“[On Addis Ababa:] Among the city's handicaps are an immaturity for which no one can be blamed, as it was founded only eighty years ago, and a proliferation of architectural excesses for which many people can and should be blamed.” PeopleShouldYearsCitiesYears AgoArchitectureExcessEightyHandicapsProliferationImmaturity Author:Dervla Murphy
“By 1940 the literacy figure for all states stood at 96 percent for whites. Eighty percent for blacks. Notice for all the disadvantages blacks labored under, four of five were still literate. Six decades later, at the end of the 20th century, the National Adult Literacy Survey and the National Assessment of Educational Progress say 40 percent of blacks and 17 percent of whites can't read at all. Put another way, black illiteracy doubled, white illiteracy quadrupled, despite the fact that we spend three or four times as much real money on schooling as we did 60 years ago.” WayYearsStillsRealEndsStatesFactsThreeBlackWhiteFiveFourProgressCenturyFiguresSixPercentAdultsYears AgoEducationalDecadesDespite20th CenturyLiteracyAnother WayEightyDisadvantagesSchoolingSurveysAssessmentIlliteracyAll State Author:Vin Suprynowicz
“We're told cars cause pollution. A hundred years ago city streets were ankle deep in horse excrement. What kind of pollution do you want? Would you rather die of cancer at eighty or typhoid fever at nine?” WantYearsKindDiesCausesCitiesStreetsCarYears AgoHorseCancerLibertarianNinePollutionEightyFeverAnklesCity StreetsOld CarTyphoid Author:P. J. O'Rourke
“I chose to be a photographer twenty-two years ago, but I don't know that I'd make that choice again. Back in the early eighties, I still thought I was doing okay, trying to order and shape the world with my camera. Now that I know a bit more about living and dying, about our planet and its complex problems, I'm a lot less comfortable with my images of people. Still, I haven't a clue what else to do.” PeopleKnowsWorldTryingYearsStillsTwoProblemOrderChoicesBitsDyingHavensPlanetsShapesComfortableYears AgoOkayTwentiesCamerasComplexesPhotographerTwo YearsClueEightyOur PlanetTwenty TwoTwo Years AgoComplex Problems Author:Eugene Richards
“My mother never talked about sex. I was on the Dr. Ruth [ Westheimer] show once - this is years and years and years ago - and it was her Mother's Day show. And I didn't know what we were going to talk about but what she decided we were going to talk about was female masturbation. My mother had invited all her girlfriends. And you know these were all women in their late seventy's maybe they were in their eighty's by then and then and they were horrified because Dr Ruth had a little she had a little chart up you know "female masturbation".” KnowsYearsLittlesShowsMotherSexLateFemaleYears AgoDecidedGirlfriendDrsSeventiesInvitedEightyMothers DayMasturbationRuth Author:Judy Blume
“The good news is that by the second year, those cravings were about as half as frequent, and by the third year, half as much again. I'm still a little bent, a little crooked, but all things crooked, I can't complain. After all those years of all kinds of abuse and crashing into trees at eighty miles an hour and jumping off buildings and living through overdoses and liver disease, I feel better now than I did ten years ago. I might have some scar tissue, but that's alright, I'm still making progress.” FeelsYearsKindLittlesStillsI CanMightHoursHalfProgressTreeBuildingTenDiseaseNewsYears AgoAll ThingsThirdsAbuseComplainingMilesAll KindsScarFeel BetterBentGood NewsJumpingCravingEightyAlrightCrookedLiverTissuesBetter NowOverdoseJumping OffScar TissueLiver Disease Author:Anthony Kiedis
“And yet we have what purports, or professes, or is claimed, to be a contract—the Constitution—made eighty years ago, by men who are now all dead, and who never had any power to bind us, but which (it is claimed) has nevertheless bound three generations of men, consisting of many millions, and which (it is claimed) will be binding upon all the millions that are to come; but which nobody ever signed, sealed, delivered, witnessed, or acknowledged; and which few persons, compared with the whole number that are claimed to be bound by it, have ever read, or even seen, or ever will read, or see.” MenYearsPersonsMadeWholeThreeNumbersMillionsGenerationsYears AgoConstitutionBoundsContractsNeverthelessEightyBindingThree Generations Book:The collected works of Lysander Spooner Source: The collected works of Lysander Spooner
“Near eighty years ago we began by declaring that all men are created equal; but now from that beginning we have run down to the other declaration, that for SOME men to enslave OTHERS is a "sacred right of self-government." These principles can not stand together. They are as opposite as God and mammon; and whoever holds to the one, must despise the other.” MenYearsSelfGovernmentRunningTogetherReligiousPrinciplesEqualYears AgoOppositesSacredDespiseCan NotDeclarationEightyDeclaringSelf-government Book:The Portable Abraham Lincoln Source: The Portable Abraham Lincoln
“We're told cars are wasteful. Wasteful of what? Oil did a lot of good sitting in the ground for millions of years. We're told cars should be replaced with mass transportation. But it's hard to reach the drive-through window at McDonald's from a speeding train. And we're told cars cause pollution. A hundred years ago city streets were ankle deep in horse excrement. What kind of pollution do you want? Would you rather die of cancer at eighty or typhoid fever at nine?” WantShouldYearsKindHardDiesCausesCitiesLibertyMillionsStreetsCarMassHundredSittingYears AgoWindowHorseTrainCancerOilLibertarianNineLibertarianismPollutionReplacedEightyFeverTransportationMcdonaldsAnklesSpeedingCity StreetsOld CarTyphoid Author:P. J. O'Rourke