of the globe.
--John Sergeant
British architect,
_Newsweek_ [9 May 1994]

Casa: I durst not laugh for fear of opening
my lips, and receiving the bad air.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Julius Caesar_, I, ii [1599]

I do wonder whether there will come a time when we can no longer
afford our wastefulness — chemical wastes in the rivers, metal wastes
everywhere, and atomic wastes buried deep in the earth or sunk in
the sea. When an Indian village became too deep in its own filth,
the inhabitants moved. And we have no place in which to move.
--John Steinbeck (1902—1968)
American novelist.
_Travels With Charley_ [1962]

[On Manchester, England:]
A sort of black smoke covers the city. The sun
seen through it is a disc without rays. Under
this half-daylight 300,000 human beings are
ceaselessly at work ... From this foul drain the
greatest stream of human industry flows out to
fertilize the whole world. From this filthy sewer
pure gold flows. Here humanity attains its most
complete development and its most brutish; here
civilization makes its miracles, and civilized man
is turned back almost into a savage.
--Alexis de Tocqueville (1805—1859)
French historian and politician.
_Journeys to England and Ireland_ [1835]

-

Although I'm sometimes pessimistic about man's
future, I don't believe him to be innately evil.
I'm more worried about his insatiable curiosity
than I am about his poor character; his pre-
occupation with the moon is disturbing to me,
particularly since his own rivers run dirty and
his air is getting fouler every year.
--E.B. [Elwyn Brooks] White (1899—1985)
American essayist and literary stylist.
In a letter to Judith W. Preusser [25 February 1966].

-

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?
--The Five Man Electrical Band
_Signs_ [1971] (song)
(Lyrics by Les Emmerson.)


TOPICAL

[...] Outdoor advertising, one of the oldest forms of advertising,
is reinventing itself. The $23 billion industry is introducing digital
technology to change ads faster, new ways of measuring viewers,
and billboards that beam information to cellphones. As a result,
outdoor advertising companies — which provide billboards,
posters and video screens in public places — are now seeing
bigger gains than many competitors. [...]

Around the world, spending on outdoor advertising last year
was $23.2 billion, up 6.1% from the year earlier, according to
ZenithOptimedia, a media buyer owned by Publicis Groupe SA.
Spending on television ads was $146.8 billion, up 3.8%, the
group says. Global spending on Internet advertising was slightly
less than on outdoor, at $18.1 billion, but up 28.77% from the
year before. [...]

--Aaron O. Patrick
"Technology Boosts Outdoor Ads As Competition Becomes Fiercer"
_The Wall Street Journal_ [28 August 2006]

-----

nebulous (adj.) ['ne-byκ-lκs]
Like or relating to a nebula (an interstellar mass of cosmic
gas and/or dust); vague, blurred, unclear, as a nebulous
promise; cloudy, hazy, as a nebulous view of the canyon.

turbid [TUR-bid], adjective:
1. Muddy; thick with or as if with roiled sediment; not clear;
-- used of liquids of any kind.
2. Thick; dense; dark; -- used of clouds, air, fog, smoke, etc.
3. Disturbed; confused; disordered.




POOR

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see: "POVERTY"
see: "MONEY" for other related links


Over the hill to the poor-house I'm trudgin' my weary way—
--Will Carleton (1845—1912)
American poet.
"Over the Hill to the Poor-House", l. 1 in _Farm Ballads_ [1873].

He who is frugal is the richest of
men, and the miser is the poorest.
--Sιbastien-Roch Nicolas Chamfort (1741—1794)
French playwright and conversationalist.
_Maxims and Thoughts_ [1796], tr. W.S. Merwin [1984].

The best way to find out if you have any friends is
to go broke. The ones that hang on longest are your
friends. I don't mean the ones that hang on forever.
There aren't any of those.
--Raymond Chandler (1888—1959)
American writer of detective fiction.
Letter to Carl Brandt [18 April 1949].

You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer.
--Winston Churchill (1874—1965)
British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister [1940-45, 1951-55].
Quoted in _Point International_ [1 November 1976].

^

Oliver Herford (1863—1935)
American humorist, illustrator, and writer of light verse.

Herford was short of money in the early days
of his career. The manager of his hotel, aware
of his guest's precarious financial situation,
did not insist on immediate payment, but
simply added any money owing at the end
of a week to the bill for the following week.
One day, as the two men passed in the hotel
foyer, the manager asked Herford if he had
received his latest bill. Herford simply replied,
'Yes.'

'Is that all you have to say?'

'At the moment, yes,' said the humorist.
'But if the bill gets any larger, I'll have to
ask you for a larger room.'

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.]

^

-

A decent provision for the poor, is the true test of civilization.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.
In James Boswell _The Life of Samuel Johnson_ [1791] "26 October 1769".


Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less.
Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly
destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable,
and others extremely difficult.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.
Letter to James Boswell [7 December 1782].

-

If a free society cannot help the many who are
poor,it cannot save the few who are rich.
--John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917—1963)
American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [1961—1963].
Inaugural address [20 January 1961].

He is rich whose income is more than his expenses;
and he is poor whose expenses exceed his income.
--Jean de La Bruyθre (1645—1696)
French essayist and moralist.
Attributed in "The London Magazine" [December 1827].

^

Bennett Cerf tells about Fiorello La Guardia
presiding over the police court:

One bitter cold day they brought a trembling old
man before him, charged with stealing a loaf of
bread. His family, he said, was starving. 'I've
got to punish you,' declared La Guardia. 'The
law makes no exception. I can do nothing but
sentence you to a fine of ten dollars.'

But the Little Flower was reaching into his pocket
as he added, 'Well, here's the ten dollars to pay
our fine. And now I remit the fine.' He tossed a
ten-dollar bill into his famous sombrero. 'Futhermore,'
he declared, 'I'm going to fine everybody in this
courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a
man has to steal bread in order to eat. Mr. Bailiff,
collect the fines and give them to this defendant!'
The hat was passed and an incredulous old man,
with a light of heaven in his eyes, left the courtroom
with a stake of forty-seven dollars and fifty cents.

(Bennett Cerf (1898—1971)
American author, humorist, and publisher.
Fiorello La Guardia (1882—1947)
American politician who served three terms
as mayor of New York City [1933-45].)

^

That man is to be accounted poor, of whatever rank he be,
and suffers the pains of poverty, whose expenses exceed his
resources; and no man is, properly speaking, poor but he.
--William Paley (1743—1805)
English theologian and philosopher.
"Reasons for Contentment" [1793]

Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only
empty heads and empty hearts can do that.
--attributed to Norman Vincent Peale (1898—1993)
American preacher and author.

Not he who has little, but he who wishes for more, is poor.
--Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C.—65 A.D.)
Roman philosopher and poet.
_Epistulae morales ad Lucilium_ [c. 65 A.D.]

We who are liberal and progressive know that the
poor are our equals in every sense except that of
being equal to us.
--Lionel Trilling (1905—1975)
American critic and author.
_The Liberal Imagination_ [1950] "The Princess Casamassima"

-----

alms (noun) [ahmz]
Money or other valuables given to charity or the poor.

hardscrabble [HARD-skrab-uhl], adjective:
1. Yielding a bare or meager living with great labor or difficulty.
2. Marked by poverty.

impecunious [im-pih-KYOO-nee-uhs], adjective:
Not having money; habitually without money; poor.

penurious (adj.)
1. Having very little money.
2. Not generous with money.




Click picture to ZOOM
POPE JOHN PAUL II

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see: "CHRISTIANITY"
see: "RELIGION" for related links
see: "PEOPLE" for related links


Pope John Paul II [Karol Wojtyla] (1920—2005)
The first non-Italian Pope since the 16th century.


My John Paul, not surprisingly, is the political Pope, the Polish
Pope, the one who helped to bring down the Soviet Empire.
There is no doubt in my mind about the role he played in this
grand spectacle of history. Forget all the rather silly theories about
cooperation with the CIA, or some "holy alliance" with President
Reagan; he made a difference not on the account of some covert
shenanigans but because of who he was, what he said and what
he did out in the open, in front of the billions.

If you distill it all into one word, it is this: hope. He gave
us hope. By us, I mean initially the Poles, the troublemakers
who in 1980 started rocking the communist boat.

--Arthur Chrenkoff,
"My Pope"
[3 April 2005]

-

-

The Pope liked [Ronald] Reagan for a number of
reasons. He rightly recognized him as a Protestant
who was friendly to Catholicism, and who counted
many Catholics among his intimates ... Of course,
John Paul II was overjoyed when Reagan later became
the first president to extend diplomatic recognition
to the Vatican — a move long resisted by Protestants
as far back as the administration of Harry Truman.

Reagan and John Paul II were in many ways a perfect
match, their respective religious faiths giving them
an extraordinary amount of common ground. The
Pope himself had suffered an assassination attempt
in 1981, only six weeks after Reagan's, and each
man was able to rise above his personal suffering
when it came to his assassin: just as John Paul II
forgave his would-be assassin, even visiting him in
prison, Reagan prayed for forgiveness for Hinckley.

John Paul's passionate association with his Polish
homeland, moreover, rendered him a fierce and
faithful ally to Reagan in their shared anti-
communism. The two appeared to believe equally in
God's will, and shared a faith-based optimism that
made them hopeful about the future. The Pope, in
his own words, held a self-professed "conviction
that the destiny of all nations lies in the hands
of a merciful Providence."

One June 7, 1982, the two men sat face-to-face for
the first time. They discussed the assassination
attempts, as well as their shared sense of special
purpose. In a later cover story for _Time_
magazine, Carl Bernstein reported that both the Pope
and Reagan believed that God had saved them for a
chosen mission — that mission, the article implied,
was the defeat of communism in the Soviet bloc.

--Paul Kengor (b. 1966)
_God and Ronald Reagan_ [2004], "God's Will and the Demise of the Soviet Empire"

-

-

Everyone has spoken this past week of John Paul II's role in the
defeat of Soviet communism and the liberation of Eastern Europe.
We don't know everything, or even a lot, about the quiet diplomatic
moves — what happened in private, what kind of communications
the pope had with the other great lions of the 1980s, Reagan and
Thatcher. And others, including Bill Casey, the tough old fox of
the CIA, and Lech Walesa of Solidarity.

But I think I know the moment Soviet communism began its fall.
It happened in public. Anyone could see it. It was one of the great
spiritual moments of the 20th century, maybe the greatest.

It was the first week in June 1979. Europe was split in two between
east and west, the democracies and the communist bloc — police
states controlled by the Soviet Union and run by local communist
parties and secret police.

John Paul was a new pope, raised to the papacy just eight months
before. The day after he became pope he made it clear he would
like to return as pope to his native Poland to see his people.

[...]

On June 2, 1979, the pope arrived in Poland. What followed will
never be forgotten by those who witnessed it.

He knelt and kissed the ground, the dull gray tarmac of the airport
outside Warsaw. The silent churches of Poland at that moment began
to ring their bells. The pope traveled by motorcade from the airport
to the Old City of Warsaw. The government had feared hundreds or
thousands or even tens of thousands would line the streets and
highways.

By the end of the day, with the people lining the streets and highways
plus the people massed outside Warsaw and then inside it — all of them
cheering and throwing flowers and applauding and singing — more
than a million had come. In Victory Square in the Old City the pope gave
a mass. Communist officials watched from the windows of nearby hotels.
The pope gave what papal biographer George Weigel called the greatest
sermon of John Paul's life.

Why, the pope asked, had God lifted a Pole to the papacy? Perhaps it
was because of how Poland had suffered for centuries, and through
the 20th century had become "the land of a particularly responsible
witness" to God. The people of Poland, he suggested, had been chosen
for a great role, to understand, humbly but surely, that they were
the repository of a special "witness of His cross and His resurrection."
He asked then if the people of Poland accepted the obligations of such
a role in history.

The crowd responded with thunder.

"We want God!" they shouted, together. "We want God!"

What a moment in modern history: We want God. From the mouths of
modern men and women living in a modern atheistic dictatorship.

[...]

And now he is dead. It is fitting and not at all surprising that
Rome, to its shock, has been overwhelmed with millions of people
come to see him for the last time. The line to view his body in St.
Peter's stretched more than a mile. His funeral tomorrow will be
witnessed by an expected two billion people, the biggest television
event in history. And no one, in Poland or elsewhere, will be
able to edit the tape to hide what is happening.

John Paul gave us what may be the transcendent public spiritual
moment of the 20th century. "We want God." The greatest and most
authentic cry of the human heart. They say he asked that his heart
be removed from his body and buried in Poland. That sounds right,
and I hope it's true. They'd better get a big box.

--Peggy Noonan (b. 1950)
Speechwriter for U.S. presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
"We Want God" in _The Wall Street Journal_ [7 April 2005].

& see:

We know what the pope has achieved. Fifty percent of the collapse
of communism is his doing. More than one year after he spoke these
words, we were able to organize 10 million people for strikes,
protests and negotiations. Earlier we tried, I tried, and we couldn't
do it. These are facts. Of course, communism would have fallen, but
much later and in a bloody way. He was a gift from the heavens to us.
--Lech Walesa (b. 1943)
Polish trade unionist and statesman.
"The Pope and Communism" [1 April 2005]

-

The pontificate of John Paul II has been very difficult
for the culture of dissent. Karol Wojtyla was exactly
what the Lite Brigade wanted as pope in 1978: a modern
European intellectual, widely traveled, multilingual,
happy and confident, with extensive pastoral experience
and terrific public presence. Within months, it became
evident that the Lite Brigade, having gotten what it
wanted, now rued the day when it had made its wish.
So the attack on John Paul II as a man out-of-step with
modernity began. The truth of the matter is that John
Paul II is the first truly modern pope, in the sense of
a pope with a thoroughly modern intellectual formation.
What he had, though, was a very different reading of
modernity than the Lite Brigade. He did not propose
to surrender to modernity. He proposed to convert it.
--George Weigel (b. 1951)
American author.
_The Courage to be Catholic_ [2002]


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| PACIFISM - PAIN | PAINTING - PARENTING | PARIS - PASSPORTS | PAST (THE) - PATRIOTISM | PEACE - PERCENTAGES | PEOPLE | PERCEPTIONS - PERSUASION | PESSIMISM - PHILOSOPHY | PHONIES - PHYSICS | PIANO - PLANS | PLACES | PLANTS - POETRY | POISON - POLITICAL PARTIES | POLITICS & POLITICIANS (PAGE 1 A - L) | POLITICS & POLITICIANS (PAGE 2 M - Z) | POLLS - POPE JOHN PAUL II | POPEYE - POTENTIAL | POVERTY | POWER | PRACTICALITY - PRAYER | PREACHERS - PREPARED (BE) | PRESENT (THE) - (THE) PRESS | PRETENSION - PRIVACY | PROBLEMS - PROGRESSIVES | PROGRESS - PROPAGANDA | PROPOSALS - PUBLIC (THE) | PUBLIC OPINION - PUNCTUATION | PUNISHMENT - PURPOSE | QUALITIES - QUIPS | QUIRKS - QUOTATIONS |
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