Rich Hoffman's Blog, page 440

http://westchesterbuzz.com/2013/06/25/lakota-voters-could-see-tax-hike-on-fall-ballot/

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on July 07, 2013 17:00

July 6, 2013

The Scam at Lakota: Sycophants take aim at community property owners

As of 9:45 on the evening of June 24th Lakota administrators had not called a vote for the most controversial issue of the meeting–whether or not they would attempt a tax increase on the fall ballot. When the last of the crowd had left for the evening in sheer boredom, only the school board members, Superintendent Mantia and a couple of levy addicts remained for the unanimous vote to consider a 5.5 mill levy. At that time of the night, Michael Clark of the Cincinnati Enquirer already had his article written, as it was due for the next day’s edition, so he had been given the details before the meeting by the administrators who deliberately held off the vote till the end of the night to avoid any controversy. The type of deception that took place at the school board meeting is just the tip of the iceberg in the district of Lakota, who like all public education institutions is top heavy with administration and well behind the times of how proper education should be conducted. In government schools the goal is to create government jobs and pay their employee salaries, not to care for children, and Lakota knowing that there would be push-back to their announcement, waited till everyone had left to make their grand proclamation, which was already printed up by the Cincinnati Enquirer before the meeting was half-way finished. That article read as follows:

The Lakota Board of Education voted unanimously Monday evening to place a combination operating levy and a permanent improvement tax on the Nov. 5 ballot.

Voters will decide on a 3.5-mill operating levy and a 2-mill permanent improvement levy combined into a single 5.5-mill school tax hike issue.

The board’s vote is the first of two required under Ohio law to place school tax issues on the ballot. Lakota officials have until Aug. 7 to file with ButlerCounty election officials for the Nov. 5 ballot.

If approved, the levy would cost an additional $168 annually in new school taxes on a $100,000 home.

Some of the 2-mill permanent improvement levy money would go to enhancing security at Lakota school buildings, including adding more cameras. Other funds would go to improving student technology.

The 3.5-mill operating levy would largely fund labor and other costs.

In a statement today, Lakota Superintendent Karen Mantia said approval of the combination levy would allow $6.3 million for upgraded security and $13.5 million for a multiyear technology upgrade program.

“Security has always been important,” Mantia said. “But unfortunately, with the world we live in now, we need to do even more.”

She added that the security spending would include tripling the number of police officers and sheriff’s deputies in Lakota schools, as well as physical changes to school buildings.

Lakota’s student and district network of technology needs updating, she said.

“We can use technology to be more effective and cost-efficient,” she said. “But we need the infrastructure in place to do that, and we’ve fallen far behind. It’s about building a network infrastructure that allows the district to use technology the way it should be used in a large organization.”

Read the rest of the article at the following link:

The article was just as deceitful as was the conditions from which the vote was conducted. Mantia stated that the levy a 2-mill permanent improvement levy would go to enhance security at Lakota school buildings, including adding more cameras. Other funds would go to improving student technology. The remaining 3.5 mill would go to fund the new teacher contract for the Lakota Education Association which expires in June of 2014. Attempting to capitalize on the recent fearful circumstances of school shootings, Mantia attempted to divert attention away from their horrendous management of school finances to declare that the new tax increase would make “children safer.” But Dan Varney, treasurer for NoLakota was quick to call out the ruse saying that “Lakota officials are “trying to exploit the Sandy Hook killings” by including a promise of spending more money on school security if the tax is approved.

“In December, a gunman killed 26 at the Sandy Hook Elementary in New Town, Conn. The shooting deaths of 20 children and six adult school staffers launched a nationwide examination of school security measures.

“That’s the security card they are playing and I’m sure that will be our position as the campaign moves forward,” said Varney.

As stated elsewhere, Lakota does not need more money. It has a consistent tax base that is already taxed too high. Yet Lakota’s employee demand is decreasing. Lakota needs to lay-off workers, not hire more, or even keep the ones they have. With the student enrollment decreasing every year for the next decade, Lakota schools will only need half their current school buildings before the close of the decade, primarily because the barrier to entry in the Lakota school district for families with school aged children is prohibitively high. Families with children won’t be buying used homes in Lakota, they will move into communities that have entry level starter homes. Increasingly the type of people who will live in the Lakota district are home owners without children in the district. And those people won’t be voting in favor of more taxes, especially for a school district that has no idea how to balance their budget.

Instead of playing things straight the Lakota administration attempted to use even more deceit to sneak the vote in favor of a new levy through once all the residents had gone home for the evening. The Enquirer had the article already written. All they had to do was wait for everyone to leave so there wouldn’t be any public record of any comments against them at the meeting. The attendance was light, as most of the residents at Lakota gave up a long time ago in believing that the school board has any control over the their finances, and the behavior of Lakota on June 24th, 2013 makes it clear why. The Lakota school board with their superintendent and other administrators cannot be trusted with little things, let alone, millions of dollars more just so they can avoid the hard decisions of laying-off their employees to match the declining student enrollment. And it is for that reason more than any other that the Lakota school system should be defunded to the maximum amount possible. Lakota as an organization is built on deceit, and are at best complicit of gross distortion of the facts in order to serve the whims of their teacher union and their employees who make a quarter million dollars a year for playing loose with the truth, and squeezing the community of its every last dime.

Rich Hoffman

“Justice Comes with the Crack of a Whip’!”

“Justice Comes with the Crack of a Whip’!”

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on July 06, 2013 17:00

July 5, 2013

The Education Bubble: Lakota schools leads the way to American collapse of learning

One of the greatest collapses that is headed for American culture is the education bubble, which I would argue burst a long time ago, but is just now being felt by the general population. Every time I hear the nonsensical statements by my home public school of Lakota demand more money for a teaching profession that is antiquated at best, to provide results for students in their future college endeavors, I think of how sadly blind they are to the conditions of our day. Colleges are too expensive; the professors charge too much money for teaching children left-leaning political views. The skills children learn in college are nearly worthless to producing a positive GDP in The United States and with a tuition growth of over 7% a year; the funding model has become impossibly too expensive as it has outpaced the general consumer index that rests just over 3%. For every parent who has spent their life savings on a child to go to college, they have wasted their money. They have been scammed by progressive thieves’ intent to reshape American culture from self-reliance, to one of dependency, and they have charged our society into debt to fund our own demise. An entire generation of children who believed the great college lie that has been advocated by public education institutions to justify their ever-increasing taxes on property values has sold America a car without an engine. It looked good on the outside, but will take nobody anywhere, except down a hill. College graduates in 2013 are leaving their schools with debt in the six figures and unable to find jobs that will help them pay back their massive debts. The problem is articulated well in the below video. Watch and take plenty of notes. This information is critical.

Not only are young college graduates from age thirty-five to twenty-five leaving college with six figure debt, they are discovering that they cannot make enough money to buy a home because they cannot find jobs that will pay them anywhere close to a value that would allow them to do both, pay their college loans, and pay for a mortgage. That means that financing a car is out of the question. It means that yearly vacations are not a possibility. It also means that getting married and having kids is the last thing on their mind, as their only means of survival is to hopefully live with their parents until some of their college debt is paid off. If those same young graduates have to spend $500 to $1000 a month on an apartment, then home buying will be out of the question for them, as they will never crawl out from under the massive pile of debt placed upon their heads by their parents who advocated the Great Society of Lyndon Johnston. That society turned out to be just another failed progressive experiment, and the debts are coming due on our current college aged graduates.

Recently the government school in my town, Lakota, announced that they were going to try for yet another tax increase even though they are experiencing declining enrollment. The number one reason that Lakota has for asking for more money is due to the new teachers’ union contract that is coming up in 2014. In the education field public schools all across America like Lakota are on an unsustainable path of finance. They have no idea how to pay for their extraordinary teacher wage rates of over $60K per year. They simply ask for more taxes every couple of years as collective bargaining laws prevent proper management of those rates of pay. Colleges have been doing the exact same thing, but instead of hitting the tax payers for more money with property levy increases, they have simply raised tuition rates each year by 7% or more. The cause of the increases is not new buildings, more text books, or better technology, but the impact of having too much staff that makes over six figures per year. Kind-hearted suburban parents have been conned into saving $50,000 to $100,000 over a 20-year period to basically flush it down the toilet on over-paid liberal teachers who attempt to teach everything those same parents spent a lifetime teaching their children. Those poor children who do not drop out of college as they quickly discover that higher education is not going to take them where they wanted to go, enter the job market unable to participate in adult society as they are so saddled with debt that the concept of having children, or grandchildren is simply out of the question. And those who do have children have absolutely no way to save money to pay for college for their grown children. There is no way they could do what their parents did and save money for twenty years to flush down the toilet on their own offspring once they’ve grown. These poor saps will still be paying their student loans which are sometimes bigger than their home mortgages.

If educators were so smart, then why can’t they see that the money they are consuming today will not be there tomorrow? After all, doesn’t it make logical sense? Well, again looking at the Lakota school system which has for years shown a distinct arrogance toward finance, as though their personal desires and wishes could overcome reality, currently they are asking for a tax increase of an additional $168 annually per $100,000 of home when their student enrollment has dropped 9% since 2010 and is projected to decline at the same rate for the next decade. That kind of math is why all public schools are failing, whether they are in Lebanon, Forest Hills, Fairfield, or any government school in the nation. They are all failing because they do not apply value to their employees treating them all with equal pay, which is not tied to results. This mentality has carried over to college professors who see themselves as more important than public education teachers, so their pay is noticeably higher. At Lakota the average teacher pay is over $63K per year which provides some perspective on why college tuition rates are so enormously high. The education bubble has expanded just as discussed in the video above, to the point where it has burst leaving everyone with a gooey slime behind to clean up.

There is no way to save the system at this point. Public education is just as complicit as the colleges in the matter of the mammoth scam performed against the tax paying public. Both are concoctions of large government sadism as it was devised by command of the Department of Education. They are the result of failed policies, failed philosophy, and failed politics. The money wasted on property taxes by the same tax payers who have saved up fortunes to send their children to college have been hit from two directions and there is no savings left for them to spend anywhere. When Medicaid and Social Security run out of money in 2026 and their children are filing massive bankruptcy for homes they can’t pay for because they can’t pay off their college debts, the parents won’t even be able to turn to their kids for help. Nobody will have any money…………that is except the teachers who have all retired at age 55 with the vast fortunes they’ve looted from the tax payers.

The bubble has already burst, and the system has already collapsed. The people who don’t yet want to admit it are the members of the teaching profession who are 5 to 10 years away from that glory day of retirement, and the absent-minded parents who want free education for their children because they either lack the self-esteem to teach their own kids, or the financial horsepower to send them to private schools that do a far better job than the government does. Everyone else is dealing with the tragic reality of such a terribly failed system that was concocted by such half-baked minds. For those poor debt-ridden college students who cannot find a job to pay for their educational studies in women’s peer groups, or green-house conductivity, the best jobs they could hope to enter are those that put food on the table for their grandparents, whom they most likely hardly ever met–the plumbers, the car manufacturers, the electricians, and the warehouse workers. The best thing a prospective worker could do is to work at something that actually has value, and produces something, instead of another worthless benchwarmer sitting in another cubical in a leased building that will rise and fall in business prospects within a 10 year time. A society cannot be successful in this fashion, and that is what colleges and public schools have been instructing our society and charging a fortune for the service which has collapsed on itself in our present time.

Rich Hoffman

“Justice Comes With The Crack of a Whip’!”

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on July 05, 2013 17:00

July 4, 2013

A New Living Legend: Thoughts from a 2013 Fourth of July

1016670_668640526482811_1812631301_n

The cute picture of the little boy shown is of my grandson. That photo means more to me than just a sentimental moment of time captured by a gifted photographer at 9 months of age. Within that picture there were many contributors to the photograph, my daughter of course made the little boy with her husband, my wife made the white blanket by hand, and my other daughter took the picture in the back yard of the home that she owns with her husband. Virtually everyone in my immediate family played a part in that photograph. My imprint of course is that I put the gift of adventure in all those individuals, which is represented by the stack of books off to the side. That is what families are supposed to do and be for each other as the benefactors are little children like my grandson dressed in his little hat awaiting the tools of cognition to be put before his mind so that he too can live a life of adventure, discovering for himself all the potentialities that come from breathing air, and living life.

As another 4th of July came and went, I thought about my little grandson. When people wonder why I do some of the things I do, the first answer is because I want to. I enjoy fighting; debating, and philosophizing—pretty much in that order. But there is always a sub-plot in the back of my mind which drives me with purpose. When I was raising my children, it was fighting to make sure they tasted enough freedom and independent thought that they could grow up and live good lives. I have been successful in that. Now, it is the generation that comes after which I focus upon.

I have been an inspiration to many young people for many, many years. I still associate with many of those grown adults who looked as children toward someone to teach them how to be good people, how to face their fears, and live righteously. I have always offered myself in that role, even when I too was younger than they were. But there comes a benefit in living, surviving, and arriving at a time when not only you think you know more than everybody else, but you are sure of it. You know it because the reality around you has proven it time and time again. You don’t realize it because the intention is to be haughty, arrogant, or considered a God among men, but you just are because nobody else is trying.

When I look at my grandson in that picture there is hope written all over his face. He is the sum of many people who love him deeply. As he gets older those character traits will grow more pronounced. His mind will hunger for knowledge and he is lucky that there will be a lot of people to help fill it. In particular, I have been already working with him in regard to bullwhip practice. My daughters captured some of that action in the same photo session, where my grandson was playing around with the custom-made whips that were constructed just for him by my whip making friend David Crain. I have been letting him watch the whip roll out so he can study the movement and memorize it for later, when he too learns to use them the way I do.

Every child is born with the opportunity to become anything. Even children who are not genetically gifted or otherwise healthy have more potential in their minds than most living adults. For them their stories are not yet written and it makes me sad to see so many young children who don’t have adults to pour thoughts into their minds, to give them the ability to think on their own as young adults, and finally as grown adults. Most children the age of my grandson are doomed to a life of failure not because they lack any ability, but because they lack people in their lives that can help them develop into fully realized human beings.

My grandson will not have to worry about that. He has so many people in his life with very interesting traits of their own, that he has no choice but to pick up on those unique attributes while he forms his own character which is already evident. Looking at him it reminds me of what the 4th of July is all about. It’s why we fight to keep our country free so that little boys like my grandson can have the right to think and develop freely on their own, to bring their own unique gifts to the world. Someday, my grandson might decide that the bullwhip is not for him, but he will make that choice on his own, after he has had exposure to it and filled his mind with the value it brings to him through practice, and a bond with me, his grandmother, his aunt and uncle, and his mom and dad.

The fight for freedom is more than just a token message created by the Tea Party movement to hijack elected offices and become tomorrow’s tyrants through the desk of a bureaucrat. For me it is sincere, I believe in the things I say here with every cell in my body and beat of my heart. I believe in it for myself, and the joy it brings me in seeing the lights of freedom igniting in another human being, like the innocent eyes of my grandson, as it was captured so eloquently in the photograph my daughter took. I will teach his young mind in a way that was only available to my own daughters, but with the self-assuredness of having experience, to be a legend among mankind. When most people say they want their children and grandchildren to grow up to be lawyers, doctors, or God forbid—politicians, I frown at all those types of jobs. All of them are less than what I want for my grandson. I want for him to be a living legend, a character of such charisma, determination, and moral aptitude that there has never been another like him. Such a goal is a lofty one, but it’s what I will contribute to his mind with all our future time together. I can see the sparkle in his eye already, and soon, he will begin to take the form of a character unlike the world has ever seen.

And it will come from individuals like my daughter—his mother and her vast creativity, his aunt—my other daughter and her photographic genius and forward thinking vision, my two son-in-laws, one a former MMA fighter, the other a bullwhip champion in his own right, and my wife who reads hundreds of books a year, makes blankets for every member of our extended family, and is willing to spend countless hours on the floor playing with children. Then of course there are my contributions–in a few years I’ll have him jumping through walls of fire, cracking whips faster than lightning, crawling through caves that a snake couldn’t fit through and facing life with a fearlessness that every young man dreams of. Ladies and gentlemen viewing that picture—you are seeing a future legend that will know an unlimited life free of any shackles created by deficient human minds.

As I watched the fireworks on the 4th of July in 2013, that is what I thought of. And I will venture to make it so.

Rich Hoffman

http://www.ask.com/wiki/Great_Society?o=2800&qsrc=999

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on July 04, 2013 17:00

July 3, 2013

Great Society Entitlements Will Be Bankrupt in 2026: Time to get nasty to save everyone

I love the 4th of July and frequent displays of patriotism that is displayed on America’s unique holiday celebrating freedom. But I am weary at the same time of such festivities because I know what’s coming. Ladies and gentlemen reading these words right now, the perils that faced the founders of America pale in comparison to the challenges of our current time. There is a reason that for the last 10 days or so I have provided many articles showing readers what America looked like before the implementation of The New Deal which was essentially socialism in its design long supported by progressives disguising their love of European communism, and the grand climax of The Great Society which became possible due to the 1964 election of the most liberal congress in American history with the exception of the one in 1938. Those elections were purchased from a gullible American public with deceit, and now the bills for those errors are coming due in our current time. America is about to hit a brick wall, and for anybody to survive, they need to understand that America was a great country before those terrible programs, and they need to understand that for America to survive for future 4th of July holidays the fight of our lives is currently before us. The video below sums up the problem in the simplest way possible.

At the end of May of 2013 the Social Security and Medicare Board of Trustees published a little known report that was generally ignored by the media, because in it was a very kind warning that by 2026, which is in essence only a decade away, those programs run out of money. They cannot be sustained without raising taxes and taxes cannot be raised without crippling the American way of life. We are at an impasse that cannot be avoided and there is no compromise with that fiscal cliff. It is a fact of reality that nobody wants to look at. Politicians are terrified of it, and the public does not wish to face the summary of their years of neglect in American politics where they paid attention to everything but one of the most important parts of their society—their government. So below is a portion of the report along with a link that will take you dear reader to the more specific information. I suggest you read this carefully and pass it along to a friend. It is important to understand the severity of the problem.

A SUMMARY OF THE 2013 ANNUAL REPORTS

Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees

Published 5/31/2013

A MESSAGE TO THE PUBLIC:

Each year the Trustees of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds report on the current and projected financial status of the two programs. This message summarizes the 2013 Annual Reports.

Neither Medicare nor Social Security can sustain projected long-run programs in full under currently scheduled financing, and legislative changes are necessary to avoid disruptive consequences for beneficiaries and taxpayers. If lawmakers take action sooner rather than later, more options and more time will be available to phase in changes so that the public has adequate time to prepare. Earlier action will also help elected officials minimize adverse impacts on vulnerable populations, including lower-income workers and people already dependent on program benefits.

Social Security and Medicare together accounted for 38 percent of federal expenditures in fiscal year 2012. Both programs will experience cost growth substantially in excess of GDP growth through the mid-2030s due to rapid population aging caused by the large baby-boom generation entering retirement and lower-birth-rate generations entering employment and, in the case of Medicare, to growth in expenditures per beneficiary exceeding growth in per capita GDP. In later years, projected costs expressed as a share of GDP trend up slowly for Medicare and are relatively flat for Social Security, reflecting very gradual population aging caused by increasing longevity and slower growth in per-beneficiary health care costs.

Social Security

Social Security’s Disability Insurance (DI) program satisfies neither the Trustees’ long-range test of close actuarial balance nor their short-range test of financial adequacy and faces the most immediate financing shortfall of any of the separate trust funds. DI Trust Fund reserves expressed as a percent of annual cost (the trust fund ratio) declined to 85 percent at the beginning of 2013, and the Trustees project trust fund depletion in 2016, the same year projected in the last Trustees Report. DI cost has exceeded non-interest income since 2005, and the trust fund ratio has declined since peaking in 2003. While legislation is needed to address all of Social Security’s financial imbalances, the need has become most urgent with respect to the program’s DI component. Lawmakers need to act soon to avoid reduced payments to DI beneficiaries three years from now.

Social Security’s total expenditures have exceeded non-interest income of its combined trust funds since 2010, and the Trustees estimate that Social Security cost will exceed non-interest income throughout the 75-year projection period. The deficit of non-interest income relative to cost was about $49 billion in 2010, $45 billion in 2011, and $55 billion in 2012. The Trustees project that this cash-flow deficit will average about $75 billion between 2013 and 2018 before rising steeply as income growth slows to the sustainable trend rate after the economic recovery is complete and the number of beneficiaries continues to grow at a substantially faster rate than the number of covered workers. Redemption of trust fund asset reserves by the General Fund of the Treasury will provide the resources needed to offset Social Security’s annual aggregate cash-flow deficits. Since the cash-flow deficit will be less than interest earnings through 2020, reserves of the combined trust funds measured in current dollars will continue to grow, but not by enough to prevent the ratio of reserves to one year’s projected cost (the combined trust fund ratio) from declining. (This ratio peaked in 2008, declined through 2012, and is expected to decline steadily in future years.) After 2020, Treasury will redeem trust fund asset reserves to the extent that program cost exceeds tax revenue and interest earnings until depletion of total trust fund reserves in 2033, the same year projected in last year’s Trustees Report. Thereafter, tax income would be sufficient to pay about three-quarters of scheduled benefits through 2087.

A temporary reduction in the Social Security payroll tax rate in 2011 and 2012 reduced payroll tax revenues by an estimated $222 billion in total. The legislation establishing the payroll tax reduction also provided for transfers from the General Fund to the trust funds in order to “replicate to the extent possible” payments that would have occurred if the payroll tax reduction had not been enacted. Those General Fund reimbursements amounted to about 15 percent of the program’s non-interest income in 2011 and 2012. The temporary payroll tax reduction expired at the end of 2012.

Under current projections, the annual cost of Social Security benefits expressed as a share of workers’ taxable earnings will grow rapidly from 11.3 percent in 2007, the last pre-recession year, to roughly 17.0 percent in 2037, and will then decline slightly before slowly increasing after 2050. Cost displays a slightly different pattern when expressed as a share of GDP. Program cost equaled 4.2 percent of GDP in 2007, the last pre-recession year, and the Trustees project that cost will increase to 6.2 percent of GDP for 2036, then decline to about 6.0 percent of GDP by 2050, and thereafter rise slowly reaching 6.2 percent by 2087.

The projected 75-year actuarial deficit for the combined Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance (OASDI) Trust Funds is 2.72 percent of taxable payroll, up from 2.67 percent projected in last year’s report. This deficit amounts to 21 percent of program non-interest income or 17 percent of program cost. A 0.06 percentage point increase in the OASDI actuarial deficit would have been expected if nothing had changed other than the one-year extension of the valuation period to 2087. The effects of recently enacted legislation, updated demographic data, updated economic data and assumptions further worsened the actuarial deficit, but these effects were completely offset by the favorable effects of updated programmatic data and improved methodologies.

While the combined OASDI program fails the long-range test of close actuarial balance, it does satisfy the test for short-range (ten-year) financial adequacy. The Trustees project that the combined trust fund asset reserves at the beginning of each year will exceed that year’s projected cost through 2027.

Medicare

The Trustees project that the Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund will be the next to face depletion after the DI Trust Fund. The projected date of HI Trust Fund depletion is 2026, two years later than projected in last year’s report, at which time dedicated revenues would be sufficient to pay 87 percent of HI cost. The Trustees project that the share of HI cost that can be financed with HI dedicated revenues will decline slowly to 71 percent in 2047, and then rise slowly until it reaches 73 percent in 2087. As it has since 2008, the HI Trust Fund will pay out more in hospital benefits and other expenditures than it receives in income in all years until reserve depletion.

The projected HI Trust Fund’s long-term actuarial imbalance is smaller than that of the combined Social Security trust funds under the assumptions employed in this report.

The estimated 75-year actuarial deficit in the HI Trust Fund is 1.11 percent of taxable payroll, down from 1.35 percent projected in last year’s report. The HI fund again fails the test of short-range financial adequacy, as its trust fund ratio is already below 100 percent and is expected to decline continuously until reserve depletion in 2026. The fund also continues to fail the long-range test of close actuarial balance. The HI 75-year actuarial imbalance amounts to 29 percent of tax receipts or 23 percent of program cost.

The modest improvement in the outlook for HI long-term finances is principally due to: (i) lower projected spending for most HI service categories especially for skilled nursing facilities to reflect lower-than-expected spending in 2012 and other recent data; (ii) lower projected Medicare Advantage program costs that reflect recent data suggesting that certain provisions of the Affordable Care Act will reduce growth in these costs by more than was previously projected; and (iii) a refinement in projection methods that reduces assumed per beneficiary cost growth during the transition period between the short-range projections and the long-range projections. Partially offsetting these favorable changes to the projections are somewhat lower projected levels of tax income that reflect lower-than-expected tax income in 2012.

The Trustees project that Part B of Supplementary Medical Insurance (SMI), which pays doctors’ bills and other outpatient expenses, and Part D of SMI, which provides access to prescription drug coverage, will remain adequately financed into the indefinite future because current law automatically provides financing each year to meet the next year’s expected costs. However, the aging population and rising health care costs cause SMI projected costs to grow steadily from 2.0 percent of GDP in 2012 to approximately 3.3 percent of GDP in 2035, and then more slowly to 4.0 percent of GDP by 2087. General revenues will finance roughly three-quarters of these costs, and premiums paid by beneficiaries almost all of the remaining quarter. SMI also receives a small amount of financing from special payments by States and from fees on manufacturers and importers of brand-name prescription drugs. Projected costs for Part B assume an almost 25-percent reduction in Medicare payment rates for physician services will be implemented in 2014 as required by current law, which is highly unlikely.

The Trustees project that total Medicare cost (including both HI and SMI expenditures) will grow from approximately 3.6 percent of GDP in 2012 to 5.6 percent of GDP by 2035, and will increase gradually thereafter to about 6.5 percent of GDP by 2087.

The drawdown of Social Security and HI Trust Fund reserves and the general revenue transfers into SMI will result in mounting pressure on the Federal budget. In fact, pressure is already evident. For the seventh consecutive year, the Social Security Act requires that the Trustees issue a “Medicare funding warning” because projected non-dedicated sources of revenues primarily general revenues are expected to continue to account for more than 45 percent of Medicare’s outlays in 2013, a threshold breached for the first time in fiscal year 2010.

Conclusion

Lawmakers should address the financial challenges facing Social Security and Medicare as soon as possible. Taking action sooner rather than later will leave more options and more time available to phase in changes so that the public has adequate time to prepare.

Read the rest complete with charts and diagrams at the following link:

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/trsum/

To understand how we got into this mess it is also important to study The Great Society policies which culminated in the 1960s by Lyndon Johnson, and was the work of Democrats from the 1930s as a progressive platform rooted in global communism. Even though it is long, it is important to read. Some reading this have actually supported The Great Society and are currently avoiding dealing with the errors of their past by praying to some finance God that relief will magically appear. It will not. It is important to understand the problem, and then work to remove all these elements from our society so that we may save it. In previous documents I have shown how America used to be, and can be again. Those who support The Great Society look at such times as antiquated and a step backwards. In a way they are right, I do wish to step back in time—to a time before the socialist imposition of The New Deal, and The Great Society. I don’t want to pay for them. I don’t want to deal with people who are addicted to those government services, and I want to steer away from the collapse of those programs in 2026.

The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States announced by President Lyndon B. Johnson at Ohio University and subsequently promoted by him and fellow Democrats in Congress in the 1960s. Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. New major spending programs that addressed education, medical care, urban problems, and transportation were launched during this period. The Great Society in scope and sweep resembled the New Deal domestic agenda of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Some Great Society proposals were stalled initiatives from John F. Kennedy‘s New Frontier. Johnson’s success depended on his skills of persuasion, coupled with the Democratic landslide in the 1964 election that brought in many new liberals to Congress, making the House of Representatives in 1965 the most liberal House since 1938.[1]

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 assured minority registration and voting. It suspended use of literacy or other voter-qualification tests that had sometimes served to keep African-Americans off voting lists and provided for federal court lawsuits to stop discriminatory poll taxes. It also reinforced the Civil Rights Act of 1964[10] by authorizing the appointment of federal voting examiners in areas that did not meet voter-participation requirements. The Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965 abolished the national-origin quotas in immigration law. The Civil Rights Act of 1968 banned housing discrimination and extended constitutional protections to Native Americans on reservations.

War on Poverty

Main article: War on Poverty

The most ambitious and controversial part of the Great Society was its initiative to end poverty. The Kennedy Administration had been contemplating a federal effort against poverty. Johnson, who, as a teacher had observed extreme poverty in Texas among Mexican-Americans, launched an “unconditional war on poverty” in the first months of his presidency with the goal of eliminating hunger and deprivation from American life. The centerpiece of the War on Poverty was the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which created an Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) to oversee a variety of community-based antipoverty programs.

Federal funds were provided for special education schemes in slum areas, including help in paying for books and transport, while financial aid was also provided for slum clearances and rebuilding city areas. In addition, the Appalachian Regional Development Act of 1965 created jobs in one of the most impoverished regions of the country.[citation needed] The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 provided various schemes in which young people from poor homes could receive job training and higher education.[15]

The OEO reflected a fragile consensus among policymakers that the best way to deal with poverty was not simply to raise the incomes of the poor but to help them better themselves through education, job training, and community development. Central to its mission was the idea of “community action“, the participation of the poor in framing and administering the programs designed to help them.

Programs

The War on Poverty began with a $1 billion appropriation in 1964 and spent another $2 billion in the following two years. It spawned dozens of programs, among them the Job Corps, whose purpose was to help disadvantaged youth develop marketable skills; the Neighborhood Youth Corps, established to give poor urban youths work experience and to encourage them to stay in school; Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), a domestic version of the Peace Corps, which placed concerned citizens with community-based agencies to work towards empowerment of the poor; the Model Cities Program for urban redevelopment; Upward Bound, which assisted poor high school students entering college; legal services for the poor; and the Food Stamp Act of 1964 (which expanded the federal food stamp program).[16]

Programs included the Community Action Program, which initiated local Community Action Agencies charged with helping the poor become self-sufficient; and Project Head Start, which offered preschool education for poor children. In addition, funding was provided for the establishment of community health centers to expand access to health care,[17] while major amendments were made to Social Security in 1965 and 1967 which significantly increased benefits, expanded coverage, and established new programs to combat poverty and raise living standards.[18] In addition, average AFDC payments were 35% higher in 1968 than in 1960, but remained insufficient and uneven.[19]

Education

The most important educational component of the Great Society was the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, designed by Commissioner of Education Francis Keppel. It was signed into law on April 11, 1965, less than three months after it was introduced. It ended a long-standing political taboo by providing significant federal aid to public education, initially allotting more than $1 billion to help schools purchase materials and start special education programs to schools with a high concentration of low-income children. The Act established Head Start, which had originally been started by the Office of Economic Opportunity as an eight-week summer program, as a permanent program.

The Higher Education Facilities Act of 1963, which was signed into law by Johnson a month after becoming president,[20] authorized several times more college aid within a five-year period than had been appropriated under the Land Grant College in a century. It provided better college libraries, ten to twenty new graduate centers, several new technical institutes, classrooms for several hundred thousand students, and twenty-five to thirty new community colleges a year.[21]

This major piece of legislation was followed by the Higher Education Act of 1965, which increased federal money given to universities, created scholarships and low-interest loans for students, and established a national Teacher Corps to provide teachers to poverty-stricken areas of the United States. The Act also began a transition from federally funded institutional assistance to individual student aid.

The Bilingual Education Act of 1968 offered federal aid to local school districts in assisting them to address the needs of children with limited English-speaking ability until it expired in 2002.[22]

Health

Medicare

The Social Security Act of 1965 authorized Medicare and provided federal funding for many of the medical costs of older Americans.[23] The legislation overcame the bitter resistance, particularly from the American Medical Association, to the idea of publicly funded health care or “socialized medicine” by making its benefits available to everyone over sixty-five, regardless of need, and by linking payments to the existing private insurance system.

Medicaid

In 1966 welfare recipients of all ages received medical care through the Medicaid program. Medicaid was created on July 30, 1965 under Title XIX of the Social Security Act of 1965. Each state administers its own Medicaid program while the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) monitors the state-run programs and establishes requirements for service delivery, quality, funding, and eligibility standards.

Arts and cultural institutions

National endowments for arts and humanities

In September 1965, Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act into law, creating both the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities as separate, independent agencies. Lobbying for federally funded arts and humanities support began during the Kennedy Administration. In 1963 three scholarly and educational organizations—the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), the Council of Graduate Schools in America, and the United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa—joined together to establish the National Commission on the Humanities. In June 1964, the commission released a report that suggested that the emphasis placed on science endangered the study of the humanities from elementary schools through postgraduate programs. In order to correct the balance, it recommended “the establishment by the President and the Congress of the United States of a National Humanities Foundation.”[24]

In August 1964, Congressman William S. Moorhead of Pennsylvania proposed legislation to implement the commission’s recommendations. Support from the White House followed in September, when Johnson lent his endorsement during a speech at Brown University. In March 1965, the White House proposed the establishment of a National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities and requested $20 million in start-up funds. The commission’s report had generated other proposals, but the White House’s approach eclipsed them. The administration’s plan, which called for the creation of two separate agencies each advised by a governing body, was the version approved by Congress. Richard Nixon dramatically expanded funding for NEH and NEA.[24]

Public broadcasting

After the First National Conference on Long-Range Financing of Educational Television Stations in December 1964 called for a study of the role of noncommercial education television in society, the Carnegie Corporation agreed to finance the work of a 15-member national commission. Its landmark report, Public Television: A Program for Action, published on January 26, 1967, popularized the phrase “public television” and assisted the legislative campaign for federal aid. The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, enacted less than 10 months later, chartered the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as a private, non-profit corporation.

The law initiated federal aid through the CPB for the operation, as opposed to the funding of capital facilities, of public broadcasting. The CPB initially collaborated with the pre-existing National Educational Television system, but in 1969 decided to start the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). A public radio study commissioned by the CPB and the Ford Foundation and conducted from 1968–1969 led to the establishment of National Public Radio, a public radio system under the terms of the amended Public Broadcasting Act.

Cultural centers

Two long-planned national cultural and arts facilities received federal funding that would allow for their completion through Great Society legislation. A National Cultural Center, suggested during the Franklin Roosevelt Administration and created by a bipartisan law signed by Dwight Eisenhower, was transformed into the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a living memorial to the assassinated president. Fundraising for the original cultural center had been poor prior to legislation creating the Kennedy Center, which passed two months after the president’s death and provided $23 million for construction. The Kennedy Center opened in 1971.[25]

In the late 1930s the United States Congress mandated a Smithsonian Institution art museum for the National Mall, and a design by Eliel Saarinen was unveiled in 1939, but plans were shelved during World War II. A 1966 act of Congress established the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden as part of the Smithsonian Institution with a focus on modern art, in contrast to the existing National Art Gallery. The museum was primarily federally funded, although New York financier Joseph Hirshhorn later contributed $1 million toward building construction, which began in 1969. The Hirshhorn opened in 1974.[26]

Transportation

Transportation initiatives started during President Johnson’s term in office included the consolidation of transportation agencies into a cabinet-level position under the Department of Transportation.[27] The department was authorized by Congress on October 15, 1966 and began operations on April 1, 1967. Congress passed a variety of legislation to support improvements in transportation including The Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964 which provided $375 million for large-scale urban public or private rail projects in the form of matching funds to cities and states and created the Urban Mass Transit Administration (now the Federal Transit Administration), High Speed Ground Transportation Act of 1965 which resulted in the creation of high-speed rail between New York and Washington, and the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 a bill largely taken credit for by Ralph Nader, whose book Unsafe at Any Speed he claims helped inspire the legislation.

Consumer protection

In 1964, Johnson named Assistant Secretary of Labor Esther Peterson to be the first presidential assistant for consumer affairs.

The Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965 required packages to carry warning labels. The Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 set standards through creation of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The Fair Packaging and Labeling Act requires products identify manufacturer, address, clearly mark quantity and servings. The statute also authorizes HEW and FTC to establish and define voluntary standard sizes. The original would have mandated uniform standards of size and weight for comparison shopping, but the final law only outlawed exaggerated size claims.

The Child Safety Act of 1966 prohibited any chemical so dangerous that no warning can make it safe. The Flammable Fabrics Act of 1967 set standards for children’s sleepwear, but not baby blankets.

The Wholesome Meat Act of 1967 required inspection of meat which must meet federal standards. The Truth-in-Lending Act of 1968 required lenders and credit providers to disclose the full cost of finance charges in both dollars and annual percentage rates, on installment loan and sales. The Wholesome Poultry Products Act of 1968 required inspection of poultry which must meet federal standards. The Land Sales Disclosure Act of 1968 provided safeguards against fraudulent practices in the sale of land. The Radiation Safety Act of 1968 provided standards and recalls for defective electronic products.

Environment

Joseph A. Califano, Jr. has suggested that Great Society’s main contribution to the environment was an extension of protections beyond those aimed at the conservation of untouched resources.[28] In a message he transmitted to Congress, President Johnson said:

The air we breathe, our water, our soil and wildlife, are being blighted by poisons and chemicals which are the by-products of technology and industry. The society that receives the rewards of technology, must, as a cooperating whole, take responsibility for [their] control. To deal with these new problems will require a new conservation. We must not only protect the countryside and save it from destruction, we must restore what has been destroyed and salvage the beauty and charm of our cities. Our conservation must be not just the classic conservation of protection [against] development, but a creative conservation of restoration and innovation.

— Special Message to the Congress on Conservation and Restoration of Natural Beauty; February 8, 1965[29]

At the behest of Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall, the Great Society included several new environmental laws to protect air and water. Environmental legislation enacted included:

Clear Air, Water Quality and Clean Water Restoration Acts and Amendments

Wilderness Act of 1964

Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966

National Trails System Act of 1968

Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968

Land and Water Conservation Act of 1965

Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1965

Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act of 1965

National Historic Preservation Act of 1966

Aircraft Noise Abatement Act of 1968

National Environmental Policy Act of 1969

Labor

Amendments made to the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act in 1964 extended the prevailing wage provisions to cover fringe benefits,[30] while several increases were made to the federal minimum wage.[31] In addition, a comprehensive minimum rate hike was signed into law that extended the coverage of the Fair Labor Standards Act to about 9.1 million additional workers.[30]

For those who wish to save America, the government must be removed from public education, from medicine, from science, from labor relations, from retirement financing, and from environmental preservation. For that last many will say it is because of government that America has National Parks and a conservation movement at all. For them I point toward Disney World who took capitalism and converted an environmental marshland in the hot Central Florida region and made it a haven of environmental awareness producing money that was poured into science that no government on earth could duplicate. The Walt Disney property in Florida is better managed than any National Park, and serves the same purpose of preservation of valuable land. Similar examples could be provided to every topic mentioned above and more. But first Americans must dust off their tendency to self-reliance and embrace the past that built such characters and reject the past that paved the way to dependency, the policies of The Great Society.

It is good to enjoy fireworks on The Fourth of July and celebrate a time when America declared its independence. But America through trickery, deceit, and political barbarism is more dependent on foreign forces than ever and the strings to that dependency are in the programs of The New Deal and The Great Society. The fight before us will be much more vicious than in any other time in American history. It will be far from easy. That is why am turning my focus on a period of American history that had touches of true independence whether it was in the films of Douglas Fairbanks, or the various renditions of the Lone Ranger. For me those times are represented by the bullwhip and speak of an American attitude that is rooted in justice constantly pursuing freedom. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE. But it is time to take off the masks of convention, and politeness, or patient understanding then declare that the hands of time need to be reset in America to a time before the destructive programs that a vast majority of citizens in The United States have become accustom to. A failure to take off those masks of politeness will result in the end of American civilization as a fiscal powerhouse. It may continue on as Russia currently does, as an impoverished former superpower crushed by communist ideology, but it will not be the nation that we all know and love today. So the fight that is the responsibility of our times is before us, and simply igniting fireworks off on the 4th of July is not enough. An American revolution that has not yet been given a name is before us now, and will occur on all our watches who read this now. When history views us, they won’t celebrate our polite masks that are worn in society when oppressors wished to imprison us with more entitlement programs which only serve politicians in Washington and their ability to stay in office by selling votes through tax payer resources. It is time to dust off our American individuality and get mean and nasty to those who wish to put shackles about our necks with financial slavery. A failure to do so will actually bring more harm to others than it ever averts.

Rich Hoffman

“Justice Comes With The Crack of a Whip’!”

http://westchesterbuzz.com/2013/06/18/shrinking-enrollment-causes-problems-for-suburban-schools/

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on July 03, 2013 17:00

July 2, 2013

Lakota Schools to Cut Employees: Declining enrollment means staff must be reduced

I have been laughing for the last couple of weeks intensely after the Cincinnati Enquirer report from my old buddy Michael Clark was caught reading from the public relations memo sent out by Lakota schools instead of doing any hard reporting. The article was in reference to the declining enrollment at the Lakota school system, which I reported here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom over a year ago, CLICK TO REVIEW. The Enquirer was a little late to the punch, by only about 14 months. Basically Lakota has lost 9% of their student enrollment since 2010, which has been due to an aging population and expensive home prices that exclude parents with school aged children from being able to move into the community. This projection is expected to continue for at least the next 8 years. Yet Clark and the other government education advocates who gave statements of consensus in the article made the following comment, which was the source of my laughter.

“The trend adds to the nervousness of Southwest Ohio school officials and school parents who await the state budget’s unveiling later this month. Smaller enrollment often means less school funding in Ohio’s biennium budgets. And fewer state dollars mean districts often ask voters to pay higher school taxes.”

You can read the rest of that hilarious article at the following link.

The reason that article is so side-splitting funny is because all the participants from the reporter down to the public relations people proved that they have no idea how to balance a public school budget. Smaller enrollment does not mean that schools have to go back to the tax payers. Smaller enrollment means that the school will have to reduce their paid staff in order to meet the new demand by the student population. Lakota indicated that they were nervous to see what kind of money the “state” would give them, when the issue is irrelevant. Lakota will need to reduce their work force by at least 9% to account for the declining enrollment, thus saving the money they’d otherwise pay those employees. Instead they have announced that they plan to go for another levy in November of 2013 to pay for employees they don’t need! Click here for more detail.

As Lakota continues to decline in enrollment, it may well be possible that Lakota could reduce its staff and administrators by up to 50% by the time 2020 arrives from what it is now. For the tax payers of the Lakota school district that is wonderful news. For business owners looking to invest in the community, that is wonderful news as well, as tax increases should not be needed. It’s also good news for the family of two who have lived in the Lakota district for twenty to thirty years and has been considering selling their home to avoid the property taxes by retiring to Florida. Now those empty-nesters can remain in their homes as the tax burden at Lakota should not increase.

Yet the administration at Lakota did not see this good news. Instead they somehow translated that information as meaning they would need a tax increase…………..and that is HILARIOUS! Do they believe that the same staff level will be maintained when the student population drops down to 11,000 students, or even 10,000? Are teachers going to be teaching in classrooms of only 5 to 10 kids? Is that what they think? Well, apparently………they do. Such a statement about tax increases when enrollment decreases just goes to prove how terribly out-of-touch those types of government employees are, and what little management actually goes into making business decisions in public schools.

The right thing to do at Lakota would be to have a reduction in force every year that there is student enrollment decreases and make sure that the most highly paid employees are either forced to leave, or reduced in force to dynamically supply the student needs. But public education is never interested in doing what’s right. After all, they are “progressive” organizations. They believe they exist to give away jobs like Santa Clause at Christmas time, and they actually entertain the idea that they might have to raise taxes to keep all their employees on staff. That is what was suggested in the Enquirer article, which is absolutely preposterous. Such thinking is the construct of idealism and has no basis in reality.

The decline in enrollment has nothing to do with the three defeated school levies which took place from 2010 to 2012. It may have in a small way prevented the very rare type of real estate purchaser who would be attracted to the Four Bridges type of housing developments, the affluent latte sippers who buy half million dollar homes then expect the community to give their children a free baby sitting service complete with an education. But what has been lost in real estate sales from those types has been gained in retained businesses that have not had to flee the community due to high taxes, and proved conducive to affluent home owners who enjoy living in a community where the children do not run the entire town. Rather the decline in enrollment is part of a natural process, and is the byproduct of a society that does not value the building of families but instead promotes the value of single status lifestyles which last well into young adults thirty something years. If every home in the Lakota district had a mom and a dad, (which most do) yet only produce 1.7 children per home, then the population not just of Lakota as a district will decline, but the nation as well.

That is why big government loves to build Section 8 homes in communities where such population reductions are occurring. This is also one of the secret desires for providing amnesty to illegal immigrants. Poor families tend to have more children because the government pays them to give birth. Affluent homes tend to have fewer children because those types of people take responsibility for their life and pay for their own kids. Affluent types won’t put up with associating with the other type who do not share in their values. Look at the situation that is bringing harm to Tri-County Mall. CLICK HERE FOR REVIEW.

Because the district of Lakota is considered affluent, and there are barriers to entry, not quite as excessive as there is in Indian Hill, but is moving in that direction, this means that fewer families can qualify to send their kids to the Lakota school system. Those that can have probably already raised their families and are looking for the kinds of social offerings that come with developments like Carriage Hill Homes, or the upcoming Liberty Center shopping complex. The face and nature of the community are changing, and that change does not center around the neurosis of a local school system, but on quality, and affluence by people who can see through the tantrums of Lakota schools and the bottomless pit of tax increases they wish to impose hiding their lack of management skills, and gross negligence of proper head-count maintenance.

It was funny while it lasted, not its just sad………………………………..

Rich Hoffman

“Justice Comes with the Crack of a Whip’!”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Ranger

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on July 02, 2013 17:00

July 1, 2013

Yes, The Disney ‘Lone Ranger’ has the William Tell Overture: Past meets present with a glorious spectacle.

Many kids these days have no idea that the character of Woody from the popular Toy Story films was directly inspired by The Lone Ranger television show that was so extremely popular immediately after World War II. The last time the Lone Ranger made any kind of legitimate appearance in either television or motion pictures it was in the 1981 film The Legend of the Lone Ranger which had mild success, but involved the tragic injury of Terry Leonard, the famous stuntman from Raiders of the Lost Ark. In the 1981 film, a stagecoach accident ran over both of Terry’s legs which tarnished the film a bit to even my young eyes. The scene made it into the movie, but was difficult to accept as I always related more with the stuntmen in films than I ever did the actual actors. There was a time in my life where I wanted to be a stuntman more than anything else, but that idea subsided a bit after several violent car crashes, encounters with actual villains who shot real bullets, and a few years of marriage. But deep in my heart is the love of the Lone Ranger and his code of moral conduct that helped shape America’s identity with his classic white hat, black mask, and silver bullets.

My primary exposure to the Lone Ranger came from Saturday morning serials. For me it was always a toss-up between the Lone Ranger, and Zorro who I loved more. One of those classic Republic serials can be seen throughout this article. I’m sharing it in the same way that I shared the Republic serial, Zorro’s Fighting Legion. These types of programs made a point to teach children and adults values they could both share. This is why I am so eager to see the new Lone Ranger film by the Disney Company.

The Lone Ranger is a fictional character: a masked ex-Texas Ranger who, with his Indian companion Tonto, fights injustice in the American Old West. The character has become an enduring icon of American culture.[7]

He first appeared in 1933 in a radio show conceived either by WXYZ radio station owner George W. Trendle [3][4][5] or by Fran Striker,[8] the show’s writer.[9][10] It has been suggested that Bass Reeves, a legendary Federal peace officer in the Indian Territory (1875 – 1907) was the inspiration for this character.[11][12] The show proved to be a hit, and spawned a series of books (largely written by Striker), an equally popular television show that ran from 1949 to 1957, and comic books and movies. The title character was played on radio by George Seaton, Earle Graser, and most memorably Brace Beemer.[8] To television viewers, Clayton Moore was the Lone Ranger. Tonto was played by, among others, John Todd, Roland Parker, and in the television series, Jay Silverheels.

Departing on his white stallion, Silver, the Lone Ranger would shout, “Hi-Ho, Silver! Away!” As they galloped off, someone would ask, “Who was that masked man, anyway?” Tonto usually referred to the Lone Ranger as “Ke-mo sah-bee“, meaning “trusty scout” or “trusted friend.”[13] These catchphrases, his trademark silver bullets, and the theme music from the William Tell overture have become tropes of popular culture.

In every incarnation of the character to date, the Lone Ranger conducts himself by a strict moral code put in place by Striker at the inception of the character. Actors Clayton Moore [6] and Jay Silverheels[citation needed] both took their positions as role models to children very seriously and tried their best to live by this creed. It reads as follows:

I believe…

That to have a friend, a man must be one.

That all men are created equal and that everyone has within himself the power to make this a better world.

That God put the firewood there, but that every man must gather and light it himself.

In being prepared physically, mentally, and morally to fight when necessary for that which is right.

That a man should make the most of what equipment he has.

That ‘this government of the people, by the people, and for the people’ shall live always.

That all things change but truth, and that truth alone, lives on forever.

In my Creator, my country, my fellow man.[14]

The most updated version of The Lone Ranger comes out on July 3rd, and I can’t think of a better film to see which celebrates the 4th of July. The Lone Ranger is a special kind of film and I sincerely hope that Jerry Bruckheimer is able to do for the American western what he did for swashbuckling pirate films. If he does, then western values have a real chance at re-emerging in American culture.

It is about time that children learn clean speaking cowboys are not just playthings in a toy box like Woody was in Toy Story. The Lone Ranger is the original Woody, and I relish that the film is coming out around such a patriotic holiday, because the Lone Ranger is a uniquely American creation for a uniquely American audience that is being exported to every corner of the world by one of the largest and most successful companies in the world. It should go without saying that I will be seeing it at the earliest possible screening.

Now, one of the most heavily searched items on my site here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom for the last three months has been the question, “Is the William Tell Overture in the new Lone Ranger.” Well, for the answer, you can hear it from Han’s Zimmer himself.

Don Steinberg from The Wall Street Journal — Ok, so over to “The Lone Ranger.” And speaking of theme music: there’s probably never been any audible version of the Lone Ranger that didn’t use the William Tell Overture. Do you nod to that?
Hans Zimmer response - I was listening to a Billy Connolly quote, and he said the definition of an intellectual is if you can listen to the William tell Overture and not think of the Lone Ranger. Ok, we didn’t go the intellectual journey. We fully embraced the William Tell. Needless to say, we couldn’t leave well enough alone, so it has a little tweak. Actually it’s tweaked quite bit. I don’t know how long the Overture is — it depends on how fast you play it — but that Lone Ranger bit is two minutes long, at the most. And, as I found out, Mr. Rossini felt that was all he had to say. So there are some expansion opportunities. Plus, needless to say, they don’t hire me just to orchestrate Rossini. They want a bit of my dirty fingerprints all over it.

Read the whole interview here:

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/06/12/listen-to-the-music-that-makes-the-man-of-steel-soar/

………………………………….YES! I am damn happy to not call myself an intellectual by the way that Billy Connolly coins the term. For me, the William Tell Overture is what the Lone Ranger is all about. CLICK HERE FOR MORE. Enjoy the movie!

Rich Hoffman

“Justice Comes with the Crack of a Whip’!”

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on July 01, 2013 17:00

June 30, 2013

Springboro Schools Seeks a Renewal Levy of $9.2 million: More reasons why public education is a waste of money

A couple of things occurred lately on the education front concerning my friend Kelly Kohls and the labor union interest centering on the contract being negotiated at Springboro schools. A labor supporter who writes me often passed along a letter he sent out to public education teachers encouraging them to work less, if districts are not going to pay wage increases. Not only did he name me in the letter but other education reformers in Southern Ohio as well who stand against tax increases.

I am very disappointed that Kelly is asking for a renewal levy. I would like to see her walking taxes backwards, not trying to maintain the current tax amount, which should be the goal of every governing body. I hope that voters will take this chance and vote down the renewal levy so that Kelly can then take that mandate from the community and further cut salaries in the Springboro schools system bringing down their per pupil costs.

As to the perception of value that the letter writer represents he forgets what I have told him privately many times, that I do not have a value for the teachers he’s advocating for. I would like to see competitive options to public education that would drive down the cost of education, and give families alternatives to left-leaning education practices. When labor unions declare that their teachers are the pillars of a community, the question that must be asked is for whose version of “community.” My version of community is far different from William Schmidt. He sees his treasured teachers as a value to children; I see them as parasites that rot the minds of creativity and puts chains upon their thoughts before they can hardly read a book. Test scores and social observation support my opinion. I would like to see public education dismantled and for parents to take responsibility for educating their own children with the saved money that roll-backs would provide them. If Kelly’s district of Springboro defeats their levy forcing the school board to make financial adjustments, the tax money saved by residents could be applied to a charter school that teaches something other than progressive education.

When Schmidt says below that nobody has come up with “creative” ways to fund education that is because the value of education is in question, not the dollars that should be found to pay for it. The type of education is the current problem. That must be solved before ways of funding it can be analyzed. In the most simplified form, teaching and the responsibility of education must shift back to the parents and away from government, particularly at the state and federal level. The collective summation of all a community’s children thrown into a big pot of stew while the parents run around doing whatever they feel like as community funded baby sitters take care of their offspring is not working. The parents get lazy because public teachers are raising their kids. Teachers get lazy at their jobs because there are no measurements of quality to keep their job. They get paid pretty much the same whether they are good or bad teachers because their collective bargaining agreement says so, an agreement that robs money from every home in a school district for a system that is a complete failure.

I’m including the letter Schmidt sent to me so that it can be seen how the other side thinks. I don’t think he’s a bad person, just as a lot of people on that side are not bad. But they believe that the wrong things are important. They hide their misconception about reality behind a shield of children. Regardless, I am disappointed that Kelly is putting a renewal levy on the ballot. That’s why she’s a school board member and I’m not. She still wants the system to work, and I don’t. I want it defunded, and re-invented with competition as the foundation. And that answers the second issue to Mr. Schmidt, it is not my job to find a way to raise the “community’s” kids, and pay for the labor of it with a government school. I support private tutors, and if people can’t afford that, then home school the children. Children are better off with a parent who has limited knowledge about the world, but a lot of love to give them than a teacher with a doctorate who makes too much money and is instructing children to vote for progressive causes ruining the mind of young people for the first 15 years of their life, till they wake up at age 35 and realize that all the leftist causes they believe in were the creations of their public schools. They spend the rest of their lives unlearning all the garbage they learned in K-12 education. It would save them a great deal of headache later to not learn those things at all and let a computer at home teach them the basics like math, English, science, then letting The History Channel teach them everything else. That would be much more effective than even the best public schools paid for with stolen property tax money.

Sent by William Schmidt:

During its meeting on June 19, the Springboro Community City Schools Board of Education (BOE) voted in favor of placing a $9.2 million renewal levy on the November ballot.

“We want to underscore that this is a renewal levy, and we are not asking for new money. As a result, taxes will not be raised for residents,” said Kelly Kohls, BOE President. “The renewal is necessary to continue to fund the academic programs that have helped our school district achieve an Excellent with Distinction rating. We are committed to operating the district within the budget that Springboro taxpayers have approved. With the renewal levy, the board believes the district will be sustainable until 2017.”

This renewal levy announcement comes while negotiations are in progress between the Springboro BOE and the Springboro Education Association (SEA), the union representing the teachers and support staff employees.

“The board and administration have worked diligently together to manage the budget,” Kohls added. “By applying fiscally prudent measures across the school district, we have been able to reinstate textbook purchasing, technology upgrades, bus replacements and facility improvements. We have also provided necessary intervention at the elementary grade level, as well as enhanced services for gifted children.”

For more information, visit www.springboro.org.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

What I find interesting is that somewhere in Springboro’s past, this money that is suggested to be renewed was new money. Originally, why didn’t Springboro live within their means and and sustain their Excellence with Distinction without this money? I can’t find out when this levy (now needing renewal) was passed. But since then it seems that Springboro has needed these funds.

Now, however, Springboro seems to not need any new money. The logic is lost to me. It seems that as long as the labor force is willing to accept pay freezes and no step increases and many other concessions, the district can sustain itself without asking for new money. Why didn’t it do that before passing the levy (now needing renewal) in the past? Why does it need this renewal to fund academic programs to remain excellent?

The real fact is there is an assumption that the labor force will sustain their current efforts of sacrifice and working extra hours in the face of pay freezes and dwindling benefits. I contend that this assumption is what is truly not sustainable.

Once again, I call on the teachers of Lakota and now Springboro to stop working outside of the borders of their contract. Work a normal day and then use time that used to be devoted to school outside a 40 hour work week and seek employment elsewhere with that time or devote it more to their own families. Once a plan is in place to sustain the extra efforts that teachers have provided in the past, then they can go back to a more professional approach. School budgets can always be sustained without new money and levy passage as long as the increased burden is placed on the labor force. North Coast, No Lakota Levy, Educate Springboro, Sharon Poe, Arnie Engel, Rich Hoffman, Kelly Kohls and other like-minded groups and individuals have never looked into the future and tried to solve the issues of school funding. They have only used ideas, void of creativity, to find ways not to raise taxes, regardless of the burden they place on the labor force. Will any of these groups or people ever suggest that new money for schools be needed?

The fact that Springboro needed a new money levy some years ago and needs it renewed now seems to suggest that The Springboro School Board policies are not forward thinking. They need to consider if their current dealings with the teaching staff are truly sustainable. I think not.

William Schmidt

Rich Hoffman

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on June 30, 2013 17:00

June 29, 2013

Don Q Son of Zorro: A window into the past to see American history firsthand

I sometimes forget that a majority of the people in the world can only remember historical events ranging into the 1950s these days, so the history of how America arrived to where it is today is lost to them, except in history books and documentaries. Of those it has only been during the last ten years that both took a hard look at the liberalism that seeped into American culture by the boat load during the 1930s to the 1950s. For most people they have no concept of what America was like before The New Deal, or The Great Society–programs created by extremely progressive presidents. People are completely unaware of what life was like when Woodrow Wilson attempted to crown himself king of America, riding on the coat tails of Teddy Roosevelt who tried with every fiber in his body to make America like Europe with his love or royalty and political hierarchy.

Equally baffling to people is the reason I think of the 1920s as the premier time for American ideals to come into fruition under the hands-off leadership of President Calvin Coolidge. I forget that everyone does not practice with bullwhips and have a love for old movies that brought out the best of the Hollywood era, and paved the way for a future of mythmaking cinema that would deliver to the world ideals about freedom, honor, and tenacious respect. After all, we live in the year 2013 and the days of Calvin Coolidge were a long time ago. Society has “progressed” so much beyond those “primitive” times; at least that is the popular misconception of our day.

However, I would make the argument that American society has not advanced, as many believe, but is regressing toward the primitive mentality of mysticism, instead of away from it, and it is books, music, and movies that shape the politics of our age, which is why politicians have learned to control Hollywood with a short leash, and shared public relations resources. I forget that I am probably the only human being within a thousand mile radius who has as one of the treasured literary classics called The Curse of Capistrano otherwise known as The Mark of Zorro by Johnston McCulley published in August of 1919. That book is a window to a long forgotten time representing long forgotten and suppressed values that I cherish immensely.

I loved The Curse of Capistrano so much, as McCulley wrote the very first story of Zorro with such passion that I used his style as my template to The Symposium of Justice, which was my modern tribute to Zorro from The Curse of Capistrano. The Mark of Zorro is the classic adventure that not only launched a legend, but it built Hollywood with the very first brick. Johnston’s Zorro took place in a bygone era of sprawling haciendas and haughty caballeros who suffer beneath the whip-lash of oppression. Missions were pillaged, native peasants abused and innocent men and women were persecuted by the corrupt governor and his army. But a champion of freedom riding the horse-trodden highways at night, his identity hidden behind a mask, the laughing outlaw Zorro who defied the tyrant’s might. A deadly marksman and a demon swordsman, his flashing blade left behind the mark of the “Z” for all in authority to fear! Reading the novel is like reading the thoughts of people from a different time, and compared to how things are today, they truly were.

As fate would have it Douglas Fairbanks bought up the rights to The Curse of Capistrano and turned the book into a silent movie in 1920 called The Mark of Zorro. The movie was a smashing success as the Woodrow Wilson era of big progressive government came to an end, which without question found its way into plot of Johnston’s story. The Warren G. Harding’s presidency was filled with scandal but good intentions leaving the man to die in office during 1923 leaving Calvin Coolidge to take over as President until 1929. In 1925 Douglas Fairbanks made a sequel to The Mark of Zorro called Don Q Son of Zorro where he played not only the son of Zorro, but also the dad. About 7 minutes into the film, Don Q states that his father, “Zorro was the greatest American there was.” The film was essentially about a class of progressive European ideals intersecting with American individualism. It was a bench mark film for me and many of my whip friends because the stunts that Douglas Fairbanks did in the film served as the goal post for what all whip performers work off of to this very day. The bullwhip was so important to Douglas Fairbanks in Don Q Son of Zorro that it is essentially the most memorable part of his character.

Going back and watching that film is a time machine into a different time and place when people thought a lot differently about things than they do today. So to share that experience as I have been doing with other bullwhip related feature films lately, I have put the entire film Don Q Son of Zorro up here for your viewing pleasure. The first impression many people have about a silent film is that they can’t get used to not having people speak. A silent film relied exclusively on music and the action on a screen to make the performance come to life. It’s kind of like reading a book that is in motion. Douglas Fairbanks knew that the way to capture his audiences’ attention was to perform stunts that they could never think of doing. The stunt work he performed in Don Q Son of Zorro is unparalleled then and since. Since 1925 Zorro, has been associated with a bullwhip because of Douglas Fairbanks’ work in Don Q. This would go on in film for the next 80 years. I have watched Don Q Son of Zorro many times, and because of that, I have seen what the world was in the 1920s and studied hard what values built Hollywood before the incursion of communism that spread during the Red Decade as Ayn Rand warned about in the late 1940s along with Walt Disney. CLICK HERE TO REVIEW. So do yourself a favor and watch Don Q Son of Zorro parts one and two below, and compare the values shown in the film with the watered down valor of today.

Part II

It was on these kinds of films from Douglas Fairbanks that Hollywood would grow into what it is today a booming town of entertainment where left leaning politicians recognized more quickly the value of capturing a message and shaping it with influence so to achieve political gains. But things were not always so watered down. I know about these films and novels of this era because of my exposure to bullwhip art, and more specifically Western Arts. Actors, and stuntmen like Douglas Fairbanks are the kind of people who built the foundations of Western Arts, so they are revered in a similar way that progressives think fondly of such as Woodrow Wilson.

We live in an age where we think that movies are old if they were done in the 1970s, but in essence movies have been copying off each other since the 1940s. They are telling the same stories, but just telling them with a bit more polish then a silent film was able to capture. In Don Q Son of Zorro Douglas Fairbanks puts out a candle in one take with a 10’ bullwhip using an overhead flick move, not easy to do. For a project I did for a camera crew in Hollywood a few years ago, I was tasked with putting out a cigarette on the ground with a 12’ bullwhip and it took me 14 takes. (I was doing it backwards so I don’t feel badly about it.) But the whip stunts done in Don Q were simply light years ahead of their time and wouldn’t be even attempted again with such scope until The Mask of Zorro in 1998 starring Anthony Hopkins and Antonio Banderas. It took Steven Spielberg to executive produce the project through his Amblin studio. The film had been in the works as early as 1992 with Spielberg wanting to direct the film with Sean Connery playing the older version of Zorro. Even so, it took 6 years to get the film done with Spielberg working hard to make it happen even with all the strings available for him to pull. As good as the film was, it was essentially a dusted off version of Don Q Son of Zorro as both Spielberg and George Lucas are great lovers of classic cinema, and they worked damn hard to make The Mask of Zorro an honorable tribute to the late, great Douglas Fairbanks—particularly with the whip work.

Everything starts with an idea, and that idea started with Johnston McCulley writing the 1919 novel The Curse of Capistrano with so much passion against government statism that it practically built Hollywood with its effort. And if it wasn’t for that novel there would have never been a movie called The Mark of Zorro and there would have never been a Don Q Son of Zorro. There would have been no Republic serials, there would have been no Disney Zorro–there would have been no Lone Ranger. Without Douglas Fairbanks and his great effort in Don Q Son of Zorro there would not be a bullwhip movement alive today where a handful of people scattered throughout the world are keeping alive an idea of America how it was before politics shifted heavily to the slide of the progressives, and made reality what many feared during the time that The Curse of Capistrano was written, where oppression from corrupt governors was feared, and a clash with European nobility was at war with rugged American individualism. Don Q Son of Zorro is not just a film that has great whip stunts, but is a window into a time where America was on the brink of success, before the Red Decade, before World War II, before Vietnam, before most Americans even knew what the crazy concept of European socialism was. In Don Q Son of Zorro there is a hope that there will always be a hero who resists the tyranny of oppression with the charisma and physical ability of the great Douglas Fairbanks.

It is up to those of us who can look through that open window and learn from history, and do in reality what was thought of on the pages of Johnston McCulley’s The Curse of Capistrano, and keep the ideas of freedom alive that characters like Zorro represented, a champion of freedom riding the horse-trodden highways at night under a full moon, his identity hidden behind a mask, as the laughing outlaw Zorro defies the tyrant’s might with the crack of a whip, and the mark of a “Z”!

Rich Hoffman

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_Black_Friday

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on June 29, 2013 17:00

June 28, 2013

‘Zorro’s Fighting Legion’: Celebrating Disney’s ‘The Lone Ranger’ with a tribute to Yakima Canutt

Many industry professionals have cautioned me that due to my Tea Party like beliefs, I will have limited opportunities to work in film, either in front of the camera as a whip consultant, as I have done a time or two, or behind the camera as a writer. My specific attitude toward collective oriented labor unions is the nail in the coffin as today’s Hollywood for the most part has become an arm of the federal government, and the policies of statism advocated there. But there are rare exceptions, and of late Warner Brothers with Legendary Pictures have produced fantastic films like Man of Steel and Dark Knight Rises, while Disney Studios is putting out pictures like Iron Man, the Avengers and now the upcoming The Lone Ranger. It is the Lone Ranger that has me extremely excited because that character as I have mentioned before goes deep into my past. I love the old versions of the Lone Ranger, the old Saturday morning serials that were recaptured by George Lucas when he made Star Wars and Indiana Jones. I love the old serials so much that I have seen many of them, even though they are way before my time. While they lack the polish and sophistication of modern films, they are filled with heart and soul. Many of the film techniques used today in all the popular blockbusters were developed during the period of the popular Republic serials. And of those serials there was none I love more than the 1939 series called Zorro’s Fighting Legion.

For readers of my novel The Symposium of Justice, I pay tribute to that 12 chapter serial in three different ways. The first is that the character conflict of Fletcher Finnegan is much like the fight that Don Diego had with Don Del Oro in Zorro’s Fighting Legion. I even went to the trouble of naming the antics of my protagonist in the novel Cliffhanger’s Fighting Legion. The third is that the restaurant that Fletcher Finnegan worked at as a grill cook so that he could learn the movements of the towns politics behind the scenes was named Republics, after of course the company that produced Zorro’s Fighting Legion. It was Zorro’s Fighting Legion that inspired me to take up the bullwhip to the extent that I have, and make it part of my life, almost as important to me as an arm or a leg on my body. There is a lot of whip work in Zorro’s Fighting Legion and I wanted to learn every single trick, which I did. I came to learn about Zorro’s Fighting Legion because I learned at age 12 while watching a documentary about the making of Raiders of the Lost Ark that the great stunt performed by Terry Lenard during the famous “Desert Chase” scene was first done by the great stuntman Yakima Canutt who I feel virtually built Hollywood on his back. Without the great work of stuntmen like Yakima Canutt and Republic Pictures there would never have been a modern-day Star Wars, an Indiana Jones, or even movie versions of Man of Steel, Iron Man, or Dark Knight Rises.

Hollywood was not always liberal. Communism slowly seeped into the Hollywood movie machines in the late 1930s during The Red Decade, but studios resisted. Hollywood Black Friday is the name given, in the history of organized labor in the United States, to October 5, 1945. On that date, a six-month strike by the set decorators represented by the Conference of Studio Unions (CSU) boiled over into a bloody riot at the gates of Warner Brothers‘ studios in Burbank, California. The strikes helped the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 and led to the eventual break up of the CSU and reorganization of the then rival International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) leadership. The Conference of Studio Unions was, at the time, an International union belonging to the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and represented the Carpenters, Painters, Cartoonists and several other crafts working for the Studios in Hollywood.

Seventy-seven set decorators broke away from IATSE to form the Society of Motion Picture Interior Decorators (SMPID) and negotiated an independent contract with the producers in 1937. The SMPID joined the CSU in 1943 and the CSU represented the SMPID in their contract negotiations. After the producers stalled the negotiations for nine months, IATSE questioned CSU jurisdiction over the Set Decorators which led to a further five-month delay as the CSU and IATSE fought over jurisdiction. When the Producers refused to acknowledge an independent arbitrator appointed by the War Labor Board‘s assessment that the CSU had jurisdiction over the Set Decorators in February 1945, it set the stage for the strike

By October, money and patience were running low as some 300 strikers gathered at Warner Brothers’ main gate on October 5, 1945. Temperatures were abnormally warm for the already hot LA autumn. When non-strikers attempted to report for work at 6:00 in the morning, the barricades went up and tensions flared. As replacement workers attempted to drive through the crowd, their cars were stopped and overturned. Hollywood would never again be the same as a gradual erosion of value began to leave Hollywood projects as the labor unions were backed by communist sympathizers with eyes favoring the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Reinforcements arrived on both sides as the picket increased to some 1,000 people and Glendale and Los Angeles Police came to aid the Burbank Police and Warner Security attempting to maintain the peace. When more replacement workers attempted to break through to the gate, a general melee ensued as strikers mobbed them and strikebreakers responded by attacking the strikers with chains, hammers, pipes, tear gas, and night sticks. Warner security rained more tear gas down from the roofs of the buildings adjoining the entrance. Warner firefighters sprayed the strikers with fire hoses. By the end of the day, some 300 police and deputy sheriffs had been called to the scene and over 40 injuries were reported.

The picketers returned the following Monday with an injunction barring the police from interfering with the strike while Warner retaliated with its own injunction limiting the number of pickets at the gate. Although the violence would continue through the week, national exposure forced the parties back to the bargaining table and resulted in an end to the strike one month later but the CSU victory was a Pyrrhic one, where contentions over wording dictated by an AFL arbitration team would lead to further questioning as to CSU and IATSE jurisdiction on the set.

Zorro’s Fighting Legion was created during this turbulent period but was still free of unionized influence. That makes it much more special to me for the sheer fact that the foundations of American story telling were built upon these Republic serials. It was film projects like this one that helped slow the erosion of communism in America with the western that so proudly articulated American values of justice, and Zorro’s Fighting Legion is certainly that type of film collection. I see the Republic serials as Hollywood’s response to the growing tension forming ahead of the Cold War between the communism of the Soviet Union and the capitalism of America. The struggle of this philosophical debate is all over the story of Zorro’s Fighting Legion, and has resonated with me for decades. One of the greatest days in my life was when the emergence of DVD technology allowed me to purchase the entire series to own for myself to watch over and over again, which has only been possible in recent years. But even better than that, Zorro’s Fighting Legion is now available on YouTube, so to share this unique treasure with my readers here, and to share my vision of what Hollywood is all about in celebration of the upcoming Lone Ranger by Disney, please do enjoy all twelve episodes shown below. They are kind of slow and boring compared to today’s entertainment, but try to watch them the way I do, for their purity of purpose, simplicity in design, and sheer bold stunt work by the great Yakima Canutt. Mixed through the rest of the article between the episodes is information that is needed to compliment the films.

————–

Zorro’s Fighting Legion is a 1939 Republic Pictures film serial consisting of twelve chapters. It features Reed Hadley as Zorro. The plot revolves around his alter-ego Don Diego’s fight against the evil Don Del Oro.

A trademark of this serial is the sudden demise of at least one native informant in each episode. The direction was identical for each informant’s death, creating a source of unintentional humor: each informant, upon uttering the phrase, “Don Del Oro is…”, is shot by a golden arrow and dies before being able to name the villain’s alter ego. The serial is also unusual in featuring a real historical personage, Mexican President Benito Juárez, as a minor character.

The mysterious Don Del Oro (“Lord of Gold”), an idol of the Yaqui Indians, has emerged and attacks the gold trade of the Republic of Mexico, planning to take over the land and become Emperor. A man named Francisco is put in charge of a fighting legion to combat the Yaqui tribe and protect the gold, but he is attacked by men working for Don Del Oro. Zorro comes to his rescue, but it is too late for him. Francisco’s partner recognizes Zorro as the hidalgo Don Diego Vega. Francisco asks Diego, as Zorro, to take over the fighting legion and defeat Don Del Oro.

——————————

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zorro’s_Fighting_Legion

Republic Pictures was an American independent film production-distribution corporation with studio facilities, operating from 1935 through 1959, and was best known for specializing in westerns, movie serials and B films emphasizing mystery and action.

The studio was also responsible for financing and distributing one Shakespeare film, Orson Welles‘ Macbeth (1948), and several of the films of John Ford during the 1940s and early 1950s. It was also notable for developing the careers of John Wayne, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers.

Yakima Canutt (November 29, 1895 – May 24, 1986), also known as Yak Canutt, was an American rodeo rider, actor, stuntman and action director.

Born Enos Edward Canutt in the Snake River Hills, near Colfax, Washington; he was one of five children of John Lemuel Canutt, a rancher, and Nettie Ellen Stevens. He grew up in eastern Washington on a ranch near Penawawa Creek, founded by his grandfather and operated by his father, who also served a term in the state legislature. His formal education was limited to elementary school in Green Lake, Washington, then a suburb of Seattle. He gained the education for his life’s work on the family ranch, where he learned to hunt, trap, shoot, and ride.[1]

———————————

He broke a wild bronco when 11. As a 6-foot-tall (1.8 m) sixteen-year-old he started bronc riding at the Whitman County Fair in Colfax in 1912 and at 17 he won the title of World’s Best Bronco Buster. Canutt started rodeo riding professionally and gained a reputation as a bronc rider, bulldogger and all-around cowboy. It was at the 1914 Pendleton Round-Up, Pendleton, Oregon he got his nickname “Yakima” when a newspaper caption misidentified him.[2] ”Yakima Canutt may be the most famous person NOT from Yakima, Washington” says Elizabeth Gibson, author of Yakima, Washington.[3] Winning second place at the 1915 Pendleton Round-Up brought attention from show promoters, who invited him to compete around the country.[2]

“I started in major rodeos in 1914, and went through to 1923. There was quite a crop of us traveling together, and we would have special railroad cars and cars for the horses. We’d play anywhere from three, six, eight ten-day shows. Bronc riding and bulldogging were my specialties, but I did some roping,” said Canutt.[4]

During the 1916 season, he became interested in divorcee Kitty Wilks, who had won the Lady’s Bronc-Riding Championship a couple of times. They married on July 20, 1917 while at a show in Kalispell, Montana; he was 21 and she 23. The couple divorced about 1922.[2] While bulldogging in Idaho, Canutt’s mouth and upper lip were torn by a bull’s horn; but after stitches, Canutt returned to the competition. It wasn’t until a year later that a plastic surgeon could correct the injury.[2]

———————————

World’s champion

Canutt won his first world championship at the Olympics of the West in 1917 and won more championships in the next few years. In between rodeos he broke horses for the French government in World War I.[5] In 1918, he went to Spokane to enlist in the Navy and was stationed in Bremerton. In the fall he was given a 30-day furlough to defend his rodeo title. Having enlisted for the war, he was discharged in spring 1919. At the 1919 Calgary Stampede he competed in the bucking event and met Pete Knight.[2]

He traveled to Los Angeles for a rodeo, and decided to winter in Hollywood, where he met screen personalities.[4] It was here that Tom Mix, who had also started in rodeos, invited him to be in two of his pictures.[2] Mix added to his flashy wardrobe by borrowing two of Canutt’s two-tone shirts and having his tailor make 40 copies.[4] Canutt got his first taste of stunting with a fight scene on a serial called Lightning Bryce [6]; he didn’t stay, and left Hollywood to play the 1920 rodeo circuit.

The Fort Worth rodeo was nicknamed “Yak’s show” after he won the saddle-bronc competition three years in 1921, 1922 and 1923. He had won the saddle-bronc competition in Pendleton in 1917, 1919, and 1923 and came second in 1915, and 1929. Canutt won the steer bulldogging in 1920, and 1921 and won the All-Around Police Gazette belt in 1917, 1919, 1920 and 1923.[2] While in Hollywood in 1923 for an awards ceremony, he was offered eight western action pictures for producer Ben Wilson at Burwillow Studios; the first was to be Riding Mad.

————————————-

Actor

Canutt had been perfecting tricks such as the Crupper Mount, a leap-frog over the horse’s rump into the saddle. Douglas Fairbanks used some in his film The Gaucho. Fairbanks and Canutt became friends and competed regularly at Fairbanks’ gym. Canutt took small parts in pictures of others to get experience.[2] It was in Branded a Bandit (1924) that his nose was broken in a 12-foot fall from a cliff. The picture was delayed several weeks, and when it resumed Canutt’s close shots were from the side. A plastic surgeon reset the nose, which healed, inspiring Canutt to remark that he thought it looked better.[2]

————————————-

Stuntman

When his contract with Wilson expired in 1927, Canutt was making appearances at rodeos across the country. By 1928 the talkies were coming out and though he had been in 48 silent pictures, Canutt knew his career was in trouble.[5] His voice had been damaged from flu in the Navy. He started taking on bit parts and stunts, and realized more could be done with action in pictures.[2]

In 1930 between pictures and rodeoing, Canutt met Minnie Audrea Yeager Rice at a party at her parents’ home. She was 12 years his junior. They kept company during the next year while he picked up work on the serials for Mascot Pictures Corporation. They married on November 12, 1931.[2]

When rodeo riders invaded Hollywood, they brought a battery of rodeo techniques that Canutt would expand and improve, including horse falls and wagon wrecks, along with the harnesses and cable rigs to make the stunts foolproof and safe.[4] Among the new safety devices was the ‘L’ stirrup, which allowed a man to fall off a horse without getting hung in the stirrup. Canutt also developed cabling and equipment to cause spectacular wagon crashes, while releasing the team, all on the same spot every time.[4] Safety methods such as these saved film-makers time and money and prevented accidents and injury to performers. One of Yakima’s inventions was the ‘Running W’ stunt, bringing down a horse at the gallop by attaching a wire, anchored to the ground, to its fetlocks and launching the rider forwards spectacularly. This either killed the horse, or rendered it badly shaken and unusable for the rest of the day.[4] The ‘Running W’ is now banned and has been replaced with the falling-horse technique. It is believed that the last time it was used was on the 1983 Iraqi film al-Mas’ Ala Al-Kubra when the British actor and friend of Yak Marc Sinden and stuntman Ken Buckle (who had been trained by Yak) performed the stunt three times during a cavalry charge sequence.[7][8]

—————————————-

It was while working on Mascot serials that Canutt practiced and perfected his most famous stunts, including the drop from a stagecoach that he would employ in John Ford‘s 1939Stagecoach. He first did it in Riders of the Dawn in 1937 while doubling for Jack Randall.[2] In his 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark, Steven Speilberg paid homage to Canutt, recreating the stunt when a stuntman, Terry Leonard, (doubling for Harrison Ford) ‘dropped’ from the front of a German Army transport truck, was dragged underneath (along a prepared trench) and then climbed up the back and round to the front again.[9]

John Wayne

While at Mascot, Canutt met John Wayne while doubling for him in a motorcycle stunt for The Shadow of the Eagle in 1932. Wayne admired Canutt’s agility and fearlessness, and Canutt respected Wayne’s willingness to learn and attempt his own stunts.[10] Canutt taught Wayne how to fall off a horse.[11]

“The two worked together to create a technique that made on-screen fight scenes more realistic. Wayne and Canutt found if they stood at a certain angle in front of the camera, they could throw a punch at an actor’s face and make it look as if actual contact had been made.”[10]

Canutt and Wayne pioneered stunt and screen fighting techniques still in use. Much of Wayne’s on-screen persona was from Canutt. The characterizations associated with Wayne – the drawling, hesitant speech and the hip-rolling walk – were pure Canutt.[12] Said Wayne, “I spent weeks studying the way Yakima Canutt walked and talked. He was a real cowhand.”[13]

————————————–

In 1932, Canutt’s first son Edward Clay was born and nicknamed ‘Tap’, short for Tapadero, a Spanish word for a stirrup covering. It was in 1932 that Canutt broke his shoulder in four places while trying to transfer from horse to wagon team.[2] Though work was scarce, he got by combining stunting and rodeo work.

In 1934, Herbert J. Yates of Consolidated Film Industries combined Monogram, Mascot, Liberty, Majestic, Chesterfield, and Invincible Pictures to form Republic Pictures, and Canutt became Republic’s top stuntman. He handled all the action on many pictures, including Gene Autry films; and several series and serials, such as The Lone Ranger andZorro. For Zorro Rides Again, Canutt did almost all the scenes in which Zorro wore a mask, and he was on the screen as much as the star John Carroll.[14] When the action was indicated in a Republic script, it said “see Yakima Canutt for action sequences.”[4]

———————————————–

William Witney, one of Republic’s film directors, said:

“There will probably never be another stuntman who can compare to Yakima Canutt. He had been a world champion cowboy several times and where horses were concerned he could do it all. He invented all the gadgets that made stunt work easier. One of his clever devices was a step that attached to the saddle so that he had leverage to transfer to another moving object, like a wagon or a train. Another was the “shotgun,” a spring-loaded device used to separate the tongue of a running wagon from the horses, thus cutting the horses loose. It also included a shock cord attached to the wagon bed, which caused wheels to cramp and turn the wagon over on the precise spot that was most advantageous for the camera.”[15]

In the 1936 film San Francisco Canutt replaced Clark Gable in a scene in which a wall was to fall on the star. Canutt said: “We had a heavy table situated so that I could dive under it at the last moment. Just as the wall started down, a girl in the scene became hysterical and panicked. I grabbed her, leaped for the table, but didn’t quite make it.” The girl was unhurt but he broke six ribs.[5]

———————————————

Ramrod

Canutt tried to get into directing; he was growing older and knew his stunting days were numbered. Harry Joe, Canutt’s second son, was born in January 1937. Joe and Tap would become important stuntmen, working with their father.

In 1938, Republic Pictures started expanding into bigger pictures and budgets. Canutt’s mentor and action director for the 1925 Ben-Hur, Breezy Eason was hired as second unit director, and Canutt to coordinate and ramrod the stunts. For Canutt this meant hiring stuntmen and doing some stunts himself, but laying out the action for the director and writing additional stunts.[4]

“In the five years between 1925 and 1930, fifty-five people were killed making movies, and more than ten thousand injured. By the late 1930s, the maverick stuntman willing to do anything for a buck was disappearing. Now under scrutiny, experienced stunt men began to separate themselves from amateurs by building special equipment, rehearsing stunts, and developing new techniques.” – fromFalling: How Our Greatest Fear Became Our Greatest Thrill by Garrett Soden.[16]

—————————————-

John Ford hired Canutt on John Wayne‘s recommendation for Stagecoach, where Canutt supervised the river-crossing scene as well as the Indian chase scene, did the stagecoach drop, and doubled for Wayne in the coach stunts. For safety during the stagecoach drop stunt, Canutt devised modified yokes and tongues, to give extra handholds and extra room between the teams.[4] Ford told him that whenever Ford made an action picture and Canutt wasn’t working elsewhere, he was on Ford’s payroll.[2] Also in 1939, Canutt doubled Clark Gable in the burning of Atlanta in Gone With the Wind; he also appeared as a renegade accosting Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) as she crosses a bridge in a carriage driving through a shantytown.

———————————–

Second Unit Director

In 1940, Canutt sustained serious internal injuries when a horse fell on him while doubling for Clark Gable in Boom Town (1940). Though in discomfort for months after an operation to repair his bifurcated intestines, he continued to work.[2] Republic’s Sol Siegel offered him the chance to direct the action sequences of Dark Command, starring Wayne and directed by Raoul Walsh. On Dark Command, Canutt fashioned an elaborate cable system to yank back the plummeting coach before it fell on the stuntman and horses; he also created a breakaway harness from which they were released before hitting the water.[17]

It was in 1943 while doing a low-budget Roy Rogers called Idaho that Canutt broke both his legs at the ankles in a fall off a wagon.[2] He recovered to write the stunts and supervise the action for another Wayne film In Old Oklahoma. In the next decade Canutt became one of the best second unit and action directors. MGM brought Canutt to England in 1952 to direct the action and jousting sequences in Ivanhoe with Robert Taylor. This would set a precedent by filming action abroad instead of on the studio lot, and Canutt introduced many British stuntmen to Hollywood-style stunt training.[2] Ivanhoe was followed by Knights of the Round Table, again with director Richard Thorpe and starring Robert Taylor. Canutt was again brought in for lavish action scenes in King Richard and the Crusaders.[18]

Canutt directed the close-action scenes for Stanley Kubrick‘s Spartacus, spending five days directing retakes that included the slave army rolling its flaming logs into the Romans, and other fight scenes featuring Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis and John Ireland.[19]

—————————————

Ben Hur

For Ben-Hur, Canutt staged the chariot race with nine teams of four horses. He trained Charlton Heston, (Judah Ben-Hur) and Stephen Boyd, (Messala) to do their own charioteering. He and his crew spent five months on the race sequence.[20] In contrast to the 1925 film, not one horse was hurt, and no humans were seriously injured; though Joe Canutt, while doubling for Charlton Heston, did cut his chin because he did not follow his father’s advice to hook himself to the chariot when Judah Ben-Hur’s chariot bounced over the wreck of another chariot.[21]

Walt Disney brought Canutt in to do Second Unit for Westward Ho, the Wagons! in 1956; the first live action Western Disney feature film followed by Old Yeller the next year, and culminating in 1960′s Swiss Family Robinson which involved transporting many exotic animals to a remote island in the West Indies.

Anthony Mann specifically requested Canutt for Second Unit for his 1961 El Cid, where Canutt directed sons Joe and Tap doubling forCharlton Heston and Christopher Rhodes in a stunning tournament joust. “Canutt was surely the most active stager of tournaments since the Middle Ages” – from Swordsmen of the Screen.[18] He was determined to make the combat scenes in El Cid the best that had ever been filmed.[21] Mann again requested him for 1964′s The Fall of the Roman Empire. Over the next ten years, Canutt would continue to work, bringing his talents to Cat Ballou, Khartoum, Where Eagles Dare and 1970′s A Man Called Horse.

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Yakima Canutt has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1500 Vine Street. In 1967, he was given an Honorary Academy Award for achievements as a stunt man and for developing safety devices to protect stunt men everywhere. He was inducted into the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum (Hall of Fame).

1985 – Yakima appeared as himself in “Yak’s Best Ride” directed by John Crawford. Produced by Clyde Lucas and Ed Penny

Yakima Canutt died of natural causes at the age of 90 in North Hollywood, California.[22]

He is buried at Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakima_Canutt

———————————————————-

Now you might understand why dear reader that I feel the way I do. The kind of Hollywood, and adversely the kind of America I want is the one that made movies like Zorro’s Fighting Legion which were populated by men like Yakima Canutt. My admiration for George Lucas is that he kept this type of America alive for the world by paying direct tribute to the old Republic serials, particularly Zorro’s Fighting Legion with his creation of Indiana Jones. Like Republic Studios, George Lucas’ Lucasfilm made movies with the same level of independence which fashioned the Republic serials to be so important in American storytelling. Raiders of the Lost Ark, not to take anything away from the visionary story of placing a globetrotting archeologist in a high adventure setting which has advanced science in so many wonderful ways, borrowed heavily from the old Republic serials and because it did, made me aware of their existence across time and space. And now you too dear reader have seen one, the best one in my opinion. One of the big fears that many current day Star Wars fans has is that Disney will ruin the Saturday morning serial feel to the films that mean more to people than even modern religions can duplicate. The reason is that the stories have values that are not provided in modern society, and movie fans are hungry for films with value. But Disney, even though it is a large company has not forgotten where it came from. It knows what Uncle Walt told them from beyond the grave and Star Wars is in good hands. The evidence is in The Lone Ranger which Disney is producing to re-invent the western the way they re-invented the pirate stories. But it cannot be forgotten that what came first, was the great Republic serials like Zorro’s Fighting Legion where truth, justice, and the American way were plot points of value not avoided by a growing consensus toward world-wide communist domination.

The Don Del Oro of our time is all those statist lovers who would destroy all who attempt to stand for goodness. They reside among us in reality with masks hiding their true intentions from behind the desks of union leadership, political office, even movie studio heads. But not everyone is playing by the rules, and like Don Diego from Zorro’s Fighting Legion there are film producers like George Lucas who kept the old serials alive for a new generation, and Jerry Bruckheimer who is making the modern version of The Lone Ranger possible. But more importantly, it is the work of men like Yakima Canutt, and Terry Lenard who gave wings to the ideas of freedom, which motion pictures have traditionally stood for, and still do in isolated cases like Disney’s The Lone Ranger, and Warner Brother’s Man of Steel.

It is worth taking a day or two to watch all these clips. So make up some snacks in the kitchen and take some time to enjoy the foundations of American film and the heroic ideals that accompany them.

Rich Hoffman