those Shelbyville strangers

Let's try this one.  Bliss(?) Fest announces a contest for the best song.  The jury is your friends and neighbors.  Not only does the winner get the big prize, but they get a well-paid gig touring the lower peninsula (just in passing I want to give you Michiganders a pat on the back for having two peninsulas, most states don't  even have one), and you get to live in the Bliss Fest cabin right on the grounds, surrounded by nature to inspire you to ever greater heights of inspiration. 

Of course you enter the contest, and you do pretty well, if you do say so yourself, and you do.  But you are worried about this guy from Shelbyville, damn his fingers sure flew across the strings, and his voice, like an angel.

But the jury chooses you, and there you are, moving into that fine little cabin and checking the calendar for those well-paying gigs, and your pal, who is helping you move in, and was on the jury, says, "Beagles you are the best folksinger in Cheboygan."  "And in the Cheboygan-Shelbyville area as well," you reply. "I did win the contest."  And your pal admits as how that Shelbyville guy was really better, the whole jury had agreed, but damned if they were going to give the prize to some Shelbyville stranger.

So, are you going to feel any guilt on the tour?  Are you going to campaign to get a new jury or to make their deliberations open to the public?

Regardless of whether you would have gotten involved, who do you think was in the right, the Marquette Park rock throwers or the marchers?

I've always been skeptical of that, I call it an excuse, of having to much on your plate.  Of course it's true in many cases, but politicians are always using it as a way to dodge and issue.  We are too busy fighting terrorism to worry about the Keystone pipeline or gender equality.  Usually the issue they are too busy to deal with is one that they are against, but don't want to come out and say it.  I don't see much of a difference between apathy and detachment, they both come down to the same thing.

I will admit this guilt thing is a little odd.  ISIS is certainly treating it's captives unfairly, but I don't feel guilty about that.  Maybe I did fall for that grade school crap about how Americans rule themselves and try to make this the best country ever (actually in grade school it was a given that we were the best country ever, but I guess we were obligated to keep it that way), so that when America was found to be on the wrong path then it was my duty to try to lead it to the right path.  And  neglecting that duty made me guilty. 

The question of what to do is problematic.  I admit that I don't do much.  Mostly I just flap my jaws on this blog, and I have to admit that I feel guilty about not doing much more.

One of the factors in buying bonds is the possibility that they guys you buy them from are too flaky to ever pay them off.  The flakier we appear, the more worried the buyers are that we will be able to pay them back, and the less we get when we sell our bonds.