Colorado Springs – After going to the gym early this morning, I stopped by a nearby Starbucks and ordered my usual Friday iced chai drink and read the local newspaper. The front page contained mostly bad news: the economy is not doing well; the foreclosure epidemic is contributing further to depressed home values, which is compounding unemployment, governmental spending on social programs, and even the police are scaling back their night-time operations.

But, not all is lost: if this country has proven anything over the years, it’s the resilience that makes Americans who they are. We may be the most spoiled, richest and fattest country in the world, but we’ve got moxie. Really, I think I’m digressing here, but this week’s Fun with Fonetics is a hodgepodge of quotes relating to a few items of interest this past week, from the fires in California to a man who swears by the name, “Dog.”

• “Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.” – Coretta Scott King

• “If the terriers and bariffs are torn down, this economy will grow.” President George W. Bush

• “Happiness belongs to the self-sufficient.” – Aristotle

• “Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together.” – Eugene Ionesco

Finally, I leave a quote of inspiration for those people who perpetually complain that I am too insulting for their sensibilities:

“If you can’t ignore an insult, top it; if you can’t top it, laugh it off; and if you can’t laugh it off, it’s probably deserved.” – J. Russell Lynes

Be good .. or be good at it.

Paotie