Personal Responsibility

BOSTON - This tale of elders and children, of common dollars and common sense, began behind a one-way mirror. Earlier this fall, I watched a dozen mothers talking about child care. The women had a variety of caregivers for their children, from grandmas to groups, from preschool to after school. They talked about complex arrangements, about the good and the bad, the costly and the more costly. But when the conversation veered toward a gripe, one mother said, "Well, nobody asked us to have these children."

WASHINGTON - President Bush took responsibility yesterday for a now-discredited passage in his State of the Union address asserting that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons materials in Africa, a key claim in Bush's case for war. After three weeks of controversy in which the CIA director and then the deputy national security adviser took the blame for the disputed passage, the president told reporters: "I take personal responsibility for...

BOSTON - I work in a danger zone. Across the street from my office is a restaurant that sells bagels larger than my hand. Around the corner is a Ben and Jerry's that scoops an ice cream flavor that is "Phish Food" for the whale-sized. This morning the local pizza place put up a sign announcing "all you can eat" night. Life on this Boulevard of Broken Diets is not easy. After all, like most Americans, I subscribe to the "just say no" school of weight control. This is a school that promotes theorists such as Will and Power.

WASHINGTON -- At last, a lawsuit for the rest of us. If you're one of those unfortunate Americans who's never been part of a class-action lawsuit against somebody with a lot of money, maybe this one is for you. About a half-dozen class-action lawsuits have been filed by overweight people in various states against the fast-food industry. Each claims that the industry lured the hefty plaintiffs into obesity by pushing food that was loaded with salt, sugar, starch, saturated fat, cholesterol and other tasty stuff that's not so good for you when consumed in mass quantities.

SOMETIMES THE federal government proves itself to be so deeply, impossibly, thoroughly incompetent that insulting it is redundant, because it has already humiliated itself to within an inch of its life. Sometimes you're surprised to wake up in the morning and realize that the government hasn't simply dissolved because of embarrassment. Sometimes being an anarchist is just too easy. Imagine the pleasure with which, exactly six months after he piloted a plane into a skyscraper and died a fiery death, Mohamed Atta received the news that he had been granted a visa by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Singing songs, giving reading lessons Jim Hossick, a local singer and songwriter of music for kids, will appear at Carroll County libraries today and Saturday to present an interactive and motivational concert for kids. Dubbed "Education Rock," Hossick's show features songs with varying lessons: improving vocabulary ("Look It Up"), the benefits of reading ("When You Read, You Feed Your Brain" ), raising self-esteem ("Happy With Me") and personal responsibility ("Listen to Your Conscience")

THIS MAY BE a promising trend, or it may be a couple of guys taking on too much. John R. O'Rourke, the Howard County schools chief, announced late last month that he would require individual reports this year on every third-grader who is behind in reading or math. He would be personally responsible, said O'Rourke. Kids below grade level in either subject would require a personalized one-year plan of improvement. On the day of O'Rourke's announcement, the Hartford, Conn., superintendent, Anthony Amato, was in Baltimore to talk to city principals about reading.

In a bold move that is apparently the first of its kind in Maryland, Howard County school Superintendent John R. O'Rourke announced yesterday that he will require individual reports this year on every third-grader in the county who is behind in reading or math. Saying he will "accept personal responsibility," O'Rourke said all 37 elementary school principals will have to give him by the end of the school year the name of every county third-grader who is below grade level in either of those two subjects, along with a personalized one-year plan for improvement.

City residents are responsible for own trashI am dismayed that The Sun's editorial "City must clear way for cleaner streets" (Oct. 15) placed the burden of responsibility for clean streets entirely on the city.While I very much applaud the students who took their time, effort and money to assist a neighborhood clearly at risk, I think that the perception you leave, that city government is doing nothing to address grime, is disingenuous and ignores all that really is going on.More attention needs to be placed on the personal responsibility of every citizen of the city to be a good neighbor.

WASHINGTON -- On Jan. 20, 1997, as an ebullient Bill Clinton took the oath of office for the second term that he hoped would secure his place in history, he returned to a theme that had been at the core of his claim to be a new kind of Democrat, declaring: "Each and every one of us, in our own way, must assume personal responsibility, not only for ourselves and our families but for our neighbors and our nation."Exactly one year later, Clinton learned that Kenneth W. Starr, the Whitewater independent counsel, was investigating accusations that the president had started a sexual relationship with a White House intern in 1995 and then tried to cover it up.Had the man who won the presidency by speaking out for the people who "play by the rules" once more surrendered to a lifelong compulsion to bend and break them?