Quotes of the Week

Here's what a few people said this week. We need voices like these when hypocrisy and deception are so widespread:

Reporter Marie Colvin, speaking before she died yesterday about Syrian armed forces: “It’s a complete and utter lie they’re only going after terrorists. The Syrian Army is simply shelling a city of cold, starving civilians.”

Virologist Renato Dulbecco, who died Sunday and whose Nobel Prize-winning research showed that genetic mutations cause cancer: “While we spend our life asking questions about the nature of cancer and ways to prevent or cure it, society merrily produces oncogenic substances and permeates the environment with them.”

New York Times columnist Gail Collins, yesterday, in discussion with David Brooks about the abortion legislation proposed in Virginia: "I’m being driven crazy by people who are obsessed with limiting the scope of government, but feel perfectly free to demand that government get involved in women’s most personal choices."

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich commenting on the huge sums of money that superdonors are contributing to conservative PACs: "Whoever emerges as the GOP standard-bearer will be deeply indebted to a handful of people, each of whom will expect a good return on their investment. . . Never before in the history of our Republic have so few spent so much to influence the votes of so many."

Food writer Mark Bittman commenting on Procter & Gamble's sale of Pringles to Kelloggs: "[If we didn't process so much real food,]Kellogg’s and P.&G.’s bottom lines might not look so good. We ourselves, however, might look better, as would our health care bills, which in general rise along with Big Food’s influence and profits."