Something To Think About Archive

Columnist and commentator Peggy Noonan believes that “Cynicism is not realistic and tough – it’s unrealistic and kind of cowardly because it means you don’t have to try.”

The majority of the more than 11,000 dead on both sides of the Israel-Hamas war have been civilians, which is tragic, but also the case in all wars that we know of, at least in modern times. Consider that the civilian death toll in World War II is estimated at 38 million. And, like previous wars, this one enlists a lot of propaganda, by Hamas, trying to portray Israel as the bad guys when they, Hamas, started the conflict by killing 1400 Israeli innocents and then they use their own people as human shields increasing the civilian death toll that they then blame on Israel.

In a time when not every word spoken by a sitting president was a campaign speech, John F. Kennedy said: “If we are strong, our strength will speak for itself. If we are weak, words will be no help.”

German statesman and post-war Chancellor Konrad Adenauer once noted that “We all live under the same sky, but we don’t have the same horizons.”

Country music legend Merle Haggard declared: “I’m happier because I made up my mind to be that way.”

Novelist Charlotte Bronte wrote: “Gratitude is a divine emotion: it fills the heart, but not to bursting; it warms it, but not to fever.”

According to author Truman Capote, “Anyone who ever gave you confidence, you owe them a lot.”

The White House has announced new funding for state and local governments to hire additional law enforcement officers, as President Joe Biden looks to combat “perceptions of growing violent crime in U.S. cities.” Really? According to the FBI’s annual crime report, homicides in 2022 remained 25% above the 2019 level. Meanwhile carjackings and other property crimes have risen. In the nation’s capital, where murders are up 38% this year, and shoplifters are now crashing cars into stores to gain entry for mass looting. That’s not a perception, that’s a reality.

Writer Agatha Christie believed that “Instinct is a marvelous thing. It can neither be explained nor ignored.”

Novelist George R.R. Martin believes that “A good act does not wash the bad, nor a bad act the good. Each should have its own reward.”

As W.C. Fields once noted: “You can’t cheat an honest man.”

Charles Dickens said: "Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many, not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some."

Mystery writer Agatha Christie once cautioned us that “Everything must be taken into account. If the fact will not fit the theory – let the theory go.”

John Gardner could have been talking about Washington when he observed that “Most ailing organizations have developed a functional blindness to their own defects. They are not suffering because they cannot resolve their problems, but because they cannot see their problems.”

Novelist Shirley Hazzard once noted that “At first, there is something you expect of life. Later, there is what life expects of you.”

British cryptographer and actor Frank Birch, “The price of wisdom is eternal thought.”

Actor Michael Landon advised us to “Work hard and go home happy.”

Businessman Jeffrey B. Swartz claims that “One of the biggest things I’ve learned is that I don’t always have to be right.”

Engineer and inventor Charles Kettering believed that “If you’ve always done it that way, it’s probably wrong.”

The ongoing protests against Israel’s campaign to destroy Hamas is about as wrongheaded as you can get. Yes, there are Palestinian civilian casualties. But that tragedy is largely the fault of Hamas who continues to hide behind their own people, even using hospitals as shields for their operations. And to hear some of our elected officials joining with protestors using the rallying cry “From the River to the Sea”, which is a call for the extermination of Israel, is beyond the pale.