Forty years ago today Man stepped onto the surface of the moon. To anyone under the age of 40, this might seem like no big deal. You've seen images of the Apollo missions your whole lives as if it were common place. For us oldsters -50 and above, we remember with awe and wonderment how the Apollo program evolved and culminated with Neil Armstrong's historic step onto the moon's Sea of Tranquility.
As a 10-year-old, the Apollo 11 mission meant something special to me. First, it meant that I could stay up past my normal bedtime of 9:00 PM. I don't remember the exact time of the moon landing, but I know if was very late, maybe 1 or 2 AM Central. Second, it was one of the first experiences I recall when I was included with the adults. Everyone watched TV coverage of the lunar landings, old and young alike. People everywhere huddled around TVs listening to Mission Control, The Eagle and Walter Cronkite describe the unfolding drama.
Everyone knew the magnitude of this accomplishment. As Americans, we all had a special pride in our astronauts and our country. For awhile, anyway, we put aside Vietnam, we put aside the race riots, and the Kennedy and King murders. We lived in the fleeting moment of lunar ecstasy. Apollo 11 represented the best of us. The best of what our country could be, the best of what we could dream, and the fulfillment of JFK's promise. It was our Manhattan Project, but with a nobler, gentler ending.
Now, forty years later, I wistfully recall the Summer of '69. By no means were we the "Great Society" as LBJ had envisioned, but at least we rallied around the space program. Most Americans agreed on the greatness of the accomplishment and celebrated it. Now we seem to be divided into Democratic and Republican strongholds with nothing to bring us together. We have no common purpose.
What's say we revive some of the old Apollo spirit and dedicate ourselves to conquering Mars by the year 2030? Maybe somewhere in this endeavor, we can find our commonality and brother hood again and join together as Americans. If we're going to spend trillions of dollars anyway, my vote is to spend it on something grand that will lift us all to a higher plane rather that divvy it up to every sycophantic elected official who needs to grease a palm. Mars 2030- Mr. Obama is that change we can believe in?
Monday, July 20, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
It's Time to Listen to Your Limbic System!
President O'Bama and his Democratic supporters, Pelosi, Reid, Emanuel, Axelrod, to name but a few, stand poised over the us, the American citizenry, like warriors wielding sharpened swords. If they succeed in passing HR 2454 -the so-called Clean Energy Bill, and the proposed government health care plan, the swords they carry will no longer be used to scare us with sabre-rattling. Instead, those swords will be plunged into the hearts of all us who want to preserve our American tradition of liberty and free market capitalism.
If you're at all fearful of O'Bama's sweeping changes, then it's time to listen to your limbic system. You remember what that is, right? It's the ancient part of the human brain that lies at the base of the skull. It controls our "fight or flight" response in times of danger. Well folks, I can't think of a time since The Bay of Pigs, that our country has been exposed to more peril. And never in our history, has the peril come from within, but here we are anyway, staring at sharpened steel poised to destroy us. It's fight or flight time!
We can either stand and fight against the tyranny of excess government spending, taxation, bureaucracy and control or we can take flight into the fantasy world of Al Gore where everyone rides to work on a Segway and drinks herbal tea from a cup they made themselves from clay. Or if you prefer, we can take flight into the fantasy world of government-run healthcare, where U.S. citizens, along with 20 million or so "undocumented workers" from our good neighbors to the South, get so-called "free" health-care dispensed from loving bureaucrats in Washington. If you like this idea, ask anyone in Canada or the United Kingdom how that's working out for them. Ask the unfortunate people who need to see a specialist or have complicated health issues about the responsiveness of the state run healthcare system. That should get your reptilian brain really going!
The bottom line is, if you choose to fight like me, then pick up the phone and call your Congressional Representative. Make your voice heard! Tell them to oppose these ridiculous, dangerous, and potentially irrevocable legislative proposals or we will vote them out of office and find someone who will fight for our rights as taxpayers and citizens.
Here are a few resources you can use:
U.S. House of Representatives - Phone (202) 224-3121 or on the Web: http://www.house.gov/, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi- http://speaker.house.gov/
U.S. Senate - http://www.senate.gov/
Act Now! Stand and fight, if not for yourself, then for your children and their children. Remember the words our country was founded on: Live Free or Die, Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!
If you're at all fearful of O'Bama's sweeping changes, then it's time to listen to your limbic system. You remember what that is, right? It's the ancient part of the human brain that lies at the base of the skull. It controls our "fight or flight" response in times of danger. Well folks, I can't think of a time since The Bay of Pigs, that our country has been exposed to more peril. And never in our history, has the peril come from within, but here we are anyway, staring at sharpened steel poised to destroy us. It's fight or flight time!
We can either stand and fight against the tyranny of excess government spending, taxation, bureaucracy and control or we can take flight into the fantasy world of Al Gore where everyone rides to work on a Segway and drinks herbal tea from a cup they made themselves from clay. Or if you prefer, we can take flight into the fantasy world of government-run healthcare, where U.S. citizens, along with 20 million or so "undocumented workers" from our good neighbors to the South, get so-called "free" health-care dispensed from loving bureaucrats in Washington. If you like this idea, ask anyone in Canada or the United Kingdom how that's working out for them. Ask the unfortunate people who need to see a specialist or have complicated health issues about the responsiveness of the state run healthcare system. That should get your reptilian brain really going!
The bottom line is, if you choose to fight like me, then pick up the phone and call your Congressional Representative. Make your voice heard! Tell them to oppose these ridiculous, dangerous, and potentially irrevocable legislative proposals or we will vote them out of office and find someone who will fight for our rights as taxpayers and citizens.
Here are a few resources you can use:
U.S. House of Representatives - Phone (202) 224-3121 or on the Web: http://www.house.gov/, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi- http://speaker.house.gov/
U.S. Senate - http://www.senate.gov/
Act Now! Stand and fight, if not for yourself, then for your children and their children. Remember the words our country was founded on: Live Free or Die, Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!
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