Food For Thought, from The Common Bond, newsletter of the Kingston Community Credit Union Limited, issue 3/99, October 1999:
– "If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look like the following. There would be:
57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
8 Africans
52 would be female
48 would be male
70 would be non–white
30 would be white
70 would be non–Christian
30 would be Christian
89 would be heterosexual
11 would be homosexual
6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the United States
80 would live in sub–standard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would be near death
1 would be near birth
1 (yes, only one) would have a college education
1 would own a computer
When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for both acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent." – Phillip M. Harter, MD, FACEP Stanford University, School of Medicine
Dance as though no one is watching you, love as though you've never been hurt before, sing as though no one can hear you, live as though heaven is on earth. – Unknown
From a circular poster bought from the Bay of Islands Maritime and Historic Park, Bay of Islands, North Island, New Zealand:
– If the Earth were only a few feet in diameter, floating a few feet above a field somewhere, people would come from everywhere to marvel at it. People would walk around it, marvelling at its big pools of water, its little pools, and the water flowing between the pools. People would marvel at the bumps on it, and the holes in it, and they would marvel at the very thin layer of gas surrounding it and the water suspended in the gas. The people would marvel at the creatures walking around the surface of the ball, and at the creatures in the water. The people would declare it as sacred because it was the only one, and they would protect it so that it would not be hurt. The ball would be the greatest wonder known, and people would come to pray to it, to be healed, to gain knowledge, to know beauty and to wonder how it could be. People would love it, and defend it with their lives because they would somehow know that their lives, their own roundness, could be nothing without it. If the Earth were only a few feet in diameter.
Why not go out on a limb, that's where all the fruit is! – Mark Twain
If you don't like someone, the way he holds his spoon will make you furious; if you do like him, he can turn his plate over into your lap and you won't mind. – Irving Becker
To win back my youth...there's nothing I wouldn't do – except take exercise, get up early, or be a useful member of the community. – Oscar Wilde
From The Shipping News, by E. Annie Proulx:
"You needs kids about. Keeps you young." – Yark, p. 303
Seen in a gift shop/cafe in Alaska:
I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
