Category Archives: Sometimes A GREAT Notion

Ross: A Book Report

Introduction

Things may be somewhat different now, but when I was a kid the school system required us to read books; a lot of books. We had the typical text books that taught us subjects such as history, science, and math. Then, once we got past the basics in learning how to read and write, we were given reading assignments, a specific number of chapters from a book assigned by the teacher; which we would then discuss the following day in class. Finally, there were the book reports.

For those of you who have never had to write a book report, the teacher would assign a book to read, then give you a specific amount of time to read it, then write a report on what you had read. Continue reading

After the Revolution Wins, the Revolution Turns!

Every revolution promises freedom. That’s the lie that gets people into the streets.

What comes after victory is not freedom at all. It’s control. Control of institutions. Control of speech. Control of memory. Control of what is allowed to be said out loud without consequences.

Once the old order collapses, the new regime faces its first unsolvable problem:

Who gets to define reality now?

That question decides everything. It decides who gets rewarded, who gets disciplined, and who quietly disappears once the cheering stops… and history shows something deeply ironic: the people most confident they’ll be safe after a communist revolution are usually the first to discover they’re not. Not because they opposed the revolution, but because they helped it win. Continue reading

Ross: Are You Prepared?

Do you think that God cares about what you look like? Do you think He cares if you are rich/poor; if you are a Democrat or a Republican; if you are a famous actor or just some working stiff trying to make ends meet? All God cares about is what is in your heart; whether or not you believe what John 3:16 tells us, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Yet there is more to being a Christian than simply believing that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the Living God; He who offered His life as a sacrifice for our sins; dying on the cross and rising on the third day into glory. Satan not only believes that, he knows that to be true; yet he is still condemned to eternal damnation for seeking to elevate himself above the Most High. Continue reading

IRS Announces Major Changes to Tax Deductions

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has unveiled substantial updates to federal tax deduction rules for individuals, families, and businesses.

Why It Matters

It follows the passage of the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB), signed into law on July 4, 2025.

These changes, which take effect this year, are designed to provide tax relief across a broad range of categories, from working Americans and seniors to business investment and family support. Continue reading

Ross: No Room For Cowards

I’m guessing that many of you have heard the saying, Thinking outside the box. For those that haven’t, what it basically means is: to explore ideas that are creative and unusual and that are not limited or controlled by rules or tradition. Those who think outside the box are not limited to, or confined by, traditional thoughts and beliefs. What I find ironic about thinking outside the box is the fact that those who are able to do it effortlessly are often praised and admired; except when it comes to politics and government. I am of the firm belief that the biggest obstacle that prevents us from solving the problems we face as a nation is our refusal to think outside the box. Continue reading

The Constitution Demands An Honest Census

When the Framers drafted the Constitution in 1787, the first three words were “We the People.” The rest of the document repeatedly refers to “the people,” a term clearly denoting citizens of the United States, those whose rights the Constitution addressed. Additionally, the Tenth Amendment to the Bill of Rights identifies the states and “the people” as the repositories of plenary power, in contrast to the limited powers delegated to the federal government. Continue reading

The 1962 Mr. Magoo Christmas Carol Is a Lovely and Underrated Take on a Classic

The 1962 UPA production of Mr. Magoo’s A Christmas Carol is an unfairly overlooked Christmas classic. This animated 52-minute TV is presented as a Broadway theater extravaganza with songs, dances, and curtain calls, and it really does delve into the true meaning of Christmas.

Magoo, voiced by Jim Backus and created by Millard Kaufmann and John Hubley, is an extremely near-sighted man who stubbornly refuses to accept this reality, causing numerous comical situations that affect everyone around him. In this production, he is Ebenezer Scrooge. Other cast members include Jack Cassidy as Bob Cratchit and Royal Dano as Marley, along with Morey Amsterdam, Joan Gardner, and veteran voice actor Paul Frees.

                    Image created using AI based on the original illustration to A Christmas Carol.

The show-within-a-show is a brilliant twist on the novel, but modern viewers won’t get it. That’s because many scenes have been cropped or deleted entirely. The deleted original begins with Magoo navigating through busy Manhattan traffic to the theatre, where he’s the star of the musical Christmas Carol. The deleted conclusion shows how Magoo, in trademark fashion, pulled a cord that collapsed all of the background sets. Typically, he emerges unscathed, leaving utter chaos in his wake. Continue reading

Garrison: Presenting the Traditional Christmas Gift Guide

Need a few gift ideas before Christmas rolls around? GrrrGraphics is happy to help with your Christmas shopping needs. For 2025, you can’t go wrong with these suggestions!

• It’s Trump Time: Everyone has seen the new Trump watch commercials recently. Well, now there is a special edition offered exclusively by GrrrGraphics, “It’s Deport Time!” Because no matter what time it is in America, it’s always ‘Deport Time.’

• For those who crave attention and want help, the “Jasmine Crockett Wig and Eyelash Set,” which will make you help you achieve that crazy ‘look at me’ style used by Texas wanna-be Senator Crockett. Continue reading

Children: The Measure of a Society

“The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.”

These words, attributed to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, echo like a warning bell across generations. They are not merely poetic, they are prophetic. If we dare to measure our society by this standard, we must confront a painful truth: we are failing.

At the heart of this failure lies the collapse of the nuclear family. Once the cornerstone of civilization, the family, father, mother, and children bound by love and duty, has been systematically dismantled. In its place, we find broken homes, single-parent households, and blended families struggling to find emotional equilibrium. The consequences are not abstract, they are measurable, generational, and devastating. Continue reading

Jane Goodall Helped Humans Understand Their Place in the World

FILE – Primatologist Jane Goodall kisses Pola, a 14-months-old chimpanzee baby from the Budapest Zoo, that she symbolically adopted in Budapest, Hungary, on Dec. 20, 2004. (AP Photo/Bela Szandelszky, File)

Outside the Field Museum in Chicago, a bronze sculpture by artist Marla Friedman captures a moment a friendship was made.

It’s called “The Red Palm Nut.” A young woman sits barefoot on the ground, reaching out her hand to a chimpanzee, who sits about a yard away. And he lightly, seemingly shyly, takes her human fingers into his own. A bright, red palm nut has dropped on the soil between them.

The woman in the sculpture is the great primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall, at the moment she first earned the trust of a wild chimp. “He reached out and he took and dropped that palm nut,” she later remembered.

“But then very gently squeezed my fingers and that’s how chimpanzees reassure each other. So in that moment we understood each other without the use of human words, the language of gestures.” Continue reading

Marcus: ‘Bring Back the Redskins‘ and Everything Else Torn Down by Wokeness

Move would reverse 2020 decision to change name over concerns about offensive terminology

…and we ALL deserve a laugh now and then! – A T-Shirt that was sent to me by a listener some years ago. Editor

There was a rare bit of good news out of the nation’s capital this week with a report that the owners of Washington’s NFL team are seriously considering President Donald Trump’s demand to restore the name “Redskins.”

It was back in 2020, a year of abject and bizarre societal madness, that the Redskins became the Washington Football Team, and eventually the Commanders, out of concern that “Redskin” is an offensive term. Never mind that poll after poll shows actual American Indians do not object to it… Continue reading

Admin’s Rejection of WHO Pandemic Agreement Win for National Sovereignty

The logo of the World Health Organization is seen at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, on June 11, 2019.

The U.S. this summer has formally rejected new amendments to the 2024 International Health Regulations (IHR) from the World Health Organization (WHO).

President Donald Trump announced in January that the United States would withdraw from the WHO by 2026. He tried to separate from the organization in 2020 during his first term, but his order was revoked the second Joe Biden stepped into office.

Following an official letter to the WHO, Trump has ordered that funding for the WHO to end as the break-up is under way. The U.S. has been the most important financial contributor to WHO, giving a total of $706 million – 9-10% of WHO’s overall budget – for the 2024-25 fiscal year. Continue reading

UPDATE: Trump secures historic $550B trade deal with Japan: ‘Never been anything like it’

Historic agreement promises hundreds of thousands of new American jobs and opens Japanese markets to US products

President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba announced a $550 billion trade deal with Japan that will create hundreds of thousands of jobs and open Japanese markets to US cars, trucks, and agricultural products. (REUTERS/Kent Nishimura / Reuters)

RELATED – July 25, 2025: Trump’s Big Trade Deal With Japan Is Already Falling Apart

A “massive” $550 billion trade deal has been reached with Japan, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday, adding that it will create hundreds of thousands of jobs.

“We just completed a massive Deal with Japan, perhaps the largest Deal ever made,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Japan will invest, at my direction, $550 Billion Dollars into the United States, which will receive 90% of the Profits. This Deal will create Hundreds of Thousands of Jobs — There has never been anything like it.” Continue reading

Trump Admin Implodes Literal Biden Roadblock With Potential to Unleash Major Mining Windfall

Natives from the Kotzebue-based NANA corporation welcomed control of the land

Alaska Gov. Dunleavy slams Biden’s ‘cancel culture’ energy policy: ‘It’s been a lack of opportunity’

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy joined ‘The Brian Kilmeade Show’ to discuss how the Biden administration’s energy policy has inhibited Alaska from producing oil and reducing prices at the pump.

Alaska Natives and state leaders lauded a landmark move by the Trump administration to transfer 28,000 acres of land in the Arctic to a consortium of Natives after the Biden administration balked at state officials’ wishes to develop the so-called Ambler Mining Road and claimed they instead were protecting the locals. Continue reading

Trump Administration Rejects WHO Agreement, Citing Threat to US Sovereignty

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the move.

 Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies on Capitol Hill on May 14, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The Trump administration said on July 18 that the United States is rejecting a World Health Organization (WHO) agreement that it says gives the global health body too much power.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the formal rejection of the 2024 amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR). Continue reading

How Legal Immigration Is Keeping Farms Afloat

The H-2A visa program is an example of how legal immigration can supply labor in America, but farmers say reform is needed.

Joe Mencer, owner of Mencer Farms in Lake Village, Ark., on April 29, 2025. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

LAKE VILLAGE, Ark. – On a breezy day, sun and shadow dance across Mencer farms, turning it into a patchwork of green in the fertile Arkansas Delta.

It is humid here in the deep South, where the clock seems to run slower and the temperature hotter than in other places.

Lake Village is a small town sitting along Lake Chicot, an abandoned channel of the Mississippi River. Over thousands of years, flooding deposited rich alluvial soil, making it ideal for crops such as rice, cotton, soybeans, and corn.

As a child, William Mencer’s grandfather handed him a cowboy hat and a garden hoe to dig up the pigweeds growing between the crop rows.

The 31-year-old farmer remembers spending long, sweltering days alongside the farmworkers, his hands growing rough and calloused with the effort.

“So I learned, you know, what it was like for these workers.”

He vowed to escape the sweat and toil of the fields by going to law school and working in an office. But the family farm drew him back like a love song.

Now he is partnering with his father, Joe Mencer, to keep the farm afloat with temporary agriculture workers through the H-2A visa program. Continue reading