Ice Breaker speeches for Toastmasters International and four big questions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The very first project in the Pathways educational program at Toastmasters International is the Ice Breaker, Item 8101. For it you prepare and present a four-to-six-minute speech about yourself. How can you decide what to talk about?

 

Recently I was watching a DVD of the 1999 science fiction television series Crusade, written by J. Michael Straczynski. Its introduction has the following four big questions, one of which can be used to narrow your speech:

 

Who are you?

What do you want?

Where are you going?

Who do you serve and who do you trust?

 

They also appear at AZ Quotes under the technomage character name, Galen.

 

There is an article by Kate McClure in Toastmaster magazine for August 2023 (on pages 24 and 25) titled 6 Secrets for Surviving Your First Ice Breaker. Back on March 16, 2011 I blogged about The joy of listening to Ice Breaker speeches. In that post I listed six big questions from the earlier TV series Babylon 5.  

 

An image of the icebreaker Shirase II came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

A Sheldon comic about three levels of insurance

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes a comic strip can add to both your knowledge and vocabulary. I had previously heard of reinsurance but not the next level of retrocession, as is shown above.

 

Dave Kellett’s Sheldon comic on July 15, 2026 has the following dialogue:

 

Arthur (the talking duck): You buy insurance.

 

Arthur:     But then the insurance company buys

                  ‘Re-insurance’ on your insurance.

                  As insurance.

 

Arthur:     But then that reinsurer needs 

                   their own insurance!

                  So they buy ‘retrocession,’ which is insurance

                  for reinsurers of insurance.

          

Gramp:    Dear God. It’s insurance all the way down. 

                  [An infinite regress.]

 

Arthur:     And the secret? NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THOSE 

                  POLICIES PAYS OUT WHEN NEEDED.

 

The Wikipedia page on Reinsurance says it is:

 

“…the transfer of liability from the insurance company, which issued the insurance contract, to the reinsurance company. The reinsurance company assumes some of an insurance company's liability in exchange for a payment or a portion of the insurance contract costs.^”

 

Munich Reinsurance, known as Munich Re is one example, and Swiss Re is another. Munich Re used to post an interesting quarterly magazine called Schadenspiegel (about losses and loss prevention) on their web site. Later they restricted it just to their customers. You can find their 2007 Special feature issue – Risk factor of earth as a 58-page pdf.

  

Lloyd’s of London is another somewhat different reinsurer. The Wikipedia page about them says:

 

“Lloyd's of London, generally known simply as Lloyd's, is an insurance and reinsurance market located in London, England. Unlike most of its competitors in the industry, it is not an insurance company; rather, Lloyd's is a corporate body governed by the Lloyd's Act 1871 and subsequent acts of Parliament. It operates as a partially-mutualised marketplace within which multiple financial backers, grouped in syndicates, come together to pool and spread risk. These underwriters or ‘members,’ include both corporations and private individuals, the latter being traditionally known as ‘Names’.”

 

There is an article by Ramon Berenguer at Reinsurance News on August 20, 2025 titled How does retrocession in reinsurance work? He says that:

 

“Retrocession is a reinsurance transaction where a reinsurer transfers risks of an insurance company it has reinsured to another reinsurer. The reinsurance company that takes on another reinsurer’s risk is called the retrocessionaire.” 

 

How did I learn about Munich Reinsurance? Back in 1964 Munich Re published two books (of text and plates [images]) with failure analysis case histories by E. J. Pohl titled The Face of Metallic Fractures. They were subtitled Results of Investigations on Failed Engineering Components Carried Out by the Engineering Insurance Department of the Allianz Versicherungs-Aktiengesellschaft.

 

In 1990 I was working in Columbus, Ohio doing consulting which included lots of failure analysis. I bought the 1988 Fatigue Design Handbook from the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). On pages 297 to 330 there was Chapter 11 on Failure Analysis by David Broek which referred to E. J. Pohl’s book. Munich Re had a U.S. office in downtown Columbus, so I visited them and asked the manager whether I could buy a copy of that book. He said no, it was long out of print. But then he asked around that company, found a spare copy at another office, and mailed it to me as a Christmas present!

 

 

There is a massive 710-page book titled The Complete Johnny Cash: Lyrics from a Lifetime of Songwriting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back on April 4, 2011 I blogged about Stories in words and music: country edition. Of course, I mentioned Johnny Cash (February 26, 1932 to September 12, 2003) and his songs Folsom Prison Blues, I Walk the Line, and Tennessee Flat Top Box. Songs are magical – they tell a story in a few minutes with poetic words and music.

 

At my friendly, local public library I found and am leafing through a massive 710-page book from 2025 assembled by Mark Stielper and titled The Complete Johnny Cash: Lyrics from a lifetime of songwriting.

 

Folsom Prison Blues (from 1955) appears on page 26. I Walk the Line (from 1956) appears on pages 40 and 41. Tennessee Flat-Top Box (from 1961) appears on page 120.

 

I Still Miss Someone (from 1957) with Roy Cash Jr. appears on page 52. There is a video from  1990 with Highwaymen – a duet with Willie Nelson. The lyrics lament:

 

“At my door the leaves are falling
A cold wild wind will come
Sweethearts walk by together
And I still miss someone

 

I go out on a party
And look for a little fun
But I find a darkened corner
'Cause I still miss someone

 

No, I never got over those blue eyes
I see them everywhere
I miss those arms that held me
When all the love was there

 

I wonder if she's sorry
For leaving what we'd begun
There's someone for me somewhere
And I still miss someone”

 

Elsewhere there is a curious description for a song Johnny wrote with another person. That song, Tiger Whitehead (from 1973), is listed as being with Nat Winston. An article at Bob Cox’s Yesteryear on February 24, 2014 titled Dr. Nat Winston Fondly Remembered as a Noted Psychiatrist, Musician says that:

“Martha Winston recalled that Nat often talked about the time he received a call from June Carter Cash urging him to treat her husband. Although Johnny would not agree to enter a hospital for rehabilitation, he was perfectly willing for Nat to come to his Hendersonville, Tennessee home for private therapy. Nat did this over a period of one year, visiting Johnny every day after work without accepting compensation. He did it out of friendship and love for Johnny and members of the Carter family. Also, since he was serving as Commissioner of Mental Health, he felt it would be a conflict of interest to continue to treat patients for a fee while he was serving the state.

‘Johnny Cash credited Nat,’ said Susan, ‘both in his biography and publicly on the Larry King Show for his medical treatments that restored his life and career.’

‘On one visit,’ Nat told him of James ‘Tiger’ Whitehead, a colorful Carter County mountaineer, mill operator and bear hunter (reportedly killed 99 bears during his lifetime). On another trip to Nat's cabin, he took Johnny to visit Tiger's grave on Tiger Creek Road between Hampton and Roan Mountain. Johnny was so impressed by the story that he wrote ‘The Ballad of Tiger Whitehead,' which he later recorded on an album. Nat had no idea that Johnny gave him credit as co-writer until one day when he received a royalty check. Listen to Johnny talk about Tiger Whitehead and sing the song.”

 

There also are some clearly mistaken attributions in the book. Gold All Over the Ground (from 1967) on page 192 is listed as with Brad Paisley. But Brad was born later, on October 28, 1972. Chinky Pin Hill (1970s) on page 248 is listed as with Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan, and Sara Watkins. Sarah Jarosz was born on May 23, 1991. Aoife O’Donovan was born on November 18, 1982. Sara Watkins was born on June 8, 1981. Those three women formed a band, I’m With Her, in 2014.

 

There is a 2016 posthumous book by Johnny Cash titled Forever Words: The Unknown Poems. And there is a 2018 album by that same name. The thirteenth song is Chinky Pin Hill  by I’m With Her. There is a review of it at RedGuitarMusic on April 23, 2018 titled Johnny Cash – Forever Words (Album Review). The song Gold All Over the Ground by Brad Paisley is the second one on the Forever Words album.

 

And To June, This Morning on page 320 (1970) is listed as with Ruston Kelly who only was born on July 31, 1988, and Kacey Musgraves, who was born on August 21, 1988. The song is the second one on the Forever Words album. There is a video of them from April 6, 2018 titled Ruston Kelley, Kacey Musgraves – To June This Morning (Johnny Cash: Forever Words).

 

The 1977 image of Johnny Cash came from the Library of Congress.

 

 

Saying that you can ‘connect the dots’ just is a silly cliche

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Wikipedia page for the phrase connect the dots says that:

 

“The phrase ‘connect the dots’ can be used as a metaphor to illustrate an ability (or inability) to associate one idea with another—to find the ‘big picture’, or salient feature, in a mass of data; it can mean using extrapolation to solve a mystery from clues, or else come to a conclusion from various facts.”

 

But, as is shown above, there can be more than one way to connect even four or five dots.   

 

A post on July 15, 2026 by David Murray at his Writing Boots blog is titled Communicators, stop saying you ‘connect the dots’; It’s dumb.

 

He says that:

 

“1.  In a dynamic and ever-evolving world, there are no fixed dots to connect. If there were, you  wouldn’t hire a communicator to connect them, you’d hire the sort of slightly weird person who you might bring along to an escape room. But luckily for communicators, dots aren’t a thing.

 

2.  Even if there were dots, it’s laughably arrogant to anoint yourself the only one who can connect them. Imagine telling an intelligent colleague from another discipline, ‘Don’t worry, I’m here to connect the dots. Gotcha covered, Buttercup.’

 

3.  It’s insufferable, listening to communicators telling each other on LinkedIn and at conferences that their value has nothing to do with the actual skills and philosophies and strategic approaches we have developed over years of studying and working on difficult communication problems. Rather, we just magically ‘connect the dots.’ (We must have a lot of free time, in between).”

 

He says we need to find a far richer and more meaningful metaphor.

 

 

How to become smart according to a Pearls Before Swine comic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stephan Pastis’s Pearls Before Swine comic strip has a running gag with a gray donkey called the  Great Wise Ass who sits atop a hill and dispenses sage advice. His July 11, 2026 comic had this dialogue:

 

Pig:                       Oh, Great Wise Ass, how does one 

                              become smart?

 

Great Wise Ass: The key is to read, read, read, read, read.

                              Do you do that?

 

Pig:                       Does watching Instagram videos count?

 

Pig (to Rat):         Turns out it doesn’t count.

 

On July 6, 2024 I blogged about The magic of reading books – stories told by librarians and booksellers. Near the end of that post I had said:

 

“Back in high school I found a life-changing little book by George Polya titled How to Solve It: a system of thinking which can help you solve any problem. It gave me a whole new intellectual toolbox – which I used in my careers in applied research and engineering consulting.”  

 

My image shows the shelf with public speaking books at the downtown Boise Public Library.

 

 

The Extended Date/Time Format (EDTF) is a standard digital way for listing dates and times

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On this blog I refer to dates for articles, etc. in the usual American format of Month_ Day,_Year. But I am aware that the British instead put the Day first.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a standard way of listing dates and times using only numbers called the Extended Date/Time Format (EDTF), as shown above, with dashes between date items and colons between time items using a 24-hour clock.

 

The Library of Congress has an article on February 4, 2019 about this Extended Date/Time Format (EDTF). And Wikipedia has a page on the International Standard for it, which is ISO 8601. Markus Kuhn at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center has an article with A summary of the international standard date and time notation.

 

Finally, there is a very detailed 23-page pdf article by Annamarie C. Klose, Scott Goldstein, and Morris S. Levy in Library Resources and Technical Services on October 2025 titled It’s About Time and subtitled Use of the Extended Date/Time Format in the Digital Public Library of America.

 

 

A xkcd cartoon about holes we have drilled in the earth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An xkcd cartoon by Randall Munroe on July 1, 2026 (shown above) is simply titled Holes. Its vertical scale extends from 4,000 meters above sea level to 12,000 meters below it. Details shown on it are discussed at Explain Xkcd.

 

The Bingham Canyon open-pit copper mine near Salt Lake City is shown at the upper left. I blogged about it on July 15, 2011 in a post titled What can we say about a really big hole in the ground?

 

At the lower right Randall shows the two deepest holes, at almost 12,000 meters (or 12 km). How far have we gone relative to the center of the earth? The radius of the earth averages 6,371 km. So we have drilled 0.19% of the way to the center – barely scratching the surface.

 

 

Full-body pauses are a key to charisma

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been skimming through a 2022 book by Zoe Chance titled Influence Is Your Superpower: The science of winning hearts, sparking change, and making good things happen. There is a preview at Google Books. Her passage starting on page 86 about full-body pauses being a key to charisma says that:

 

“Full-body pauses – moments when you’re not walking, fidgeting, or making any dramatic hand movements, but you are breathing easily, your hands comfortably by your side – are especially helpful. Not just during your presentation but also before and after. This key to charisma is so simple that almost no one teaches or practices it, yet it works for speakers and performers of all kinds.

 

Here are some opportunities for a full-body pause in a formal talk or performance situation.

 

When someone else is speaking or performing, you pause with your whole body and focus your attention on them. Maybe an audience member is asking a question. Maybe a junior employee is speaking up at the meeting. Maybe your bandmate is playing a solo. Whoever should have the audience’s attention should have your attention too. You’ll be tempted to look around at other people, or look down or away. If you do, you’re fracturing the group’s attention, and fractured attention is harder to collect when it’s your turn to speak. When it’s someone else’s turn to be charismatic, don’t distract others or let yourself get distracted.

 

When it’s your turn to speak or perform, thank the person introducing you, if there is one, then shift your focus to the audience. Take a full-body pause for one complete breath, smile, and you’ll have the audience’s full attention when you begin. When you’re on a panel or in an informal meeting, the pause needn’t be so obvious, but taking that movement to shift your attention will catch theirs. Now all eyes are on you.

 

When you finish your turn in the spotlight, take a moment to thank the audience before you leave. If there is applause, pause to bask in it for at least one breath, letting the audience’s attention rest fully on you. You have been focused on everyone else, charisma blazing, and they felt it. Now, humbly and gratefully, you receive. We tend to imagine that rushing offstage shows humility, but it conveys a tacit apology – I’m sorry I wasted your time. Instead, take a moment to appreciate your audience with a pause that says, Thank you for your time. I’m grateful for it, and I enjoyed being with you, too. You might nod, bow, put a hand to your chest, or even blow a kiss if you’re that kind of person and it’s that kind of event.”

 

The car key image was adapted from one at OpenClipArt.

 

 

Why don’t we have better and recent photo or video evidence for UFOs, Bigfoot, yeti, demons, and ghosts?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I first got serious about photography and bought a single-lens reflex camera (Minolta XG-M) 45 years ago in 1981. Back then to take a still photo my camera first needed to be loaded with a roll of film. Then I had to manually focus it. The camera had auto exposure, so once I set the aperture it would select the correct exposure time. After taking each picture I had to advance the film. And for video your camera needed film (or tape) and a battery.

 

The iPhone appeared on January 9, 2007 – almost two decades ago. Now many of us (~93% of the global population) are carrying around smartphones which only take a few seconds to prepare for recording either still images or video. There should be zillions of high-resolution still images and video of UFOs and other paranormal subjects. If not, then they just are tall tales.

 

An article by Heslley Machado Silva in Skeptic magazine on February 26, 2026 asks Where Have All the UFOs, Yeti, Demons, and Ghosts Gone? She says that:

 

“Over the past decades, we have witnessed a quiet yet decisive transformation in the history of human beliefs: the apparent disappearance of major paranormal phenomena that for millennia fueled mythologies, religions, folklore, and countless reports of supposed extraordinary manifestations. UFOs hovered over mountains and deserts; colossal creatures such as Bigfoot, the Yeti, or the Sasquatch roamed remote forests; spirits, apparitions, and ectoplasmic entities materialized in abandoned mansions; miracles occurred before the eyes of the devout; demonic possessions defied rational explanation. Today, all these phenomena seem to have taken permanent leave, an intriguing coincidence emerging precisely at the moment humanity begins to carry in its pockets (or better yet, in its hands) ultra-high-definition cameras capable of recording every detail of daily life, or any anomaly, with unprecedented precision.

 

…. beliefs persist and remain widespread, but the supposed phenomena that should generate clear and reproducible evidence seem increasingly absent precisely at a moment when we possess technology capable of recording them with great clarity. This shift invites a skeptical exercise: Why have paranormal and supernatural apparitions disappeared exactly when it became possible to document them unequivocally? For centuries, human testimony was the primary source of such accounts. However, scientific literature consistently demonstrates that testimony, even when sincere, constitutes extremely weak evidence: It is susceptible to perceptual illusions, cognitive biases, cultural expectations, and reconstructed (and often false) memories.

 

…. From a methodological standpoint, this persistent absence of records is consistent with analyses in the philosophy of science applied to paranormal claims: If a phenomenon supposedly interacts with the physical world, it should be detectable by physical instruments; if it never is, despite the exponential growth in instrument sensitivity, then its existence becomes an increasingly implausible hypothesis.”

 

Look at Bigfoot as an example. An Instragram post by Adam Thorn on October 20, 2022 says that:

 

“On this day 55 years ago, the famous Patterson-Gimlin film was made. This was, and still is the best video footage ever taken of a Bigfoot (nicknamed Patty).”

 

The Wikipedia page on Bigfoot refers to it as a one-minute film. Why don’t we instead have something from the past two decades – both longer and clearer?  

 

A cartoon of a UFO was adapted from one at OpenClipArt.

 

 

The toughest task I had to do as a medic in the Air Force Reserve was taking footprints of aircrew

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the July 8, 2026 Pioneer Toastmasters Club meeting in Boise I was the Table Topics Master. The meeting theme chosen by our Toastmaster Brian Reublineger was The Toughest Job You Will Ever Love [from the Peace Corps, where he once had been a volunteer]. So, I prepared and used the following job-related questions:

 

What was the toughest job or project that you ever had?

 

What is your current job? What do you love or hate about it?

 

What was the best (or worst) project you ever worked on?

 

What was the best (or worst) job that you ever had?

 

At your current job, what was the best (or worst) day you ever had?

 

At your first job, what was the best (or worst) day you ever had?

 

From 1972 to 1978 I served as a medic in the Air Force Reserve. The clinic I worked at once weekend a month did flight physicals. The toughest task I ever had to do was taking footprints of aircrew. A Student Report, 88-2610, from April 1988 by Gary M. Triplett at the Air Command and Staff College titled Use of a Computer-Assisted Identification System in the Identification of the Remains of Deceased USAF Personnel said:

 

“The DOD has recognized the applicability of fingerprints, footprints, and dental comparison for the scientific identification of deceased active duty personnel for some time. In 1959, the USAF began footprinting of all aircrew members. The footprints are to be used for remains identification to supplement the fingerprints obtained from all active duty members when they enter service.

 

The footprints of USAF personnel performing flight duty recorded as a permanent part of the member’s medical record on AF FM 137, Footprint Record, are reviewed for accuracy and currency during each flight physical.”

 

Both footprints were taken on a single record card using printers ink rolled onto a glass plate. But the Air Force manual describing footprinting was vague about how to get the inking right. Luckily I found out that the United States Secret Service had a publication, a 14-page Guide to Taking Palm Prints published in 1972, with the following succinct explanation:

 

“STEP 1: PREPARATION OF INKING PLATE

 

In order to obtain clear, legible palm-prints, fingerprint ink must be spread on the inking plate in a thin, uniform coat. This can best be accomplished by placing a daub or two of ink on the plate (Figure 2). The ink can be spread evenly over the entire plate by rolling the ink roller back and forth over the plate until the desired consistency is obtained. (Figures 3 and 4.) The proper thickness of the ink may be judged by placing a slip of white paper under the inked glass plate. If the ink is of the desired thickness, the outline of the paper will be barely visible.”

 

An image of soles came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

Overly enthusiastic use of ‘absolutely’ can sound like you’re saying the opposite

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Absolutely’ is an intensifier. Back on February 23, 2014 I blogged about One-track minds: exactly, absolutely, always. And on June 14, 2024 I posted about how Hedges, qualifiers, and intensifiers are essentially weasel words which can be removed.

 

There is a Savage Chickens cartoon by Doug Savage on July 6, 2026 titled Absolutely, and shown above slightly colorized. It cautions that enthusiastic use of that word can seem like you mean the opposite – when Hell freezes over.  

 

 

Between the Listening and the Telling of Stories

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been skimming a 2022 book about storytelling by Mark Yaconelli titled Between the Listening and the Telling: How stories can save us. Google Books has a preview through page 21. There is a 29-second video at Hearth Community on August 2, 2022 titled Storytelling is being human together with this description:

 

“Storytelling is being human together. We tell stories to savor the pleasure of living. We share stories to help one another remember who we are and what matters. We tell stories to weave our lives together. We tell stories to keep our souls intact when suffering overtakes us. This is story as medicine. This is how story can save us.”   

 

Twelve chapters and three interludes in the book are titled:

 

A Place the Soul Once Knew

Confession

The Catacombs

Coming-Out Parade

Pure Medicine

Interlude: Clara

The Hearth

Storycatcher

Undocumented Stories

Tragedy

Interlude: Shoes

The Apocalypse

Sacred Stories

Interlude: The Faun

Home

There is an excerpt on June 28, 2022 at Broadleaf Books titled The Healing Power of Stories, taken from page 15 of Chapter 2: Confession. Another excerpt on September 5, 2023 at Thriving in Ministry titled ‘Between the Listening and the Telling: How Stories Can Save Us' that comes on page 150 from Chapter 11: Sacred Stories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a striking excerpt on page 93 from Chapter 7: Storycatcher says that:

 

“One night in an Irish pub, over dinner with writer Brian Doyle, I talked about my newly discovered work, drawing stories forth from people and towns and organizations. ‘You’re a seanachie,’ he declared. Seanachie, he explained, is a Gaelic word meaning ‘storycatcher.’ In traditional Irish towns, a storycatcher’s role was to unearth, gather, and share stories to strengthen and bind people to one another.

 

After Brian’s declaration, I began to claim my vocation as a storycatcher. I learned to ask questions that drew forth memories: A scared place from childhood. A memorable winter. A sacrifice. A missed opportunity. I learned to listen for patterns, for change, for the revealing heat of emotion. I read books by writers, oral historians, and professional storytellers and noted how they went about their craft. Over time I learned the warp and woof of stories, how they gather, arch, spiral, and spring forth. I learned how to root up the deepest stories from people and communities, how to catch their scent, how to ferret them out from the tangle of a person’s living.

 

I discovered that in every town the stories wait, like seeds beneath the concrete. They wait within the receptionist who sailed alone across the Black Sea, within the store manager who raised his two sisters after their mother died, within the well-dressed grandmother who spent her youth stealing horses in Saskatchewan. Lower me down into a seemingly empty, colorless place – a fast-food restaurant, a warehouse chain store, a gray office cubicle – and I will excavate a story that will break your heart, a true story that will bust your sides with laughter or unlock all that’s bound up in you, a story that will aim you like the North Star toward whatever is true and right. Give me a few hours of your time and I will mirror back a story from your life that will fill you with self-compassion. There’s no need to make anything up, no need for fiction. The truth waits to be told, but few know how to catch it. And fewer still know how to tell it.”

 

There is a 45-minute interview at Hearth Community on August 9, 2022 titled Anne Lamott Interviews Mark Yaconelli About His Newest Book.

 

Images of a fireside storyteller and lady catching a ball came from OpenClipArt.

 

 

Strong Voices is a children’s book that collects fifteen excellent American speeches

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is important to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence. From the Twin Falls Public Library I got a 2020 128-page children’s book with introductions by Tonya Bolden titled Strong Voices: Fifteen American Speeches Worth Knowing. The full text for each speech in this anthology is preceded by a brief biography of the speaker. Those speeches are:

 

Patrick Henry ‘Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death.’ One version of his text.

 

George Washington ‘Farewell Address.’ Excerpts and text.

 

Red Jacket ‘We Never Quarrel About Religion.’ Text.

 

Sojourner Truth “I Am a Woman’s Rights.’ Text.

 

Abraham Lincoln ‘Gettysburg Address.’ Texts.

 

Theodore Roosevelt ‘Citizenship in a Republic.’ Text.

 

Franklin Delano Roosevelt ‘The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself.’ Text.

 

Lou Gehrig ‘Farewell to Baseball.’ Text and video.

 

Langston Hughes ‘On the Blacklist All Our Lives.’ Audio.

 

John Fitzgerald Kennedy ‘We Choose to Go to the Moon.’ Text.

 

Martin Luther King Jr. ‘I Have a Dream.’ Excerpts.

 

Fannie Lou Hamer ‘I Question America.’ Transcript.

 

Cesar Chavez ‘Address to the Commonwealth Club of California, 1984.’ Text and audio.

 

Hillary Rodham Clinton ‘Women’s Rights Are Human Rights.’ Abridged text.

 

The Duke Cigarettes lithograph of Patrick Henry came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

A Pearls Before Swine cartoon with advice in a pie chart from life coach Rat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a Pearls Before Swine cartoon on July 1, 2026 by Stephan Pastis with the following dialogue:

 

Rat: I’m now a professional life coach, and because you’re my friend I’ve decided to help you for free.

 

Pig: Oh goodie! How?

Rat: It starts with this chart I’ve drawn up showing the percentage of your life that you act like a real dum dum.

 

Pig and Rat: looking at chart [see above]

 

Rat: Do that less.

 

Pig: Somehow your help never feels like help.

Rat: Shoot. Now it’s 99%.