A friend of mine has discovered an advantage to recently becoming VERY hard of hearing. He simply turns off his hearing aids when his wife starts yelling or his neighbor starts pounding. Not much of a silver lining but at least it's a small plus.

We all like to think of ourselves as rugged individualists. But when push comes to shove most of us are sheep who do what we are told. Worst of all, a lot of us become unpaid agents of whoever is controlling the agenda by enforcing the current dogma on the few rugged individualists who actually exist.