REPRINT FROM JUNE 27th 2005

I thought this went well with the previous post:

I was reminded this week-end of a time I was visiting my favorite Chinese Restaurant . There was large hispanic family that came in and sat down near my table. They were all speaking in spanish, even the little children.

In the back of the restaurant, I could hear the staff speaking loudly above the grills and fans in either cantonese or madarin (I'm sorry, I don't know the difference). What happened next was just as red, white and blue as George Washington.

The waiter came over and both parties started speaking just the weakest English I'd ever heard in my life. The most common word was "What"? or "Huh"? (sometimes a combination of both). But ya know, that's America in a nutshell. America isn't the greatest nation because of our European history, America is great because we've been able to merge the world's culture's with an open mind, gleen the good and learn from the bad. When this country was founded, it was a result of the colonies rejecting England's Tyranny. We learned to perfect Capitalism. The settlers learned survival. We learned that the essence of a civilazation is that "the strong have a duty to protect the weak". Did you know that the founding fathers wanted to create a Monarchy in the 1700's ? They wanted George Washington to be the "King" of America. Washington was glad that he didn't have a son. We were wise to reject England's form of government. We were wise to learn from the advances and failures of the Roman and Greek empires.

Americans invented the horseless carriage. Then 70 years later, we would be relearning how to build cars from a country that we devastated with nuclear bombs just 30 years before. This would lead to a strengthening of our economy. How could we have rebounded from the lethargy and failures of the 70's if we would have continued to believe that "The American Way" was the only or best way to do something. How could Japan, a defeated nation operating on an Imperialistic paradigm turn it's economy around and become a world leader in manufacturing? We gleen from the best and learn from the worst.

As my friend Page Jackson says in his song, "Every single moment is another chance to turn your life around".

Ace out.......