First Posted: 2/21/2015
“It’s been some 45 years since we brought the Blazers here, and in those 45, and the next 45, the Blazers will never have a better human being than Jerome Kersey.” — Portland Trail Blazers President Emeritus Harry Glickman, on the former player’s death.
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“We have learned that providing route security at a distance and intentionally avoiding direct confrontation prevents injury to officers, limits liability, and minimizes the criminal actions of many protesters.” — Denver’s Police Chief Robert White in an email to officers asking them not to intervene but to stand by and watch as protesters threw red paint on a memorial for fallen officers during a weekend march against police brutality.
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“White males have dominated things for so long that it’s been hard to image an alternative that would produce or be open to producing the types of projects that are likely to enlist more people of color or women. So it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, this vicious cycle that produces the same type of stuff over and over again. It’s hard to blame any single institution. It’s not all the networks. It’s not all the studios. It’s not all the talent agencies. But together, the way they all do business, combines to create this stalemate where we just don’t get past where we are right now.” — Darnell Hunt, a UCLA professor and director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, who co-authored a 2014 diversity report on the film and TV industries.
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“It has nothing to do with animal welfare. It was about politics. This is the chosen battleground of those who want to dismantle the rural way of life.” — Tim Bonner, of British rural lobby group the Countryside Alliance, on the 10th anniversary of the banning of fox hunting.
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“What people often don’t consider, is that if they get hurt and have to be rescued they are putting emergency personnel at great personal peril,” — Dan Quinn, state parks administrator at the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources, on tourists attempts to visit the Sacred Falls, a dramatic waterfall where a landslide killed eight hikers more than 15 years ago.
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“We are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam.” — President Obama on war against terrorism.
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“I’m hoping someone can take on her legacy. There was nothing she couldn’t do.” — Rebecca Dunn, who attended a memorial for Kayla Mueller, the international aid worker from Arizona who was taken hostage then killed by Islamic State militants in Syria.
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“Lots of people think sheep babies’ lives will be very tiring and they have to work hard, so lots of people try to avoid having sheep babies. But that means my baby won’t have as much competition, which is great.” — A mother-to-be who would only give her surname, Li, on the Chinese astrological sign of the Sheep for the New Year.
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“We are fighting a war for freedom, fighting a war to defend all of Europe. To some extent, the financial package, the support the world is giving us, is in recognition of that fact that we are fighting that war.” — Ukraine’s Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko.
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“Muslims have been here maybe since the inception of this country. The Muslim-American history is rooted even in the forefathers. President Jefferson had a copy of the Holy Quran.” — Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who believes “American Muslims here feel maybe more integrated” than in Europe.
