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Ya Gotta Wonder!

The Global Cowgirl Blog.

We live in a world that’s rolled off its nut. There’s a whole lot going on out there that makes me want to shout, “Ya gotta wonder!”

Being  a ‘proof-is-in-the-pudding’ kinda gal, I think it’s time for all of us to look at the political puddings we’ve been serving up…and eating. If the state of the world is any indication, our Liberal and Conservative puddings are pretty rancid. Ya gotta wonder if these political puddings have reached their expiration date and need to be thrown out.

In the Global Cowgirl Blog, I’m sharing what makes me want to shout, “Ya gotta wonder!” The outrages and nonsense that get up my nose in today’s world. I’ll raise questions that leave me scratching my head. And I’ll have the occasional solution (sometimes wacky and comical) for the problems that have us putting up our dukes and swinging at each other.

I welcome your reactions, comments, and chidings. And sharing what makes you want to shout, “Ya gotta wonder!,” too.

Sunny McMurtrey – Global Cowgirl, Storyteller, Interviewer

U.S. Healthcare Failing Grade Hits Home

Posted on September 2, 2021

Ya Gotta Wonder! 

Today, U.S. Healthcare ranks dead-last—Bottom of the Class*—among the most privileged countries in the world.

Our Worst-in-Show Report Card just got personal.

I have been diagnosed with a potentially deadly disease. Deadly now because for six months I wandered around the American Healthcare Desert being either misdiagnosed or waiting endless amounts of time for crucial test reports. Without these reports no doctor could help me. Only watch me die.

Final reports in hand, I’ve now secured a spot in the lengthy queue to get the surgeries I need to save my life. Treatments that may leave me disfigured, blind, deaf, and with permanent cognitive impairment.

Here’s the kicker…had our healthcare system worked, a quick out-patient procedure would have fixed the initial problem and saved the system thousands of dollars, and me the kind of disabling impairments that may become part of my daily life.

Some nights, in my darkest moments, I wonder if it would be a tender mercy to die on the operating table rather than take the enforced post-operative march that lies ahead. Of course, there is someone in my life who I don’t want to miss growing old with, no matter my condition, so I’ve just tossed that outcome into the mental trash bin where it belongs and focus on the love this person brings to my life. And, as we all know, Love is the greatest healer. Even a healthcare system gone rogue can’t trump the power of Love. That Love and the prayers of friends give me the courage to fight to keep doing what I love to do. Writing this blog, publishing another book, perhaps about the healthcare journey I’ve now begun, and beating the odds my doctors have given me. And, once all the surgeries are behind me, being able to do the podcast I’ve always want to do…talking to people about what makes them say to themselves, “Ya Gotta Wonder!”

Right now I have a suggestion for President Biden and Congress…it’s not just our bridges that need rebuilding. Build Back Better should mean that any Infrastructure Bill the Federal government passes has as its TOP PRIORITY the rebuilding of the American Healthcare System. Because Ya Gotta Wonder! how America, a nation once revered for its efficiency, landed in this healthcare state.

* https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2021-08-09/us-ranks-last-among-11-wealthy-nations-for-health-care-study-says#:~:text=By%20Horus%20Alas-,Aug.,2021%2C%20at%206%3A00%20a.m.&text=The%20U.S.%20is%20the%20worst,think%20tank%20The%20Commonwealth%20Fund.

 


Bold Homeschooling

Posted on September 2, 2021

Ever wonder if you’ve got what it takes to homeschool? One woman’s story to inspire you… 

To all the parents who freaked out during the early days of Covid when their kids were at home instead of school…to all the parents confused about whether or not to homeschool their kids during the time of Covid now…to all the parents who don’t think they are qualified to homeschool their kids…meet Jan, my cousin.

After a hurricane huffed, puffed, and blew down their local elementary school in Florida, Jan jumped into the homeschooling fire. No matter she didn’t have a college degree like her husband and worried how she would teach her kids higher math, biology, physics, and other STEM subjects. Jan rolled up her sleeves and educated herself about how to educate her kids.

Jan homeschooled three kids—two girls and a boy—from their elementary school days through high school. Today, between them, she and her husband’s children hold six advanced degrees from national and international universities. Speak six foreign languages. Know how to build houses and furniture from scratch. Can process their own meats. Are part of archeological teams working around the world. Oversee sophisticated Air Force satellite operations that protect America. Make heads and tails of dead languages and decipher ancient Biblical scripture. And prepare to use what they know about climate change and the environment to one day fulfill the dream of working on a ranch.

“I taught my kids they could teach themselves anything. There is no subject or project they don’t have the confidence to tackle. And I made sure I matched my teaching style to the best way for each child to learn. I really got to know them in a way I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t done homeschooling.”

Reading was revered in their home. They have a library of six thousand books. TV watching was kept to a minimum. And respecting others was a core value in their family. Calling someone “stupid” or telling someone to “shut up” was forbidden. Needless to say, the family is very close.

Jan and Charlie now have six grandchildren, and each of their kids loved being homeschooled so much they are going to school their children at home, too.

Ya Gotta Wonder…should homeschooling parents now become paid professionals supported generously by the federal and state governments? Of course, proper certification would be crucial. Maybe treat this new profession like a “federal contractor” position. Federal contractors in the defense industry are well compensated when they bring recognized certifications to a job. Surely being part of an “army” of parents well-educating their children at home, particularly in the time of Covid, is a service much needed so America can Build Back Better.


The Texas Abortion Rodeo

Posted on September 2, 2021

Ya Gotta Wonder!

Given the recent goings on in Austin with Texas politicians treating the abortion issue as nothing more than a rodeo event, I feel the need to share two true stories about abortion from my book Stories from a Global Cowgirl.

Abortion is a serious issue. Choosing to have an abortion leaves skid marks on a woman’s life forever, and the issue deserves a solution perhaps only Solomon can offer. At the very least, we need Grace-filled discussions between folks on both sides of the issue. It’s not about the side that can stay on the bucking bronco the longest getting to be the winner.

Story #1

Illegal Abortion

“Get yourself pregnant and I’ll kill you and the baby in your belly.”

Josie’s daddy doesn’t mince words, and he’s also a man of his word. Eighteen years of living under his roof taught Josie that. So, when she gets pregnant before saying “I do,” Josie rightfully fears for herself and her child. Even if she manages to keep her condition secret until late in the pregnancy, she wonders, “Can doctors save the baby after its soon-to-be-granddad beats me to death? And who will take care of the baby?”

 It’s the sixties. A time when the law seldom takes the side of a female against an irate father, husband, or any other man. Josie feels cornered into having an abortion even though it’s illegal and not every “helping hand” is a clean one. Fevered and weak from a raging infection after the abortion, Josie searches for a doctor to kill the infection before it kills her.

“I’m sorry,” every doctor in her small East Texas town says. “It’s illegal for me to save you. It’s only legal to let you die. The state will take my license for any participation in an abortion. Even after the fact. Helping you puts me in the same bucket as the butcher who did this to you.”

Josie goes to a big city hoping to find help. Finally, a doctor says, “Without help, you’ll die, and pretty quickly. I’ll do what I can here in the office, but don’t tell me your name, and please forget mine. After I’m done, don’t come back. You’re on your own.”

Josie’s daddy never found out about her pregnancy, never saw the need to kill her for getting pregnant before getting married. I guess you could say that abortion was necessary to save the life of the mother.

Story #2

What Sophie Chooses

Women of a certain age sometimes turn to the miracles of science when they want to get pregnant. This is the first choice Sophie must make, and with that choice she finds herself pregnant with triplets.

 “Would you like to abort one? It’ll be an easier pregnancy and much easier raising twins rather than triplets. Which one would you choose?” says Sophie’s doctor, who believes in practicalities and practices medicine in a country where such an option is legal.

 Sophie, equally believing in a woman’s right to choose, looks at the sonogram. Now she must make her second choice. Which unborn child should she choose to abort?

Sophie makes her choice. She is now the harried and proud mother of triplets.

 

The abortion issue seems greater than a woman choosing to abort her unborn fetus.  The US doesn’t do itself proud compared to other nations when it comes to our infant mortality ranking in the world.*

Ya Gotta Wonder why Pro-Life politicians in every state don’t raise as much hell about improving America’s standing in its infant mortality ranking in the world as they do about the abortion issue. Being born in Texas, I know it’s a state that prides itself in whipping the competition. In being #1. So why aren’t its politicians throwing down the cowboy gauntlet to be #1 in quality of life for newborns and making sure each child gets to celebrate their first birthday?

And I’d ask all the Pro-Choice politicians the same question. Why aren’t you raising a ruckus about this country’s poor standing in the world on our poor infant mortality rate.

I get the abortion issue is a tough one to come together on, but surely both sides can agree that no child should be left behind in its fight to celebrate the first birthday that eludes so many of the children born in America.

https://www.americashealthrankings.org/learn/reports/2019-annual-report/international-comparison


Proud Texan vs Anti-Vaxers

Posted on August 12, 2021

“I don’t care that the polio vaccine I was given caused me to have a limp for the rest of my life. Sometimes you gotta take one for the good of an entire team. And polio had to be irradicated. I’d take that vaccine again, even knowing it would leave me slightly deformed.”

Those were the words of my nearly 100-year-old mom. I watched Mom suffer from chronic leg and back pain my entire life because of that vaccine, but she was steadfast it was a sacrifice worth making to help stop polio’s spread across America.

If she’d lived to see Covid-19 bring America low, Mom would have been the first in line for a Covid vaccine. She was a staunch and proud Texan for sure. But she believed in standing tall as an American and being part of a fight waged to bring down any disease that was killing folks in a country she loved.

I’m pretty sure the Anti-Vaxer movement would leave Mom thinking…

Ya Gotta Wonder!

 

 

 

 


Prescription Drug Sticker Shock

Posted on August 12, 2021

Ya Gotta Wonder… 

Went to Walmart to pick up a prescription for an antibiotic. Nothing exotic or sexy about the drug or my medical malady. The drug’s been on the market for over 70 years. Doctor checked “generic” on the prescription form for 14 pills.

STICKER SHOCK ALERT!!! 

Cost? 

$300.00 

Bless the good folks at Walmart. They located a coupon that took the price down to $115.00

But still, that’s a lot. And this is an antibiotic that cost about $4.99 for the same number of pills the last time I took it ten years ago.

Ya gotta wonder what’s up. I know President Biden is looking for ways to deal with this, as did former President Trump.

Well, I’ve got a one suggestion to get the ball rolling on cutting drug prices.

Tell pharmaceutical companies they can no longer advertise prescription drugs in the media. How many billions do they spend on advertising…that in olden days was illegal, and back then drugs didn’t require a second mortgage on your home or going to a loan shark to pay for a drug? Cut that expense and there could be an immediate lowering of drug prices. Of course, the news media covering the President’s news conference would have apoplexy at that loss in advertising dollars.

AND…You can’t escape the irony that the President of these United States goes on the airways to talk about a plan to cut prescription drugs prices and his press conference is bookended by expensive TV prescription drug ads.

Ya Gotta Wonder!

 

 

 


Redemption After a Scandal

Posted on August 12, 2021

Misdeeds, scandals, and nasty wrongdoings seem weekly fodder for 24/7 news. Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s resignation got me to thinking and saying to myself…

“Ya gotta wonder.”

Often, redemption after a scandal (with or without a confession or jail time) comes packaged in a tell-all book. Then a high-profile interview or two. And, if you’re really on the Cash-in-on-a-Scandal Express, six-figure speaking engagements will keep you and your agent in the top money-earning 1 percent for years. In other words, scandal can be a lucrative revenue stream.

Should this be the path most travelled by wrongdoers? The question has me thinking back about the first political scandal I remember. The Profumo affair back in the Sixties in London.

No, it isn’t sexual harassment that brings down John Profumo, UK Secretary of State for War in 1963. It’s his dalliance with a showgirl who was also sleeping with a Soviet diplomat. Before it’s over, Profumo’s affair washes a tsunami of intrigue over Parliament and the intelligence community and helps bring down the government.

It’s reported Profumo, at first, commits a then unforgiveable offense in British politics. He lies to Parliament, denying the affair. Then he confesses, resigns, and, shortly after, begins working as a volunteer, cleaning toilets at a charity in London’s East End. He volunteers either scrubbing the loos or fundraising for the charity the rest of his life. In the end, Profumo’s charity work and silence about his misdeed and lie redeem his reputation.

How refreshing would it be to see those who’ve wronged country, victims, or family do what Profumo did? Apologize to everyone, then quietly vanish into the metaphorical woods to spend the rest of your life doing good deeds and never speaking about the scandal or making a dime off it.

Lesson and a Question

Sometimes we do things that seriously damage other people. Damage that leaves skid marks on all their tomorrows. What better way to make amends for your mistake than by not making excuses or deinals and accepting the consequences for your actions. Make amends when possible and forego shortcuts to forgiveness and redemption. And, because crime does pay, why not give the riches you earn from a book deal and speaking engagements to the folks or person you’ve harmed, rather than doing a financial victory lap for yourself?

 


Voting. We’re Looking at This All Wrong!

Posted on July 18, 2021

Ya gotta wonder…

Why do we make voting a 42-act play in this country? There was a time when we prided ourselves in being Americans, being efficient, and getting things done.

Why don’t we do what they do in Australia? There it’s the law all eligible voters MUST vote in Federal elections. If you don’t, you pay a fine. Then they make it possible for every voter to obey the law. No creating a thousand and one ways not to let an Australian citizen vote.

I don’t know why my kinfolk, the McMurtreys, came to what became known as Jamestown, VA in 1607. Certainly, they suffered the tortures of the damned to be among the 10% who managed to survive the inhuman living conditions in that early settlement. But I do know it gets up my nose that so many politicians across America, today, treat a citizen’s right to vote like nothing more than roadkill in their party’s quest for political dominance and control. Instead, they shun my ancestors’ superhuman courage…and all our ancestors’ mettle and bravery…by not respecting every eligible citizen’s right…and, might I add, responsibility…to vote.

Ya Gotta Wonder!

 


Do You Have a Heart to Face Any Fate?

Posted on July 13, 2021

This is not the blog entry I intended to write today. Then a friend’s husband took his life over the weekend.

We are living in a time of a thunderstorm of frogs. This is a personal thunderstorm for my friend that is going to go on for a long time. No vaccine or booster has yet to be devised by science to protect us from what fate can sometimes bring. This friend must now have the heart to face one of life’s cruelest fates.

The last year and a half in history has left me marveling at what humans can endure and come back from. How we can face what fate brings us and survive. To not be broken. It makes me think of this Longfellow poem:

Let us then be up and doing.

With a heart for any fate;

Still achieving, still pursuing,

 Learn to labor and to wait.

 


"Don't Put a Cat On Your Head!"The Perfect Boss

Posted on July 9, 2021

For all you bosses out there, this blog post is for you.

I once had the perfect boss. Every morning when my feet hit the floor, I couldn’t wait to get to work. I would have walked over broken glass for this boss.

My boss’s name was Barbara Walters. Yes, that Barbara Walters. Interviewer extraordinaire and newswoman who made it possible for women finally to be taken seriously in the news business.

First, I was assigned to Barbara as an off-air-reporter, then as an editorial producer. Why was Barbara the perfect boss? It wasn’t the great assignments and travel to amazing places. No. It was because every day Barbara allowed me to do what I believed was my best work for her. There was no micromanaging. I wasn’t expected to be a mind reader and become her “mini me.” She expected me to use my own wits and intelligence to do questions and script suggestions for an interview she was doing–and she always gave me credit for my work.

As a boss, it can be scary to give an employee their head and let them step in the spotlight and shine. But I know from personal experience, you will have an employee whose loyalty is priceless.

For more stories like “The Perfect Boss” please check out my book Stories from a Global Cowgirl at amazon.com.


Go Duck Yourself!

Posted on June 7, 2021

A few years ago, I produced an interview with a duck for a TV program. The duck was co-starring in an upcoming movie. Cute feathery fellow, but, if I’m honest, I thought the assignment was a bit beneath my status in TV at the time. After all, I’d either interviewed or produced interviews with more than a few U.S. presidents, world leaders and movie superstars. Boy!!!! Did that duck give me a surprise. 

Forty-Nine is in his cage preparing for his close-up. Forty-Nine is a duck in demand. His gigs  include flapping for Aflac because he’s an advertiser’s dream. Loads of charisma, takes direction without argument, never forgets his line, and always wows the audience.

(Not sure why he’s called Forty-Nine. Even his backup, should Forty-Nine wake up feeling peckish, answers to a number—Seventy-Six.) 

Now, Forty-Nine is the co-star in a feature film. We’re interviewing Forty-Nine and the film’s director as part of their promotional tour. Jumping out of his cage, Forty-Nine immediately fluffs up his own feathers. No hair or makeup artist needed. Then he calmly lets a member of his entourage put him on the stool where he’s to be interviewed. 

Forty-Nine is a pro. First, he firmly plants his feet on the stool, owning his space on the set. Then he gives a nod to the cameraperson, showing him his best side. Next, he focuses on the interviewer. Eye contact is crucial. Forty-Nine doesn’t take his eyes off her. Finally, he gives a polite quack to say, “Let’s do this.”

Anyone wanting to win over an audience can take lessons from Forty-Nine. He is the consummate listener. Every time the camera goes to Forty-Nine, you can see, in his eyes and from his body language, he is fully engaged with whomever is speaking. Then, at just the right moment, Forty-Nine offers a perceptive quack. 

It’s like E.F. Hutton speaking. Everyone turns to listen. Not one to mince words, Forty-Nine follows with a knowing, “quack, quack,” leaving listeners mesmerized and wanting more.

So, if you want to exude the charisma and gravitas of Forty-Nine, own the spot where you’re standing, listen intently, and choose your words carefully when you speak.  

For more stories like this one, please go to my website at www.global-cowgirl.com.

 

 


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