“All of my life I have always had the urge to do things better than anybody else. – Babe Didrikson Zaharias

From “Me Too 365,” by Arnold Kunst

13 September

“If timeless, spaceless realities don’t stretch me beyond my comfort zones, it’s because I’m focused on the tawdry. I’ve sold my soul for a pittance.” - Arnold Kunst 

“Having a soft heart in a cruel world is courage, not weakness.” - Anonymous

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

13 September

How did Lincoln face criticism? Part Three 

So, how DID Lincoln handle criticism? Simple: when it was valid, he bent to it, and when it wasn’t, he stepped around it. Here’s another read on how Lincoln handled criticisms: they never amounted to much because his focus was always on the big picture. Some 40 years after Lincoln’s death this was the assessment of of Lincoln by Eliju Root [former Secretary of State, Nobel Peace Prize winner]: Lincoln "won by infinite patience and sagacity. During those terrible years of the Rebellion he was not disturbing himself about what principles he ought to maintain or what end he ought to seek. He was struggling with the weaknesses and perversities of human nature at home. He was smoothing away obstacles and converting enemies and strengthening friends, and bending all possible motives and desires and prejudices into the direction of his steady purpose. Many people thought, while he was doing this, that he was trifling, that he was yielding where he ought to have been splendidly courageous and peremptory. He understood as they did not how to bend his material without breaking it; he understood as they did not how many a jest bridged over a difficult situation, and made it possible to avoid a quarrel injurious to the Union cause." 

“The winner in passing this way trails clouds of glory.” – Anonymous

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

September 13

“This is essentially a People's contest. On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men -- to lift artificial weights from all shoulders -- to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all -- to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life.” - Abraham Lincoln

“Children are the anchors that hold a mother to life.” – Sophocles

From “Me Too 365,” by Arnold Kunst

12 September

“Motherhood has a very humanizing effect. Everything gets reduced to essentials.” – Meryl Streep

 

“Don’t forget to sing in the lifeboats!” Kathryn & Ross Petras

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

12 September

How did Lincoln face criticism? Part Two 
Sometimes the criticisms Lincoln received were humorous - and humorous criticisms are particularly difficult to refute. If you were his friend 150-odd years ago, what advice would you give him on handling the following criticism [“Lincoln as flip-flopper!”] about the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation?

"Honest old Abe when the war first began
Denied abolition was part of his plan.
Honest old Abe has since made a decree 
That the war must go on till the slaves are all free.
As both can't be honest will someone tell how
If honest Abe then he us honest Abe now?"

Or the front-page cartoon - not funny at all! – of a prestigious Northern newspaper toward the end of the Civil War depicting a bottomlessly sad woman representing the United States and a clownish scarecrow figure (think a witless ig-nor-ant Woody Woodpecker) representing Abraham Lincoln. The woman wails, "Where are my 500,000 sons?" And the Lincoln figure says, "I, er, why, that reminds me of a story!”

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” - Albert Einstein

From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

September 12

During the Civil War a quantum leap occurred that changed the way in which humans conducted war against one another. The spring campaign of 1864 began with Grant and the Army of the Potomac attacking Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia at a place that came to be called The Wilderness. When that battle ended [on balance, one could argue that the North had been defeated by the South yet again] Grant should have followed an unwritten but time-honored tradition: break off engagement with the enemy to assess and regroup. That is what had happened throughout history. Virtually all the great battles of the past - Marathon, Actium, Austerlitz, even Gettysburg – could be summarized as two blind giants stumbling into and then pummeling each other for a day or two, and then disengaging. The Battle of Hastings, for example, which decided the dynastic future of the English throne was done in an afternoon. But when the Battle of the Wilderness concluded, Grant’s order was “flank to the left.” His immediate purpose was to position himself between Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, and the Army of Northern Virginia, which was charged among other things with Richmond’s defense. Lee [nickname: “King of Spades”] moved quickly to take up a defensive position and prevented that from happening. For the rest of 1864 the two armies grappled with each other zigzagging southward – but did not disengage. Such a relentless strategy was the beginning of what a later century would come to call total war.

“The greatest genius is not worth much if he pretends to draw exclusively from his own resources.” - Goethe

From “Me Too 365,” by Arnold Kunst

11 September

“Find people who will make you better.” – Michelle Obama