Dear God, it's been months since I've set words down on this thing. Oh I've been writing, to be sure. I think I've just been increasingly skeptical that anyone wants to hear it.

My novel is published on Kindle and has sold a couple of copies already. I've also got a free version out on fictionpress. I've off-and-on been working on a self-help book. Unfortunately my problem with that is that each day I feel different about what the world needs help with.

Right now, it seems inescapable that the economy is the worst of our woes. Funny considering that a year or two ago we all thought that nothing could possibly be worse than the war in Iraq. And before that we thought...what? That the most important concern was whether or not Ross and Rachael would end up together on Friends?

I think that's the problem, and why we're having such a hard time now. None of us were prepared for this. Few of us even knew we would ever need to be. America was invincible. Terrorists didn't take us down, and that meant nothing ever really could. And then...we began falling apart like a house of cards from the inside.

Bush and Cheney wanted us to believe that men in turbans with M-16s were the only arrow that could possibly pierce America's armor. In the meantime, we were already entering the worst housing crisis in decades, Wall Street and our banks were spending frivulously and enjoying a downward spiral that anyone with eyes in their head should have seen would end in disaster. Yeah, that party was great until the keg ran out of beer.

Obama is now in the White House. A step in the right direction, I think. I voted for the man because I've always believed that America could only truly better itself if it embraced new ideas and fresh ideology instead of hunkering down with tradition and fundementalist religion. Like an old box of corn flakes, modern American Christianity expired decades ago. Now the only people it typically benefits are those that want to ignore their responsibility to change their own world instead of let a bearded man from space do it for them, and those who want an excuse to hate their fellow man. Why are we still catering and cow-towing to a religion that finds it perfectly acceptable to passionately hate gays?

Back on topic, we ate and ate and ate until we were too fat to get off the couch. Now we're feeling a massive coronary coming on, but we're too damn big to get up and make it to the phone to call 911. America, plain and simple, is just a little too stupid to know how to save itself.

That doesn't mean we won't be saved. I think we're going to be "scared straight" by this, if only for a while. Obama does have the right idea of pushing for a cleaner, greener infrastructure. Unfortunately, he's going about it in a way that's a bit ass backwards. He's looking ahead ten years and spending money that will help us then, but what good is building a life raft that will be ready in ten years if people are already drowning?

I could be in one of two places in ten years. Contentidly working in sales and making enough money to support myself, perhaps even enough to save towards my dreams. Or...I could be homeless living in a box on Ponce De Leon. But at least I'll be watching a new generation of eco-friendly cars drive by my cardboard box!

Sad thing is, our push to "greenify" our economy may be just a bit too late. With the current state of technology, green costs money, and money is kind of a hard thing to come by now. So where is this multi-billion dollar stimulus coming from, you ask? Contrary to what the Republicans would have you believe, it's actually coming from other countries. We're borrowing from mom's purse. In this case, China's purse in particular. At our current rate of debt, our great red neighbor basically owns us, with half the other countries in the world shaing stock. Amercia is becoming everyone else's deadbeat brother that promises to pay you back but never really will.

And here comes the Catch 22. Where does China's money come from? Guess who! Yeah...trade with us. And since our industry is going under....

So basically the world is printing money with absolutely no basis in concrete assets. And our government is spending that money on roads and colleges and state parks. Good to provide a few John Does with a job, but bad for the rest of us because we can't afford to go to school and learn how to install a solar panel.

So what's really going to save us? Notice I say what, not who. Change is the only thing that can save us. Reinvention. We have to be ok with the possibility that everything we thought we could have may just have been a pipe dream. A pipe dream that was actually distracting us from the truly important things in life.

You wanted a million dollar car? You may have to learn that putting a roof over your family's head is a bit more important.

You wanted to be a rock star? You may have to readjust your viewpoint and realize that building houses for your neighbors in need is a much more admirable goal.

People need to realize that you don't have to aim for the sky. Sometimes there are better rewards right there at eye level, staring you in the face. Community, compassion and simple human need has to replace greed, entitlement and gluttony. If it doesn't...we won't be saved. This might just be it.

Rome fell. The greatest civilization in the world. We're ignorant to think that America can't too.

We're also ignorant to think that a beer and a big-screen tv playing American Idol is a better way to spend our time than an evening at the local homeless shelter dishing out soup to the needy.

Get your priorities straight America! And you just might be allright.