Americans and their egos...

So last night while I was driving home from a church meeting, I was listening to "On Point" and they were discussing the war in Afghanistan. One of the guests (yeah, don't remember his name, sorry.) quoted Winston Churchill, and I was very provoked (not "mad" provoked, just provoked into thought by the comment.

"American's always do the right thing, but only after exhausting all other options."

Hmmm...is there truth in there? A bit harsh? I don't know. I laughed when it was said and then I thought about all the comments I've heard about "young America" and "upstarts from that colony" and wonder if we here in this country are a bit on the stubborn-we-must-take-the-hard-road mentality. We don't seem to like accepting advice from other nations; we don't want to know about their systems of healthcare, governance, etc. Although I have it on good authority we stole the idea of road systems from the Germans and that has worked out pretty good for us. We rarely say, "Hey Taiwan, what do you do about workplace equity?" Or "Hey France, tell us about improving efficiency." Are we really that good? Or are we just really that arrogant?

Hmmmm....

No one was interested in the State of the Union....interesting. Or was it a case of "If you can't say something nice...."? Oh well. Shall we move on, then?

I have been thinking about many things lately and one of them is what is my role in our community. I'm a stay-at-home Mom. My role is to spend money, make cookies for my neighbors, avoid the police officers who write tickets, help out the cub scouts and volunteer my soul to the PTA. Oh, and church, but that is just for fun, right? So why do I still feel like I should be doing more? I don't want to be in politics. Hello, I live in New York, land of the bureaucratic NIGHTMARE. I've shelved enough books for my mom that I have no desire to volunteer at the library. (Although we do help the story lady, Mrs. Lucy, when we can.) I don't think the volunteer fire department wants me. I wonder if I am doing enough to help the economy (My hubby swears I do.) So, what do you do?