RedLady1971

As you go to work today and settle into the week, please study the form below. You will soon need to fill this out EVERY year and tell the government what you own and then allow them to tell you how much its worth. That is the framework that is enabled by the Trojan Horse "Billionaire Tax" that is trying to get passed. Give them credit: they cleverly use Billionaires as the hook, but build in the language and the framework that will allow the Legislature to simply extend the tax to everyone and make it yearly. And this is where the form below comes in... In this case, ask yourself, will it be you or the Billionaires that will be able to fill this out properly and avoid penalties. As much as Billionaires can be pushed to do more for society, we all know that they have the infrastructure to manage these kinds of disclosures...middle class Californians do not and they will be the ones that get penalized in the end.

In 1969, William Shatner’s career ended on national television. Not metaphorically. Not slowly. It stopped abruptly, with a network decision and a canceled time slot. NBC canceled Star Trek after three seasons of modest ratings. Executives who had never fully understood the show—and who had nearly ended it earlier before a fan campaign saved it, finally pulled the plug. The Enterprise’s mission ended early. And William Shatner, who had played Captain James T. Kirk with intensity and unforgettable pauses, suddenly had no role left. He was thirty-eight. Divorced. Financially struggling. And facing an industry that had little interest in an actor tied to a canceled sci-fi show many dismissed as a fad. Shatner found himself living out of a camper, traveling between small theater jobs that paid minimal wages. The man who once commanded a starship was now performing in regional productions, hoping audiences would show up. This was not the plan. Most actors would have left the industry and found stability elsewhere. Shatner didn’t. He doubled down. In the early 1970s, something unusual began. Fans of Star Trek started gathering - small conventions in hotel ballrooms, dismissed by mainstream culture as niche and strange. The industry mocked them. “Trekkies,” they were called. Most actors avoided these events. Shatner didn’t. He met fans. Signed autographs. Answered questions. Showed up when others wouldn’t. Because while others saw failure, he saw something different. Star Trek wasn’t gone. It was evolving. The show thrived in syndication. Viewers rewatched episodes, shared recordings, built communities, and kept the story alive. The audience was growing. By the mid-1970s, Star Trek had become something larger than television - a cultural force driven by its fans. And Shatner, who stayed connected, became its living symbol. Hollywood had overlooked it. The audience had not. In 1979, Paramount Pictures revived Star Trek as a feature film. Shatner returned and not as a fading actor, but as someone the audience had kept alive. The film succeeded because the fans showed up. They had waited. They had believed. And so did he. Years later, Shatner admitted something revealing: At first, he didn’t understand the fans. “I thought they were obsessed,” he said. Then he realized that they were sustaining him. They kept the character alive. The story alive. His career alive. They weren’t obsessed. They were committed. Shatner learned from them. He learned respect for audience passion. He learned reinvention. He adapted. He starred in T.J. Hooker. He took on new roles. He embraced self-awareness. He appeared in commercials that leaned into his persona, recorded music, and kept working. Then came Boston Legal. At seventy-three, he played Denny Crane, a role that blended humor and vulnerability, and won two Primetime Emmy Awards. The same style once mocked was now celebrated. He had never stopped evolving. And then - something unexpected. At ninety, Shatner went to space. On October 13, 2021, he flew aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket. The actor who once imagined space travel finally experienced it. He returned visibly moved, reflecting on Earth’s fragility, beauty, and significance. It completed a journey few could imagine. From struggling actor to cultural icon. From canceled show to lasting legacy. From fiction to reality. William Shatner didn’t just play Captain Kirk. He embodied the idea: exploration, persistence, and reinvention. He entered spaces others avoided - fan conventions, unconventional roles, unfamiliar paths, and turned them into opportunities. He proved that failure isn’t permanent, that audiences matter, and that reinvention is always possible. The fans once dismissed as outsiders were right. The story mattered. The vision mattered. And William Shatner learned to see it.They didn’t just preserve nostalgia. They preserved possibility. They kept something alive... and in doing so, they kept him alive too. That’s the story. Not just success - but understanding. Not just survival - but transformation. William Shatner played Captain Kirk for only three seasons. But he spent decades living the message: Keep moving forward. Keep adapting. Keep exploring. The mission continues.