“Intellectuals solve problems; geniuses prevent them.” – Albert Einstein

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst

3 September

Beethoven could be a real pain. For example, he’d humiliate one of his friends at a restaurant by making a joke at his expense – and the guy would still be his friend in spite of the social gracelessness of two left feet, but because of the peerless power of his music. Whatever else you might say about the man, Beethoven was not about to be ignored. What other composer, before or since, can match the following? “He who knows how to listen to my music will be freed from the troubles that plague others”? For everyone who wrote him off as supremely arrogant there were others who hung on every sfortzando he ever wrote. That character trait explains why, on a walk, say, in the fashionable parks of Vienna he had the advantage - if that's the word I want - of walking right through the middle of any of the aristocracy he happened to encounter. His unapologetic attitude was, “you are nobility by virtue of your birth: I am nobility by virtue of my innate genius.”

“Between the wish and the thing, life lies waiting.” - Anonymous

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst

2 September

Jim Wallace was a friend of mine from high school; he was a really bright guy. In fact, when he graduated he didn't know whether he wanted to be an aeronautical engineer or an attorney. So he applied for admission to Perdue, where all the NASA astronauts went, and to Yale where all the big-name attornies went. He was accepted at both schools but Yale's letter arrived three days after Perdue's; he said yes to Perdue because they didn't accept many out-of-state applicants and he wasn't sure what Yale was going to do. That’s the reason Jim became an aeronautical engineer instead of an attorney. Go figure!

 

“Here I stand; I can do no other.” - Martin Luther

  

From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

September 3

“…It’s not just that that day’s four million slaves were freed; their progeny, otherwise destined to be slaves themselves, were freed. And it is not just that the slaves current and future were freed; their white masters were freed from the incubus of slavery. The rest of the American population was freed from it. An institution which was radically unjust in its very essence was overcome. It is not only that a certain number of living Southerners were ‘held’ in the Union; the principle of the American Union was defended, and not only defended but given a deep redefinition, now with equality at the center alongside freedom.” - William Lee Miller 

“A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of courage.” - Sydney Smith

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

September 2

“I know not how to aid you save in the assurance of one of mature age and much severe experience that you cannot fail if you resolutely determine that you will not.” - Abraham Lincoln

“Knowledge speaks, but Wisdom listens.” – Jimi Hendrix

“Me Too 365,” by Arnold Kunst

1 September

The look of a Winner 2:

The winner gives his kids quality time consistently, as if he really cared about them. He takes them to the park, reads “Winnie the Pooh” to them, takes them fishing, to ball games, watches paint dry with them. Whether those kids are 3 or 30, they are his ultimate investment. Because he’s always on the same wavelength as his kids he finds them more fun than watching TV and playing with the kitten all rolled together. 

“Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst

1 September

At just the right time – timing in politics is everything, isn’t it? - Teddy Roosevelt who already had a political career launched, who had already spent two years in the Badlands of the Dakota Territory, volunteered for active duty when the Spanish-American War broke out. He was commisioned a colonel and formed the famous Rough Riders; it included an odd assortment indeed - his Dakota cowboy friends as well as Irish cops and his upper-class Eastern-Establishment cronies - and led them on the famous and well-publicized charge up San Juan Hill. That charge, unlike much of what took place in that murkey 4-month war, was a [simple] clean American victory.

Largely because of the good press he got from the Hearst newspaper chain, Roosevelt caught the attention of President  McKinley who selected him as his vice-presidential running mate as he sought re-election in1900. A few short months after that election President McKinley was assassinated, and Theodore Roosevelt became, at age 42, the youngest president in American history.

He was called, with considerable justification, “a steam engine in trousers.” He relished his time in the White House; he even won the Noble Peace Prize for brokering a peace treaty at the end of the Sino-Russian War in 1905. [One commentator at the time described him as “the most effective herder of emperors since Napoleon.”]

He easily won the 1904 presidential election in his own right, and almost certainly would have held on to the job he so much enjoyed in 1908, but he decided to chase off to an African safari instead, so he bestowed the job that was clearly his to bestow on his good friend and Secretary of War William Howard Taft.

Then everything changed.

Fate up to this time had, it seemed, favored him; now, it seemed, Fate turned on him. [Think tides coming in, tides going out.] Perhaps naturally, after that short-lived African safari TR came to disagree with the policies of his White House protégé to the point of seeking the Republican nomination for president in 1912. [Actually, it’s hard to imagine him sitting idly by as ANYbody but himself occupied that particular job!] Unfortunately, his friendship with Taft soured bitterly - Taft got the nomination for himself, and TR bolted to form the short-lived Bull Moose Party becoming its candidate for president. The ensuing bitter struggle hopelessly divided the Republican Party and gave the election that year to Woodrow Wilson. Despite his heroic efforts, TR’s unwanted retirement was confirmed.

[By the way, that same Fate that seemed to curse TR in 1912 seemed to bless Woodrew Wilson, an academic’s academic with a scant two years of executive experience as New Jersey governor.

One star down, another up.

[Bummer!]

“There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.” - Josh Billings

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

September 1

General Sherman a few weeks before the end of the war asked Lincoln explicitly whether he wanted the President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis captured or allowed to escape. Lincoln replied: 'I'll tell you, General, what I think of taking Jeff Davis. Out in Illinois there was an old temperance lecturer who was very strict in the doctrine and practice of total abstinence. One day after a long ride in the hot sun he stopped at the house of a friend who proposed making him lemonade. When the friend asked if he wouldn't like a drop of something stronger in the drink he replied, ‘I'm opposed to it on principle.’ ‘But,’ he added with a longing glance at the bottle that stood conveniently at hand, ‘if you could manage to put in a drop unbeknownst to me I guess it wouldn't hurt me much.’ Now, General, I am bound to oppose the escape of Jeff Davis; but if you could manage to let him slip out unbeknownst-like, I guess it wouldn't hurt me much.”