Odds and ends and things I'm at odds with

Hi neighbors. I hope a few of you caught the three-night mini-series "Tut" this week. If not, tonight they are to show all six hours back-to-back if you want to tape it.

As television shows depicting actual historic figures, they brought a better than most effort to the screen for authenticity and accuracy.

Of course, no one knows much about The Boy King anyway. He remained buried for 3,000 years before his tomb was discovered. If you don't know much about him, other than seeing his death mask on television for the last few decades; you might want to do some research prior to watching the show.

I was pleasantly surprised as they integrated what little was known about him into a believable fiction movie.

I would recommend it for the scenery, the actors and the script itself. A good show and one I think any historian would feel OK with.

This week I was freed of medical appointments, other than a quick trip to the lab to visit the leeches.

My good friend Doris called to let me know she has bought a car! Free at last, she noted she had been driving all over everywhere -- well everywhere in Vernon County. I'm glad she got her wheels back. I have been without a vehicle at times and I know it brings on a great feeling of cabin fever!

As a retired person I was a little upset to hear about planned cutting of Social Security to go into effect in 2017. I seem to remember that the threat to Social Security benefits is always a dog in the fight at every national election. Now the Baby Boomers are named as the ones who will break the bank on Social Security and drive the United States to a Greece-like bankruptcy.

As I recall, it has been those same Baby Boomers who have filled the banks with money taken from every check they ever earned and sent directly to Uncle Sam. Now we are ready to take our money back and the government says it is no longer ours, and maybe no longer exists!

Well, where did it go? How many hands does our Social Security Tax money pass through on its way to the federal banks?

I fear there are more politicians' hands in the money pot taking money out than there were working hands putting money into the pot. Over time, Social Security sat safely put aside. We all know what available money does to otherwise wise men and women. If there is unspent money in the treasury -- why not spend it?

This potential disaster is a grand example of why not. If you spend all of your savings and find yourself living from paycheck to paycheck, and you lose your job -- what will you do? The settlers had an answer. If you need something, make it; make do with what you have; or do without.

Another arrow already taunt on the political bow is Medicare. It seems no one can contain his or her eagerness to do away with Medicare. And why not? Don't we have a national insurance plan that all can participate in? Why do we need Medicare if we (our government) can offer an alternative plan?

One good reason is Medicare is paid for by taxes. It is funded. True, big government has set up Medicare to not be very well regulated, with practically no oversight, and doesn't address the needs of America's elderly citizens.

The potential to take away an already funded program and replace it with a non-funded program would be silly. Unless, however, the government could make signing up for the new national policy mandatory and fund it through additional taxes. Sadly, that sounds very much like what the plan now in place was designed to do.

We don't need bigger government oversight.

Any time a bill is presented that is to bring a law into effect; the Congress (or the president acting on his own) should have to prove the need for that law, how that law will be enforced, and how the funding for the law and its enforcement will be paid for. I don't think these simple questions have been answered adequately since the 1950s!

I do not trust the federal, state, county or city governments to rule fairly or justly, or to rule without accounting for their actions.

Until the next time friends, remember, the bigger a government grows, the less effective it becomes and the more likely it is to become totalitarian over its citizens. Don't forget to read your history books.