quotes

The past is here again

My mom saved the local newspaper, The Arizona Republic, from the day I was born, in October 1973. It cost 10¢, by the way. And even though it was more than half a century ago, much of it feels eerily recent:

• In the Grin and Bear It  comic by George Lichty, the head of the Cost of Living Council says: “The economic situation is improving, gentlemen! The average family can now afford everything except food, clothing and shelter!”

• “highly inflationary” newsprint price hike causing newspapers to consider subscription price increases

• “Don’t let high interest rates spook you”

• “Buy home now before costs rise”

• labor shortages

• worker strikes

• gun violence

• resistance to gun laws

• Today’s chuckle: “The government is concerned about the population explosion, while the population is concerned about the government explosion.”

• “State fair, like everything, is changing with the times”

• Dunkin’ pumpkin donuts

• “Terra not so firma as we’ve always been led to believe…. the whole North American continent is constantly rotating, tilting, cracking, sinking, rising and otherwise going through scary writhings.” (Lowell Parker)

• “Practice of acupuncture, that ancient Chinese needle treatment that turns patients into human porcupines, isn’t endorsed by the American medical profession but is gaining popularity anyway.”

• “‘Sex-change operations have become so well accepted that that some insurance companies will pay for them,’” New York physician Roberto C. Granato reported, “because transsexualism has become ‘such a well-known and accepted condition’… Transsexuals, he said, live and work as members of the opposite sex, and when they undergo sex-change surgery they ‘leave their anxiety on the operating table.’” (Associated Press)

• “Impeachment panel splits on party lines”

• “President Nixon won’t be impeached; Congress hasn’t the heart for it… If he is not impeached, the House of Representatives will have been guilty of gross dereliction in duty… The man ought to be impeached. The facts positively demand it… And what would the President be charged with? There is such an abundance of possibilities… one hardly knows where to begin.” (William Raspberry)

• In Phoenix, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller sounded “like a presidential candidate by taking political pokes at welfare chiselers, dope pushers, and big bureaucracies…” The governor “made it plain he was a party man by applauding Barry Goldwater and John Rhodes, with whom he has had ideological differences in the past…” Rockefeller “carefully avoided giving direct answers to such politically divisive questions as whether President Nixon should resign and if he was right in firing the Watergate special prosecutor… ‘The hard reality is that throughout the country, there has been a blurring of our sharp focus on what is right and what is wrong,’ he said. ‘There has been a growing tendency to cut corners, to think it’s smart to beat the system… The shock of Watergate can and must make all Americans realize that we must return to our basic belief in individual integrity and honesty.’” (Robert Reilly)

• “I would like to ask this question:  where are the decent Christians that remain so hush-hush concerning sinful, indecent people?” (M. Hale)

• “Senator urging suspension of Nixon’s pal as bank chief”

• “World is on brink of war”

• United Nations sends troops to police the Middle East.

• “Corporate vote gifts criticized”

• “GM complains despite earnings of $267 million”

• “Energy management urged for businesses”

• Two typhoons in Manila inflicted $2.3 million in damages earlier this month. A tropical storm is lashing the East Coast.

• Today’s prayer: “Giving us the ability to think must surely be Your greatest gift, O Lord. Help us to always use the power of thinking to its utmost when faced with indecision. Amen.”

Wilderness pathways

“The wilderness has the power to exert enormous influence on the mind of a man freshly arrived from civilization, especially if he lives alone and has but little contact with other people; some that I have known could not take the solitude, the absence of comfort and reassurance offered by the presence of other humans.

“Such men have become effete in terms of personal survival in the face of natural challenges, the city is too much with them, and they don’t last. There are also those who go too far the other way, becoming misanthropes… these are the withdrawers, and they are found sprinkled loosely wherever there is a forest or a jungle, like seeds that have lost the ability to germinate in cultivated soil.

“But between the quitters and the lone stayers, there is a third kind — indeed, there may be more than that, for all I know — in whom the wilderness acts as a catalyst and who, after they have experienced both the wild and the civilized, begin to form new values, to explore unknown pathways, and to realize that nature is an endlessly patient teacher with an infinite capacity to stimulate thought and to sharpen the hunger for knowledge. That is how the wilderness affected me…”

—R. D. Lawrence (1921–2003), The North Runner, 1979