Ladies don’t start fights, but they can finish them! — The Aristocats

I never want any of my children, boy or girl, to depend on someone else. I want them to be able to feed themselves and keep a roof over their head. I want them to have all the skills they need to be independent. I especially want my children, especially Girlie Bear, to know to fight like a cornered cat if someone threatens or hurts them. When I was growing up, very few girls were equipped to stand up to others. It was social taboo for a man to hit a woman, but it was almost as bad for the woman to fight back. My goal is that I won’t need to be the overbearing father when dates come around, because by the time that happens, the young man or woman will know that my child doesn’t need my backup to defend themselves.

Toussaint: How did you know I have dry leprosy, that it isn’t contagious?
Papillon: I didn’t.

— Papillon

You have to take chances in life, or you will gain nothing. Most of the time when you do something, you will have most of the information you need. But every now and then, you will be forced to make a leap of faith. You may fail if you try, but you will never succeed if you do not. I think the trick in those circumstances is to know when something is important enough to make a blind stab, to have the skills and resources to deal with the consequences, and to not be surprised when presented with an unexpected result, good or bad.

This is my family. I found it, all on my own. Is little, and broken, but still good. Yeah, still good. — Lilo and Stitch

When Irish Woman and I went to get married, it took almost an hour for both of us to describe the twists and turns of our family backgrounds. Between marriages, divorces, deaths, parents, guardians, and everything else, the pastor was scrubbing his face with his hands as he tried to understand it all. He then pronounced our family as “biblical”. His reasoning was that nobody in the Bible had a nuclear family. Someone always was widowed, or had two wives, or was being raised by an uncle or grandparents. That was a great way of saying what I’ve come to feel: Family is not genetics. I love my blood relatives, but I love the family I’ve gathered over years of travel and heartache just as much.

Scotty: Computer! Computer?
[He’s handed a mouse, and he speaks into it]
Scotty: Hello, computer.
Dr. Nichols: Just use the keyboard.
Scotty: Keyboard. How quaint.

— Star Trek IV – The Voyage Home

One of the hardest things I do in IT is to continually learn about new technologies. But the  hardest thing I do is to teach others about old technology. You hang out in any big operation, and you will find the antiques. They’re old, and they’re slow, and they keep the lights on, so no-one messes with them. A huge percentage of the world’s business is still done on mainframe, and the Cobol programmers aren’t getting any younger. Convincing a 22 year old that they need to learn how to maintain and improve that code is almost as challenging as wholesale replacement would be.

Colonel Mustard:  Why is J. Edgar Hoover on your phone?
Wadsworth:  I don’t know, he’s on everybody else’s, why shouldn’t he be on mine?

— Clue

My biggest fear with this whole NSA scandal is that it will blow over. People are already getting used to the idea that someone, be it government or private companies, is watching and tracking them, and that worries me. Normalization of the surveillance state leads to its acceptance. There are just too many places where it can be abused, and those who do the watching have no watchers of their own, and they are far from angels.

You gotta be ready to listen to your children, even if they have nothing to say. — Chicken Little

There have been many a morning where the drive to school is filled with conversations about Boo’s imaginary friend and his dog. Girlie Bear chats with me about the goings on at her school and among her group of friends. Little Bear and I have some excellent conversations about nothing at all. I may not always understand everything they say, but the fact that they want to talk and the tone they use tells me a lot about what’s going on in their lives.

Gallaxhar: [enters on a personal hovercraft] You must be terrified. Waking up in a strange place, wearing strange clothes, imprisoned by a strange being floating on a strange hovering device. Strange, isn’t it?
Susan Murphy: Hardly. It’s not the first time.
Gallaxhar: [pause, deflated] Wow, you really get around.

— Monsters Vs. Aliens

The more you think about a  situation and get used to the idea, the easier it is to deal with it. The more exposure you get to things that push your limits, the more those limits will expand. I’m not saying that training, practice, and even competing with a gun will fully prepare you for actually using it under stress, but it will at least get you thinking and hopefully ingrain good habits that will help. Normalization of the abnormal frees up your mind and body to do what needs doing instead of freezing at the sight of the unfamiliar.

A shepherd must tend his flock. And at times… fight off the wolves. — The Patriot

I’ve met two people in my life who were true pacifists. One was a Buddhist and the other was a Christian. Both could quote chapter and verse from their respective holy writings about why they felt it was necessary to live without causing harm to others, and they truly walked the walk. I’ve met a lot of the other type of pacifists in my life. These were the kind of person who could never imagine being violent themselves, but were OK with others doing rough work on their behalf. Don’t ask them to defend themselves, but don’t be surprised when they call men with guns to come over and force compliance when you do something against them. On the other hand, I’ve known a few people who hated violence, but understood that it is sometimes necessary. They live their lives trying to not bring harm to their fellow man, but are always prepared to defend that which they love. The best example of this I can think of was the Airborne Ranger Catholic chaplain we had in Germany. He was very quick to remind us how to act and what our faith demanded, but he was also quick to help out at the rifle range or to discuss the righteousness of defending our country. A good shepherd never forgets that there are wolves out there, and that it is his responsibility to not only watch over his flock, but also to be prepared to fight to protect them.

My dear man, crowned heads are free to play a little game of courtesy, but nations owe one another none. — Becket

Like I’ve said before, all of the revelations from Edward Snowden about the government keeping watch on American citizens is fair game. There are moral, ethical, and legal reasons why the NSA and the rest of the alphabet soup shouldn’t be doing these things. But the moment the revelations start talking about what the U.S. government does to foreign governments and individuals, he crosses a line with me. Even when we’re talking about allies like Great Britain or Germany, it’s the job of our government to gather intelligence from foreign powers. I fully expect that the BND and GCHQ have a file open on Barack Obama, so why is it such a surprise that the NSA has files on Andrea Merkel and David Cameron?

You stood up to be counted with the enemies of everything the Grail stands for! Who gives a *damn* what you believe? — Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

When you pick a side, you get to own the positions and actions of that side. That means that, as a capitalist, I can expect to take heat for imperialism, banana republics, and African slavery. If you identify as a socialist or communist, expect that I am going to throw Auschwitz, the Gulag, and the Cultural Revolution at you. The best defense is to be as educated as you can be about not only the skeletons in your own political closet, but also about the good that your side does.