e m e r g e n c y e n t r a n c e: We don't have to show the slightest respect for other people's views

Monday, January 11

We don't have to show the slightest respect for other people's views – just for their right to hold them.

this is just a brilliant (and at times funny) piece of writing...

read it!

we all have the right to be offensive by david mitchell for the observer

(vaktgatan at about 8am today...on an empty stomach on a bike on a bumpy road)

(blog title: excerpt from we all have the right to be offensive by david mitchell) ...what!!! no radiohead blog title??? maybe next time kids!!!

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words

"I grew up under thatcher. I grew up believing that I was fundamentally powerless. then gradually over the years it occured to me that this was actually a very convenient myth for the state" - thom yorke

"i may not have gone where i intended to go, but i think i have ended up where i needed to be" - douglas adams

"when i see equations, i see the letters in colors - i don't know why. as i am talking, i see vague pictures of bessel functions from jahnke and emde's book, with light-tan j's, slightly violet-blueish n's, and dark brown x's flying around. and i wonder what the hell it must look like to the students." - richard p. feynman

"kuckilikun den k-(beep)-er" - camilla paulsson

"had a little chuckle at an example of complete essex stupidity (overheard on the bus): "-...yea she lives near that decapitated buildin'. -ar fink you mean derelict innit. -yea well woteva, same fing.....". me: ??!!??!????" - lauren paterson

"it's a waste of time asking me. i don't give a fuck. i'm leaving in a week!" - claire mccarthy

"i don't ever think about it (feminism). i mean, it doesn't cross my mind. i certainly don't think in terms of gender when i'm writing songs, and i never had any problems as the result of being female that i couldn't get over. maybe i'm not thankful for the things that have gone before me, you know. but i don't see there's any need to be aware of being a woman in this business. it just seems a waste of time" - pj harvey

"people say things like 'ooh, he's quite good looking...for a scientist.' but it's a very low bar. there's basically me and patrick moore" - brian cox

(on San Francisco)

"there is a lot i like about it here, but there are a lot of things i like about barcelona, amsterdam... but it's that sort of english gloom, grey depression that makes me say, 'ah, i could live here... but wait, it's too great! i'm having too much fun! i need to go back to england where it's really shit.'" - stanley donwood

"professor farnsworth: ..after all, there is always hope!

fry: really?!

professor farnsworth: no! don't get your hopes up."

- futurama, ser 6, ep 1

"don't panic" - douglas adams

"I think the most important thing about music is the sense of escape" - thom yorke

"I was late for work due to the adverse weather conditions...they stopped me from getting out of bed. The snow was so heavy I couldn't lift my duvet up" - claire mccarthy

"obviously there will be a backlash. if you believe the hype you have to believe a backlash too. any criticism we get is always stuff we've already criticised ourselves. if you read one bad review and a hundred good ones, the bad one always seems to make more sense to you" - jonny greenwood

on shooting the "seven" scene (where thom's head is in a box) for the 15 step video: "we gave him a little slap and stuffed some packing foam in his mouth to show him who was boss and he was fine after that" - adam buxton

"we don't have to show the slightest respect for other people's views - just for their right to hold them. respect, after all, must be earned. it's only freedom of speech that's a right. when someone says something which you find stupid or offensive, you can say something back. you can tell them to fuck off. they don't have to, but they've still been told" - david mitchell

"you have no responsiblity to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. it's their mistake, not my failing" - richard p. feynman

"anyone who thinks the lhc will destroy the earth is a twat" - brian cox

"I may not have been sure about what really did interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn't" - albert camus

"I think it's a bit of a disappointment that a lot of people's golden age of music is still the '60s" - jonny greenwood

"we don't have to save the world. the world is big enough to look after itself. what we have to be concerned about is whether or not the world we live in will be capable of sustaining us in it" - douglas adams

"one of life's sorest tragedies is that the people who brim with confidence are always the wrong people" - charlie brooker

"a paranoid man is a man who knows a little about what's going on" - william s burroughs

"you will never make any friends unless you like everyone genuinely. oh well, I'm fucked then aren't I?" - thom yorke

"i firmly disbelieve that one has to be a tortured soul to write good music" - pj harvey

"some trust the wolf

they have raised since birth

not to turn on them

some trust their lives

in the hands whose fingers

are five silent knives

some will be reminded

of nothing, or perish

by that memory" - jim carroll (fear of dreaming)

"we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars" - oscar wilde

"maybe I'm not very human - what I wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house" - edward hopper

"don't worry about anything...go out and have a good time" - richard p. feynman

"in the beginning the universe was created. this has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move" - douglas adams

"if you had asked my grandmother wheather she is oppressed, she probably wouldn't have understood what you were talking about; that's life. if you'd asked my mother, you'd have found that she resented it, but accepted it, as life. if you'd ask my daughters, they'd tell you to get lost. that reflects hard-won victories for freedom" - noam chomsky

"yet each man kills the thing he loves

by each let this be heard,

some do it with a bitter look,

some with a flattering word,

the coward does it with a kiss,

the brave man with a sword!" - oscar wilde (the ballad of reading gaol - pt. 1. st. 7)

"right now my mind is on the people who stole our instruments, and, specifically, the person with my guitar, which will no doubt end its days having green day songs worked out on it. a better fate was deserved - and while the reverence given to guitars annoys me, I shall miss it" - jonny greenwood

"philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds" - richard p. feynman

"if people get it, they wouldn't think it's depressing. when people always say that fucking annoying thing about how my work's so depressing, well it's not because... it's just words, and I put the words to music which I think it's an uplifting thing, otherwise there would be no point in doing this at all" - thom yorke