Mitt Romney scares the crap out of me. I find his rhetoric simplistic and misguided.

I cringe every time I hear anybody speak about how we need smaller government, even when Ron Paul does it. Such talk ingnores the simple fact that government is a significant sector of economy employing millions of people. If we cut government jobs, where will all those newly unemployed people find gainful unemployment? Has everyone forgot the lessons of the past and the fantastic success of The New Deal? When people speak of smaller government, the important issues about the quality of government are never addressed in favor of the uninformed opinions (prejudice) about the quantity of government.

Likewise for talk about the regulation of business. Uh, did everyone forget the lessons of the past or have we just evolved beyond the needs for environmental regulations and worker rights?

The appeal to greed really pisses me off. Yeah, the old let's cut taxes bullshit that exponentially and disporportionally favors wealth to the detriment of the poor.

Okay, I'm starting to get the picture....we cant forget what has never been learned.

Getting that off my chest is an ounce completed with just a few tons to go....

We usually think of happiness as a state, a state of mind, a specific emotion or attitude. This morning the grapevine threw me a gem, gave me a heads-up, so now I'm paying it forward.

One of the reasons that it came my way is the local buzz that was created about it. It, happens to be some of the content in The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner. He did a geographical study and wrote about theconnections between happiness and geography. He found Asheville, NC to be the happiest city in the US and is where I now sit and compose this blog.

Denmark was found to be the happiest country. I think that there is a whole bunch that we could all learn from a good study of Denmark's fine example.

You can find his site along with some content on NPR and 20/20 with a bit a searching, if you care. And don't forget Denmark...

Happy surfing,

There are many dysfunctional myths that we live by. Perhaps the most powerful and damaging myth is Conspicuous Consumption. It's more than just a myth, it's a system that affects our entire planet, so this is where we'll begin, with The Story of Stuff.....and with a good measure of gratitude to Free Range Studios

Together we can make a difference. It's always been that way, always will....

It's important to view people as people, not as others, evil others, bad others, othermuckers....

Yeah, we've gotten ourselves into a real mess. It's complex, it's confusing. Over one-half of the world's biggest economies are corporations, not countries. Think about it, the implications are HUGE. Sure, there are some bad apples out there, but the majority are relatively innocent, caught in the machine. So many of us work for corporations. We cant simply dissolve corporations, although that might be a good idea for a few. Part of the problem is that we have created an insanely competitive system in which even the giants struggle for survival. Blame isn't going to help matters very much. Fortunately, there are plenty of good and smart people dedicated to making the world a better place.

A good example of environmentalists and capitalists working together can be found in the Forest Stewardship Council and the Marine Stewardship Council. Industry leaders of forestry and fisheries understood that a few bad apples could spoil things for everybody, so they enlisted the help of the World Wildlife Fund to help create viable solutions. It's a work in progress and your help would be kindly appreciated. Perhaps this and this will help.

There was a very stubborn and foolish young arctic tern that refused to migrate with the rest of the terns. Everyone warned him that it would become unbearably cold and food supplies would vanish, but he wouldn't believe them. When the great migration ensued, he was left alone.

He was proud of himself at first for being so independently minded, but his pride diminished as quickly as the Arctic summer's warmth waned prior to global warming and as his food vanished more quickly than a polar bears habitat.

The young tern realized his mistake and began to fly South, but he soon became too cold and hungry to fly any further so he stopped to rest and fell asleep. He woke suddenly to discover a bear had found him. He expected to be eaten, but to his surprise and disgust, the bear defecated upon the little bird and walked away.

As the little tern's horror faded, he realized that he was pleasantly warmed by the feces and that there were seeds and berries within that were wonderfully nutritious. Warm and full, the tern's spirits lifted and he began to sing a happy song.

Unfortunately his song reached the keen ears of an arctic lynx. The lynx swiped the little bird from his crappy new nest and promptly ate him.

There are a few morals to this story:

~ if the crowd is going somewhere and you just don't understand, perhaps you should just go along

~ if someone shits on you, that person isn't necessarily your enemy

~ if someone pulls you out of the shit, that person isn't necessarily your friend

~ if you are warm and well fed, you might want to keep your mouth shut