It's a Family Blending of Virtue and Happiness and Ben Thing

Dear America,

to the last quote from Poor Richard's Almanac...

"Let no pleasure tempt thee, 

no profit allure thee, 

no ambition corrupt thee, 

no example sway thee, 

no persuasion move thee, 

to do any thing 

which thou knowest 

to be evil; 

so shalt thou always live jollily; 

for a good conscience

 is a continual Christmas.  

Adieu."

oh Ben, you and I would have been so good together.

this may very well explain all the many ways our culture, in America, has grown into a serious decline; the less emphasis we place upon the things that truly matter, the more wayward our hearts and minds go.... So goes the battle between living in integrity and breeding corruption; the outcome, ultimately, harboring the power to extinguish every good thing.

fall of Rome anyone?

it just feels like we keep missing the point, no matter what matter seems to matter in the moment.

At first glance, someone who I consider a super smart girl, Condoleezza Rice, seemed to doing just that, when she made the comment --

“I think it is time to have a conversation about what the right to bear arms means in the modern world,” Rice told radio host Hugh Hewitt on Friday. “I don’t understand why civilians need to have access to military weapons. We wouldn’t say you can go out and buy a tank.”

yeah, just got stuck on the thought of having that conversation addressing whether or not the Second Amendment even has a right to exist in a "modern world."  That first blush was a sea of red.

Although, being in total agreement with that tank tag line at the end, my growing frustration is the realization that we never seem to be brave enough to address the actual, real cause -- from the root of all evil, to the mental instability of individuals, to the full glory of gun violence in film and video games, to the mind-blowing amount of dysfunction in families and communities and government....

At this rate, folks, we might as well give every single one of us a pistol and see what happens.

The problem is NOT THE F*&*NG GUN!

[Just as it is not about the planes trains or automobiles, let alone the pressure cooker stolen from granny's kitchen, the chef's knife in the top left drawer, or the ten digits that can wrap around a throat and snuff a life faster than you can say boo...   AND moreover, NO ONE within the membership of the National Rifle Association has EVER committed such an horrific crime against humanity, as we witnessed in Parkland, Florida ...props to Rushie.]

Sustainable humans, anyone?  [indeed.  and given I did not get up and eat humble pie for breakfast, here's props to G and yesterday's blog]

This girl really likes the views from Steve Hilton, here.

EVERYTHING gets down to how we raise our children and grow healthy families; for only through proper guidance, meaningful emphasis upon education, unconditional love, quality and quantity of  time...all aiding and abiding in the process and civic duty of raising children of good character... this symbiotic structure and security, blending nature and nurture, beginning at birth, is paramount in the making of a healthy, mindful, conscientious, responsible, strong community and country; the micro becomes the macro and so on and so on.

Duly noted on this here blog umpteen times before, but whatever --  it does get down to this one thing -- family -- as the beginning and the end of all good things to come.

You know, "Virtue & Happiness are Mother & Daughter."
awwwww Ben, ya did it again... xoxoxo

amen. amen. amen.

Make it a Good Day, G