Sow's Ear- Wishing It -A Silk Purse

What do you all expect ? Train a bird to sing, and sing it will. Train a dog to fight, and fighting becomes his style. Train a boy of eight to be aggressive, and continue his training in the ways of thuggery each year after year and what should society expect ? 

Couple the youths' training with a lifestyle of stressed, if not absent, traditional family structure and the child has little chance to fall back on a positive roll model to emulate. All through middle school, high school, onto the beginning of college these young men, trained in thuggery, are now expected to be pillars of our society. But, how would they know what it takes to be a pillar ?

It takes more than wanting to make "a sow's ear into a silk purse." When one experiences a lifetime of a drug culture, then add to this lifetime, a societal acceptance of unlimited, uncontrolled alcohol use, and what remains in a young man's mind ? Train him in football thuggery, feed him on a lifetime of televised killings, promote to him the honors of cage fighting and what are your expectations ?

"We reap what we sow" rings in our ears but seems easily forgotten. Football has become so prominent in modern day life that a few indiscretions by a few players can be easily overlooked. Television revenue makes learned men forget a lot of things, as does, office pools and tailgating. Yes, we are a Football Nation having a little hiccup right now but it will be sweep under the rug soon enough. Don't fret, young men trained to be aggressive fit right in to a military society. They'll be quite ready for War when it comes.

Ronald C. Downie