Theory of threes food for thought on Third of July

Superstition says celebrities always die in threes. Witness the passing of pop culture icons Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson, initial reports of whose unexpected death threatened to crash the Internet. Then add the unlikely triumvirate of pitchman Billy Mays, TV pioneer Gale Storm and comedian Fred Travelena over the weekend.

Millions of others also died last week without affecting bandwidth in the least. Some slipped away quietly, some in violent conflict, including more than 100 bombing victims in Iraq as U.S. troops withdraw from urban areas after six years of fighting.

Statisticians tell us the three-dead-celebrities idea is a product of selective data – you can always find what you’re looking for if you ignore everything else.

One of the strangest coincidences, however, involves three of the first five U.S. presidents. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson – the second and third to hold the office – both died 50 years to the day after signing the Declaration of Independence, on July 4, 1826. James Monroe, the fifth, followed five years later, on July 4, 1831.

Spooky, huh? Especially if you ignore the four dozen or so other American politicians, including North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms, who have also died on Independence Day over the years.

Monroe famously left us the Monroe Doctrine, which declared the United States would stay out of the affairs of other nations and warned other powers to back off the Western Hemisphere. There’s a certain irony in the capital of an African country – Liberia – being named for him.

Jefferson and Adams collaborated on the Declaration of Independence, but eventually got over the experience and ended their days writing each other long letters. Their words have been used selectively to support arguments on all sides of Constitutional questions ever since.

So, in the spirit of the day, let’s select a very few of their thoughts that seem most relevant today.

John Adams: “All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.”

Thomas Jefferson: “Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have…. Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.”

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