“The American Medical Association says the humane way is to let people starve and thirst to death. If you did that to an animal, you’d be put in jail immediately … In the face of such insanity masquerading as authority, who wouldn’t be strident?”

“[The prosecutor] calls it a crime, a murder, a killing, ... I call it a medical service. Youk came to me and said, ‘Please help me.’ The aim was a final solution to incurable agony.”

“All we have to do to solve the whole controversy is have the medical profession come forward (and) lay the guidelines down, ... The guidelines say only certain doctors can do it, and if you don’t, we’re going to punish you.”

“I intended to do my duty. Not murder,”

“This could never be a crime no matter what words are written on paper… just like it was never a crime to drink beer, even though words on paper said it was, and that women were too dumb to vote,”

“The public can tolerate a Nazi America.”

“I did, ... But it could be manslaughter, not murder. It’s not necessarily murder. But it doesn’t bother me what you call it. I know what it is. This could never be a crime in any society which deems itself enlightened.”

“Either they go or I go, ... If I’m acquitted, they go, because they know they’ll never convict me. If I’m convicted, I will starve to death in prison, so I will go.”

[tags]doctor death, euthanasia,suffering,famous jacks,life issues, ethics[/tags]

The first use of the name ‘Union’ appears in 1625. There are various theories as to how it became known as the ‘Union Jack’, but most of the evidence points to the name being derived from the use of the word ‘jack’ as a diminutive. This word was in use before 1600 to describe a small flag flown from the small mast mounted on the bowsprit, and by 1627 it appears that a small version of the Union flag was commonly flown in this position. For some years it was called just ‘the Jack’, or ‘Jack flag’, or ‘the King’s Jack’, but by 1674, while formally referred to as ‘His Majesty’s Jack’, it was commonly called the Union Jack, and this was officially acknowledged.

In the 18th century the small mast on the bowsprit was replaced by staysails on the stays between the bowsprit and the foremast. By this time the Ensign had become the principal naval distinguishing flag, so it became the practice to fly the Union Jack only in harbour, on a specially rigged staff in the bows of the ships, the jackstaff. It should thus be noted that the jack flag had existed for over a hundred and fifty years before the jack staff came into being, and its name was related to its size rather than to the position in which it was flown.

It is often stated that the Union Flag should only be described as the Union Jack when flown in the bows of a warship, but this is a relatively recent idea. From early in its life the Admiralty itself frequently referred to the flag as the Union Jack, whatever its use, and in 1902 an Admiralty Circular announced that Their Lordships had decided that either name could be used officially. Such use was given parliamentary approval in 1908 when it was stated that “the Union Jack should be regarded as the National flag”.

Quoted from the article on the flag’s name at the website of the Flag Institute, by Cdr Bruce Nicolls OBE RN (Ret’d)

[tags]union jack, england, OBE, flags, scotland, famous jacks[/tags]

Of Ukranian descent, Palance was born in Pennsylvania, the son of a coal miner. In the late 1930s he started a professional boxing career. Fighting under the name Jack Brazzo, Palance reportedly compiled a record of 15 consecutive victories with 12 knockouts before losing a decision to future heavyweight contender Joe Baksi.

With the outbreak of World War II, Palance’s boxing career ended and his military career began. Palance’s rugged face, which took many beatings in the boxing ring, was disfigured when he bailed out of his burning B-24. Plastic surgeons repaired the obvious damage but left him with a distinctive, somewhat gaunt look. After much reconstructive surgery, he was discharged in 1944.

Palance graduated from Stanford and made his Broadway debut in 1947, followed three years later by his screen debut. He was quickly recognized for his skill as a character actor, receiving a nomination for only his third film role, as Lester Blaine. The following year, Palance was nominated again, for his role as the evil gunfighter Wilson. Several other Western roles followed, but he would also play such varied roles as Dracual and Attila The Hun.

Palance’s first wife was Virginia Baker (1949-1966). They had three children: Holly (born 1950), Brooke (born 1952) and Cody (1955-1998). An actor in his own right, Cody Palance appeared alongside his father in the film Young Guns, and was 42 when he died from melanoma in 1998. His father now hosts The Cody Palance Memorial Golf Classic to raise awareness, and funds, for a cancer center.

Since May 1987, he has been married to Elaine Rogers.

Palance paints and sells landscape art, with a poem included on the back of each picture. He is also the author of The Forest of Love, a book of poems, published October 1, 1996, by Summerhouse Press.

Palance quotes:

On tabloid stories: “I’m amazed people read this crap about us – about me most of all.”

“The only two things you can truly depend upon are gravity and greed.”

[tags]jack palance,westerns,melanomas,young guns,dracula,movie greats, obituary[/tags]

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’”

“I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till i drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.”

“I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life, but that great consciousness of life.”

“My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.”

“Maybe that’s what life is…a wink of the eye and winking stars.”

“Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.”

“What is the feeling when you’re driving away from people, and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.””

“All human beings are also dream beings. Dreaming ties all mankind together.”

“My witness is the empty sky.”

“I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion”

[tags]people, celebrities, jack[/tags]

“I have a theory of relatives, too. Don’t hire ‘em.”

“You were very good playing a bitch-heroine, but you shouldn’t win an award for playing yourself.”

“I’ve got America’s best writer for $300 a week.”

Some ticket buyers think they don’t like Jews.”

Career:

Worked in brother Harry’s shoe repair store in Baltimore; 1905—sang illustrated song slides in nickelodeons; with brothers opened Le Bijou nickelodeon in Pittsburgh; 1906—formed the Duquesne Amusement Supply Company; opened production studios in St. Louis and Santa Paula, California; 1917—My Four Years in Germany established Jack as a major producer; 1918—took sole charge of Warner Bros. Hollywood operation; controlled the studio until 1967, then independent producer

Awards:

Academy Awards for The Life of Emile Zola, 1937; Casablanca, 1943, and My Fair Lady, 1964; Irving Thalberg Award, 1958; US Medal of Merit; Order of British Empire. Died: Of heart disease in Los Angeles, California, 9 September 1978.

[tags]hollywood, jack, Jack Warner, actors[/tags]

“No doubt Jack the Ripper excused himself on the grounds that it was human nature.”

“There is no female Mozart because there is no female Jack the Ripper.”

“One day men will look back and say i gave birth to the twentieth century.”

“Depart from me, I never knew you.”

“Any linkage between the British government and these terrorist outrages is completely without foundation.”

“I woke up last night at 3 a.m., 4 a.m. and 6 a.m., and although I am very nervous I am also extremely excited and happy today.”

“From a number of people, and you know who you are.”

“I have read all four of the books and think they are absolutely wonderful.”

“She is obviously an extremely tenacious lady who does not want her extraordinary deductions to be contradicted by the evidence.”

“Bemused by her obsession.”

[tags]jack, history, jack the ripper, society[/tags]

“A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t.”

“By forgetting the past and by throwing myself into other interests, I forget to worry”

“All the time he’s boxing, he’s thinking. All the time he was thinking, I was hitting him.”

“Tell him he can have my title, but I want it back in the morning.”

“Tall men come down to my height when I hit ‘em in the body.”

“Nobody owes anybody a living, but everybody is entitled to a chance.”

“Honey, I just forgot to duck. (to his wife, on losing the World Heavyweight title)”

“A champion owes everybody something. He can never pay back for all the help he got, for making him an idol.”

“A good fighter usually knows, to within a very few seconds, when a three-minute round is going to end.”

You know what a champion is? A champion is someone who’s ready when the gong rings—not just before, not just after—but when it rings.

[tags]jack dempsey,boxing,top jacks,champions,mike tyson,heavyweight[/tags]

“I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”

“The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

“There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.”

“A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.”

“The scab is a traitor to his God, his mother, and his class”

“Darn the wheel of the world! Why must it continually turn over? Where is the reverse gear?”

“I wrote a thousand words every day”

“There was about him a suggestion of lurking ferocity, as though the Wild still lingered in him and the wolf in him merely slept.”

“I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.”

[tags]jack london,wolf,author,top jacks, God, ecstasy,writers[/tags]

“I guess it could be said my legacy might be that I changed an era. I came along during an era where the game of golf was more of a stylish game, and I added power to the game. I was probably the first player that played with real power and was successful. And I was able to play with finesse as well. If you look at today’s player, they all play with power. So I think I took the game in a different direction.”

“I’m a firm believer that in the theory that people only do their best at things they truly enjoy. It is difficult to excel at something you don’t enjoy.”

“I never went into a tournament or round of golf thinking I had to beat a certain player. I had to beat the golf course. If I prepared myself for a major, went in focused, and then beat the golf course, the rest took care of itself.”

“The Masters and Augusta National are and always have been very special to me. From the first time I drove up Magnolia Lane at age 19, I had a special feeling about Augusta. Even today, I get chills driving up Magnolia Lane.”

“Learn the fundamentals of the game and stick to them. Band-Aid remedies never last.”

“My ability to concentrate and work toward that goal has been my greatest asset.”

“The older you get the stronger the wind gets – and it’s always in your face.”

[tags]jack nicklaus,golf,top jacks,sporting greats,ryder cup, tiger woods[/tags]

Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names…..

If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity…..

Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation…..

Liberty without learning is always in peril; learning without liberty is always in vain…..

Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings…..

So, let us not be blind to our differences – but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved…..

The American, by nature, is optimistic. He is experimental, an inventor and a builder who builds best when called upon to build greatly…..

The ancient Greek definition of happiness was the full use of your powers along lines of excellence…..

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought…..

The great French Marshall Lyautey once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow growing and would not reach maturity for 100 years. The Marshall replied, ‘In that case, there is no time to lose; plant it this afternoon!’....

The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining…..

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction…..

Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm…..

We must use time as a tool, not as a crutch…..

We stand for freedom. That is our conviction for ourselves; that is our only commitment to others…..

When we got into office, the thing that surprised me the most was that things were as bad as we’d been saying they were…..

The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the Nation’s greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us…..

...probably the greatest concentration of talent and genius in this house except for perhaps those times when Thomas Jefferson ate alone…..

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable…..

And so, my fellow americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man…..

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich…..

We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth…..

For in the final analysis, our most basic common link, is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children’s futures, and we are all mortal…..

Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings…..

The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all…..

All of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea—whether it is to sail or to watch it—we are going back from whence we came…..

We need men who can dream of things that never were…..

The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word ‘crisis.’ One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger – but recognize the opportunity…..

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other…..

Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind…..