The Candid Conservative

April 14, 2013 05:02 AM PDT

This is the final Candid Conservative minute. Thanks, again, for your support and interest...

Hi, this is TheCandidConservative with today’s minute on a special number…

By good fortune I had the opportunity to see a great movie this weekend. It was as chock full of conservative principles as a Ronald Reagan biography. The movie was “42”—the story of the first black American to play major league baseball. From start to finish, this moving film made one thing clear – justice, equality, character, and truth are team sports. The most powerful message, however, came from Jackie Robinson’s role model. He made it clear that his missions were to pay his own way, feed his family, win, support his team, and prove himself the equal or better in talent and character of any man. Notice there was nothing in there about demanding recognition, fair treatment, or handouts. Jackie Robinson was anything but a victim and his example offers a beacon to any American – regardless of color. Last bit of advice from a candid conservative finishing No. 824? Go see “42” and then start wearing it.

I’m Dr. Carl Mumpower and you just spent a minute with a candid conservative…

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April 14, 2013 04:56 AM PDT

Lost in Space - this week's Citizen-Times conservative view...

We Remain Lost in Space

Asheville Citizen-Times Editorial 125 – SpaceProgram – April 14, 2013

Human inspiration dawns in many forms. We’re variously driven by addiction, passions, needs, examples, events, and, inconsistently, values. It’s the former over the latter fueling most of our society’s misadventures.

Habituated adolescents playing video games and habituated adults playing space games share parallel missions. Gamers spend their parent’s money. Spacers spend ours. Video gamers expend tremendous energy, resources, and time on an enterprise narrowly devoted to distraction, entertainment, and vanity. Space gamers are similarly dedicated. America’s paralyzed parents lack the will to pull their teens down to earth. We lack the will to pull NASA back to reality.

Though celebrated as a peak measure of American excellence, Apollo Eleven’s 1969 moon landing more authentically illuminated a culture’s sinking dedication to reason and responsibility. That Penthouse, Sesame Street, and Woodstock all premiered that same year further affirm a confused society increasingly lost in space.

In 1961 Kennedy declared his intention to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. That his promise was more about overcoming Bay-of-Pigs embarrassment than productive outcome was lost in Camelot’s heady bloom. With the aid of 400,000 NASA acolytes Armstrong and company made it to the moon. Kennedy, thousands of dead in Vietnam, and a host of “turned on and tuned out” baby boomers didn’t get to see it.

Proponents of space exploration lay claim to stellar secondary gains. That’s true if one views the artificial non-nutritive beverage “Tang” as an epic game changer. Using space exploration as a path to solving problems is like reading an entire dictionary to find the definition of the word “dumb.”

To date we’ve spent about a half-trillion spacey dollars and left behind 22,000 chunks of traceable litter. In a world where half the hospital beds hold patients felled by waterborne diseases, those dollars translate into fifty-thousand wells that could be healthily quenching Africa with Tang’s missing ingredient.

Yes, outer space is tomorrow’s battleground, but our skyward treks have not propelled us significantly beyond the competition. Look to the Chinese space agency’s stated mission of ruling the world for a lesson on timing.

Exceptional cultures uplift people, solve problems, and prosper as a beacon of hope. Instead, we’re failing to manage our own economy, border, and communities as we pretend to steer the world and lasso asteroids. Rediscover the path to excellence? Not by exporting our addictions into the universe.

Please click here for the temporary Asheville Citizen-Times link...

(394 words) Carl Mumpower is a practicing psychologist and a former U.S. congressional candidate and Asheville city council member. Contact him at rmumpower@thecandidconservative.com">drmumpower@thecandidconservative.com

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April 12, 2013 05:48 AM PDT

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