individual responsibility, is it worth the bother?

I think what Old Dog is saying in his first segment is that things are complicated.  We are not all marching to the same drummer, we don't agree on what are the biggest problems and we don't agree on the way to solve it and we have our own agendas and interests to push. We will always have criminals, poor people, druggies, terrorism, and vapid and annoying celebrities.  It was quite the vogue some years ago to appoint czars and declare war on this and that.  A little embarrassing to recall now like that pair of bellbottoms with the flowers on them.  Who can forget Gerald Ford's War on Inflation, which was fought, I believe, by everybody wearing a WIN (Whip Inflation Now!!!)  button on their lapel.  I wonder what you could get for one on ebay today.  If you could get a bundle wouldn't that be an indication of failure of that campaign?

Individual responsibility sounds nice, it's hard to argue that if people would give up their individual responsibility then we would all awaken to a brighter day.  But where would we be instilling this individual responsibility?  The schools I assume.  When I was on the road to becoming a teacher, the idea of teaching kids to read and write and do arithmetic sounded pretty cool.  The idea of molding them into good citizens, not so much.


The Russkies were our friends in WW II, only in the sense of the enemy of my enemies is my friend, a temporary affair, though it did make for some good movies, and those surviving clips of our guys and theirs completing some pincer movement against the krauts, and our guys were handing out cigs and candy bars and they were doing their crazy Cossack dances and much bourbon and vodka was passed around I am sure.  Good times,  They did bear the brunt of the war, but they didn't do it for their American buddies, they did it because the krauts intent was to wipe them from the face of the earth.  And when they rebounded across the border it was to, well, conquer territory.


My Trumpist nephew, after cracking Let's make Thanksgiving great again, upon his arrival, for the most part kept his trap shut.  Well, he was with his girlfriend, we men always behave better with womenfolk around.  It's 6 AM here downtown.  It's dark out there but I assume there are lines of people lying in wait for the doors to be open and to rush off with their hoverboards and big screen tvs.  Let's wrap it all up in Mistletoe and let the games begin.