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Some food for thought
No political slogan or hand-held sign has ever changed someone's convictions. Protests, shouting, and political battle will only polarize people on an issue. Regardless of which side wins or loses a political struggle, people will continue to believe what they did before. If you want to change your community, your nation and your world, the most effective action you can take is to introduce people to Jesus, and to demonstrate His love and compassion to them. Through His death and resurrection, all of us can be free from the effects of sin, and enjoy unlimited and joyful relationship with God. This is where changed lives come from.
It is a good thing to participate in politics as God leads. Vote your conscience. Respectfully voice your convictions in the political arena. But don't expect the election of a politician or passage of a law to change people's minds and hearts, much less their lives. Political power and law rule only through fear of consequence, not love. Let's make our focus the same as Jesus'. People are transformed when they experience love in relationship with Him.
Never forget
"In the annals of American history, only a few events are so well-known and so deeply rooted in national remembrance that the mere mention of their date suffices to describe them. Of these occurrences, none could have had more significance for our Nation than December 7, 1941. On that Sunday morning... the Imperial Japanese Navy launched an unprovoked, surprise attack upon units of the Armed Forces of the United States stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. "This attack claimed the lives of 2,403 Americans, wounded 1,178 more, and damaged our naval capabilities in the Pacific. Such destruction seared the memory of a generation and galvanized the will of the American people in a fight to maintain our right to freedom without fear. Every honor is appropriate for the courageous Americans who made the supreme sacrifice for our Nation at Pearl Harbor and in the many battles that followed in World War II. Their sacrifice was for a cause, not for conquest; for a world that would be safe for future generations. Their devotion must never be forgotten." --Ronald Reagan
In case you thought optimism was dead
The average pencil is seven inches long, with just a half-inch eraser--in case you thought optimism was dead. --Robert Brault, software developer, writer (1972- ) [Courtesy of today's AWAD.]
Never forget
I don't need anything else special to remember my wedding anniversary. Circumstances of life dictated that forever shall the day of our wedding be shared with that of the invasion of Normandy, and the enormous sacrifice made there by so many. Yesterday marked the second anniversary of President Reagan's passing, I can think of no better words to remember D-Day, than those spoken by him on the fortieth anniversary of the invasion:
Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young that day and you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet, you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here?
We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief; it was loyalty and love. The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge--and pray God we have not lost it--that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force of liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer... You all knew that some things are worth dying for.
<em>The Cat in the Hat</em> as business-lesson book
This little tale, which appears to be a book for children, is actually a clever evocation of what happens to a corporation when a management consultant is hired by absent, clueless senior management to evaluate its organizational structure and to effect change. Beginning slowly, the Cat proceeds to take everything apart, make a total mess and get everybody in potentially the worst trouble in the world--all at no personal cost to itself. By the time the Cat leaves, it has frightened everybody, and very little has changed except the mind-set of the protagonists, which has been forever disrupted and rattled.
Good advice
Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.
Mr. Franklin, if you only knew
One of things you have to love about Benjamin Franklin was his optimism with regard to those who hold public office.
They are of the People, and return again to mix with the People, having no more durable preeminence than the different Grains of Sand in an Hourglass. Such an Assembly cannot easily become dangerous to Liberty. They are the Servants of the People, sent together to do the People's Business, and promote the public Welfare; their Powers must be sufficient, or their Duties cannot be performed. They have no profitable Appointments, but a mere Payment of daily Wages, such as are scarcely equivalent to their Expences; so that, having no Chance for great Places, and enormous Salaries or Pensions, as in some Countries, there is no triguing or bribing for Elections. --letter to George Whatley, 23 May 1785 Reference: Franklin Collected Works, Lemay, ed., 1108. [Via the Patriot Post.]
Random note from the Retrophisch™ hPDA
"Long-term pessimism is irrational. (Short-term is, too.)"
Inquiring minds want to know
Please explain to me how our children have had no school yesterday and today so that the Teachers Unions can go out and organize for Democratic candidates -- but the schools will be open on Friday when the federal Government and most offices will be closed to commemorate our nation's war heroes? This must be an East Coast (West, too?) thing, or perhaps confined to Shirley's home state (Virginia?). The kids were in school yesterday and are today in DFW.
Hamilton favors a national sales tax
"It is a singular advantage of taxes on articles of consumption that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit, which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end purposed -- that is, an extension of the revenue." -- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 21 (Of course, any talk of instituting a national sales tax has to go hand-in-hand with repealing the Sixteenth Amendment, and the end of the income tax.)
Windows: neurotic
Jack Good, mathematician:
"My Windows 98 computer tells lies and often forces me to shut down improperly. Such behaviour in a human would be called neurotic."
Founders' wisdom
"Would it not be better to simplify the system of taxation rather than to spread it over such a variety of subjects and pass through so many new hands." -- Thomas Jefferson (letter to James Madison, 1784)
We'll accept help from everyone, except...
[I]t was not until Oct. 14, six days after Israel had communicated its willingness to help the earthquake victims "in any way possible," that it finally received a formal response. Yes, aid from Israel would be welcome, provided it was laundered through a third party. "We have established the president's relief fund, and everyone is free to contribute to it," a government spokeswoman coolly acknowledged. "If Israel was to contribute -- that's fine, we would accept it." Israel could help save Pakistani lives, in other words, as long as it wasn't too public about doing so. There mustn't be any embarrassing images of planes with Israeli markings offloading relief supplies at Islamabad's airport.
Why the two-parent family is important
Two decades of research produced a consensus among social scientists of both left and right that family structure has a serious impact on children, even when controlling for income, race, and other variables. In other words, we are not talking about a problem of race but about a problem of family formation or, rather, the lack of it. The best outcomes for children--whether in academic performance, avoidance of crime and drugs, or financial and economic success--are almost invariably produced by married biological parents. The worst results are by never-married women.
[...]
The upshot of these studies is that America is confronted by a form of poverty that money alone can't cure. Many of us think social breakdown is a result of racism and poverty. Yes, they are factors, but study after study shows that alterations in norms and values are at the heart of economic and behavioral troubles. That's why so much research boils down to the old rule: If you want to avoid poverty, finish high school, don't have kids in your teens, and get married.
Someone call the exterminator
"I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious." --Thomas Jefferson
The Standard
"[T]he present Constitution is the standard to which we are to cling. Under its banners, bona fide must we combat our political foes - rejecting all changes but through the channel itself provides for amendments." -- Alexander Hamilton (letter to James Bayard, April 1802)
Responsibilities of the states vs the federal government
"[T]he States can best govern our home concerns and the general government our foreign ones. I wish, therefore...never to see all offices transferred to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold at market." --Thomas Jefferson The term you're looking for here is "rolling over in his grave."
Above all, be persistent
"Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race." --Calvin Coolidge (1872 - 1933) [With thanks to Israel R. for the e-mail.]
Positively annoying
I have a new reason to develop a more positive attitude.
"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort." -- Herm Albright, author, quoted in the St. Paul Pioneer Press
Crap is crap
"The idea is that crap is crap and we’re not going to distinguish between the degrees." --ATPM Publisher Michael Tsai, to one of our writers on the subject of review ratings I love this line.