"R E S P E C T.. find out what it means to me", a little Aretha Franklin to get us started

Okay, wonderful song actually written by a host of people, Luther Ingram, Larry Henley, Jeff Silbar, Howard A Thompson, and Mark Rice, well at least that is what I found. Bunch of people to write one song, but it is a great one, but enough about all this

We are here to solve all the world's problems. Yep, kids you heard right, okay maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but at least most of them and in the wake of solving most of them the rest will probably get taken care of also.

The answer is simple. We just can't seem to put it into place. And also tonight I will discuss one of the reasons why I wrote the Red Chair which unfortunately I haven't corrected yet, but the answer needs to be out there because it is the same thing that will help solve the world's problems.

The answer is simple, but for some reason we, as the human race, cannot implement it. We can climb Mt Everest, we can explore the bottom of the ocean, we can decipher the human genetic code, we can put a man on the moon, and a host of other marvels, but we cannot do what should be the most basic thing to do as a human.

I will start with the Red Chair. One of the reasons I published it first was in reaction to the horrible incident that took place in Steubenville, Ohio. I wanted to show that young girls can make good choices in life. First of all I do not blame the girl for what happened, but something is missing when a young girl gets so inebriated that she loses all her faculties to take care of herself. What causes someone to put themselves in such a dangerous position? There could be the simple answer that she had never consumed alcohol before and so had no idea what was happening to her. This can happen to young drinkers who partake so much so quickly that they lose control. This is not the most wonderful way to start drinking, but in our culture not out of the realm of possibility. Next factor then is where were her friends. Something is missing that no one was able to step up and just take that girl home. And then lastly and which there is no excuse the young man that raped her. There is definitely something completely lacking.

The Red Chair shows a young girl, and I stress girl, can make positive decisions for herself based on what is best for her. Or at least I hope that message comes through.

I stress girl because all over the world females are treated not as second class citizens, but horrible. Many cultures treat the women as after thoughts and that is some of the better countries. The same aspect of life that lets a young girl get raped and humiliated publicly in a town here in the United States gets played out worse all over the world. The news is full of stories of women being ganged raped, women accused of crimes that men committed, women killed to preserve a family name, infant females murdered because they are a burden on the family, sex trafficking, child pornography, shot because they wanted an education, and the list could continue. The point is women are denied something that is very basic to human survival. The difference that separates us from nature.

And this carries on though in many aspects of our lives. You see it in domestic abuse, child abuse, bullying at all levels, and then it moves up in scope. You see people publicly ridiculed for mistakes, (now there is a difference though for people who do it to themselves such as Anthony Weiner and yet he seems to be lacking what is needed to put himself in his current predicament) bigotry at all levels, creating a class society, castes, dictators treating their people with contempt and denying their people what they need or the ability to better themselves, genocide, in places like the Sudan which seem to have its own unique, but horrible situation, and it is found throughout the world. There is a complete lack of something so basic it boggles my mind that we have the problems we do. What makes it so hard for us, as humans, to live this answer?

Some people believe in what the Bible teaches us, some don't, but in any case the answer is there, but we ignore it. Even many people of the Judeo Christian groups fail to follow through on what is taught. So simple, but so ignored, you find it in the ten commandants, in Jesus' eleventh commandant, but it we see it displayed so rarely in human interaction. Well not so rarely that it doesn't exist and it exists, but the ratio of it not being to being used is extremely out of balance. Jesus states in one of his parables that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to go to Heaven. He doesn't say a rich man cannot get to Heaven he just lets us know it is very difficult. In another passage he bursts the bubble of a man who is very devout, but rich. He asks Jesus how do I get to Heaven and Jesus says sell everything and follow me. Is Jesus saying being rich is wrong, no, again he is just trying to let us know being rich gets in the way of achieving Heaven. And yet it seems easier for a rich man to get to Heaven than for us to do what we are taught as little children to do.

Remember the book 'Everything I needed to know I learned in Kindergarten". You look at the world and maybe 99 percent didn't go to Kindergarten.

And what we need to know is so basic to human survival. This is for our lives, our growth as a race, our ability to achieve greatness, but we fail ourselves daily.

A Dad can help his daughter learn it, and his sons. It has two aspects, it is for ourselves and towards others. A girl in Steubenville, Ohio doesn't get raped if she has self respect and takes care of herself, and definitely not if the boy has learned respect for others. If he had, he would have helped the girl not raped her.

First we need to work at all levels to teach many to have self respect. And one of the greatest gains would be if Dads all over the world even here in the United States taught their daughters to respect themselves. Look at how fast young girls nowadays let themselves be influenced by everything but what is in their best interest. Frightening at how often you see young women pay more attention to the wrong influence and you can see it because they were never taught to respect themselves. And yes I get it that in some cultures Dads teaching daughters would be akin to moving mountains.

Second, respect for others. We have completely turned the table on what should be our first instinct as an evolved culture. The Bible pretty much sums it up, don't steal, don't covet, don't kill, don't commit adultery(respect the commitment people make),don't slander( false witness) etc and learn to love your neighbor as yourself, which basically is: have self respect and respect others. So what is so hard about all this, I don't know, but if you look at the world's problems and I have listed quite a few throughout this post it all boils down to lack of respect.

So folks rather simple isn't it, so why do so many people like myself think it doesn't exist in the world. Do I think what I wrote above is earth shattering? No, but heck for all I know this has been written a thousand times a thousand before, yet I am curious as to why something we know so well is such a problem for us to live.