Naomie Harris Quotes

A 2007 Harris poll found that 71 percent of Americans believed that the continued burning of fossil fuels would alter the climate. By 2009 the figure had dropped to 51 percent. In June 2011 the number was down to 44 percent—well

Economist Marvin Harris described women as a "literate and docile" labor pool, and "therefore desirable candidates for the information- and people-processing jobs thrown up by modern service industries." The qualities that best serve employers in such a labor pool's workers are: low self-esteem, a tolerance for dull repetitive tasks, lack of ambition, high conformity, more respect for men (who manage them) than women (who work beside them), and little sense of control over their lives.

Katrina was not unforeseeable. It was the result of a political structure that subcontracts its responsibility to private contractors and abdicates its responsibility altogether. —Harry Belafonte, American musician and civil rights activist, September 20052

Economist Marvin Harris described women as a 'literate and docile' labor pool, and 'therefore desirable candidates for the information- and people-processing jobs thrown up by modern service industries.' The qualities that best serve employers in such a labor pool's workers are: low self-esteem, a tolerance for dull repetitive tasks, lack of ambition, high conformity, more respect for men (who manage them) than women (who work beside them), and little sense of control over their lives.

Still, we’ve gone soft since those days of wartime sacrifice, haven’t we? Contemporary humans are too self-centered, too addicted to gratification to live without the full freedom to satisfy our every whim—or so our culture tells us every day. And yet the truth is that we continue to make collective sacrifices in the name of an abstract greater good all the time. We sacrifice our pensions, our hard-won labor rights, our arts and after-school programs. We send our kids to learn in ever more crowded classrooms, led by ever more harried teachers. We accept that we have to pay dramatically more for the destructive energy sources that power our transportation and our lives. We accept that bus and subway fares go up and up while service fails to improve or degenerates. We accept that a public university education should result in a debt that will take half a lifetime to pay off when such a thing was unheard of a generation ago.

And then I saw it. My father's wood: thick by then with twenty years' growth, but still not fully mature. A half-grown wood of oak trees around that little clearing, which, with my new perspective, I could see made the shape of a heart. I stared down at the clearing. The heart was unmistakable; tapered at the base with the strawberry field in the centre; a stand of trees to form the cleft. How long had it taken my father, I thought, to plan the formation, to plant out the trees? How many calculations had he made to create this God's-eye view? I thought of the years I had been at school; the years I had felt his absence. I remembered the contempt I'd felt at his little hobby. And finally I understood what he'd tried to say to me on the night of my wedding. 'Love is the thing that only God sees.' I'd wondered at the time what he meant. My father seldom spoke of love; rarely showed affection. Perhaps that was Tante Anna's influence, or maybe the few words he'd had were all spent on Naomi. But here it was at last, I saw: the heart-shaped meadow in the wood, a silent testament to grief; a last, enduring promise. Love is the thing that only God sees. I supposeyou'dsay that's because he sees into our hearts. Well, if he ever looks in mine, he'll see no more than I've told you. Confession may be good for the soul. But love is even better. Love redeems us even when we think ourselves irredeemable. I never really loved my wife- not in the way that she deserved. My children and I were never close. Perhaps that was my fault, after all. But Mimi- yes, I loved Mimi. And I loved Rosette Rocher, who was so very like her. One day I hope Rosette will see the heart-shaped meadow in the wood, and know that love surrounds her, whether see can see it or not. And you, Reynaud. I hope one day you can feel what only God sees, but which grows from the hearts of people like us: the flawed; the scarred; the broken. I hope you find it one day, Reynaud. Till then, look after Rosette for me. Make sure she knows my story. Tell her to take care of my wood. And keep picking the strawberries.

And then I saw it. My father's wood: thick by then with twenty years' growth, but still not fully mature. A half-grown wood of oak trees around that little clearing, which, with my new perspective, I could see made the shape of a heart. I stared down at the clearing. The heart was unmistakable; tapered at the base with the strawberry field in the centre; a stand of trees to form the cleft. How long had it taken my father, I thought, to plan the formation, to plant out the trees? How many calculations had he made to create this God's-eye view? I thought of the years I had been at school; the years I had felt his absence. I remembered the contempt I'd felt at his little hobby. And finally I understood what he'd tried to say to me on the night of my wedding. 'Love is the thing that only God sees.' I'd wondered at the time what he meant. My father seldom spoke of love; rarely showed affection. Perhaps that was Tante Anna's influence, or maybe the few words he'd had were all spent on Naomi. But here it was at last, I saw: the heart-shaped meadow in the wood, a silent testament to grief; a last, enduring promise. Love is the thing that only God sees. I suppose you'd say that's because he sees into our hearts. Well, if he ever looks in mine, he'll see no more than I've told you. Confession may be good for the soul. But love is even better. Love redeems us even when we think ourselves irredeemable. I never really loved my wife- not in the way that she deserved. My children and I were never close. Perhaps that was my fault, after all. But Mimi- yes, I loved Mimi. And I loved Rosette Rocher, who was so very like her. One day I hope Rosette will see the heart-shaped meadow in the wood, and know that love surrounds her, whether see can see it or not. And you, Reynaud. I hope one day you can feel what only God sees, but which grows from the hearts of people like us: the flawed; the scarred; the broken. I hope you find it one day, Reynaud. Till then, look after Rosette for me. Make sure she knows my story. Tell her to take care of my wood. And keep picking the strawberries.

When information about who is or is not a security threat is a product to be sold as readily as information about who buys Harry Potter books on Amazon or who has taken a Caribbean cruise and might enjoy one in Alaska, it changes the values of a culture. Not only does it create an incentive to spy, torture and generate false information but it creates a powerful impetus to perpetuate the fear and sense of peril that created the industry in the first place.

Quando le informazioni su chi costituisce o meno una minaccia per la sicurezza diventano un prodotto, che può essere venduto con la stessa nonchalance delle informazioni su chi compra libri di Harry Potter su Amazon, o su chi ha fatto una crociera ai Caraibi e potrebbe gradirne una in Alaska, i valori stessi di una cultura finiscono per mutare. Non solo si crea un incentivo alla delazione, alla tortura, alla creazione di false informazioni; ma si crea un forte stimolo a perpetuare la paura e il senso di pericolo che per primi hanno dato vita a quell'economia.