Dear America,

the world going a little nuclear... and that is my rhyme and reason of the day.

Overreaction meets ignorance meets blame meets partisan politics meets the perfect storm for total destruction -- even in areas far, far away from the center, for all intents and purposes, of the end of time as we know it.

Here, in so cal, people are popping iodine like its ecstasy on steroids -- my girl comes home from school yesterday and tells me one of her friends is already on the stuff...I'm like, girl, if anyone offers you one, just say no; unless in immediate danger, that stuff can mess you up. But the scariest news on the day, is drugstores can't keep it on the shelves...here.


Insight from the Wall Street Journal:

"Our larger point is less about nuclear power than how we react as a society to inevitable disasters, both natural and man-made. Because a plane crashes, we don't stop flying. Because an oil rig explodes in the Gulf, we don't (or at least we shouldn't) stop drilling for oil. And because the Challenger space shuttle blew up, we didn't stop shuttle flights—though we do seem to have lost much of our national will for further manned space exploration. We should learn from the Japanese nuclear crisis, not let it feed a political panic over nuclear power in general."

I used to leave my office sometimes  making the off hand remark, 'see ya tomorrow, unless I get hit by a bus...'; but the reality is, it's kinda true.  As human beings, nothing is guaranteed -- even life itself; sometimes, things unforeseen and unimaginable happen, with absolutely no rhyme or reason;  the question is, is it acceptable to stop living life entirely when they do?

Do we shut down -- do we begin to live a life sheltered from all that may or may not come to harm us just because it can?

Or, do we live by faith -- making the connections to the greater life that surrounds us and all that remains, with a sense of grace and peace, trusting in our ability to transcend anything that might come our way -- and of course, assist others to do the same? (if you live in Japan, this is how they do it)


Some might think, based on the last few days of growing evidence, we, as a whole or in part, totally overreact; and then, with a look at the last few years...

How about the reaction to Gabrielle Giffords tragedy?

How about the reaction to the Gulf Oil Spill?

How about the reaction to Wisconsin leadership taking control of the fiscal budget?

How about the reaction to Michele Bachmann making an American history gaffe?

How about the reaction to GM -- AIG -- and failing to stand up to the risks of a free market?

How about the reaction -- 865 Billion Dollar reaction -- to unemployment?

How about the reaction to waste and fraud in health care meeting the uninsured, creating more waste and fraud, leaving even more uninsured (disguised by the Affordable Care Law, or simply, Obamacare?

How about the reaction to the nuclear emergency in Japan?

You know, reading some of the responses on Yahoo! to the Bachmann brouhaha is entertaining...besides a slurry of reviews claiming Bachmann (throwing in Palin, too) to be an idiot -- and various other things of ill repute...we had equally as many chiming in with a not so gentle reminder, that one day along the journey during the last presidential campaign, Obama said this:

“Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go.”

-Barack Obama in a campaign speech, Portland, Oregon, May 2008.

posted by a guy calling himself, "OncealwaysaMarine."

 having also shared this little tidbit just a moment before...

Obama has as much trouble with numbers (and telling the truth) as he has with maps.

March 2007, on the anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march in Selma, Alabama, and using his "black Southern dialect" while speaking in a black Selma church, Obama claimed his parents united as a direct result of the civil rights movement:

“There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born.”

Obama was born in 1961. The Selma march took place in 1965.

(as a side-note: My kind of Marine)

Yet, do we see the left wing media running stories highlighting gaffes and blunders from the left with equal verve alongside the vicious contempt in response...hardly.  No, those stories just get buried, swept under the rug, drowned out by the intrepid and concerted rescue efforts stirring our immediate attention away, calling to us like a siren and leading us into an even greater disaster totally unaware -- hoodwinked by our own ignorance, negligent of placing all the facts in proper order, and giving way to a general sense and inability to think for ourselves (or the absence of just cutting somebody a little slack, as we all make mistakes).

more from Wall Street Journal:

"The paradox of material and technological progress is that we seem to become more risk-averse the safer it makes us. The more comfortable we become, the less eager we are to take the risks that are the only route to future progress. The irony is that one reason Japan has survived this catastrophic event as well as it has is its great material development and wealth.

Modern civilization is in the daily business of measuring and mitigating risk, but its advance requires that we continue to take risk. It would compound Japan's tragedy if the lesson America learns is that we should pursue the illusory and counterproductive goal of eliminating all risk" 

Just because we spill a little milk from time to time, doesn't mean we should simply stop buying it altogether; that is just stupid, ignorant, irresponsible, and in a word,  lame.

How can we justify making long term security and prosperity risks BY CHOICE simply because of the occurrence of baseless, overreaction stemming from unforeseen circumstances, initiated by an unpredictable, incredible, natural disaster (in Japan's case, make that two) -- and thereby use a crisis to take political policy to a whole 'nother level of idiocy -- as if running government (and indirectly our lives and our world) from a perspective of total fear based legislation and regulation only because...it might happen tomorrow!

Yes, there is nothing wrong being prepared (I was a girl scout); but cutting off all possibility in the face of danger -- isn't that running counter-clockwise to the American way of life itself?

Life, itself, calls upon us to "continue to take risk" every day -- and be smart about it.

When my girl goes off to school every morning, I can't protect her every move; I can't predict whether she will be easily swayed by her peers to do something that may, or may not, hurt or harm her; I can't shelter her and keep her in her room safe and sound, keeping life and all the world around her, away.  If I should ever attempt to control the variables of her life like that, she would not be truly living, would she?

I mean, if the president was really concerned about our health, why not just take away cigarettes completely -- like in the same vein of his many feeble attempts of his administration to control what we eat... including advocating whether restaurants can use salt, and by adding huge taxation to soda and snack foods to curb our appetite through the pocketbook?  Acting as if, some people just can't make good choices on their own, so let's just take away the liberty for all.

SO with an oil disaster, we place a moratorium on new oil drilling -- even if THAT causes greater harm.

SO with the tragedy in Tucson, we place the blame on the gun versus the content of the character of the person who pulls the trigger -- even if THAT never truly solves the problem (and it never will).

Expanding and nurturing a nation honoring responsible citizens, those of good character, is what we need; one that teaches our children to protect each other from harm; one that engineers energy solutions that can withstand attacks by nature (and human nature) to the best of our abilities; one that minimizes risk, but maximizes growth, innovation, and fundamental change, making us all the more smarter and wiser and richer and self-sufficient (and not just in gold, but in Spirit too).

To steal a phrase commonly used by our president, 'it's not that complicated.'  More often than not, good people usually do good things all the way around...going full circle...'paying it forward' so to speak...some might even venture to say, reinforcing the possibility of creating a global force for good everywhere and often (and a GO Navy slogan to boot).  good in, makes a whole lot of good out...

And a nation built upon the content of our character we get -- what a concept, works like a charm (while unfortunately, the adverse is also true); this content of our character, our nation's moral code of honor, just so happens to be one of the many universal truths this country was founded on...somewhere in Lexington, or was it Concord, New Hampshire (lol)...of course, I would be remiss if I did not mention, an idea striving to move forward in free abandon, within the hearts and minds of all 57 states (lol)... albeit struggling to take hold, appearing a wee bit diluted and adulterated in the minds of a few.

what's that saying -- and erring on the side of caution here --  let's not throw the baby out with the bath water okay; and yet -- this administration would have us all believing otherwise, isn't it?  isn't it?  Indeed, if according to precedence meeting up with human nature, meeting up with an agenda, meeting up with fundamental transformation, meeting up with our permission (by our silence) tells us anything at all.

 Make it a Good Day, G

play GTV ...just a click on Dear America...let us inspire each other to grow way more good and a whole lot less evil; expand the YES, with a whole lot less no; and BE the change you want the world to be. 

and just in case you missed it, because it is March Madness after all, because the whole world is basically on fire...here's some news on the president's picks on b-ball.