Mad Hatter [A Spoof]

Visa Americana

Here are some inspiring quotes which were inscribed in the pages of my new U.S. Passport book:

"Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America."  --Dwight D. Eisenhower

"The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or sect, a party or a class-- it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity."  -- Anna Julia Cooper

[2026 update:  I got my renewed passport. There are quotes scattered throughout it, too, and some nice Americana artwork throughout, showing many regions of our country.  It even has the saguaro cacti.  Mine does not bear an image of the executive.]

Welsh Wisdom

"Living well is the best revenge."

"One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters."

"He that is not handsome at 20, not strong at 30, nor rich at 40, nor wise at 50, will never be handsome, strong, rich or wise."
      ---George Herbert, Welsh; Anglican Priest (1593-1633)  

Food for Thought

Italians have "antipasto" and they have "pesto."  But they don't seem to have "anti-pesto."  I wonder if they're overrun?!?!   --an original pun from Marie Byars   🍝

                   

         When Blogger/Blogspot started up, a lot of us amateur bloggers got accounts.  Sometimes we just wanted to share things that we had limited audiences for in everyday lie.  I'm not a professional comedienne, for instance.  My humor might amuse a few people, but I have no guarantees that it would amuse large crowds.  There are times at work or in volunteering that making jokes is appropriate, but many times where it is not.

     In the early days, we often found each other through mutual interests noted in our Blogger profiles.  The interests once had hyperlinks, which went away many years ago.

     Sometimes we appended our blog URLs to our e-mail signature blocks (removing them as necessary for more formal correspondences).  Social media has displaced some of this e-mailing we used to do.

     I hope that some content of this blog continues to amuse you in our changing world of societal connections. 

This Blog: Original Humor & the Changing Nature of Blogging

Wisdom from St. Patrick

"If I have any worth, it is to live my life for God so as to teach these peoples; even though some of them still look down on me."   

“I pray to God to give me perseverance and to deign that I be a faithful witness to Him to the end of my life for my God.”   [from The Confession of the Saint]

More Presidential Wisdom

     

     There have been several times in US History where taxing the rich has been supported by both parties and across a vast swath of the ideological spectrum. Thomas Jefferson, darling of the Tea Party (a tax-lowering, libertarian movement now swallowed up in other movements) supported higher taxes on the wealthy via another means. 

      In Jefferson's time, tariffs taxed the rich, as noted in this 1811 letter to Thaddeus Kościuszko, a Polish leader who served in the American Revolution: “The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the General Government are levied. The poor man, who uses nothing but what is made in his own farm or family, or within his own country, pays not a farthing of tax to the General Government.” --Thomas Jefferson 

      Theodore Roosevelt was tagged in this post because his ideas were similar in his Square Deal remarks.  His face sits near Jefferson's at Mt. Rushmore, SD.

Mt. Rushmore, Jefferson & Roosevelt

     This blog often mixes a bit of the silly with the serious.  In life, the sublime and the ridiculous live side-by-side.  When you go to Mt. Rushmore and look up at the Jefferson head, those are some noticeable nostrils!  👃

More Sensible Tax Schemes

Taxes should be proportioned to what may be annually spared by the individual. --Thomas Jefferson; Comment to James Madison, December 1784

    Jefferson's quote above seems pretty radical.  This is especially true in light of the Tea Party wing of the GOP (which is now largely silent) taking up Jefferson as one of their heroes.

     My views aren't even as strong as what Jefferson laid out. Still, I've weighed in with my opinion elsewhere on this blog:  raise the taxes of the top 1% to a 42% tax rate. Maybe it should even go up to 45%.  Although I am offering this as my opinion, I am not entirely without any educational or professional insight on this matter.   This is not really so extreme. The revenue wouldn't be for the pet products of just "one side."  This is a Centrist movement really worth giving birth to.
     As a reminder, taxes on the upper echelons were much higher from Eisenhower until Reagan. For most of that time, the economy was really pretty good. The stock market (which used to not be used as the main measure of how the country was doing) grew just fine.  In fact, much of the action-reaction we have in society can be traced back to the 1980s, which spawned this modern extremism. 

     The excuse Reagan used for slashing taxes on the rich was "stagflation" under Jimmy Carter.  However, much of the reason for this was due to Middle Eastern policies that led OPEC earlier in the 1970s to raise oil prices to punish the US.  The decades of higher taxes had, rather than creating issues, helped stabilize and lift up America's workers.

   Other items from this blog, which refer to outside economists' reports, are below:

42%

Caring for the Growing Service Industry

From other sources: 

ABC News 2012: Income Tax through Various Eras