Dear America,

so day two of spring break found me and my girl tooling around the design district, Cedros, in Solana Beach -- and spending nearly two hours in just one place called The Leaping Lotus (and yes, I totally dig the continuation on a theme from yesterday's two cents).

And chatting it up the entire time, she told me a story from a documentary she watched on the Discovery Channel over the weekend, detailing life of a family from a remote Himalayan village, where basically the children had to venture a long, dangerous trek to school with their father each year (and yes, the commute happened not on a daily basis, but as an annual ritual worthy of the risks).

For six months out of the year, the children attended a school miles away from home, and in order to get there, they packed up for a nearly a week's journey, along with their father, to travel the icy crevasses and steep countryside of the region to finally arrive at a small school house in the middle of nowhere; this would be home for the children until another six months passed, and their father came back over the river and through the woods for their return (yes... just a simple afternoon pickup, indeed).

Whenever I catch glimpses of other children around the world, getting an education, having pencils and paper and school books, is accepted like a gift from God.  Have you noticed that?


Without saying a word, captured in the eyes of every child, comes this light beaming from ear to ear, in utter gratitude for the opportunity to learn something.  While many of ours, in stark contrast, bemoan an afternoon of homework, fight every second of the way off of Facebook, and cling to any and all I Pods to get them through it.

As I mentioned a few weeks back, I discovered a local, homegrown patriot, writer, and businessman from a Community  Essay in the paper: "Reading and the Public Good" by Craig S. Maxwell.  And even though his trade is officially a bookseller, there was nothing self serving in his remarks whatsoever.

It was as if he was making his own last ditch effort to awaken the citizenry of the changes this country has afoot: forewarning us on the over-saturation of our childen's minds and time with "electronic gizmos;" burying their anti-social, yet with a social network twist, heads into a gadget of one kind or another, and hardly surfacing for a genuine hello, good morning, how are you today? And the reading of a good book, the good book, (or just one like "The 5000 Year Leap" perhaps) -- anything worthy of a lesson in morality, substance, vision, or of value -- fuggetaboutit.

Throughout the entire read he makes a splendid case wrapped around ideas steeped in our history, and for me, one sentence stands out above the rest: "America's essence is identical with self-rule."

It's as if we fail to recognize our duty and delight, being born of such privilege and all.

we all fail; for if one of us goes down, we all go down, right?  Isn't that how our president thinks of it...isn't that how collective salvation works?
For if we exponentially take that number of one and track it over time, decades of ignorance and bliss overwhelmingly suffocating knowledge and constraint, with apathy reigning over ambition, especially with our young seedlings for tomorrow stuck in a box, we slowly begin to lose the memory of the original thought.

Future generations become lost as we methodically, and yet strangely haphazardly, brush away the markers beholden to the greater good and our purpose under heaven; we extinguish all semblance of a path straight and narrow; as gratitude morphs into a viscous combination of entitlement, self interest, and taking it all for granted...who needs to pay attention to the things that made America great anymore, when we can be one great big dysfunctional global nation...

I can assure you, if every parent in America, literally and figuratively,  truly led their children "to school and back", much like that Himalayan papa, half of our issues would simply resolve themselves. Of course, if our schools became think tanks for truly higher learning -- welcoming all thought, reason, debate and discussion -- delving into the greater understanding as to why America is what it is, how we got here, who we are and jut who were, in fact, the thinkers and the visionaries back behind our foundation, what made America so different in the first place, and just maybe, in the last -- perhaps then we might very well create, and make, more children exceeding expectations in every way possible (math and science included).

Responsible SELF RULE does not come about by accident or by luck or by Facebook.

Mr. Maxwell adds a lengthy quote from John Adams, and here I will lend you part:

"...Be it remembered...that liberty must at all hazards be supported.  We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure and their blood.  And liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great creator, who does nothing in vain, has given the understanding and desire to know."

Right now, ignorance is bliss in America; we got too much, for too little, on borrowed time with somebody else' dime...and on top of that, we don't even make things anymore, much less strive to manufacture smart kids ready to work in the real world, fully prepared, after years of study, propped up with even a general sense and sensibility of the America who came before.  even presidents can miss the exquisite details.

Tonight, we will have a president promote -- for the second time in two months -- his budget for 2012 Take Two...   hmmm what will he say?

We spend too much, there is that.

No department will be immune to making some cuts, 

all ideas are on the table... 

but, you know, with Bush's two wars and a recession later, 

we need to have the wealthiest Americans pay even more, 

for it simply isn't fair 

for anyone to think and grow rich any longer in America...

even the debt ceiling will have to be raised for the 75th time, 

even though, 

I for one, 

was against raising the limit when a young, unseasoned Senator...

yes, after I grew government by more than ten percent, 

it is time for reform -- 

never you mind that my unfunded, unconstitutional, 

trillion dollar health care package has yet to hit the market, 

never mind that, what I propose here tonight, 

flip flops on the Bush era tax cuts 

only reinstated just a few months back;

never mind that I said all-of-the-above energy resources are warranted 

-- I change my mind about drilling for oil in America -- 

I am thinking twice about nuclear in the wake of Japan's disaster 

-- and come one way or another, 

I will nudge, oh so gently, all Americans to change 

their driving habits and more,

and perhaps buy a hybrid built for two...
and never you mind what the Other Debt Commission suggested,
it is time for a new Debt Commission to be put in place,
a commission who truly understands how to reorganize for America...

fundamental transformation of America will not be easy

we must all do our part

...but considering my salvation rests on your salvation,

and vice versa, 

we have work to do, 

and again, it will not be easy.  

But let me be clear...

redistribution of the wealth is the only way out, 

going against everything America is, was, or ever will be, 

is the order of the day;

and what we must do my fellow Americans,

is lead, after China, of course, into the new age, 

for the magnificent global economy is just waiting for us to show up!

Marking new paths of innovation,

and returning to a time when our schools, our children,

truly lead the world again in math and science again...

this is who we are.  

This is what we need to do to compete with the rest of the world.

What I will not do, is change my mind,

the trajectory is in stone, 

this is what we must do.

For in the end, 

the end will justify the means.

One love, y'll

One Nation, One World,

it is one way, or bust, over everything we know and love.

It is for the betterment of the whole.

This is what makes us who we are.

This will be what saves us in the end.

This is what our destiny 

and winning the future is all about.

God Bless you

and God Bless the United States of America (s)

Played world wide, tweeted, on Facebook, 

with YouTube hitting 3 million country strong within 20 minutes

Because that is just who we are today.

make it a good day, G