[Ads-l] Desperate Last Plea for Most Notable Quotations of 2014

Bonnie Taylor-Blake b.taylorblake at GMAIL.COM
Tue Nov 18 22:11:00 UTC 2014


On Tue, Nov 11, 2014 at 8:55 PM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:

> It's November 11 and I still don't have 10 quotations that I consider to be
>  suitable for my annual list, run by the Associated Press, of the top 10 most
> notable quotations of the year.  By notable I mean important
>  or famous or particularly revealing of the spirit of our times
>  rather than necessarily being eloquent or admirable.  So I am renewing my
> plea for suggestions of notable quotations from 2014, particularly ones from
> politics or popular culture or entertainment or sports or business or
> technology.

Well, I think the top contender is still "Hands up, don't shoot," the
protest chant of Ferguson, Missouri, but -- without getting into party
politics -- what about the theme of [some notable Republican
politician] confessing he is "not a scientist" when it comes to
climate change?  (Forgive me if this has already been mentioned.)
Weak, I know, but something to consider, perhaps, though some better
ones have been offered of late.

Anyway, back in early October, for example, here's how The
Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky) reported Senator Mitch
McConnell's admission,

"When asked what it would take to convince him that climate change is
a problem, he demurred and said, 'I'm not a scientist, I am interested
in protecting Kentucky's economy, I'm interested in having low cost
electricity.'"

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/elections/kentucky/2014/10/02/mcconnell-climate-change-scientist/16600873/

or

http://tinyurl.com/p56fp77

The following New York Times piece describes the larger motif,

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/31/us/why-republicans-keep-telling-everyone-theyre-not-scientists.html?_r=0

or

http://tinyurl.com/ncryryv

-- Bonnie

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