BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON  |  AUG 1, 2024

I find famous quotations therapeutic. Some make you smile. Some become an aha moment. Some make you wish you had said that. A couple of examples with more later.

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.  — James Bovard, Libertarian author, lecturer

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free! — P. J. O’Rourke, author and political satirist

It’s good to have a little comic relief now and then, particularly now. There’s not much to smile about when it comes to the national debt crisis just around the corner.

The debt is now about $35 trillion. Deficit spending is adding to it $4.5 million…per second. The debt amounts to about $100,000 for every American. It comes to $480,000 per child. Crack the piggy bank, kids and pay up. Can you imagine how much $35 trillion is? Neither can I. It is so large many Americans just put it out of sight and out of mind.

A warning from a historian was repeated by Wall Street Journal correspondent Gerald Seib who wrote in June:

“Historian Niall Ferguson recently invoked what he calls his own personal law of history: “Any great power that spends more on debt service (interest payments on the national debt) than on defense will not stay great for very long. True of Habsburg Spain, true of ancien régime France, true of the Ottoman Empire, true of the British Empire, this law is about to be put to the test by the U.S. beginning this very year.”

The federal government will spend $892 billion this year for interest payments on the national debt, more than we spend on defense and nearly as much as we spend on Medicare, Seib wrote.

Members of Congress headed back to their districts a week early, without addressing the debt, the looming debt limit ceiling, and the appropriation bills that need to be enacted by Oct. 1. As George H.W. Bush would say, ‘not gonna happen.’ Once again, they are being held up by recalcitrant partisans who have strange notions about their sworn responsibility to govern but enjoy giving Speaker Mike Johnson ulcers.

The crisis in civics education.

One of the reasons Congress is dysfunctional is the dismal lack of knowledge about the legislative process that prevents citizens from having an impact on its members and affecting real, not cosmetic, change. A report published by the US Chamber of Commerce in March told us what we already knew; that 39 percent of Americans feel they are not well-informed enough to be active citizens and 50 percent of Americans were unable to name the branch of government responsible for writing laws. The Foundation is welcoming a new President, Michael Carney. Hopefully he will invigorate the cause.

Another organization bringing about change in schools is iCivics. The late Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was widely known and admired as the first woman in American history to sit on the Supreme Court. She was memorialized in grand fashion after her death December 1, 2023.

She was less known for championing civics education, which she wanted as a part of her legacy. Fifteen years ago she founded iCivics, an organization created to stanch the alarming lack of knowledge and understanding of our system of governance. “We must arm today’s young people with innovative civic education that is relevant to them. Bringing high-quality civics to every school in every state of our union is the only way that the next generations will become effective citizens and leaders,” she was quoted as saying.

Today, iCivics under the direction of CEO Louise Dube is flourishing. She noted recently on social media that iCivics programs have been used by 145,000 teachers in all 50 states. Its budget has increased thanks to major funding from foundations and a national network of partners.

We can only hope that Justice O’Connor’s legacy lives on.

A tale of cancel culture and civics education gone awry.

Speaking of civics education, 13 years ago, after the inauguration of Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, reporter Salena Zito of the Washington Examiner was leaving the ceremony and spotted the then-State Archivist David Haury who was surrounded by guards. He was carrying an historical treasure, Willian Penn’s 1698 Bible used in the swearing-in back to the Pennsylvania Historical Society. Zito asked Haury if she could take a closer look at the precious book. He obliged.

She reported that an onlooker “who was watching with curiosity nearby, asked me whose bible it was. When I said Penn, the suburban Philadelphian said, “Isn’t he the Quaker Oats guy?”

Penn was much more than a face on an oatmeal box, but he was a Quaker.

Penn, founder of Philadelphia, so deplored religious persecution that he became a Quaker and dedicated his efforts to creating a safe-haven for all religious beliefs and a place where women were equal to men. He was a statesman, politician, patriot, and a founder of the nation.

Penn was also the owner of about a dozen slaves, most of whom he freed. Earlier this year the National Park Service proposed removing the Penn statue from the House at Welcome Park, where Penn lived. The Park Service said it was in the name of inclusivity.

Puzzling questions posted online by a friend in Colorado.

• Which letter is silent in the word “Scent”?
• Did you know that the word “swims” upside-down is still “swims”?
• Why is it that over 100 years ago, everyone owned a horse and only the rich had cars while today everyone has cars and only the rich own horses?
• If people evolved from monkeys, why are monkeys still around?
• Why is there a ‘D’ in fridge, but not in refrigerator?
• As you get older do you notice that you spend a lot more time Googling how to do stuff?

Random thoughts quiz.

I get emails from History Facts. Here is a little quiz taken from their posts. Answers are at the bottom. No peeking.

1. How old is the chocolate chip cookie?
2. Why are they called chips?
3. Which President said he saw a UFO?
4. Why is Scotch Tape called “scotch” and how old is it?
5. What did President Ulysses Grant’s middle initial S stand for?

Quotations from prophetic philosophers.

• “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” — Aristotle
• “Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” — Plato
• “Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is just opinion.” — Democritus
• “Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.” — Thanks to Patricia Clous, Greek Reporter
• “In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.” — John Adams
• “If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.” — Mark Twain
• “I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.” — Winston Churchill
• “A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.” — George Bernard Shaw (Thanks, John Assuras)

Answers to the history quiz thanks to History Facts.

1. The chocolate chip cookie has been around for nearly a century. The classic treat was popularized in the 1930s by Massachusetts chef Ruth Wakefield, who served them as an accompaniment to ice cream at her popular restaurant, the Toll House Inn.
2. The treat was called chocolate chip because it was literally a chip off the old block. chipped from blocks of chocolate. The Nestle morsels came later.
3. Jimmy Carter
4. Scotch Tape debuted in 1930 by its inventor Richard Drew who worked for 3M in Minnesota. With the use of another new discovery for cellophane, a problem developed in wrapping it around bakery items and sealing it. Drew had earlier developed masking tape for painters and applied his knowledge to create the clear tape. A painter asked Drew why he was so “scotch” (a term for cheap) in applying adhesive to just the sides of his masking tape and the name just stuck for the inexpensive transparent tape.
5. The answer is nothing. The congressman who got Grant appointed to West Point in 1839 knew that Grant’s first name was actually Hiram, but everyone called him Ulysses, but he had no middle name. The military academy required one on the application, so his sponsor simply added an S for what he knew was Grant’s mother’s maiden name. Grant tried to get the middle initial deleted, but was unsuccessful, so he became Ulysses S. Grant. In a letter to his future wife Julia Dent in 1844 Grant wrote: “You know I have an ‘S’ in my name, and I don’t know what it stands for.