Too Many Opinions
Eighteen words appeared on facebook. “Nothing is more conductive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all.” ~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. The FBF is known to have opinions.
In the google age, or le goog, you are only a right click away from too much information. In cases of facebook education, the first impulse is to ask the question, did the person really say that? In the case of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, the probable answer is yes.
“Nothing…” is from The Waste Books (New York Review Books Classics) “German scientist and man of letters Georg Christoph Lichtenberg was an 18th-century polymath: an experimental physicist, an astronomer, a mathematician, a practicing critic both of art and literature. He is most celebrated, however, for the casual notes and aphorisms that he collected in what he called his Waste Books.”
The Sudelbücher, or scrapbooks, were written in German. They are essentially a collection of random thoughts. If twitter had existed then, these thoughts would have gone to 140 character purgatory, never to be seen again. History would not have been affected.
The first thing you learn when you investigate this quote is a translation controversy. Conducive is possibly more appropriate than conductive. German speakers might have thoughts about which word best describes the thoughts of GCL. This would constitute having an opinion.
The cited aphorism does have the aroma of truth. You are not required to have an opinion about everything that goes on. Those rhetoric warriors often do not have your best interests at heart. Sometimes the best thing to do is to realize that the hot trending hashtag is #noneofmybusiness.
While stumbling through google city, searching, like a digital Diogenes, for one honest man, a lovely essay appeared. How to Waste a Notebook: The Waste Books of Lichtenberg. The author might have actually read the Sudelbücher, instead of the Brainy Quotes highlights.
“Last month, however, I chanced upon The Waste Books by 18th century German polymath Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. (Polly Math would be a good stage name.) Containing thousands of aphoristic notes, Lichtenberg’s books read like clippings from newspaper horoscopes, fortune cookie fortunes and one-liners commingling with trenchant observations about the human condition and the existential peccadilloes with which it’s fraught. So, why call these gems The Waste Books?”
Fairyland: A Memoir Of My Father
Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father was published last year. It got some attention in Atlanta, where the story started. A few weeks ago, a copy appeared at the Chamblee library. It was time.
Steve Abbott and Barbara Binder were grad students at Emory. They met, fell in love, and got married. On December 6, 1970, Alysia Rebecca Abbott was born.
As might be predicted for a couple that met at an SDS meeting, the Abbotts had an unconventional relationship. They lived for a while in a decaying mansion on Clifton Road, with a few dozen commune neighbors. Truth be told, the Abbotts might have wound up with a divorce. Instead, on August 28, 1973, Barbara was killed in an automobile accident.
Steve had always been bisexual. If you have any doubts, see this cover he drew for The Great Speckled Bird. After Barbara died, he took his daughter to San Francisco. After a couple of stops, they wound up at 545 Asbury Street. Steve wrote poetry. Alysia grew into a young lady.
When it was time, Alysia went to college in New York. Barbara Binder Abbott was from a “comfortable” family, and the Binders stayed in touch with their granddaughter. Meanwhile, Steve turned up HIV+. Eventually, his condition required Alysia to move home. On December 2, 1992, he took his last breath.
Alysia Abbott can tell a story. Fairyland is an entertaining read, even when the story is tough to take. Hopefully, there will be more reading product from the lady.
This is the dedication: “for my mother and my father, and for Annabel, so she may some time know where her mother “was at.”” Annabel has a brother, Finn. He is profoundly autistic. When the NPR book promotion interview was given, Finn could not talk.
A few months ago, PG heard Annabelle, a song by Gillian Welch. The chorus rhymes Jesus with please us. PG found this to be upsetting. He wondered if he was going to go the rest of his life being triggered by Jesus. And now, the author of this deeply moving book has a daughter, with a very similar name. Annabel will have an autistic younger brother to grow up with.
The second part of this feature is a repost. It is the story of a World Aids Day rally, December 1, 1992. The next day Steve Abbott died. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
1992 was a year for PG. His father died in February. In July, PG went to Europe. It was a bad, bad year for friends with aids. Several were recruited by the grim reaper.
By the time December 1 came around, PG was ready for another year. In those days, PG was working in an architect office downtown, and had lots of free time. There was a rally for World Aids Day at the state capitol, and PG saw a chance for free entertainment. A podium was set up in the rotunda, and a series of speakers declaimed. One man said to use a condom every time you FUCK. He seemed to enjoy screaming the F word in the state capitol.
A man named Doug Teper spoke. He was the only state legislator to speak, and he criticized the organizers for not inviting him. Later, PG … who lived in Mr. Teper’s district … asked him for a business card. Mr. Teper forgot to bring his business cards. (PG was standing next to Mr. Teper when a speaker demanded health care for everyone. PG leaned over and said, how are we going to pay for this? Mr. Teper shrugged. Twenty two years later, we still don’t know.)
In July, a close friend had died. Jim lived in Loganville, in Walton County. PG stood behind a statue of George Walton during the rally.
PG saw a person named Gene Holloway at the rally, and went to talk to him. Years earlier, when Betty Ford was the first lady, PG was taken to his eighteenth birthday party. A couple of years after the rally, PG saw an obituary for Gene Holloway.
Thanksgiving
PG does not want to bore you with talk about gratitude. This is a repost . Pictures are from The Library of Congress. There will be one story.
“I used to work for a company that produced annual reports. One year, I was sent on this huge cross country trip to art direct a series of shots for a food processing mega-company, and one of the stops involved a turkey farm. Okay, so you have to understand that turkeys are extremely skittish birds. The slightest thing will set them off, so the farmer kept them in a large, basically dark barn just to keep them under some semblance of control. So we go in, and the photographer sets up the lights, which he gradually turned on so the birds (and me, for that matter) could get used to it. Everything’s going fine. We have the farmer in front of his (literally) hundreds of free-range turkeys. The photographer clicks off the shot… and in doing so sets off a flash he forgot he had triggered. Immediate chaos: birds running everywhere.At least a dozen fainted and died right on the spot. Farmer was none too happy. Neither was the agency.”
Fifty One Years
Fifty one years ago, John Kennedy went to the oval office in the sky. Did Marilyn Monroe greet him?
The bullets hit Mr.Kennedy at 12:30. He arrived at the hospital at 12:37. He had a faint heartbeat on arrival, but quickly succumbed to his wounds.
In Georgia, PG was nine years old. He was in Miss Mckenzie’s fourth grade class. There was going to be an assembly soon, and the class was going to perform. There was a rehearsal in the cafetorium, and some of the kids were acting up. They went back to the class, and PG thought they were going to be chewed out about the misbehavior in the cafetorium. Instead, Miss Mckenzie came into the room, and told the kids that President Kennedy had been shot during a parade in Dallas Texas. She did not say anything about his condition. One kid cheered the news.
School let out at the regular time, and PG walked home. His mother and brother were crying. He was told that the president had died. The cub scouts meeting that afternoon was canceled.
Later that night, a plane arrived in Washington. The tv cameras showed a gruesome looking man walk up to a microphone. He was introduced as President Lyndon Johnson. This may have been the worst moment of that day. Pictures by “Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
The Silly Remarks Of The President
Wednesday, November 19, was the 151st anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. This is seven score, and eleven years, ago. This is not as poetic as four score and seven. The famous speech was written on White House stationary, not the back of an envelope. The train ride to the battlefield was too bumpy to write on, so it was written elsewhere. No one is sure what happened to the original.
The text was published in newspapers, and became famous. Relatively few people heard the actual speech. Not everyone was impressed. The Harrisburg Patriot & Union said “We pass over the silly remarks of the President. For the credit of the nation we are willing that the veil of oblivion shall be dropped over them and that they shall be no more repeated or thought of.” The descendent of this paper, The Patriot-News, printed a retraction in 2013. Better late than never.
Other contemporaries were critical. Presidents are politicians, with allies and enemies, and are not often beloved in their own time. The New York World accused Lincoln of “gross ignorance or willful misstatement” with his declaration of “four score and seven years ago.” The Democratic Chicago Times called the address “a perversion of history so flagrant that the extended charity cannot regard it as otherwise than willful.”
H.L. Mencken had a few unkind things to say about the affair. “But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination—”that government of the people, by the people, for the people,” should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in that battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves. “
As the rest of the linked essay points out, one motivation for the Confederates desire for self determination is to maintain the ability to own other human beings. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. These are Union Soldiers from the War Between the States. UPDATE There is a Fibonuccian synchronicity to Wednesday’s anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. The original is famous for the phrase four score and seven. If you add four and seven, you get eleven. Wednesday was 151 years after the original address, or seven score and eleven.
The Powers Of Government
“The only way in which our people can increase their power over the big corporation that does wrong, the only way in which they can protect the working man in his conditions of work and life, the only way in which the people can prevent children working in industry or secure women an eight-hour day in industry, or secure compensation for men killed or crippled in industry, is by extending, instead of limiting, the powers of government.” Theodore Roosevelt San Francisco (14 Sep 1912)
This quote comes from WIST on Thursday the thirteenth. It is interesting on a number of levels. The most obvious is the call for expansion of government by a one time Republican.
At the time of this speech, Mr. Roosevelt was running as a third party candidate. His entry into the race split the Republican vote, and allowed Democrat Woodrow Wilson to win. In less than a year, the Federal Reserve Bank was created.
The race for President almost cost Mr. Roosevelt his life. On October 14, 1912, in Milwaukee WI, the candidate was shot. Mr. Roosevelt gave his speech, rather than go to the hospital. An x-ray showed the bullet to be lodged in a non-threatening place. It was not removed.
In 1917, five years after the call for government expansion, the United States entered World War I. Sending a million troops to Europe is, by definition, big government. Mr.Roosevelt was an enthusiastic supporter of American participation in the conflict. On July 23, 1918, Quinton Roosevelt, youngest son of the former President, was killed in France.
The quoted speech was given in San Francisco. Eleven years later, after taking ill on a trip to Alaska, President Warren Harding died in San Francisco. Mr. Roosevelt took office after the demise of President William McKinley. This is probably not what Mr. Roosevelt meant by expanding the role of government. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
The Burning Of Atlanta
Around this time 150 years ago, Atlanta was on fire. General Sherman was preparing for his March to the sea, and wanted to destroy anything of value in the city. The fire is reported as being on 11-15 of November, depending on what source you use.
The November fire was the second great fire in Atlanta that year. On September 2, the city was conquered by the Union Army. The fleeing Confederates blew up a munitions depot, and set a large part of the city on fire. This is the fire Scarlet O’Hara flees in “Gone With The Wind”.
After a series of bloody battles, the city was shelled by Yankee forces for forty days. There were many civilian casualties. General Sherman was tired of the war, angry at Atlanta, and ready for action. This is despite the fact that many in Atlanta were opposed to secession.
Click here to hear a lecture by Marc Wortman at the Atlanta History Center. Mr Wortman is the author of “The Bonfire: The Siege and Burning of Atlanta”. The hour of talk is fascinating. The pictures are from The Library of Congress This is a repost.
70s Trivia Guru!
For PG, the seventies were the years between 15 and 25. Arguably, you are old enough to know what is going on. Possibly, you did so many drugs that you cannot remember very much. When you are looking for text to go between the pictures (from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”) neither accuracy nor maturity is a factor. Which leads to today’s quiz, Can You Answer These 14 1970s Trivia Questions?
The seventies were the decade after the sixties. Much of the action blamed on the sixties took place in the seventies. Many of the current commentaries are written by people whose grandparents were born in the sixties. During the seventies, recent history was often classified by the decade. Decade thinking is more properly spelled decayed.
You have to wonder about the people who compiled this test. “The 70s represented a massive rise in anti-war demonstrations. One of the best-known demonstrations resulted in the National Guard shooting into a crowd at a university, killing 4 innocent people – what university was it?”
In the early seventies, something called Vietnamization took place. The fighting in Southeast Asia was done more by native troops. The American combat troops were starting to come home. There were fewer causalities. The American people were mostly opposed to the war by this time. The government quit trying to win, and was looking for the fig leaf peace treaty, hopefully in time for the 1972 elections. The first earth day was held, and interest in ecology took root.
The bottom line is that anti-war demonstrations declined during the seventies. The protest part of the sixties peaked about 1968. After four students were killed at Kent State, people decided that protest was not as much fun. The person who wrote this test missed question two.
“What was the highest grossing movie of the 70s?” If you mean which flick made the most money, it was probably “Star Wars.” If you mean which one grossed out the most people, it was a tie between “Jaws” and “The Godfather,” with “Love Story” a serious contender.
While PG intends to finish the quiz, and get a result (a non-seventies way of doing things,) he will probably get tired of writing about it soon. Maybe the sponsors of the quiz should be noted. On question 2 of 14, there is a header ad from IBM: “Defeat every gamer’s enemy: High Ping”. Under the NEXT QUESTION> is an ad asking “Know The Bible?” The reader is linked to bibletriviatime.com.
“Who was the best selling musical artist of the 1970s, having sold more than 300 million albums?” “The best selling singer of all time died tragically in the 70s – who was he?” Most people do not have access to sales figures, and many know enough not to trust the ones they do see.
Maybe the key phrase is “died tragically.” Elvis Presley was sitting on the throne. Bing Crosby was walking off the golf course. His last words: “It was a good game.” Given the general feng shui of this exam, the answer is probably Elvis. Jimi Hendrix is the third possible answer.
By question 12 of 14, the writer is running out of steam and/or drugs. “The “Thrilla in Manila” took place in 1975 – what was it?” The choices were Muhammad Ali vs Joe Frazier, the final battle in the Vietnam war, the most tightly contested election in history. The header ad promotes getting a graduate degree at the University of Georgia.
“What famous 70s TV character is this?” The choices are Archie Bunker, Sonny Bono, and The Fonz. Since Mr. Bunker and Mr. Bono were real people, the answer must be The Fonz.
Question 14 of 14 is a trick question. You must sift through the facts carefully here. “What was the name of the scandal that rocked Richard Nixon’s presidency in 1974?” The possible answers are the bay of pigs incident, Munich massacre cover up, Watergate. The seventies were a time of reading between the lines, even if you couldn’t see them very clearly.
PG got 12 questions correct. This earns the doobie-ous title of 70s Trivia Guru!. He missed questions 5 and 11. Number 5 is about a video game launched in 1972.
Number 11 makes PG think something weird is going on. “TV’s longest running game show was launched in 1972, and it still runs everyday! What show is it?” The choices were Family Feud, The Price is Right, and The Hollywood Squares. When PG took a second shot at the quiz, he chose TPIR. The quiz says this is the correct answer. PG is certain that he saw TPIR as a kid in the sixties. Maybe that was in black and white, and the color edition of TPIR was launched in 1972.
Monica Lewinsky And Jay Bakker
Political correspondent Monica Samille Lewinsky gave a speech recently. The venue was the Under 30 Summit, sponsored by Forbes magazine. MSL has something in common with Malcolm Forbes.
If you are looking for a mature discussion of the courage displayed by the forty something MSL, perhaps you should look elsewhere. If something good should turn up, then it will be an accident. This is going to be just as tacky as the MSM coverage, of young MSL.
The speech begins with the correspondent saying “My name is Monica Lewinsky.” In the runup to a recent Georgia execution, a popular slogan was “I am Troy Davis.” More recently, a photo appeared of a man, allegedly a Missouri policeman, with a wrist band saying “I am Darren Wilson.” If someone were to market shirts with the slogan “I am Monica Lewinsky,” it might be a popular item.
The speech is nothing to be excited about. MSL was treated dirty online, but her family helped her get through it. Tyler Clementi had a bad online experience, and did not deal with it as well. We should quit bullying each other, and play nice.
MSL is on twitter, with three tweets and 73.5k followers. @MonicaLewinsky social activist. public speaker. contributor to vanity fair. knitter of things without sleeves. The three tweets: #HereWeGo ~ excited (and nervous) to speak to #Under30Summit ~ #gratitude #overwhelmed #thankyou
After listening to the entire message from MSL, PG was feeling less snarky. Bullying and shaming is hurtful. The pride that people take in hurting people is disgusting. (Anti Racists should take heed, but probably will not.) It was tough to know which way to go with this commentary.
Jay Bakker retweeted @RyanMiller Excellent podcast on Love, justice, mercy, chaos, Driscoll & forgiveness with @jaybakker & @JosefGustafsson
When the PTL club petered out, Jay Bakker was a kid. He went through a similar public humiliation as MSL, only he was just the son of the guilty parties. Mr. Bakker has gone on to a career of his own as a professional Jesus worshiper. This is not always an honorable calling.
At the seven minute mark of the linked podcast, Mr. Bakker said: “At a certain point you have to take responsibility for yourself. and realize that you weren’t completely manipulated into a situation. The weird situation is people want to blame these leaders but at the same time we have to remember that we followed them.” No claim of inerrancy is made for this transcript.
PG was only able to listen to thirty five minutes of the podcast. At some point, Mr. Bakker said the church was losing relevance because of some, probably gay related, issue. Mr. Bakker said it was sad. PG, on the other hand, is thrilled that the cult of Jesus worship is losing relevance.
One of the youtubers had a biblical comment about MSL. Proverbs 30:20 Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness. MSL was not married when employed by the government. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Oscar Wilde
October 16 is Oscar Wilde’s birthday. On that day in 1854, he appeared in Dublin, Ireland. He is one of the most widely quoted people in the english language. Some of those quotes are real. Since he was a published author, it should be easy to verify what he really said. This is a repost.
One night in 1974, PG was talking to someone, and did not know who Oscar Wilde was. The conversational partner was horrified. PG became educated, and learned about a misunderstanding with the Marquess of Queensberry. Soon the “Avenge Oscar Wilde” signs made sense.
Mr. Wilde once made a speaking tour in the United States. One afternoon, in Washington D.C., the playwright met Walt Whitman. Thee and thou reportedly did the “Wilde thing”.
The tour then went to Georgia. A young black man had been hired as a valet for Mr. Wilde on this tour. On the train ride from Atlanta to Augusta, some people told Mr. Wilde that he could not ride in the same car as the valet. This was very confusing.
After his various legal difficulties, Oscar Wilde moved to Paris. He took ill, while staying in a tacky hotel. He looked up, and said “either that wallpaper goes, or I do”. Soon, Oscar Wilde passed away.
The Shroud Of Turin
@Flyswatter Why are people so gullible about the Shroud of Turin? It was solved as a hoax in 1988! The Unsolved Mystery Behind The Shroud Of Turin Still Has The Power To Captivate
@chamblee54 @Flyswatter shroud has a documented 800 yr history how did ancient forgers create this? it is more interesting as fraud than as reality
@Flyswatter @chamblee54 Well, we know from testing that the “blood stains” are actually red hematite tempera paint. Seems like a forgery to me!
@chamblee54 @Flyswatter this image existed in the 14th century it was in a fire which melted silver handles on the box the man does not have a navel
@Flyswatter @chamblee54 We do know, however, that if this was actually the imprint of a man, it would be an imprint of the whole head. You’d see ears.
@chamblee54 @Flyswatter most jesus worshipers don’t like to listen they enjoy the image of their hero without ears
If you hang around twitter for long, you will not have writers tackle. PG had a discussion about the Shroud of Turin. This is a good subject for a long winded ramble. It is either a miracle of faith, or a miracle of deception. The two are closely related.
In 1978 there was a lengthy article about the Shroud in, of all places, Rolling Stone. The author went through all the possibilities for the Shroud being a forgery. He came to the conclusion that it is real. There is a lovely quote.
“You have to believe in some fourteenth century steppenwolf privy to now lost alchemical formulae, who had a knowledge of the peculiar pathology of crucifixion and the ways in which it was misrepresented in Christian ar undiscovered until the thirties; who procured a cloth from Palestine, one that was once in southern Turkey … and who mysteriously if not miraculously contrived by no known method a negative image to appear encoded with 3-D information only a computer developed for interstellar image analysis could read. And this character would have to have a pretty dry sense of humor .. because all that ingenuity would not become apparent to anyone till 500 years later. It takes, in other words, more of an effort and a more tortured manipulation of the facts to disbelieve in the authenticity of the shroud than it does to accept it.”
The shroud has a documented history going to April 1349. On December 4, 1532, there was a fire. It melted silver on the storage box, and would have destroyed any pigments in use at the time.
On May 28, 1898, Secondo Pia, an Italian amateur photographer, took pictures of the Shroud. When he developed the images, he saw the negatives. The negative was a positive image of Jesus.
There is an enormous amount of information about the Shroud of Turin. There are indications that the bearded image of Jesus is taken from this document. There are historic indications that the Shroud existed in the seventh century.
When Jesus was crucified, three nails were used. Two went in his arms. There is a space between the bones in the wrist where the nails (really spikes, which were pulled out and reused) went in. If the nails had gone in the hands the weight of the body would have pulled the hands down. When you drive a spike into this spot, the nerve controlling the thumb is broken, and the thumb turns inward. There are no thumbs of the image of Jesus in the Shroud. ( There is not a navel either, which is another can of worms. And yes, there were no ears. One of the Youtube lectures has an explanation for that. A slack blogger can only remember so much.)
In 1988, a sample of the Shroud was submitted for radiocarbon 14 dating. This is a scientific procedure that indicates the age of an object. The test indicated that the garment was created 1260–1390 A.D. Since then, numerous problems have been found with the test. Many people believe the radiocarbon 14 test to be discredited.
Since reading the Rolling Stone article, PG has not known what to make of the Shroud. If it is real, then how did a disfigured corpse create this remarkable image? If it is fake, how did a fourteenth century artist create a negative image of remarkable detail? It is a matter where having to have a belief, one way or another, is not an appealing option. Maybe it is best to accept it as a mystery.
Since we are never going to have a definitive answer anyway, maybe we can allow one more hypothesis. Maybe the Shroud of Turin was created before the crucifixion. Maybe some Egyptian mystics created this image as an act of prophecy. Maybe this image foretold the crucifixion/resurrection story. It was taken to Jerusalem at the proper time, to be seeded with the local pollen. The Egyptians were capable of building giant pyramids, and other miracles that we cannot explain today. Maybe they could draw a 3-D image on linen, and deliver it to the burial site of the man depicted in time for the burial.
Pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
A Trillion Dollars
This piece is selections from previously published material. The full post of part one is available, if you are interested in stories about Richard Nixon and Antonin Scalia. One part we are using today is about Ronald Reagan, and the federal budget. Federal finances have been in the news lately, and Congress has made a bad situation worse. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
… The last quote is from another POTUS who is no longer with us, Ronald Reagan. “I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself.” Mr. Reagan was a professional actor, and he knew the value of a good script.
This slogan is another one that Mr. Obama may find handy. It should be noted that it was a big deal when the national debt (the grand total of the deficits) went over a trillion dollars. This was during the first term of Mr. Reagan. Today, under Mr. Obama, the annual deficit is over a trillion dollars. Sooner or later, you are talking about real money.
PG suffered brain damage trying to find out more about the quote from Mr. Reagan. He went through six pages of google. There must be 25 sites which have lists of quotes from Mr. Reagan, and all of them feature this quote. None have an actual source.
What was the context? When did he first say it? One site says it was “(during the latter years of his administration)”. Another site says it was “Said often during his presidency, 1981-1989”. Maybe this is an urban legend. As Mr. Reagan said, don’t believe everything you read on the internet.
Those of a certain age remember Everett Dirksen. A Republican Senator from Illinois, he was blessed with an operatic voice, and cursed with a face that could stop a clock. He is credited (or blamed) for the quote ” A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.” The Dirksen Congressional Center can neither confirm nor deny if he really said that. The discussion of this reputed quote does turn up a passage, that is germane to today’s conversation.
“One time in the House of Representatives [a colleague] told me a story about a proposition that a teacher put to a boy. He said, ‘Johnny, a cat fell in a well 100 feet deep. Suppose that cat climbed up 1 foot and then fell back 2 feet. How long would it take the cat to get out of the well?’
“Johnny worked assiduously with his slate and slate pencil for quite a while, and then when the teacher came down and said, ‘How are you getting along?’ Johnny said, ‘Teacher, if you give me another slate and a couple of slate pencils, I am pretty sure that in the next 30 minutes I can land that cat in hell. If some people get any cheer out of a $328 billion debt ceiling, I do not find much to cheer about concerning it.” [Congressional Record, June 16, 1965, p. 13884].
Senator Dirksen went to the fundraising dinner in the sky September 7, 1969. Twelve years later, the Reagan revolution was getting started. Taxes were cut, and spending increased. In a couple of years, the national debt went over a trillion dollars. (The annual budget deficit is now over a trillion dollars.) For those new to the game, a trillion is a billion, multiplied by a thousand. For all the numbers above, multiply by a thousand, to get a trillion.
In 1965, Senator Dirksen was losing sleep, over raising the national debt to $328 billion. The current national debt is estimated at $16,964,687,666,420. This is 5171% of 328 billion.
In 1965, the national debt was $328 billion, and we were losing 100 men every week in Vietnam. One of the more expensive things the government does is fight wars. Currently we are officially killing people in Afghanistan, and several more countries that no one knows about (nudge wink).
On September 11, 2001, The United States was attacked. Revenge was the order of the day. There are now indications that this was one of the goals of Al Queda. The Soviet Union imploded, in large part, because of the strain of fighting a war in Afghanistan. Now, the United States is waist deep in the same big muddy. Whoever is elected in 2016 will have to deal with this matter.
Afghanistan has a gross national product of $27billion. The Congressional Research Service estimates the cost of American operations in Afghanistan for 2011 to be $119 billion. This is over four times the gross national product of Afghanistan. Pretty soon, you are talking about real money. This is a repost.
Chamblee54 
leave a comment