November 13, 2025 • 30 mins
Michael Berry dives into the end of America’s longest government shutdown, shocking “human safari” claims from Bosnia, Texas politics, and real-world money talk like reverse mortgages. Plus, music nostalgia, poetry, and adoption stories.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
At the time, Luck and load. So Michael Very Show
is on the air. Workers have been told that they
need to be back at work tomorrow morning, ending the
longest government shutdown in US history.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Mess stop.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
It's I didn't want this shutdown. I wanted to end
but not at any cost. And of course I wish
that there was a path to saving this democracy and
saving people's healthcare that didn't involve pain.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
This shutdown hurt.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
It did, But unfortunately I don't think there is a
way to save this country, to save our democracy without
there being some difficult, hard moments along the way.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Stop it.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
So the bottom line is that Democrats went into this
after a blue wave out of the American people saying
we do want the opposition. We the working people want
the Democratic Party to fight for them, and now they
just cave and surrendered. I think Chuck Schumer his days
are over and he cannot put that and you cannot
keep quacketts together. If he cannot keep this quackets together,
(01:52):
he needs to go.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Stop both.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
I didn't I didn't fully understand how dug in the work.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
In one of the most odd stories in quite some time,
prosecutors in Milan, Italy are investigating whether wealthy Italians traveled
to Sarajevo in the nineties to kill people in what
were called a human safari trip. It's even being alleged
(03:13):
that extra was paid to shoot kids. Investigative writer who
uncovered these allegations says there were no political or religious motivations.
They were rich people who went there for fun and
personal satisfaction. France twenty four News.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
Milan's Public Prosecutor's office has opened this investigation to these
claims that there are Italians who traveled to Bosnia, as
you mentioned, in the early nineteen nineties, essentially to be
sniper tourists. I mean, they allegedly paid huge sums of
money to the Bosnian Serb army in order to kill
(03:54):
Bosnian civilians for kicks, is what we're finding out now.
This happened between nineteen two and nineteen ninety six. There
was that four year siege of Sarajevo. Some eleven thousand
people died in that siege. And this is because of
a complaint that was filed by Milan based journalist and
(04:15):
writer Etzio gavat Zeni. Now he essentially put together this
report and he says that wealthy people who had a
passion for weapons essentially paid money to kill defenseless civilians.
That's what he said. And the reports are saying that
basically these people here initially traveled to the northern Italian
(04:37):
city of Trieste. From there they made their way to
Belgrade during that period, and then from there to the
hills surrounding Sarajevo where they carried out this sniper action. Now,
the reports include lots of testimony that he's put together
as well as evidence gathering, including testimony from a Bosnian
(04:57):
military intelligence officer who is said to have informed this
information to the Italian military intelligence at the time. Now,
all this evidence that he's put together is being examined
by an Italian counter terrorism prosecutor and they aim to
want to identify the Italians that are involved on charges
(05:20):
of murder aggravated by cruelty and abject motives. So really
some very cruel actions that have been presented in this evidence,
and so the Milan prosecutor's office clearly feel that it
warrants an investigation.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Yeah, that's that's a story for sure. Closer to home
and a lot less creeping. Austin American Statesman reports that
b Cave voters little community outside of Austin supported Proposition
(06:01):
A but rejected Proposition B in their local referendum. Proposition
A was to support the construction of a new library.
Proposition B was floating bonds for twenty million dollars to
(06:23):
pay for it. What a classic case. Yes, yes, we
would like a library in our community, our very own
to having to hold so the homeless people will have
somewhere to go and sit, because that's what the Downtown
Library in Houston is, a building with all of the
(06:43):
costs associated and professional staff and ongoing maintenance and facilities
and tie up the land that won't for which we
won't get any tax dollars to help support the rest
of the government. Yes, yes, we love the concept, but
no we don't actually, we don't want to pay for it,
(07:04):
which means that a number of voters had to support
having a library but also say yeah, no, no, no,
I definitely, definitely, definitely do not want to pay for it.
And we go back to the original question. Why do
people want government to provide that which they could provide
(07:25):
for themselves. That's the problem. Government is not free. The
problem is the idea that well, if everybody pays for something.
It's cool and we get it and it doesn't cost
us anything. But that which you want becomes something else
(07:47):
for someone else, and before you know it, you find
people who live off of this government floating bonds, the law,
the legal fees associated with it, the land acquisition fees,
the main that's contract, And before you know it, there
is this massive industry known as your government that you
were paying for. And you wonder why your taxes are
(08:09):
so high and you have no money left to do
anything for yourself. Well, there's your reason right there, Michael.
(08:31):
Our adoption special will be next week. So if you
have an adoption story, either as an adoptive parent or
as a child who was adopted, or as a mother
who gave your child over to someone to bring joy
into their lives, a very brave and noble decision which
(08:53):
definitely beats the alternative, you can email me that story
through the website at Michael Berry Show Michael Berryshow dot com.
While you're there, you can sign up for our daily Blast,
which is a link to some of the things we
talked about that day. We'll usually put a couple of
silly memes on there, just to brighten your day and
give you a little humor in the middle of the day.
(09:14):
It usually comes somewhere between noon and one o'clock. There
will be links to different stories, some clips of the show,
and whatever else Darryl Kunda has on his mind at
that point related to the show. It's free. We never
share nor sell your email address, never have, never will,
and you can sign up for that quickly and easily
(09:36):
at Michael Berryshow dot com. You can also buy Michael
Berry's show merchandise while you're there, and it'll give you
a link to our Facebook page, our Twitter page, and
our Instagram. I tweet on occasion. I use Instagram infrequently,
but I'm on Facebook rather actively, and that's where I
(09:57):
get the most fun. Instagram Twitter tends to be other
media people, so you sort of post ideas there that
you want to get out there, and I'll use it
as a news source. But Facebook is where the folks
who I think are engaged with the show are most engaging,
and I find that to be a lot of fun.
So that is there. I would like to get your
(10:18):
adoption stories in sooner rather than later, so that we
can figure out how many we're going to use and
where we're going to use them. Normally, I get those
too late and the show has begun and I can't
get them all in, and I feel bad that people
have written them. So if you could take a moment
today and just quickly tell your adoption story, we would
love to be able to use that on the show
(10:39):
next week. I had gone back to what was then
my dad's house. We moved him to Houston a few
months later, September nineteenth, last year, my mom passed, and
so i'd gone back to visit him, and he hadn't
changed anything. So on the table beside her recliner was
(11:03):
books because she was always reading, and one of the
books was selected poems of Robert Frost. And I love
Robert Frost. And I realized that probably a good portion
of the reason I love Robert Frost is that my
mother would quote Robert Frost when I was growing up,
and obviously I had an inclination toward there. So I
(11:25):
would now ramon, like to read you a poem one
of my favorites. Could I have some nice poetry music? Oh, yes,
well that's quite nice. Now let me clear my throat.
You've heard it before. It's called the Road Not Taken
now English teachers like you to read these as if
(11:45):
they are prose without hitting the rhyming pattern. I enjoy
the rhyming pattern, so I'm going to use that, because
this is my classroom. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
and sorry, I could not travel both and be one traveler.
Long I stood and looked down one as far as
I could to where it bent in the undergrowth. Then
(12:10):
took the other, as just as fair and having perhaps
the better claim, because it was grassy and wanted, where
though as far as that the passing there had worn
them really about the same, and both that morning equally
lay in leaves. No step had trodden black.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
I kept the first for another day, Yet, knowing how
way leads on to wigh, I doubted if I should
ever come back, I shall be telling this with a sigh.
Somewhere ages and ages. Hence, two roads diverged in a wood,
and I I took the one less traveled by, and
that has made all the difference. I'll give you one
(12:53):
more moment. This one is called stopping by woods on
a snowy evening. Again, these are the two of the
most widely known of Robert Frost's poetry, but I love them.
This is short whose wood? Whose woods these are? I
(13:13):
think I know his house is in the village. Though
he will not see me stopping here to watch his
woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think
it queer to stop without a farmhouse near. Between the
woods and frozen lake, the darkest evening of the year,
he gives his harness bells the shape to ask if
(13:35):
there is some mistake. The only other sounds the sweep
of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely,
dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and
miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go
before I sleep. I had the most wonderful English teacher
(13:55):
for a senior year English named June Hardy, and as
luck would have it, the first year she taught was
my mother's senior year. If my mother had been one
year younger, she would not have had June Hardy as
her young teacher, who at the time was only twenty
two years old, having just graduated from college. And my
(14:17):
mother adored June Hardy. My mother went to Western Stark
High School in Orange We lived out in the country
in Orangefield's not the country anymore. It's just a suburb
of orange now, but at the time it was out
in the country. And so in about seventh or eighth grade,
I don't know, somewhere around there, lo and behold, Miss
Hardy moves out to Orangefield High School to teach. So
(14:42):
my mom comes to pick me up I'm not driving yet,
and comes into the school. It was parents niter, I
don't know where it was, and she sees Miss Hardy
and she asked, Miss Hardy, will you stay long enough
to teach Michael? That would be my dream? And she did.
And I think she only taught one more year after me.
But our lives as high school seniors book ended Miss Hardy,
(15:04):
Miss Hardy's teaching tenure, and she had us. We had
to memorize ten poems the first semester in ten poems
a second, and damned if I can't quote every one
of those ten poems, the prologue to the Canterbury Tales,
the passionate Shepherd to his Love. It's just amazing to
me how much what high hopes this woman had for us,
(15:26):
and how much of that I carry with me everywhere
I go. And I just think to myself, what a
glorious thing. I learned those things at eighteen years old,
and now I, as a practice will recite those just
to myself, just in the shower. At nineteen years old,
(15:47):
I stood at the Jefferson Memorial and there is an
inscription behind him, and I stood there until I memorized it,
and I went back to my dorm. That night, I
was at a little government internship. I did it, and
to this day, not a month goes by. I don't
recite that, so I don't forget it. There's no real
point to that story, but I'd share it. Sorry, Michael Show.
(16:13):
I'm not naturally drawn to female lead singers. When I
say that, people get annoyed, like I'm insulting women. It's not.
You know, you like chocolate. I like vanilla. That doesn't
mean I think chocolate is horrible. It's just I've just
found that I've never been been too. As a general rule,
(16:36):
I am less interested in female singers. I don't know why.
I do love Dolly. I adore Dolly. Don't tell anybody,
but I actually like share a lot. I love Stevie Nicks,
absolutely love Stevie Nicks. Many as the night that I
(16:59):
will where I go to bed, flip over on the
YouTube machine and watch the the acoustic that she and
Lindsey Buckingham do of Landslide, and then she goes or
he's doing his his solo and she goes around behind
him and puts her hands on his shoulders, and you're thinking, well,
why can't they just get back together? But there's it's
(17:22):
one of those things. It's just there's so much hurt
and so much history, but there's also so much love
and you see it at that moment. Anyway, that's more
than you want to hear. Did I mention Tina Turner?
I actually like to hear Whitney Houston sing just just
(17:43):
just the power of her pipes is incredible. Is there
anybody else? From home? So last night where I went
to bed, I flipped over to YouTube, and because I
watch a lot of music stuff just before I go
to bed, because I don't want any more politics. At
that point, there was the Hall of Fame induction of
(18:04):
Warren Yvonne, which was conducted by David Letterman. Oddly enough,
I did not know that Warren Yvonne filled in for
Paul Schaeffer when Paul Schaeffer was out. You knew all
that you know everything, but I don't know anything. I don't.
I didn't think David Letterman did as well as I
kind of expected him to do, to be completely honest,
(18:25):
it almost felt like he hadn't prepared. Weird. But that
led me in the algorithm to Linda Ronstadt induction, and
she didn't travel that. I don't know if she's probably
having health problems with I guess. But they sing a
number of Lenda Ronstadt's songs and Glenn Frye is the
one who first speaks, because of course he and Henley
(18:47):
had the relationship with her as her backing band. And
then she supported them to go off on their own,
and then they brought out Carrie Underwood to start singing.
And then Carrie Underwood said, please well to the stage,
Emmie Lou Harris and Bonnie Ray, and then they sang
a song and they said, please welcome our friend Stevie Nicks,
(19:09):
and the four of them sang Linda Ronstadt songs and
it was a lot of girl power and I was
enjoying it. It was wow, man, that there is a
lot going on on that stage, and that of course
led me back for the five hundred and sixteenth time
to watching the induction of led Zeppelin and the culmination
(19:32):
of which is and Nancy Wilson doing Stairway to Heaven
with this big black gospel choir behind them, and they
keep painting in on Robert Plant and he's fighting back
the tears because it's really really a powerful one. Kennedy
Center Honors, I'm sorry, what did I call it? Yeah,
(19:53):
Kennedy Center Honors are are much better. And now we
got Donald Trump as the head of the Kennedy Center.
What a ball or move?
Speaker 2 (20:02):
You know what.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
I'm just gonna put myself there, oh, mister President, the tradition.
I'm just gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. Ain't
not gonna stop me. And that's what's gonna happen. Two
emails that I got a kick out of this morning.
One from Terry Trainor. She says, good evening. My name
is Terry Ann Trainer. That's O R or not e
R if your one of them. And I am the
stepmom of Billy Trainer, who has recently opened a new
(20:25):
restaurant called Good God Nadines. Good God Nadines. The address
is thirty three Wall, not far from Washington Avenue. I
was wondering if you might stop by there sometime some
afternoon and taste some of their delightful items on the menu.
They open at four pm. They serve all kinds of beer, wine,
and cocktails. Two. Thank you for your time, regards, Terry
(20:48):
Ann Trainer. It's almost like she thought I wouldn't go
there just for the food. I'd have to go there.
She might lure me in with the liquor. Anytime you
want to brag on your parent or your I will
read your email gladly. Don't mind that one bit, which
brings us to the email from Greg, who writes Czar.
I got a call for my youngest son yesterday, so excited.
(21:11):
He's at Camp Pendleton Marine. They were all so excited
to see Secretary Pete and Vice President Vance. They all
got on buses. He was about ten rows back. Said
everyone was so happy. It was a real morale boost.
I'm bucked out, and I see that's nice, that's very nice.
I saw a meme from the Babylon b that said
(21:35):
Dave Ramsey hospitalized in critical condition after learning of fifty
year mortgage, and I sent it to him. I don't
know if he'd sen it or not. I would hope
he'd get a kick out of it. I know I
did the idea that this is antithetical to everything that
Dave Ramsey stands for. Pay cash, if you take debt,
(21:57):
pay it off quickly, don't carry debt. And I've been
reading people losing their minds over this, and it took
me to a case that came up the last couple
of weeks. I'll start with that case. So a friend
of mine asked me what I thought of him taking
a reverse mortgage, and immediately I winced, because you know,
(22:20):
reverse mortgages are awful. They're horrible. They're terrible. But I've
never really read the details, and I'm certainly not suggesting
that anyone get one. But I do think that he
is in the unique situation where a reverse mortgage is
not necessarily a bad thing. And I'll tell you why.
(22:40):
He's not married, he does not have any airs, he
owns his home outright, And so I started talking through, well,
let's look at other options. You're at an age where
you're not going to work any longer, you want more
than the social Security benefits you're getting, and you're trying
(23:02):
to unlock the equity in your home and This is
a struggle that people have. This will relate back to
the fifty year mortgage. So so I hang with me
for a moment. But the great frustration that people have
is they've paid off their home. Now they have all
this money tied up in their home. But what your
home is worth is of no importance to you other
than the fact that you hope it's low because you
pay taxes on it, and then you hope it's high
(23:23):
when you sell it. But until you sell it, you
can't get that money back. This is the Michael Verie Show. Yeah,
that's the one man. So there is a point to
this story. My friend asked what I thought he'd been
(23:47):
talking to a reverse mortgage company. I don't remember who
it was. You see reverse mortgages marketed pretty hard. Fox
and You've got jury. Is it Orbak or Orbach? You know?
Jerry Orback is one of them. Robert Wagner is one
(24:10):
of them. That's probably the tom Selick. Yeah, Henry Winkler
did Fred Thompson die? Red Thompson was one of them.
I think the whole reason for the tom Selick, if
I'm being completely honest, I think they want Jimmy Pappas's
home because I don't I don't think anybody in the
country would be suckered into doing a reverse mortgage unless
(24:37):
Tom Selick did it, other than Jimmy Pappas. I really
believe that. I think they calculated because he has a
very expensive house. I think they calculated. All right, what's
his house worth? How long will it do? You got
to be sixty two and he's got to be seventy.
You have to be a minimum of sixty two to
qualify for these things. So best I can tell with
a cursory reading, it works like this. I'm not from
(25:00):
voting him. If anybody's worried, I know they have a
bad name. From what I understand, they give you a
percentage of the value. So let's say the value of
your home. I think my friend's home is worth one
they estimate it to be or yeah, they estimate to
be one thirty. But to make it easy, let's make
(25:20):
it a hundred. So they are offering him thirty percent
of the value of his home. So it was about
forty thousand dollars and you could do that either on
a monthly. I think it was seven hundred and eighty
seven dollars a month, I remember correctly, or you could
(25:41):
get it as a lump sum, which would be less money.
Thus begins a loan that they have made to you,
but you don't have to repay the loan to them yourself.
Once they give you that loan, it begins to accrue
intro they recover their payment should you sell the house,
(26:06):
move out for any reason, or die. They're betting on
you dying because if you were going to sell the house,
it's a better deal to just sell the house now.
So what they're what they're what they're trying to do
is find situations where somebody is in the last few
years of their lives. They're good for nothing. Grandson needs
(26:29):
money to go to rehab, a bail bondsman, or whatever else,
and grandma will do anything for her grandson. Tell me,
you don't know these stories, because I can. I can
rattle off twenty of these if you give me five minutes,
I can rattle off twenty cases I know of this
exact type thing. So it's the last couple of years
of your life. You've got equity tied up in the
(26:52):
house that you cannot get out easily. So I start
talking him through. I said, well, what if we were
to say, I'll say his name is Ramone, It's not Ramone,
you man if I use Ramone? Okay? So I said, Ramon,
what if we were to sell the house to someone
who lets you live there with a life tendency? And
(27:15):
he said, all right, you got somebody to do that. No,
But I'm just I'm thinking of options before you do
something like this. I gotta find out why the reverse
mortgage is so bad, So I start reading about it. Now.
Now follow me here for a moment. Okay, if you say,
if someone sees you having a drink, well, it's bad
(27:36):
for you. Technically it is. So are French fries, So
are baked potatoes, So are a number of things. They're
quote unquote bad for you. They hasten your death, presumably
statistics would show. So it becomes a balancing act that
an individual gets to make for themselves. Does the enjoyment
(27:56):
of that product supersede the four minutes less of life?
If you're going to have I guess that's a decision
you have to make for yourself. But this, this knee
jerk reaction of this is bad for you, and this
is bad for you, and this is bad for you,
without any real thought given to it. It at a minimum,
it's unsophisticated. I'll leave it there because the other words
(28:19):
I'm going to use her are a bit more harsh.
So I start. I didn't spend a lot of time
on it, but I started reading a little bit about it,
and I mean Henry Winkler was selling it. Ramon if
Henry winks the faund right, So I said. My immediate
reaction was no, Ramon stupid idea. Don't do that. That's horrible. Okay, well,
what what alternative do you offer me? I've got I've
(28:42):
got this house and I want to it's worth something.
So I start thinking, follow me here, because I'm going
to ask you to get off your your normal track.
So if you've got a paid off house but you're
short of cash, what else are you to do? Well,
the reason we say don't do it is because you're
(29:02):
going to pass that home to your children and you're
reducing the size of your estate in what would seem
like a not very advantageous transaction. However, people can be
in a position where a higher rate of interest a
less desirable In this case, loan makes sense for them
(29:25):
at that time. Let's take payday loans. Everybody hates payday loans. Oh,
payday loan companies, they're predators. Predators. Huh Okay, what do
they do that They kick down the door and go
in and take people's money. No, payday loans. Rent a
space in an undesirable part of town. Why undesirable parts
(29:50):
of town have people that are more likely to be
in a financial crisis, And in a financial crisis, they
take some money before they're going to get paid, and
then they have to pay back considerably more than that.
And that's not good because you didn't borrow the money
that long. Okay, so let's put them out of business. Okay,
we'll put them out of business because we don't want
people making these bad decisions. Why did they make that
(30:12):
bad decision. We're not going to allow people to make
bad decisions for themselves. There was a reason they made
that bad decision. Nobody likes the pawnshop model. But they're busy,
aren't they. So the question is do we allow people
to make decisions for themselves even when we say that
those decisions aren't on the Dave Ramsey model, they're not
(30:34):
on the best Financial Practices model. Well, maybe they're not
in a situation. Oh, you're eating that food that's not
good for you. I'm starving. I haven't eaten in three days.
I'm poor. Yeah, i am
At the time, Luck and load. So Michael Very Show
is on the air. Workers have been told that they
need to be back at work tomorrow morning, ending the
longest government shutdown in US history.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Mess stop.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
It's I didn't want this shutdown. I wanted to end
but not at any cost. And of course I wish
that there was a path to saving this democracy and
saving people's healthcare that didn't involve pain.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
This shutdown hurt.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
It did, But unfortunately I don't think there is a
way to save this country, to save our democracy without
there being some difficult, hard moments along the way.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Stop it.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
So the bottom line is that Democrats went into this
after a blue wave out of the American people saying
we do want the opposition. We the working people want
the Democratic Party to fight for them, and now they
just cave and surrendered. I think Chuck Schumer his days
are over and he cannot put that and you cannot
keep quacketts together. If he cannot keep this quackets together,
(01:52):
he needs to go.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Stop both.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
I didn't I didn't fully understand how dug in the work.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
In one of the most odd stories in quite some time,
prosecutors in Milan, Italy are investigating whether wealthy Italians traveled
to Sarajevo in the nineties to kill people in what
were called a human safari trip. It's even being alleged
(03:13):
that extra was paid to shoot kids. Investigative writer who
uncovered these allegations says there were no political or religious motivations.
They were rich people who went there for fun and
personal satisfaction. France twenty four News.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
Milan's Public Prosecutor's office has opened this investigation to these
claims that there are Italians who traveled to Bosnia, as
you mentioned, in the early nineteen nineties, essentially to be
sniper tourists. I mean, they allegedly paid huge sums of
money to the Bosnian Serb army in order to kill
(03:54):
Bosnian civilians for kicks, is what we're finding out now.
This happened between nineteen two and nineteen ninety six. There
was that four year siege of Sarajevo. Some eleven thousand
people died in that siege. And this is because of
a complaint that was filed by Milan based journalist and
(04:15):
writer Etzio gavat Zeni. Now he essentially put together this
report and he says that wealthy people who had a
passion for weapons essentially paid money to kill defenseless civilians.
That's what he said. And the reports are saying that
basically these people here initially traveled to the northern Italian
(04:37):
city of Trieste. From there they made their way to
Belgrade during that period, and then from there to the
hills surrounding Sarajevo where they carried out this sniper action. Now,
the reports include lots of testimony that he's put together
as well as evidence gathering, including testimony from a Bosnian
(04:57):
military intelligence officer who is said to have informed this
information to the Italian military intelligence at the time. Now,
all this evidence that he's put together is being examined
by an Italian counter terrorism prosecutor and they aim to
want to identify the Italians that are involved on charges
(05:20):
of murder aggravated by cruelty and abject motives. So really
some very cruel actions that have been presented in this evidence,
and so the Milan prosecutor's office clearly feel that it
warrants an investigation.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Yeah, that's that's a story for sure. Closer to home
and a lot less creeping. Austin American Statesman reports that
b Cave voters little community outside of Austin supported Proposition
(06:01):
A but rejected Proposition B in their local referendum. Proposition
A was to support the construction of a new library.
Proposition B was floating bonds for twenty million dollars to
(06:23):
pay for it. What a classic case. Yes, yes, we
would like a library in our community, our very own
to having to hold so the homeless people will have
somewhere to go and sit, because that's what the Downtown
Library in Houston is, a building with all of the
(06:43):
costs associated and professional staff and ongoing maintenance and facilities
and tie up the land that won't for which we
won't get any tax dollars to help support the rest
of the government. Yes, yes, we love the concept, but
no we don't actually, we don't want to pay for it,
(07:04):
which means that a number of voters had to support
having a library but also say yeah, no, no, no,
I definitely, definitely, definitely do not want to pay for it.
And we go back to the original question. Why do
people want government to provide that which they could provide
(07:25):
for themselves. That's the problem. Government is not free. The
problem is the idea that well, if everybody pays for something.
It's cool and we get it and it doesn't cost
us anything. But that which you want becomes something else
(07:47):
for someone else, and before you know it, you find
people who live off of this government floating bonds, the law,
the legal fees associated with it, the land acquisition fees,
the main that's contract, And before you know it, there
is this massive industry known as your government that you
were paying for. And you wonder why your taxes are
(08:09):
so high and you have no money left to do
anything for yourself. Well, there's your reason right there, Michael.
(08:31):
Our adoption special will be next week. So if you
have an adoption story, either as an adoptive parent or
as a child who was adopted, or as a mother
who gave your child over to someone to bring joy
into their lives, a very brave and noble decision which
(08:53):
definitely beats the alternative, you can email me that story
through the website at Michael Berry Show Michael Berryshow dot com.
While you're there, you can sign up for our daily Blast,
which is a link to some of the things we
talked about that day. We'll usually put a couple of
silly memes on there, just to brighten your day and
give you a little humor in the middle of the day.
(09:14):
It usually comes somewhere between noon and one o'clock. There
will be links to different stories, some clips of the show,
and whatever else Darryl Kunda has on his mind at
that point related to the show. It's free. We never
share nor sell your email address, never have, never will,
and you can sign up for that quickly and easily
(09:36):
at Michael Berryshow dot com. You can also buy Michael
Berry's show merchandise while you're there, and it'll give you
a link to our Facebook page, our Twitter page, and
our Instagram. I tweet on occasion. I use Instagram infrequently,
but I'm on Facebook rather actively, and that's where I
(09:57):
get the most fun. Instagram Twitter tends to be other
media people, so you sort of post ideas there that
you want to get out there, and I'll use it
as a news source. But Facebook is where the folks
who I think are engaged with the show are most engaging,
and I find that to be a lot of fun.
So that is there. I would like to get your
(10:18):
adoption stories in sooner rather than later, so that we
can figure out how many we're going to use and
where we're going to use them. Normally, I get those
too late and the show has begun and I can't
get them all in, and I feel bad that people
have written them. So if you could take a moment
today and just quickly tell your adoption story, we would
love to be able to use that on the show
(10:39):
next week. I had gone back to what was then
my dad's house. We moved him to Houston a few
months later, September nineteenth, last year, my mom passed, and
so i'd gone back to visit him, and he hadn't
changed anything. So on the table beside her recliner was
(11:03):
books because she was always reading, and one of the
books was selected poems of Robert Frost. And I love
Robert Frost. And I realized that probably a good portion
of the reason I love Robert Frost is that my
mother would quote Robert Frost when I was growing up,
and obviously I had an inclination toward there. So I
(11:25):
would now ramon, like to read you a poem one
of my favorites. Could I have some nice poetry music? Oh, yes,
well that's quite nice. Now let me clear my throat.
You've heard it before. It's called the Road Not Taken
now English teachers like you to read these as if
(11:45):
they are prose without hitting the rhyming pattern. I enjoy
the rhyming pattern, so I'm going to use that, because
this is my classroom. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
and sorry, I could not travel both and be one traveler.
Long I stood and looked down one as far as
I could to where it bent in the undergrowth. Then
(12:10):
took the other, as just as fair and having perhaps
the better claim, because it was grassy and wanted, where
though as far as that the passing there had worn
them really about the same, and both that morning equally
lay in leaves. No step had trodden black.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
I kept the first for another day, Yet, knowing how
way leads on to wigh, I doubted if I should
ever come back, I shall be telling this with a sigh.
Somewhere ages and ages. Hence, two roads diverged in a wood,
and I I took the one less traveled by, and
that has made all the difference. I'll give you one
(12:53):
more moment. This one is called stopping by woods on
a snowy evening. Again, these are the two of the
most widely known of Robert Frost's poetry, but I love them.
This is short whose wood? Whose woods these are? I
(13:13):
think I know his house is in the village. Though
he will not see me stopping here to watch his
woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think
it queer to stop without a farmhouse near. Between the
woods and frozen lake, the darkest evening of the year,
he gives his harness bells the shape to ask if
(13:35):
there is some mistake. The only other sounds the sweep
of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely,
dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and
miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go
before I sleep. I had the most wonderful English teacher
(13:55):
for a senior year English named June Hardy, and as
luck would have it, the first year she taught was
my mother's senior year. If my mother had been one
year younger, she would not have had June Hardy as
her young teacher, who at the time was only twenty
two years old, having just graduated from college. And my
(14:17):
mother adored June Hardy. My mother went to Western Stark
High School in Orange We lived out in the country
in Orangefield's not the country anymore. It's just a suburb
of orange now, but at the time it was out
in the country. And so in about seventh or eighth grade,
I don't know, somewhere around there, lo and behold, Miss
Hardy moves out to Orangefield High School to teach. So
(14:42):
my mom comes to pick me up I'm not driving yet,
and comes into the school. It was parents niter, I
don't know where it was, and she sees Miss Hardy
and she asked, Miss Hardy, will you stay long enough
to teach Michael? That would be my dream? And she did.
And I think she only taught one more year after me.
But our lives as high school seniors book ended Miss Hardy,
(15:04):
Miss Hardy's teaching tenure, and she had us. We had
to memorize ten poems the first semester in ten poems
a second, and damned if I can't quote every one
of those ten poems, the prologue to the Canterbury Tales,
the passionate Shepherd to his Love. It's just amazing to
me how much what high hopes this woman had for us,
(15:26):
and how much of that I carry with me everywhere
I go. And I just think to myself, what a
glorious thing. I learned those things at eighteen years old,
and now I, as a practice will recite those just
to myself, just in the shower. At nineteen years old,
(15:47):
I stood at the Jefferson Memorial and there is an
inscription behind him, and I stood there until I memorized it,
and I went back to my dorm. That night, I
was at a little government internship. I did it, and
to this day, not a month goes by. I don't
recite that, so I don't forget it. There's no real
point to that story, but I'd share it. Sorry, Michael Show.
(16:13):
I'm not naturally drawn to female lead singers. When I
say that, people get annoyed, like I'm insulting women. It's not.
You know, you like chocolate. I like vanilla. That doesn't
mean I think chocolate is horrible. It's just I've just
found that I've never been been too. As a general rule,
(16:36):
I am less interested in female singers. I don't know why.
I do love Dolly. I adore Dolly. Don't tell anybody,
but I actually like share a lot. I love Stevie Nicks,
absolutely love Stevie Nicks. Many as the night that I
(16:59):
will where I go to bed, flip over on the
YouTube machine and watch the the acoustic that she and
Lindsey Buckingham do of Landslide, and then she goes or
he's doing his his solo and she goes around behind
him and puts her hands on his shoulders, and you're thinking, well,
why can't they just get back together? But there's it's
(17:22):
one of those things. It's just there's so much hurt
and so much history, but there's also so much love
and you see it at that moment. Anyway, that's more
than you want to hear. Did I mention Tina Turner?
I actually like to hear Whitney Houston sing just just
(17:43):
just the power of her pipes is incredible. Is there
anybody else? From home? So last night where I went
to bed, I flipped over to YouTube, and because I
watch a lot of music stuff just before I go
to bed, because I don't want any more politics. At
that point, there was the Hall of Fame induction of
(18:04):
Warren Yvonne, which was conducted by David Letterman. Oddly enough,
I did not know that Warren Yvonne filled in for
Paul Schaeffer when Paul Schaeffer was out. You knew all
that you know everything, but I don't know anything. I don't.
I didn't think David Letterman did as well as I
kind of expected him to do, to be completely honest,
(18:25):
it almost felt like he hadn't prepared. Weird. But that
led me in the algorithm to Linda Ronstadt induction, and
she didn't travel that. I don't know if she's probably
having health problems with I guess. But they sing a
number of Lenda Ronstadt's songs and Glenn Frye is the
one who first speaks, because of course he and Henley
(18:47):
had the relationship with her as her backing band. And
then she supported them to go off on their own,
and then they brought out Carrie Underwood to start singing.
And then Carrie Underwood said, please well to the stage,
Emmie Lou Harris and Bonnie Ray, and then they sang
a song and they said, please welcome our friend Stevie Nicks,
(19:09):
and the four of them sang Linda Ronstadt songs and
it was a lot of girl power and I was
enjoying it. It was wow, man, that there is a
lot going on on that stage, and that of course
led me back for the five hundred and sixteenth time
to watching the induction of led Zeppelin and the culmination
(19:32):
of which is and Nancy Wilson doing Stairway to Heaven
with this big black gospel choir behind them, and they
keep painting in on Robert Plant and he's fighting back
the tears because it's really really a powerful one. Kennedy
Center Honors, I'm sorry, what did I call it? Yeah,
(19:53):
Kennedy Center Honors are are much better. And now we
got Donald Trump as the head of the Kennedy Center.
What a ball or move?
Speaker 2 (20:02):
You know what.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
I'm just gonna put myself there, oh, mister President, the tradition.
I'm just gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. Ain't
not gonna stop me. And that's what's gonna happen. Two
emails that I got a kick out of this morning.
One from Terry Trainor. She says, good evening. My name
is Terry Ann Trainer. That's O R or not e
R if your one of them. And I am the
stepmom of Billy Trainer, who has recently opened a new
(20:25):
restaurant called Good God Nadines. Good God Nadines. The address
is thirty three Wall, not far from Washington Avenue. I
was wondering if you might stop by there sometime some
afternoon and taste some of their delightful items on the menu.
They open at four pm. They serve all kinds of beer, wine,
and cocktails. Two. Thank you for your time, regards, Terry
(20:48):
Ann Trainer. It's almost like she thought I wouldn't go
there just for the food. I'd have to go there.
She might lure me in with the liquor. Anytime you
want to brag on your parent or your I will
read your email gladly. Don't mind that one bit, which
brings us to the email from Greg, who writes Czar.
I got a call for my youngest son yesterday, so excited.
(21:11):
He's at Camp Pendleton Marine. They were all so excited
to see Secretary Pete and Vice President Vance. They all
got on buses. He was about ten rows back. Said
everyone was so happy. It was a real morale boost.
I'm bucked out, and I see that's nice, that's very nice.
I saw a meme from the Babylon b that said
(21:35):
Dave Ramsey hospitalized in critical condition after learning of fifty
year mortgage, and I sent it to him. I don't
know if he'd sen it or not. I would hope
he'd get a kick out of it. I know I
did the idea that this is antithetical to everything that
Dave Ramsey stands for. Pay cash, if you take debt,
(21:57):
pay it off quickly, don't carry debt. And I've been
reading people losing their minds over this, and it took
me to a case that came up the last couple
of weeks. I'll start with that case. So a friend
of mine asked me what I thought of him taking
a reverse mortgage, and immediately I winced, because you know,
(22:20):
reverse mortgages are awful. They're horrible. They're terrible. But I've
never really read the details, and I'm certainly not suggesting
that anyone get one. But I do think that he
is in the unique situation where a reverse mortgage is
not necessarily a bad thing. And I'll tell you why.
(22:40):
He's not married, he does not have any airs, he
owns his home outright, And so I started talking through, well,
let's look at other options. You're at an age where
you're not going to work any longer, you want more
than the social Security benefits you're getting, and you're trying
(23:02):
to unlock the equity in your home and This is
a struggle that people have. This will relate back to
the fifty year mortgage. So so I hang with me
for a moment. But the great frustration that people have
is they've paid off their home. Now they have all
this money tied up in their home. But what your
home is worth is of no importance to you other
than the fact that you hope it's low because you
pay taxes on it, and then you hope it's high
(23:23):
when you sell it. But until you sell it, you
can't get that money back. This is the Michael Verie Show. Yeah,
that's the one man. So there is a point to
this story. My friend asked what I thought he'd been
(23:47):
talking to a reverse mortgage company. I don't remember who
it was. You see reverse mortgages marketed pretty hard. Fox
and You've got jury. Is it Orbak or Orbach? You know?
Jerry Orback is one of them. Robert Wagner is one
(24:10):
of them. That's probably the tom Selick. Yeah, Henry Winkler
did Fred Thompson die? Red Thompson was one of them.
I think the whole reason for the tom Selick, if
I'm being completely honest, I think they want Jimmy Pappas's
home because I don't I don't think anybody in the
country would be suckered into doing a reverse mortgage unless
(24:37):
Tom Selick did it, other than Jimmy Pappas. I really
believe that. I think they calculated because he has a
very expensive house. I think they calculated. All right, what's
his house worth? How long will it do? You got
to be sixty two and he's got to be seventy.
You have to be a minimum of sixty two to
qualify for these things. So best I can tell with
a cursory reading, it works like this. I'm not from
(25:00):
voting him. If anybody's worried, I know they have a
bad name. From what I understand, they give you a
percentage of the value. So let's say the value of
your home. I think my friend's home is worth one
they estimate it to be or yeah, they estimate to
be one thirty. But to make it easy, let's make
(25:20):
it a hundred. So they are offering him thirty percent
of the value of his home. So it was about
forty thousand dollars and you could do that either on
a monthly. I think it was seven hundred and eighty
seven dollars a month, I remember correctly, or you could
(25:41):
get it as a lump sum, which would be less money.
Thus begins a loan that they have made to you,
but you don't have to repay the loan to them yourself.
Once they give you that loan, it begins to accrue
intro they recover their payment should you sell the house,
(26:06):
move out for any reason, or die. They're betting on
you dying because if you were going to sell the house,
it's a better deal to just sell the house now.
So what they're what they're what they're trying to do
is find situations where somebody is in the last few
years of their lives. They're good for nothing. Grandson needs
(26:29):
money to go to rehab, a bail bondsman, or whatever else,
and grandma will do anything for her grandson. Tell me,
you don't know these stories, because I can. I can
rattle off twenty of these if you give me five minutes,
I can rattle off twenty cases I know of this
exact type thing. So it's the last couple of years
of your life. You've got equity tied up in the
(26:52):
house that you cannot get out easily. So I start
talking him through. I said, well, what if we were
to say, I'll say his name is Ramone, It's not Ramone,
you man if I use Ramone? Okay? So I said, Ramon,
what if we were to sell the house to someone
who lets you live there with a life tendency? And
(27:15):
he said, all right, you got somebody to do that. No,
But I'm just I'm thinking of options before you do
something like this. I gotta find out why the reverse
mortgage is so bad, So I start reading about it. Now.
Now follow me here for a moment. Okay, if you say,
if someone sees you having a drink, well, it's bad
(27:36):
for you. Technically it is. So are French fries, So
are baked potatoes, So are a number of things. They're
quote unquote bad for you. They hasten your death, presumably
statistics would show. So it becomes a balancing act that
an individual gets to make for themselves. Does the enjoyment
(27:56):
of that product supersede the four minutes less of life?
If you're going to have I guess that's a decision
you have to make for yourself. But this, this knee
jerk reaction of this is bad for you, and this
is bad for you, and this is bad for you,
without any real thought given to it. It at a minimum,
it's unsophisticated. I'll leave it there because the other words
(28:19):
I'm going to use her are a bit more harsh.
So I start. I didn't spend a lot of time
on it, but I started reading a little bit about it,
and I mean Henry Winkler was selling it. Ramon if
Henry winks the faund right, So I said. My immediate
reaction was no, Ramon stupid idea. Don't do that. That's horrible. Okay, well,
what what alternative do you offer me? I've got I've
(28:42):
got this house and I want to it's worth something.
So I start thinking, follow me here, because I'm going
to ask you to get off your your normal track.
So if you've got a paid off house but you're
short of cash, what else are you to do? Well,
the reason we say don't do it is because you're
(29:02):
going to pass that home to your children and you're
reducing the size of your estate in what would seem
like a not very advantageous transaction. However, people can be
in a position where a higher rate of interest a
less desirable In this case, loan makes sense for them
(29:25):
at that time. Let's take payday loans. Everybody hates payday loans. Oh,
payday loan companies, they're predators. Predators. Huh Okay, what do
they do that They kick down the door and go
in and take people's money. No, payday loans. Rent a
space in an undesirable part of town. Why undesirable parts
(29:50):
of town have people that are more likely to be
in a financial crisis, And in a financial crisis, they
take some money before they're going to get paid, and
then they have to pay back considerably more than that.
And that's not good because you didn't borrow the money
that long. Okay, so let's put them out of business. Okay,
we'll put them out of business because we don't want
people making these bad decisions. Why did they make that
(30:12):
bad decision. We're not going to allow people to make
bad decisions for themselves. There was a reason they made
that bad decision. Nobody likes the pawnshop model. But they're busy,
aren't they. So the question is do we allow people
to make decisions for themselves even when we say that
those decisions aren't on the Dave Ramsey model, they're not
(30:34):
on the best Financial Practices model. Well, maybe they're not
in a situation. Oh, you're eating that food that's not
good for you. I'm starving. I haven't eaten in three days.
I'm poor. Yeah, i am
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