Quotabull

Our purpose is, and has always been, to ensure a civil and safe environment where the many types of campus activities and open discourse can occur.

— University of Florida Police Chief Linda Stump. According to an Oct. 25 Associated Press story: “University of Florida police were justified in using a Taser against a student who refused to stop questioning Sen. John Kerry on campus last month, according to a state investigation released Wednesday.”

If you decide abstinence is right for you, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. But if you decide that you’re ready for a sexual relationship, the best way to protect yourself from HIV and other [sexually transmitted infections] is to be faithful to your partner and use a condom every time.

— Jenna Bush, daughter of President George W. Bush, in her book “Ana’s Story,” about a Central American teenage mother who is HIV-positive, that exudes an attitude that The Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus calls “refreshingly reality-based about sexual behavior — in a way that her father’s administration resists.”

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Quotabull

Charity is not a health care system.

— Dr. Terry D. Dickinson, executive director of the Virginia Dental Association, defending dentists against critics “who include public health experts, some physicians and even some dental school professors — [who] say that too many dentists are focused more on money than medicine.”

The President feels very strongly that this is part of his work as Commander-in-Chief, to make sure that those men and women are handled well and given the best possible treatment; that that’s part of the successful prosecution of this war.

— Karl Zinsmeister, assistant to the president for domestic policy, Oct. 16, discussing via conference call implementation of recommendations of the President’s Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Warriors.

Former President George W. Bush: What will he do next?

At noon on January 20, 2009, George W. Bush will become a former president of the United States. Assuming they live, he will join former presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and his father in a unique fraternity.

He will be 62. He is a relatively young man in good physical health. He will be capable of a vigorous life as a former president. He is not considered an intellectual.

What will he do for the next three decades?

USAToday’s match game: All you need to pick a candidate

I feel sorry for those folks who cannot decide which presidential candidate to vote for when the time comes to pull that level, poke that chad or touch that screen. Thanks to the infinite wisdom of USAToday — which has done my thinking for me — I now know which candidate righteously deserves my vote.

USAToday‘s Web site now sports the “Candidate match game.” All you have to do is answer 11 multiple-choice questions — three on the Iraq war, two on immigration, two on health care, one on same-sex marriage and one each on tax reform, global warming and candidate experience. And presto: Your presidential choice is revealed.

I’m all set now. Drum roll, please. Wait for it, wait for it … I shall vote for …

Quotabull

We have a responsibility to provide a moral framework for our kids.

— John Arthur Eaves Jr., Democratic candidate for governor in Mississippi, who once “rebuked the Democratic National Committee for leaving Jesus out of an Easter statement” and says he wants a “new day in Mississippi, where our children go to school with voluntary, student-led school prayers.”

John Arthur sounds pretty good. He’s going to cut the sales tax and put prayer back in schools. Put the Good Lord back in everything. That’s a priority.

— Charles Salley, standing behind the cash register at “Pap’s Place, a diner on Main Street in Ackerman, [where] the Bible was open under the Elvis albums and the Ten Commandments were on an engraved plaque in the window.”

The future of news: rational business decisions

Begin writing the long-term obituary of the American newspaper — at least for the newspaper envisioned by the Founders as a public service and a significant component of the checks and balances that once allowed American democracy to function properly and purposefully.

You think know the now-familiar story: Advertising revenues are down. Circulation’s declining. Corporate ownership listens to Wall Street instead of Main Street. Newspapers are shedding their older, experienced (read: more expensive to maintain) reporters and other staffers, all in service to the ROI (return on investment) demanded by stockholders of those corporate owners. All to maintain a profit level unmatched by any other American industry.

But that’s not the whole story. Some of that heralded doomsday circulation decline is intentional. The financial rationale behind that self-inflicted injury will have consequences beyond the short-term profitability of print news organizations. It will continue to erode the quality of those corporations’ principal product — journalism. It will taint online news operations — especially those promoted by bloggers as alternatives to mainstream news.

Infrastructure? A problem? Your politicians are on it

On Aug. 2, the day after the Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River near downtown Minneapolis collapsed, Sen. Chris Dodd, a presidential candidate, told his fellow senators:

Fixing our Nation’s crumbling infrastructure is an issue that cannot be neglected or deferred any further. This demands our immediate attention and commitment in the Senate. The quality of life in our country hangs in the balance. [emphasis added]

With that address, he introduced, with Sen. Chuck Hagel (he who thought about being a presidential candidate), Senate Bill 1926 — the National Infrastructure Bank Act of 2007. That it’s a bad bill isn’t the point here.

What’s happened to it? And where’s that “immediate attention and commitment in the Senate”?

Quotabull

Today, a megayacht is indispensable. It’s not like 15 years ago, when a yacht was a luxury item.

— Olivier Milliex, head of yacht finance at the Dutch bank ING, on the occasion of this year’s Monaco yacht show.

At the moment, there is a definite war being waged in fashion, a move by a handful of designers, including Nicolas Ghesquiere, Alber Elbaz and Raf Simons, to build a modernist defense against standard-issue blue-chip luxury and the value it represents.

— from an Oct. 3 New York Times fashion review by Cathy Horyn.

She owns a house in Palm Beach. A villa in St. Bart’s. A condo in Sun Valley. And yet a piece of her still lives on a cul-de-sac in Ohio.

— text of a Bank of America ad that’s part of a $25 million campaign (themes: “the new face of wealth” and “wealth management for today’s wealth”) to transform its mass-market, blue-collar, populist image to one with “wealth management” capabilities for elite investors.