October 29, 2012

Things that would happen if God wanted it...


THE OLD CLICHÉ:

“If God wanted us to fly he would have given us wings.” 
      
A proverbial saying of anonymous origin 
       This familiar line is widely used
as either a serious comment or a joking remark about scientific and technological innovations or social actions and beliefs that go against tradition. It is sometimes given with meant or intended in place of the word wanted, or with man and him in place of us. The various formulations of the saying — and paraphrases of it — are employed to make or to mock pronouncements about the wisdom or acceptability of certain things.


THE DISCOURAGED VOTER’S VIEW:

“If God had wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates worth voting for.” 
      
“The Dissenting Democrat” (pen name of a liberal progressive political blogger)
       This quote,
posted on the Dissenting Democrat’s blog, sums up the opinion of American voters who don’t particularly like the latest candidates from either major political party. The post says the line has been attributed to journalist Molly Ivins and to progressive political gadfly Jim Hightower. It’s essentially a variation of the better-known quotation “If God had wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates,” a quip generally credited to comedian Jay Leno.


THE DISCOURAGED DIETER’S VIEW:

“If God wanted us to lose weight, He would have made celery a comfort food.”
      
Scott “Q” Marcus
       Blogger and self-described “THINspirational speaker”
       In a
post on the dieters advice site ThisTimeIMeanIt.com.
       (Faux TIME cover from
www.fathead-movie.com.)


ROD’S TAKE ON HATHA YOGA:

“Surely if God had meant us to do yoga, he would have put our heads behind our knees.”
      
Rod Stewart
       British rock star
       One of the most widely-quoted lines from his recent book Rod: The Autobiography (2012)
       Stewart wrote that he came to this conclusion after someone tried to teach him a few fundamental yoga postures. “As I was attempting to master a beginner's level ‘balancing table’ position,”
he recalled, “I fell over into the fireplace.”


SEAN’S TAKE ON HETEROSEXUAL MARRIAGE:

“Heterosexual marriage is just wrong. I mean, if God had meant men and women to be together, he would have given them both penises.”
      
Sean Hayes 
       American actor
       His quip, as
the character Jack McFarland, in the “An Affair To Forget” episode of the NBC sitcom Will & Grace. (Season 2, Episode 19)

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October 17, 2012

“I see dead people.” (The famous quote that gets reincarnated regularly.)


THE MEMORABLE MOVIE QUOTE:

“I see dead people.”
      
Haley Joel Osment (playing the psychic young boy Cole Sear)  
       His famous line in the film The Sixth Sense (1999)
       The boy reveals his ability to see dead people to child psychologist Malcolm Crowe, played by Bruce Willis, in
a spooky scene that immortalized the soon widely-parodied phrase. When Crowe asks if he means dead people in graves or coffins, the boy shakes his head ‘no’ and explains: “Walking around like regular people. They don’t see each other. They only see what they want to see. They don’t know they’re dead...They’re everywhere.”


PAUL KRUGMAN’S ‘I SEE BLIND POLITICIANS’ VARIATION:

“Mitt Romney doesn’t see dead people...The reality, to which Mr. Romney is somehow blind, is that many people in America really do die every year because they don’t have health insurance…The Romney-Ryan position on health care is that many millions of Americans must be denied health insurance…At the same time, of course, Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan are proposing trillions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy. So a literal description of their plan is that they want to expose many Americans to financial insecurity, and let some of them die, so that a handful of already wealthy people can have a higher after-tax income.”
      
Paul Krugman
       American economics professor and political columnist
       In
his October 14, 2012 op-ed column in the New York Times, titled “Death by Ideology”


THE ‘KRUGMAN’S A DEAF, DUMB & BLIND IDIOT’ COUNTERQUOTE:

“I’m assuming Paul Krugman DOES see dead people both the present and future deceased which makes him not only delusional but a delusional with the gift of clairvoyance. I won’t attempt to demean you with a rhetorical question: you’re not a doctor and while you may have a working knowledge of the future of healthcare in this country, to put it in its least offensive form, you’re deaf, dumb, and blind to the realities of the practice of medicine on a national scale.” 
      
Huffington Post reader “grkorbel”
 
       In a comment he posted about Paul Krugman’s
“Death by Ideology” op-ed


THE COMPLETE IDIOT’S VERSION:

“Bogus psychics and mediums…like TV’s ‘Miss Cleo’…might tell you, ‘I see dead people,’ but in reality, all they’re seeing is dollar signs.”
      
Duane Swierczynski
       American writer and editor
      
In his book The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Frauds, Scams, and Cons


THE JUST PLAIN DUMB VERSION:

“I see dumb people…They’re everywhere.”
      
A popular humorous variation used on t-shirts, posters and thousands of Internet posts


THE NATTY DREADLOCKS VERSION:

“I see DREAD people”
      Punning
T-shirt and poster slogan that uses a term associated with dreadlocked Rastafarians, like Bob Marley

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