Gay Pride at the Expense of Military Pride

The beginning of the End

            In a few days another Gay Pride parade will take place on the streets of San Diego. What makes this one noteworthy is the prominent presence of active duty military members gleefully celebrating their lifestyle with other members of their community. What matters not is how Americans see this. What matters most is how our enemies will view it.

I fear we have given a gift to Hamas and Al Qaeda recruiters that they could not have dreamed of. America is already seen as weak and decadent, this will convince foreign fighters that the formidable American military – arguably the most powerful fighting force in history – is decaying from the inside. In this case, they might be right.

Taps for the Death of Military Tradition

The Army I knew is gone. The Army that gave my parents a way out of poverty in the cotton fields of Mississippi and Tennessee is no more. The Army which gave me a tour of the world, which let me see other cultures and learn other languages, is gone. I opened my social network pages yesterday and my heart broke.

Change has come quickly to the military in recent years. Changes not designed to enhance the war fighting capabilities; no that’s too expensive. These changes are meant to remake the entire military culture. Rather than have an Army that is ready to protect and defend the people of America, it has been made over to reflect the cultural vision that politicians want to impose on the American people.

The Roots of Change

Some changes are good. Desegregation in the military was a good thing. But many of the changes now in progress have a dubious benefit for the country at large and seem to be headed in the direction of less liberty for all to the benefit of a few.

It is hard to pinpoint exactly when these changes occurred. One could argue that it began with President Truman signing executive order 9981 in April of 1949 but that was the end of a process that began years earlier during the manpower shortages of WWII.

Perhaps the original question of Blacks¹ serving in the American military actually arose during the Civil War. In the earliest conflicts service from Black freemen and bondsmen was accepted without question. An estimated “5,000 Blacks” fought for American independence from England. The Civil War was the result of social questions about the humanity of Blacks living in American and the inhuman treatment they endured.

Several all-Black units served with distinction on both sides during that war. When that conflict ended many freed Blacks found a new live out on the far frontier with units such as the 9^th and 10^th (Horse) Cavalry Regiments. The Buffalo Soldiers left a legacy of bravery throughout the West and overseas when they served meritoriously in the Spanish American War.

Despite their record of achievement, White officers were reluctant to give them credit for their service and White society was equally reluctant to recognize those who had given so much for their freedom and independence. It took decades of work, patience and sacrifice before Blacks were able to force the issue to the Oval Office. Truman’s signature was the culmination of 85 years of toil. And it set in motion the social changes that eventually led to the Civil Rights Movement that finally granted full legal status to Black Americans.

Riding the Wave of Change

The role the military had in catalyzing change in America has not been lost on social engineers. From the early 70s throughout my own twenty year career and up into current times, those who would change America often test their techniques and tactics (with overt political support) on the people in America’s military. If you sit through yet another sexual harassment lecture know that those programs were developed a quarter century ago and refined painfully on captive audiences in uniform. I can tell you from personal experience that what they had in the beginning was crude, annoying and tedious—much like being forced to watch Soviet-era propaganda films – with no subtitles.

The main theme of the social engineering in the military has been to redefine what it is to be a man. The big pro-homosexual push in the uniformed services advocated by President Obama fits nicely into that agenda. Only men were targeted because the assumption was that everything wrong with society stemmed from inherently aggressive male tendencies. If that could be changed then society in general would benefit – and be more peaceful, I assume.

The fallacy of this was those same aggressive male tendencies are precisely what is needed when fighting a war. A unit must be aggressive to achieve its objectives in the face of determined enemy resistance. If you are facing dozens of enemy fighters who are dug in using civilians as shields, do you want to follow Alpha-males like Gunny Highway (played by Clint Eastwood in HEARTBREAK RIDGE) or do you want to follow Beta-males like Captain “Hawkeye” Pierce (played by Alan Alda in the television series M*A*S*H)?

Despite many sound arguments in favor of maintaining an aggressive edge over our enemies—arguments I made myself—the social engineers were determined to complete their pogrom. These liberated feminists and their Beta-male allies have forged ahead unabated. I assume they think that if Americans stop being to aggressively brave our enemies will do the same and world peace will reign.

Implied Weakness and Implications

Action in and around Afghanistan seems to prove that is not going to happen anytime soon. Any sign of weakness in our soldiers, sailors and airmen is seen as a motivating factor for our enemies in the Islamic world (also in foreign capitals like Beijing and Moscow; our true competition). Thus we have given a gift to the jihadists with our latest social experiment.

Repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell may have been the right thing to do. I do not have the historical perspective to judge that and I am not serving on active duty so I cannot gauge the effect of the executive order. Despite the heated debate, that was an internal issue. The overt actions of the Department of Defense as evidenced in this article changes things dramatically.

The Army is going against the established tenet of avoiding political posturing by making this change.  It is likely the other services have issued similar orders permitting active duty servicepersons to wear their uniforms publicly as part of Gay Pride parades. The article calls this an historic event. The Gay service people are ecstatic over being able to show their pride in their orientation and military service. “Defense Secretary Leon Panetta vowed in a video message to remove as many barriers as possible to making the military a model of equal opportunity …” and has committed to making the changes directed by President Barack Obama.

I am left with the question of how this will appear to our enemies. Islam expressly forbids homosexuality and the penalty is death by stoning, though most are merely publicly hanged. The national attention desired by Gay activists will happen. Media outlets from coast to coast will carry the San Diego parade live and in endless repeats for days while pundits debate the wisdom of the decision.

What concerns me is how it will play out on Al Jazeera.  As I said at the beginning, America is already seen as weak and decadent, this will convince foreign fighters that the formidable American military – arguably the most powerful fighting force in history – is decaying from the inside. Fighting American soldiers is tantamount to suicide, now, but if you believe that the will of Americans is waning, you start to believe you can win. That is a dangerous thing for our fighting forces on the ground.

Personally, my pride in the nation remains strong and I believe it will recover from the damage inflicted by these short-sighted, wrong-headed social engineers. However, for now, my pride in my service is diminished and tarnished by this shameful disrespect for those who came before. Perhaps in a few years it won’t matter, but today, it does, to me.

1. I choose not to use the politically correct term “African American” because it is historically inaccurate for most of our purposes. Without the luxury of full citizenship few Blacks could be considered “American” prior to 1967.

Note: in searching for relevant images for this blog I used the BING search engine. I input “Gays in the military” and set it for images. It returned about 70% Gay porn and images of naked young men mostly out of uniform. When I changed my filter to moderate to remove those image options, BING returned – nothing.

I got much more acceptable results when I switched to GOOGLE.

AVENGERS vs. WATCHMEN: Hollywood’s Take on Superhero Movies

Rarely does a movie to make 20 million dollars in ticket sales on a weekend a month after it is released; rarer still to perform that well in the early summer.  The AVENGERS is a rare movie. It resonates with audiences around the world and people have the urge (myself included) to go back to the theatre and see it again.

As of this writing the movie has passed (cue Dr. Evil here) the 1.3 billion dollar mark.  Only James Cameron’s AVATAR and TITANIC stand ahead of it in total earnings; both are within reach—possibly before AVENGERS goes to DVD.

Meanwhile, I picked up a copy of WATCHMEN (2009) from the discount bin at Wal-Mart.  I love two genres of adventure movies: superhero and anime.  I missed this one in the theatre but decided to fill in a gap last weekend.  I was disappointed in the WATCHMEN.  By the end of the movie I regretted the time I had just lost and considered even the five dollars movie cost wasted.

Watchmen failed for many reasons; not just excessive violence, unnecessary sex and nudity, it failed because—for a superhero movie—the stars were neither super nor heroic.  All were deeply flawed, most were mentally unstable and none had the slightest air of nobility.   They were basically violent people who enjoyed dressing in costumes and inflicting pain on ordinary people.

The one powerful being in the movie, Dr. Manhattan, spent most of the movie naked with an enormous penis swaying across the screen.  He had the power to alter reality and move people and things great distances with his mind.  He just didn’t care – not about people, not about justice, not about much.

“With great power comes great responsibility”

Flying men in tights, busty women who can throw a bus halfway to orbit without breaking a nail; these were the heroes of my youth.  All were larger than life, supremely confident, capable and always – noble.  They stood up against injustice and risked everything to right the wrongs of the world—even when the world did not show gratitude.

Everyone in my family is an avid reader. We read everything from encyclopedias to the TV Guide.  Interspersed with all the text books we could find was a growing collection of comic books of every genre.  We kept most of them in an Army foot locker my dad gave us.  Rainy days found us scattered all over the house watching thrilling battles unfold in the theatre of the mind.  Ink and paper were no boundary to our imagination.

I grew up without learning to fly or deflect bullets.  But I still wanted to live up to the ideals of the costumed crime fighters.  I wanted to stand for the little guy and risk it all, if necessary, for the safety of my home and family.  My Navy uniform was never as cool or fitting as any member of the Justice League but the same heart beat in my chest as my ships sailed over the horizon.

The Movies

The first superhero movies left a lot to be desired.  Technology and imagination in Hollywood were inadequate to the story they were trying to tell.  It seemed to me for years that those making the movies had never read a comic in their lives and had no idea how the stories played out in the mind of a child.

Later we finally got the Christopher REEVE’s version of SUPERMAN (1978).  Still campy, but not as bad as Adam West walking up a wall beside Burt Ward in the BATMAN movie and series of the previous decade.

The greatest blessing for science fiction and superhero fans came with the development of CGI (computer-generated imagery).  Clumsy and glaringly fake in the beginning, by early in the 21^st century the CGI was indistinguishable from real life.  Real actors blended seamlessly with their avatars in AVATAR.  And finally, it became true that “you will believe a man can fly.”

A v. W

So how did Watchmen go so wrong and what did Avengers do right?  Simply put, Avengers took what worked in comic books; the elements that had sustained the paper industry well into the age of videogames, and put it on the screen.  Adults could go to see the Avengers and bring along their children.  They can introduce them to the heroes we only saw fly in our imagination while reading by flashlight under the bed or up high in a tree fort.  We can stand up and cheer for the good guys and genuinely hate the bad guys.

On the other hand, the makers of Watchmen did as Hollywood does – tear down the things ordinary people cherish and cover them in sleazy sex and bloody gore.  There really aren’t any villains in Watchmen because the “heroes” are so bad that villains would be redundant. One hero commits forcible rape, another becomes a prostitute, another is a flaming Lesbian, still another goes insane (though it seems all of them are insane to a degree).

At no point is the audience presented with a personality they would want to cheer for, to emulate or even call on in an emergency.  Hollywood took out a stack of comics, crapped on it and asked us to sit back and watch.

How bad was it?  Do you see anyone wearing Halloween costumes from the movies?  Do kids want pajamas in the image of the Night Owl or Dr. Manhattan?  No, not even rebellious teens embraced the Watchmen.   It was simply that bad.

The lesson for Hollywood is loud and spoken in a language they can understand.  Give us true heroes; let us stand and cheer for the good guys.  Avengers is even pro-American yet it is racking up monstrous sales all over the world.  There is still something about right and justice and just plain goodness that resonates in people even overseas.  Give us back our heroes. If you must make flawed, pornographic versions of our stories, please, keep them to yourselves.  The rest of us want to take our families out for a good time without having to explain what that glowing blue thing is dangling on front of the camera.

Bring My ENTERPRISE To Life!

The First Mission

On July 4^th, 2033 the world’s first starship orbits high above the East Coast of the United States.  The president stands in front of a crowd of the invited guests and dignitaries from around the globe.  One of the banks of cameras feeds his image in direct communication to the tiny bridge module.

Captain John Forrester tries his best to look like the calm military man he has cultivated in a distinguished career but everyone knows the excitement he has jumping inside of him.  Most of the world is standing idle watching the interchange on televisions, phones and virtual screens everywhere at once.  They are waiting for the historic moment when a living man, a crew of 57 men and women, sail out of the Solar system for the first time.

The speeches end and the applause dies down.  With one final salute to the screen, Captain Forrester sits down, looks to the emblem welded to the wall; with a small wink to the past, he says, “Engage.”

Dreamers find a way

Seems like a fantasy, doesn’t it?  Something fan boys and geek girls have dreamed about since James T. Kirk passed into syndication five decades ago.  But some people here and now, in the real world are not willing to let that story sit on faded pages anymore.  A vision of independent development is growing on the Internet and the stars are moving closer to mankind than at any time before.

Build the Enterprise is a focal point for that energy.  People around the world long for the far frontier and frankly, governments and space agencies have let us down. After an incredible decade plus of heady achievement the United States and Russia got bored.  Neither side saw any value in continuing their expensive space programs when down to Earth problems seemed more pressing.

However, the populations of many countries did not share in that sentiment.  As one of those children of the Space Age I fully expected to have bases on the Moon by now and possibly on Mars.  I even hoped the process would have become efficient enough so that ordinary people like me could have a chance, no matter how small, of going up there.  Our government let us down.

The Tower of Babel

The book of Genesis in the Bible tells of an effort by mortal man to build a city and a tower whose top is in the heavens.  The Lord came down Himself to see the tower and declared that “ the people are one and the all have one language and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them (Gen, 11:4-6).”

Language is the key.  Language is the spoken expression of culture.  Today English is the uniting language; more precisely, the American language is the common language of commerce, science, art and culture.  It is the primary language for one nation to communicate with another and the most commonly used second language for people of the 200 nations and thousands of cultures.  American English draws the people of the world together.

And why should it not?  America is a country built up of the melding of diverse immigrants from around the world drawn to its shores by the common dream of liberty and self-realization.  America has spawned most of the great innovations of the past century and it has done so through the efforts of Jews, Italians, Germans, Russians, Poles, Africans and Asians as well as too many more to list.  The aggregate effort combined with opportunity and freedom makes anything possible.  The computer you are reading this on is proof of that.

President Kennedy proposed the preposterous goal of landing a man on the Moon during this decade (the 1960s).  The entire world scoffed, but gasped in awe and fear as the American people achieved his goal—on time.  Imagine what we could do now, with today’s technology if given one uniting purpose.

To the Moon and Beyond

Captain Forrester gazed down on the North Polar Region of the Moon. Not even three hours have passed since he left Earth orbit and he has been here 20 minutes already. The Apollo 11 mission took 88 hours to make the same journey.  Forester’s ENTERPRISE had not used more than 10% of thrust for this historic leg.

Below him four passengers disembarked.  The crew shuttle Armstrong and the cargo shuttle Aldren released on schedule.  Their business on the Moon would take another week as they assembled the first long-stay module that would be the core of the first Lunar Base.  They would fly back to Earth on their own when the mission ended.  No one gave voice to the fear that the ENTERPRISE’s mission might fail and the shuttles were designed to self-return for that contingency.

Be that as it may, ENTERPRISE had business with other planetary bodies.  Losing the shuttle cut their mass by 20 percent.  The trip to Venus would be with a faster, more nimble ship.  Gravity pulled and the stars beckoned.

Another twenty minutes passed before the shuttle announced safe touch down on the surface. Free of back stop duties, ENTERPRISE turned her nose sunward aiming for the “second star to the right, straight on past morning.”

Nothing they propose will be withheld from them

The government let us down.  President Obama killed the space shuttle program and slashed budgets for future space manned missions to nothing.  He intended to use the power of his office to keep man tied to the ground.  He did not reckon with the power of the America people.

Innovators like Burt Ruttan have found many ways to get around government reticence.  Wealthy dreamers like Peter Diamandis fund competitions to explore space through the private sector.

Firing most of NASA’s rocket scientists didn’t kill progress either.  Just the opposite; firing them flooded the market with thousands of the brightest minds in the nation now free from government restraint and bureaucracy.  They can pursue long held personal projects in private labs and can profit from any patents generated by their work.  Enlightened self-interest is the impetus behind many great inventions.

Man will get off this one planet because he dreams of doing so.  Trusting corporations to provide the change was as fruitless as leaving it in the hands of bureaucrats.  Many dreamers and innovators from around the globe will contribute to the effort but as usual, the bulk of the effort will come from the American people.

Nothing unusual there; Americans are used to leading the way.  Two generations have passed since the last Apollo mission returned from the Moon.  Meanwhile the rest of the world is engaged in a race to go there and the leaders are nearly a generation away still from being able to mount a successful mission—this despite having access to far more powerful computers and better rocket technology.

That old scientist might have been right after all.  If not for the American people, the trip to the Moon really would have been a century away.  Perhaps Captain Forrester will be able to watch the winner of the Silver Medal race to land on the Moon – from somewhere beyond Pluto.

Obama’s Media Propaganda Machine Targets the Military

Today I read an article about veteran’s and military members shifting strongly toward President Obama. The writer asserts that “Disaffection with the politics of shock and awe runs deep among men and women who have served in the military during the past decade of conflict.” Apparently Margot Roosevelt has no idea what Shock and Awe is or she would know that it has nothing to do with the way we have waged war in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places for the past four years.

Or military has been mired in a limited war or “Operations Other Than War (OOTW)” during that time. They have been hampered by ROE (Rules of Engagement) the likes of which two generations of military leaders have been trying to avoid since the Vietnam Conflict ended 40 years ago—yet another promise not kept to the Vietnam vets.

This article is an obvious attempt to make Obama seem more attractive to the military community and from the comment section it seems to be effective to some degree. I like to think military people who have been out at the pointy end of the pen writing history would be smart enough to know who has been driving that pen for the past four years. Ms. Roosevelt goes on to state “factually” that “If the election were held today, Obama would win the veteran vote by as much as seven points over Romney, higher than his margin in the general population.” Of course, there is no poll cited for her statement because she made it up.

From 2001 until 2008 the media made a point of broadcasting the numbers of KIA weekly and the running totals reported every night. We heard "This has been the deadliest week for US forces since (whenever)" on a regular basis. Each Sunday’s PARADE section of the paper had the full color pictures of those killed in the past week.

The media did not do that because they suddenly cared for the military (they haven't since WWII). They did it to erode faith in the GOP and President Bush. Democratic candidates ran on promises to end the bloodshed. Obama rose to the top of the heap by being the biggest anti-war dove in the pack. He attacked Bush on all facets of conducting the War on Terror and swore to end the violence and bring the troops home in a year. How's that working out for you?

Was it Mitt Romney or BH Obama running around the end zone spiking Bin Laden's head for the 253rd time? Wasn't it Obama saying "Mitt Romney wouldn't have the courage to pull the trigger" on bin Laden? In light of his actions, posturing and words, which candidate seems less likely to send troops to war? Obama is clearly trying to seem like a military war hero and he is willing to send troops anywhere for any reason to prove it.

Obama did not keep one of his promises on the war. He did not reverse any of Bush's policies in fighting it; he even claimed credit for every success those policies generated. The fact is, he could not care less for the men and women in uniform. He is still reluctant to return a salute. The troops have spent more time at war, not less. And despite media collusion, soldiers have NOT stopped dying under his watch. They still return in flag-draped coffins; the media has found it prudent for their man in office if they don't publish pictures of them.

And that is the worst of it. Living or dead, the democrats see military people as tools for their own political ends and not the brave protectors of Liberty that most Americans know them to be. They are . . . WE are . . . your sons, husbands and fathers; wives, mothers and daughters. We deserve a man in office who will care more for the lives he sends to war than the tiny ticks in poll numbers as he goes off to another round of golf.

The Moving Wall

I took dad down to Southaven, Mississippi to see the Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall today.  The display has passed through here in each on the previous years but this is the first time he wanted to make the pilgrimage.

The sight from the road is at once unimpressive and moving. The tiny white names etched in the black panels blur into haze from a distance.  Fifty-eight thousand names written small still take a long display. 

We came on an overcast Friday which seemed appropriately somber. Finding parking was easy; much less crowded than the throngs still crowding to see THE AVENGERS movie a few miles away. 

I noticed most of the people there were mostly older men; veterans drawn to the memory of a faraway jungle from their youth.  Some of their children (like me) accompanied men too old to drive themselves anymore.  Some lost the ability to stand on their own; possibly that long ago.  Few young people came.  Even in a conservative area like the MidSouth, young people have little interest in a war as remote to them as the Civil War was to me in my teens.

The traveling wall is different from the main wall in Washington DC.  Of course the panels are lighter and smaller to save weight and the font is smaller, the names closer together.  My father pointed out that the names also lacked the unit designations making it harder to find the right Smith or Johnson.

My father had so many names in his mind spread over four tours in country in eight years there was no way to find anyone in particular.  To him, all of the names on the panels were brothers in arms and he felt enough just being in their presence.

I didn’t know anyone personally despite having grown up in an Army family during the war.  None of my friends’ fathers came home in a box.  Inwardly I wanted to see a name that stuck in my mind from the book and movie WE WERE SOLDIERS; Jimmy Nakamura, the young mortar-man who had just found out he was a new dad. I couldn’t find him but someday when I got to the big wall I will look him up.

Eventually it was time to go. The ghosts of the past perhaps appeased for a time, perhaps tired of clinging to the living bid us adieu—for now. The sign at the entrance read “Welcome Home Brothers.”  The message was not for me but for the few remaining stragglers like my father absent from muster on the other side. I am content to keep him with us for a little while longer. The other formation can wait; they have all the time in creation to fill remaining files.

"Shaken, Not Stirred" No more

DEconSTRUCTING JAMES BOND

James Bond 007 returns in SKYFALL later this year.  The suave, sophisticated secret agent, possessing a license to kill and a Walther PPK from the British MI6 is making his 23^rd movie appearance.  He was created by Ian Fleming to be the perfect secret agent.  Based on exploits of a real-life agent Fleming met during WWII.  He took outrageous risks, romance beautiful women and tweaked the noses of Nazis while skating on the Death’s razor-edge.

Many of us have grown up more with the movies about the life and adventures of the Fleming 007 character. We know him inside and out; we expect him to find away when there seems no way out—and to look good doing it. That iconic agent is all but gone in the new Bond movies.  After SKYFALL Bond will likely never be the same.

Wussification of Bond

Another common factor in all of the early Bond movies was the Bond Girls.  Some of Hollywood’s and the world’s most beautiful actresses have made an appearance in bond movies. Their main role was to act as eye candy for the male audience and provide an element of romance for Bond.  Some were helpless bimbos; others were razor-sharp foreign agents like Michelle Yeoh (Wai Lin in TOMORROW NEVER DIES).

Starting in the 90’s, perhaps earlier, the writers made an effort to make the female actresses more relevant – hence the Wai Lin character. More often than not they were fellow agents, competition and even villains to match wits against.  More and more of 007’s traits were exported into the female character.  His depth of knowledge in esoterica started coming from the women.  Critical data came from the ladies when in the past he figured things out himself.  They were the ones downloading the villain’s secrets while bond stood by holding his “pistol.”

Finally in the latest CASINO ROYALE Daniel Craig cannot even dress himself properly.  Eva Green (as Vesper Lynd) not only holds the purse strings over Bond, she picks out his suit so he doesn’t look bad when he sits down at the high stakes poker table.

Rebranding Bond

James Bond has certain clichés associated with him; the Walther PPK, the British-built Aston Martin cars, and his martinis – “shaken, not stirred.”  Once before the studio tried to change a factor in his character (driving a BMW in GOLDENEYE) and the fans erupted.  The Aston Martin returned in CASINO ROYALE.  So far fans are tolerating the blond Daniel Craig (all previous Bond’s had brown hair or darker).

Another change appearing in the upcoming SKYFALL will have the cantankerous 007 hoisting a Heineken™  brew in place of the iconic martini. Already fans are reacting.  The Facebook fan page is aflame with unfavorable responses. Time will tell if the studio will listen to the fan base or charge ahead with what is likely a marketing stunt.  Generally, upsetting your target audience is a poor business strategy.

The Future for Bond

The producers have altered the Bond character significantly in the past decade.  “M” is now a woman (heartless bitch that she is as played by Dame Judi Dench).  Q is portrayed by the sarcastic British comedian John Cleese.  Bond himself has lost most of his wit, all of his knowledge base and his smooth swagger. He has turned into a two-dimensional action figure fit only for car chases and shoot-outs.

The final betrayal of our childhood hero will come in this movie or no later than the next two.  Look for James Bond to have a homosexual romantic interlude.  No matter how it is rationalized as a necessary part of his cover, it will sound the death bell for 007.  How do I know? Nothing definite yet, just Hollywood’s tendency to push the LBGT agenda in every avenue. It’s in most television shows, many movies and even in commercials.  Disney, Nickelodeon and Sesame Street all have openly Gay characters in programs aimed at children.  How long before James Bond, 007, curls up at the end of the movie with the first “Bond Boy?”

Life After Lottery Letdown

If I Could Have One Wish . . .

Right now Sunday morning is dawning across America.  Tens of millions of citizens (and illegal aliens) are still recovering from the fact that they did not hold one of the winning tickets in this past week’s Mega-Millions lottery.  Three tickets will split the jackpot that finally reached 640 million dollars; that is $640,000,000.00 nearly two-thirds of a billion dollars.  Who wouldn’t want a piece of that – or all of it?

Of course, the sobering reality is the real chances of hitting the winning combination are ridiculously small. The fact that three tickets did seems to fly in the face of statistics, but they don’t.  Mathematicians who created the game give the odds of winning as 1:176 million.  As the pot was over three times that size it almost works out to the three winning tickets.  Nicely done, government bean-counters, nicely done.

Meanwhile the many millions of us who did not win return to our normal lives, somewhat deflated after inflated expectations.  It was hard not to catch “Lotto Fever.” Instead of covering the high gas prices, the Iranian nuclear program, the impending Israeli raid to stop such, the latest Muslim terrorist attacks, the Republican primary and the myriad of other important news items, the mainstream media spent as much as a third of their daily programming talking about this lottery.

I watched the talking heads muse about what they would do with the money.  They chatted about it as they broke for every commercial, dragged the sports and weather personalities into it on their segments, and called in lottery winners, psychologists and statisticians.  It was a full court press like as reserved for major war stories, hurricanes and elections that matter.  No wonder the lottery was on everyone’s mind.

Now back to reality.

“All you need is a dollar and a dream.”

That’s how the lottery is sold in many states.  Who doesn’t have the occasional dollar to spare?  When you get change at the convenience store, it is very tempting to try one’s luck with a ticket or two, maybe a scratch off; hey, somebody has to win, it might be you!  Are you feeling lucky?

Everybody has a dream of how they would spend so much money but the dreams of normal people are inadequate to the task. Consider that each winning ticket will actually be worth only 150 million in lump sum payouts. After Uncle Sam dips his monstrous hands in the pot (again) you will be left with 100 of the 640 million that had you panting breathless Saturday morning – a big step down.  But still it is more money than you and likely everyone you know have ever held in the totality of their lives. And it’s all yours.  Now what?

You can’t spend that kind of money

You can blow through that money, many lottery winners end up broke in a few years with nothing much to show for their winnings, but people of our level cannot spend that kind of money properly.

Back in the 80’s I did this experiment with a shipmate on the ENTERPRISE.  Earvin “Magic” Johnson had just signed a 40 million dollar endorsement contract and my fellow sailors were alternately complaining and dreaming about what that must be like.  I told them, “You can’t spend that kind of money.”

After the protests died down I took out a piece of paper and began to ask specific questions; what would you do with that kind of money.  I listed each purchase a person had.  House, car, bills paid off; the usual things people say when asked on television after a big win. But be specific; what kind of car, how big a house, where are you going to build?  Gifts for mom and dad, share with the siblings – yeah I wrote those down too.

Some big numbers piled up.  We moved into extravagances like jewelry and luxury travel while the big house was under construction.  The Riviera is nice in the spring.  First class tickets and beach front rentals are not cheap.  Eventually that first year winds down and you want to settle into something a little more normal, so you go home.

I totaled up the bills from that big blowout and it came to 2.5 million or less for everyone!  My estimate still holds true today.  A money manager who advises those who are suddenly rich from the lottery or a big athletic contract to take three million in “mad money” and go do their dreams and leave the rest to start working for them.  Thirty years later, just three million can cover the average person’s dreams.  Bill Gates can burn that much money every day of his life and the fire would never go out.

You Can’t Go Home Again

But home isn’t what it once was.  Your friends still have money problems and you want to be generous but you start to feel taken advantage of.  Eventually, money envy turns into resentment.  People think you just got lucky (which is true) and you are no more deserving of such wealth than they are.  One thing the money did for you quickly was reveal who are your real friends. It’s time to move into your new home – and get an unlisted number.

It’s not all doom and gloom, though.  You can find friends with approximately the same standard of living you now possess in your new neighborhood.  And you don’t have to fear bills coming in for a few years – if you are handling your money properly.  Taxes won’t even scare you.

In the long run money in any amount cannot make you happy.  A pundit once opined that big money only makes you more of what you are.  If you are a jerk, you will just become a rich jerk with enough money to be a more noticeable jerk.

But a wise person will still be wise no matter the balance of their bank account.  A fool goes broke in a few years, a wise person does all he or she wants to do in their lifetime and leaves an inheritance to their children.

I didn’t play the lottery.  I don’t play no matter how big the pot gets because I can do Math.  I prefer to work for what I get and, being a Christian, I prefer the odds I get investing my spare dollars in God as opposed to a government run lottery.

But I still dream of a life different from my own. A nice house in the country, a couple of new cars paid off.  I will get them, too.  It will come through effort, through training myself and disciplined investing of time, money and faith, and possibly a little luck.  But I like my odds.

No need to worry about Magic Johnson either. He didn’t win the lottery – except the genetic lottery that made him freakishly tall and talented – but he also got where he is today through hard work, careful investing and wise spending.  Even the rich have dreams.