PARDON ME, BOY....

 

PARDON ME, BOY----

You would think that life with age gets easier and better, wouldn’t you?

Well, Bunky it doesn’t seem to be that way at all. In fact, I think I am more confused now than I was 40 or 50 years ago.

For example, is coffee good for you or bad for you? How much exercise is enough?

Do I need 4 hours or 8 hours of sleep every night? Are cell phones dangerous to my brain or not?

What in the world are microplastics and what can I do about them?

On top of all of this nonsense we have a new term to deal with, which is cultural appropriation. This current trend seems to suggest that I am only supposed to observe or use the customs, morals and practices derived from my native county.

So, my question is this? What is my native country?

I’m an American mutt. My last name really gives you no clue as to where any of my folks came from. If your name is O’Reilly, Gomez, or Goldstein you might have a idea as to your family origins. Even the name such as Smith or Miller can be traced back to some craft or trade that your ancestors were involved with.

But Perry? Where was this and what did it derive from? Oh, I’ve done the Ancestory.com thing and gotten a paper that says I’m part Scottish, German, English, Irish and Nigerian? Like I said, I’m a mutt.

So how is a mutt supposed to act if he can’t go to a Mexican or Chinese restaurant since he isn’t from that culture? Is this what they mean by cultural appropriation? I like those foods. I always have. I can’t think of any food from any country that I don’t like. I had Russian food one time in New York City and I hope I didn’t make any Russians mad when I paid for the meal. They didn’t seem to object one little bit.

Is St. Patrick’s day only for the Irish? How about Cinco de Mayo?

We are having a national discussion aboutt immigration in this country. I am not going to get into the pros and cons of this argument at this time. Face it, we are a nation of immigrants and isn’t it better for all of us to learn about the culture of those around us? Doesn’t that make us better able to understand others that are from different countries and backgrounds?

At this stage of life, I suppose I am too old to change my habits. I am going to continue to eat tacos and corned beef and even borsch if I want to do so.

They will have to throw me out and refuse to take my credit card. Then I guess I will be stuck with bread and jelly or dog food, for the mutt that I am.

Aren’t we all a bit ridiculous sometimes?

See you next week….Peary Perry

SOAPBOX #1

 

SOAPBOX #1---

You know what they say about opinions…’everyone has one’.

So, here’s mine for this week. You are welcome to comment back to me if you want to discuss.

Anyway, all of us in this country (except for the Native Americans or Indians) came from some other country at one time or another. It might be of interest to you to know that before the America revolution, England sent their convicts to Maryland and Virginia. They started sending them to Australia after we won our independence. So, those of you in those states might not want to go back too far on Ancestry.com and be surprised that your great+ grandparents were pickpockets or worse. Might put a damper on that Mayflower story you’ve been passing around for years.I have no problem with immigration if it is done legally. Aside from the 100,000 or so convicts sent from England, I am fairly certain most of our ancestors came in the legal way, not just walking across the border.

So how does this relate to todays opinion piece?

Well, here’s how. In today’s news there is a story about an old guy (88) named Ed Bambas of Brighton, Michigan. Old Ed worked for General Motors for over 20 years and lost his pension when the GM entity went bankrupt in 1999. He is a ex-Army veteran as well. He lost his pension and his health care. His wife was sick, he sold everything, and she died 7 years ago. Now he works at a grocery store 8 hours a day, 5 days a week to support himself. A reporter heard his story and set up a Go Fund Me page for him at gofundme ed bambas. They have collected over a million dollars for him so far.

Good for them. Good for the folks who have chipped in and tried to help.

But my question is this….how many more Ed’s are there in our country who are in similar circumstances? How many have lost their pensions or life savings after years of hard work?

We are having a national debate at this time about the illegal immigrants living in our country at this time. I have no idea how much they are supported by the taxpayers. Do they get housing, food, cell phones and health care? We cannot absorb the population of the entire world.

Don’t we have an obligation to take care of our own citizens first? Shouldn’t we be looking to help Ed and others who have paid taxes and served in the military before we fund someone who entered into our country illegally?

I am in favor of regulated immigration for those who want to contribute to our way of life. I am not in favor of providing everything needed for their existence to those who do not want to work or assimilate into our culture and society. We need to provide for more people like Ed and less for those who want a free ride forever and who actively despise our nation and it’s ideals.

That’s my opinion and I’m sticking with it.

See you next week----Peary Perry

pperry@pearyperry.com

WHO NEEDS IT?

 

WHO NEEDS IT?

I think it is fair to say that the majority of the folks reading my blog were born before the advent of so-called ‘artificial intelligence’ Many of you, like myself, were born before cell phones and computers were in everyday usage. Charles Lindbergh thought that  “The evil of technology was not in technology itself; Lindbergh came to see after the war, not in airplanes or the myriad contrivances of modern technical ingenuity, but in the extent to which they can distance us from our better moral nature, our sense of personal accountability."

So, I think old Charles was onto something in that our current technology is removing us from developing closer relationship with one another. Look at what we are dealing with on a daily basis, cell phones, computers, television, cameras of every shape and size. Today I am besieged with advertisements for a ‘bird buddy’ that will allow us to see what each bird is doing when they come to our feeders to eat. I already know what they do, they stick the birdseed in their little beaks and fly away to poop on our cars. We have cameras that tell us if anyone is on our property and if they ring our doorbell. We can be in China and our phones will tell us who is on our front porch. We get the weather reports for the entire world from a multitude of sources. Most of it is useless since it changes by the hour, but we still look at it, don’t we?

 

Our ovens talk to us and tell us when we need to come and take out the pies or cakes. I have seen refrigerators that have computer screens to tell us what items are out of date or what we need to buy. What happened to a plain old pad and pencil for a shopping list? I will admit that the GPS in my car has been one of the greatest inventions ever. Moses could have certainly used it and would have saved himself forty years of wandering around the desert. Paper maps are strictly from the devil himself in my opinion.  

 

I was wondering if anyone compiled a record of the injuries caused by walking and texting on your cell phone. Well, Bunky guess what? The Readers Digest reports that over 11,000 people are injured each year in this country by walking and fooling with their cell phones at the same time. This should be a lesson to all of us that cannot walk and chew gum at the same time. The National Safety Council estimates that cell phone usage causes 1.6 million accidents a year in the good old USA. They also say they think this is a severely underreported number since the majority of people will not admit that they were driving and using their phones at the same time.

 

So, my question is simply this: since the invention of the internet and cell phones, have our lives vastly improved or have our lives gotten worst? I think we need to do a Ben Franklin evaluation of all of this. Yes, we have seen many things greatly improve our lives such as medical devices and medical discoveries. We are able to communicate with anyone, anywhere at little or no cost. We can obtain vast amounts of information about virtually anything at any time we like. No more trudging down to the library to look up some needed facts. But we do seem to have increased the gap between each other at the cost of face-to-face conversations and discussions, haven’t we? We definitely need to not be on our phones when we are walking or driving. We also should shut them down when we enter into a conversation with our kids or friends. Phones and computers have a purpose just like a hammer, but they are tools, nothing more, nothing less and should not be the central point of our lives.

 

See you next week---Peary Perry