Words 98-99

"Wholesale short-term memory loss."
Jerry Garcia, of the rock band The Greatful Dead, explaining why - after thirty years of playing
together - each night is still a fresh experience for his band.
(NBC News' Time Again; replaying a 1987 interview; 31 July, 1999)
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"If the name 'Microsoft' provides the user with no more
guarantees about the reliability of its dictionaries than . . . its
software, the people will not take its dictionaries to be
particularly authoritative."
Geoffrey Nunberg, Stanford University Linguist, commenting on Microsoft's new Encarta Word
English Dictionary product, the day it was released.
( Seattle Times; 1 September, 1999; page C3)
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"I fear that the machines are several centuries ahead of the
morals."
U.S. President Harry Truman, writing in his diary the day he learned that the first atomic bomb
had been detonated in the New Mexico desert in the summer of 1945.
( The Century: Ultimate Power; The History Channel; 14 August, 1999)
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"A newspaper is not a consumer item. Newspapers mold the
nation."
Mammen Mathew, president of the Indian Newspaper Society justifying the society's position that
foreign newspapers should not be allowed to publish in India.
( Seattle Times; 8 April, 1999; page A12)
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"If you're not a United States citizen, you don't have the rights
and privileges of a citizen."
Allen Kay a spokesman for Texas Republican Congressman Lamar Smith, the driving force
behind the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, which
retroactively makes naturalized U.S. Citizens and U.S. Permanent residents deportable for such
past offenses and driving under the influence of alcohol, illegal gambling, or possession of a small
amount of marijuana.
( Seattle Times; 28 March, 1999; page A26)
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"I've lived in two communist countries, China and Vietnam. And
I've never seen anything worse than this. I never knew a law like
this could exist in America."
Thirty-two year old Chan Hoang who, along with his parents and siblings, came to the United
States from a refugee camp in Hong Kong in 1980. In his early twenties, he was convicted of selling
drugs to an undercover policeman and spent five years in prison. Upon his release, a new law (the
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996) championed by Texas
Republican Congressman Lamar Smith, dictated that Hoang be remanded to the custody of the
U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service since the United States does not have full diplomatic
relations with his native country of Vietnam, and therefore no mechanism exists to deport him. He
shares an eight by eight foot cell with another detainee. No end to his incarceration in sight.
( Seattle Times; 28 March, 1999; page A26)
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"Those who perpetrate these hateful deeds pervert the great
religion in whose name they claim to act."
First Lady of the United States Hillary Rodham Clinton speaking before an audience in Tunis,
Tunisia about religious fundamentalism's often brutal and unjust treatment of women.
( Seattle Times; 27 March, 1999; page A5)
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"Obviously, she felt it was important to live her convictions. In
that respect, she was one of our finest graduates."

Yale University Law Professor Harlon Dalton talking about his former student, Deena Umbarger,
who was assassinated in a cafe on the border between Somalia and Kenya. She was working as a
relief worker and was investigating corruption in the disbursal of humanitarian aid.
( Seattle Times; 23 March, 1999; page A15)
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"Film is not a pastime in India. It's a religion."
Ranjan Bakshi Vice-President of India's popular Zee Network of satellite TV Channels.
( Boston Globe; 21 March, 1999; page A1)
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"It's like communism. It's down to one country. I mean, there are
four of five record [major record companies] companies but they're
all the same."
Musician David Byrne of the rock group Talking Heads, explaining the recorded music industry
to a panel audience at the annual South By Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas.
( Seattle Times; 22 March, 1999; page E5)
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"It's not over till the fat lady sings -- and we don't allow fat
ladies on the premises."
Playboy Mansion resident Hugh Hefner wondering aloud about the status of his divorce.
( Seattle Times; 18 March, 1999; page C1)
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"The main thing I've learned is you can't walk into a courtroom
without competent legal representation."
O.J. Simpson vouching for the United States' justice system.
( Seattle Times; 18 March, 1999; page A4)
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"The interesting thing about Tony is that we were friends much
before he was a talking head of any kind. And he respected my
confidences every single time. It's not as me (sic) talking to a
source. It was me talking to a friend."
Some thoughts on the value of friendship and trust by Linda Tripp, the woman who's
surreptitious taping of her friend Monica Lewinsky's private conversations, sparked the
impeachment of President Bill Clinton. The "Tony" is right-wing talk show host Tony Snow.
(CNN's Larry King Live; 15 February, 1999)
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"One of my main goals in coming to Congress was to reduce
cynicism and build confidence in our institutions of government."

Republican member of the House of Representatives Asa Hutchinson, one of the masterminds
behind the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.
(Seattle Times; 13 February, 1999; page A11)
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"The fact that we got to this pass shows the system is prone to
manipulation -- that a majority in Congress can pursue a partisan
vendetta."
Columbia University History Professor Eric Foner, commenting on the Republican party's attempt
to impeach Democratic president Bill Clinton.
(Seattle Times; 12 February, 1999; page A19)
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"I cannot think of anything he did under this administration that
the previous presidents did not have the privilege to do."
The Reverend Lacy Curry, of the National Baptist Convention USA, defending The Reverend
Henry Lyons who, as President of the National Baptist Convention USA, is accused of swindling
more that 4 million dollars from companies hoping to sell cemetery products, life insurance
policies, and credit cards to his flock. The Reverend Lyons, along with his mistress, has been
charged with racketeering.
(Seattle Times; 11 February, 1999; page A8)
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"When people ask me how we've lived past 100, I say, 'Honey, we
never married; we never had husbands to worry us to death.'"
Dentist Bessie Delany, who became a best-selling author at the age of 102 when her book "Having
Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years" was published. Bessie died at age 104. Her sister
Sarah, a schoolteacher, died at age 109. Both women were born in North Carolina. They later
moved to Harlem in New York City and both graduated from Columbia University during the
early 20th century.
(Seattle Times; 26 January, 1999; page A3)
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"He should have carried on lying like any other self-respecting
adulterer - with his head held high."
Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, one of U.S. President Bill Clinton's favorite authors.
(Seattle Times; 26 January, 1999; page A12)
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"The therapeutic explanation holds that leaders of the religious
right condemn what personally threatens them. They are so
troubled by their own dark, sexual yearnings that the only way to
keep these forces at bay is to condemn them in others."
Robert M. Parham, Director of the Nashville-based Baptist Center for Ethics, in an opinion piece
entitled 'Expediency Drives Double Standard of Decrying Adultery While OK'ing Racism'.
( Seattle Post-Intelligencer; 24 January, 1999; page E1)
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"The civil justice system is neither civil nor just."
Legal and literary legend Jan Schlichtmann, the subject of Jonathan Harr's book A Civil Action.
( Seattle Times; 8 January, 1999; page G5)
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"Someone has to sign one of these in order to work on campus. To
date, no one to our knowledge has refused to sign one."
Microsoft spokesman Dan Leach, commenting on the fact that workers at Microsoft are required
to sign employment contracts with clauses giving up all rights to benefit from legal judgements in
the event that Microsoft's employment practices are found to be wrongful.
(Seattle Times; 7 January, 1999; page A15)
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"We're trying to get away from the image of Jesus as a guy in a
white nightie with a halo. [. . . ] The New testament is like an
action film - violent, sensual, funny, revolutionary, angry. It's
almost never gentle, meek and mild."
British advertising executive Chas Bayfield, defending England's Church Advertising Network's
marketing campaign which utilizes photos of Latin American Marxist Ernesto "Che" Guevara
urging Britons to attend church. The Church Advertising Network represents England's major
Christian demonitions.
(Seattle Times; 7 January, 1999; page A13)
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"They start investigations for less than that."

A suprised New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani ( potential rival of Hillary Clinton for a New
York state seat in the U.S. Senate) responding to the question of whether he could "whip" Mrs.
Clinton.
(Seattle Times; 7 January, 1999; page A6)
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"You never know what's going on between two people, even if one
of the two is yourself."
Screenwriter Josh Greenfield.
(Seattle Times; 5 January, 1999; page B5)
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"We'll reduce the time of TV watching to keep the family
together."
Ivan Korneyev, Director of Russia's St. Petersburg Zoo, where zoo keepers placed a television
outside the cage of a pair of orangutans in order to show the primates videos that were designed
to convey parenting skills. However, Rabu, the male orangutan, became so engrossed in the
videos that he started to neglect his mate and their offspring.
(Seattle Times; 5 January, 1999; page A7)
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"[You] stand for the right principals and the right philosophy."
United States Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, giving the keynote address at a 1992 Mississippi
meeting of the Council of Concerned Citizens - a group that opposes interracial marriage and
immigration.
(Seattle Times; 4 January, 1999; page B5)
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"This is the universal property of the human mind. Abstract rules
form the core of everything from computer programs to grammars.
Our results show that babies' minds are built to look for such
rules - even without being told."
New York University psychologist Gary Marcus, describing research results showing that infant
brains (which have twice as many neurons and are twice as energetic as adult brains) possess an
natural ability to think in terms of formulas and rules. The research, published in the journal
Science, shows that very young infants discern rules about language, grammar, and logic by
recognizing patterns in speech. Several experts believe that this method of thinking is not just
learned through schooling, but is also a fundamental characteristic of the human mind.
(Seattle Times; 1 January, 1999; page A3)
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"This is exactly the problem between people and wildlife. People
cannot face nature. This is how pitiful humanity is."
Bulgarian artist Mihail, upset because during the dedication of his gift to the United Nations (an
11 foot tall bronze statue cast from a tranquilized bull elephant in Kenya) officials placed potted
plants in strategic locations in an effort to hide the animal's two-foot sexual organ. There was even
some talk of modifying the statue to reduce the size of the bronze penis.
( Seattle Times; 20 November, 1998; page A23)
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"This is another kind of lawlessness."
22 year-old Satish Kumar, who traveled 600 miles from his hometown in the Indian state of Bihar
(considered India's most lawless state) to work as an acid washer for a stainless steel
manufacturing plant in the Wazirpur section of New Delhi. He spends his work hours standing in
a tub filled with hydrochloric and nitric acid, bathing pieces of steel to wash away impurities left
over from the manufacturing process. He is paid $1,300 rupees ($30.00) per month. Workers at his
factory rarely last more than three years.
(Seattle Times; 20 November, 1998; page A22)
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"The first time you see somebody singing along with one of your
songs, you're a success as far as I'm concerned."
Steve Pearson, who wrote songs for, and played guitar with, a rock band called The Heats in
Seattle during the 1970s and 1980s. The Heats were wildly popular in Seattle and sold over 30,000
self-marketed records. No major label ever signed them. The band broke up in the late 1980s and
its former members now have day jobs.
(Seattle Times; 1 November, 1998; page L2)
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"Millions of men are cursing me today, but they will bless me
tomorrow. But few knew of the precipice upon which we all
stood."
United States Senator Edmund Ross, the 40 year old Kansas Republican who cast the deciding
vote not to convict U.S. President Andrew Johnson during the United States' first impeachment
trial in 1868. A faction of Congressmen and Senators known as "Radical Republicans" (who
believed that Johnson was not harsh enough on the recently-defeated Confederacy) had voted to
impeach the President. The charge was "impeding the will of congress" and stemmed from the
President's dismissal of his Secretary of Defense in direct opposition to a bill the Congress had
passed requiring the President to gain Congress' consent before removing members of his Cabinet.
Johnson remained in office. Ross was defeated in the next election and years later became the
governor of what is now the state of New Mexico.
(Seattle Times; 1 November, 1998; page A11)
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"It gives me chills."
Julia Westerinen, descendent of U.S. "founding father" and slave-master Thomas Jefferson, and
his slave Sally Hemings. She is commenting on new DNA evidence proving that Jefferson and
Hemings had a child together.
(Seattle Times; 31 October, 1998; page A1)
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"You name it, it happened on the telegraph network. There were
online weddings and there were hackers and there were the secret
codes and there was information overload and there was the
initial period of skepticism mixed with euphoria. Then there was
an adoption by the business community and an impact on the
economy. Everything that is happening with the Internet now,
happened with the telegraph."
Englishman Tom Standage, author of The Victorian Internet.
(Seattle Times; 29 October, 1998; page C1)
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"These people around here aren't going to eat it. If McDonald's
fixes it or Burger King makes a whale burger, they will eat it. But
they don't have the foggiest idea how to eat what the old people
used to eat."
Makah Indian and retired logger Sidney Bowechop, talking about the Makah tribe's impending
whale kill off of the coast of Washington State. The tribe won a court battle allowing it to kill
whales (in contravention of U.S. law) pursuant to a provision in the Medicine Creek Treaty of 1854.
(The treaty was used by Washington's territorial governor to take 2.5 million acres of Western
Washington from the Indians. It wasn't translated into the Makah language. Sixty-two Indians
"signed" the treaty on a hillside near what is now Olympia, Washington by marking "X"s on a
page attached to the treaty.)
(Seattle Times; 30 October, 1998; pages A18 and F1)
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"First we have to clean up the water."
Gaballa Ali Gaballa, Egypt's Chief Archaeologist. He wants to create an undersea museum of
transparent tunnels that will allow people to view the recently discovered ruins of Cleopatra's
royal court. The court was located on a peninsula near Alexandria, Egypt that plunged into the
Mediterranean sea over 1600 years ago -- several centuries after Cleopatra's suicide in 30 BC. Local
authorities have promised to end all sewage dumping in the area by the end of 1998.
(Seattle Times; 29 October, 1998; page A20)
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"[This] brings us an important step closer to thinking that we
have more control over our own brain capacity than we ever
thought possible."
Neurobiologist, Fred Gage of the Salk Institute commenting on his groundbreaking findings that
brain cells in human adults may be able to reproduce themselves. The findings were published in
the journal Nature Medicine.
(Seattle Times; 29 October, 1998; page A9)
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"You can't underestimate the media's ability to inflate these
stories, as long as there is a financial reason to do so."
Slate magazine editor and former CNN Crossfire pundit, Michael Kinsley. According to Nielsen
statistics, since the Clinton-Lewinsky story broke, prime time CNN ratings are up 17%; and
MSNBC and FOX News audiences are up 105% and 539% respectively.
(Seattle Times; 25 October, 1998; page A2)
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"I've never seen an emu hold hostages."
Diane Roberts, Director of the Mobile (Alabama) Animal Rescue Foundation commenting on the
6 foot, 150 pound bird that was abandoned by her owner during mating season and showed up at
the home of Mobile residents Ed and Ann Stuardi. The giant bird kept the Stuardi's cowering in
their home for two days as it bellowed deep mating calls and attempted to mate with Ed each time
he stepped outside.
(Seattle Times; 23 October, 1998; page A10)
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"Everybody needs a sexual life of their own. And especially Ken
Starr."
Wyoming Trial Attorney Gerry Spence.
(CNBC's Rivera Live; 20 October, 1998)
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"Lawyers need to stop relying on the judge to win the case for
them and start learning how to present the most compelling story
that is in accord with jurors' deeply held beliefs."
David Davis, Senior Vice President of Decision Quest, a trial consulting firm, commenting on a
poll that shows that a majority of potential American jurors would vote their conscience,
regardless of legal instruction from a judge.
(Seattle Post-Intelligencer; 24 October, 1998; page A3)
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"We're not 100 percent sure they are counting in the way that
humans count, but we know that these animals can understand
the relationship between numbers."
Researcher Elizabeth Brannon, describing the results of a Columbia University study showing
that 2 year-old rhesus monkeys have a mathematical understanding equal to that of a three or four
year old human.
(Seattle Times; 23 October, 1998; page A3)
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"Does she look great or what? Nice muscles."
U.S. President Bill Clinton, complimenting NASA technician Amy Ross on the fit of her space
suit. The President was touring NASA's training facility and observing the training regimen of
former and future astronaut, U.S. Senator John Glenn.
(Seattle Times; 15 April, 1998; page A9)
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"Electronic media shapes our lives in a million ways. But we're
not allowed to use the media to comment on it. You can only do
that if you license the rights to do so. Which to me, is not very
democratic."
Artist and digital film-maker Mark O'Connell, pointing out the irony of present copyright law --
the seeds of which originated in the time of Shakespeare as a way of encouraging creativity by
allowing creators to profit from their work -- but in the digital age often has the effect of stifling
creativity.
(Seattle Times; 13 April, 1998; page F2)
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"Not only can changes in hormone levels be permanent in an
individual's lifetime, the altered chemical profile may actually be
encoded in the genes and passed onto new generations, which may
become successively aggressive."
A quotation from the book 'Ghosts From The Nursery: Tracing the Roots of Violence" by Robin
Karr-Morse and Meredith S. Wiley. The book presents evidence taken from crime statistics, case
histories, and the latest in neurobiology, to show that abuse and/or neglect during the first two
years of a child's life lead to damaged circuitry in the child's developing brain. -- Which becomes
the basis for subsequent anti-social behavior.
(Seattle Times; 12 April, 1998; page M2)
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"The economic system that the United States has is an evil
empire. It's an economic system that's not fair, not just, and it's
not democratic. And it will fall just like communism fell. The
richest 1 percent now own 50 percent of the wealth. It didn't use
to be that way. The average CEO 20 years ago made 20 times as
much as the average employee. Now they make 212 times as
much."
Filmmaker and author Michael Moore.
(Seattle Times; 10 April, 1998; page G7)
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"When it comes to knowledge of computer technology, I take my
hat off to Mr. Gates. But if he wants to enter the field of political
intrigue, I say welcome to my world Mr. Gates. I'm ready to do
battle."
An unnamed state's attorney general, reacting to news that Microsoft Corporation is engineering a
"grass roots" campaign (directed by Edelman Public Relations and other top-notch advertising
agencies) to create the appearance of massive public support for the software monopolist. The
campaign includes orchestrated letters to the editor, paid opinion pieces by editorial writers,
glowing accounts from Microsoft's business partners, and consumer surveys designed to show
Microsoft's impact on state and local economies.
(Seattle Times; 10 April, 1998; page A20)
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"Wanting to know everything about a man is essentially a
totalitarian practice. It is this puritan tyranny which sometimes
imbues the beautiful American democracy with an unfortunate
resemblance to police states."
Frenchman Jean-Francois Berge in an editorial in the French daily newspaper Sud-Quest.
(Seattle Post-Intelligencer; 24 January, 1998; page A2)
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