In their words
A selection of quotations from people in recent news stories, big and small
“Like a lifelong Cubs fan, my hope is mixed with a sense of abject futility.”
– Washington state Rep. Brendan Williams, an Olympia Democrat, keeping his fingers crossed for a homeowner’s bill of rights that has been introduced in the Legislature since 1999 but never enacted.
“We’re not going to charge state troopers or anybody else when the evidence doesn’t support it.”
– Thurston County Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jon Tunheim, explaining that no criminal charges will be filed against 10 Washington State Patrol troopers who got raises on the basis of questionable college diplomas.
“It was sort of a thrill that we never expected to happen in our lifetime, to have equal recognition with the marriages that my sons had also had.”
– Retired National Guard Col. Grethe Cammermeyer, whose admission that she is a lesbian prompted the military to expel her, describing her Oregon marriage to a Washington legislative committee considering the rights of same-sex couples.
“What I heard loud and clear from the president’s order was that they want to design a system that doesn’t result in people being sent to foreign dungeons to be tortured. But designing that system is going to take some time.”
– Human Rights Watch’s Washington advocacy director Tom Malinowski, after President Barack Obama’s new administration announced it did not want to do away with the rendition program that was controversial under President George W. Bush.
“Its mouth filled up, so to speak, and rather than successfully getting a location and passing that along to the alerting mechanism, it basically just threw up.”
– Former professor Steve Malone of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, explaining the technicalities behind an earthquake-alert system’s failure to let scientists know about a tremor that hit the Puget Sound region on Jan. 30.
“When there are insurgents on the Sunni side, he hits them. When there are insurgents on the Shiite side, he hits them.”
– Iraqi citizen Wissam Hussam, crediting the evenhandedness of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s efforts to restore civil order to his nation.
“It’s like a horse. We can load you down, and you just don’t stand as long.”
– Jim Stone, acting director of the soldier requirements division at the Army Infantry Center at Fort Benning, Ga., regarding studies showing increases in injuries associated with the weight of individual combat gear carried by soldiers.
“No one bill, no matter how comprehensive, can cure what ails our economy.”
– President Barack Obama, describing how far-reaching are the economic challenges facing Congress and his administration.