Part I . . . Notes, References, and Shoutouts (Chapters 16-20)
(BbU Supplement #4)
You shall go to the ball . . . !
As declared by Mr. Humphries of the British TV show, Are You Being Served?
Your mind took the punch without feeling the blow land. — Quote read a long time ago in the Sunday papers. Source unknown.
Chapter 17. Logic upon Compassion
. . . the power of an individual decision. — The power of an individual decision is a theme occurring throughout past Amnesty International literature. The speech also draws directly on the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Well, being a Red Sox fan, maybe I am . . . — Ross Fowler is giving his talk in 1987, well before the Red Sox won their four most recent World Series titles: in 2004, 2007, 2013, and 2018.
To paraphrase Thoreau, don’t wait for others to right the wrong so you need no longer regret it.
“They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in earnest and with effect. They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to regret.” “Civil Disobedience,” by Henry Thoreau, 1849. In The Portable Thoreau. Revised Edition. Carl Bode (ed.), New York: Penguin Books, 1984.
. . . above ideologies, above cultures.
“. . . the idea was to have a tour above ideologies, above cultures, which would really put the message across to the whole world about the dignity of the human being.” Franca Sciuto, chairperson at that time of Amnesty International. Quote from the HBO broadcast of the Human Right Now! Tour, December 1988.
What if you were thrown into prison tonight for attending this lecture . . .
“He [Jack Healey, former executive director, Amnesty International USA] tells them to imagine they are sitting in some lousy stinking jail, listening to the footsteps of a torturer approaching, just for going to a rock concert. Or carrying a Bible. Or wearing a jacket with an emblem the government doesn’t like.” “Keeper of the Flame,” by Renee Loth. The Boston Globe Magazine, March 13, 1988.
Greenwood Pizza is based on Yorkside Pizza, a well known hangout on the Yale campus. Radiohead fans will understand the name switch.
Toad’s Place, another New Haven institution, is a nightclub and live music venue. Anyone who is anyone has played at Toad’s Place.
The title is drawn from a quote by Albert Camus:
“Don’t you believe that we are all responsible for the absence of values . . . if we publicly say that . . . moral values exist, and henceforth we shall do what we must to establish and illustrate them, don’t you think that would be the start of hope?” Camus quote taken from Bryan Appleyard, “The Lone Voice of Sanity,” Sunday London Times, October 12, 1997.
Yet I was amazed there were still people who possessed a certain expansiveness of mind. Amazed at the unexpected glint among the cinders, the unexpected kindness shown in a generally self-absorbed world. — With a nod of gratitude to R. Sacher.
Why don’t you just pin hundred dollar bills to your lapel? — Thanks to B. Laymon for this succinct piece of wisdom.
Just as libraries are a haven for the homeless and a magnet for the strange . . .
The guy who day in and day out sat in the Library of Congress Reading Room with a paper bag over his head being perhaps the most famous example
. . . a long-suffering Red Sox loyalist in Yankee territory.
In my mind, New Haven is the border for the Red Sox/Yankee fan base split: Sox to the north, Yankees to the south of this baseball Mason-Dixon Line.
Top image: Eleanor Roosevelt served as the first chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights and oversaw the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Wikipedia.