Thank God for Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson

Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson were three of the leading members of a group of individuals whom we call our founding fathers.  Thank God they were there in 1776.  They believed the good of the country came before the good of any individual or any state.  The founding fathers knew that they had to stand together or that their effort would fail.  Too bad that the current group of our elected officials skipped the history class when that ideal was taught.

Those in power today are only concerned about themselves and maybe cutting deals so that their states will be subsidized by the US Treasury.    So much for equal in the sight of the law.

The American people were promised a health reform effort where all parties would be involved and allowed to give imput.  C-Span was suppose to record all the reform discussions.   Hope and change and transparency were the words we heard over and over.  NOT SO FOR HEALTH REFORM.  Two enormous bills in the House and the Senate drafted mostly behind closed doors with no C-Span cameras in sight.

Then, when the Senate could not pass this attempt at reform on the merits of the bill, Uncle Harry Reid closed his doors and opened the checkbook of the US Treasury.  Many Senators believed in the merits of the bill and many opposed.  There were some in the middle who decided to “Sell” their votes so that their states could be put at a financial advantage over other states.  My father told me once that a person who sells themselves for sex are call whores.  So I wonder what we must call those Senators who sold their votes for thirty pieces of silver.  Certainly, they are not patriots because they are not concerned about the country–only themselves and their legacy when they retire.

Again, I say thank God for Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson.  If the current group of politicians were our Founding Fathers, they would have sold themselves to King George and we will all still be subjects of England.

Pookie

How Many Does It Take To Push The Wagon

For those who grew up in the city or in the era after television and computers, you missed one of the greatest thrills of all–riding in you grandfather’s wagon.  The wagon was usually made of wood, about 6ft wide and 12-15 ft long and four huge wooden spoke wheels.   In the fall in the rural south, we use to have hayrides and if you were lucky you might be able to steal a kiss from your sweetheart.

The wagons were usually pulled by two horses or mules who had no trouble with the weight of the riders.  However, have you ever wondered how many it would take to push the wagon.

1–Let’s say there are 20 average size people and 3 are riding and 17 are pushing.  No problem the wagon rolls smoothly.

2–Now assume three get tired of pushing so it is now 6 riding and 14 pushing.  A little straining but still it rolls.

3–4 more decide to get on the wagon and join their friends.  10 riders-10 pushers.  Now the pushers are really straining.  The weight of 10 plus the wagon.

4–The 10 riders are having a party and not excerting any effort except to drink beer and party.  They convince 5 more to ride and have fun.  Don’t worry the 5 pushers left will take care of all of them.

5–Now we have 15 riders and 5 pushers.  The five pushers are really strong and do their best but the wagon only moves a little and it causes great strain on the pushers.

6–Finally, the 5 pushers lose their strength and can’t make the wagon move an inch.   At this point the 5 stop trying and sit under the tree.

7–So the 15 riders now are sitting still and wondering why in the hell is somebody not pushing the wagon so that they can continue to party.  But the wagon just sits in the road and everything comes to a halt.

Too many riders and not enough pushers will make any wagon come to  a halt.  Same as with the US government spreading the wealth around.  When there is no incentive for the pushers to push because there are too many riders, our economy will come to a halt.  It does not matter if the 5% are the strongest and the richest because there is no incentive to work to support those who just want to ride.

An article in today’s Wall Street Journal tells this story more elequently than I can.  If you want to read it, just copy and paste.

Pookie

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122463231048556587.html

Spreading the Wealth

I can not claim credit for this one but thought it was humorous.  A local asked the question in the local newspaper “If Obama wants to share the wealth of those who have with those who do not, how much of the 150 million that Obama raised in September will go to the McCain campaign?

Pookie

Joe the Plumber

Everyone has been talking about Joe the plumber lately.  There now are others who are being singled out as a name and an occupation.   I guess I would be Pookie the insurance man.

I am not too concerned about how Joe is going to vote but I am gravely concerned that a private citizen like Joe would be scrutinized by the media and a political campaign looking for things in Joe’s life that might discredit him.

Joe is not running for office–he is just Joe and has his right to privacy.  The right to privacy is mentioned in 4 of the Bill of Rights.  So why then does the media think they have the right to invade a citizen’s private life?

Maybe I should reread Orville’s “1984″?

Pookie

A Duck Can Not Be An Eagle

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, there is no way it can be an eagle.

This is the way I feel about many politicians.  They do not tell the truth.  They think that we are not aware of what they are actually saying.  Abe Lincoln once said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”

A case in point.  Most people agree that approximately 40% of the people in the US do not pay any income tax.  However, one of the candidates of the two major parties says that 95% of the people in the US will receive a “tax refund” if he is elected President.

I may have missed something in my study of economics and business in college but there is NO WAY a tax refund can be given to a person who did not pay any taxes.  The payment might be called welfare, a government give away or even that catchword of many–a redistribution of wealth, but it is not a Tax Refund.

i wish that those who seek elected office at all levels would  tell us what they believe and what their plans are in plain simple terms and not try to change a duck into an eagle.

Lincoln was right that you can’t fool all the people all the time, but it sure appears to me that the percentage of those who can be fooled all the time is growing.  This concern that I have is that more of our citizens are either uninformed or don’t care.  They may wake up one day expecting to soar like an eagle and realize that they have to be a duck–calm and serene on the top of the water but paddling like hell beneath the water to escape the predators that are constantly after them.

Pookie

10-19-08

My opinions

It has been a while since I have shared my opinions with the internet world but I think that it is time to start again.  So many things have happened since I last posted a blog and I have had time to think about how I would solve some of the thorny issues of our times.

Some of the issues that I am going to talk about in the very near future are as follows:

1-Immigration problem and my solution

2-Why I am concerned about the short term for our country

3-What I think about the candidates for Pres and VP

4-Final arrangements

I am going to close this posting by sharing a quote that I recently heard.

A government strong enough to give you everything that you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.        President Gerald Ford

When did immigrants become aliens?

Unless you are an American Indian (those of you who are politically correct will say Native Americans), some one in your family at some time between 1492 and today immigrated to the United States. My father always told me that we had American Indian blood in the veins but my wife proved that we were just like a lot of us in that we came from England and Scotland.

When I was growing up, those people who were not born in the town where I lived were considered as being from “off”–as in those people from off. However, in reality we knew that they were immigrants and had moved to our area or our country. During this same time period, everyone knew that an alien was a creature from outer space that arrived in Roswell New Mexico or Grand Junction, TN. These creatures had lots of legs, arms, scaly bodies and could only be killed by our film heroes in the Luez Theater.

Immigrants on the other hand were people who had moved into our country since we are the original melting pot and they had become productive citizens of our localities, states and nation. The federal government even had a Department of Immigration. Immigrants were no big deal because we all came from families who were immigrants.

Now in 2007, we never talk about immigrants. We talk about aliens either legal or illegal. The dictionary says that an immigrant is a person who leaves one country to live permanently in another. The same dictionary says that an alien is a person who is born in one country and is not a citizen of the second country. So maybe the immigrant planned on becoming citizens and the aliens do not. I do not know when we stopped calling people who moved to the US immigrants and started calling them aliens. Will the government set up a Department of Aliens? Will they ever tell us what really happened in Roswell? If you know Grand Junction, TN, you do not want to share any of its secrets with anyone.

This pondering probably makes no sense to any of you. I am not sure it makes any sense to me. Maybe if immigrants had arrived in Roswell and aliens had come over on the Mayflower and settled the Eastern United States, then maybe this question would never have crossed my mind.

Maybe my father was right and my family arrived at Roswell?

Watermelon Seeds

When I was a young boy growing up in rural West Tennessee in the 1950′s, I remember that one of our favorite summer pleasures was eating watermelons. My grandfather and many others grew their own watermelons; some young boys “borrowed” their melons from their neighbor’s patch; but my father had a grocery store so I got mine at the store.

I can remember many occasions on a hot summer night at church or family gatherings where many watermelons were enjoyed by all. I also can remember one other feature of those memorable summer gatherings–watermelon seed spitting contests.

Yes, as a ritual of a young boy in the 50′s, you had to be able to spit your watermelon seeds. There were contests for distance; accuracy–a tin can was often the target; and even sometimes we played war with watermelon seeds as our ammo. This was in an era before the dominance of TV or computers and before we all were too busy to enjoy life.

The seeds in our watermelons were always the same size and were most definitely were black. Those slippery little suckers were just the right size for our spitting contest and made a beautiful noise upon hitting the sides of those tin cans. It was a wonderful way to conclude a summer evening.

But what has happened?????? All the watermelon seeds that I see now are small white ones that are very very small. Someone will probably tell me that the watermelons are now hybrid varieties and they have been genetically altered so that the seeds are small. I protest!!!! How in the hell can you have a ole fashion watermelon seed spitting contest without the true seeds—those slippery black ones that I remember so well.

First One

This is my first post as a new blogger.  I decided to use Pookie’s Pondering as the name of my blog because Pookie is the name my youngest daughter gave me in 1992 and now it is the name that my grandchildren call me.

I also ponder many things about life, love, and all the important things of nature.  Sometimes I ponder about things that do not make any sense.   For example, have you ever wondered how an apple would taste if it was called a banana.  I have and so have threee of the members of my immediate family.

I must stop now because now that I am an “official blogger” I must ponder whether I now must go to the local, state, national, and international blogger’s conventions.