July 15, 2010

Some pointed responses to Tony Hayward’s infamous quote


THE INFAMOUS, INFURIATING QUOTE:

“There’s no one who wants this thing over more than I do. I’d like my life back.”
       BP CEO Tony Hayward 
       Tone deaf comment to a reporter on May 30, 2010 about British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster and the resulting massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico


CARTOONIST’S COUNTERPOINT
:

    Political cartoon by Jack Ohman 
    Published in The Oregonian, June 2010


11 LOST LIVES COUNTERQUOTE:

“Americans watched as BP’s Tony Hayward looking pitifully into television cameras exclaiming to the world that he ‘wants his life back’, totally forgetting about the 11 lives that were lost on the Deepwater Horizon on April 20, 2010…To the rest of us who heard him speak, it’s crystal clear that money does not bring back life and neither does a millionaire’s self-pity.”
       Journalist Gregory Boyce 
       Post on the Examiner.com site, June 21, 2010


LENO’S COUNTERQUOTE:

“BP CEO Tony Hayward said he would just like to get his life back. He wants to get his life back! You know, I say give him life plus 20.”
       Jay Leno
       On The Tonight Show, June 8, 2010


BP SONG VARIATION:

“BP wants their life back.
BP wants a little break.
BP’s had their fill of this nasty spill 
And it’s slimed their precious corp’rate name...
‘Can’t we get back to just making money?
Can’t we get back to a simpler time 
When we weren't held accountable 
   for the nature of our crimes?”
       Songwriter Mick Terry
       In his sardonic song “BP Wants Their Life Back”


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Comments? Questions? Corrections? Post them on my quotations Facebook group.

Further reading about some of the some of the stupidest things ever said or done…

July 5, 2010

“A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”


FAMOUS ORIGINAL SLOGAN:

“A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”
       Ad slogan for the United Negro College Fund since 1971
       Coined by the Young & Rubicam ad agency


CORSETIÈRE COUNTERQUOTE:

“A waist is a terrible thing to waste.” 
       Headline of an article about the Vancouver corset shop (a “corsetière”) Lace Embrace Atelier


COPYCAT COUNTERQUOTE:

“A sick mind is a terrible thing to waste.”
       Movie critic Richard Corliss
       In his negative review of the psychokiller movie Copycat (1995)


GRAMMARIAN’S QUIBBLE:

“The Fund [UNCF] has a slogan that reads, ‘A mind is a terrible thing to waste.’ But while one understands the intent of its worded content, the manner in which the slogan is worded makes for light wonderment in semantics as to whether a mind really is a ‘terrible thing’? Should it not then be, ‘It’s a terrible thing to waste a mind’?” 
       Guyanese journalist Emile Mervin
       In an article in the Guyana Gazette, Feb. 26, 2006


COMPOSTER’S VARIATION:

“Compost...because a rind is a terrible thing to waste!”
       Title of a composting manual by Jean Bonhotal and Karen Rollo
       Published by the Cornell University Waste Management Institute (1996)


INFAMOUS QUAYLE BLOOPER:

“When you take the UNCF model that, what a waste it is to lose one’s mind, or not to have a mind is being very wasteful, how true that is.”
       Dan Quayle
       Vice President of the United States (1989-1993)
       Speech at the United Negro College Fund, May 9, 1989
       What a Waste It Is to Lose One's Mind is the title of an unauthorized “autobiography” of Quayle


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Comments? Questions? Corrections? Post them on my quotations Facebook group.

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