Today I watched the last Space Shuttle lift off, right up the coast from me. Once the Atlantis lands, 9,000 people will be laid off. One man has worked at NASA for over 30 years, and he has worked on every single one of the 135 shuttle launches since the first one in 1981.
But it’s not just lost jobs. It’s a loss of will. It’s a loss of national ambition. A loss of of our sense of purpose as a country.
It’s been decades since we’ve done anything to build our future. The last big national infrastructure project was the interstate highway system, started in the 1950s. The last big national technology program, manned space flight, ends next week when the Atlantis lands for the last time, and gets shipped off to a museum.
Taxes are the lowest they’ve been in 80 years. But at what cost to our country?
Our train tracks rust. Our highways crumble. Our bridges collapse. Our schools, once the best in the world, rank lower and lower every year against other countries. China builds high-speed railways that whisk its citizens from one city to another at 200 miles an hour. Brazil has managed to make itself completely energy independent, thanks to a massive national program to make biofuels. India has a space program that is rapidly progressing towards full satellite launches and manned missions.
Every other western democracy provides full health care for all its citizens. Many new immigrants to the United States keep a second citizenship, not from loyalty to the country of their birth, but as a hedge in case they get really sick – they can always go home for medical care. Business fail, or never start in the first place, because they can’t provide health care coverage for their employees.
To me, the end of manned space flight is a symbol of everything that is wrong with our country. We have become tight and petty. We care more about keeping the most money in our pockets we can, rather than building a future.
We used to reach for the stars. Now we reach for our wallets and hold on to them tightly, refusing to contribute anything for fear that someone, somewhere, might cheat us. We’ve become a nation of dogs in the manger.
It is said, over and over, that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Just look at the history books – the last time we had ridiculously low taxes, no national infrastructure programs, and a culture that didn’t believe in bringing people up from under? The 1920’s. Ending in 1929. The Great Depression. And it took 15 years and a world war to pull our heads back into the sky and start building up again.
But we don’t learn from history, because we’re doing it again. We keep cutting taxes and cutting programs. The rich have more money than they’ve had since the 1920s, while contributing less and less to the country that made their wealth possible in the first place. We cut or eliminate every program that has a chance of building a new future.
We should be building and spending our way towards a new future, not cutting back and screaming “Mine! Mine!”. We should have a million new workers out right now, building new and better highways. Better and faster railways. Newer and more efficient airports. We should rebuild our entire electrical system, to make it more efficient and modern. We should be running fiber optic internet cable to every single resident of the entire country.
And yes, we should have a cutting edge space program, both to give our children something to look up to and admire, as well as to create all the new technologies and companies that will fuel the future. Without Apollo and the manned space program, we would not have the modern computer industry, many new health breakthroughs like MRIs and laser surgery, and literally hundreds of other things. It has been estimated that every dollar we spent on the space program earned back a hundred times that amount in new jobs, technologies, and businesses.
China has a lock on rare earth minerals, vital for computer parts and medical machinery. Why don’t we fund a national space program to mine those minerals from asteroids? We are beholden to countries we hate, because we have to grovel for their oil. Why don’t we start a massive solar satellite power system to build and beam down energy from space? Refining certain pharmaceuticals in centrifuges is phenomenally expensive and time consuming, while the same drugs could be made in zero gravity for pennies. Why don’t we fund a massive medical and pharmaceutical facility in earth orbit for manufacturing such things?
We spent a trillion dollars invading and “rebuilding” a country that never attacked us, and in which we have no national interest. We spent another trillion dollars invading another country and occupying it for 10 years when what we really wanted was to capture a single criminal. Yet our politicians haggle and whine over amounts that don’t even amount to one ten-thousandth of those figures if it has something to do with issues here at home.
One of our political parties cries and whimpers that they won’t even consider raising a single tax on anyone or anything. “We refuse to pay for our country”, they say. “We want all the money for ourselves”. The other political party dithers and waffles, refusing to set goals or an agenda or object to anything. “We’ll just wait and see”, they say. “The future will be whatever it is”.
Remember when we used to have actual leaders? Remember when John F. Kennedy sparked a nation when he announced the goal of putting a man on the moon, and said, “We do this not because it is easy, but because it is hard”? Where is that spirit now?
Everyone who reads this, I beg of you: The next time a politician asks for your vote, don’t ask them how much of your money you get to keep. Ask them how they’re going to build the future. Demand that they look forward, not backward. Tell them to spend every cent they can to make our country the best and the brightest.
In other words… Demand that they reach for the stars.
A Clean Car is a Happy Car
It’s been brought to my attention that I am known for having and keeping a clean car. I’ve done that since I got my very first car – which wasn’t much of a car (1981 Pontiac Phoenix! Yeah man!), but it was clean. Even when that awful car suffered complete internal organ failure, and I was given a whopping $150 in trade-in credit, the dealer noted “At least it’s clean and the interior is in really good shape. I can use those seats at least”.
Not too long ago, a friend asked, “How do you manage that? How do you keep your car so clean? I just don’t see how it’s possible.” The answer is in the question itself: It’s clean because I keep it clean. And honestly, I don’t understand why everyone else doesn’t do the same thing.
My car is the most expensive single thing I own. For homeowners, it’s probably the second most expensive thing. I spend a lot of time in my car, hours and hours every week. onecard fawry I breathe the air there. I sit on the upholstery. I put my hands on the steering wheel. I touch the dash, the seats, the sides of the doors. To me, it’s like another room of my house.
These same people who are amazed at my clean car have perfectly clean houses and apartments. They know how to clean. They vacuum, wash dishes, wipe countertops, and mop floors. They have bottles of Windex and Pledge, they own scrub brushes and sponges, they use paper towels regularly. They quite clearly know how to keep things clean, and how to clean them.
Some months ago, I rode in someone’s car that had an odd… smell. After a while, I gently asked about the smell. “Oh, my daughter spilled orange juice in the back a few months ago. It got all over the seat and carpet.” The End.
This exact same person, if the exact same daughter had spilled that exact same glass of orange juice in their living room? On a couch, and it had gotten into the living room rug? They would have immediately soaked the coach cushions, cleaned the rug with shampoo, and scrubbed out the orange juice stains. Can you imagine walking into someone’s house, seeing a giant, congealed glob of rotten orange juice on the carpet and couch, and having them say, “Oh, yeah, one of the kids did that a few months ago.”
Yet, when the same thing happens in a car, they just throw up their hands and say “Oh, well, it’s the car.” No. Don’t do this. It’s the same thing as your living room.
And then there’s trash in the car. Would you leave empty bottles, cups, used Kleenex, hamburger wrappers, etc on your living room floor? Or on your kitchen counters? Or in your bathroom? For months at a time? But I see this in cars all the time. “Yeah, I need to clean that stuff up someday”.
No. No, you don’t clean it up “some day”. ميدان الخيل You clean it up that same day. Always. If I eat something in the car, then wrappers, cups, you name it, everything gets taken out and thrown away at the next stop. The very next time I get out of the car. I never, ever carry trash of any kind around in my car. No more than I would just let trash pile up on my kitchen counter or on my dining room floor. There are even legal and insurance claims that have been turned down for garbage not allowing the driver to to use a pedal or starp on the seat belt, to learn more, read this article about the importance of seat belt compliance in a personal injury claim.
If something spills on the car rug? I bring down the vacuum, clean it out, and use rug cleaner on it. The exact same thing that I would do if something spilt on the rug in my house.
Every few weeks, I vacuum out my car. Just like I do my house.
I wipe off the dash, the door insides, the steering wheel, and every surface. Just like I do with my kitchen counters, my living room furniture, and my bathrooms. To me, there is no difference.
Every few months, I do an intense interior cleaning on my car, using Armor All, leather cleaner, and polish. Just like I do when, every few months, I do an intense cleaning of my floors, using wax and cleaner. Just like I do, every few months, to my furniture with deep wax and polish. To me, there is no difference.
And every month or two, I take the car to a car wash, and have the exterior washed and cleaned. I pay about $20 for this. I do this because I live in an apartment, and I don’t have access to a hose and the like.
That’s pretty much it. Keeping a clean car, to me, is a simple matter of maintenance and basic hygiene.
Now. To you parents out there.
I see you’re always careful to keep certain areas of your house extra clean, so that germs don’t spread and so your kids stay as sniffle-free and healthy as possible. But for some reason, you think your car possesses some magical power to resist germs without cleaning. I see you wiping off bathroom surfaces and kitchen areas meticulously – but the inside of your car hasn’t been touched since you bought it. Where do you think all those germs are coming from?
A clean car is a happy car, and it makes you feel good to be in one. So if your car is a bit of a mess… turn it around. Go clean out all the trash. Vacuum the carpet. Get some good old Woolite rug cleaner and get those stains out. Windex off the inside and clean those door handles. Clean the insides of the windows. Clean off old stickers and gunky areas with Goof Off. Shine up the dash with some Armor All. You will feel so much better driving, and everyone who gets into your car will feel better too.
From then on, remember: Whatever goes in the car, goes out of the car. Every time, every day. If you wouldn’t put up with it in your house, then don’t put up with it in your car. لعبة دومينو للمحترفين اون لاين
And then you can be Happy Happy Happy like me. Well, at least in your car. Have an A1 Day!