Rich Hoffman's Blog, page 390
November 7, 2014
‘Interstellar’ Film Review: What ’2001′ wanted to be and a superior sequal/answer to ‘Koyaanisqatsi’
I was already a fan of Kip Thorne’s work in the book Black Holes and Time Warps so I had a very strong feeling that I would love the new film Christopher Nolan called Interstellar. It was a safe bet to be a great movie originally developed by Steven Spielberg and Nolan’s brother Jonathan beginning nearly a decade ago. So there was considerable thought put into the project which undoubtedly would show up on screen. I read the reviews that had managed to come out prior to viewing a premier of the film myself, most praising Interstellar in some way or another just for sheer scope, but not giving high marks in other aspects like dialogue or in some cases sound quality as the music sometimes overwhelmed what the characters were saying. Now that I’ve seen it I am convinced that even some of those technical issues were on purpose—deliberately placed into the story to convey the vastness of space and mankind’s role within it. Interstellar is a painting of many impressions splashed upon the screen intending to advance nothing less than the human race to another level of conscious development. It is everything that the classic film 2001: A Space Odyssey should have been—or wanted to be—and even then, much, much, more. It is a triumph and likely the reason that cinema was invented to entertain human minds to begin with. It is as if the entire history of cinema was created to place this one film onto the silver screen.
To get an idea of what the screenwriter was thinking during the development process of Interstellar—before diving too deeply into the contents of the story—read what he said to /Film.com which is a kind of industry insider blog site. Jonathan Nolan spoke openly about his motivations while writing Interstellar. He has brought his writing talents to the Dark Knight series which I have praised heavily because of the content and angle he chooses to provide in those films. In Interstellar his motivations were clear, persuasive, and as bold as anything that has ever been done before in a movie.
/Film question: So that was always the pitch that like it was set in the future where resources are, were our future’s looking bleak?
Nolan: Absolutely. I mean, look the reality is we stopped going to space because we’re too fucking wrapped up in whatever narcissistic bullshit, you know, as a sort of a collective. I mean, look, there’s an awful lot of things that still need to be fixed here on Earth, right? You know, problems that never seem to go away. Poverty, disease and a lot of stuff that we turned our attention to that is a good thing. We’re also just kind of sucked in the bullshit. I was talking downstairs, I grew up in Apollo space travel, we were promised jetpacks and fucking teleportation and instead we got fucking Facebook and Instagram. That’s a bummer.
But we don’t think of it in those terms. We think of ourselves as being the most magnificent, amazing universe ever and if we wanna go back to the Moon, sure, we could. It’s like no, those guys are all dead or retired. We’re not going back to the Moon. And if we wanted to, we’d have to spend billions of dollars and it would take years and years and years. We’re just done. We’re not doing that. We’re out of that business. And so people don’t think in those terms. We had to set the movie in the future in which that was abundantly clear.
http://www.slashfilm.com/jonathan-nolan-interstellar-interview/
Readers of this site will instantly recognize the angle Jonathan Nolan took in setting up the movie Interstellar. At the start he challenges the notion of public education when the government schools are caught lying to students about the Apollo missions—stating that they were only intended as propaganda against Russia. Public education in Interstellar is on Common Core overload as test assessments determine what kind of careers students can pursue as adults in the collective society. Meanwhile, innovation is down, people are barely able to make food for themselves as a blight fungus similar to the current Ug99 strains that are currently moving across Africa into the Middle East-specifically target wheat and okra. Because the developed world has micromanaged the world’s resources—specifically the minds of their youth—there isn’t anybody anywhere who can stop the fungus as it thrusts the world into hunger slowly killing earth.
It was amazing how many reviewers on their first viewing of the film missed so many of the most important messages—many confused the fungus in the film to environmental recklessness supporting their global warming conspiracies when it is exactly that kind of stupidity which has lunched the world into regression. Interstellar is such an amazing film that people wanted to come away with something they liked in it, even if the premise of the film attacks many of the core beliefs that most of our current civilization holds. So there is some revisionist memory going on in almost every review I read. But it’s not fair to Interstellar because as a movie it is going to places that nobody ever has attempted before. It tackles 5th dimensional space; inter galactic travel, the nature of love, the transitory aspects of time, the foundations of religion, the deep human yearning for adventure, the magnificence of invention and the corrupt nature of politics most epically displayed in forcing NASA underground because public support could not fathom spending money on spaceships when the world needed food. The movie even tackles the premise and existence of poltergeists. There are so many big ideas harnessed in the movie that it really belongs in its own category. It seeks openly to advance the human mind—which is certainly no small feat and it succeeds on every level.
The best parts of the movie were the space sequences which reminded me so much of 2001: A Space Odyssey filmed in complete silence—just as they would have been. The catastrophes in space were just mind bogglingly beautiful. As I have also reported at this site I am a tremendous Koyaanisqatsi fan—even to the extent that I designed a line of t-shirts years ago as a tribute to the 1983 experimental film. 
But the problem with it was that it pointed to progress as a vile and evil thing ultimately and concluded with a rocket exploding on its way to space falling back to earth in complete silence to the score of a magnificent work by Philip Glass. Well—there was a lot of Koyaanisqatsi in this movie and the music by Hans Zimmer without being disrespectful to Philip Glass tackles the original Koyaanisqatsi score with a new level of boldness. The pipe organs from Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack gave narration to the silence of space in such a grand fashion that it will become the new standard for all filmmakers over the next century. If The Wizard of Oz brought color to film, Interstellar has brought music to space—and that is not an insult to the contributions of John Williams to Star Wars—but Interstellar is in a new category of its own that will become the new standard—it is that good. The flight sequences were so wonderfully done—they were like a concert set in space to silently floating images struggling to break the boundaries of not just earth—but previous human limitation. There were times when the thrusters to the ships kicked on and the music literally was blowing me into the back of the seat—it was jaw-dropping incredible.
I think most people seeing Interstellar will like something from it—but the movie was intended to be enjoyed by smart people—or at a minimum, those who strive to be. It is a thinker’s movie to say the least and deliberately reaches out into the audience to declare, “We feel your pain.” It is literally bigger than anything on earth, there is no mountain too tall, no ocean so great—by the time Interstellar is watched once, everything on earth seems small and silly—including the civilization we have so far built. This is easily the grandest production of ideas ever gathered for the silver screen and even challenges some of the greatest literary work put to print. Interstellar is a magnificent masterpiece assembled to please the mind—to see life beyond death, and to touch the true face of God.
When the main character Cooper finds himself in the fifth dimension it’s not aliens, or a “they” out there in space trying to help the silly ants of humanity with carefully placed worm holes next to Saturn or the rapture inside a singularity—it is us who have mastered multi-dimensional travel, who have left the door open to our former incantations so to achieve the task in a linier time—to tell the story of humanity as a struggling race beating an invisible clock against stupidity only to weave the universe into a canvas of our own creation. It is the mind of man who spills over outside of their bodies into the infinite and become the utterances of immortality. What is most unusual of all within Interstellar was the carefully constructed request from Christopher Nolan to Hans Zimmer to create music which would live up to such a lofty intention—and uniquely, the legendary composer did it in a fashion that is literally blowing minds too restricted to behold all the images with the must see movie not just of this year, decade, or era—but in the history of film both past and future. Interstellar is out of this world in every category that counts—especially in the swagger category of bolding going to places only contemplated by physics equations and warped imaginations. Now such places are available to anybody who can pay the price of a movie ticket and desire to peak beyond the shroud of impossibility manifested into the bold reality of a destiny that is there within reach, now.
Interstellar is simply a new standard of excellence and will be copied hundreds of different ways from now on. History has just been made with this masterpiece of modern cinema—it is everything that many films have tried to be. The difference is that Interstellar pulled it off.
Rich Hoffman
‘Interstellar’ Film Review: What ‘2001’ wanted to be and a superior sequal/answer to ‘Koyaanisqatsi’
I was already a fan of Kip Thorne’s work in the book Black Holes and Time Warps so I had a very strong feeling that I would love the new film Christopher Nolan called Interstellar. It was a safe bet to be a great movie originally developed by Steven Spielberg and Nolan’s brother Jonathan beginning nearly a decade ago. So there was considerable thought put into the project which undoubtedly would show up on screen. I read the reviews that had managed to come out prior to viewing a premier of the film myself, most praising Interstellar in some way or another just for sheer scope, but not giving high marks in other aspects like dialogue or in some cases sound quality as the music sometimes overwhelmed what the characters were saying. Now that I’ve seen it I am convinced that even some of those technical issues were on purpose—deliberately placed into the story to convey the vastness of space and mankind’s role within it. Interstellar is a painting of many impressions splashed upon the screen intending to advance nothing less than the human race to another level of conscious development. It is everything that the classic film 2001: A Space Odyssey should have been—or wanted to be—and even then, much, much, more. It is a triumph and likely the reason that cinema was invented to entertain human minds to begin with. It is as if the entire history of cinema was created to place this one film onto the silver screen.
To get an idea of what the screenwriter was thinking during the development process of Interstellar—before diving too deeply into the contents of the story—read what he said to /Film.com which is a kind of industry insider blog site. Jonathan Nolan spoke openly about his motivations while writing Interstellar. He has brought his writing talents to the Dark Knight series which I have praised heavily because of the content and angle he chooses to provide in those films. In Interstellar his motivations were clear, persuasive, and as bold as anything that has ever been done before in a movie.
/Film question: So that was always the pitch that like it was set in the future where resources are, were our future’s looking bleak?
Nolan: Absolutely. I mean, look the reality is we stopped going to space because we’re too fucking wrapped up in whatever narcissistic bullshit, you know, as a sort of a collective. I mean, look, there’s an awful lot of things that still need to be fixed here on Earth, right? You know, problems that never seem to go away. Poverty, disease and a lot of stuff that we turned our attention to that is a good thing. We’re also just kind of sucked in the bullshit. I was talking downstairs, I grew up in Apollo space travel, we were promised jetpacks and fucking teleportation and instead we got fucking Facebook and Instagram. That’s a bummer.
But we don’t think of it in those terms. We think of ourselves as being the most magnificent, amazing universe ever and if we wanna go back to the Moon, sure, we could. It’s like no, those guys are all dead or retired. We’re not going back to the Moon. And if we wanted to, we’d have to spend billions of dollars and it would take years and years and years. We’re just done. We’re not doing that. We’re out of that business. And so people don’t think in those terms. We had to set the movie in the future in which that was abundantly clear.
http://www.slashfilm.com/jonathan-nolan-interstellar-interview/
Readers of this site will instantly recognize the angle Jonathan Nolan took in setting up the movie Interstellar. At the start he challenges the notion of public education when the government schools are caught lying to students about the Apollo missions—stating that they were only intended as propaganda against Russia. Public education in Interstellar is on Common Core overload as test assessments determine what kind of careers students can pursue as adults in the collective society. Meanwhile, innovation is down, people are barely able to make food for themselves as a blight fungus similar to the current Ug99 stains that are currently moving across Africa into the Middle East-specifically target wheat and okra. Because the developed world has micromanaged the world’s resources—specifically the minds of their youth—there isn’t anybody anywhere who can stop the fungus as it thrusts the world into hunger slowly killing earth.
It was amazing how many reviewers on their first viewing of the film missed so many of the most important messages—many confused the fungus in film to environmental recklessness supporting their global warming conspiracies when it is exactly that kind of stupidity which has lunched the world into regression. Interstellar is such an amazing film that people wanted to come away with something they liked in it, even if the premise of the film attacks many of the core beliefs that most of our current civilization holds. So there is some revisionist memory going on in almost every review I read. But it’s not fair to Interstellar because as a movie it is going to places that nobody ever has attempted before. It tackles 5th dimensional space; inter galactic travel, the nature of love, the transitory aspects of time, the foundations of religion, the deep human yearning for adventure, the magnificence of invention and the corrupt nature of politics most epically displayed in forcing NASA underground because public support could not fathom spending money on spaceships when the world needed food. The movie even tackles the premise and existence of poltergeists. There are so many big ideas harnessed in the movie that it really belongs in its own category. It seeks openly to advance the human mind—which is certainly no small feat and it succeeds on every level.
The best parts of the movie were the space sequences which reminded me so much of 2001: A Space Odyssey filmed in complete silence—just as they would have been. The catastrophes in space were just mind bogglingly beautiful. As I have also reported at this site I am a tremendous Koyaanisqatsi fan—even to the extent that I designed a line of t-shirts years ago as a tribute to the 1983 experimental film. But the problem with it was that it pointed to progress as a vile and evil thing ultimately and concluded with a rocket exploding on its way to space falling back to earth in complete silence to the score of a magnificent work by Philip Glass. Well—there was a lot of Koyaanisqatsi in this movie and the music by Hans Zimmer without being disrespectful to Philip Glass tackles the original Koyaanisqatsi score with a new level of boldness. The pipe organs from Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack gave narration to the silence of space in such a grand fashion that it will become the new standard for all filmmakers over the next century. If The Wizard of Oz brought color to film, Interstellar has brought music to space—and that is not an insult to the contributions of John Williams to Star Wars—but Interstellar is in a new category of its own that will become the new standard—it is that good. The flight sequences were so wonderfully done—they were like a concert set in space to silently floating images struggling to break the boundaries of not just earth—but previous human limitation. There were times when the thrusters to the ships kicked on and the music literally was blowing me into the back of the seat—it was jaw-dropping incredible.
I think most people seeing Interstellar will like something from it—but the movie was intended to be enjoyed by smart people—or at a minimum, those who strive to be. It is a thinker’s movie to say the least and deliberately reaches out into the audience to declare, “We feel your pain.” It is literally bigger than anything on earth, there is no mountain too tall, no ocean so great—by the time Interstellar is watched once, everything on earth seems small and silly—including the civilization we have so far built. This is easily the grandest production of ideas ever gathered for the silver screen and even challenges some of the greatest literary work put to print. Interstellar is a magnificent masterpiece assembled to please the mind—to see life beyond death, and to touch the true face of God.
When the main character Cooper finds himself in the fifth dimension it’s not aliens, or a “they” out there in space trying to help the silly ants of humanity with carefully placed worm holes next to Saturn or the rapture inside a singularity—it is us who have mastered multi-dimensional travel, who have left the door open to our former incantations so to achieve the task in a linier time—to tell the story of humanity as a struggling race beating an invisible clock against stupidity only to weave the universe into a canvas of our own creation. It is the mind of man who spills over outside of their bodies into the infinite and become the utterances of immortality. What is most unusual of all within Interstellar was the carefully constructed request from Christopher Nolan to Hans Zimmer to create music which would live up to such a lofty intention—and uniquely, the legendary composer did it in a fashion that is literally blowing minds too restricted to behold all the images with the must see movie not just of this year, decade, or era—but in the history of film both past and future. Interstellar is out of this world in every category that counts—especially in the swagger category of bolding going to places only contemplated by physics equations and warped imaginations. Now such places are available to anybody who can pay the price of a movie ticket and desire to peak beyond the shroud of impossibility manifested into the bold reality of a destiny that is there within reach, now.
Interstellar is simply a new standard of excellence and will be copied hundreds of different ways from now on. History has just been made with this masterpiece of modern cinema—it is everything that many films have tried to be. The difference is that Interstellar pulled it off.
Rich Hoffman
November 6, 2014
Biden’s Cocaine Induced Hallucinations : Senate predictions only a drug addict could concieve
It appears that Joe Biden representing White House viewpoints was smoking the same type of crack that his son did when he was recently kicked out of the Navy for drug abuse. The Biden family obviously has a permissive attitude toward drug abuse as is evident by their politics, but it has migrated from just casual use to out-right believing that the hallucinations are a reality only they can see. For a politician with all the resources that come from the Obama White House—and being a so-called political heavy weight—Biden ridiculously predicted that Democrats would keep control of the senate. The evidence was extremely heavy against such a fantasy prior to the Election of 2014, yet he still went on the networks and gave speeches driven by hallucinations of hope knowing full well that his words would come back to haunt him—yet he did it anyway—as chronicled by Reuters:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Joe Biden predicted Democrats would retain control of the U.S. Senate in Tuesday’s congressional elections but said that whatever happens, Republicans would have to work harder to make sure things get done in Washington.
In an interview with CNN, Biden said he did not agree with forecasters who say Republicans are poised to capture the six seats they need to take over the Senate. They are also expected to expand their majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
“I don’t agree with the odds-makers,” Biden said in the interview broadcast on Monday. “I predict we’re going to keep the Senate.”
http://news.yahoo.com/biden-predicts-u-democrats-keep-senate-cnn-143137238.html
Just weeks prior to the election Biden’s youngest son Hunter was kicked out of the Navy for testing positive for cocaine use—yet the story by the media was nearly completely overlooked, which was a very significant report involving such a prominent politician. Cocaine is an illegal substance—yet for the progressive Democrats, they wish very much to decriminalize drug abuse obviously carrying over into destructive habits taught from parent to child. Here is one of the view media outlets who carried the story—Ben Swann—the reporter formally from Channel 19 in Cincinnati.
On Thursday, it was revealed that Vice President Joe Biden’s youngest son, 44-year-old Hunter Biden, was released from the Navy in February, after he tested positive for cocaine use.
In a statement from Hunter Biden’s lawyer, he said:
“It was the honor of my life to serve in the U.S. Navy and I deeply regret and am embarrassed that my actions led to my administrative discharge. I respect the navy’s decision. With the love and support of my family I’m moving forward.”
Hunter Biden graduated from Yale with a law degree, and he currently works in Washington as the private equity executive and board director of an international energy firm, in addition to practicing law in Connecticut.
Yahoo News reported that Biden, “faces no automatic review of his law license in Connecticut following his discharge from the U.S. Navy Reserve after testing positive for cocaine use.”
According to Connecticut’s Statewide Bar Counselor, Michael P. Bowler, lawyers in Connecticut face automatic review of their bar admission only when they have been convicted of a crime.
The Vice President’s son was discharged from the military which is run by President Obama while both of them currently reside in the White House for consuming an illegal substance yet nothing was said about it. And just weeks later Joe Biden was confident enough to tell the media that the senate would be retained by Democrats even when all the evidence pointed to other results—which eventually came true even more robustly than predicted. The only conclusion that can be surmised from these events is that Joe Biden is either ridiculously stupid and naive, or is on crack himself and should be drug tested—because he would likely fail.
Biden was arrogant enough to defy logic in favor of political ideology which is a symptom that most drug users are guilty of. They often abuse drugs so that they can escape the effects of reality upon their conscious minds—which is why drug induced users are dangerous to themselves and others. There is a reason that drugs are illegal—it is largely because it is proven that some of them—like cocaine have a detrimental effect on human beings that not only makes them dangerous and stupid but has a carry over effect into society at large imposing their destructive habit into the lives of the innocent. Alcohol is certainly a dangerous intoxicate also, but it takes much longer and a lot more consumption to arrive at the point of danger than a few lines of cocaine. People who want to cheat the evasion process of shrugging reality propose the decriminalizing of drugs—as Biden has because in his family he obviously endorses it. However, cocaine is still illegal and the Biden boy should go to jail—not just lose his standing in the Navy. Only a victim of a drug induced stupor would fail to see such a thing—just as the same condition would have been needed not to see that the Republicans were going to take the senate. For those who favor drug use and its effects—if you want to know the dangers of habitual use—just look at Vice President Biden and listen to him talk. Then you’ll know why cocaine is an illegal substance.
Rich Hoffman
November 5, 2014
Huffington Post Blames Supreme Court for Republican Wins: Swinging back the correct way
Before the election results of 2014 are fully sustained, it is important to understand how the radical element of our society viewed those elections—which are represented below so clearly by the Huffington Post. The aforesaid article came out just a few days before Election Day 2014 and reveals a great deal of the underpinnings of progressive beliefs. Obviously, the concern is that American politics is moving back to the conservative right based on the polling of the Republicans taking control of the senate and defeating Democrats in several key races. Momentum is evaporating from the left and they realize it. The same desperation that has made Barack Obama into the king of empty forums and a White House backtracking on the importance of a midterm election—the political left is losing support rapidly. Have a read of the way progressive organizations viewed this particular election and what they are blaming their eroding support on.
There is still suspense over what will happen on Election Day, with control of the Senate hanging in the balance. But regardless of who wins, we already know the 2014 election belongs to the U.S. Supreme Court.
This is the first election where the country will experience the full impact of the Court’s recent decisions rewriting the ground rules of our democracy.
When the Court dismantled our laws regulating money in politics and gutted core voting rights protections, we knew those decisions would have consequences. But only now are we seeing the full scope of their impact: a return to pre-Watergate, pre-Civil Rights era practices. Cash from unknown sources is flooding the most important races, while state politicians have instituted new barriers to the ballot box for millions of Americans. Regardless of who wins, the integrity of our elections has been undermined.
For the first time in decades, citizens in nearly half the country will find it harder to vote. In 14 states, 2014 is the first major election with new voting restrictions in place. For many working class, minority, elderly, and young Americans, voting is now more difficult and expensive. For some, it is impossible. In Texas, for example, 608,000 registered voters do not have the photo ID now required to cast a ballot. A disproportionate number of them are black and Hispanic. Some have already been turned away at the polls.
While the voice of ordinary citizens grows fainter, the voice of the 0.2 percent of Americans who spend the vast majority of money in federal elections — often anonymously — is louder than ever. Outside campaign spending has shattered previous records, with new groups like super PACs and “dark money” groups that do not disclose their donors dwarfing the spending of ordinary citizens and sometimes even candidates themselves. In many key races it is impossible for us to know who is buying our elections.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wendy-weiser/supreme-court-voting-rights_b_6093372.html
Essentially, the Huffington Post is blaming their collapsing polices on the inability of their base to compete with money pouring into the political machine as if there was some type of unfair advantage being conducted. They seem to forget that Democrats have a nearly exclusive claim on minority voters, and the technically stupid. There are a lot of really stupid people out there and they mostly vote for Democrats. Democrats also have a lock on the public sector unions and all labor unions in general who pour many, many millions of dollars into candidates who obviously do not represent mainstream America. In fact, the progressive obsession with the whole photo ID issue is that it complicates the voting process too greatly for the typical Democrat. This means fewer voters for them who typically are sympathetic to the handouts given out by government.
What they mean by “pre-Watergate, pre-Civil Rights era practices” is that they successfully suppressed the influence of those who stand against them—and that now the pendulum is swinging the other way—and they don’t like it. It means they always intended to yank the nation radically to the political left with the intention to keep it there. But the nation doesn’t want to stay there; it doesn’t want the poor education practices, the hateful attitude toward business, the castigation of values and religion. It doesn’t want an abusive and top heavy government that will use the IRS to enact its will on dissenters. It doesn’t want Barack Obama or a Hillary Clinton who fails to understand that it is businesses that create jobs and nobody else.
I am personally not all that impressed by the election results. Sure the country is moving politically more toward my direction, but my representatives are far too pink to my blood red Republicanism. I live in a red state and a darker shade of that red than average—so many of the victories to me are just more wash-outs and future villains that need to be fought. But at least those are people worth fighting. The kind of politics the Huffington Post is referring to has deliberately been hidden from the view of the vast majority of Americans and it is now exposed. Now that people can see it, they are rejecting it—as many always knew they would. That is the price of deceit, and when elections are won by deceit—as they have for far too long now, progressive organizations like the Huffington Post should understand that any ground they have made will be lost in a whim just because their ground was not won by actual victory, but through deception. And this past election is only the beginning. There is a long way to go, but that direction is one that does not favor the progressive—that is for sure. Their arguments are tired, and now gleefully exposed.
Rich Hoffman
November 4, 2014
The Religion of Public Education: Turning away from the truth
As many know I have a standard policy of posting the letters rivals send me to share with my readers here. I have put many of them up over the years, especially in the beginning which is evident to anyone who wishes to use the calendar feature to go back into time and read them. Because of that policy I get a lot less detailed letters than I used to. Instead most of the comments now are short and less revealing like, “you’re mean,” “arrogant” or “hateful.” But recently William Schmidt has remained a consistent critic who has shown so wonderfully how the other side thinks with his continued parade of detailed letters. After I published the one he sent me last week, he decided he’d had enough and sent me the following:
On Saturday, November 1, 2014, Bill Schmidt wrote:
Rich,
After you again posted another of my e-mails to you on your blog, I told some people that I had been sending e-mails to this anti-school’s guy named Hoffman and that you had been posting and then commenting on them in your blog. They read some of the entries and then said that you seemed pretty kooky and creepy. They asked me why I kept sending you e-mails and I told them about your appearances on the radio, etc. They asked if I thought I could change your narrow mind at all and I said “definitely not”. So they questioned what was being accomplished by continuing the discourse.
I thought back to Nov of 2011 to when I sent you my first e-mail. Lakota had just voted down another school levy and it was clear more cuts needed to be made. I had been made very uncomfortable about how Doc Thompson had made you a spokesman about school finance and how he coddled you by agreeing with everything you would say and how he wasn’t being much of a journalist. So I wrote you an e-mail which you posted on your blog. Since then, various things have happened. You no longer are requested on the radio. You were kicked out of No Lakota Levy. A school levy passed in your district. And, judging that my e-mails are the only ones you seem to put out there, it appears your readership must consist of only a handful of kooks and creeps.
I had to admit that sending you e-mails seems to have no purpose anymore. We are just rehashing the same old stuff. I feel you dragging me into the abyss. I need to let you continue to sink on your own. Since I only read your school blog diatribes anyway, because the other stuff you write is such nonsense (as illustrated by your recent Virgin Galactic tout), I really doubt if I will be calling up your blog very much anymore.
Don’t hurt yourself out there trying to find Communists hiding behind the monkey bars but maybe you should take one of your Brown Shirts along with you as you search. I’d say mattjutras might be available. And I’ll be careful trying to find a Kroger survey to participate in.
William
Years down the road the strategy I am currently conducting will be quite evident. I have worked with others but consistent with my experience, there are severe weaknesses in doing so—so a strategy unique to the times is mandated to implement the needed objectives. I have been building that network now for several years and in doing so certain patterns emerge.
Schmidt’s current position is not that unlike the Laura Sanders episodes, or school board member Julie Schafer—when faced with facts that defy their worldly views, they chose mental evasion to logical observation. They always come around to saying that “you’re not worth the time or investment so I’m leaving.” What they really mean is that “I cannot make you accept my reality so I’m discouraged and will not look in your direction with the same candid flare a child hides under their covers hoping that monsters will not get them.” They often rationalize this position by calling me names like kooky or creepy and think they are smart with connections to debunked communist conspiracies or otherwise scandalous activity leading to public rebuke as if that public had a mind toward intelligence where their collective sum outweighed an individual thought.
Once these people reach the end of their tolerance—of their attempts to reform elements of society into their harmony they retreat to the warm arms of their like-minded despots—such as what William did in a moment of crises. Arrogantly his advisors spoke as if they were Christian missionaries on location in some primitive wilderness and their advice to William the failed missionary was to cut ties with the failed attempt and focus their efforts somewhere that brings success. In this way the government education culture has taken on a type of religious zeal not unlike the Crusades or the current Jihad movement of Islam—that anybody not brainwashed to the religion of their viewpoint should be cast aside as disreputable, or destroyed so that their challenging viewpoints do not threaten the sanctity of their religion—in this case the religion of public education.
There is a long list of such characters that have tried and failed to do what William has. Of them I will say that Schmidt often refrained from going too far which is why I will miss him a bit. He did provide a window into their thinking that I have been using extensively in studies for the referred to upcoming strategies. But as for demeaning my efforts here in attempting to portray them as ineffective and isolated from the mainstream—I can see who reads each day and how many of them there are. I see the many links to Lakota school computers, to the movers and shakers of politics, to the government offices of Columbus, Ohio and Washington D.C. I wouldn’t spend my time if it was wasted—which its not.
But I’m doing things, and planning things that are highly unconventional and certainly not a part of any current political playbook. And it’s all carefully considered and calculated. But as to Schmidt’s wishes of reputation smashing quandary—the meter on the sidebar tells the story better than words. Most newspapers would love to have those numbers, and I don’t sell any advertising aside from links to my own extended works which is about to get a major update. It’s all in the name of authenticity and in these types of political fights; there just aren’t enough characters in the arena who have a heart for that fight—or a proper strategy. And the ones who do are treated as a threat because they are upsetting the apple cart that people like Schmidt depends on. Like a last-minute football play in the closing seconds where a spectator might look away not able to take the drama of the moment—Schmidt’s type always retreats to this effort because the moment is just too much for them. The impact on the world at large is too great and they worry about the changes to their lives if it continues—which I can assure all—it will.
But you can’t do the same old thing over and over. I had a friend at 700 WLW, actually two friends, Darryl Parks and Doc Thompson. They were both fired largely due to people like William Schmidt who complained to the station and its advertisers hoping to quell the message against their social scam. 700 WLW is much friendlier now toward the William Schmidt types—the pro-pot, gay-marriage supporting advocates. They are a sports talk station that does not currently get involved in messy politics. They probably will return to that at some point in the future, but as for now, they are playing it safe. That was their decision. They have invited me on their programs which I have declined. Their criteria wished me to take on the role of the villain instead of the role I formally had—and that wasn’t going to happen. So we have moved on to other things separately. But those other things will likely have more power than the former things and that is the concern that Schmidt and his advisors see on the horizon.
So as things continue on, I will miss Schmidt and his window into oblivion—where his kind considers anything with a three syllable word—“kooky,” or “scary.” There is value in studying the problem, but as often is the case the problem when it knows that eyes are on their tail retreats into a hiding place trying to buy additional moments for its sustenance. But the time is running out—and they know it—even if they turn their eyes away hoping to maintain an illusion for just a moment longer.
Rich Hoffman
November 3, 2014
Defining the “Right Stuff”: Virgin Galactic has it, government doesn’t
There are too many in the wake of the two commercial space endeavors which tragically ended during the last week of October 2014 who still believe that the government are the professionals in space flight, whereas the private sector are the amateurs. First was the 140-foot Antares rocket operated by Orbital Sciences Corp that blew up 15 seconds after lift-off destroying $200 million dollars of investment. Then there was the even worse Virgin Galactic spaceship that suffered a structural failure and crashed killing one and injuring another pilot destroying over $400 million dollars of a very unique craft. There seems to be a belief that if the federal government had been involved that these accidents wouldn’t have happened and that only the deep pockets of a looting government can fund such endeavors.
Well, here’s the deal—if it were up to the federal government there wouldn’t have been any crashes, because they wouldn’t be going up into space in the first place. They would employ a lot of engineers to sit in a room and talk about theory, they’d go to lunch and perpetually build spreadsheets of data which politicians and administrators would look at and decide that the risk was too great to act—and that they’d need more data points. This would go on for decades until everyone retires and the program gradually falls away into disrepair—which is the current experience at NASA—which is run by the government. They would not be where Virgin Galactic is today—because there are too many government bureaucrats in the way of their development.
Space travel in the fashion that it should have continued after the Apollo programs—as the Space Shuttles were already well under construction at that point in time—diminished after the rival of Russia collapsed and governments were no longer worried about nuclear weapons falling out of space. The short-sighted government simply stopped worrying about space and lost their sense of vision. They—as a collective entity–were unable to conceive of the type of space activity that Virgin Galactic is pursuing. It is beyond their reach. It doesn’t matter that the government has the ability to throw virtually unlimited amounts of money at space, what matters is that they lack the vision to do so—whereas the private sector isn’t so encumbered.
Now that the federal government is involved in the investigation of the Virgin Galactic crash, it will likely take years to get another ship ready for take-off and testing because of the bureaucratic elements involved. Government does not move at the speed of business and when they stand in the way—very little happens and by the time it does—everybody looses interest. That is the great danger involved from the Virgin Galactic disaster.
Richard Branson was extremely skilled in his press conference stating that Virgin Galactic would remain on course—which was a relief. But even he knows that it will take a monumental effort to get another ship to the phase that SpaceShipTwo was on the morning of October 31st, 2014. Mindless bureaucrats and pin-headed statesman will stand in the way of galactic adventure with a boldness they display in no other endeavor. Politicians and government workers only have valor when they hold up progress.
If not for the movies of The Right Stuff and Apollo 13 what would NASA have used as a tourism hook for the last 15 years at Kennedy Space Center? And what is the Right Stuff—I know, but do you dear reader? I can tell you one thing, government doesn’t have it—and those who work for government either gets it by breaking the law, or by performing it before bureaucrats take over the administrative process. Would Chuck Yeager have broken the sound barrier in today’s Air Force? No. Obama and his senators would have cancelled the funding in favor of making the people in the Middle East, or Indonesia feel better about their collective contributions to science back in a day when some thought the earth was flat. Politicians have no reverence for valor, or appetite for danger. I would bet $100,000,000 dollars that the pilot who survived the crash of Virgin Galactic on Halloween would literally give everything he’s got to climb into the next plane to push the boundaries again—which is what the Right Stuff is all about. Politicians don’t understand that kind of valor. They are too busy figuring out where they want to go for lunch. They don’t risk anything, especially themselves. They are in the business of playing it safe. Test pilots and entrepreneurs like Branson are all about the risk. Politicians loot off the effort of that risk to skim tax money away for their pet programs of election security and demographic maintenance. The Right Stuff was when John Glenn told his wife she didn’t have to pose for a photograph with LBJ when she didn’t want to. Glenn’s effort was what made the voyage into space worthy; it wasn’t a worthless politician who wanted to pose for a photo-op so to gain a few percentage points of popularity to the voting public.
The people of Virgin Galactic have the Right Stuff—they show up for work when nobody cares about the thousands of decisions they have to conquer just to complete one phase of spaceship construction. When there are triumphs, they bang wine glasses together and celebrate. When they go bad, as they did on Halloween of 2014, they attend the funerals and scratch their heads to figure out what to do next. But they do what they do for the life of adventure that valor dictates. Government people don’t understand that yearning and are good for nothing toward that end—they simply get in the way.
So for those who think that these latest disasters could have been prevented if the federal government applied its extensive regulations to the task of space travel—you are sadly mistaken. The only thing that would come of that arrangement is nothing—just perpetual stagnation and a constant desire to reach two points of productivity in their tax payer funded days of employment—their lunch hour, and quitting time. Everything in between those two periods involves stalling productive output until the relief of those times present themselves. So nothing happens. That is why Virgin Galactic is the only hope for those who see space as the answer to so many modern problems. There is no plan B or no government on earth who can duplicate their efforts even with endless budgets. Because it takes the Right Stuff to go into space and Virgin Galactic is filled with them. The people who work in government aren’t.
Rich Hoffman
November 2, 2014
What Happened to Mark Sennet: Bethony Station and Lakota Schools
Just for the record, Mark Sennet’s comments lately in the Pulse Journal do not reflect my involvement with No Lakota Levy. While it was true that many of the members of that levy fighting group were developers—which I support to a certain extent because they make things that do not exist before their efforts—there were some major philosophic differences between us. The pro tax people realized this when Mark went behind enemy lines looking to mend fences while we were in the middle of the fight, and the public school of Lakota exploited that in their strategy which I have blamed Mark for over the last 3 years. If he had kept quiet and done what I told him, Lakota would still be looking for their first levy passage. But, Mark as a former postal office employee was sympathetic to government employment and like an abused wife came back to them under crises. The type of developer that Mark is forces him to build alliances with the government school—so his involvement in a levy fighting group was unusual. That is the reason I found his comments just as ridiculous as others reading about his new development of Bethany Station.
“The Steiner development is a regional destination shopping center. Bethany Station will be a neighborhood shopping center (at an) obviously excellent location due to the schools and events at school and its convenient and easy access,” he (Sennet) said.
http://www.journal-news.com/news/news/more-retail-development-coming-to-liberty-twp/nhs7G/
When I came into the picture Mark was the leader of an anti-tax fighting group called Citizens Against Lakota Levy. He and I had a rivalry from the past but he invited me anyway to work with their group to help defeat the Lakota Levy attempts. At that time Mark was already feeling the stress of working against the school instead of with them. He craved being on good terms with the administration leaders and other public officials because in a lot of ways he was at their mercy during zoning hearings for his properties. In a simplified explanation the Chamber Alliance has great input into zoning approvals and school boards because they involve politics and children heavily shape the opinion of the Chamber. If he doesn’t fall in line within reason to the political machine of the area, things likely won’t go so smoothly for him during future land use hearings.
When I arrived it was to bring fresh ammunition to the fight because as a tax fighting group they were already wavering under the constant pressure. Mark as a person had a lot more in common with Joan Powell than he did me, so I knew that would be a problem eventually. I convinced the other members to repackage themselves and form No Lakota Levy. I became the spokesman as Mark drifted willingly into the shadows eventually not showing up for the meetings at all. After a few years some people forgot that he had even been involved with an anti-tax group.
During 2011 Mark and I had an obvious rift which forced the other members to choose between us. He came out at a school board meeting in favor of a levy increase if certain conditions were met. I didn’t like that he was negotiating with the government school when we obviously held the high ground and could hold it. But his attachments to the school and desire to attach his business interests to a tax payer funded entity proved too much, so he gradually withdrew all together.
The split that eventually happened between me and the rest of the No Lakota Levy members is of this nature. Since many of them had businesses that were under threat from school levy radicals, they were worried about a sustained fight and the school knew it. The rest has been documented extensively. I will forever look on that time and those people as wimps for cowering to the pressure of those who had the weaker hand. When the goal was always to leech off those weakened entities—then breaks in ranks were bound to occur.
People who have supported No Lakota Levy all this time don’t need to feel that you have been sold out by alliance. When the situation required a dirtier and more aggressive campaign most of the members simply weren’t up for the fight and that’s pretty much the gist of it. But at least they lasted longer than Mark did which led to these comments in the recent Pulse article.
Posted by DavidThorough at 11:11 a.m. Oct. 28, 2014
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Crony capitalism.
Posted by JohnnyArmco at 11:33 a.m. Oct. 28, 2014
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I hope this project goes belly up…..just like all the school levies that he wanted to fail…..all about the might dollar for him!
Obviously over time I developed an increasing hatred for the whole government school system and think that it should be reinvented. Mark wanted to make money off it in an alliance and those really aren’t compatible positions. I was not kicked out of a group that I started, but I was left as one of the few standing on the field of engagement by people like Mark. If Mark held strong and others like him, there would still be a resilient group against Lakota’s ridiculous spending. There would have likely been 3 out of 5 pro business people on the school board—but that was too much for most as they simply wanted to repair their relationships with the government school so that other aspects of their lives could return to normal—especially during zoning hearings.
So when he says things like he did in the paper, I don’t want my name associated with such weakness. I’m happy to call levy supporters whores and fat-assed despots all day long, but being a sell-out is not something I conduct my life with. He is free to make money and cut deals with whoever he wants—but it is important to know that he and I were not on the same page and when he stepped away from the picture and kept his hands out of the situation—we won handedly.
Rich Hoffman
November 1, 2014
SpaceShipThree IS NEEDED FROM VIRGIN GALACTIC: Medusas tempting gaze of stony doom
I had just been raving about the gigantic progress of Virgin Galactic when Halloween of 2014 brought a real scare to those of us who see the commercial space endeavors trickling off Richard Branson’s burgeoning company as the last hope for mankind. SpaceShipTwo of the test bed craft for commercial fights into space crashed and was destroyed testing a new fuel mixture high above the Mojave Desert Friday killing one co-pilot and injuring seriously the pilot. The deaths and injuries are terribly sad, but what is worse is that it is proving too much for the fragile sensibilities of humanity on planet earth and will create irrevocable fear in its wake toward commercial space flight.
Loss of life is always tragic, and is sad for the families. However, those who work as test pilots and adventurers know the risks and understand that death is a constant companion toward breaking the chains that shackle mankind’s freedom to the anchors of earthly conformity—so they risk their lives to chip away at those artificial limitations. In that context the most tragic circumstance of the Halloween disaster for Virgin Galactic—and all those of us who support its endeavors—is the loss of SpaceShipTwo. Although money can replace the $400 million dollar craft, the time and investment of resources which went into building the craft cannot be recovered. This will cause a serious schedule shift in Virgin Galactic’s intentions—which were to launch travelers into space during this upcoming year. It will likely take years to replace SpaceShipTwo meaning that this is a serious delay with the inevitable.
But do not mistake that these will not be the last tragedies. There will be many more, just as there was during the climb into the air with planes. Danger comes with adventure and only with adventure does mankind advance. It is necessary for mankind to scratch at the boundaries which confine it. It is that lack of boundary pushing that has put the clamps on NASA to in its current state—cancelled the Space Shuttle program without a replacement, and left those on earth scrambling for the same resources that they have for the last several thousand years. Those timid creatures of the earth, of the past, of the visibly tangible were too quick to delight in this accident in hopes that it might quell the reach for space by a civilian market place and take the pressure off their nerves imposed by an inner need for adventure.
I’m sure the cause of the crash will become evident and correctable, and once it is I would hope that flight tests would resume. If it were possible I would volunteer to fly today in another craft just to shake off the uncertainty of such tragedies and get the program back on its feet. As sad as it might seem to say it, the reach for space is more important than one life, or even a million lives. It is necessary for the furtherance of mankind—and without it, decay is our destiny.
I hope that Richard Branson will take his magnetic personality and shine it brightly in these dark hours to the lives of those who need it most. There is not time to mourn the dead and dying—because the hour-glass of humanity is emptying quickly—now advanced by this tragedy. The creators of SpaceShipTwo and all those at Virgin Galactic, and Spaceport of America need to get back on the horse quickly and show the world that they will not be timid but will push on to that barrier in the sky called space.
The mind of mankind is bigger than its flesh and earthly limitations. It has evolved into a species that can take abstract considerations and turn them into scientific reality. Space is not a vast empty void, but a land of opportunity. It is not cold and lost, but warm and present—it is there that the solutions to humanities problems reside so fret not over a tragedy while plucking the strings of innovation. Tune the action and try again quickly and without reservation—do it boldly without fear because not to is to retreat into the maw of the plague on earth that grips the mind of all that is terrestrial driven by a lack of resources and vision. Do not surrender to sorrow, but climb aboard the next flight and punch a hole in the sky with sheer determination. Get SpaceShipThree into the sky fast, and put bold adventurers on it equipped with the keys of logic and willpower to unlock that vastness to the encumbered minds of grounded ideology.
It is often said that a “grounded” personality is of the highest order among the human race. But it is they who are the first to point to the tragedy of Virgin Galactic and secretly relish in its tragedy. They are like the shadows in Plato’s cave in The Republic who desire to keep humanity facing a blank wall staring at the dancing shadows cast by firelight guessing what makes the shapes. Their great fear is that humanity might turn around and see that it is they who make the shadows and that behind them outside the cave is a reality they never imagined complete with a vast wilderness of shapes far more interesting. The dreamers and adventurers who break loose from that fixated position are the ones who escape to discover that there is much more to the shadows on a wall than what can be seen viewed from one direction. It should be understood that some will die in that escape, but the prize is worth the tragedy. Being grounded means that one is comfortable being regulated to the illusion of the cave images and not acting on a curiosity of understanding what casts those shadows to begin with. Being a dreamer means to break free to discover the mystery and push beyond those limitations to the real world outside of the control of illusions and dark caves depending on firelight to shape the perceptions of reality.
The ugliest girl I have ever met was the winner of a beauty pageant in Buffalo New York. She was by all measure the epitome of everything a male desires—except for one thing—she was a terrestrial being who hated Star Wars, made sure to let me know that she thought Godzilla movies were stupid, and that the worst film she had seen in during the 1980s was The Right Stuff. I stared at the woman as if she were the Medusa of Greek mythology—sent to earth as a beauty to turn man’s mind to stone and hold him to a terrestrial position forever as a metaphorical block of rock. There are far too many like this supposed beauty who today after the crash of Virgin Galactic’s innovative ambitions into the desert floor of the Mojave are there to soothsay the world into her stony gaze. Leaving that girl at the dinner table alone that evening was one of the best things I have ever done. The next step with her would have earned praise from humanity’s short-sighted grasp of reality—but would have forever bound me to a block of stone cast around my mind equivalent to Medusa’s gaze.
Medusa’s gaze is upon Virigin Galactic now. The temptation to cry for the cameras, to attend every funeral of every test pilot that will now or forever perish during attempts at space are there to hold the feet of mankind to blocks of rock forever claimering it to the jealous arms of mother earth. Medusa is the agent of earth created to keep that mother from crying at night from loneliness as it is but a corpse spinning through space destined to be destroyed by time itself. I beg those at Virgin Galactic to not look into the eyes of Medusa and become fixed like rock into passivity and caution. It is not the death of friends and family that will kill you—it is the loss of the dream to scratch at space that will. It is in allowing SpaceShipThree to become encumbered with red tape and bureaucratic nightmares that will stop the next great leap for mankind to launch into the freedom from earth’s clutches.
Richard Branson is one of the people I most admire. This will be his greatest moment or most perilous failure—for the Medusas of this earth will never let him live it down if he looks into their eyes for even a moment. He cannot get stuck now—the people at Virgin Galactic need to hear quickly that another $400 million dollar craft is ready to go and behind that ship is another, and another, and another. It will take everything Branson has to pull off this miracle now that the world has been tricked through tragedy into staring at the eyes of Medusa and her shadow on the cave wall into being fearful of the death that threatens all who try to escape earth. It is a time for rebellion, a time for adventurers, a time for boldness in breaking free of fear and for the first time stepping away from the nightmares of mythology for a new day beyond the grip of tragedy. SpaceShipThree needs to get into the air quickly! And ONLY Richard Branson can perform the task.
Rich Hoffman
October 31, 2014
Escape from Monkey Island: The small minds of a teacher’s union
Most of the nasty letters I get are simple name calling with no merit of an argument suggested, because honestly, there isn’t one that can be given. There is only the hope that provocation through name calling will quell my desire to point out the obvious. However, Bill Schmidt is pretentious enough to believe that his knowledge of the situation surrounding the teaching profession in government schools justifies defense and he often provides an interesting look into the warped mind of a typical levy supporter. Recently he wrote me about the steps my district of Lakota is taking to keep their excessively high wages somewhat managed. CLICK HERE TO REVIEW. Reading his comments is like visiting the zoo to watch monkeys swing from the trees as they call-out strange sounds only they understand. As a thinking human being we can only wonder how those monkeys can stay content on a tiny island in a zoo fed by zoo handlers and not desire to cross that vast moat to freedom and the world beyond. Instead they stay on the island and create a small micro society only they understand. In this way, monkeys at the zoo are like the teaching profession in government schools, inward looking and small-minded. Read the letter Schmidt sent me recently to get a look into this small canvas of thought.
On Monday, October 27, 2014, Bill Schmidt wrote:
Rich,
If a new Lakota teacher were hired in 2011 and is still working at Lakota, that person would still be classified as a 1st year teacher, yet would be providing the district with 3 years of experience. By the fact that voters rejected levies many times in previous elections, Lakota is no longer giving step increases. There is no clear indication that this teacher will ever get a step increase. By not getting step increases, this teacher has sacrificed about $7,500 in income by June of 2015. Looking at this prospect, I believe this teacher should work a normal 8 hour day. This teacher should work hard (not less) during that time and do it with enthusiasm. At the close of the day, this teacher should then work even more. That work should be towards recouping some or all of the $7,500 that has been sacrificed as the Lakota community has readjusted their educational priorities in rejecting several levies. If the “job” at Lakota has been found coming up short in achieving a “high destination” for the students being served, despite a hard and enthusiastic effort, other personal should be hired to work the extra hours to make this high destination achievable. It is possible that the money is not there for that to happen, but that is what the voters of Lakota have chosen in their rejection of previous levies. When you do not have enough personnel to do the job, then hire more just like a major business would.
I wouldn’t classify writing e-mails to you as “pulling strings”. It is you who have placed copies of my e-mails on your blog, without asking my permission and certainly not at my encouragement. At least one of the responses to posting my personal e-mail to you involves a physical threat, which you certainly did not discourage. You have misidentified me and misrepresented me in several of your blogs. Except for your actions, my views would only be known to you and that would not be imposing myself into “local management” by doing something like establishing a blog and taking a spot on a radio show.
You and some of your readers seem to think I should be learning something from you. Why would your opinions be any more valid than my own? Wouldn’t it be just as valid to say that you should be learning from me?
I hope that Lakota teachers realize that they could give all the extra effort possible, apply all expertise available to them, accept any reduction in salary imposed and it would not satisfy you and your supporters. This statement isn’t a “grief-stricken diatribe” — just the truth.
William Schmidt
The biggest trouble with Schmidt’s thinking is that he assumes a teacher is worth a $7,500 increase just for being employed—as if it were just years alone which dictated value. At Lakota this is the primary problem with their wage structure—they allowed too many employees to make in excess of $65,000 per year just because they showed up for work long enough to get step increases due to tenure. They didn’t earn their wages by beating out others to become the best in their field; they just had to put enough time in to gain a guaranteed percentage of wage increase regardless of performance.
Then Schmidt suggests the impossible—he actually believes that the best strategic position that can be conducted under these labor driven circumstances—inspired by radical left-wing economic philosophy, he suggests that teachers work even less than they do now.
The reason we had tax fights in Lakota was pure management or resources. The school administration wanted an unlimited community budget through taxation. Members of the community, like me, wanted competitive alternatives to drive down the cost of education and imposition upon tax payers. Without that fight, the big government—all day baby sitting lusting, left-leaning progressives would ask for tax after tax, after tax for the rest of existence. It is up to the tax paying base to apply pressure to those in charge of the purse strings to let them know that it will be painful to spend money. If pain is not introduced, it is proven that government workers will never stop taking, and taking—until there is nothing left. In Lakota they certainly did and even though they finally scammed their way into getting more money—they did exactly with it what we promised they’d do—they give an instant raise to their teachers. They lied to the public and the public saw it for what it was.
This put Lakota in a bad position. They know if they try for another levy in 2017 as they are projected to attempt, that there will be another fight—and it will be bloody—again. It is highly unlikely that they will get it approved the first time—statistically, it takes about three times to pass a levy in the Lakota district, at least over the last 15 years—so they are not looking forward to the attempts as they will take a serious public relations hit. So they will avoid it as long as they can, because the promise of a fight forces them to manage their resources. Without that promise, the government employees will abuse the money foolishly and the value of the overall product will be reduced.
So here is William Schmidt who doesn’t even understand the concept of management of money—he just believes that people are entitled to money because they breathe. And if they don’t get this perceived value, they are encouraged to work less…………………..how? Most teachers—not all—but most are glorified baby sitters, just as strippers are variations of prostitutes, and physical therapists are glorified masseuses’. They are all from the same family of occupation. Kids as proven by their test results and worldly knowledge are not being “educated.” They are simply being watched by other adults paid for by tax payers with a thin mask of “education” to make parents not feel guilty about the service. That is modern public education and William Schmidt wants more money for this baby sitting service just because someone has been one for a number of years established by a collective bargaining agreement ignoring value for the positions all together.
His letter further explores the possibility of opinion value assuming that just because he’s alive that his opinion is equal to mine. But it’s not. I know how hard I have worked to achieve my opinions and here Schmidt believes that he and I are equal just because we eat similar food, sleep in beds, and have other similarities that are human in origin. Monkeys like humans have similar features—they tend to eat similarly, dispel waste in a similar manner—yet monkeys and humans are vastly different from each other just as I am different from Bill Schmidt. Our opinions are not equal. They only thing I can learn from the letter above is just how right I have always been at the vast ignorance stirring at the center of the debate of public education and the value of dollars spent on the teaching profession. It is expected that these strange public union types do learn a thing or two from me and my readers—because we are trying to help them not be so treacherously foolish and a detriment to human civilization. But they have nothing to offer us of value as their entire existence is a parasitic one—in every facet of their lives.
After our brief email exchange I told him that he had the depth of a dried up creek—meaning that his thinking prevented him from an advanced discussion of the matter in much the way that driving a car could never be explained to a monkey at the zoo. It is just a concept that is too far removed from their culture on their little island display. He replied to me that I’m a fascist—which is always the retreat of a left—leaning loons when they run out of arguments—and facts to twist like a funhouse mirror. Arguments like Schmidt’s require non-thinking application of mental acuity lacking any intelligence. And because they do, they use name-calling to pound their point home. But—unlike in the past, those names only hit a brick wall of resolution and are flattened upon contact. Once it is understood that thinking destroys the position of people like Schmidt, they are left defenseless without anything to do but threaten with name-calling and collective opinion framed by their brain-dead followers.
Rich Hoffman
October 30, 2014
Renaming the Norwood Lateral: The disasterous and toxic memory of Barack Obama
You might have heard that a group of progressive liberals want to rename the Norwood Lateral in Cincinnati after Barack Obama. At first this seemed like a terrible idea–absolutely appalling. Obama will be known in history as one of the most terrible American presidents ever—even worse than the worst. I don’t say that as a racist because I’m not—I would have gladly voted for Alan Keys, Herman Cain, or Ben Carson—skin color doesn’t concern me in the least. Rather it is the content of the character of the public official and Obama is dreadfully lacking. I do sometimes use the Norwood Lateral to get back over to I-75 when visiting downtown. If Obama’s name were on the road I would likely find another way—just because I would hesitate to use a road with Obama’s name on it even if it saved me some time. Channel 12 news reported the attempt this way:
NORWOOD, Ohio (Angenette Levy) — The Norwood Lateral could be renamed for President Barack Obama. State Sen. Eric Kearney has introduced legislation in the state legislature to rename State Route 562 for the nation’s 44rd president. “The Norwood Lateral would be renamed the Barack Obama Norwood Lateral because we have the Ronald Reagan Cross County Highway and so it would be a complimentary type of naming opportunity,” Sen. Kearney said. Kearney was a supporter of President Obama’s during his two election campaigns. Kearney said President Obama deserves the honor because he won Hamilton County twice as President Ronald Reagan did in the 1980’s. State Route 126 – also known as Cross County Highway – was named for Reagan in the 1990’s after he left office. “I don’t have a problem with that. I like President Obama,” said Norwood resident Charles Gatling. Norwood Mayor Tom Williams, a conservative democrat, wants the lateral’s name to stay the same. “I’m as opposed to it as I can get,” Mayor Williams said.
I am likely even more opposed to Barack Obama having a cat named after him, let alone a tax payer funded road. But, after some consideration, it might actually be appropriate as the Norwood Lateral actually does represent the Obama presidency. After all, the road does run past the parking lot that used to be the Norwood General Motors plant which used to build Camaros. Unions killed the productivity at that plant and now the jobs are gone. Also, the Norwood Lateral runs past the empty lot that used to be the Showcase Cinemas of Cincinnati—one of the largest and best movie theaters in the Midwest—just twenty years ago. Now it’s gone and is an empty lot filled with grass growing between the cracks in the pavement. Also, the Norwood Lateral runs by homes that used to be some of the best in the city, but are now considered Section 8 as government intrusion into the neighborhoods there have built a dependency culture that has destroyed the local economy and crushed future investment. Where the Norwood Lateral begins used to stand Cincinnati Milacron, a vast campus of precision machinery manufacturing that dried up and died by the year 2000, just eight years before Barack Obama became president—liberal policies and a nation of labor unions killed the machining market in America giving no place to go for Cincinnati Milacron but to close. Now the buildings which used to make such technical wonders are gone and replaced by some retail shopping selling shoes and cloths made in China
Perhaps the Norwood Lateral should be named after Barack Obama after all, as it represents what he has done to the nation of America during his tenure. I won’t drive on it any longer, but others who voted for that complete idiot would and could reap the world they helped to create—lost businesses, welfare expansion, and redistribution of wealth. The only thing Obama has created during his presidency was a wasteland. He will be the first president since perhaps the Civil War that has left America less than it was before he was first elected—a depleted place destroyed by progressive politics and old hippie economic philosophy.
There would be nothing worse for the economic development of Norwood going into the future than to remind Americans of such a ridiculously stupid and terrible president than to force them to see his name each time they drive down the Norwood Lateral. Social degenerates will love to see the name of their religious savior who stole from the productive and gave to the lazy, but unfortunately for Norwood the entire community will trend toward the latter and not the former, dooming the city forever. At least the current mayor of Norwood is smart enough to understand just how toxic the name of Barack Obama will be in the future. Obama is still fashionable among radical groups for the time being, but that window is quickly closing as history is about to cast its opinion of the debacle for posterity.
What’s even worse than the possibility of naming the Norwood Lateral after Obama, it is the sheer stupidity of suggesting it in the first place as the news headlines are currently filled with his immense failures. It is a terrible idea brought forth with equally terrible timing. Naming the Norwood Lateral after the diminished president would seal the fate of Norwood forever—because there are people who feel even stronger about the guy than me and just the site of such a name is enough to cause them to go someplace else. It’s not due to race, but the reminder of such a failure. Nobody wants to remember the terrible game their favorite team played, nobody wants to remember the time they did something embarrassing—and nobody will want to remember a president who was such a sheer failure. They will do whatever they can to overlook that failure in the future and those who wish to remember are the types who are capable of nothing short of destruction.
Rich Hoffman
