Quote of the Day/Week- Aretha Franklin

Today, in honor of Black History Month, we quote the Queen of Soul, who is Aretha Franklin, 69, who has been battling serious health problems as of late.

Franklin is perhaps best-known for her catchy r&b number one smash hit "Respect"
(1967). In recent years, she has performed at the 2009 Presidential Inaguration for Barack Obama.

Franklin was also the god-mother to the recently deceased pop singer Whitney Houston, who was found in a Los Angeles hotel room on Feb. 11. Houston was 48. To our knowledge, no conclusive report on her cause of death has been released to the media.

Here is the quote from Franklin:

"Don't say Aretha is making a comeback because I've never been gone."

SIDEBAR: We want to wish one of our favorite Olympic and college gymnasts Yvonne Tousek a happy 32nd birthday. Tousek competed for Canada in both the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

As a college gymnast at UCLA, Tousek earned the NCAA bars titles in 2001. Her Bruins teams won three of the school's six NCAA team titles in women's gymnastics.

Over the weekend, UCLA tied Oregon State with a 196.775 at Oregon State that also included the California Bears, which finished last in the three teams meet.

UCLA got strong results in the all-around competition from Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs, who finished third with a 39.375, and from Vanessa Zamarripa, arguably the hardest college gymnast's name to spell (we think we got it right, hopefully) who finished fourth overall with a 39.325.

The Bruins host Arizona State on Sunday.

Quote of the Week- Karl Marx

A special good morning to all our friends in Corvallis, Oregon (actually, I only one person in that state, and he lives in Portland) who are just waking up, and a special salute to the graduates of the school there, which is Oregon State. Their arch rival Oregon University is in Eugene. It's easy to get the two towns mixed up.

Let's get to our Quote of the Week, and I should add that while I think the German philosopher Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a remarkable historical figure, I don't consider myself a Marxist, as Cuba has proven the short-comings of what happens in communist countries. But, of course, in Provo, Utah, which is home to Brigham Young University and is perhaps America's most conservative zip code, I would probably be classified as one there!

This quip is part of this blog's month-long quips from radical, left-wing figures.

Here is the quip, which should go over well with "True Blood" fans:

"Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks."

We are planning to have quotes from many people past and present from Germany (with the exception being the Nazi-era) in October.

SIDEBAR: Yesterday, as we typing our blog post on English soccer, there was actually a game being played there. I wonder if they call it "Monday Night Futbol." Hmmm....you may have to be an American born before Ronald Reagan was president to get that joke. Liverpool beating the living daylights out of Fulham by a 5-2 score in that game with Argentinian star Maxi Rodriguez scoring three goals for the winning Liverpool side.