Recently, actor Charlton Heston died. He will best be remembered for the famous movies he starred in. Also, he was a conservative thinker and a champion of wholesome American values.

In his later years, as president of the National Rifle Association (NRA), he defended the constitution’s 2^nd amendment – representing our right to bear arms. Our nation’s founding fathers understood the value of a well armed citizenry as being a necessary foil against intrusive and oppressive government.

Charlton Heston was a ‘man’s man’ in a world of decreasing values, corruption, exploitation, illogical thinking, and control. In my opinion, as a perfect role model, he represents the expression of individual freedom and a quality of excellence that we all may aspire to.

Following are some of his quotes:

“I’ve played three presidents, three saints and two geniuses – and that’s probably enough for any man.”

“The trouble with movies as a business is that it’s an art, and the trouble with movies as art is that it’s a business.”

“Undeniably the American art form, too. And yet more and more, we see films made that diminish the American experience and example. And sometimes trash it completely.”

“Society mends its wounds. And that’s invariably true in all the tragedies, in the comedies as well. And certainly in the histories.”

“…You do not define the First Amendment. It defines you. And it is bigger than you. That’s how freedom works. It also demands you do your homework. Again and again, I hear gun owners say, how can we believe anything the anti-gun media says when they can’t even get the facts right? For too long, you have swallowed manufactured statistics and fabricated technical support from anti-gun organizations that wouldn’t know a semi- auto from a sharp stick. And it shows. You fall for it every time…“

“…I simply cannot stand by and watch a right guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States come under attack from those who either can’t understand it, don’t like the sound of it, or find themselves too philosophically squeamish to see why it remains the first among equals: Because it is the right we turn to when all else fails. That’s why the Second Amendment is America’s first freedom…”

“…Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder. Yet in essence, that is what you have asked our loved ones to do, through an ill-contrived and totally naive campaign against the Second Amendment…”

“…The Founders’ intent in framing the Second Amendment is perfectly clear and undeniable. Thomas Jefferson wrote, “No man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.” Some anti-gun elitists declare this notion outdated. However, many constitutional scholars from this country’s most prestigious universities agree that the Founders’ intent is clear and irreversible: To “keep and bear arms” is a right for all law-abiding citizens…”

“…The First Amendment is crucial. Of course it is. So are all the others. And the Second Amendment is the one that guarantees that people can bear arms to protect themselves…”

“…There’s no such thing as a good gun. There’s no such thing as a bad gun. A gun in the hands of a bad man is a very dangerous thing. A gun in the hands of a good person is no danger to anyone except the bad guys…”

“…He [President Clinton] boasts about 186,000 people denied firearms under the Brady Law rules. The Brady Law has been in force for three years. In that time, they have prosecuted seven people and put three of them in prison. You know, the President has entertained more felons than that at fundraising coffees in the White House, for Pete’s sake…”

“…Teddy Roosevelt hunted in the last century with a semiautomatic rifle. Most deer rifles are semiautomatic … it’s become a demonized phrase. The media distorts that and the public ill understands it…”

“…You know, the Bill of Rights guarantees every citizen the right to own and bear firearms. It doesn’t say anything about how many, how much you can pay for them. That’s in the Bill of Rights. That’s a sacred document in our country. There’s no other country in the world that has such document. And you know what it’s purpose is? To prevent the federal government from interfering with private citizens’ rights … If you will read what the Founding Fathers wrote when they were writing it — Jefferson, Mason, Madison, Patrick Henry, Tom Paine — every one of them wrote at great length that they were talking about the individual rights of individual citizens…”

“… Now his positions track the N.R.A.’s. Trigger locks? A ludicrous invention. If you can’t put it on a weapon without taking the bullets out, why put it on? A five-day waiting period? It’s hard for me to accept that a guy says, I’m going to kill that s.o.b., but, darn, I have this five-day waiting period. He probably still wants to kill him after five days. Ban Saturday-night specials? The black and Hispanic women who clean office buildings until 3 a.m. and then walk home – of course, they want a handgun in their purse. Limit purchases to one gun a month? It’s the camel’s nose in the tent. Look at Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Idi Amin – every one of these monsters, on seizing power, their first act was to confiscate all firearms in private hands. …”

“…We have to pass on to America in the 21st century the same Bill of Rights that those wise, old, dead white guys that invented this country passed on to us…”

HESTON TAKING ON TIME WARNER’S PROMOTION OF

“COP KILLER” ALBUM
(Conversation between host Tony Snow and Charlton Heston)

SNOW: “You have one of the great voices in the entertainment world. A few years ago, you showed up at a Time Warner stockholders meeting and started reading the lyrics from a rap album and just froze everybody in their tracks.”

HESTON: “That was that terrible album by Ice T called ‘Cop Killer’. And I’m very proud of this, I really am. I owned some Time Warner stock and I went in and confronted their full board meeting and read the lyrics. I can’t repeat them on television.”

SNOW: “No, you can’t.”

HESTON: “And I shamed Time Warner, the largest entertainment conglomerate in the world, into firing Ice T and dropping the album. Now, he threatened to kill me. He hasn’t done that yet.”

SNOW: “I believe your quote was something like, `Let him try.’”

HESTON: “Well, maybe I scared him. And I haven’t gotten a job from Warner Brothers since or a good notice in Time, but I’m as proud of that as anything I’ve ever done.”

An elderly man in Florida had owned a large farm for several years.

He had a large pond in the back, fixed up nice; picnic tables, horseshoe courts, and some apple and peach trees. The pond was ideal for swimming, although he rarely did that anymore.

One evening he decided to go down to the pond, as he hadn’t been there for a while, and look it over. He grabbed a five gallon bucket with which to bring back some fruit.

As he neared the pond, he heard voices shouting and laughing with glee.

As he came closer he saw it was a bunch of young women skinny-dipping in his pond.

He made the women aware of his presence and they all went to the deep end.

One of the women shouted to him, “We’re not coming out until you leave!”

The old man frowned, “I didn’t come down here to watch you ladies swim naked or to make you get out of the pond naked.” Holding the bucket up He said, “I’m here to feed the alligator.”

Moral: Some old men can still think fast.

Published on: February 22, 2008

http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/new_cars

/4251491.html?series=19

The Air Car caused a huge stir when we reported last year that Tata Motors would begin producing it in India. Now the little gas-free ride that could is headed Stateside in a big-time way.

Zero Pollution Motors (ZPM)confirmed to PopularMechanics.com on Thursday that it expects to produce the world’s first air-powered car for the United States by late 2009 or early 2010. As the U.S. licensee for Luxembourg-based MDI, which developed the Air Car as a compression-based alternative to the internal combustion engine, ZPM has attained rights to build the first of several modular plants, which are likely to begin manufacturing in the Northeast and grow for regional production around the country, at a clip of up to 10,000 Air Cars per year. And while ZPM is also licensed to build MDI’s two-seater OneCAT economy model (the one headed for India) and three-seat MiniCAT (like a SmartForTwo without the gas), the New Paltz, N.Y., startup is aiming bigger: Company officials want to make the first air-powered car to hit U.S. roads a $17,800, 75-hp equivalent, six-seat modified version of MDI’s CityCAT (pictured above) that, thanks to an even more radical engine, is said to travel as far as 1000 miles at up to 96 mph with each tiny fill-up. We’ll believe that when we drive it, but MDI’s new dual-energy engine—currently being installed in models at MDI facilities overseas—is still pretty damn cool in concept. After using compressed air fed from the same Airbus-built tanks in earlier models to run its pistons, the next-gen Air Car has a supplemental energy source to kick in north of 35 mph, ZPM says. A custom heating chamber heats the air in a process officials refused to elaborate upon, though they insisted it would increase volume and thus the car’s range and speed. “I want to stress that these are estimates, and that we’ll know soon more precisely from our engineers,” ZPM spokesman Kevin Haydon told PM, “but a vehicle with one tank of air and, say, 8 gal. of either conventional petrol, ethanol or biofuel could hit between 800 and 1000 miles.” Those figures would make the Air Car, along with Aptera’s Typ-1 and Tesla’s Roadster, a favorite among early entrants for the Automotive X Prize, for which MDI and ZPM have already signed up. But with the family-size, four-door CityCAT undergoing standard safety tests in Europe, then side-impact tests once it arrives in the States, could it be the first 100-mpg, nonelectric car you can actually buy?

In his book, ‘The Divine Matrix’, Gregg Braden writes about spiritual concepts regarding the connection we human beings have to each other, to all there is in the universe, and to our religious God of creation.

Braden is personable, and his book is easy and understandable reading. It is uniquely interesting how he discusses notions of metaphysics and New Age thinking within the premises of what is being proven in the scientific world of Quantum Physics.

Does this demean or reduce the stature of our God of the Bible? No, it instead makes the religious explanations of life and God so much larger and grander. They say that Quantum Physics will one day – scientifically prove God.

["Are the miracles that we see in the quantum world actually showing us our greatest possibilities rather than our scientific limits? There is a place where all things begin, the place that pure energy 'is'. In this quantum incubator for reality, everything is possible. In 1944, Max Planck, the father of quantum theory, shocked the world by saying that this 'matrix' is where the birth of stars, the DNA of life, and everything between originates... The Divine Matrix is real... It is the container for the universe, the bridge between our imagination and our reality, and the mirror in our world for what we create in our beliefs..."] – from the book.

You will gain great insights about life, by reading this book – and, you will be able to discuss spiritual concepts with the science to back it up. It will enable you to see life, and yourself on a grander scale. There are 2 links on this post to amazon.com. Go there for additional information.

~ Steve… Over 50 – A Single Man’s Point Of View ~

amazon.com

~ Nomi Shannon ~

It may not always happen, but we saved about $50 on each item. That’s about a $150 savings folks, and that extra money can now be used to celebrate at ‘Tommy’s Las Olas’, or for anything else we choose.

We are so pleased with amazon.com that we have added a link to their website on this blog – off to the left. These days, everyone loves great deals and saving money!

~ Steve… Over 50 – A Single Man’s Point Of View ~

– John Adams (Defense of the Constitution, 1787)

Reference: The Learning of Liberty, Prangle and Prangle (96);
original The Works of John Adams, C.F. Adams, ed., vol. 6 (168)

Maybe comedian Billy Crystal didn’t, when years ago on his ‘Saturday Night Live’ spoof, he humorously imitated actor Ricardo Montalban. Imitating Montalban’s Latin accent, Billy said, “Better to look good than feel good.” We all laughed while repeatedly quoting the phrase – including the accent. It was good fun.

This is the first post on this subject. Health is on your writer’s mind all the time. Surely, we can all benefit by opening our minds to different ways of thinking about it. Being healthy has even become important to younger men and women. It’s too debilitating, inconvenient, and expensive being sick all the time. Also, health benefits are running slim in many of the corporate work places.

My interest in staying healthy began several years ago – witnessing the demise of health-compromised parents. None of the several medicines prescribed by their Dr. Joe improved their life. And, so many other people and friends, near my age (and younger), were also getting sick.

Health is not what you get from a Dr. Joe, or anyone else. It comes from first having an understanding of how to be healthy. Mature men of age and character, still out there in the business world or pursuing a social agenda – will eventually not perform very well, while existing in a state of compromised health. Who said we are supposed to get sick when we get older?

Feel free to visit again. You can benefit from what I figured out. Let it become your breakthrough to a life of well-being. More to come!

Perhaps you also can take a great picture of a flower, or a butterfly, or even of some grey-haired guy getting on the motorcycle you fancy yourself riding. Get it framed and hung on your wall to remind you of your options and potential.

This is what we like!

~Steve… Over 50 – A Single Man’s Point f View ~

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/04/03/

best-nature-photo-award-winners.aspx

Everyone loves Tommy’s Las Olas. If your travels bring you to Ft. Lauderdale – don’t miss it. If you live close – how lucky you are. The links below are to Tommy’s website, and also to the Florida Sun-Sentinel’s review of it.

This is what we like!

~ Steve… Over 50 – A Single Man’s Point Of View ~

http://www.tommyslasolas.com/

http://tsdg.typepad.com/lasolas/2008/02/review—tommys.html