Harold Witkov
Star struck Americans need to unhitch their wagons
By Harold Witkov
"Hitch your wagon to a star"- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Hollywood love fest known as the 85th Academy Awards is thankfully behind us. My oh my, but how the stars abounded this past Sunday on my television screen! There were movie stars, director stars, producer stars, and all the rest of the artsy stars who help to light up the cinema screen.
Unfortunately, these stars of Hollywood are not the kind of stars I would hitch my wagon to. They think their movies can rewrite history and redefine what is, and is not, moral. They think they know what is best for everyone, and they delight in telling us what to think and who to vote for. Their personal lives more often than not depict shallowness and chaos. When it comes to living their own real life stories, unlike the movies they act in, they fall on their faces. Who are they to instruct us on anything of real value?
Yet, so many Americans have hitched their wagons to these stars. They care about their wardrobes, their mansions, their love affairs, and their lifestyles. They follow star "tweets." And, worst of all, these sad Americans actually value star opinions.
While watching all the self indulgent star revelry on display at the Academy Awards, I lamented to myself that what Americans need most today is an internal North Star to give them direction in life. Instead, when the evening drew to a close, what we got was a new star in the mix: a First Lady Star!
There you have it. The people who brought you the "We Saw Your Boobs" song have joined forces with the people who slyly tried to remove "God" from their platform last September. There is a new "blessed trinity" in America: Hollywood, the Democrats, and the Obamas are officially One!
Oh, wake up America! When Ralph Emerson said, "Hitch your wagon to a star," he was not referring to following superficial movie stars and celebrity idolizing.
So what kind of star should we hitch our wagons to?
Well, how about our Sun? it is a most important star. It gives us life. It is so large that over a million Earths could fit inside of it. But, as far as stars go, our Sun is not particularly large.
So how about hitching our wagon instead to our closest neighbor star, Proxima Centauri. It is only 4 plus light-years (about 25 trillion miles) away. No, on second thought, Proxima Centauri won't do, it is even smaller than our Sun.
So how about hitching our wagons to one of the other stars that are in our galaxy, the Milky Way. There are billions to choose from. But, rumor has it, the Milky Way probably tops off at 400 billion stars. Not enough? No need to stop with our Milky Way.
Astronomers tells us there are perhaps more than 170 billion galaxies in the observable universe. According to Ethan Siegel, a theoretical astrophysicist who specializes in cosmology, when the James Webb Space Telescope is launched, the observable universe may be "close to a trillion galaxies" !
Let's see, a trillion galaxies, times hundreds of billions of stars in each galaxy, gives us – a whole bunch of stars to choose from to hitch our wagons to.
But here is a better idea. Rather than hitching our wagons to some superficial know-it-all Hollywood star, the Obama Royal Family, or to one of the gazillions of celestial stars in the sky, let's instead hitch our wagons to that elusive character who made (sort of) a cameo appearance in the 1956 film, The Ten Commandments.
You know who I am talking about. The one who did not get a lot of mention at the Academy Awards this year. The star maker himself. No, I am not talking about Cecil B. DeMille. Last hint: The guy Chuck Heston and others in the movie referred to as "He-Who-Has-No-Name."
© Harold Witkov
February 28, 2013
"Hitch your wagon to a star"- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Hollywood love fest known as the 85th Academy Awards is thankfully behind us. My oh my, but how the stars abounded this past Sunday on my television screen! There were movie stars, director stars, producer stars, and all the rest of the artsy stars who help to light up the cinema screen.
Unfortunately, these stars of Hollywood are not the kind of stars I would hitch my wagon to. They think their movies can rewrite history and redefine what is, and is not, moral. They think they know what is best for everyone, and they delight in telling us what to think and who to vote for. Their personal lives more often than not depict shallowness and chaos. When it comes to living their own real life stories, unlike the movies they act in, they fall on their faces. Who are they to instruct us on anything of real value?
Yet, so many Americans have hitched their wagons to these stars. They care about their wardrobes, their mansions, their love affairs, and their lifestyles. They follow star "tweets." And, worst of all, these sad Americans actually value star opinions.
While watching all the self indulgent star revelry on display at the Academy Awards, I lamented to myself that what Americans need most today is an internal North Star to give them direction in life. Instead, when the evening drew to a close, what we got was a new star in the mix: a First Lady Star!
There you have it. The people who brought you the "We Saw Your Boobs" song have joined forces with the people who slyly tried to remove "God" from their platform last September. There is a new "blessed trinity" in America: Hollywood, the Democrats, and the Obamas are officially One!
Oh, wake up America! When Ralph Emerson said, "Hitch your wagon to a star," he was not referring to following superficial movie stars and celebrity idolizing.
So what kind of star should we hitch our wagons to?
Well, how about our Sun? it is a most important star. It gives us life. It is so large that over a million Earths could fit inside of it. But, as far as stars go, our Sun is not particularly large.
So how about hitching our wagon instead to our closest neighbor star, Proxima Centauri. It is only 4 plus light-years (about 25 trillion miles) away. No, on second thought, Proxima Centauri won't do, it is even smaller than our Sun.
So how about hitching our wagons to one of the other stars that are in our galaxy, the Milky Way. There are billions to choose from. But, rumor has it, the Milky Way probably tops off at 400 billion stars. Not enough? No need to stop with our Milky Way.
Astronomers tells us there are perhaps more than 170 billion galaxies in the observable universe. According to Ethan Siegel, a theoretical astrophysicist who specializes in cosmology, when the James Webb Space Telescope is launched, the observable universe may be "close to a trillion galaxies" !
Let's see, a trillion galaxies, times hundreds of billions of stars in each galaxy, gives us – a whole bunch of stars to choose from to hitch our wagons to.
But here is a better idea. Rather than hitching our wagons to some superficial know-it-all Hollywood star, the Obama Royal Family, or to one of the gazillions of celestial stars in the sky, let's instead hitch our wagons to that elusive character who made (sort of) a cameo appearance in the 1956 film, The Ten Commandments.
You know who I am talking about. The one who did not get a lot of mention at the Academy Awards this year. The star maker himself. No, I am not talking about Cecil B. DeMille. Last hint: The guy Chuck Heston and others in the movie referred to as "He-Who-Has-No-Name."
© Harold Witkov
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