It's How a Garden Grows Thing

Dear America,

so this morning, an old Persian Proverb happened to hang over the edge of my tea cup, and it said:

"He who wants a rose must respect the thorn."

and it made me giggle.

Whether we are venturing to gain the highest office of the land, or perhaps gain anything of any real value -- part and parcel of the process is intimately rooted in the integrity of our actions, the painstaking patience required to cultivate growth, guard against a slew of nefarious forces, all in order to ultimately prevail and pluck the award-winning rose.  But just maybe, more than anything else, as we metaphorically mosey picking posies all the live long day --  we must be mindful of the relationships we keep....friend or foe.

But oh, to collect a few roses along the way, what splendor!  The fragrance of satisfaction can fill a room.   Something good has come along....and it was so worth it.

And along that same vein -- given the width and breadth of human experience and environment -- to bloom wherever planted becomes an internal struggle of Darwinian proportion, as every virtue and vice is illumined, a possible rise or fall is eminent at every rising sun,  and from bud to blossom we fight for our life, calling for great courage and strength, as well as a great deal of guidance from above and below. 

The thing is, as this girl struggles to even listen to the ridiculous presidential primary potshots back and forth, observes protesters blocking the streets to free speech, and finds her heart simply breaking over children dropping f-bombs against a candidate, Trump, and yelling during a Cruz stop, "you suck" -- the outlook of America's future is disconcerting, dismal even, if this is the stuff  we are made of right now.

Does everything have come at the level of tabloid fodder nowadays --  or can we just stop, and ponder perhaps, just how all this looks to any old passerby, whether they come from the left or the right.

The garden needs a little help.

it's a sad day, really.

and it makes me cry.

America is in weeping, along with the willows and the birds and the bees, from the roses in the west to the lily of the valley in the east.

But let's not end on that note....yin meet yang...

My girl is coming home today -- officially, now a junior in college (yippy skippy!); and unofficially -- someone brand new.  It won't be long, and she will bounce through the door having grown into herself just a wee bit more.  [And it's kinda funny...as it feels like I almost have nothing to do with it anymore...tee hee.  Key word: almost]

All I want to do is plant her somewhere for a spell, and breathe her; all I want to do is look at her, admire her natural peacefulness that becomes her, and wait.  Eventually, the stories will come, the quiet will be replaced with tales of everything under the sun.  And both her garden and mine will find the rapture of blooming, together.

Make it a Good Day, G

It's a Farewell Address to Remember Thing

Dear America,

today we celebrate George Washington's birthday...it's really the twenty-second day of February...but America chose to annually commemorate the day on the third Monday in February, and so this is where we begin the day.  

And to that end, we go to Washington's Farewell Address.

The speech, was actually never spoken in front of a grand crowd.  It was published after a collaboration of thoughts and remarks and drafts, covering a span of a number of years -- the gist of it beginning from what was intended to be a retirement speech, after his first term as president, with much of it provided by James Madison.  This final, now famous, Farewell Address, was first printed in The Independent Chronicle of Philadelphia. 

Can you just imagine having cohorts of the caliber of Alexander Hamilton and John Jay and James Madison critiquing and revising every word, every phrase, every patriotic thought, into what became a final draft?  Makes me speechless just thinking about it.

just love this part...regarding the Constitution....

 But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield.

This not only depicts the natural integrity of character in George through and through, it also characterizes just how America got here.

It's called a collaboration of unconscionable highs and lows of bad governance, spanning a century.

In the next breath, he calls upon us to recognize....

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them.

indeed.

It is not my intention to say very much today; I mean, c'mon, as if this girl could compete.

It is my intention to direct you to the Farewell Address to read in full, and take it all in on your own time.  Start and stop  HERE, courtesy of The Avalon Project, Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy at Yale.

Here's, however, how 'Geo. Washington' finishes, just because he is so so good and it sounds oh so sweet, humility dripping from a fountain of devotion to our beautiful country, America...

Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence; and that, after forty five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.

Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that fervent love towards it, which is so natural to a man who views in it the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations, I anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever-favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.

In it's entirety, the Address clearly documents a time and a level of acumen unimaginable and great.

Certainly, considering this day and this age, it distinguishes a level of free governing and civic duty and moral character in the abstract today...case in point, the cast of characters we get to decide on becoming the next president of the United States, but I digress.

Oh how Geo. must be rolling in his grave to watch this spectacle -- 

• to observe a free and limited Republic turn more and more into an Oligarchy of the State, fully dependent upon destroying every Independence from birth 
• to observe a governing class brazenly usurp Nature's Law, where the origins of where true liberty of a free people, under God and the Rule of Law, begin 
• all the while, at every turn of an administration, turn the very pursuit of Happiness into a bureaucratic minefield. 

Shame on us.

Sure, it may be a happy holiday, but in reality, it's just another  sad day in America.

Make it a Good Day, G

It's a Read It and Weep Thing

Dear America,

This morning I am going to try something different.

Running in the same vein with yesterday's theme -- being just plum tired of being lied to -- we will link to the entire transcript of the president's speech to America.  Wrought with simply too many contradictions to pick out one by one, I will leave it to YOU, the party of one, to read thoroughly at your leisure. Amazing stuff; and not in a good way.

But before we begin, my apologies for opting to use the NY Times as the medium between; while that runs second in condolences for the thirteen pages to read in turn.  Having said that, you must realize taking the president's majestic persona out of the mix, reading the speech in his own words, one by one, double speak and rhetoric and all, changes everything.

On the virtual eve of ringing in another election year, we must realize how presidents from both sides of the aisle have toyed with us, lied to us, played with us; America has gone from the free market plum to a dried up prune, allowing progressives to alter our foundation, our traditions, our free enterprising spirit under a slow, constant depletion of the natural resources required to grow our true good.

Evaporating the very ideals that have made America great, this is what progressives do best.

Pay attention to every word from this stunner of a speech; print it out, underline key phrases... match them up with the contradiction, flat-out lie, or distortion of American fundamentals in nearly the very next breath; over and over and over, this president leaves us wanting, searching for the vine of truth.

Frankly, this speech makes him sound like an idiot; he is reaching for something that remains a total mystery [for him] -- you know...given his background, his community organizing mindset, his Marxist family history, sitting in the pews for twenty years with his Black Liberation Mentor and Church Leader, given his terrorist neighbor who launched his political career, his host of Czars in the White House linked to socialism and communism and Mao along with social engineering aplenty...

..this speech should scare the living daylights out of every American.

So without further adieu, here it is. Read it and weep.

Make it a Good Day, G

need a second opinion?  Read THIS.  Free market has NEVER worked according to THIS American president.  shocker.