You must do your part

Ruth likes to read light mysteries. One series she was introduced to by the owner of the crowded Linda's Books just off the Sebring Circle was "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" by Alexander McCall Smith.

My reading tastes are different so I usually don't read her stuff. Then earlier last year HBO began airing a series of the stories. We don't subscribe to the channel so we waited until the stories were released on DVD. Let me tell you they are delightful. The series contained a pilot and seven episodes released on three discs.

The stories take place in Botswana, a land-locked country just north of South Africa. The filming was done on location in the capital city of Gaborone located on the border of its southern neighbor. With a population of 178,000 Gaborone is also the country's largest city. In comparison, Botswana is almost the size of Texas yet its total population is only equivalent of metropolitan Austin: The state's capital.

The cast, while made up of non-citizens, is perfectly suited to their roles. The plots are non threatening and non violent. The lady (of course) detective Mma Ramotswe is in the vein of the main characters in "Psychic" or "Castle;" she is observant. She solves crimes by seeing things others overlook. Woven in the stories is a lot of humor, primarily provided by her secretary Grace Makutsi, and romance with her auto mechanic JLB Matekoni.

Why the critique?
Ordinarily, I don't write movie critiques but there was one scene at the end of the pilot that caught my attention.

It took place in an open-air schoolroom of maybe 100 elementary school children. All dressed in attractive orangey colored uniforms - I think our country is the only one on the planet that doesn't subject its children to the degradation of having to dress like someone else.

Anyway, the Social Studies lesson for that particular day was "Peace and tolerance in Botswana" in which the teacher was instructing the children as to their "rights." However, he reminded them that with each right comes responsibility.

"I have the right," they recited after him, "to feel safe and protected from abuse and violence."
And as my responsibility, "I should be tolerant of other people and their beliefs."
Other "rights" were reviewed each followed by its corresponding "responsibility."
We tend to forget. How quick we are to forget that we, too, have responsibilities that go with our rights. We have the right to drive a care. But we have the responsibility to drive it unimpaired. We have the right to own cell phones yet we have a responsibility not to infringe upon another person's right to their own space.

A community gadfly has the right to delve into the activities of government under the freedom of information act but is saddled with the responsibility of accepting the media's constitutional right to question and challenge his motives.

In the physical world we learned in the laws of motion, "To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." In our social world why should we not expect to find that for every right that we are given there is an attending responsibility?

A good time to start
With the New Year just one day old, it isn't too late to re-evaluate our lists of resolutions for the rest of the year. Let us try to remember that our form of government allows its citizens a tremendous amount of freedom and individual rights. But they can and they are abused. Let us remember, as those children in Botswana were learning, our responsibilities to this country and its citizens.

Overheard
Overheard at the checkout counter: Don't forget to write 2010 on your checks, or am I the only one who still uses them?