Amidst the hoopla of the Imus comment and his subsequent firing (I'll leave it up to the readers of this blog to fashion their own opinions about that, there is certainly a plethora of commentary out there in the 'sphere to read, if one is so inclined), we lost another human. I'll admit that I have read only a few of Mr. Vonnegut's books (Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions, and Galapagos, are the only ones that come readily to mind), but I have always been aware of his stand on social and political topics and his courage to write and speak-out about these important issues. Mr. Vonnegut had a fondness for librarians (see piece below) and, as a librarian, I would just like to return the compliment as an honor to him and his life that ended this week. Read on...Here are a few "Guess the Quotes" that Steph read on the air this morning (and, shockingly, Sir Jim actually guessed one of them correctly - it must be Friday the 13th):
"I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different."
"True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country."
"We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap."
"Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything."
All of the above are quotes attributed to Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
August 6, 2004
I Love You, Madame Librarian
By Kurt Vonnegut
-I, like probably most of you, have seen Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. Its title is a parody of the title of Ray Bradbury’s great science fiction novel, Fahrenheit 451. This temperature 451° Fahrenheit, is the combustion point, incidentally, of paper, of which books are composed. The hero of Bradbury’s novel is a municipal worker whose job is burning books.
-And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.
-So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.
-And still on the subject of books: Our daily sources of news, papers and TV, are now so craven, so unvigilant on behalf of the American people, so uninformative, that only in books can we find out what is really going on. I will cite an example: House of Bush, House of Saud by Craig Unger, published near the start of this humiliating, shameful blood-soaked year.
-In case you haven’t noticed, and as a result of a shamelessly rigged election in Florida, in which thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily disenfranchised, we now present ourselves to the rest of the world as proud, grinning, jut-jawed, pitiless war lovers, with appallingly powerful weaponry and unopposed.
-In case you haven’t noticed, we are now almost as feared and hated all over the world as the Nazis were. With good reason.
-In case you haven’t noticed, our unelected leaders have dehumanized millions and millions of human beings simply because of their religion and race. We wound and kill ’em and torture ’em and imprison ’em all we want.
-Piece of cake.
-In case you haven’t noticed, we also dehumanize our own soldiers, not because of their religion or race, but because of their low social class.
-Send ’em anywhere. Make ’em do anything.
-Piece of cake.
-The O’Reilly Factor.
-So I am a man without a country, except for the librarians and the Chicago-based magazine you are reading, In These Times.
-Before we attacked Iraq, the majestic New York Times guaranteed that there were weapons of mass destruction there.
-Albert Einstein and Mark Twain gave up on the human race at the end of their lives, even though Twain hadn’t even seen World War I. War is now a form of TV entertainment. And what made WWI so particularly entertaining were two American inventions, barbed wire and the machine gun. Shrapnel was invented by an Englishman of the same name. Don’t you wish you could have something named after you?
-Like my distinct betters Einstein and Twain, I now am tempted to give up on people too. And, as some of you may know, this is not the first time I have surrendered to a pitiless war machine. -My last words? “Life is no way to treat an animal, not even a mouse.”
-Napalm came from Harvard. Veritas!
-Our president is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler.
-What can be said to our young people, now that psychopathic personalities, which is to say persons without consciences, without a sense of pity or shame, have taken all the money in the treasuries of our government and corporations and made it all their own?
--Kurt Vonnegut is a legendary author, WWII veteran, humanist, artist, smoker and In These Times senior editor. His classic works include Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions, Cat's Cradle, among many others. His most recent book, A Man Without a Country, collects many of the articles written for this magazine.
Vonnegut Made Life More Bearable (Rothschild's article for The Progressive)
His Popular Novels Blended Social Criticism, Dark Humor (Elaine Woo, Los Angeles Times)
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