Dear America,

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Sales at U.S. retailers posted their largest gain in five months in August on strong receipts at gasoline stations and clothing outlets, further assuaging fears of a double-dip recession."

1)  re: gasoline reciepts:  congress was on vacation; congressmen and women and staffers were traveling the world, and maybe even returning home to their districts, upon their private jets -- the quintessential gas guzzlers of them all.

2) re: clothing outlets:  the little people were preparing to send their children back to school (and maybe driving over the hill and through the woods to grandmas house -- but that's just speculation-- national parks and recreation were in full swing, too)  either way, it was a swell time to be a kid; and equally noteworthy, is the use of a particular key word, that would  be "outlet"-- for it's not like the majority of us were going to Nordstroms; our smart money was on volume, and no doubt we made a bee line to outlet malls and discount chains from sea to shining sea.

 So really, what this "news" is telling us then, is simply that the economic indicators are in sync with the season; nothing extraordinary is going on -- and should be of no surprise to any of us who survived the month of August...we have used more gas and we have bought more clothes in what's commonly known in the business as enjoying the seasonal fluctuation.  The habits of the homosapien are right on cue.

Let's just go out on a limb and predict, pumpkin sales is trending up as we speak -- along with bags of chocolate, candy corn and cavities; six months from now, we should also expect to see an rise in dental work and toothbrush sales, that is over and above the incremental rush in annual toothbrush projections, standard issue in the bottom of our Christmas stockings in about ninety days from now. Woohoo, and what a boon that will be. Yes, good times are swiftly coming our way.

I guess they, journalists in general and reuters in particular, feel a need to inject optimism and pump us up; looky-here! we are buying clothes, sucking up gas, and eating red velvet cupcakes, happy days are here again... the recession must be over... long live the king.

Here's a news flash:

The weak rise in sales has nothing to do with "our fears being over;" the reality is, it's quite the contrary.  We spent money because we had to, and what we did spend was not much.  Real consumer confidence and reasonable economic security remains at an all time low.

The thing is, we are still stuck; and in order to further evolve and grow and sustain life here on earth, it relies on our ability to steer clear of the tar pits, somehow find comfort in the makeshift home on the side of this slippery slope we live, and wait the storm out in the short term -- but in the long term, counts on all of us to use our intelligence and stamina and innovation to reinvent the wheel that is falling off fast and furious, and upon all cylinders.

To make way for the next generation, permanent consumer confidence calls upon us to return to the principles that made this country great and good, gracious and grounded -- and nothing else will really do; gallivanting around town in that trade in from cash for clunkers, buying petrol, while donning brand new bonnets and pantaloons is simply feeding into the consumer nation infatuation; the sustenance of common sense must be self evident and be found at the heart and soul of whatever we do, wherever we go -- for as the age old wisdom of alchemists and neanderthals alike agree,  wherever you go, there you are.


Compensation and consumption in life comes with the greater understanding of the law of dual realities at play at all times; the polarity factor of everything under the sun falls under simple truths of action and reaction, lightness and darkness, the measure of yin and the yang accordingly, to all things, lives in every moment, in every facet and capacity.

From Ralph Waldo Emerson:

"...because of the dual constitution of things, in labor as in life there can be no cheating. The thief steals from himself,  The swindler swindles from himself. For the real price of labor is knowledge and virtue, whereof wealth and credit are signs.  These signs, like paper money, may be counterfeited or stolen, but that which they represent, namely, knowledge and virtue, cannot be counterfeited or stolen.  These ends of labor cannot be answered but by real exertions of the mind, and in obedience of pure motives.  The cheat, the defaulter, the gambler, cannot extort the benefit, cannot extort the knowledge of material and moral nature which his honest care and pains yield to the operative.  The law of nature is, DO the thing, and you shall have the power; but they who do not the thing have not the power...

On the other hand the law holds with equal sureness for all right action.  Love, and you shall be loved.  All love is mathematically just, as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation.  The good man has absolute good, which like fire turns every thing to its own nature, so that you cannot do him any harm...

Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults.  As no man thoroughly understands a truth until first he has contended against it, so no man has a thorough acquaintance with the hindrance or talent of men until he has suffered from the one and seen the triumph of the other over his own want of the same."

Isn't that just sublime.

If only;

if only, just before we closed our eyes at night, or at first sight of the morning sun, we read to our children from the master of self reliance himself, as if plugging into the source of all right action, elevating the new hybrid human being into another realm of living and creating, illuminating our personal power in the moment, while protecting our very future -- by doing the right thing, actualizing right thought, right from the start.

Things were all so simple then, when we hadn't a wheel or a gigabyte to our name; and likewise, as with any advancement, greater responsibility and mindfulness is absolutely required for long lasting prosperity and for broadband benefits to sustain. Cogs and controversy, corruption and cannibalism can wreak havoc upon an otherwise vibrant and growing civil society and community.

We are way beyond the rush to summer's end -- flying and dining, hunting for fresh fig leafs and roadkill to throw on ; the greater concern should be, what is it about the humble wheel that truly works?  What does the little round disk that moves things, move us to do -- by way of lesson or contention? 

How has the abuse of the doers and the shakers and the candlestick makers all but obliterated the simple life and the humble man -- with the loss of sound virtue and proven principles paving the way -- driven us into this bureaucratic ditch of despair and despotism? No matter who rules -- a ruler is a ruler is a ruler; if it rolls, if it has wheels, then wherever you go, there you are...

Man was made in the image of God, born in this nation under God, to rule ourselves; to do for ourselves; the more we have fallen away from respecting this duality of natural law, in existence since the beginning of all time, the greater the chance for the mechanisms at play to falter. Call it Darwinian, if you must; but truth cuts both ways, and is equal to all under the rule of law -- while the only common denominator is who?

YOU.

so -- puleeze --
if you are going to make one,
make it a good, G

Truth is, this isn't about re-inventing the wheel at all; for the wheel works just fine.

After further review -- and according to the aero-dynamics back behind running basically every thing --
thank you for waiting;
operator error seems to be more the root cause. 

Somebody should get to the bottom of it some time real soon,

your patience is appreciated.
beep.