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Clint Eastwood (Two Minutes to Read)

9/1/2016

I could write a book about this amazing man but I’ll keep it as short as I can. Besides being on television shows like Rawhide he has acted and/or directed in 76 movies including classics like Dirty Harry, Every Which Way but Loose, The Good Bad and the Ugly, Million Dollar Baby, and Unforgiven (one of my favorite westerns ever), all of which he’s won academy awards. It isn’t often that someone wins awards for acting, directing, producing, and writing a movie. What's really amazing is he's still going strong at the age of 86.

Eastwood grew up in California and attended Oakland Technical High School where the drama teacher encouraged him to take part in school plays but he wasn't interested, instead he worked at a number of jobs including being a lifeguard, paper carrier, grocery clerk, and golf caddy.

This is a crazy story...he was drafted into the United States Army, where he was appointed as a lifeguard and swimming instructor. While returning from a weekend visit to his parents in Seattle, Washington, he was a passenger on a Douglas AD bomber airplane that ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean. He and the pilot escaped from the sinking aircraft and swam 3 miles to safety. No doubt he survived for a purpose.

Eastwood’s personal life was a roller coaster ride with many women including two wives and several long-term partners that he had cheated on. His total number of children isn’t known for sure but I was able to find seven with five different women. I guess this is what happens when you’re a good looking, six foot four, and highly successful man. I wouldn’t know.

He’s an avid golfer and owns one golf course and has part ownership in the famous Pebble Beach Golf Links. He frequently takes part in charity golf tournaments throughout California travelling to and from events on his private helicopter that he pilots. Eastwood is also a fitness fanatic who unlike many of his characters, doesn’t smoke. I mentioned that he is 6’ 4” which makes sense; when he was born the nurses at the hospital called him Samson because he weighed 11 pounds and six ounces. He was a big boy.

Eastwood has always been very politically active for the Republican Party although he disapproved of our involvement in Korea (1950–1953), Vietnam (1964–1975), Afghanistan (2001–present), and Iraq (2003–2011), believing that the United States shouldn’t be overly militaristic or play the role of global policeman. I agree with him to some extent. He also served as his town’s mayor. His overall ideology fits much closer to that of someone in the Libertarian Party and even he admits this, but he feels he can get more accomplished with the leverage of a major political party.

I mentioned some of his movies above but here are a few more that I loved: The Outlaw Josey Wales, Escape from Alcatraz, Pale Rider, Flags of Our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima, J. Edgar, Trouble with the Curve, and American Sniper. I could’ve certainly of mentioned several more as he’s had so many amazing movies during his career.

In wrapping up, we’ve had the opportunity to see one of (if not the most), successful person in movie and television history. To have won awards for Best Actor, Best Film, Best Director, Best Producer, and Best Writer, is an amazing feat. I can only hope that I’ll have the mental acuity that he has as he’s still winning awards in his 80’s with no signs of stopping. Bottom line, Clint Eastwood is a Phenom.

September 01st, 2016

9/1/2016

One Huge Gun

9/1/2016

The Germans back in the 1930’s had a special weapon they called Gustav. It was a huge gun built to destroy buildings. The gun shell weighed over 14,000 pounds (basically the size of an elephant), and could travel 29 miles. Because the gun and the shells weighed so much it was generally operated along the railroad which meant there wasn’t much of a concern that it would be unleashed on areas further off the rail’s path.

We have much more effective weapons today but the Gustav was an amazing invention when you think about the fact that it was built around 80 years ago. The Germans also created the U-Boat along with superior tanks. Fortunately German engineering is still marveled at today but for more productive things like appliances, sound systems, and automobiles.

Bill Bixby

9/1/2016

Bill Bixby was a very busy actor most known for his roles on My Favorite Martian and The Incredible Hulk. He died way too young at the age of 59 from prostate cancer in 1993; his best friend Dick Clark was at his side when he passed away. Six days prior to his death he was doing a guest appearance on the television show Blossom whose lead actress is now on the cast of The Big Bang Theory.

Bixby was a bit of a trouble maker in school and once got kicked out of a Catholic school for shooting the Bishop with a slingshot. In one of the schools he attended he met Lee Meriwether who also became an actor and of course became Miss America. He attended the prestigious University of California Berkley but dropped out with four credits left, making his parents livid. He ended being drafted into the Marine Corp (I’m sure he wished he hadn’t quit school).

After the military he moved to Hollywood to pursue acting, where he had a string of odd jobs that included being a bellhop and lifeguard. He was then hired to work as a model and star in commercials for General Motors and Chrysler.

While doing a local play he was spotted by an agent who got him on television shows like Fantasy Island, Ironside, The Love Boat, The Andy Griffith Show, The Twilight Zone, and Rich Man Poor Mann. Bill did a couple of Elvis Pressley movies and was cast opposite Marlo Thomas in That Girl but ended up turning down the role. He also co-starred in the comedy: The Apple Dumpling Gang with Don Knotts and Tim Conway. His claim to fame came, as far as the roles most people remembered him for, were on My Favorite Martian (1960’s) and The Incredible Hulk (1970’s).

Besides his own troubles in dealing with cancer he dealt with a lot of tragedy like the loss of his six year-old son Christopher (his only child), from a rare throat infection and then his ex-wife (Christopher’s mother), committed suicide one year after their son died.

I mentioned at the beginning that he was a busy actor as he ended up in 64 different television shows and seven movies. Like Michael Landon, Mr. Bixby had a great reputation. He wasn’t the partying Hollywood type and was instead down to earth and a popular participant on a variety of game shows like “Password” and “The Hollywood Squares.” He was a good man and like a lot of good men, we lost him way too early.

Atheists

9/1/2016

I've met a few atheists (I worked with one), over the years and have had some interesting discussions. There's no doubt they thought I was a naïve believer basically being less intelligent than them but I was able to prove them wrong. It's almost like atheists hate Christians and I can't figure out why.

Even though they don't believe in God or Jesus, doesn't mean they don't benefit greatly from there being Christianity. For example, Red Cross and Samaritan's purse were the first ones on the scene in helping the flood victims in Louisiana (as usual). They are Christian based organizations. There are no atheists’ organizations down there helping out and it’s the same in my community. The organizations that help the homeless and battered women in Charlotte, NC are Christian based. Where are the atheists?

I don’t believe there aren’t good people out there who are atheist but the question is: “Why do they want to be good?” My motivator for trying to make good choices in my life is because I want to please God. If I wasn’t a Christian I don’t have a clue how I’d live. Believing in God makes me less selfish. Believing in God gives me want to be compassionate, kind, loving, etc., towards my fellow man. Why would an atheist care about these things?

The fact is, Christians aren't perfect but most sure care about their fellow man unlike what I've seen from atheists’ community. So I reiterate, they might not believe in God but they sure are blessed that others do.

September 01st, 2016

9/1/2016

I've met a few atheists (I worked with one), over the years and have had some interesting discussions. There's no doubt they thought I was a naïve believer basically being less intelligent than them but I was able to prove them wrong. It's almost like atheists hate Christians and I can't figure out why.
Even though they don't believe in God or Jesus, doesn't mean they don't benefit greatly from there being Christianity. For example, Red Cross and Samaritan's purse were the first ones on the scene in helping the flood victims in Louisiana (as usual). They are Christian based organizations. There are no atheists’ organizations down there helping out and it’s the same in my community. The organizations that help the homeless and battered women in Charlotte, NC are Christian based. Where are the atheists?
I don’t believe there aren’t good people out there who are atheist but the question is: “Why do they want to be good?” My motivator for trying to make good choices in my life is because I want to please God. If I wasn’t a Christian I don’t have a clue how I’d live. Believing in God makes me less selfish. Believing in God gives me want to be compassionate, kind, loving, etc., towards my fellow man. Why would an atheist care about these things?
The fact is, Christians aren't perfect but most sure care about their fellow man unlike what I've seen from atheists’ community. So I reiterate, they might not believe in God but they sure are blessed that others do.

Impact of a Trade Imbalance (Two Minutes to Read)

9/1/2016

Because of horrendous trade deals like NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), the U.S. now has close to an $800 billion dollar trade shortfall. Our shortfall with China alone is $500 billion. They must really think we’re stupid. The problem is that not enough people know what this means to us from an economic perspective and if we don’t know we don’t care and believe me, we need to start caring a lot because our future livelihoods depends on it.
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Every dollar that leaves our country due to a trade imbalance is gone and no longer helping our economy. Think about it, our Federal Budget is over $3 trillion dollars so we lose close to a third of that by giving money away to other countries. We could fairly quickly make it a balance budget if we get out of these horrendous trade deals. The only way some of the money makes its way back is through investment into the U.S. through countries like China buying U.S. securities. But even with this, the money doesn’t actually come back for good it’s temporary and we have to pay it back with interest. Kind of scary when you think about it that China and Japan own part of our Social Security Trust Fund. What happens when they get tired of putting money in it?

What would happen if we cut the trade deficit in half which is very much doable with the right trade deals? I calculated what $400 billion dollars being put back in our economy would do and it would sustain annually over 7,000,000 new jobs. What a huge difference this would make in the lives of these people and their families. Of course these 7,000,000 new workers would be spending money on things like entertainment, food, housing, etc., thus injecting our economy with the $400 billion and it would continue to go round and round benefiting everyone in its path including State and Federal Governments as we all know how much they love to tax everything. The bottom line is that better managing trade can lead to outstanding economic growth and this is why Trump is putting so much emphasis on it. Hillary has shown she wants the status quo when it comes to trade agreements which we’ve seen is greatly hurting our economy.

Our Gross Domestic Product (GDP), would go up giving us economic leverage around the world. As a reminder, our GDP reflects all the output in dollars of everything we produce whether products or services. The more we sell in the U.S. the higher our GDP grows and the more money we have to spend making us more attractive to countries around the world to do business with us.

Obama’s GDP growth rate over the last eight years has been the worse the U.S. has seen since the Great Depression. Basically, his economic policies like the Stimulus Plan, have been completely ineffective. Remember when Obama made a joke of it and said: “I guess the shovel ready projects weren’t so shovel ready.” Not something in my opinion that should be laughed about. Sure politicians aren’t hurt by bad economic times, but we sure are.

Hillary Clinton strongly supported NAFTA and she supports a new Trans Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement which would be awful for our country but beneficial for helping countries like Mexico, Peru, and Vietnam all of which already have trade surpluses in dealing with us. The agreement addresses poverty in these countries but not in the U.S.

The bottom line is we must have a bunch of idiots representing the U.S. in trade agreements. If my company would’ve made these types of deals we would’ve gone bankrupt which is exactly where we’re headed. Surely a country our size with the leverage we have, could do a better job making deals that would benefit its citizens. We should take the people who have made the trade agreements that have tanked our economy and put them in prison for treason…it sounds only fair.

Gene Wilder

9/1/2016

Gene Wilder just passed away at the age of 83 due to complications from Alzheimer's. He was in 22 movies including the classics: Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. He was also on several TV shows one in which was Will and Grace where he won an Emmy. He also won several other awards over the years. He wrote six books and directed several movies.

He never had children although he and Gilda Radner tried. For some reason she kept having miscarriages when doctors finally figured out she had Ovarian Cancer and died in 1989...Wilder was devastated and created a charity in her name for the pursuit of cancer cures. Gene Wilder was an awesome man and will be missed by all those who have had the pleasure of seeing his artistry over the years. Rest in peace, Gene.

Do We Need Voter Identification?

9/1/2016

Terry McAuliffe, the Democrat Governor from Virginia, is going to clear 13,000 felons to vote in November's election. The Democrat Party is already being investigated there (and in other locations throughout the country including Chicago and Philadelphia), for a "pay for votes" scam where people were paid money to NOT go in and vote and instead people took their place at the voting booth and voted for Democrat candidates including Obama. I saw one guy admit to it and said he got $25 to give up his vote...boy that was a cheap vote.

There's a court case now in PA where an African American woman who was in charge of a voting district, actually forged signatures that got Obama on the primary ballot (she did other things as well). Once again, I got to see some of these people verify that the signatures weren't theirs.

I mention all of this because I want to show there’s a problem even though Democrats don’t say there is…of course they would say this, they’re benefiting from it. I don't know how much voter fraud is happening but it does exist and asking people to have some form of picture I.D. before they vote, is such a simple and common sense solution. I say some "form" of I.D. because we need to realize that not everyone drives a vehicle. A lot of people in poorer communities use public transportation so they don't have a driver's license. Even in NYC millions of people don't drive so they don't have driver's license either. Many places offer picture I.D.'s including the DMV where you can get one in some places for free or for a nominal fee.

Now when it comes to felons I'm actually not sure what I think. If they pay for their crimes with prison time then I'm not sure where voting comes into it; it seems like it would be good to get them involved in their civic duties. What I do hate is that these felons (if they do vote), will vote Democrat which does beg the question, what exactly are the demographics of the Democrat voter?

Arrogance

9/1/2016

There’s a story in the Bible about a pompous man who attended a wedding and when he arrived at the big tent he took a seat up front. A few minutes later someone more important than him arrived and they asked him to move from his prominent seat and take one in the back. How embarrassing. The Bible says that those who are humble will be exalted but those who exalt themselves will be humbled.

In those times when Christ talked about how we should live our lives being arrogant wasn’t one of the characteristics he mentioned, just the opposite. There’s not a problem with being confident which is basically being self-assured because that’s a characteristic of someone who is successful but arrogance is revealing an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities. One of the key words here is “revealing” which is also known as bragging.

So the bottom line is we’re called to be humble not arrogant. People don’t like being around arrogant people and how can we make a positive difference in this world if people don’t want to be around us?

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Author: John Mann

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