Ray's blog

Happy Fourth of July! Dad says today is the day our country was born. But it wasn't really TODAY, it was something like 230 years ago on the Fourth. I think that was even before Grandpa Graybill was born! (And Dad says my Grandpa is so old that when he was little like me he had a pet dinosaur!)

So my dad was reading to me about the recent elections in Zimbabwe. (He has to read it to me because, well, for one thing I haven't learned to read yet, and for another I haven't figured out how to work the Google.) Listen to this: They have this guy who is in charge down there, and he's evil. Anyone who disagrees with him gets put in jail, or beaten up, or worse. Well another man stood up and said, "If you vote for me in the next election, I will make things better." So then the guy in charge threatened to hurt him and his family and scared him so much that he stood up again and said, "Um, never mind -- I'm not going to run for office after all."

So then the guy in charge went ahead and held the election anyway. Both his name and the other guy were on the ballot, but he had these thugs who stood over people as they voted to make sure they only voted for him. And if people didn't vote at all, they got in trouble for that too!

Now the people who live in Zimbabwe have basically given up hope.

These are poor people, too. They don't have enough food to eat, and when they go to Kroger's to get more, all the shelves are empty. Can you imagine if you went to the store and there wasn't any food there you could buy?

Out of every 100 baby boys born in Zimbabwe, eight will die while they are still a baby. (That's 127 baby boys who die for every one in America.) The rest, on average, will only live to be 37 years old -- the shortest time of any country in the world.

In America, most people are overweight. In fact we have so much food here that we sell our extras to other countries. We have great doctors and hospitals (like mine!), and babies can expect to live to be 78 years old (on average).

America is not perfect, but today I say "Happy Birthday America!"

And boy am I glad that I was born here!