Rich Hoffman's Blog, page 459

http://www.news-herald.com/articles/2011/11/07/news/nh4711053.txt

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on February 02, 2013 16:00

February 1, 2013

Keith Kline Superintendent of West Clermont: What’s next–Pee Wee Herman in The White House?

Proof of the quality of candidates becoming superintendents in public school positions is in dramatic decline and has been fully realized when Keith Kline the former principal of Lakota East High School was just named superintendent of West Clermont. The context regarding the quality of some employees over others is more about the lack of competition which allows the worst to claim they are the best, and this is what we find among the current crop of superintendents who manage public education in Ohio. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO. During his tenure at Lakota Kline was at the center of many controversies which came in my direction and there are many people who read here every day who will be outraged to learn that Kline has been given the highest job possible in Ohio public education—aside from a political bureaucrat in Columbus. The next time someone tells me that a school superintendent is doing equal work to a company CEO, I will think of Keith Kline and will know honestly that they are out of their mind.

Kline’s ascension into such a powerful position proves the motivations of these professional education types. Many people from within the Lakota School System’s halls of secrets gave me very direct information regarding the power struggles between Kline and school board member Joan Powell pointing to internal politics that make Washington politics look like a day at Chuckee Cheese’s Pizza Palace. Based on some of those controversies, I thought anybody would be insane to give a promotion to someone like Kline. As tax payers we are the employers of these public servants so a recommendation to another employer would not come from me. It was well-known that Kline wanted the top job at Lakota and one of the reasons he left Lakota was to pursue a superintendent job elsewhere once the top job went to Karen Mantia–the former teacher from Sycamore and retired superintendent from Pickerington, Ohio.

All these educators will tell their communities—especially when they are begging for money during levy requests—that they “care only about children.” But to my eyes based on my experience supported by the mountains of evidence their real intentions speak otherwise. These education professionals are simply in the business of using children to give themselves positions of social power they could get no place else but in a government school. This doesn’t make them bad people so much as people who stand in the way of real education reform by true management of tax payer resources. The personal quality of these people is dramatically and noticeably lacking. They care only about the money they can make and how they can advance their careers and little else. Those are traits that are not against the law, and in some circles of professional endeavor like lawyers, politicians, day traders, car salesmen, and education professions, it’s actually rewarded—as Kline’s promotion proves.

I know some of these people personally, and I can say that I believe that they believe the shit they are shoveling is gold and diamonds. They have convinced themselves of their own scam—but when I look into their shovels the evidence is clear as to who has the proper perspective. The whole charade game is a joke at best, and is made worse because education is an internally driven political nightmare that benefits only the very, very few. That nightmare is exacerbated by the lack of competition that would prove quickly the management skills of a former high school principal who thinks he’s a CEO to be faulty next to the skill of a real CEO who might compete with Lakota or West Clermont under a free enterprise system where costs would be forced downward and profits upward. In government schools, where there is no competition, it is tax money that drives everything, so nobody cares if the employees have any real quality about them. This allows the most scandalous and manipulative paper pushers in society to advance above those who are more qualified but are suppressed under the unionized labor force. Government favors the back-stabber, not the competitively superior, so government schools will always lack quality because of their inbred monopoly that is supported by tax revenue.

Those of us in the education reform movement joked a few months ago of how long it would take Keith Kline to work his way into the superintendent job. The joke from some of my friends was that it would be within a year of Kline transferring from Lakota to West Claremont. I actually said that the West Claremont School Board wouldn’t be that stupid–that surely they were aware of the things that went on at Lakota. Well, apparently, I was wrong. Every time I think that public education and its employees have hit a new low and proven the need for School Choice in Ohio, something like this happens—which sets the bar lower and lower. The announcement of Keith Kline as superintendent of West Clermont is equivalent for me at learning that Pee Wee Herman just became President of The United States. Any hope that you might have that the office of President had any “quality” flies out the window upon such an announcement which would seem ridiculous talking about it here. But it is no more ridiculous than learning that a person like Kline has been given the top management job of a major school district. Without question, West Clermont will be asking for another school levy now, because that is a sure sign of mismanagement and lack of leadership. With Kline as superintendent, look for wages to increase, and tax hikes to become the norm in the school district of West Clermont.

For more context to this story read below an interview I gave to the Associated Press during 2011 and measure the comments made there with the situation we see today.

All of public education exists to provide good jobs to the very few—and the process that promoted Keith Kline is a perfect example of everything that’s wrong with that system. I don’t blame Kline for playing that system to his advantage. I blame the apathy that allowed that system to be there for an advantage to be taken.

Rich Hoffman

http://westchesterbuzz.com/2013/01/28/last-week-in-west-chester-neighbors-aim-to-stop-kroger/

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on February 01, 2013 16:00

January 31, 2013

Tom Egger and the Kroger Marketplace: Politics always gets its way–but they shouldn’t

My previous articles about some of the deeper troubles with politics have been leading up to this issue, which I felt I needed to explain in prequel fashion to provide context. In the battle with West Chester residents over a new Kroger store, where the supermarket chain wishes to build a new superstore at the corner of Tylersville Road and 747, it is the residents who have more power and say over the political machine built by Republicans to change zoning in order to satisfy the end game on their property investments. CLICK HERE for a review on those prequel thoughts. For more info on the Kroger store, click the link below.

I sympathize deeply with Tom Egger and his neighbors on Wethersfield Drive who are fighting the proposed Kroger Marketplace construction. They do not want to see a shopping center with thousands of people parked at the doorsteps of their homes. I say that knowing very well many of the people who are involved directly in the development of some of these properties in Liberty Twp and West Chester. There is only one thing that I respect more than the right of a property owner to make money off their properties and that is the rights of the home owner to protect their individual plots of land. To me residential homes are equally valuable to a plot of land that is currently just a field. The developer makes such a plot of land into a revenue generating entity and that is very valuable. But that value does not exceed the value of the individual property owner.

When the developers bought the plot of land in question they spent a lot of their own money on it with the understanding that the proper arms would be twisted to make way for the eventual commercial development of the property and provide a return on their investment a decade down the road. Many of these developers tie their money up in properties for many years before they ever see the opportunity to get their money back in developments like the Kroger Marketplace. Developers will purchase these plots of land based on initial zoning maps that show 20 year forecasts where current day zoning may be residential, but future zoning shows commercial development.

This is where the fight over Agenda 21 comes into our local communities and why I will soon be at odds with the same people I worked with in No Lakota Levy to fight the local school levies. The zoning maps are created by big government lovers who socially engineer communities around Agenda 21, and developers, trustees, and business finance uses those zoning projections to make their investments into communities. When fights break out over these changes the fight always happens between the developers and the residents when the real culprits are the zoning central planners who are either dead and in a grave by the time the zoning change is proposed or retired comfortably in a Florida condo living the rest of their lives off a government pension. The villains are nowhere to be found as they made their plans without voter input away from the eyes of the community leaving residents to fight it out with developers over plans nobody ever knew existed, and are helpless to stop because politics sides most of the time with the developers. When campaign times come, the developers are the ones who make the financial contributions to politicians, not Tom Egger and his neighbors, so local government tends to roll over the rights of the private citizen, which is what will happen with Kroger at the end of Wethersfield Drive.

Central planners from twenty years prior will point to the “greater good” as a reason to step all over the property rights of private citizens with emanate domain justification, such as what happened with the Butler Country Regional Highway. Without the Regional Highway and the many lives it destroyed by basically stealing away the properties of the people in its path there would not be a current Bridgewater Falls shopping center or the upcoming Liberty Way development would not even be a thought. So developers will often use the “greater good” as a reason to justify the developments they wish to build. Developers are used to opposition to their projects and they often know how to play the politics in their favor. For people like Tom Egger knows all too well, often the zoning approvals occur regardless of how many people show up to speak against a proposed zoning change—because the deals for the property were made long ago by forces who do not represent the homeowners, but the financial investment into the community.

Usually when the property owners lose in these zoning fights; they get a nice financial settlement that makes the pill go down a bit better. Over time, most everyone forgives the imposition. Government workers and developers know people will forget and forgive over time, so in the short run, they will steam roll over the private citizen because they can, and because they have millions of dollars of their own money tied up in a development while the homeowner is only investing 200K to 300K in their private property. In this way, the developer can justify their position.

However, the developers are wrong. Communities like Indian Hill have never yielded to such pressures as commercial development that is over zealous and a direct response to Agenda 21 community planners who want to see utopia like communities complete with fountains, side-walks, easy access to gas stations, and plenty of convenient banking. This is why Indian Hill is filled with extremely valuable real estate, because the zoning was never infused with Agenda 21 strategies. Instead, Madera, Deer Park, Kenwood and all the surrounding communities have felt that wrath with very mixed results. What Tom Egger is fighting for is the long view return on his investment. His property will not increase in value because a Kroger Store sits at the end of his road. It clutters up his life unnecessarily, because when he moved to West Chester Kroger was down the road, not at the end of his driveway. Developers will say that a Kroger Store was always slated for that property, but the real estate agent surely didn’t tell Tom Egger and his family that when they invested in their home over a decade ago.

People like Tom Egger have just as much value as property owners as the developers who bought the big field of the proposed Kroger site. Egger and his neighbors should not be steam rolled over because they do not pour thousands of dollars into local politics, or have millions tied up in a potential real estate deal. The rights of the individual rules 100% of the time over those of the collective good—there is no argument about the greater good that developers can make to justify moving a Kroger store one mile down the road so it can reside in front of Tom Egger’s property. Tom Egger’s home may not be worth millions dollars, like the property being developed for Kroger is, but to Tom it is. It is his palace, his cherished enterprise, and the result of his work and effort. Tom should not lose the quality of his life to the whims of money and politics just because he can’t play the political game at the same level as the developers.

I will fight to protect those same developers from being unnecessarily pillaged from collectivist school systems and big government taxation policies, as I did by joining with some of them in our group called No Lakota Levy. But I will always fight for the rights of people like Tom Egger who are the valued citizens who maintain thousands of similar properties all over West Chester and Liberty Twp. It is they who make up the community and it is they who ultimately hold the most social value. Their individual rights far exceed those of financial investment and political will which is aligned in a marriage made in court and sanctioned by judges. It is for this reason that I stand with Tom Egger, his neighbors and those like him against a Kroger Marketplace shopping center. The context for my opinion is in my prequel statements. CLICK HERE TO REVIEW. Doing what is right and good is not always easy, and can cross the lines of political parties, friendships, and even vested interest. But doing “good” is what we must all be committed to, no matter what the cost of that “good” is.

If Kroger wants to build a new Marketplace Center, they need to do it in the location it currently resides at. If it’s not possible, then Kroger can live with shoppers going to the Liberty Twp location. Better yet the old Biggs building could be converted over to a Kroger Marketplace easily since it has plenty of square footage–but such logic is not what this Kroger deal is all about. It’s not about doing what’s good for the community–it’s about recovering the money invested in the field across from Tom’s house with a political favor that will be just one more empty building 30 years down the road. That is why Tom Eggar and his property should not be crushed under the political will of collectivism and an original sin designed by the architects of Agenda 21. When the Kroger building becomes old and out-of-style Tom Eggar and his grand-kids will probably have Christmas dinners at his home, and a Kroger store that will lose value in the coming decades will then be an eye sore and a grim reminder to future generations of the power of politics and the people it crushes when they get in its way. In this regard, Tom Eggar’s home will still have much value, but the Kroger store will just be another old building that nobody wants to visit.

If you don’t know what Agenda 21 is, CLICK HERE TO REVIEW.

Rich Hoffman

http://westchesterbuzz.com/2013/01/28/enquirer-whats-changed-for-john-boehner/

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on January 31, 2013 16:00

January 30, 2013

Government Will Always be Bad so Long as Bad People Join: The mystery of the social do-gooder

It is not enough to just point at the government and say that it’s bad. Government is bad because it attracts the wrong kind of people to serve it. Yet in order to fix government the understanding of what “good” people are, what they look like, and how they should behave must be understood. Without that understanding, there is no hope for government to ever be reformed for the better no matter what the political affiliation is or under what flag it resides under. The roots of people come out when they are pressed, as seen in the article link below from the West Chester Buzz regarding John Boehner and the comments about John’s current political predicament, from some of the same people who have intersected my life at times. This posting is directed at some of those people, and the ornaments that hang from their lives to this day who are equally as baffled to the changes in political climate as Boehner is currently.

(Well written article by Deidre Shesgreen of The Cincinnati Enquirer by the way.)

I have known entirely too many people who do not understand what I mean when I speak of the word “honesty.” Government is filled with many individuals who believe that the collectivism of government can shield them from scrutiny while their true intentions are to gain much wealth for themselves through collectivism. I ran into this constantly from family and friends who wondered why I was so adamantly against the Lakota School Levy. They believed that in some distorted way that Mark Sennet had hired me to be a spokesman for No Lakota Levy, and that my activity in local politics was somehow inspired by a climb for power into the Republican Party. To answer one of the people mentioned in the West Chester Buzz article, it is OK to make a “buck,” I fully support free enterprise. But it is not OK to enter politics so that the process of regulation can be controlled by the presence of a politician who is in the zipper of a builder or developer. I say that even though I know many that I call friends, yet I know they do not understand what motivates me, which has always bothered me, and prevents friendship beyond polite formalities. When many learned the truth—that I am as against people like Sennet for his blind and naive avocation of Agenda 21 style “community development” as I am the labor unions—and that the true rift with No Lakota Levy has its roots in these philosophical reasons than anything else—they are as unable to understand what I tell them as a dog can read a book. CLICK HERE FOR REVIEW. The language and cognition are just not available to them.

I know many Republicans who only have conservative beliefs so that they can advance their careers. And I know many, many Democrats who do the same. Statistics prove that many of the teachers, fire fighters and cops who voted the “union” ticket in the last elections do not care what the politicians on their tickets believed politically, but simply voted in the fashion that they did to secure their livelihoods. In my own family there are superintendents, teachers, school bus drivers, professional students—kids who are school age children whose parents need their schools to watch their kids while they pursue careers. They all wonder what I am after in my political arguments even though many of them have known me my entire life. They assume that I will announce to the family that I have a big lobby job with Washington or a public relations position for a local school system because I must have some personal agenda for my political campaigns, otherwise, why else would I do them?

Lately I have went further down the rabbit hole of personal life management because the solutions to America’s problems reside in individual lives—and it does no good to point out the deficiencies and failures of government without addressing the reasons. And those reasons are some of the most obvious yet obscure traits available to the minds of the masses on a daily bases. Too many people arrive too late in their lives with a yearning to be “good.” They fall in love for all the wrong reasons; buy the wrong kind of cars, clothing, and even dishwashers for motivations that defy practicality. They pursue occupations that allow these movements not for their inward calls to adventure but out of a desire to find meaning in their meaningless lives. They have pushed God from their lives, they have accepted collectivism as a social blanket to hide their inner demons from themselves, and they arrive into their adulthoods fractions of their true potential—wastes of human beings that are navigating T.S. Eliot’s Wasteland in their grim realities.

For the worst of the human being they seek to hide their personal wastelands from public view by joining government in a quest to save society because they cannot save themselves. They do not have the courage to face life daily, they buy into collectivism and hope to have success in mass. This is how it all starts, this is how government goes bad, because bad people join it with the good intention of saving themselves with redemptive escapades—but they only end up bringing the same kind of destruction to government and the people government serves as a result and they seek to use stolen money through taxation to cover their multiple personal evils. If only one or two people did such a thing, society might be able to absorb the impact, but tragically, there is only one or two per thousand who are good. The vast majority in government are broken souls trying desperately to fill their personal voids with public office under the guise of doing public good. The reality is that they are trying to conceal from public view their many inner evils of which they spend most of their lives fleeing from only to arrive at retirement age broken relics of their once hopeful lives.

There is a real fear when it is realized that a few here and there involve themselves in politics not to redeem their past sins, or to curry favor to build alliances with others to advance their careers, but out of a desire to do “good.” When objectives of personal gain cannot be found, the panic begins to set in and a new layer of anger emerges. For those who are truly dedicated to being good and understanding the higher meanings of things, political theater is a trivial pursuit and I personally don’t have much tolerance for it. When I make my comments about politics and the participants it is out of a personal disdain that I have for the quality of the people attracted to politics. If their desire is to hide their personal faults from society by joining public office then spending my money to redeem their activity through collectivism, then I have a right to expose them for what they are attempting to conceal from public view. It would be less of my business what their personal faults were if they did not consume my tax money, but because they do, they deserve the wrath of critical analysis.

My objective is to sort the good from the bad. In my personal life, I only have room for those who want to do good. I don’t enjoy the company of social climbers and political manipulators so it’s no skin off my back if I piss them off. If they don’t wake up in the morning committed to being good people then I don’t have value for them. In that regard, when I have been invited to meet Governor John Kasich, I have dodged those meetings not out of disrespect, but because my personal time is valuable and there is nothing in such a meeting for me. Kasich is a public servant and to me that is equal to the kind of person I might hire to clean my house. When I was invited to have breakfast with John Boehner fairly recently, I ducted the invitation not out of disrespect to Boehner, but out of a preference for having a private breakfast with my wife doing what we enjoy doing on Saturday mornings. And there is no circumstance that Barack Obama could invite me to the White House for any kind of meeting that I would go to without having something better to do. Many people would say that my comments in this regard are crazy–yet that is why our government is so screwed up, and what I fight against. For those who don’t understand, I work to make them understand by forcing them to look at their actions in the context of goodness, and measure for themselves if they wish to continue down that path.

Such action may not be popular but that’s alright with me. My view is on the long view, not the short. There is nothing in the short view that interests me, and no amount of money in the world that could lure me into such a short-sighted view. Along those guidelines, there is no tolerance that I have for those who are so short-sighted, and my respect for people who are, is non-existent. So for those who wonder, I hope this explanation frames the situation correctly.

Rich Hoffman

Obi Wan Kenobi must rescue the woman he loves from the manipulative clutches of Darth Maul on the planet Mandalore. With Duchess Satine as bait, the vengeful Darth Maul lures Obi-Wan into a trap. Drunk with power, Maul declares himself the true Sith Lord, a claim that will not go unanswered in “The Lawless” airing this Saturday, February 2nd at 9:30am ET/PT on Cartoon Network.

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on January 30, 2013 16:00

Obi Wan Kenobi to the Rescue: New Clone Wars Episode February 2nd

· This episode marks the first appearance of Darth Sidious “in the flesh.” In all other appearances, he has been a hologram.

· Obi-Wan Kenobi is wearing his Rako Hardeen disguise (from Season Four’s “Deception” arc) when he arrives on Mandalore.

· The much battered Twilight now sports a cartoonish illustration of Anakin as a boy Podracer pilot, with Aurebesh text that says “WIZARD!!!” The Twilight has not been seen since Season Two’s “Children of the Force.”

Rich Hoffman

When I gush over the cultural impact of a new MMO like Star Wars: The Old Republic it is because of conversations that I was involved in during the 90’s that intended to carry mythological studies into education using new technology, and I am excited about the results so far—which look to only improve in the years to come. The ability to participate in an interactive mythology is very powerful, and is a fantastic education tool. Without question, and I can report this accurately now that my wife and I have been playing The Old Republic for over a month now, that there are people on that game that know more about the fictional galactic history of Star Wars than they do their own history—which is both good and bad. Bad because the history is not real, but good because it proves how effective Star Wars has been in unlocking the human brain to higher possibilities through the power of myth. CLICK HERE FOR REVIEW.

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on January 30, 2013 15:29

January 29, 2013

The Power of Myth: Going East with Joseph Campbell

My often lengthy discussions about the importance of Star Wars in the future of our world is not rooted in escapism fandom or a simple love for fantasy fiction—but in the understanding of what eludes many about the power of mythology. Many years ago I read what has been one of the most important books I have ever read titled The Hero With A Thousand Faces. It is a book that is filled to the brim with truths hidden to civilization over thousands of years. The book is the explosive result of Joseph Campbell’s foundation study of comparative mythology and religion. Anyone who has come to know anything knows that all things about human culture begin with those two issues. Politics, economics, art, science—virtually everything begins with religion and a culture’s mythology. When an enemy of any people wish to destroy another culture they most effectively do it not with bombs and chemical weapons of mass death—they do it by destroying the culture of those people. As I look around America, I see clearly that the culture of America is under attack, so I look toward mythology to make the repairs and that is when Star Wars comes into play for me. The video below is about an hour and a half long and is well worth watching if it has not yet been seen. It explains much about Star Wars and Joseph Campbell’s influence on the creation of that modern mythology and shows how important a simple story can be to the unification, and strength of a mature culture.

In that video it should be noted that popular personalities and government officials ranging from Newt Gingrich to Nancy Pelosi weighed in on the importance of Star Wars to human culture so it cannot be minimized how important mythology is to American culture. There is a love and understanding for myth that goes well beyond the reach of political theory even though Newt Gingrich is a conservative and Nancy Pelosi is a bra burning progressive. The differences in their opinions on social matters are in faulty interpretations ultimately of world mythology and the lessons they have to tell society at large.

I spent a good number of years in the Joseph Campbell Foundation during the 1990’s and to this day I treasure it as an organization. Without them, many of Joseph Campbell’s literary works would not have received the kind of attention they have under the Foundation’s leadership, and they owe a lot to the work that George Lucas has done behind the scenes in his pursuits of Lucas Learning and Edutopia to give them the fuel to start the organization as it appears today. When George Lucas brought in Bill Moyers to Skywalker Ranch to sit down with Joseph Campbell in the last year of Joe’s life and talk about The Power of Myth, Lucas once again changed mankind for the better. (Please do yourself a favor and watch this whole clip) The rest of the series is available at The Joseph Campbell Foundation website. They are fantastic videos.

The difficulty is when the various translations of Joseph Campbell’s work come into play—and why I am no longer an active member—even though I support their endeavors enthusiastically. Progressive minded people in the entertainment industry have misread Joseph Campbell’s studies of India, of the various Asian cultures and have denigrated them into various forms of collectivism. Joseph Campbell during his time in the 1930’s to the 1980’s was going against the grain of communism and was able to pinpoint the key to all successful mythology—the pursuit of individual bliss. Sprinkled throughout Joseph Campbell’s intensive intellectual works is the struggle to marry the social collectivism that permeates all the world’s societies from the very first Neanderthal with the very intense desire of individuals to follow their own path through life. Political progressives find themselves unable to completely understand the messages of individualism that Campbell uncovered through his studies and instead fixate on the studies of collectivism themselves missing the value of the myths in the exchange.

For me even though I saw tremendous value in the individuals who carried on the name of The Joseph Campbell Foundation, I had a falling out with them at a conference in Washington D.C. that I have spoke about elsewhere in greater detail. The short part of the story was that I realized that the key people had missed the message of Joseph Campbell and where instructing others incorrectly. This included Joe’s wife Jean whom was a lovely little old lady my wife, kids and I meant in a downtown D.C. hotel suite. When I attended the big meeting at the weekend long event and met several of the people from all over the country who worked in entertainment, politics, upper education, publishing, and literature, I quickly learned that collectivism had hidden the most important aspects of Joseph Campbell’s teachings from them. People like Susan Sarandon understood on an intellectual level what Campbell was teaching, but her social application of that teaching was lost to her innate static patterns of learned behavior. Many of these people are good people who have a limited ability to translate what they learn from comparative mythology because the very fabric of their lives are built around either progressive or conservative politics. So when they act as heroes of action in their own existences, they end up being the kind of people who was warned about in the old Navaho story about the Twin War Gods. They are the village soothsayers who warned the Twin War Gods not to go East to search for their father and help them defeat the monster that were attacking them because nobody knew what laid to the East. West, North and South had been adequately explored and was also seen to be the direction that the attacking monsters came from, so the village told the Twin Gods to search for their father in those known locations. But the Twin Gods go North anyway because it is society that is in trouble, and they are not equipped mentally to provide advice, so the answers must come from those areas most unknown.

This is where America finds itself in 2013. Progressives advocate searching for life’s answers in the South, Conservatives in the West, Libertarians in the North, but the answer is in the East–in the undiscovered country of which America’s Founding Fathers began to knock on the door and map out. The answer must come to individuals, not collectivists. It is only in the bliss of every individual that the collective society most prospers, and that is the heart of everything that Joseph Campbell taught. It is a most elusive trait to understand even for people who spend their entire lives reading and dedicating their lives to publishing the work of Joseph Campbell. During the span of all of human history mythology has searched for this elusive truth and it has not been until the mythology of Star Wars that any story has been so successful in reaching not just regional audiences around a campfire in Kenya, or the Plains Indians of South Dakota, but all cultures at the same time. Star Wars is the first of its kind to look for the answers in the North and take the minds of mankind into the undiscovered plain of reality where individualism for the first time in human history is shown to be the savor for the collective whole—not the other way around.

This is why Star Wars is so important and why the study of mythology is more important than even the study of physics, medicine, or mathematics. Without a proper mythology a society degrades quickly into a formless blob. This is also why Star Wars is about to hit a critical mass that will transform society in ways that nobody can yet see coming—except the very, very few who understand the work of Joseph Campbell and the first comprehensive study of 100,000 years of human evolution done in the history of mankind. It all starts with the very great book, The Hero With A Thousand Faces published in 1949.

As for the people at the Joseph Campbell Foundation, I love those people. They may have found my interpretations of Joseph Campbell destructive to their personal philosophies, but they’ll get over it once they learn for themselves the truth on their own blissful journeys through their individual lives. The members as they were in the 90’s I’m sure are not the same as the people who run it now. They are some of the closest people on earth to being enlightened individuals who actually are beginning to understand some of these difficult concepts, so I forgive a lot to those who actively try. You can learn more about them at their website seen below:

http://www.jcf.org/

And now, another video. Please do watch all these fully. They are important.

If you’d like to participate in one of the Round Tables as seen in the video above, then visit JCF’s Mythological RoundTable® Home Pages to find a group near you; contact the organizer and find out when the next meeting will be.

Washington D.C./VA

Philosophy of Religion

January 29, 2013
New York, NY

Tranformational Rituals

February 20, 2013

Berlin (2), Germany

Die Kraft der Mythen (III)

January 30
Clarkesville, GA

The Seven Basic Plots

February 21, 2013

Dublin (at Mythic Links), Ireland

Power of Myth & Hero’s Journey

January 31, 2013
Berlin (1) Germany

Myth & Meaning

February 22, 2013

Pocatello, ID

“Love & the Goddess” (from Power of Myth)

February 5, 2013
Essen, Germany

Lernen durch Mythen

February 27, 2013

San Clemente, CA

TBA

February 8, 2013
Laguna Beach/Dana Point, CA

TBA

February 27, 2013

Sacramento, CA

Flower Sun: The New Mesoamerican Era (with Francisco X. Alarcon)

February 9, 2013
Berlin (2), Gerrmany

Missbrauchte Mythen und ihre Folgen

February 27, 2013

Granja Viana, Brazil

The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology

“The Goddess Age”

February 16, 2013
Dublin (at Mythic Links), Ireland

The Heroine’s Journey in Irish Mythology

February 28, 2013

Click here to Support the Joseph Campbell Foundation.

The Joseph Campbell Foundation relies on donations to help fulfill its mission of perpetuating Campbell’s ground-breaking work. The Joseph Campbell Foundation is a US registered 501 c(3) not-for-profit corporation (Federal Tax I.D. #99-0285097); contributions should be fully tax-deductible. Please consult your tax professional regarding deductibility.

Rich Hoffman

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on January 29, 2013 16:00

January 28, 2013

Obama Found Unconstitutional: Do I have to say “I told you so?”

In case you may have missed it due to the fact that 90% of the media both national and local are in the zipper of Barack Obama—because they were all taught in the same progressive institutions under the same progressive guidelines–some of Obama’s appointments made one year ago were recently found to be unconstitutional. Well, this is no surprise to me as I covered the issue here at the OW with a direct letter to the office of John Boehner, which of course he ignored. CLICK HERE TO REVIEW. Boehner if he had listened to me, and about a dozen other people from his district might have led the GOP to properly reel in the power grabbing Obama under the authority given to the House Speaker, and would most likely be working with a Republican White House by this time instead left-wing Weather Underground radicals. The courts would have sided with Boehner if he had made a bold move one year ago, but instead he decided to play it safe–to play golf and take polite little jabs at his good buddy, Barack Obama publicly, while back slapping with him privately. What was it that Biden said to Boehner not that long ago——“We’re at the gate, man. We’re at the gate.” Hmmmm, what do you suppose Vice President Biden meant by that? Boehner ignored my message—because I’m not “at the gate………………” and dismissed my suggestions and warnings as those of a radical “right winger” from his home district who likes to hang out with those Constitutional purists in the Tea Party.

When Boehner’s office workers spoke to me they had that look of amusement on their faces that is so common with politicians these days. After all, they had a plan. Boehner and Ohio Republicans from John Kasich all the way down to the local trustees and commissioners were going to play it cool, take the high ground, let the Supreme Court overturn Obamacare during the summer of 2012, then run Mitt Romney against Obama in the fall where they would attack the President’s economic record. Boehner’s office had “big plans” and they didn’t want to listen to crazy Rich Hoffman standing in their office dripping wet from a rare January thunderstorm where I rode to his office on my motorcycle and was asking Boehner to uphold the Constitution against Obama and his friends of American reformers.

Now here we are in 2013, Republicans lost to the White House due to the emotional pleas of the mentally unfortunate, they lost Obamacare to the bizarre ruling by Justice Roberts. Now Republicans have to worry about Obama appointing more liberals to the Supreme Court—forget the 5-4 rulings in their favor in the future, because as Roberts proved, all it takes is one or two Supreme Court Justices to turn the whole world upside down. And because of the Roberts opinion there is no doubt drool running from the mouths of Obama’s legal team who will challenge the unconstitutional rulings cited against The White House—after all, history cannot be allowed to remember such things, because in lawyer circles it is case-law that matters, not the original laws.

But as for now at least someone had the courage to defend the Constitution, and not snicker at the naiveté of a constituent who expected justice to be upheld on a rainy January day in 2012. As the law stands today, President Obama has been found to have acted unconstitutionally, and my comments about Obama in my letter to John were not out-of-line in the least. They were what all Americans should expect, if they intended to live within the letters of the law, and not be afraid to piss off the President and miss the next golf outing so they can all pretend they are masters of the universe when the actual money they are spending came from the American treasury. Boehner had his shot, and he didn’t take it…………………..and I’m not talking about golf swings. His personal loss was a tremendous loss to the Republican Party. But more than anything, America loses when people like the pretentious “political class” look down their noses at Constitutional purists with a disdain more fitting in Nottingham England than West Chester, Ohio on the eve of the second Civil War. Next time I won’t write a letter and hope for the legal system to listen. I’ll just exercise my Constitutional rights on my own—before I lose them in a golf bet between John Boehner and Barack Obama.

Rich Hoffman

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on January 28, 2013 16:00

January 27, 2013

Being Right: Understanding “Quality” is the key to all things in life

When I was younger, I often politely disagreed with those who uttered the kind of phrases left to me in the quotes below. I had my foundation beliefs that were formed primarily through the work of Joseph Campbell, Sir James Frazer, John Locke, and Adam Smith but I left open the possibility that in my youth I had not yet experienced all aspects of living—and therefore all points of view. I was open to debate about right and wrong, religious importance, philosophical merit, and general economics. But, I am no longer young, and I have no tolerance for those who intend to shape our society with half-baked concoctions of progressivism that belong in a witches brew recipe book. To my experience, progressivism is voodoo. It’s just as ridiculous of an occult practice as many superstitions people function from such as believing that a broken mirror brings seven years of bad luck. I have never, and will never accept such notions at face value. I would have to know how a mirror gained power over my life—to what dimensional plane of reality can a simple mirror broken by me impose a penalty of any kind upon the fruitful existence of my life. The answer is that such an investigation would quickly prove futile and I would dismiss it as nonsense without much effort because the evidence does not support in any way that a broken mirror can bring seven years of bad luck to an individual under any circumstances. Yet for progressives, much of what they believe are founded in ridiculous theories of superstition rather than fact, and I find such people to be burdens on the human race and in my mature years, I’m no longer giving a free pass to them to be stupid.

When a political progressive whether it be a union representative, a politician like Barack Obama—or pick your local school board candidate finds they cannot win a public debate with their witches brew of progressivism—putting two parts tree root, ground up garlic mixed with onions stirred in an iron kettle at precisely 62 degrees for seven and one half minutes then seasoned with the blood of a first-born son delivered under the astrological sign of Taurus conceived under the house of a mother during the Chinese year of the Dragon—in order to provide a reasonable education for young people—I can quickly dismiss such tripe with very general arguments—and I do all over these pages. They can’t answer back without an emotional argument—because the facts do not favor them—so the typical act by progressives is to ignore the facts and make up their own reality. Progressives who wish to continue believing in such nonsense against the rules of nature often get mad and send me letters like the one seen below, in order to maintain their own illusions. They hope that by confronting me directly that it might make me “re-think” my position. Their anger obviously is similar to that of a child who has just discovered that there is no tooth fairy, Easter Bunny, or Santa Clause—and they are mad at me for shattering their reality. They wish to believe that Santa Clause can travel the world every Christmas Night and deliver presents to all the world’s children for no other reason than some altruistic tripe conjured up in the mind of immature insanity. The anger directed at me is often of this nature. It is born when my arguments shatter the belief system of another person who does not wish to accept the reality that progressivism does not work in political science, philosophy, religion, or economics. That is when they send messages like the one below. I show my usual response just for good measure. The original link can also be seen below:

I work in a fortune 100 company. We are forced to recruit people from outside the US and relocate them to Seattle to fill 6 figure salary jobs because we can’t find the talent in our own country.

You blame public schools, I blame the lack of funding for those schools. You may complain about being forced to pay for these schools, but in the end, the pittance that you pay is repaid many times over by those students if they get a good education and contribute back to society. Including with the taxes that they pay.

Ayn Rand should be no ones role model nor anyone’s hero. She was just a self-centered bitch.

Peter

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

So glad you wrote. I bet your Fortune 100 company receives help from the Federal government, because if people like you are running it, I’m sure it’s going bankrupt.

Rich

SEE ORIGINAL COMMENTS HERE:

Further proving how shallow many of these progressives are, they assume that my beliefs are as thinly rooted as their own which was shaped by philosophers like Kant, Marx and the modern version of those two Noam Chomsky. When Ayn Rand is criticized, such as in the example above, the intent is to anger me as though my entire belief system came from Ayn Rand, forcing me to withdrawal my public comments. This is even further evidence of how stupid many progressives are, and how their beliefs are rooted in voodoo-like adherence to speculative science. Ayn Rand for me was a remarkable woman who made some very crucial observations about life that she refined throughout her life with her philosophy of Objectivism, which I generally agree with as sort of a door to the correct way of thinking. But Rand had some holes in her theories and I get angry notes from blind supporters of Objectivism just the same who wish to see her as a deity in the same way that progressives wish to believe that ground up tree roots can solve all education problems. Rand was functioning from the limits of her life experiences, but that does not change the truth of her foundation arguments, which cannot be disseminated by reality. I find Ayn Rand’s work passionate, and laced with a deep and difficult truths. But in her life time she only managed to correctly state the observable conditions of her philosophy—she never got to the root of the problem—the cause.

Whether he meant to or not it was Robert Pirsig in his two works Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Lila who put the science behind Ayn Rand’s Objectivism and introduced the definition of the word “QUALITY.” The Metaphysics of QUALITY as it was so ruthlessly, and at great personal sacrifice to himself portrayed by Robert Pirsig holds the irrefutable proof of much that bewilders the human race and contains within those two books many of life’s hidden keys. Pirsig does not invalidate Ayn Rand in any way. If Ayn Rand’s book Atlas Shrugged were similar to Jules Vern’s From the Earth to the Moon, then Robert Pirsig’s two books are the NASA Mercury and Apollo space programs of actually landing on the moon. The speculation is in Jules Vern’s work. NASA used that speculation to arrive at the destination. Robert Pirsig arrives at the truth to the speculation Ayn Rand wrote about in Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, Anthem, and We The Living but eluded her just barely in all her non-fiction work because the thought was just out of reach for her—and for good reason. Read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to learn why. It’s not that Pirsig intended to validate anything Ayn Rand wrote about or went on a quest to support a witch’s brew theory of his own. Pirsig’s own personal philosophy represents more keenly the philosopher William James than Ayn Rand, but it is Pirsig’s Metaphysics of Quality that proves virtually everything written in Atlas Shrugged to be correct, and the science cannot be refuted by observation.

When I speak of how only a director like J.J. Abrams could take Star Wars to the next level, or why only Kathleen Kennedy could run Lucasfilm after the retirement of George Lucas, or why Apple stock is tanking since the death of Steve Jobs, or why Walt Disney was so incredibly great—I say those things based on the reality that all those personalities are functioning within Robert Pirsig’s Metaphysics of Quality and it is easy to see who will succeed and who will fail when such a concept is understood. I use those examples because even those on the political left can find common ground with me on the mentioned names. Just as I can agree with some of the things that Noam Chomsky has said, such as “States are not moral agents; people are.” The ultimate truth is a real conclusion and it is not elusive as many progressives would wish to believe. It is in fact easy to see when the rules are understood, and Ayn Rand was on the path to understanding them. Her novels do not lie, they are only the means of thinking for arriving at a truth—which can be a fearful place to those who continue to place the value of their lives on beliefs rooted in voodoo speculation and flimsy facts as hollow as a rotten tree.

Getting angry that the world of understanding falls apart when new facts are introduced are sure signs that your belief system is faulty and in serious risk of failing your life. When I was younger, I respected the belief systems of those older than me out of respect. But now, I know better, and I since I’m one of those “older” people, I do not have the patience for those younger than me who wish to profess diatribes of voodoo speculation rooted in progressive philosophy that has proven dangerous to the human race. And if my position angers people like the letter writer above—too bad. Prove me wrong—which I say in full knowing that they can’t. Because “A is A” no matter how much progressives wish upon a star to believe that they can turn an “A” into a “B” just because they want to.

Rich Hoffman

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/01/24/woman-arrested-while-refusing-smart-meter-installation-on-her-property-tells-us-her-story/

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on January 27, 2013 16:00

January 26, 2013

Smart Meter Arrests: Naperville patriots thumb their noses at the United Nations–as they should!

One of the most evil tyrannies that government uses to mask its true intentions is when they show up at your home to do something against your will and proclaim they have a right to do it because the “law” gave them the right to do it. Such is the case of Jennifer Stahl who has been a strong advocate against the installation of smart meters on Naperville, Ill., homes. Jennifer, her husband and a handful of other patriots in Naperville have organized against smart meter electrical monitoring devices as they know that the push of these digital meters is phase one of a United Nations plan called Agenda 21 where the data collected from the meters will be studied to help support a charge in extra fees for excessive, or “unsupported” electrical activity that would require additional taxes in “carbon credits.” (CLICK HERE FOR MORE ON AGENDA 21) The future “taxes” on reckless electrical use—such as doing too many loads of laundry in one day to having a home’s heat turned up “too high” are ways that government intends to “nudge” society into buying into the socialism of the green movement—which in essence is the United Nations way of grabbing power and sovereignty from the United States to reduce it’s technological growth so that other countries like Zimbabwe, New Guinea, and India can catch up during the 21st Century. It’s the electrical version of “wealth redistribution” played out in across the world stage—and smart meters are one of the tools the United Nations intends to use to implement it. Read more at the article link below:

It is highly unlikely that the electrical workers installing the meters knew anything about the intention of the meters. Their employers told them to install the meters and like all mindless drones just waiting to get off work so they can grab a beer, they did exactly what they were told. To them the digital meters were simply replacing the analogue meters of old—so there was no harm—no foul. It is also unlikely that the police who have been arresting protestors like Jennifer Stahl know anything about the real intention of Agenda 21. All they know is that the electrical workers and power company as part of the contract to deliver power to individual homes has a legal right to their property—that supersedes the rights of the homeowner who maintains the property—and they will enforce the law with force if necessary—without further thought. Nobody knows the origin of these laws, where they came from, or questions the reason that such intrusions on Jennifer Stahl’s sovereignty are wrong at the most fundamental of American rights. Society has grown so used to such intrusions over a long period of time that the original meanings have been lost to time.

The Stahl case is an excellent example of why the NDAA Act President Obama signed into law on New Years Eve of 2011 is so dangerous in the future, because like the power companies right to impose its will on its electrical subscribers, the government can arrest anybody at any time and to hell with the Constitution if the president deems such action necessary for the “security of the state.” Security is ill defined and may actually only represent the political “security” of one party over another which is very similar to the origin of the laws that protect the power companies into sustaining their monopolies over the private rights of homeowners like Jennifer Stahl. Power companies yield to the United Nations smart meter program without protest while at the same time using law enforcement to maintain their will. The power company who supplies electrical power to Jennifer Stahl’s home has the legal right to destroy her property in order to maintain access to their property which intrudes her home. Their rights supersede hers in the eyes of the court, which has been shaped by lobby power from the electrical company. The deal was probably made in a Chicago strip club between Jennifer’s elected representatives, the power company lobbyist, representatives of the electrical line workers union, and attorneys to write legislation that would protect power companies having access to their equipment at all times for the “safety” of society, and enable them to deliver power to Naperville—“collectively, without unnecessary restrictions.” United Nations members sitting around a similar strip club in Geneva puffing on big cigars and patting themselves on the back at how “worldly” they are while stuffing dollar bills in the G-string of an 18-year-old girl stolen from her family in Sumatra, came up with a similar plan. The United Nations members were aware of the laws in the United States protecting power companies and their monopolies, so they conjured up a scheme called “smart meters” to regulate carbon emissions as they smacked the young Sumatran girl on the ass and laughed about it. In their view, they are heroes for saving the planet. Deep down inside they hope that saving a planet can erase away the sins they commit on a daily basis as they cheat on their wives and betray their family legacies with such dishonor by indulging in modern sexual slavery with great bravado.

All this happens against the will of Jennifer Stahl who can do nothing to protect her home but allow herself to be arrested and hope that people wake up and take notice. She doesn’t even know what to say in her own defense as the police arrested her. She doesn’t want to sound like a kook telling the media that the smart meters are part of an elaborate scheme hatched by the United Nations and that somehow they have managed to touch the lives of all the people in Naperville, Ill., even though it’s the truth. The situation is just too big for her to make a rational argument in protest. She doesn’t know how to communicate that the original crime was committed in the cozy political relationship between her power company, labor unions, and her elected representatives who are all intent to provide her power company with a monopoly, which protects the union jobs of the line workers and everyone else in the process from any type of competition. The same laws that protect the power company’s rights to access Jennifer’s property and do whatever they have to do to protect their equipment while there also protects the power company against the innovation of Jennifer and her husband should they discover that they could build their own thorium reactor and supply power to their own home completely off the grid bypassing their electricity provider all together. The power company is protected from such a measure through zoning regulations—also shaped by those same Geneva law makers. They have deemed such self-electrical generation to be unsafe, and they impose steep fines for attempting to do such a thing, making the endeavor nearly impossible. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO ON THORIUM POWER. In this way zoning regulators, trustees, county commissioners, congressional representatives, senators, and attorneys in courts all across America find themselves wagged by a tail that originates in Geneva. Nobody knows how they got where they are and they have no idea where they are going. All they have room for in the grand scheme of thinking is to contemplate whether or not the Baltimore Ravens will beat the San Francisco 49ers in the upcoming Super Bowl. The situational politics is too complicated for them to fathom individually.

But a few people have their arms around the situation at least partially, and that is Jennifer Stahl and her supportive husband—along with a few neighborhood friends. The root of the evil is in the political will to protect electrical union workers and their monopolies by holding down alternative power providers like thorium where every home could have their own fission reactor. If Jennifer and her husband had no collective need for power because they generated their own as every home in their neighborhood did, then the power company, the sleazy politicians, and the slobs in the Geneva strip joint would lose their legal right to intrude on Jennifer’s property—and that is really what everyone in a position of power fears. By arresting Jennifer for defending her property, authorities hope to send a message that compliance will be enforced by rule of law. Jennifer on the other hand hopes that she will inspire others to resist as she did and so goes a game of tug-of-war in space without any real point of reference because the battle takes place outside the actual boundaries of accepted reality.

The answer to all this is in allowing the technology that would allow Jennifer to be free of her power company, United Nation politicians, and even the local police to emerge. Jennifer should not be forced into an unholy alliance with a power company intent to maintain its market monopoly over her life. The information collected by the smart meters is too intrusive into the daily function of Jennifer’s life. It is not the United Nations business to know how many loads of laundry is done in the Stahl household on any given day. Their so-called dedication to preserving “mother earth” does not give them right or dominion over the Stahl family’s business as much as they wish it did, and try to make it so through twisted laws concocted by ladder climbing attorney interns. The fight over smart meters is just beginning. It can only be hoped that enough people wake up to the scam before things get too far out-of-hand. In the face of such tyranny, it is important to know what the options are, and in this situation the solution is in thorium. Thorium breaks the monopoly grip of power companies and the unholy alliance they have with politics and are the best hope of bringing freedom to every household in America without the prying eyes of perverts and thieves from Geneva peeking into our homes through a smart meter.

Thorium, symbol Th, radioactive metallic element with an atomic number of 90 and an atomic weight of 232.038. Its isotopes range in atomic mass number from 212 to 236. Thorium is a member of the actinide series of the periodic table (see Periodic Law). Small quantities of thorium are found in thorite, which is thorium silicate, as well as in other compounds. Larger deposits occur mainly as thorium oxide in the monazite sands of India and Brazil. Thorium is a potential nuclear fuel source, because it can be made to yield the isotope uranium-233, which is used in nuclear fission (see Nuclear Energy). Thorium metal is used in magnesium alloys and as a stabilizing component of electronic tubes. Thorium oxide is used in light filaments and electrodes and also as a catalyst.[1]

Update from Jennifer Stahl in case those reading this are interested in supporting their cause:

Hello Rich,

Thank you so much for your continued support. It has been quite busy around here. Thank you!!

Please consider making a donation to NSMA.

Amber
NSMA Volunteer

Naperville Smart Meter Awareness * WEB http://www.napervillesmartmeterawarness.org/ * FACEBOOK Naperville-Smart-Meter-Awareness * PHONE 630-579-0659 (9am-9pm)

Naperville Smart Meter Awareness * WEB http://www.napervillesmartmeterawarness.org/ * FACEBOOK Naperville-Smart-Meter-Awareness * PHONE 630-579-0659 (9am-9pm)

Rich Hoffman

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on January 26, 2013 16:00

J.J. Abrams to Direct ‘Star Wars: Episode 7′: Kickstarting a new age with DYNAMITE peppered with TNT

As readers here know, I am a tremendous Star Wars fan. For my thoughts on Star Wars and the future implication of that vast mythological story, CLICK HERE. It goes without saying that the below press release I just received from Lucasfilm is news that I think is very valuable. I hold mythology as being far more important than politics, and considering how much time I spend on politics, that should emphasize my thoughts accurately. In my family, we relish mythology above and beyond all other transitory values, because the temperament of politics rolls in and out like the tide of an ocean, but mythology shapes society contextually and deserves a long view commitment. I have great hope for the future of Star Wars and the impact it will have on young people everywhere. So I am very, VERY proud that J.J. Abrams will be the next director of Star Wars: Episode 7. He was my deepest wish for this project, and I am happy to present the following press release as it was sent to me:

“Star Wars Is Being Kick-Started with Dynamite”

J.J. Abrams to Direct Star Wars: Episode VII

After a bevy of emails and phone calls, the formalities have been wrapped up, and at long last everyone can exhale and properly share the word with an excited Internet. Yes, J.J. Abrams will direct Star Wars: Episode VII, the first of a new series of Star Wars films to come from Lucasfilm under the leadership of Kathleen Kennedy. Abrams will be directing and Academy Award-winning writer Michael Arndt will write the screenplay.

“It’s very exciting to have J.J. aboard leading the charge as we set off to make a new Star Wars movie,” said Kennedy. “J.J. is the perfect director to helm this. Beyond having such great instincts as a filmmaker, he has an intuitive understanding of this franchise. He understands the essence of the Star Wars experience, and will bring that talent to create an unforgettable motion picture.”

George Lucas went on to say “I’ve consistently been impressed with J.J. as a filmmaker and storyteller. He’s an ideal choice to direct the new Star Wars film and the legacy couldn’t be in better hands.”

“To be a part of the next chapter of the Star Wars saga, to collaborate with Kathy Kennedy and this remarkable group of people, is an absolute honor,” J.J. Abrams said. “I may be even more grateful to George Lucas now than I was as a kid.”

J.J., his longtime producing partner Bryan Burk, and Bad Robot are on board to produce along with Kathleen Kennedy under the Disney | Lucasfilm banner.

Also consulting on the project are Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg. Kasdan has a long history with Lucasfilm, as screenwriter on The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Return of the Jedi. Kinberg was writer on Sherlock Holmes and Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

Abrams and his production company Bad Robot have a proven track record of blockbuster movies that feature complex action, heartfelt drama, iconic heroes and fantastic production values with such credits as Star Trek, Super 8, Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol, and this year’s Star Trek Into Darkness. Abrams has worked with Lucasfilm’s preeminent postproduction facilities, Industrial Light & Magic and Skywalker Sound, on all of the feature films he has directed, beginning with Mission: Impossible III. He also created or co-created such acclaimed television series as Felicity, Alias, Lost and Fringe.

Abrams is the director of one of my favorite monster movies of all time, Cloverfield. So I’m going to go get in line for Star Wars Episode 7 right now.

Because I think it’s going to be epic………………………………….it will be what you get when you mix dynamite with a side dish of TNT. What you get is……………THUNDERSTRUCK. And soon the magic of J.J. Abrams will strike us all.

Rich Hoffman