A Better Congress Indeed

Here's a great quote from an article in today's New York Times about Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy's early addiction recovery that has been made very public by the press and the courts. What's truly amazing about the quote (if you ask me) is that it was said by a Republican, Rep. Jim Ramstad from Minnesota (and he's oh so right):

The political world could learn much from these gatherings, Mr. Ramstad says. “If we could turn Congress into one big A.A. meeting,” he said, referring to Alcoholics Anonymous, “where people would be required to say what they mean and mean what they say, it would be a lot better Congress.”

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Tea Quotes to Live By

"If man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty."
-Japanese Proverb

I've become quite a tea lover over the last few years, especially since I gave up coffee after I started meditating regularly. I drink English Breakfast tea every morning, with milk and honey. Usually I go for whole milk, which seems just right. At lunch I drink bottled tea unless we get fed for free at work, where I just drink water because it's easier and the food is so good it doesn't require much of a beverage to wash it down. The real reason I'm writing this though, is the quotes I've received under the bottle caps of two peach oolongs I had recently. I received them in order, as follows:

"Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there." -Josh Billings (never heard of him)

"Some people run a race to see who is the fastest. I run a race to see who has the most guts." -Steve Prefontaine (aka "Pre")

I think both of those quotes are pretty useful for me right now, like tarot card readings or something. I needed to hear them. I got the second one today at the Woodacre Deli. I think that's the best quote I've heard in a long time, and I've always loved the story of Steve Prefontaine, the distance runner who went to University of Oregon. "I run a race to see who has the most guts." That's what I loved about sports whenever I played them, too--playing with guts.

I just searched the internet and found a fuller version of the same quote:

"A lot of people run a race to see who's the fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into an exhausting pace, and then at the end, punish himself even more."

The tea cap version was a little more generically inspiring, but I know he means punish yourself in a good way, push yourself, give everything you have. Pre was famous for getting out ahead in a race and never relinquishing the lead. He went to the Olympics but he never placed in the medals, although he did finish fourth in at least one event. Then he died in a car crash at age 24.

As Kerouac wrote, "I like the mad ones that burn, burn, burn like a fabulous Roman candle..." (off the top of my head and not an exact quote, but close enough--from "On the Road"). And the blue center light pops.


postscript/footnote: it turns out that "josh billings" was the pen name of a guy named henry wheeler shaw who died in 1885. he was the second most popular humorist of his day after mark twain, another dude with a pseudonym. and here's another version of his quote from above:

"Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there." amen.

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WAR MEANS DEATH says The Dalai Lama

Here is an amazing quote from the Dalai Lama:

War, sadly, has remained a part of human history up to the present, but I think the time has come to change the concepts that lead to war. Some people consider war to be something glorious; they think that through war they can become heroes. This attitude toward war is very wrong. Recently an interviewer remarked to me, "Westerners have a great fear of death, but Easterners seem to have very little fear of death."

To that I half-jokingly responded, "It seems to me that, to the Western mind, war and the military establishment are extremely important. War means death--by killing, not by natural causes. So it seems that, in fact, you are the ones who do not fear death, because you are so fond of war. We Easterners, particularly Tibetans, cannot even begin to consider war; we cannot conceive of fighting, because the inevitable result of war is disaster: death, injuries, and misery. Therefore, the concept of war, in our minds, is extremely negative. That would seem to mean we actually have more fear of death than you. Don't you think?"

--from The Compassionate Life by Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama

And completely unrelated to the quote above, a friend of mine named Josh Kamler has built a promising new website for photos of writings scrawled on city walls (so to speak):

http://www.writtenonthecity.com/random.php

I plan to add some of my photos to this site soon.

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