On posting blogs and son

You're right; there was a time that this made so much sense to me
But that time went away once, twice, thrice...and now and then I'm reminded
again that this stuff is up for a very long day -- but now that you're on
and seeking company for misery of writing if nothing else it seems i should establish some sort of mainstay presence on the wall of walls in the hall of halls and hallowed though they may never again be they'll always breathe the life in me.
Glad you have to do this! Write On!

To the losers belong the spoiled

You may remember way back in July '08, when former senator Phil Graham, serving as a major economic advisor to then-presidential candidate John McCain, referred to our national state as a "mental recession," and described his countrymen and women as "a nation of whiners."

He was right. Naturally, however, once we proved him right, his boss also felt obligated to agree that such was not the case. Graham then tried to tell us he was only talking about the people we hire to represent us. That would make us look better?

My point is not that it wasn't an incredibly naiive thing to say. I offer the view that it is these moments of stark realism that define our continued journey into the black hole of avoidance. The place we are in today as a nation is due precisely to the fact that we have spent several generations mouthing the words of personal responsibility while coddling ourselves and our children, calling it character-building for them and convincing ourselves that nothing that happens to us is our fault, our responsibility or our problem. And we're so far gone now that the only fix IS another crash followed by 10 or 12 years of starting all over again.