Most of you seem very well read in the issues discussed here. Where do you find the time (and desire) to become so well versed when all the while making a living and getting in some occasional hobbying. (personally I'd rather hobby than read newspapers in my free time).

You brought up an excellent question. I sometimes wonder what the profile of an average board member is.  

I am not as well read and versed as several others, but the reason for my interest is I am involved with business activities that are highly global. Long ago, I was active in the Middle East (very little now), Europe is important, but a stable and growing economy in the U.S. is the backbone regardless.

To plot a reasonable strategy, and the capacity to manage risk, I need to be highly enlightened about the world.

Seeing our country move in the right way is critical to all of us in these days of ferocious competition from overseas.  It is exhilarating to see the level of interest in politics these days, and this board in particular!  Unexpected surprise.

If many look at where their paychecks comes from, how it is affected by world events, probably there will be more effort to understand all sides of an issue, and contain mishaps.

That if I just hobby and don't pay attention and don't try to affect politics, I'm going to end up in a gulag.  And if I don't, people valuable to me might.  

Of course it might still happen even if I am involved, but at least that wouldn't be due to negligence.  

This country seems to be divided between people who enjoy their freedoms too much, but who never think of protecting them, and those who don't enjoy their freedoms at all and concentrate their efforts on attacking the freedoms of the first group.  Both groups are very real descriptions of how this country is divided.  What we need is to make the first group into a hybrid, somebody who enjoys their freedoms selfishly, and works for everyone's selfish interests in protecting them.  That's what I try to be.

/Zin