Big Daddy started the day early having set his alarm clock (MADE IN JAPAN) for 6am. While his coffeepot (MADE IN CHINA) was perking, he shaved with his
electric razor (MADE IN HONG KONG). He put on a dress shirt (MADE IN SRI LANKA) designer jeans (MADE IN SINGAPORE) and tennis shoes (MADE IN KOREA).

After cooking his breakfast in his new electric skillet (MADE IN INDIA) he sat down with his calculator (MADE IN MEXICO) to see how much he could spend today. After setting his watch (MADE IN TAIWAN) to the radio (MADE IN INDIA) he got in his car (MADE IN GERMANY) filled it with GAS (from Saudi Arabia) and continued his search for a good paying AMERICAN JOB.

At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day checking his computer (Made In Malaysia) John decided to relax for a while. He put on his sandals (MADE IN BRAZIL) poured himself a glass of wine (MADE IN FRANCE) and turned on his TV (MADE IN INDONESIA) and then wondered why he can’t find a good paying job in AMERICA AND NOW HE’S HOPING HE CAN GET HELP FROM A PRESIDENT

(MADE IN KENYA)

I have watched the news this week and have gotten steadily madder and madder.  For those of you not watching the news, let me catch you up to date.  This week alone, politicians have decided that if your child is overweight you can and will be sent to jail for neglect, you now have to pay double for ambulances if you are overweight, and you now no longer have to freedom to decide if you want to live through an automobile accident.

Let’s start with the first one.  They arrested a mom and charged her with neglect simply because her child was overweight. The mom worked 2 jobs just to get her son in a better neighborhood.  It was not a great neighborhood but it was better than the ones the government offered for low income families.  Since she worked 2 jobs that put her over the income limits for federal help programs but not enough income to be able to afford many luxuries we all take foregranted.  When she was arrested they told her she should have found a way to get the son some help for his weight problem. The child was not abused, just overweight.  Did the government even check to see if the child had a medical problem that could make him overweight?  I have watched moms get arrested for buying drugs while their children were in the car only to have the courts give the children right back to the parent. But here we have this mom doing everything in her power to make a better life
for her son and she is imprisoned simply because her child is overweight.  Did the government offer to make her neighborhood safer so her child could play outside without the fear of being shot or given drugs or molested or kidnapped?  Where is the justice in this????

Secondly, they decided that if you weigh over a certain amount you will now be charged double for the use of an ambulance if you have a medical emergency.  Now not only do you get charged the already overpriced fee of using an ambulance in an emergency you are getting charged double if you don’t fit the role of a supermodel.  Many of us who are overweight have medical conditions that make us gain weight.   Before you judge someone for being fat, live  a lifetime in their shoes, read their medical history, and think of all the things you have done in your life that you don’t want to be judged on.  I was a size 3 for years.  I conformed to the supermodel looks.  I judged other people by their looks.  Then I got injured and had to trouble walking and getting out of bed.  The medicines they prescribed along with the lack of exercise led to a weight gain. Suddenly I was one of those people I had judged.  I believe it was God’s way of adjusting my attitude and
way of thinking.  Whose business is it if we are overweight?  Why is it suddenly a national emergency because we are overweight?  What possible threat are we making to the way of live for everyone else?  Does my being fat endanger your way of life or your freedom?  I think not.

Years ago they issued the no seat belt law.  Now they passed the law that says they can stop you just because you are not wearing a seat belt.  Do they take into account your health problems.  I can tell you that no they do not.  I have a back injury.  I waited for years to get it operated on because I wanted to wait for medical breakthroughs so I would lessen my chance of being paralyzed.  Little did I know that all that waiting was actually hurting me.  Once you allow a nerve to stay pinched for so long, the surgery to unpinch the nerve doesn’t do much good.  I had the nerve unpinched and several discs removed only to find it did not relieve my back pain.  When I wear a seatbelt, it pulls me back against the seat which puts me in severe pain. A simple trip to the grocery store or to visit family puts me in so much pain that I have to take muscle relaxers and pain pills and stay in bed for the next week. Upon talking to people in the waiting room of my
neurosurgeon’s office, I found I am not alone in this problem.  Did the government take that into consideration when they made these laws?  They say they are doing it for our own safety.  I believe it should be a personal decision if you want to take the chance of surviving an severe automobile accident.  They say seatbelts will save our lives.  While they may keep us alive, there is a very good chance that if you are in a major accident you will be in a coma or have a severe brain injury or spinal injury and have to be a burden both finacially and emotionally to our families for years afterwards. Shouldn’t that be a decision made in each individual home rather than by a few politicians whose families can afford to take care of them?

Who gets to decide where it all stops?  Will they begin to weigh you before you take a taxi ride?  Will they measure your breast and waist size before you are allowed to enter stores?  Will they find a deserted island to ship all of us fat and old people to simply so we will not be an embarrassment to the politicians? As I said, where does it end?

Okay I have stated my gripe for the year.  I just wanted to know if anyone else feels as I do.  Am I the only one who feels that our personal decisions should be just that: personal and not political?

This is ages old, but running ring around the rosie again.
Let’s say I break into your house. . .

A lady wrote the best letter in the Editorials in ages!!! It explains things better than all the baloney you hear on TV.

Her point:

Recently, large demonstrations have taken place across the country, protesting the fact that Congress is finally addressing the issue of illegal immigration.

Certain people are angry that the U.S. might protect its own borders, might make it harder to sneak into this country and, once here, to stay indefinitely.

Let me see if I correctly understand the thinking behind these protests.

Let’s say I break into your house. Let’s say that when you discover me in your house, you insist that I leave.

But I refuse to leave and I tell you: “I’ve made all the beds and washed the dishes and did the laundry and swept the floors. I’ve done all the things you don’t like to do. I’m hard-working and honest (well, honest except for when I broke into your house, but that’s your fault).

According to my friends in high places:

You are Required
to let me stay in your house.

You are Required

to add me to your family’s insurance plan.

You are Required
to Educate my kids.

You are Required to Provide many other benefits to me & to my family (Yes, my FAMILY — I brought 6 kids with me and there is one more on the way, but don’t worry, my husband will do all of your yard work because he is also hard-working and honest, except for making me break into your house — but only so we could eat).

If you try to call the police or force me out, I will call my friends who will picket your house carrying signs that proclaim my RIGHT to be there. It’s your fault I am here anyway, and only fair that I break in so I will have more rights than you do, because after all, you have a nicer house than I do, and I’m just trying to better myself.

I’m a hard-working and honest, person, except for well, you know, I did break into your house. And oh yeah, I get a free education, where you have to pay your own way through college.(TEEHEE)

And what a deal it is for me!!!

I live in your house, contributing only a fraction of the cost of my keep, and there is nothing you can do about it without being accused of cold, uncaring, selfish, prejudiced, and bigoted behavior..

Oh yeah, one last caveat. I DEMAND that you learn MY LANGUAGE so you can communicate with me. And don’t forget to make sure your forms are in MY language - I need to understand them if I am to use your free legal system to get my rights enforced.

***

People that like this cup of tea are likely to put forth a document saying: “IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT.  Take It Or Leave It.
I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual of their culture.”

John Howard, according to this new-looking document, is Prime Minister of Australia.  He is credited with another quote:  “This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this.  ut once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our Christian beliefs, or Our Way Of Life, I highly encourage you to take advantage of one other great Australian freedom, THE RIGHT TO LEAVE.”

Well, floaters like this document keeps printing is no longer true.  John Howard is no longer Prime Minister of Australia.  According to the news he lost a re election bid BECAUSE of the above views.  Plus, he lost his own seat.

I am forced to the opinion that cutesy documents and slogans merely amuse the masses without doing anything constructive.  The illegal alien issue keeps getting put into cutesy form and passed along in hopes that the idiots on the other side will finally be forced to understand the illegal alien situation and change their votes. but all this cutesy stuff is wasted effort.

This is not a fools versus idiots issue; it is rich people against poor people and poor people don’t have sense enough to vote for themselves, nor will they pool their money together and buy a Senator’s vote like rich people do through special interest coalitions. Consequently the public servants elected to Washington on the virtue of a few misleading slogans spend a few more hours of their time coming up with slogans and excuses that keep them in office while ignoring the wishes of the majority of the voters that put them there.

Put it to a vote and open the register wide:

1. Do you want to go on giving up 20,000,000 American jobs?
2. Do you want one class of people to continue being immune to our laws?
3. Do you want to be saddled with debt so one class of people can have unlimited health care?
4. Do you want your kids to come home with bloodied noses because they can’t learn some strange language?
5. Do you want them to face knives and guns in the hallways, and the laws protecting the ones that are so armed?
6. Do you want an open corridor for crime and drugs

Do we want these things? No — but…

But Hell! Anything other than an honest answer comes from listening to a power slogan or a contemptible excuse. Being cutesy with the rhetoric or stupid enough to listen to excuses will not change the way rich people are putting our money into their pockets. Whether they are working with bailouts or sailouts, we are the losers and we are losing more with every day that passes. For the safety and the security of America we have got to turn every last one of these politicians out of office and vote on principles from this day forward.

This is my 60th Party of the Fourth Part. I remember that first celebration well. This wall-eyed Indian of the First Part stole an old Studebaker pickup and we tore off to town with a bunch of Indian blankets thrown in the back with four of us kids.

There must have been a hundred people in that town, maybe more, it was so big. Our eyes bulged to take in all the celebrations. Drums were booming, brass swirling and pretty girls showing off gleaming legs. From an open Cadillac somebody was throwing candy out to the crowd. Wall-eyed Joe weaved us through the crowd as if he’d been living in town all his life. Indians couldn’t vote back then and they couldn’t buy firewater either, but good old Joe brought home a big box full of 4/5ths in various names and colors. But most importantly, he brought home four hundred pound chunks of pure ice! Each of these were wrapped in blankets and us four younguns had the privilege of making sure those blankets did not fall off.

In spite of temptation the three Indians up front remained cold sober until we got back. The ice was divided up, and the bottles disposed of according to some system I did not care enough to inquire into. I took our chunk of ice home to Mama. We lived in a mud hut back then, with no electricity, and with no lamps either for that matter. But we did have a big back porch that two dozen people could sit on and still leave lots of room for dancers. Watermelons showed up, along with a lot of other things I can’t remember, except they were good. Me and two other boys were put to cranking the ice cream machine. We just about wore it out, we cranked it so fast.

Suddenly it all came together. Ice cream, bread pudding, banana pudding, cakes, pies, beans and tortillas, no lettuce or tomatoes, I remember that. But goodness, oh we had it, and the elders danced and stomped and Daddy wasn’t even mad at them when they swooped Mama up and jumped her around the porch, jumping and screaming to be let go.

The sun was far over in the sky when I asked why we were celebrating. “It’s the Fourth,,, the Fourth of July.”

Why are we celebrating the Fourth of July?

And the answer came back… “What difference does it make?”

To this day I have not heard anything that cleared the matter up any better than that plug of information did.

So, today is the 3rd and I’m full of years with a peck of wisdom too. Since the Declaration of Independence was approved on the 2nd of July in 1776 and the signing finished on the 3rd, it was decided that we would have a Fourth of July party this evening.

The theme will be red, white and blue.  We will read the Declaration of Independence and begin rejoicing with watermelons, potato chips, grilled hot dogs, rice and chili.  To make everything perfect we’ve even invited a few guests to fill up the yard.  Thus we will be celebrating and it doesn’t make any difference at all what all the stomping and hollering is about.