In school, my better half always wanted to be the “best.” If she got a 93 on a test, which is an A-minus, she would not be pleased. I was “average.” a low passing grade pleased me.
Later in life I learned that being “average” was not so good. It’s the worst of the “best” and the best of the “worst.” If I had been more like my wife Perla, I would have listened more closely to what my teachers were teaching. Perhaps then I would have been able to read Mr. Jim Taylor’s commentary on April 14 12 14 without any difficulty. I admit that not all but most of what he wrote was way over my head.
He did mention Albert Einstein and that reminded me of one of his quotes: “The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know.” As I dug deeper, I found a whole treasure of them. I will share a few:
“Weak people revenge. Strong people forgive. Intelligent people ignore.”
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
“Try not to be a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.”
“Life is like a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
“The world is not dangerous because of those who do harm, but because of those who look at it without doing anything.”
“The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.”
“Creativity is intelligence having fun.”
“I fear the day technology will suppress our human interaction the world will have a generation of idiots.”
“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
“I don’t know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
Yes, it’s true: The more we learn the more we realize how much we don’t know.
Italo J. Zarate
Brownsville
Getting too
friendly
Harlan Crowe says there’s nothing wrong with his friendship with Clarence Thomas. He is right that nothing is amiss in his relationship with a Supreme Court justice, if we throw the history of democracy out the window.
The politically privileged aristocracy in England openly hobnobbed with high-level government officials all the time. In fact, they often got automatic hereditary positions in the government precisely because they were from the upper crust.
But England’s slow revolution in the 1600s and America’s Revolution in 1776 changed all that. We learned about the importance not only of separation of powers, but separation of the moneychangers from unfettered access to public decision-makers. Our ancestors put a provision in the Constitution prohibiting any titles of nobility, so everyone would have an equal chance to influence government.
The Citizens United court case opened up the floodgates, allowing American corporations and individuals to control election financing by permitting unlimited financial contributions to friendly candidates. Are you seeing the link here between money and Supreme Court decisions favoring the Republican Party?
Condoning friendly financial contributions from the wealthy to sitting Supreme Court justices is another big step on the road to allowing the wealthy exclusive control of policy in America, and it must not be allowed to happen.
Kimball Shinkoskey
Woods Cross, Utah
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