From personal privacy to world affairs

It seems that we have no choice but to watch the investigative trauma of the search for the abducted Nancy Guthrie—mother of “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie. The Tucson, Arizona, Sheriff’s Department and our Federal FBI seem to be turning over every approach possible to finding who did it and to determine if 84-year-old Nancy is still alive. Sure, it tugs at our heartstrings to see her famous family members suffer at the loss of a loved one, but there are numerous others, some known to us but mostly unknown, going through similar hard times. We pray to the Lord to deliver us from evil, with “us” meaning others as well as ourselves.

It has been eye-opening for this old guy to note that the signals put out by my heart pacer can be tracked by others. Sure, I have a monitor placed on the headboard of my bed and understood that it was to monitor my heart pacer by someone, far away, to see if things are in order, but I had no clue that it might be monitored by others, such as law enforcement, as I move about day by day. Yes, I realize that my cell phone contacts and messages are available to anyone who might be interested, including my wife, so I conduct those with nothing to hide. Having my heart monitor included in that as public information was a surprise, but that is life in our current interconnected world.

I’m reminded of an office supervisor job that the Air Force assigned to me years ago. I had about six long-time civilian government employees working in my office, keeping information in aircraft flight manuals up to date to keep pilots understanding the complicated aircraft that they were flying. It wasn’t long before I discovered that certain of my assigned employees were also using our government-paid-for phone lines to conduct illicit romances in their spare time. (Cell phones weren’t invented yet!) One of my men also had a business on the side, dealing with real estate, renting to others and keeping up with the maintenance of his rental units. Several were highly insulted when I pointed out that those “official” phone lines were for conducting government business, and they could do their personal business on phone lines that they privately paid for back home. Grumble, grumble, grumble!

Another portion of our news speaks of the huge amount of fraud being uncovered by people taking undeserved proceeds from all too many Federal Programs. For this long-time conversative undeserving people raping government aid programs just shows that our federal government should not be in the business of handing out our hard-earned tax money in the first place. Big government bureaucrats love the power they have in giving handouts to buy their reelection and keep them in power.

Actually, those bureaucrats should be the ones tracking the funds they are responsible for, but that seems to be something that is just too complicated to bother with. They should be tracked and exposed like is happening now, and fired for not doing the job that they are responsible for. President Trump’s DOGE team is exposing their lack of accountability, and although they are civil servant employees, their jobs are evaporating. Sadly, Trump has to be doing it with executive orders, as Democrats in Congress haven’t moved to make that federal law.

I remember the great relationship that this country had with the Muslim-based government in Iran before President Carter, a Democrat, let the present 7th-century Shia-based regime take over. The people there were becoming very westernized and enjoying life because of it. Women then lost their rights, and strict Shirai law became forced upon them. It has been fifty-some years, but evidently, so many living there remember and have been demonstrating in the streets to return to what was. It will be interesting to see how our armed forces under Trump, with the aid of our wonderful ally Israel, wipes out the current regime so the people of Iran can become our friends again. The Middle East and the world will be the better for it.

That is how I saw it.