Something To Think About Archive

“Tonight, we close the book—tomorrow we start a new chapter.”

Only 22% of 12th graders scored proficient in math on the National Assessment of Educational Progress last year, the lowest on record. Roughly one in eight freshmen at the University of California, San Diego—ranked sixth nationally by U.S. News & World Report—lack rudimentary high-school math skills defined as geometry, algebra and algebra 2. It doesn’t help that the UC Board of Regents in 2020 scrapped standardized tests as an admissions requirement under the guise of promoting “equity.” AI isn’t the real threat in the dumbing down Americans, lack of basic education standards is.

Goethe said: “A talent can be cultivated in tranquility; a character only in the rushing stream of life.”

Epictetus said: “There is only one way to happiness, and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.”

According to humorist Andy Rooney, “One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day.”

Doctor Norman Vincent Peale once noted that “Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.”

As columnist and author Marjorie Holmes said: “At Christmas, all roads lead home.”

168 million acres of America’s forests reportedly burned from 2002-2024, with little replanted; nearly 1200 people died and over 145,000 structures were destroyed. The 2003 Healthy Forest Restoration Act, signed into law by President Bush, was objected to by the Sierra Club and many other “environmental” groups wrongly claiming that it would “gut environmental protections.” The Obama/Biden Administration ignored it and instead enacted even more rigorous environmental review requirements with an emphasis on “climate adaptive strategies.” It took the burning down of the right zip codes with the recent destructive wildfires in Los Angeles to finally get Washington’s attention again. We need passage of the proposed “Fix Our Forests Act” that will reduce wildfire threat by thinning overcrowded forests; streamlining environmental reviews; restoring forest ecosystems; and reducing the massive greenhouse gas emissions from wildfire smoke that directly impacts health and the environment.

According to clergyman and author Robert S. MacArthur: “The highest genius is willingness and ability to do hard work.”

According to British novelist David Ambrose, “If you have the will to win, you have achieved half your success. If you don’t, you have achieved half your failure.”

As the late, great golfer Ben Hogan once noted: “There are no shortcuts in the quest for perfection.”

Self Help author Napolean Hill claimed that “The starting point of all achievement is desire.”

Philosopher Arther Schopenhauer believed that “Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see.”

Like the feds, California has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. The non-partisan California Legislative Analyst has released a new report that’s a cautionary tale for America as Gavin Newsome prepares to make a run at the White House. Under the current trajectory, California will spend more money than it will take in via tax revenue facing a projected $18 billion budget shortfall for the upcoming fiscal year 2026-27 that starts on July 1st. The report adds, “Starting in 2027-28, we estimate structural deficits to grow to about $35 billion annually due to spending growth continuing to outstrip revenue growth.” And no one-time tax on billionaires will fix that.

“I make lots of mistakes.” Says author Janet Evanovich; “I try hard not to make the same mistake more than three or four times.”

According to a Spanish prover: “There is no happiness; there are only moments of happiness.”

It’s been said that “A bore is someone who, when you ask how he is, tells you.”

Writer and poet Khalil Gibran believed that “Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.”

Speechwriter and journalist William Safire correctly noted that “The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.”

The recent spate of gerrymandering congressional districts by states run by one party or the other, be it Texas or California, is that the voters in those districts end up being the real losers when they are politically trapped by their statehouse and no longer have a real say in the direction that their representatives take them. If the statehouse has decided that you now live in a district controlled by one party or another, you have no real control over who represents you in Congress.