Do a little good

Augie came over tonight. It is always impossible to be with Aug without questioning your life's direction; as Mark Uland said, "He makes you feel like you should be staring harder at your cornflakes or something." So after he left, it was only natural that Janet would say, "Sometimes I wonder how much I'm really doing . . . I mean, I know the AP motto is 'Peaceful parenting for a peaceful world', but are we going to usher in world peace? C'mon."

And yet . . . I think about the Founding Fathers. There was once a relatively small, finite number of men who gave "lives, fortunes, and sacred honor" to this American experiment . . . and they gave rise to the most powerful, prosperous and peaceful society the world has ever known. Philosophies do change the world. American values -- a free society, a secular society, a capitalist free market -- have not rid the world of war or disease or poverty, that's true. But even our poor are better off than most of the rest of the world. We're a heck of a lot better off for the sake of those ideas.

So, whatever gospel we are bringing to our tiny corner of the world . . . keep bringing it.