Something To Think About Archive

Louis Armstrong once noted that “There are some people who, if they don’t know, you can’t tell ‘em.”

Swedish Diplomat Dag Hammarskjold said, “Never for the sake of peace and quiet deny your own experience or convictions.”

Baseball great Jackie Robinson believed that “A life isn’t significant except for its impact on other lives.”

Given the extensive criticisms by the Grand Jury in its latest report, the current Board of Supervisors has its work cut out for it. Deferred building maintenance and unfunded liabilities from pensions and retiree healthcare amount to tens of millions of dollars with no clear plan or timeline to resolve. Also noted was that when the county hires someone under the financial umbrella of a grant, once that grant funding dries up, the employee is often, if not always, retained on the county payroll funded by taxpayers. When the grant is gone, the employee should be gone. Period. Otherwise, we run the risk that Staffing will continue to grow made up of people who were essentially hired for the “Project du jour” rather than providing essential services.

On this Memorial Day let us remember and honor those whose sacrifice lit the path for democracy.

According to clergyman Robert Schuller, “Spectacular achievement is always preceded by unspectacular preparation

Entrepreneur and publisher Malcom Forbes advised us that “When in doubt, duck.”

Automotive pioneer Walter Chrysler believed that “The real secret of success is enthusiasm.”

Filmmaker Frederico Fellini once remarked that “Nothing is more honest than a dream.”

There is currently $1.7 trillion in student loans outstanding. Nine million of those loans are in default or serious arrears. This is now all taxpayer money, as President Obama essentially nationalized student debt, taking it away from private lenders and putting it under the auspices of the Department of Education. He claimed, at the time and knowing that it wasn’t true, that the government would actually make money off of that move. Given the attempts to “forgive” those loans, it’s our opinion they never meant for them to be paid back and was nothing more than blatant vote buying.

Coach Vince Lombardi believed that “People who work together will win, whether it be against complex football defenses, or the problems of modern society.”

Pete Rose, known as “Charlie Hustle,” made the observation that “I’m no different from anybody else with two arms, two legs, and forty-two hundred hits.”

Ben Franklin once noted that “If the rascals knew the advantages of virtue, they would become honest.”

According to early American poet James Russell Lowell, “Not failure, but low aim, is the crime.”

Educator Booker T. Washington said: “Few things help an individual more than for another to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that he is trusted.”

There’s been more of an effort to return wrongly deported El Salvadoran Kilmar Ábrego García to the U.S. than there was to keep him from entering the country, illegally we would add, in the first place. The angst on the Left is much more than they ever expressed over the arrival of eleven million illegal immigrants these past four years. Meanwhile, illegal border crossings in February and March were down to 12,000 versus 189,000 in each of those months last year, under the Biden Administration’s less than watchful eye.

Economist Roger Babson wrote that whatever the economic circumstances, “…character, health, knowledge, and good judgement will always be in demand under all conditions.”

Marcus Aurelius advised us to “Dream big dreams; only big dreams have the power to move men’s souls.”

French mathematician Blaise Pascal wrote, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” And that was well before smart phones.

Automobile magnate Soichiro Honda claimed that “…success represents the one percent of your work which results only from the ninety-nine percent that is called failure.”