Letters From North America By Perry Peary

Too much to write about, too little time. I need to get up earlier and stay up later.

Anyway, here I was primed to start this week off on three instances of governmental stupidity when what to my wondering eyes should appear?

Three more. Much more interesting than the first ones.

You ready?

Here we go.

In the sovereign state of California, a state senator proposed a bill that would give each and every child born a savings account of $500. His program would then encourage parents to contribute an additional $50 per month to this account for the next 18 years.

At the end of this period, the child would have about $17,500 assuming the annual growth rate was around 5 percent interest.

The child could then use the money for college, down payment on a house or for a retirement account. Since there are about 566,000 new children born each year in this state, the amount due for this program would be in excess of $28,000,000 each year not counting the cost of administrating the program, which I am certain would be a huge chunk of change as well.

Now, here are my questionsŠ.how does inflation get taken into consideration? I mean, five years from now, $500 won't be the same as it is today, will it? So, perhaps the amount has to go to $750 per newborn. You can see where this is going, can't you? Secondly, who decides when an emergency arises and the money is needed? Lots of parents have family emergencies, surgeries, deaths, accidents, finances and so on. Can the money be used for these before the kid gets to be 18?

The state is already operating in the red to begin with. How much more can the taxpayers stand before they decide they have had enough and start to hear an new calling that sounds like, “Go East, young manŠgo East.”

New York City has proposed making the use of the N word illegal. We all know what the N word is. We just don't use it. This is done out of consideration and civility to an entire race of people in this country. We do not condone those who do choose to use such a word. It isn't a proper word to be used in our society. Do we need a law to legislate our actions in regards to the use of this word? Hardly. Let's rely on common sense and good judgement.

Florida has filed legislation to stop the use of the words “illegal aliens” from being used in that state. The state legislator who filed the bill objects to the word aliens and would prefer to use the term “immigrant'.” She feels the terminology should be “undocumented immigrants” rather than illegal aliens.

Neither of these word laws has any punishment provisions attached to them. So, what's the use of drafting them and working on getting them to the legislators for a vote in the first place? Doesn't the City of New York and the State of Florida have more important things on their plate than something such as this?

There are plenty of words I'd like to see banned or not used. I hate it that I can't have my grandchildren in the room while we watch a movie or some late night television program because of the language that spews from the mouths of the actors. Last night I was watching a biography on a famous movie star on a regular network channel. About half the time, you couldn't understand his comments since they kept beeping over his profanity. I object to this kind of language being allowed into my home. What about a ban on those words? I'm certain I'm not the only person who is offended at these words.

Of course, all of this is political posturing and symbolic meant to show the masses that their elected officials are actually involved and care about something. As usual, it's an opportunity for someone to get their name and photograph in the paper.

In reality, it's a paper tiger.

Things of this nature generate great press and make the various politicians look and sound authentic, but nothing will come from their ravings. They can't ban certain words or punish us for using certain words since that is a violation of our constitutional rights.

But, that's not the real reason they won't attempt anything greater than a symbolic gesture. This so called paper tiger.

How would the hip hop music industry exist along with the movie and television production companies if we started actually trying to bring some sense of civility and decency back into our present day entertainment media?

Not going to happen, at least not anytime soon. Too much money and too much power.

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