IS YOUR C\GLASS HALF FULL OR??

 

IS YOUR GLASS HALF FULL OR ?

I have a friend that grew up very differently from myself. He is black and I am white. I grew up in the 40’s and 50’s in Texas. I worked with black men at various jobs but each of us ignored each other. When I was in the army, I roomed with a black guy from Louisiana and we both discovered we had more in common with each other than we had differences.

I cannot identify with my current friend as I have not had his experiences. I do not know what kind of problems he has suffered due to his skin color. I can only recall once or twice in my entire life where I felt unwanted because of my white skin. I do admit that a white kid in the 60’s had a better shot at various things than a black kid in the same era. I am not, nor have I ever been a racist unlike my parents.

I have raised my sons to appreciate people for their character not their status or skin color. I am proud to say that I have many friends of various nationalities, religions and cultures that I am glad to know. I have been in a number of prisons with church groups, and I have the same problem with convicted people. I don’t know the reason they were there or their circumstances. What advantage did I have that they didn’t? I’ve never been convicted and had to suffer all that conflict or the cause of their conflict and issues with society.

I have had very few people in my life who encouraged me or tried to help me. My parents were certainly not there for me; they were divorced as soon as I left to go to Korea for the army. The FBI told me about it when I turned in the paperwork to go to OCS. I don’t think we were ever close.

All this to say, life is hard. Mankind is hard. Humans have had conflicts and inequality since the beginning of time. There have been wars since the dawn of time. Countries invade other countries and cause changes that affect everyone. There isn’t any country or society in history that has been perfect. Power, envy and jealousy are the corruptors of all mankind in every society that has existed or exists at this time. If there is any country in which this doesn’t exist, I certainly don’t know about it.

All countries and all civilizations have made mistakes. We have all made mistakes. Slavery was a mistake. Lots of things have needed correction throughout the years. But we have made progress over the past 250 years. We let women vote and own property. We passed multiple civil rights acts. We still have a long way to go. The system obviously needs tweaking and adjusting as the years go by. It seems frustrating and slow, but we are a civilization of some 350 million people with different experiences and different viewpoints from each other. Ever serve on a committee and try to get something agreed to the first time? Then you know what I mean.

We all know the problems; there isn’t any sense in repeating them over and over. There is error, misjustice, unfairness, prejudice and bias on all sides of the political spectrum. We are all the sum of our own experiences along with our successes and our failures. We have to live with ourselves and the decisions both good and bad that we have made in our lives. Did we help or hurt more people throughout our years? Those are the kinds of thoughts that should concern us in our days ahead.

I prefer to look at the glass as half full and see the positive side of life. Just look at these monumental events that have happened in our world in the past 150 years or so:

Wright brothers first flight- 1903

Woman’s suffrage- 1920

End of World War II- 1945

First organ transplant- 1954

Civil rights act- 1964

Man on the moon- 1969

DNA discovered- 1953

Berlin wall comes down- 1989

Insulin discovered – 1921

UN created- 1945

Polio vaccine discovered – 1955

We can play the blame game all day and night long with each other and either side has both good and bad points of view. I choose to look at the positive sides of our world and try to communicate with those who don’t see things the same way that I do. Unfortunately, the media of today operates on a mantra of “if it bleeds, it reads”. So, the more blood, gore, sex, and negative information that can be put out there, the more their advertisers are seen. The more discord there is, the more attention it draws to the source.  Follow the money, see for yourself.

I believe we all have more in common than we have differences so I will not refuse to discuss with those with opposite opinions. I think talking about all sides is healthy and good for all parties.

Having only one side and refusing to consider any other points of view is counterproductive in my humble opinion.

See you next week. Subscribe today….it’s free…Peary Perry

 

COMPUTERS...HELP!!!!

 

Computers, Help !!!

 

I often wonder how we ever accomplished any business in the years before computers. It seems to me that a great deal of our entire daily existence is totally dependent upon one operating system or another. From the programmed coffee maker in the morning to the television set at night, when computers and their inner workings go bad, our lives seem to be placed into levels of stress not achieved twenty five years ago. I grew up in a ‘dingless’ society. A childhood in which nothing made a ‘ding’ noise, except maybe the doorbell, but we didn’t get many visitors, so that was not a problem. In today’s computer world, everything ‘bings’. The doorbell, the refrigerator, freezer, dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, computer, cell phone, microwave, oven, clock, smoke detector, car door, GPS directions. Ding, ding, ding all day long. You don’t even know where they come from. My weather app has a clock alarm attached to it (who knew?). This morning a new ‘ding’ starts at 6am. I’ve never heard this ‘ding’ before’. I don’t need anymore ‘reminder: dings in my life. I have enough, thank you very much. Where are the directions to shut this off?

Is this progress?.

I’m not certain all of the progress we have made is necessarily for the good.

I don’t know about you, but I’d like everyone in my family to leave my computer alone, don’t mess with it, don’t change anything, don’t try to improve it….just let it be. I like the way I have it set up and know how to use it for the things I need. If I want any changes, I’ll ask for them, otherwise just don’t do anything to it. As far as I’m concerned these things are very very fragile. There is nothing like typing a letter, report or a column that you are very proud of and then have it disappear into the far reaches of the universe never to be seen again. You have no idea what you did to cause this catastrophic event to occur and you have no idea how to resurrect what you have lost. I get the same feeling when I get a letter from the IRS.

Last weekend I’m sitting at my desk at home, happily working away, when I keep getting some type of upgrade notice from Microsoft. I didn’t want the upgrade and foolishly clicked on the delete button. Of course this not only deleted the upgrade, but apparently every thing else associated with it disappeared as well, including all of my previous operating files. After several attempts to start over I go to the Microsoft website and learn how to download the trial version of the software that I have erased. This is where the hard part comes in. To download requires me to type in a 35-character password or product key. Unfortunately for me the 8’s and the b’s look the same so I have to retype and retype until I get it correct. I also have a problem with the 0’s and the O’s ….of course you only get so many shots at this task since the ‘lockout’ notice appears if you enter the info in error too many times. Once you get the code typed in just right, then you have to wait for several very long (I mean long) minutes for the program to download. Meanwhile you’re afraid to leave and answer the phone or go to the bathroom in fear that while you’re gone, some secret important message will appear telling you to do something that will get you further along. Failing to do whatever it says may cause irreparable harm of some sort or harm to some poor baby seal or a 1,000-year-old tree in France. In fact, I’m certain that anything you do wrong will greatly increase global warming. Everything you do will increase global warming as I am told by ‘experts’. I think they ‘predicted we would all be dead by 2015.

Back to my computer issue.

I have no clue as to whether or not I’m actually making any progress or not. The little hourglass doesn’t give me any indication of how much progress (if any) I’ve made or how much further I have to go. I’m determined to do this myself and not call anyone (much less my children) for help. This has now become a personal point of pride with me. Kind of like going back to the health club for the first time in five years. You always think you can still bench press 150 pounds, no matter how old you are. You can’t, don’t try.

Finally a little note appears and tells me that it is extracting files. Yea! Panic sets into my brain. To me extraction means the same as removing, I think I’m supposed to be adding programs and files, not removing or as they say…extracting anything. But the clock is ticking and there is activity so I best sit and wait in agonizing silence while it does whatever it is trying to do. I should not have had that last cup of coffee. No, I think I’ll have a double expresso.

Finally it says that it is finished, but nothing appears on my computer. Instead, it has downloaded everything to my laptop since I had it on as well to help me in my quest for reinstatement. Once again, a wave of defeat sweeps over me and I’m tempted to call someone, anyone and ask for assistance. I shut down the laptop and go back to the big PC and try once more, holding my breath and praying that somehow, some way it will all work out and everything will be back as it was. I’m not certain God acts on computer repair prayer requests and tend to think He treats them like requests from football coaches. Someone has to win and someone has to lose, so He just lets things work themselves out on their own.

However, hallelujah….I’m saved ...everything is back and working …for the moment anyway. I have no idea if I did the right thing or if God took pity on me and fixed it for me. I think the prayers helped; I certainly can’t see that they hurt anything.

Note to self- increase my church tithe next week.

 

See you next week…Peary Perry

PAPER TIGERS..BAH HUMBUG..

 

PAPER TIGERS…BAH HUMBUG…

In my 84 years on earth, I have had 3 separate government contracts. One with a city, one with a state and one with the federal government. They were not easy to obtain and required a lot of time and energy to maintain. All of them required performance.

In all of these I had numerous inspectors and overseers from the agency we were contracted to do the work for. Were these inspectors always fair about their assignments and inspections? Did they seem silly about some of their rules and requirements? Yes in some cases they did.  But they were through, I’ll give them that.

 You don’t have enough time to listen to my stories about this. One example…I was written up and cited by the Department of Defense because we had punched a hole in the approval certificate for one of our employees holding a secret clearance for a government contract. It made no sense, but we still had to rectify the situation.

They inspected us from one end to the other to see if we were billing correctly, operating as was called for according to the contract and were we as a company fulfilling the terms and objectives of the contract. These inspections came regularly throughout the contact periods.

Today, we are besieged with daily doses of fraud and abuse in every state and in every agency. Voter fraud, dead social security recipients, charities without any offices or benefit to anyone other than its owner. And the list goes on day after day.

I’m tired of it, aren’t you?

A 24-year-old young man named Nick Shirley has started exposing massive amounts of fraud costing the US taxpayers billions of dollars. His life has been threatened, and he has been harassed in many places throughout the country. California has passed a law making it illegal to expose fraud and corruption in certain cases. Total insanity if you ask me. This kid should receive a medal, not fear for his life over exposing massive amounts of corruption in our system.

My question is simple, where were the auditors and agency supervisors who should have been monitoring these contracts and why did it only get exposed by Mr. Shirley? How do they get renewed year after year without producing any verifiable results?

In one case, a hospice provider billed over 57 million dollars before it came out that none of the people enrolled had died. Isn’t that the purpose of a hospice to care for the dying? Was this company some type of miracle worker group who managed to heal all of their patients. I think not. Hospices should not have folks getting healed and walking out, these are facilities where terminally ill patients go to spend their last days. They are not recreation centers.

In another situation, he found a charity that had received 87.9 million tax dollars and was on record as having 7900 members receiving services. His visit to the facility proved otherwise in a short period of time. Even the employees said the number was incorrect, but they were still billing $1600 for each member each year.   

Obviously both children’s and adult day care facilities should have a physical presence other than a restaurant or a bakery address. It also should have children or older adults with supervisors. It should not be closed to anyone asking for information on how to enroll their child or elderly adult. Enrollment applications should be readily available if asked for. The person asking for this information should not be treated in a hostile manner or asked to leave. Nor should they be threatened by police action or bodily injury if they don’t leave the building.

Where are the contract auditors for these billions of tax dollars. Why did it take a civilian young man to bring this to our attention? Where is the Dept. of Justice or regulatory agency? Once these contracts get approved and started, who does the follow-up to determine if they are effective and operating in accordance with the terms spelled out in the contracts?

All of us can tune into the congressional hearing of the day for which we can watch a total clown show in which nothing gets accomplished except camera time for the participants. Any congressperson asking a question is often answered with a vague response or the famous line.... ‘I’ll have to get that information and get back to you on that.’ Which of course never happens. Some of these participants cannot recall their annual salary or any statistic relating to their operational responsibility. Most of the information is readily available on the internet if it is needed for review. None of these people are minimum wage employees, although they should be, in my opinion. If you don’t know the basics about your agency or your department, perhaps the Golden Arches could take you on as a fry cook.

I have written and asked these questions of our members of congress, both in the senate and the house without any explanation. The same as any inquiry to the FBI.

Oh, you get a nice letter back with glowing praises for having contacted their office and how much they appreciate taking the time to write, but these letters are generic in nature and can cover any topic being questioned. Most likely produced by some low-ranking employee or intern. They never answer any direct questions,

and you get sugar coated responses such as these:

“We are looking into those kinds of problems”.

“It was so good of you to bring this to my attention.”

“We are making progress in these issues”.

“If I need more information, I will call on you to help”.

Blab…Blab…Blab

As you might expect nothing gets done and the fraud and abuse marches onward.

Elected politicians should be put on notice that we are tired of this and want to see results, not words from paper tigers.

Show us some backbone and do something to instill confidence in our government.

We are losing our patience with you.

 

See you next week….Peary Perry