This Web Blog was haphazardly produced without using Spell Check one danged time. We like it that way.

AND THE PEANUT GALLERY SAYS: "Dude! Nobody will find this Blog. You walk away from a (relatively) successful Web magazine with award-wining writers to do THIS?

"What? Are you nuts. You are now a snowball in Hell!"

ROD RESPONDS: "Shut up, Little Man!"

4 JULY, 2007: Ah, Independence Day! A day of barbecues, family gatherings and a night sky filled with colorful fireworks - gold, red, blue, white lightning to thrill the hearts of young children and make old men cry. I enjoy those things as much as any bloke.

Unlike most of you, I'll be working today. It's the way the world works when you freelance and have bills piling up in the post every day.

And then there's the issue of finding people you can trust. As the Washington Post has so eloquently pointed out in its four part series on Mr. Cheney, you certainly can't trust the man behind the hand puppet.

One of the people most impacted by the machinations of this regime had this to say.

What bothers me, though and most, is that you can't even trust your putative personal friends. Even people who seem and should have your best interests at heart are actually, and often, only working on their own agendas. Where I come from, that's known as exploitation.

When I listen to a politician, I know instinctively that I need to try to hear the meaning behind the words being uttered and that I should be hyper-suspicious of what I'm being told. When I listen to an individual I know, I defer to a sense of trust and camaraderie. I should have listened to Herod in that regard (think the series "I, Claudius"): "Trust no one."

Most public Bloggers only want to talk about politics or recipes or pop culture. But what I find, what I see and believe, is that we must start at the basic level of how we humans interact with each other. We shy away from such discussions more than we do from talking about politics, religion or sex. That needs to be changed.

If there is dishonesty in how we deal with the people we see every day - our co-workers, family members and friends - where does honesty and sincerity actually obtain?

I attempt to be philosophical about these concerns. At my age, one should.

Yet, my personal experience has borne out the revelation that trust is the road to heart-ache and heartbreak. With few exceptions, I look to the people I interact with every day with - co-workers, family members and friends - with suspicion. Where does it end?

I have to suppose that there is where Hope and Charity come in. At some point we must all let down our guard and our shields. Is that the true meaning of "independence?" At my better moments, I think so. To be independent, in the end, means having the ability to open a door of trust and become unafraid - or impervious to - the consequences.

I realize that the last statement is turning my own thesis, posited at the beginning of this essay, on its head.

What I know is that it's a necessary postulate. IF one becomes unafraid of betrayal, he or she thus moves into the realm of compassion. Compassion is one of the most underrated and significant influences of human consciousness. It is the essence of empathy and sympathy and hope.

At the magazine I founded, which you can follow a link to on the left side of this page, we discussed the issue of the South African concept of Ubuntu during our latter days. The meaning of Ubuntu is that I cannot exist without you. When you suffer, so do I.

The Truth comes out whenever we allow ourselves to remember that. We are only free when we acknowledge that we are a family - all six billion and counting of us, as difficult as that now seems.

I'll have more to say about this as I continue to explore my own independence.

Your daily vid from Rod:

Cheers!

Keep me in your prayers as I keep you in my own.

Thanks for visiting.

Talk to you in a day or so.

Be well.