The Next Great Idea

I don't waste my time with reality, I'm a dreamer. Some of my friends think my head is in a cloud. It's actually above the clouds where the sun is shining. While some dwell on the idea that my "Boomer" generation is the last great gift to the world I'd like to remind them that no one thought the "Greatest Generation" could be equalled either, but it's been done.

Now it's up to the next generation to leave us in the dust. I've heard the predictions that our children will be the first generation to be worth less than their parents. That's hogwash, give them a few years, they'll catch up and pass us with ease.

A few thousand years ago someone invented the wheel. Now you have to buy four of them or your car won't go anywhere.

Sorry for the big leap but in 1887 Heinrich Hertz was the first to detect radio waves by causing a spark to leap across a gap that generated electromagnetic waves.

Guglielmo Marconi took it a step further when he invented the spark transmitter with antenna
in 1894.

He started the world first radio factory four years later and five years after that General Electric made a voice broadcast ove the North Atlantic. The first coast to coast radio program was "The Dodge Victory Hour" starring Will Rogers and Al Jolson in 1928. Radio golden age was from 1935-50 but it still thrives today.

GE began a regular television broadcast in 1928 and the rest is history. When we least expect greatness someone proves us wrong.

NASA started the Mercury Space Program in 1959 with seven original astronauts and in 1961 Alan Sheppard became the first American in space. John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth in 1962 and Neil Armstrong the first on the moon in 1969.

We've always found a way to create something new and exciting, something that baffles the mind and makes us say, "why didn't I think of that."

Dr. Martin Cooper took early cellular phone technology and invented the first hand held cell phone in 1973.

Thanks to German scientist Konrad Ruse' invention of the first programmable computer in 1939, Bill Gates and Paul Allen were able to found Microsoft in 1975 and take the idea of personal computing to a whole different level.

For every one who worries about the future, predicts woeful things around the next corner or collects canned food in a closet there's someone else with a vision, an idea, a dream that will lift us all above the clouds where the sun is shining.

We Need Government

If I hear one more person say government is too big, government cannot tell me what to do, government should not be mixed up in our lives, I'm going to scream. This poses a problem for me because I've never screamed before in my life. I may have to hire a government official to scream for me, after all there are so many of them just doing nothing but scheming different ways to take our money. At least that's the opinion of the "tea party" movement which seems obsessed with whining about paying taxes for any reason whatsoever.

One day a long time ago our founding fathers decided to break away from an oppressive British government because we were being unfairly taxed without representation. We staged something called the American Revolution and formed out own government around something called the constitution of the United States.

Today the only document mis quoted more than the Bible is the U.S. Constitution and by many of the same people.

To all of those who believe our current administration is trying to take away our rights I say this. Where were you when the "Patriots Act" was crammed down our thoats by President Bush and company. Where were you when we invaded Iraq against the wishes of most of the American people. Where were you when the deficit was run up out of control long before the Obama administration took office.

I know many people in local, state and national government. Every one of them is decicated to making their neghborhood, region, state or country a better place in which to live. I know hundreds of people who are government workers including fire fighters, policeman and women, teachers, secretaries, accountants, maintenance workers and elected officials.

The fact is we need more policeman, more fire fighters, more teachers and more good people to run the agencies that hold our country together. Government is not the enemy, ignorance is the enemy. Americans should spend their energy being involved in the process not whining about others who are.

Our system of government is not flawless but it is the best system ever devised. It invites debate, new ideas and innovation. It is a system that must keep improving itself and that can only be done with the support of all the people.

We dont all have to agree on what ideas will help us move forward but we should at least agree that moving forward and getting better as a people is what we need to do.