Something To Think About Archive

As Canadian author L.M. Montgomery said “Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”

Author Alan Cohen says to “Focus on what you are moving toward rather than what you are leaving behind.”

An economic “depression” has been defined as “…a period when people do without the things their parents never had.”

Winston Churchill claimed that “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”

We can’t help but be reminded by the current attempts by the White House and Biden Family to project the President as hale and hearty and fully capable of governing, as long as it’s between 10am and 4pm, as akin to the efforts by FDR’s staff to do the same with him; denying the true state of his health carrying him through his failure to contain the Soviet Union at Yalta post-World War II and right up until his death, notably while still in office.

While we are firm believer in the Constitution including the Second Amendment, we have to agree with the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent 8 to 1 decision upholding a federal law that forbids domestic abusers from possessing guns. Gun ownership and legal carry is a right that should also be exercised as a deserved and earned privilege.

“Life is a great big canvas,” noted actor Danny Kaye “and you should throw all the paint on it you can.”

Poet James Russell Lowell believed that “The misfortunes that are hardest to bear are those that never come.”

Longfellow wrote: “It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong.”

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said: “One flag, one land, one heart, one hand, one nation, evermore!”

Civil rights activist and founder of the Children's Defense Fund, Marian Wright Edelman defined “Failure” as “…just another way to learn how to do something right.”

Urban crime has run rampant in California causing many much-needed retail outlets in those same urban areas serving low income populations to close. The repeal of portions of Prop 47 will hopefully reinstate harsher penalties for theft and drug violations and will go a long way to repairing the damage caused by this ill-conceived change in prosecutorial standards.

Self-help author Diana Scharf Hunt calls “Goals” “… dreams with deadlines.”

Organizational consultant Walter Bennis defined “Leadership” as “the capacity to translate vision into reality.”

According to Dr. Norman Vincent Peale: “The trouble with most of us is that we’d rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.”

Stephen Covey believed that “Seeking to understand takes consideration; seeking to be understood takes courage

It’s been noted that when you let go of your attachment to being right, suddenly your mind is more open without being hamstrung by your prior judgements.

Donald Trump’s proposal to replace the income tax with much higher tariffs to protect domestic businesses sounds like a great idea until you remember the impact Smoot-Hawley Tariff had on the economy in the 1930’s squashing free trade and worsening the Great Depression. And, while we are no fan of the current byzantine tax code that puts the vast majority of the burden squarely on 20% of all taxpayers, you have to note that tariffs raise the price of all goods dramatically shifting the proportionate tax burden to lower income households.

Concert pianist and actor Oscar Levant once observed that if you “Strip the phoney tinsel off Hollywood, you’ll find the real tinsel underneath.”

Coach Wooden said: “Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.”