Sunday, December 08, 2013

Taking Stock of My Life Today, Things are positive!


Here I'm at Berlin's Reichstag
Earth—This planet we inhabit is quickly getting incredibly smaller.  We travel where we please easier than ever despite the thieves and thugs of the TSA.  When we can’t travel we make wonderful free video calls to our friends even internationally via Skype.com and can send e-mail.
I’m blessed with incredibly wonderful friends here in the USA, Europe and even India.  All of my friendships are threatened simply because because life itself is fragile.  Many of my friends have left me for the hereafter. Many died way too young.  
I’m in reasonably good health despite the reality that time is marching and I can’t reverse the aging process. 
I’ve been both blessed and cursed with more excitement in my life than most people will ever see.  Surviving a life changing shooting in 1987 and a career that brought me face to face with horrible violence, injustice, tyranny and some really wonderful experiences.   I'm by nature an adrenalin Junkie. I must always be where the action is. 
I have had to come to grips with my taking the wrong career direction as a young man.  After my stint as an Army medical corpsman I should have tackled medical school and not surrendered to a fear of advanced mathematics.   I had no parents to help me overcome the difficult financial issues associated with that kind of an education.
Life has thrown me some curve balls and fortunately I’ve not yet struck out.  I’m still carefully watching the ball.
I do regret returning to the USA to live after my incredible military obligation and love for life in Germany.  Those 18 months in Europe were truly the best times of my life.  I learned about kindness, art, music, and some incredibly elegant women. 
The United States has deteriorated dramatically.  People are only knowledgeable about inane pop culture crap, video games and reality TV.  Kindness here has all but disappeared, being replaced with suspicion, divisiveness and even hate.  As for elegance one need only check out the customers shopping at any local WalMart.  I can remember when people dressed up to go see a movie but not anymore.
My politics all but make me an anarchist.  I’m not fond of the heavy hand of government.  I’ve always resented authority and particularly those laws or regulations designed to protect me from myself.  I’m unhappy to see more and more of our hard won freedom stolen by politicians. We've replaced freedom with abject fascism.  
I don’t know what adventures or romances lay ahead for me.   Everyday is a new day and I must only look forward.  There is no going backward.  We don’t get to relive our lives and correct our mistakes.
All I know is that without my friends my life would be worthless and unbearable.   For all of those wonderful people that have been kind to me or befriended me I have two words, thank you.




Friday, December 06, 2013

NBC’s The Sound of Music Live, My Review


New York, NY—NBC put on two projects, the making of this project and then a week later the live play.
This was a classic film with Christopher Plummer and Julie Andrews.  It was based on a great World War Two inspired story of the von Trapp family. 
Okay I much preferred the show about making the show better than the show itself. 
The first problem was ridicules miscasting of the talented singer Audra McDonald as Mother Abbess.  It was beyond dopy to cast an African-American woman as the Austrian Catholic Mother Superior.  Was this some sick idea of political correctness?  This was distracting to say the least.  
Carrie Underwood was wonderful as was Stephen Moyer.  Underwood is a versatile performer.  The cameras all loved her and she delivered.  This despite her pure American persona rather than being a European like the real deal. 
The Children were adorable and I can only imagine how their parents were on Cloud 9 beaming with pride.  I’m sure many of them bought the latest and greatest big screen TV to watch their kids in this event.
The great story and music carried this project even though it was somewhat awkward and stagy.  Parts of the show were reminiscent of bad community theater productions.
The real test was how many people including those tweeting criticisms those did not change the channel.  We all watched and no matter what were touched by parts of this production.
Audra McDonald has a great singing voice but seemed to lack needed acting chops.  It was like she knew that she just did not fit into this story.  I can’t blame McDonald for crappy casting.  I’d like to hope that African-Americans would not have been offended by not seeing their own in this production.
Should NBC continue with this kind of programing?  Certainly, but I hope they learn from mistakes.  Anything beats the reality crap that plays to the lowest common denominator of the typical low brow American audience.  The Cast:
Carrie Underwood - Maria von Trapp
Stephen Moyer - Captain von Trapp
Laura Benanti - Elsa Schrader
Christian Borle - Max Detweiler
Michael Campayno - Rolf Gruber
Sophia Anne Caruso - Brigitta von Trapp
Peyton Ella - Gretl von Trapp
Michael Nigro - Friedrich von Trapp
Ariane Rinehart - Liesl von Trapp
Grace Rundhaug - Marta von Trapp
Ella Watts-Gorman - Louisa von Trapp
Joe West - Kurt von Trapp

Wednesday, December 04, 2013

More Guns Than Ever In The US as the Murder Rate Rapidly Declines!


Chicago, IL—Officials here are saying that the murder rate has suddenly declined to 1965 levels.  The same is happening all across the nation. However having anti-gun or self-defense zealot Barack Obama in the Whitehouse has brought on a huge surge of never before seen levels of civilian gun buying. 
Wow! Those that think that more guns in the hands of civilians would create massive bloodbaths or worse with the considerably relaxed laws on possessing or carrying them have been proven wrong.    
Chicago went from a total gun ban to “shall issue” carry permits for the law-abiding.  The program has not yet been implemented but prosecutors cannot enforce the bans on gun carrying by the large population of people possessing state firearm ID cards.
The George Zimmerman shooting and trial was the greatest PR event against crime ever by sending a highly publicized message to thugs everywhere.  That message is that doing the things that thugs do is now suddenly very hazardous.  Thankfully most thugs are cowards. 
With the significant proliferation in people carrying guns for self-defense we are having fewer murders and also surprisingly fewer gun accidents. 
On the issue of safety there are two contributing factors to the reduction of accidents.  One is that people carrying guns are getting professional safety training.  The other factor is that guns are not being left behind in homes where children may get their hands on them.  Instead those guns are in holsters being carried by their owners. 
There are those folks that still believe gun registration laws are needed.  They really can’t explain why simply because they’ve been brainwashed through misleading political propaganda. 
Most people don't know that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled twice, exempting felons and those prohibited by law from possessing firearms from registering them!  It’s all about self-incrimination and the Fifth Amendment.  Filing out registration forms violates their rights!
Guns are only left at crime when a criminal is killed, wounded or captured at the scene.  Under those circumstances police have all the information they need and registration accomplishes nothing!  
Gun owners that become victimized by theft of firearms reports the thefts to police and the serial numbers are entered into a national database. If someone gets caught with a hot gun or one with a defaced serial number a jail cell awaits him or her.
The fact is crimes are incredibly seldom or never committed with guns in possession of their registered owners.
Gun registration is meaningless other than to provide political despots a list of people to disarm or otherwise attack.  Newspapers have also printed the names and addresses of registered gun owners informing burglars wither homes to avoid or ones where they can steal firearms. 
Professor John Lott made the case for that premise in his book titled, “More Guns, Less Crime.”   With all the restrictions lifted since and the sales of millions more guns Lott has proven to be absolutely correct on every count! 
As Americans we have a duty to protect each other from a tiny minority of criminals that would victimize us.  We cannot ever depend on the police arriving minutes or longer after the crime to make any meaningful difference.
The evidence and facts about gun rights are a lot different that the political propagandists have been claiming for decades.
To look at the reverse of this more guns, less crime argument simply look to the UK and Australia where they more recently in the last few decades outlawed guns.  Crime and particularly murders and serious assaults have skyrocketed since the bans went into effect.
The real facts are that the gun-rights haters are driven by misguided emotions or a desire to disarm Americans for nefarious purposes.

Tuesday, December 03, 2013

Remote Control Drones For Business, Fun and Mischief


Phoenix, AZ—I just had to have one of these things when I learned they could carry my wildly popular high definition GoPro cameras to new heights capturing previously impossible video.
I now have the Blade 350 quadcopter that I obtained from B&H Photo.  I also now have two GoPro cameras and a large box of accessories including lots of clever camera mounts.  Two GoPro cameras are not enough for filmmakers that need to cover every angle.  I think I need three more.
Amazon.com just announced their plan to utilize drones to deliver packages less than five pounds in 30 minutes to our homes.   There are some huge hurdles that may prevent that from ever happening.  However the free publicity for Amazon at the beginning of the Christmas season obviously motivated that announcement.
A drone was recently discovered being used to deliver drugs and cell phones to prison inmates. 
One drone owner friend said using his drone in Las Vegas enabled him to peer into various hotel windows to see who was having more fun than he was. 
In an era where TV news is losing its audience to bloggers and other Internet sources drones can cheaply and easily obtain video images that only incredibly expensive helicopters could previously cover. 
The drones can legally be flown at much lower heights than traditional helicopters. Drones for Electronic News Gathering or ENG will become routine.
Ranchers and farmers can use the little drones check on cattle and crops with ease.
Micro-budgets filmmakers can get those overhead shots from the angles of those expensive cranes and jibes.  Of course the angles and heights only helicopters could reach are easy for drones to handle.
GPS and operators using line of sight presently guide the new crop of affordable drones.  There are remote viewing devices including the GoPros alone sending back live video to tablets and smartphones at a somewhat limited range. 
The real estate industry can use these things to obtain terrific aerial images of the properties they're selling.  Building contractors can inspect their projects at every stage of development.
Mall security workers can inspect and patrol their vast parking lots by drone. 
Research and development into drone technology is right now in overdrive.  A simple small drone with a GoPro or similar camera like mine can be purchased for around $1,000.00.   There are bigger and more complex drones with much higher price tags. 
I anticipate drones will very soon be available that can livestream quality video on the Internet for extended periods for less than $10,000.00 in the near future. 
We don’t yet know what laws will be put into place regulating drones or how they will even begin try and to enforce them.  
The survivalists and anti-government crowd were complaining about Big Brother using drones to spy on them.  The tables are turning because these same tools can be now be used to spy on Big Brother.

Thursday, November 28, 2013

The Next Nuclear Bomb Won’t be Delivered by a by Missile.

Arizona/Mexico Border—Our nuclear-armed enemies have had five solid years of deliberate and well publicized, near non-protection of our borders.  Instead of protecting our borders the Obama Administration instead beefed up the senseless fondling, groping and outright molesting of old American grandmothers and their little grandchildren by TSA goons at our airports.
The first and so far only use of the Atomic Bomb was by us against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan in August of 1945. Soon thereafter Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and others stole the manufacturing secret passing that technology to the Soviet Union. The couple was executed in the eclectic chair for their dastardly acts.  From there the stolen secret has armed numerous nations some of which are rogue.  
In the almost 70 years since we’d be really naïve to think building such a device is beyond that of any reasonably financed nation.  We really don’t know who has them or not. 
We all somehow expect that a missile would deliver the next Atomic Bomb.  The rub there is that making such missile is expensive and difficult.  However the A-Bomb can be more easily and unnoticeably delivered by conventional aircraft or even by small trucks.
In case you were wondering the bombs we dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan were rather small in size but somewhat heavy.  The bombs were each nicknamed.  Fat Man weighed in at 10,300 pounds and Little Boy was 9,700 pounds.  Each bomb destroyed their targets and at least 200,000 people lost their lives.  That of course brought Japan to its knees and ended the war. 
We flew the bombs to Japan because we were in a hurry and had not been able to invade by land.   We were also in a hurry but at the time this was newly enabled technology. 
When they talk about Nuclear Arms the always mention missiles for some reason.  A missile could quickly deliver the deadly goods but planting them in simply mini-storage units would do the job better.  They could simply be detonated by a text message. 
The next nuclear device set off in the world will have been planted moths or even years earlier.  There will be no air raid sirens, military intervention or warnings, just a city or cities blown to Kingdom Come.  With any luck the first will go off in the District of Columbia taking out all the traitors and fools that have allowed such a thing to happen.
The saddest part of all is that it’s the population of any nation that gets victimized by the bombs.  It’s a price they must pay for the provocations made by their leaders.