YEE HAW..OLD CHAP

 

YEE HAW….OLD CHAP….

I am not much of a soccer fan but have gotten a big kick out of the thousands who have traveled across the pond to see the games over these next few weeks.

The mainstream media is not the source for the comments and thoughts on these visitors who are amazed at the reality of our culture. One gets the impression; they have been fed years of lies and misinformation about the true America we live in.

Now, I’m not talking about some of our ‘progressive-liberal’ cities which are mainly anti-American. I’m talking about the rural America where the majority of us live.

Go to Facebook or Twitter (X) or Tik-Toc and see the comments of soccer fans from all over the world as they experience bar-b-que and real (?) Tex-Mex food with jalapeno peppers with a Scofield index of 1,000,000 or more.

Watch as they go into Buc-ees or a HEB grocery store for the first time. You get comments like ‘the bathrooms were so clean, you could eat off the floor’ or ‘we never saw so much food.’

Most of the media seems to focus only the bad on our country, and it is not surprising that foreigners come over here with a pre-conceived idea that we are all drugged up killers living in slums with rotten teeth and lots of guns. The ‘lots of guns’ comments might be correct, but most of the country is a nice place with friendly people. Even if we do have guns.

The media misses the stories of strangers talking to people from other countries or trying to help them with any of their questions of concerns. Some guy named ‘Freddy’ from Germany has nearly a million followers reading his blogs and posts as he travels to New Orleans (why does everyone throw beads?) and then to a Waffle House at 1AM.

A Waffle House at 1AM is something I recommend to everyone to experience before they die. Put this on your bucket list. Be sure and get there before 2AM before the drunks arrive since the atmosphere starts to change once they arrive, sometimes not for the better.

Reading the comments and posts from these folks makes me appreciate just how much freedom we as Americans have as compared to other countries around the world.

If you are amazed at the display of our food in grocery stores or the fact that we wave flags everywhere or that you can speak freely and buy a gun in most parts of the country, then I wonder if those rights aren’t open to you at home?

We are the first to tell you we aren’t perfect and have a long way to go to cure our societal ills but give us credit where it is due. Could an entrepreneur such as Elon Musk achieve his successes in any other country except America?

In countries where class distinction still exists, are individuals with new ideas accepted and encouraged regardless of the family history of the individual? We need to promote individualized thinking for the creations it produces. Our 250 years of history has inventions and discoveries from all races and sexes over the years.

These inventions, ideas and innovations are years ahead of the rest of the world and should be explained to all our children to encourage them to strive to keep what we have that impresses our World Cup visitors…before we lose it.

 

See you next week…Peary

 

 

 

 

 

TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION

 

TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION ….

On July 4, 1776, 56 men pledged their lives and fortunes by signing what we now call The Declaration of Independence that started our country on the path to independence from Great Britain.

Had any of these men been caught by the British, they would have been tried as traitors and then executed. This was a serious commitment.

So, we have managed to survive as a nation for 250 years. But I ask you, are we really making any progress to that concept of ‘the pursuit of happiness?’

If I ran any of the companies I had been involved with over my 68-year business career like the federal government does, I would most certainly be broke. Since our federal debt exceeds our gross domestic product by double, in essence we are broke.

For example, you would think those in charge would be astute enough to apply common sense to the departments they manage to eliminate fraud and waste. I suggest to you that a large amount of our government debt is directly attributable to waste and fraud. Wouldn’t you think the head of the Social Security Department would want to know how many people over the age of 105 were still receiving benefits? This cannot nor should be a very long list to review for accuracy.

How many people are listed on our voter rolls more than once? How many people on our voter rolls vote more than once? Isn’t our right to vote one of the basic fundamentals of our nation and our rights as an American? Shouldn’t this be one of the best secured and accurate lists needed to maintain our republic? If it isn’t then how can we consider ourselves anything other than a ‘banana’ republic?

I do not look down on anyone who needs food stamps or any type of assistance. I think we need to be able to support those who cannot help themselves. What I do object to is welfare recipients having multiple accounts and gaming the system for many thousands of dollars a month while laughing at hard working people doing honest labor. Every dollar stolen by fraud and deception is a dollar that could be used to help someone else. Who watches over these accounts and attempts to verify their accuracy?

It appears to me that NGO’s and a lot of charities obtain a government check to perform certain duties and responsibilities without any follow up to see their success or progress towards achieving their intended goals.  ‘Give em’ the money and forget about them seems to be the rule of the day. Who audits these grants and programs on any sort of regular basis?

Here’s my last one and most ridiculous. A CIA officer who had not been vetted for his educational history was allowed to check out over 30 MILLION dollars which he claimed was needed for pay outs concerning his work. Nice job if you can get it, right? I blame this guy’s boss, who should have said… ‘hey, wait a minute, lets look at this withdrawal and see what it is used for and how effective it is’. No, nothing like that happened and the guy was discovered with over 32 million in cash and gold in his house. Guess his defense will be he was just looking for the right party to give it to.

Now to put an end to this rant I want to state that I write letters very often asking these kinds of questions to my elected representatives.

You know what I get? Zip, zero, nada, nothing.

Oh, I often get a sugary form letter saying so and so who really appreciates hearing from one of their constituents. Or I might get a call from some intern/junior clerk telling me how much my letter meant to them.

What I don’t get are any answers to my questions as to why we don’t see major fraud and abuse cases resulting in jail or arrests. When I ask what is the expected outcome of some governmental hearing which can be seen every day on the news like a soap opera or reality show, you get no information from anyone.   

I see sweetheart deals, with reduced or dismissed charges based upon race, sex, gender and or economic considerations, not based upon the right and wrong part of the law.

What I don’t see is a sense of fairness for those of us out here in the heartland of this country who have no friends in high places.

But we still get taxed all the same don’t we?

See you next week…Peary Perry

BOOKAHOLIC

 

BOOKAHOLIC…..?

 

“My name is Peary Perry”.
“Welcome, Peary Perry”.
“I am a bookaholic.”
“Welcome, Peary Perry, bookaholic.”

I suppose that’s how it would go if there was such an organization. I probably need to join some kind of social group to be able to restrain my book buying, book saving compulsion. I can’t seem to help myself and am in danger of spinning totally out of control.

When we moved some months ago, I know we had more boxes containing books than any other item in our house. I have quit trying to count how many we have scattered all around each room. I tell myself I’m going to stop buying new ones and start reading the old ones, but somehow that just never seems to happen. Long ago I stopped feeling huge amounts of guilt because I have books which were bought twenty years ago that haven’t been read as of yet.

Now, to be honest most of the books I have not read are all reference books of some sort, not novels. Well, that’s not totally true; in fact, that’s a lie. Years ago, I signed up for some program called “The 100 Greatest Books of All Time.” Each month for 100 months (almost 9 years!) I got a gold edged leather bound book in the mail. Little ditties like ‘War and Peace” and “Tristam Shandy” and that all-time favorite…. “The Peloponnesian War.” Books that you find difficult to pick up and slip off to some quiet corner for an afternoon of light reading enjoyment. All 100 of these came with a synopsis outlining the story and plot. I can’t even bring myself to read those. So, they sat in a bookshelf looking marvelous which would elicit comments from visitors from time to time. Comments such as … “Oh, how nice…I suppose you’ve read all of these?”

I finally figured out that I am not going to live long enough to read these, so I gave them all away. I hope someone reads them. It helps to get rid of some guilt.

I don’t keep novels, once I’ve read them, I tend to pass them along to someone else to enjoy or throw away. My wife reads a lot of the things I happen to like so she gets first dibs and then they go to whoever is interested in the leftovers. She and I differ in our reading beliefs. Once I start a book, I’ll try to finish it unless it’s really, really bad. I mean really, really bad. I keep thinking it might get better if I just wait long enough. She won’t do this. She starts one, and if it stinks, then she has no problem stopping, not going to waste her time. As you can guess, I find this hard to do.

I get on one subject and tend to stay there until I just get sick of it. Take this year, for instance, I had gotten into a group of novels that were some 1000 pages long. I think I did about six of them before I gave up and surrendered. I felt like these people were taking over my life. Then I found a mystery writer and read all thirteen of his books. After the last one, I panicked and found myself online and at Amazon/Kindle searching for the titles in a sort of daze much like some drug addict looking for their next fix. I’ve done Roman history novels, World War I and II novels, spy stuff, murders; English naval novels…just about anything entertaining that I can get my hands on will satisfy my compulsive craving.

I shy away from westerns and science fiction, but everything else is fair game as far as I’m concerned. Historical fiction is the best if it’s done right. Which is hard to do and still be entertaining. My hat is off to writers such as these since it is so difficult to be both factual and entertaining. Try writing about the Donner Pass story and make it readable.

I no longer belong to any book of the month club. I guess they’re still around, but I kept getting things in the mail that weren’t interesting and you have to pay for them or ship them back. Do they even have book clubs anymore? I never really liked the way the pages looked at the ends, like they were torn rather than cut. No one could ever tell me why they looked that way in the first place. I do remember they weren’t all that cheap. Especially if you forgot to mail in the little card each month telling them you didn’t want that month’s selection. Some of their selections were awful, but you still had to pay for them. I’m sure this is how they made their money.

I suppose my addictive habit is somewhat harmless, it keeps me off the streets and out of the bars. Besides, you save more money buying books than you can buying glasses of wine these days. And you still have something to give away.

But, then that’s another story.

See you next week….Peary Perry