#ian

Suppose that a man leaps out of a burning building—as my dear friend and colleague Jeff Goldberg sat and said to my face over a table at La Tomate in Washington not two years ago—and lands on a bystander in the street below. Now, make the burning building be Europe, and the luckless man underneath be the Palestinian Arabs. Is this a historical injustice? Has the man below been made a victim, with infinite cause of complaint and indefinite justification for violent retaliation? My own reply would be a provisional 'no,' but only on these conditions. The man leaping from the burning building must still make such restitution as he can to the man who broke his fall, and must not pretend that he never even landed on him. And he must base his case on the singularity and uniqueness of the original leap. It can't, in other words, be 'leap, leap, leap' for four generations and more. The people underneath cannot be expected to tolerate leaping on this scale and of this duration, if you catch my drift. In Palestine, tread softly, for you tread on their dreams. And do not tell the Palestinians that they were never fallen upon and bruised in the first place. Do not shame yourself with the cheap lie that they were told by their leaders to run away. Also, stop saying that nobody knew how to cultivate oranges in Jaffa until the Jews showed them how. 'Making the desert bloom'—one of Yvonne's stock phrases—makes desert dwellers out of people who were the agricultural superiors of the Crusaders. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#analogies #arabs #colonialism #crusades #europe

The most ordinary word, when put into place, suddenly acquires brilliance. That is the brilliance with which your images must shine. ↗

— Robert Bresson

#brilliance #images #into #most #must

It wouldn't matter whether you were Latino or Hispanic or Norwegian. If you didn't have proof of citizenship and if the police officer had reasonable suspicion, he would ask and verify your citizenship. I mean, that's the way that it is. That's what the federal law says. And that's what the law in Arizona says. ↗

— Jan Brewer

#ask #citizenship #federal #federal law #had

One thing I want to do is create something called Ring Around Congress. It would be a state deal and also a national thing, where the kids, as a field trip, will go and join hands around Congress and give the politicians report cards on how they're voting on hunger issues. ↗

— Jeff Bridges

#around #called #cards #congress #create

I am disgusted by the anti-Semitism of many Italians, of many Europeans. ↗

— Oriana Fallaci

#anti-semitism #disgusted #europeans #i #i am

There is more criticism of puritanism, and more distance from Christian morality, than there has been before. ↗

— Susie Bright

#before #christian #criticism #distance #morality

It is sufficient to say, what everybody knows to be true, that the Irish population is Catholic, and that the Protestants, whether of the Episcopalian or Presbyterian Church, or of both united, are a small minority of the Irish people. ↗

— John Bright

#both #catholic #church #episcopalian #everybody

I find it shameful that in nearly all the universities of Europe, Palestinian students sponsor and nurture anti-Semitism. ↗

— Oriana Fallaci

#europe #find #i #nearly #nurture

Brian Eno developed systems to keep himself on edge and to keep himself in a position where he's generating ideas. ↗

— Jon Brion

#developed #edge #generating #himself #ideas

Politics is pop. Our job as comedians - especially me, as a late-night talk show, which is a broader audience - is to amplify what we think America is thinking. ↗

— Jimmy Fallon

#amplify #audience #broader #comedians #especially