Who I am…
I am a lawyer, former mother of teenagers, and a quixotic seeker after and champion of factual truth.
I make the best damn brownies you have ever had that are not regulated by the federal government.
I love movies, Broadway, and intelligent conversation.
I think in song lyrics and movie and television quotes.
I believe in the use of proper spelling, punctuation, and grammar even in text messages. I am willing to debate the use of the Oxford comma, if you know what the Oxford comma is. It also makes me very happy if people use the subjunctive mood when appropriate.
I have been told I intimidate people. I am really just a fluffy-centered teddy bear. Really.
- It's all my fault. No, really. The views expressed in this blog are mine and mine alone and in no way whatsoever represent the views of anyone else, including any past, present, or future employer.
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Words to live by ….
“He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8.
“Pray for the dead, fight like hell for the living.” Mary Harris (“Mother Jones”).
“Don’t boo. Vote.” Barack Obama.
“Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.” Reinhold Niebuhr.
“No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things.” Sir Terry Pratchett.
“Damning facts are still facts.” Steven C. Holtzman.
“If you don’t stick to your values when they’re tested, they’re not values — they’re hobbies.” Jon Stewart.
“Darkness never sustains, even though it sometimes seems it will.” Doctor Who.
“Writing is a form of mischief.” Stephen Sondheim.
“An idea is not responsible for the people who believe it.” Don Marquis.
“If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.” Joseph Campbell.
“Truth is our strongest ally, our biggest weapon, and our best defense.” Me.
“Reality has a well-known liberal bias.” Stephen Colbert.
“The opposite of war isn’t peace, it’s creation.” Jonathan Larson.
“We live through times when hate and fear seem stronger.
We rise and fall, and light from dying embers
Remembrances that hope and love last longer.
And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love;
Cannot be killed or swept aside.”
Lin-Manuel Miranda.“If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.” Emma Goldman.
“No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Samuel Beckett.
“I believe that the God who made (among other things) light, and space, and number, and time, and the spiral curve of Fibonacci numbers, must be acknowledged to understand more than I do about why there’s pain in the world.” Teresa Neilsen Hayden.
“No, it’s not fair. You’re in the wrong universe for fair.” John Scalzi.
“Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, ‘Liberal,’ as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won’t work, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor.” Lawrence O’Donnell
“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.” Molly Ivins.
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Author Archives: Pat Greene
A probably underappreciated act of courage.
James Holmes, who shot up an Aurora, Colorado movie theater a couple of years ago, escaped the death penalty this week. The jury could not unanimously agree that he should be executed. The jury hung because of one juror. One … Continue reading
Thank you, Jon Stewart.
Because I really do want to remember this: Bullshit is everywhere. There is very little you will encounter in life that has not been, in some way, infused with bullshit — not all of it bad. General day-t0-day organic free-range … Continue reading
Consistency, people.
I heard a msnbc commentator this evening say “Everyone is rightfully upset — and should be — by the fetal tissue sale, but Republicans should not shut down the government to defund Planned Parenthood.” My first reaction was “Yeah, those … Continue reading
My favorite Voice performances.
I have all this … stuff… I need to write about. Donald Trump and his lawyer, Jonathan Pollard, Bernie Sanders, the Rio Tinto Mining Company’s horrible plans for sacred lands and the general scandal that is the use of public resources … Continue reading
Letters…
Dear Rick Santorum: How in God’s green earth did you make through your time in the Senate without learning how the Constitution worked? Either you did, and you are dissembling so that the base will like you (although, to be … Continue reading
Sigh. Again.
I am beginning to sympathize with honest policemen. What with all the cops who have been implicated in killings over the past few years, it must be hard to be a good cop. I have never doubted that they are … Continue reading
Espagna. Or Mars, maybe.
[This was a post I wrote while on the road, but didn’t publish, until now.] Today I am in Nerva, Spain. The Rocket Scientist has a project underway at Minas Rio Tinto (Rio Tinto Mine) a few kilometers away. As … Continue reading
Madrid, I don’t know how to quit you. Or vice versa, as the case may be.
Today. Is. So. Fired. Today really started yesterday, when I got very sick late in the evening. (I was feeling more or less — maybe less — okay, then had paella and a half pitcher of sangria. In my defense…. paella!) … Continue reading
The pitfalls of “progress.”
Harmondsword is a small, quaint village hard under the approach of planes heading into Heathrow. That would be quaint not in the Disneyland or tourist sense, but in the “good heavens, people actually live in seventeenth century houses!” sense. (Not … Continue reading
Fin.
The Hermitage, Louvre, and Orsay: 1997. The Metropolitan (NYC): 2003. The Prado* and the Getty: 2004. The Art Institute of Chicago: 2006. The Uffizi and the Vatican: 2012. The Tate Modern: 2015. This was my list of the Top Ten … Continue reading
Perspective.
Bowers v. Hardwick, upholding the right of states to enact and enforce sodomy laws, 1986. Romer v. Evans, striking down Colorado’s anti-gay constitutional amendment, 1996. Lawrence v. Texas, striking down sodomy laws, 2007. United States v. Windsor, striking down part … Continue reading
It was a wonderful day.
When I graduated from Wellesley, if you had asked me, I would have said that, following Roe v. Wade, that reproductive rights were safe. I would also have said that I would not see same-sex marriage legalized in my lifetime. … Continue reading
Why this matters….
The distinction I made in the last post (evil as opposed to mental illness) matters a great deal. In a discussion in my Facebook, a friend said “People in their right minds don’t kill other people. Period. Whatever you want … Continue reading
Let’s get one thing straight….
On Facebook, I have seen people insisting that Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who shot nine people in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church had to have been mentally ill because “no one just walks into a church and shoots … Continue reading
What’s been up with me.
I was sick most of the past sick weeks. I had a viral infection the first week in May during which I ran a fever of 102 or higher for days, followed by viral bronchitis. Over Memorial Day weekend, I … Continue reading
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