Category: Archeology

Kingdom of the Cthulhu: The Lovecraftian horror of an ultraterrestrial universe built on sacrifice

Horror to be relevant as an art form must have some hook of reality to it before it can be considered effective.  The best horror writers avoid topics that are so fantastic that they extend beyond belief.  Among the best of the horror writers was a creation that John Keel would later term more scientifically as “ultraterrestrials” and that would be H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu.  This is a dominating creature that lives outside of human time and space pushing against a cosmicism of projected reality driven by limited human senses to manipulate the actions of the technically defined living being.  In theory those who attempt to reach beyond their senses into that world of Cthulhu run the extremely high possibility of insanity as minds often fold over on themselves once they leave the boundaries of four dimensions.  Cthulhu was a fictional creation by a writer who lost both of his parents to an insane asylum and had himself suffered tormenting dreams by strange creatures from a very young child.  But like all great horror writers, Lovecraft’s Cthulhu has its roots into a reality we all understand—but fear to comprehend for many reasons.  The mythology of Cthulhu allows human beings to explore those strange possibilities from the safety of their senses without plummeting over the edge of sanity into a realm they clearly are not ready for.  It is in that realm however that my own eyes have always looked as the cause of much misery and defaults in living as the primary source of superstition and religion—and a barrier to the truth.

When talking about such things I prefer the term ultraterrestrial to reference the type of creatures that Lovecraft wrote about in his Cthulhu mythos which has taken on a life of its own since his death in 1937.  The stories Lovecraft wrote were well ahead of their time as it has only recently been proven that there are more than 10 dimensional realities known to mathematics—and probably more.  Lovecraft’s stories explored the possibilities of beings from those other dimensions visiting from their realms in ways humans could not—which was a terrifying prospect.  It still is, and is why even nearly a century after his death there is a cult following of H.P. Lovecraft.  The reporter John Keel seemed particularly obsessed with this type of reality and reported about it in The Mothman Prophesies.  In that book Keel was very level-headed and factually based even though the subject matter was extraordinary—UFOs interacting with people, strange monsters appearing out of nowhere, Men in Black walking about dressed as government agents not quite appearing human—being slightly off to those who spoke to them.  Keel in that book was knocking on the door to Lovecraft’s Cthulhu and it could be said that the Mothman of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, or the “Bird Man” of ancient Cahokia or the many thousands of gargoyles poised from the buildings of gothic structures—particularly the Budweiser brewery in St Louis—were there to appease the demons who come into our world to terrorize and manipulate our reality.  Keel’s other books, Strange Creatures From Time and Space, Our Haunted Planet, Operation Trojan Horse, The Eighth Tower, The Cosmic Question, and Disneyland of the Gods are all works obsessed with this realm of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu.  Keel had been opened to the possibilities before his investigations into the strange creature in Point Pleasant during 1967 and once there had everything confirmed as though it was tailor-made for him by what he would later call ultraterrestrials—or tricksters.  Because of their power and influence he would spend much of the rest of his life all the way to age 79 when he died in 2009 avoiding any kind of electronic device such as computers, phones, televisions etc., because Keel believed that the “tricksters” used those devices to control and manipulate the world of human beings with impunity to counteraction.

As time went on Keel’s books became more and more paranoid, and his subjectivity diminished for a time as he appeared to have gone too far down the rabbit hole of sanity for a time.  Perhaps not as far as Lovecraft’s parents did—but the rope to reality which Keel held on to was slipping.  Toward the end of his life he regained some of his grip on reality.  The 2002 film adaptation of his book The Mothman Prophecies appears to have helped him and he spent the rest of his days giving lectures as the film brought his ultraterrestrials with the help of Richard Gere into the mainstream.

I have personally noticed this manipulation of these ultraterrestrials by Keel’s definition for a long time.  The lazy relegate their definition of ultraterrestrials as angels and demons but that has never suited me.  I have never been comfortable handing over my fate to beings that just flash in and out of my life with some advice—or appear in a dream to leave an imprint of instruction for me to execute.  If I had been Noah and God appeared to me in a dream telling me to build an Ark, I would have woke up the next morning and told him—“dude, I don’t have the time to build you a stupid boat.” And I would have ignored the command.  When the floods came, I would have survived somehow regardless of the advice.  My opinion is that unless the motives of such individuals from other worlds is known, there is no way to attribute value to them leaving you to play the part of a pawn.  Without knowing those beings personally there is no way to validate if the sources are good or evil.  My assumption is that they are almost always evil posing as good.  So to properly serve the good in the context of universal merit, those beings should be ignored.  In this way for years I have poked and prodded into their world without the usual fear of insanity because I simply don’t trust any of them even though they have constantly tried to throw me off the trail.

One night on New Year’s Eve my family was playing a late night game of Pirates the Constructable Strategy Game.  We were between rounds so as everyone got up and stretched I resumed to my living room chair to read another quick chapter of The Mothman Prophecies which I had taken an interest in after seeing the movie.  In the book there was a surprising amount of coverage of UFO lore and as I was reading it I couldn’t help but wonder if Steven Spielberg had read this very same book to inspire him to write Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Poltergeist because this was the subject matter by the very fact based reporting of John Keel.  I found the book terrifying refreshing and a key piece into a lifetime puzzle I had been assembling most of my life which attempted to define the world of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu.  As I had conceived that very thought outside my front window clearly over the golf course was a UFO floating freely over the tree line.  My first rational thought was that it was a helicopter picking up a crash victim, or maybe even some kind of pyrotechnic display celebrating the New Year.  But it was just floating there enticing me like a seductive siren attempting to lure me into the hidden rocks in the choppy waters of the ocean.  My children were in the kitchen so I calmly grabbed their attention and directed their sight asking them to identity what was there.  They went through the same process I did, helicopter, fireworks—UFO.  Once we realized that the strobe displays on the vessel did not look like anything Wright Patterson Air Force Base nearby could have put out—it was too large for a drone—and too lit up to be stealthy we put on our shoes to rush out and meet it. We piled into our car and raced down the road to intercept it as it was now moving slowly.  We turned left onto a road about a hundred yards north of our home and saw the vessel floating over a home valued near a million dollars and the strobe lights flashed down upon it.  I blinked to make sure my vision was not faulty and when I opened my eyes it was gone.  I stopped the car, got out and looked to the north.  The entire sky was filled with a blacked out vessel roaming northeast.  The moonlight had been showing the outlines of clouds, but this vessel concealed them all.  My kids saw it too and we watched as it was there moving toward downtown Trenton one moment covering the entire sky from our home, over the Miller Brewery all the way to Trenton.  It appeared to be about 7 or 8 miles wide.  Then within the blink of an eye, it too was gone.  If my kids hadn’t seen it with me, I would have thought it to be an illusion, but it was actually much more sophisticated as other minds witnessed it simultaneously.  Within 30 seconds of the encounter we were left wondering if we actually saw what we saw.  I got out of the car and walked up to the house where the vessel had loomed over and they had lost power.  Nobody appeared to be home at the time, but their internal lights had flicked back on and a computer in the living room that had been on was in a reboot phase.   So something material had been there and it caused the power to drop then come back on.

We had seen our first UFO as a family and it was exciting—it certainly wasn’t our imagination.  However, I was skeptical and not so sure that little green men came down from E.T.’s home planet to pick some flowers.  Rather, I was thinking of Keel’s ultraterrestrials—or even more cynically something like Lovecraft’s Cthulhu.  It was more than a coincidence that I was studying The Mothman Prophecies and reading about those exact occurrences at that particular moment.  And out of all the years I had been alive I had never seen a UFO until that moment.  I didn’t even have to leave my home to see it, the thing practically landed in my front yard to get my attention. But as soon as we could chase it down for confirmation and get our cameras turned on and toward the object—it was gone.  My intentions as it was happening was to find a way to get on the vessel and pull one of the pilots off and capture it so I could conduct a proper investigation.  I doubt that was the intention by the perpetrators—but that’s what was going to happen.

I did the same thing as I spent some time hunting for a Mothman one summer in the regions where sightings had occurred.  I was determined to capture the creature and put it in a zoo dispelling any folklore about it with scientific fact.   But the more I looked, the more obvious it was that I was not going to find it—it would have to find me because those things only appear in our dimensional plane of reality when they want to.  Over time I concluded that the UFO at our home, like the Mothman hunting, was a creation by ultraterrestrials to bait me into insanity by feeding my curiosity and thus directing my thoughts on the matter into a direction they desired.  The circumstances were just too perfect to be real in the context presented.  After that event I had a lot more respect for John Keel—he was certainly on to something.  And without question H.P. Lovecraft was as well.  The reason his Cthulhu mythos is so terrifying and is still very much alive after a century of development is that deep down inside we know there is some truth to it.  The fictional creation of Cthulhu is an attempt to put into mythology a reality that is difficult to otherwise deal with.

To a writer like Lovecraft who had been tormented by ultraterrestrial monsters in his dreams from a child to an adult constantly and lost both parents to insanity his philosophy of cosmicism is understandable.  The philosophy of cosmicism states that there is no recognizable divine presence, such as a god, in the universe, and that humans are particularly insignificant in the larger scheme of intergalactic existence, and perhaps are just a small species projecting their own mental idolatries onto the vast cosmos, ever susceptible to being wiped from existence at any moment. This also suggested that the majority of undiscerning humanity are creatures with the same significance as insects and plants, who, in their small, visionless and unimportant nature, do not recognize a much greater struggle between greater forces.

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

John Keel had come to many of the same conclusions as Lovecraft when he said at the end of his book The Complete Guide to Mysterious Beings, “there are entities on this planet, and around it, that are far beyond all efforts to translate them into understandable cellular creatures.  They are not real in the sense that we are animals motivated by sex and emotions.  They are part of the energies that were scattered into space billions of years ago.  Their intelligence is so vast and so ruthlessly inhuman there is no way for us to comprehend it or communicate with it as we talk to dolphins.”  Keel would then propose twice in that same book, “Someone within two hundred miles of your home, no matter where you live on this earth, has had a direct, often terrifying, personal confrontation with a shape-shifting, unbelievable. (ultraterrestrial)  Our world has always been occupied by these things.  We are just passing through.  Belief or disbelief will come onto you from another direction.”  What Keel was talking about was essentially Lovecraft’s Cthulhu.

Charles Fort said in his 1931 book Lo! during the time of Lovecraft, “There may be occult things, beings and events, and there may be something of the nature of an occult police force, which operates to divert human suspicions, and to supply explanations that are good enough, for whatever (minds) human beings have—or that, if there be occult mishiefmakers and occult ravagers, they may be of a world also of other beings that are acting to check them, and to explain them not benevolently, but to divert suspicion from themselves because they, too, may be exploiting life upon this earth, but in ways more subtle, and orderly or organized fashion.  In “The Call of Cthulhu”, H. P. Lovecraft describes the fictional Cthulhu as “A monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind.”[5] Cthulhu has been described as a mix between a giant human, an octopus, and a dragon, and is depicted as being hundreds of meters tall, with human-looking arms and legs and a pair of rudimentary wings on its back.[5]Cthulhu’s head is depicted as similar to the entirety of a giant octopus, with an unknown number of tentacles surrounding its supposed mouth. Cthulhu is described as being able to change the shape of its body at will, extending and retracting limbs and tentacles as it sees fit.”  This description is remarkably like the Mothman and is a creature of imagination brought to life through the reality of some ultraterrestrial shape shifter which is a trick as old as time.

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

Many of the cultures of times past as in the present which call for sacrifice to bring about something desired must point their superstitions toward these creatures.  Not surprising those who attempt to map out that realm of the ultraterrestricals even in a fictional sense—such as the Cthulhu end up dead.  Lovecraft died by the age of 46 and many who go down a similar path end up in the same state.  Looking into that other world brings upon the cells of the human body an undoing which prevents living.  I too have seen this as most notably reflected in my personal UFO story.  There have been many times when shape shifting entities made their entrance onto the stages of existence and did just as Charles Fort stated—“policed” the explanations of reality to suit their desires.  But if an inquiry into the other realms goes too deeply, then death is soon to follow.  Sometimes it’s not even by deliberate attempt.  Every year, roughly 15,000 people vanish under the most incredible circumstances, again according to John Keel’s studies into the matter.  “A family man steps into his backyard to mow the lawn. He is never seen again.  A waitress steps out of a restaurant to put a dime in the parking meter and disappears forever.  A family of five in a suburb melt into nothingness, leaving behind all their cloths, bank accounts, the family car.  We have dozens of puzzling cases in our files.” (Keel’s files)   These Cthulhu stories by Lovecraft are terrifying—because they are grounded in a reality we are aware of but dare not probe.

Most people are happy to carry a lucky rabbit’s foot, avoid unlucky associations, or pray to a deity to navigate through the minefield of the ultraterrestrial traps.  I have seen the attempt firsthand to divert my own attention obviously when doing an investigation by having those same beings throw me a bone as a UFO flew outside my front window to take me in a direction of inquiry they approved of—a classic case of misdirection.  Entire societies have adopted the notion of sacrifice in substitution for productivity to essentially satisfy their unconscious appeasement of these metaphorical Cthulhu’s which loom like gargoyles over charity events and suck off the vanity of opulent socialites and the perfume bathed on to cover the smell of their decaying flesh.  From the darkness of other dimensional realities our world is observed and manipulated to suit the needs of the ultraterrestrial, not our own as the strings of many living marionettes are tied to the fingers of an actual Cthulhu.

But unlike Keel and Lovecraft I do not believe the human race is destined to be meager insects in comparison to the cosmos.   I believe in the thin veil of cosmicism but do not believe that the Cthulhu type creatures residing there are superior to the human being.  If they were, there would not be all these elaborate tricks, like UFO’s landing in our front yards, or strange stories to captivate the tabloid lover in all of us—to keep us distracted and thus sacrificing to these gods of the unseen.  Their tricks only have power of the one way mirror for if they enter our reality with us, they discover they have no real strength—only the ability to scheme for their own ends as a competing organism.  And that goes for any entity in the universe—if they were so bold and audacious, they would not avoid direct contact and hide behind curtains of dimensional reality.  So there is nothing really to fear from them once it is understood that they gain all their power and terror from dwelling in the unknown.  But science is taking human beings into their realm whether they like it or not—and once we are there—there won’t be anywhere for them to hide any longer.  They are not to be feared, but to be conquered and the way to beat them is to remove the concept of sacrifice from the human landscape.  They obtain their sustenance off the emotional energy of the human race by a means not yet discovered and require misery, fear, and death to fuel their own existence.

Good horror touches these known truths—these deep suspicions we all have that just walking out to the mailbox may be the last time our bodies inhabit the earth.  We all know someone who has suffered from paranormal experiences yet nobody discusses it because we feel the breath of the Cthulhu on the back of our necks.  We try to counsel ourselves that the breath we feel is God and we seek to appease him with more sacrifice at churches, or financial donations and our prayers, but deep down inside we suspect that God is really a Lovecraftian monster ready to yank our lives from our bodies and consume it like a snack on Superbowl Sunday.  So we don’t name the evil for fear that it has power over us, we don’t talk about it with others for fear that we might be discovered betraying our overlords.  But those beasts have no real power—only the ability to operate from concealment.  Cellular attacks can be countered, diseases overcome, and mental breakdowns—alleviated by a strong—well-read mind.  If one is playing the Arkham Horror game which is a Lovecraftian journey I said weeks ago that I would take because of the nature of it, the characters of Harvey Walters and Sister Mary who both have a sanity of 7 would be the type of examples I’m refereeing to.  I like Harvey and would like to teach everyone to be more like him so that they could have a proper defense against the Cthulhu terrorists of inter-dimensional sacrifice.  But man’s fate is not destined to yield to these creatures, rather the other way around—which is the big secret they don’t want you to know about dear reader.  The human mind has the power to create these Cthulhu monsters—but it can also destroy them.  The reality of the horror of the Cthulhu is that they cannot match the productive enterprise of human imagination and effort.  With those efforts the driving force of humanity, the Cthulhu has no defense leaving the ultraterrestrial empire without armament in a war that is as old as time.  It would be my position to teach people how to make those Cthulhu into pets instead of Gods and the horror of their imprint into a children’s story.

Rich Hoffman

 

 

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

The ENORMOUS box office of Godzilla: A skeleton key to human civilization

You could smell it in the air on Friday.  My wife and I went to an early showing of Godzilla after having a nice lunch at Chick-fil-A and already the Showcase Cinema in Springdale, Ohio was cranked up in anticipation of what turned out to be a fabulous movie.  READ MY REVIEW HERE.   It was simply a jaw-dropping experience and the buzz was already percolating into what would become a $32 million dollar evening after a $9 million dollar Thursday night of special showings.  The theater was buzzing with excitement the likes of which I had not seen in years and the film hadn’t even thought of hitting Saturday yet.  Projections had the film only doing $65 million dollars over the weekend, but by Saturday morning, it was obvious that Godzilla would crush the opening of Spiderman 2, from two weeks earlier of $91 million.  My wife and I bought our Imax ticket and quickly discovered on a gigantic poster that we would be treated to a free popcorn just for buying the Imax ticket, so we picked up some wonderfully buttered popcorn and stepped into history as the best monster movie ever to be filmed played before our eyes.  During the climax my wife was so excited she almost leapt at the screen laughing, pointing, and was ready to punch something.

At the conclusion a few of the employees who came in to clean up asked me how the movie was, and stated that they couldn’t wait to get off work so they could see it.  My wife and I were the last to leave the theater and I told them that they needed to clock out right now, and get up in those seats and watch this movie right now.  It was that incredible, history making awe inspiring—and the ramifications of it would manifest long after what would turn out to be a monumental opening weekend.  I knew as the credits stopped rolling that this movie was going to explode with global business that would topple $1 billion dollars and launch new life into a film genre that will ignite the imaginations of millions of young people and I enjoyed the reverence.  Unlike The Amazing Spiderman 2 which saw a major drop in business during its second week of release, Godzilla would likely see even more business over the upcoming Memorial Day weekend as word of mouth will spread like wildfire about how good the movie is.

So what does this mean?  Why is the box office of Godzilla so important?  Well, I have been writing a lot lately about the importance of mythology in our culture.  It shapes everything from philosophy to politics and is likely the most important attribute to any human society.  There are a lot of elements in our present world that makes human beings feel powerless, and subjected to abuses, so when their imaginations are stimulated with thought, there is a sense of freedom in the exchange.  When a movie is as exciting as Godzilla is, and inspires so many people to go to a theater to experience it, a unifying philosophy is being painted across the canvas of human society and it is a wonderful thing to witness.  When a movie does that kind of business, other studios are forced to copy, and that means that films that are losers, like Cloud Atlas, Life of Pi, and other progressive films must adapt and compete against traditional films that a majority of the world population yearns for.

There is no group hugging going on in Godzilla.  The hero is Godzilla who stands as a solitary savior of mankind and the main protagonist who is on his own adventure is also the last man standing to save mankind from disaster.  The rest of the characters can only watch everything happening with passive helplessness.  It is in this attribute that once again traditional films destroy the box office business of collective message stories attempting to sell progressive storylines.  When a traditional old-fashioned film like Godzilla does such good business the public is voting, and the votes favor tradition because other studios—due to capitalism are forced to compete or go out of business.

Japan’s Tolo studios have had the rights to Godzilla for years, and they have nurtured it along.  But they knew that if they wanted to take Godzilla into the realm of international—mainstream sensation, they needed Legendary Pictures to pull off the task.  Legendary Pictures put up 75% of the nearly $200 million dollar budget and hired relative newcomer Gareth Edwards to direct the film.  There weren’t any film studios in France able to perform such a task, not in England, not in Germany, certainly not in China and Japan was obviously limited in their abilities.  It took an American production company to achieve the objective of spreading the Godzilla message and did they ever pull it off.  The risk of Gareth Edwards not only paid off, but the film will evolve into a sensation that will not be forgotten any time soon.  It is a benchmark film that will take the world by storm.

This is yet another example of many themes discussed here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom day in and day out over a number of years now and it was quite refreshing to see the early wave of Godzilla before everything became much noisier.  I was not surprised to see such a ruckus, human beings are starving from substance, and Godzilla delivers it.  If Godzilla were simply about destruction, it wouldn’t do such good box office numbers, and the buildup of the character over the last 60 years has not prepared people for this kind of market desire.  The old films were fun films, but not good ones.  It is for the unspoken themes for which Godzilla is so popular, the one against the many, the mysteries of our own past unrealized, the protection of man’s creations over the creations of nature, the futility of those same creations against the scale of nature at times, and individual will.  It’s also about hopes, dreams, and the importance of family.   The scene where the main protagonist helps a little boy find his parents is just another reiteration of that main family theme found throughout the film.

History has been made and it was a fun weekend watching the events come together as the box office numbers of Godzilla came in.  It felt like victory for all those who support classic elements in movies which builds the mythology not just of our nation, but now of the world.  These days, it’s no longer cars that America exports that are so prized throughout the world, or the aviation industry, or even food—it is mythology which can only come from the imaginations of free people.  Only in America could a movie like Godzilla be made, and that was obvious as I left the theater ahead of a box office wave which consumed the world and brought a smile to my face for more reasons than that the movie was a great one.  Mythology has the answers to many of our contemporary problems and hidden within the Godzilla film is the skeleton key to healing human civilization.   And the key has now been turned.

By the way, Lengendary Pictures is now working with Universal Studios and their next big monster movie after Godzilla is Jurassic World.  And they love the script so much, they are already talking sequels.  I am very happy!  And really looking forward to it!

Rich Hoffman

  www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

Godzilla For President: A review of the new Gareth Edwards masterpiece

What would you get if Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, and Akira Kurosawa all made a movie—it would be Gareth Edwards new Godzilla film.  That is not to say for a second that Edwards is a copy-cat filmmaker paying homage to his boyhood heroes.  The 2014 Godzilla film released by Legendary Pictures is simply that good, and is sincere in its tip of the hat to those great filmmakers.  While watching I kept thinking of films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jaws, Jurassic Park, Birds, Ran, Dreams without attempting for a second to show its superiority to the classic Godzilla movies—but rather being very respectful of them.  If there is a tight rope of movie marketing, authenticity to a beloved character, and the necessity to navigate the needs of the movie industry, Gareth Edwards just propelled himself into one of the top filmmakers in the world forever by walking it cleanly.  The new Godzilla film is simply astonishing.  I have read the reviews and spoken to several people who had seen the movie and I have come to realize that the movie is so vast in its scale that most viewers can only grip one of the many plot lines of the film.  Being spoiled spoon fed movie goers for so many years; they have forgotten the old Hitchcock films and likely didn’t bother with Kurosawa due to the subtitles.  Well, Edwards didn’t have that problem and has simply made a masterpiece that will have a major impact on film history.   I know good when I see it and this Godzilla film is great, incredible, astonishingly beautiful, captivating in virtually every way, and is simply a benchmark film redefining the genre of monster movies.  This Godzilla movie is what Cloverfield wanted to be.  It is simply jaw-dropping grand.  It will take several viewings for everything to settle in and history will study this movie as a masterpiece of modern film.

While waiting in line to see the movie I wrote yesterday’s article about Godzilla.  CLICK HERE TO REVIEW.  So I am already a fan of the 60-year-old monster.  I had to take a few hours after watching the movie to calm down and check my emotions to ensure that I wasn’t just being inflammatory with my enthusiasm.  After rolling around in bed for about 10 hours unable to sleep still excited about this Godzilla film I have concluded that perhaps I haven’t been excited enough.  Four key scenes will explain why without giving away the movie.  The first is the birthday metaphor so carefully weaved into the Bryan Cranston portion of the story.  It was remarkably powerful, and so subtle that most viewers appear to have missed it upon their first viewing.  It was a touch of Steven Spielberg that I haven’t seen from a filmmaker since the film Always.  Then there was the flaming train engine coming out of an intense fog at night across a railroad bridge.  The film quality looked as though it belonged on the pages of National Geographic.  The cinematic effort of that shot was simply mind-blowing.  Then there was the airport scene where the power had gone out across an Hawaiian city then came back on to reveal a giant monster destroying everything—with the main characters rushing toward the devastation.  There has been nothing like that done in movie since Jurassic Park, The Lost World, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.  It was over-the-top exciting, but never so much that it came out campy.  Godzilla pays tribute to these beloved old films without insulting them with direct mimicry.   Then there is the airdrop into the city of San Francisco during the monster fight.  The only filmmaker who ever attempted portions of these kinds of visuals is Akira Kurosawa.  The colors, the atmospheric conditions, the ceremonial aspect of the scene, the immensity of the whole enterprise culminated in that portion of the movie and was simply magnificent.  Edwards was well aware of his geography during the entire film.  The film went from extreme long shots of a storm over the city with the tiny troops falling toward their apparent doom with swirling cumulus nimbus clouds reaching into the upper atmosphere.  Then there are the hand-held shots as they fall through the cloud layer and into the destruction of the city while Godzilla is fighting with the monsters.  All these were cut together with the same level of continuity and it was seamless.  The long view of existence right along with the human perspective was astonishing.  I can’t say it has ever been done more effectively than what Edwards did in this movie.  There was a scene from Close Encounters years ago where the shadow of the mother ship was cast against the ground at night over the unaware human drivers of a truck.  That shot was incredibly difficult to pull off and came from the mind of a very young Steven Spielberg before he got old and stuffy.  I can’t recall another filmmaker trying such a thing since then—until this Godzilla movie.  It is hard to do such atmospheric scenes and Spielberg has given up on trying now that he is in his “mature” years.  But the ambition of Edwards deserves recognition as film schools will study this scene for years attempting to break down its effectiveness.

Speaking of geography it was impressive to tie in events happening halfway around the globe in simultaneous bits of story.  For instance, Las Vegas gets attacked by a monster as Godzilla is hunting the beast from the Pacific Ocean just off the coast of Hawaii.  The extra attention to little details like proximity of terrain to each other in a world shrunk by Google Earth was so refreshing that even smart people seeing the movie will be impressed that Edwards thought of them while staging scenes.  The characters in this Godzilla film were intelligent, and cared about the circumstances around them.  That was refreshing.

Then there was the soundtrack which was equally remarkable.  I had never knowingly heard any of Alexandre Desplat’s work until this film, but it was quite powerful.  Desplat certainly tapped into great film scores by John Williams, particularly Jaws because it was evident in the film score.  The resemblance to that classic piece was unmistakable.  I have listened to the soundtracks of Jurassic Park and The Lost World countless times, and the notes and cues from Godzilla are right in line with those pieces.  It was yet another circumstance of welcomed surprise in a film full of them.  There was a raw majestic energy included with the music that was as big as Godzilla and the story line itself.

The character of Godzilla unlike the past had a deep intelligence to him, a knowing alertness to the circumstances of civilization and his desire to advance it.  That is a new element to these kinds of monster films, Godzilla was quite well aware of his ancient role as a kind of protector of man’s achievements.  He wasn’t interested in the mindless toppling of buildings and power lines, but of hunting down and destroying the monsters which were destroying the cities of earth.  There has been a lot of talk about Godzilla being a boon to nature—reminding mankind that it is not in charge.  Yet if Godzilla were so interested in nature, he would have allowed the giant creatures—MUTOs (Massive Unidentified terrestrial Organisms) to breed and hatch their babies which are all they really wanted to do.  From the vantage point of Godzilla mankind’s creations are pretty insignificant, yet he consciously made a decision to pick mankind over the MUTO creatures.  Several times in Godzilla’s efforts were close-ups on his weary face as if he had been fighting this battle for several millennia.  Edwards smartly captured this intelligence and made this Godzilla much less primal, and much more sophisticated.  As strange as it sounds the creature seemed so smart that I wouldn’t have been shocked if he didn’t sit down with some tea and discuss James Joyce as a literary endeavor.  He was what I described in my referred article written prior to seeing the film as a kind of overman.

Godzilla is movie making at its absolute best.  There isn’t anything better out now and hasn’t been in many years.  Even the epic nature of Peter Jackson’s Hobbit films can’t hold a candle to Godzilla.  This monster film is a benchmark for these types of things that will set the bar very high.  Many reviewers continue to compare Godzilla 2014 to Pacific Rim, but the two aren’t even close.   The only thing they have in common is that both films deal with large creatures.  Godzilla is about so much more.  It’s a movie that needs to be seen many times to understand, and even more times for just the sheer entertainment value of it.  The cost of seeing the movie is worth the climax of the film itself.  They simply don’t get better than that and will still be fun after the 100th viewing.  Godzilla 2014 will become the next favorite film of many little boys desperately seeking something meaningful in their young lives.  But for the adults who grew up with the old versions, this Edwards film is a sheer work of art that will be difficult for any filmmaker to surpass for many, many years.  It is a treasure onto itself and a gift to every creature with eyes, ears and an imagination.  I give Godzilla an enthusiastic thumb up with both hands and both big toes and a smile from ear to ear.  It is movie making at its absolute best and then some and will never be forgotten in my household likely being played continuously forever once it hits Blue Ray.  In the meantime, I will go see it again.

Rich Hoffman

  www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

The Value of ‘Rebels’: Cartoons are the roots of static patterns

Most young people are not paying attention to the current events in the Ukraine, or the unrest in Venezuela, or the posturing of China against Japan.  They don’t know that President Obama’s administration is attempting to use the FCC to control news content, or that the IRS has been involved in corrupt activity.   The sum of all these events are clashing with the teachings that young people are getting from government schools leaving them unsure who to trust or what to believe.  So they aren’t participating, and are focused on the events of pop culture.  They are not reading books, going to Tea Party rallies, or even searching for a way to save the world.  They just want to get by and enjoy their life to some small degree.  This has opened up the entertainment market to an explosion of comic book sales, movies, and fantasy driven entertainment.  The world of fantasy is far better, and easier to understand than the deceitful world of the present—so it is there where many of the contemporary minds of youth reside.

When I was a kid the very first cartoon I enjoyed watching was Popeye the Sailor, followed closely by Speed Racer.  Over the years, I enjoyed Starblazers, Spiderman, Looney Toons, and Godzilla as some of my favorites and I took the messages of those simple stories into my adult life unfiltered.  To this day the thing I enjoy doing most is the “right thing.”  I learned this from Popeye at age 3 and still remember vividly those early cartoon moments.  Those cartoons had tremendous influence and many people my age and younger share this enthusiasm with me.  Not everyone has preserved their love of those early cartoons to the extent that I have, but most people hold reverence for the cartoons of their youth.  These cartoons have the power to either build up a mind or destroy it.   For instance, Bevis and Butthead on MTV did a great deal to destroy culture while the same animator tried to redeem himself with the Fox cartoon King of the Hill.   Currently Family Guy, the Simpsons, and American Dad—all laced with deep progressive philosophy–are the current trend which is writing upon the minds of countless young people the thought processes they will carry throughout their life.   Teachers want to believe that they are what shape a child’s mind, and politicians caress themselves hoping that Common Core will unite the nation’s children to a government-run message of productivity.  But in reality, cartoons are shaping young people and giving them the foundation thoughts which take them into adulthood.

This is why I am currently ecstatic over the new Disney production of the Star Wars: Rebels animated series coming to the Disney XD channel this fall.   Shown within the videos on these pages are the main characters and the content.  I think the show will be unlike anything ever done on television since Disney produced Zorro, and Davy Crockett for a generation who now attends Tea Party rallies.  When I talk to Tea Party types and really get down to the nitty-gritty with them what they want is justice as defined for them by the temperament created by those old shows from the 50s and 60s.  It’s more complicated than that of course, but the foundations of their thoughts are rooted in the values of those old Disney productions–having a mom and a dad at the dinner table with them, and church on Sundays.  They find the behavior of the current political trend reprehensible, and this leads to a desire for rebellion.  This is the primary cause of most discontent discourse throughout the world—specifically in the Ukraine, in Syria, even on college campuses.

Star Wars: Rebels has the ability to explore the nature of rebellion without it being explicitly investigated by earthly reference.   The creators at Lucasfilm have the ability to explore the deep anxieties of the individual spirit to crave freedom without being political.  They don’t have to deal with race relations, political parties, economic philosophy, or any polarizing trait—they can simply tell the story of how a rebellion formed to overthrow an empire.  It’s a deep human craving that transcends party politics and because of that, I think this is the most important story that will be told in my life time.  I’m sure it will be fun, and entertaining, but more than that—it is giving to a new generation of young people a sense of value—a value that is not presently available to them.

I think often about Popeye the Sailor and some of his messages which were “I am what I am and that’s all that I am,” and Wimpy’s statements about, “I’ll pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”  These basic values I have taken with me throughout my life.  Wimpy’s comments taught me a great deal about debt, while Popeye was always very proud of who he was—flaws and all.  I know how much those simple stories meant to me, and I can only imagine how much impact the new Star Wars: Rebels will have on a new generation of young people.  The previous Star Wars cartoon; The Clone Wars on The Cartoon Network after five seasons is just now starting to have an impact on a very skeptical viewing audience.  I watched every single episode many times.  My wife and I watch them together on Saturday mornings and love them dearly.  But in many ways, Rebels will be a lot better.  Clone Wars for me always felt like a modern commentary on our current situation.  I’m sure the film makers had no intention of doing such a thing—these things have happened over human history many times and aren’t specific to our time.  But there is always a little sadness in knowing that all the heroics performed in Clone Wars will result in the creation of the Empire.  In Rebels, the Empire is already in control.  Now it is up to heroes to save their society from the control of tyrants and that is an important distinction.

Millions of young people are going to watch Star Wars: Rebels and it will become their favorite television show.  They will grow up and take those messages, and values with them into their adult lives just as modern-day older people revere the good ol’ days of Disney shows like Davey Crockett and Zorro.  As simple as that sounds, it really is the foundation principles behind most thought processes.  Just as people from my generation think differently because of the static patterns given to them from their entertainment culture—particularly cartoons, new cartoons like Star Wars: Rebels will have a far greater impact.  I would say that it is the most important contemporary work of art currently being done anywhere in the world because it brings with it through story value.

For many, they will dismiss Star Wars: Rebels as just another cartoon designed to sell action figures at Target and Wal-Mart.    But it’s more than that, and will show the real impact on television this fall.  Needless to say I’m excited about it because there will be dramatic change ushered in behind this simple cartoon.  With the distribution power of Disney, they are uniquely positioned to do great good in the world and Rebels is just the start.  When George Lucas sat down to close the Star Wars deal at the Brown Derby at Hollywood Studios in Florida he knew what he was doing.  His Skywalker Ranch had been set up specifically for the purpose of creating such wonderful shows like Star Wars: Rebels.  Lucas knows that education is the most important thing you can give young people, and he knows that public education is failing.  That’s why he has spent a considerable amount of his fortune on education.  Much of that money has been wasted on the current education system, like tossing a cup of water into the ocean and expecting to see the waters rise in proportion.  Real education comes from foundation patterns, and in our society, cartoons are the origin.  This is why millions of people flock to Disney World to retouch the stories of their youth and bring renewed appreciation to lives otherwise plagued by cynicism.  Star Wars: Rebels will mean a great deal to a large number of young and old minds, and the sum of that value will be a benefit to us all.

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

Saying “Yes”: ‘Ian up for Whatever’ Superbowl Bud Light commercial

Obviously, I have lived a colorful life.  I have something to say about just about anything and everything and that ability was carved out of my life experience.  Hey, it’s the Superbowl time of year—I love watching that game and the ceremonial nature that America dedicates to the event, so let’s have a little fun.  I loved several commercials during the game but I particularly enjoyed the new Bud Light commercial “Ian Up for Whatever.”  I knew from the moment that the young lady asked Ian–just a normal guy sitting in a sportsbar–that if she gave him a free Bud Light would be up for anything that followed–she was playing the role of the mythic goddess figures of the past and that Ian was in for an adventure.  There have been many times when life has asked similar questions, and my typical reaction is “YES,” because you never know what kind of adventure comes next—but to get there you always have to say “YES.”

That’s the gist of things in Bud Light’s new “Ian Up For Whatever” Super Bowl commercial—a star-studded spectacle involving hidden cameras and wave after wave of celebrity cameos.

The true star of the commercial, however, is a man named “Ian” who finds himself swept up in a sequence of wild events bordering on the unimaginable, but not quite as crazy as the uninitiated might believe.

Things begin with Ian sitting alone at a bar. He’s approached by a pretty girl named Kelly, who introduces herself and takes a seat. Within moments, Ian’s new friend holds up a Bud Light and asks a single, somewhat ominous question.

“If I give this to you, are you up for whatever happens next?” Kelly asks.

“Uh, I think so,” Ian responds, obviously thinking that Kelly was coming on to him.

That’s how it starts—a night of limousines, twin parties and more Arnold Schwarzenegger ping-pong than ever conceived possible.  Actually, that was my favorite part.

Ian receives a new jacket, courtesy of Friday Night Lights star Minka Kelly.

He also finds himself with comedian-musician Reggie Watts, who has been stuffed into a DJ booth inside the Hummer stretch limo designated to chauffeur Ian about New York for the evening.

The one prevailing tie in the commercial is the presence of Bud Light bottles, which Ian and company constantly have in hand. There’s also the omnipresent eye of the commercial’s directors and coordinators, who have the entire experience planned down to the moment and wired for video and sound.

In all, “Ian Up For Whatever” is an impressive feat of planning and videography. Any number of mishaps could’ve turned this commercial into a nightmare, but judging by the final product, things went rather swimmingly.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1943450-bud-light-releases-new-super-bowl-xlviii-ian-up-for-whatever-commercial

I could tell a number of stories where similar things have happened to me.  It is often surprising how a willingness for adventure can pave the way for the unfathomable.  Those events may not happen quite in the same way as Ian’s experience—and they may not involve such New York cultural pleasure, but they are often as outrageous and cryptically elusive to the mind of a planned individual.  The human spirit often carries events beyond conception, and the real magic of life is often beyond those borders.  I have been to such places many times—so much that nothing would shock me now.  Where Ian was amazed, I would have been much more flat lined.  The limo would not have surprised me, playing “baby tennis” with Arnold Schwarzenegger wouldn’t have been strange or finding oneself onstage with a major music group, relative to my personal life.   Crazy things do happen, and they often start with the word “Yes.”

A good lesson from that commercial is to say “yes,” a bit more often.  When your boss places before you a tough challenge……………..say, “yes.”  You’d be surprised what might happen.  When your car starts sputtering because you are almost out of gas, say “yes” and keep the petal depressed.  See what happens when you run out of fuel a mile short of a gas station.  Many adventures are likely to transpire.  When you pass by a restaurant that strikes your interest, say “yes” and pull in and try it out.  Stepping out of a routine can be very exciting.  Say “yes” more often and let adventure into your life, and you will discover that Ian’s experience is not that unique.

Good things don’t always happen, but I still say yes to many things, because I love adventure.  It is adventure that has filled my mind with so many opinions, and given voice to so many topics.  I have a story for everything when I talk to younger people because in my past I have said “yes” to many outrageous adventures even the ones that appeared to be kamikaze runs.  I always figured I was cleaver enough to avoid death, and I have been right more times than chance can take credit for.

Because of those adventures I love my life.  I love every day of it and I don’t have regrets.  Even bad decisions were part of the “saying yes” process, and the adventures that followed have led to tremendous amounts of experience which translates to personal wisdom.  In this life, wisdom is capital—more powerful capital than gold, or the perceived values of finance.  Wisdom can gain finances, but finances cannot gain wisdom.  Wisdom is by far more valuable, and wisdom can only be obtained by living life—and to live life, you have to “say yes,” to things.

A guy who reads here a lot will recognize this story immediately but I remember a trip to Panama City with him which nearly mirrored this Bud Light commercial.  It started by “saying yes” to a cold March evening, a complicated engineering problem, and a political stalemate that needed to be broken loose.  It ended hours later over a thousand miles away with me playing football on a beach after jumping off a pier from about 25 feet and breaking my ankle in the sand.   I wrapped the ankle and continued playing football anyway under the moonlight next to the ocean.  We slept with a tent half constructed next to a harbor, and solved our problem over breakfast at a Burger King.  We returned to Cincinnati within 48 hours of leaving for our next meeting and solved all our problems with a fresh perspective.  Adventure is good for building wisdom.

There are hundreds of those types of stories, but most don’t involve the kind of elements seen in that Bud Light commercial.  The Panama City one did, which is the reason for the reference.  But all such adventures lead to the ability to have wisdom—something young people don’t have until it is developed.  At the end of his adventure in the Bud Light commercial Ian was wiser than was when he simply agreed to a girl in a bar to accept whatever happened next.  Adventure happens all the time to many people, and adventure builds wisdom—but before either can be obtained a person has to be willing to “say yes.”  Lucky for Ian, he did.  But you too Dear Reader can experience adventure in the strangest places and times.  All you have to do is, “say yes.

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

The Wonderful ‘T-Rex Cafe’: Refusing to honor “Mother Earth” with one more mass extinction

T-Rex1I enjoy fine dining and have rather high expectations in regard to food.  In my home town of West Chester when I want a nice dining experience, my wife and I go to Jags.  For power dinners it is the Montgomery Inn Boat House downtown along the river that most suits my taste.  So with those qualifiers I must report that I had one of the finest dinners I can ever recall at the T-Rex Café in Orlando, Florida.  This was unexpected as I thought the restaurant featuring animatronic dinosaurs that howl at you while eating would be just another gimmicky eatery that would fall short of anticipated hope.  My family was with me at Downtown Disney recently so I had the opportunity to treat them to a nice dinner in a unique place, so we headed to the T-Rex Café which is only one of two in the entire country.  T-Rex5The other establishment is located in Kansas City.  As expected the interior of the restaurant was fabulous looking resembling more a dynamic museum than a place to eat.  The hostess seated us in a corner table next to the fire pit cooking area directly underneath a pterodactyl dinosaur and flaming licks that emerged from a volcano.  Our large booth was situated inside a geode that looked out into the dining room as a meteor shower flew by violently overhead.  Across the room was the ice cave complete with fossils embedded in the walls.  Everywhere around the large dining room which held over 600 people were spectacles of science and ancient biological history.  But better than that, the food was as good as the environment.  The appetizers were seasoned wonderfully, the service was top-notch, and the feature plates were excellently prepared, and delivered.  For the climax of the dinner we had a Chocolate Extinction which was delivered as a flame spewing volcano that was absolutely fabulous.

As I ate my dinner and spoke with my family I had a persistent thought–the restaurant was just another miracle of capitalism.   Only capitalism could produce such a place, and even though the cost of the meal was certainly on the high side, it was well worth the price as the environment cost an enormous sum to maintain daily.  Only an economic system of capitalism could hope to produce the resources to make such a place possible.  Yet in our current time, capitalism’s greatest predator is socialism, and the current incantation of political socialism is the “green movement” that attempts to take mankind back to the roots of earth worship and primitive rituals in an effort to preserve the world for eternity.T-Rex4

As I looked around the room at the T-Rex Café I thought of a conversation I had with one of my nephews the day before—a small argument that we had in a swimming pool over the merits of personal Thorium reactors for sustainable, cheap power at each home in the world.  His position was one of concern for the radioactive waste generated by nuclear fission taught to him by the six digit debt he incurred in college that had steered his thinking.  I tried to sympathize with his view-point as he spent a lot of money on his education and wanted to believe that the things he learned were valid.  But in the scheme of things he was taught by left-leaning college professors the mystical trend of primitive sacrifice to the goddess Earth and were wrong.  The entire environmental movement is built on mysticism and a primitive need to sacrifice to the gods that are now representative in New Age doctrine as a love for the great Goddess Earth.  The mentality is the same as the Mayans sacrificing human beings to Kukulkan, or a bunch of Native Americans (displaced Chinese people) doing a rain dance to bring water to their crops.  The idea of sacrifice to a deity is a primitive concept that is rooted in ignorance which is wonderfully portrayed in one of my favorite books, The Golden Bough by James Frazer.  Human beings have evolved for the most part beyond that ridiculous mentality rooted in ignorance with the advances found in the philosophy of capitalism.  The T-Rex Café was a direct product of capitalism and was a celebration of life forms on earth that had become extinct for natural reasons.  Because of capitalism, children can share with their parents a celebration of a world long gone so that hopefully they can all learn something from the process while enjoying the roots of our own evolution.T-Rex2

Yet there are thousands of young people like my nephew who have been taught that preserving the earth is more important than the products of the human mind which is in essence a dedication to the primitive nature of human beings before the invention of capitalism.  Those human beings who hate capitalism tend to support socialist tendencies either directly or indirectly and it is they who have perpetuated the myths about global warming, and the sacrifice of human advancement to the benefit of the earth—which is just ridiculous.

As I watched the meteor showers strike each other across the ceiling of the T-Rex Café restaurant I thought of the future of the earth as we know it now.  Part of the ongoing supercontinent cycle, plate tectonics will probably result in a supercontinent in 250–350 million years. Some time in the next 1.5–4.5 billion years, the axial tilt of the Earth may begin to undergo chaotic variations, with changes in the axial tilt of up to 90°.

During the next four billion years, the luminosity of the Sun will steadily increase, resulting in a rise in the solar radiation reaching the Earth. This will cause a higher rate of weathering of silicate minerals, which will cause a decrease in the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In about 600 million years, the level of CO
2 will fall below the level needed to sustain C3 carbon fixation photosynthesis used by trees. Some plants use the C4 carbon fixation method, allowing them to persist at CO
2 concentrations as low as 10 parts per million. However, the long-term trend is for plant life to die off altogether. The die off of plants will be the demise of almost all animal life, since plants are the base of the food chain on Earth.T-Rex7

In about 1.1 billion years, the solar luminosity will be 10% higher than at present. This will cause the atmosphere to become a “moist greenhouse”, resulting in a runaway evaporation of the oceans. As a likely consequence, plate tectonics will come to an end.[11] Following this event, the planet’s magnetic dynamo may come to an end, causing the magnetosphere to decay and leading to an accelerated loss of volatiles from the outer atmosphere. Four billion years from now, the increase in the Earth’s surface temperature will cause a runaway greenhouse effect. By that point, most if not all the life on the surface will be extinct.[12][13] The most probable fate of the planet is absorption by the Sun in about 7.5 billion years, after the star has entered the red giant phase and expanded to cross the planet’s current orbit

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

And at any time during this cycle of destruction, a meteor, an alien race, or even the collision of the Milky Way galaxy with another galaxy may occur destroying not just the earth, but all the millions of planets in the galaxy.  The idea of not installing a Thorium reactor on every home, every car, and every need for power that the human race desires seems insanely stupid when it is realized that the sacrifice of technical achievement to short-sighted preservation of the earth is currently occurring.  Humans would be wise to blast the radioactive waste of such nuclear fission into space to dump among the stars, but such things are of secondary concern to the efforts that are produced by the human mind.  Whether the earth ends in 100 years or in 7.5 billion years, the earth will end, and the human race will need to evolve into a type 3 civilization by that time, or it will go out like a light in the universe that has been turned off by its own short-sightedness.  When the earth ends, human beings need to be elsewhere.T-Rex3

To avoid extinction, human beings not only must develop an ability to move from one galaxy to another, but from one universe to another, because the universe is not exactly stable.  Mankind through capitalism has the ability to solve these problems but the trend of the current environmentalist is a dedication to the failures of mankind’s past, the sacrifice of humans to the gods of speculation—to the mystic desire to shun personal responsibility for ones own life to a deity of convenience and hide their lack of courage behind group behavior.

The T-Rex Café is an excellent example of capitalism at its absolute best.  The food is great, the environment, the service, the location was absolutely spectacular.   But more importantly were the thoughts that the place was able to invoke in the imagination.  Dining with my family at a big comfortable table with good food to ease the tensions of the day allowed for the possibility of thoughts that were stimulated by the dynamic environment.  For me, the conversation I had with my nephew at the pool came rushing to my mind as the meteor shower overhead violently erupted.  Everything on earth was created from violence and force.  Every mountain is the result of earth’s crust violently being shoved upward.  Every river is the result of massive rain fall.  Every drop of ocean water is the result of crashed comets millions of years ago.  The dinosaurs of which the T-Rex Café was dedicated to had lived and died over a much longer span of time than human beings have even been a thought on earth, and in all that time no dinosaur ever invented a way to draw energy from a Thorium reactor, yet the audaciousness of the modern-day environmentally conscious religious zealot is to assume that the earth will always stay just as it is now in the year 2013 and never become hotter or colder, or violently upset by a planetary collision of any kind.  They assume that humans are equal in value to all other life forms on the planet, and that’s not true—only humans have developed complicated thoughts that enable them to leave earth, extend their own life spans, and create their own future.  For the greenie weenie environmentalist the small mindedness of their short-life spans is unfathomably foolish and insecure.  They hope to revert mankind back to a cave man building fires and barking at a bolt of lightning streaking across the sky as some mystery delivered from the gods, instead of understanding the science of static electricity and using that power to carry them off earth for good, to destinations not yet discovered.T-Rex6

A good meal not only fills the belly, but the mind, and I left the T-Rex Café full in both regards.  It was worth the money of a 5 star restaurant because the combination of food and environment was so extremely magnificent.  I won’t soon forget the place because long after the food was enjoyed the experience continued to give me fresh ideas that are invaluable to proper perspective.  It was clearly one of my favorite dining experiences to date anywhere in the world, in part because of the restaurant itself, but mostly in the recreation of a time long-lost to history that was recreated as an honor, and a warning to mankind’s own doomed fate if it fails to embrace the proper philosophy of reaching for the stars instead of the jealous confines of mother earth and her selfish desire to doom all humans to the same fate she will surely suffer.

Rich Hoffman

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

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

The History of Capitalism: A presentation from the Atlas Society

Due to much of the confusion that exsists about the economic nature of capitalism–as the progressive types have so rigorously attacked it, many do not understand what it even is.  So for those who do not understand capitalism, and for those who think they understand capitalism, yet still find themselves destructive agents of human doom I would like the present Guillermo Pineda who spoke at the Atlas Summit in 2012 in Washington D.C. — We hear all the time that “capitalism is the system that has shaped our world.” However, the fact that capitalism is a social system that has never existed in its full, perfect, and unregulated form is never mentioned. As Ayn Rand clearly stated, the only time in history in which we came close to a laissez-faire capitalist society was in the 19th century. The seminar explores the history of capitalism in the last 250 years. How did capitalism function in the past? Does it still exist today? What hope is there for the future? Part 2 looks at the assault against capitalism in the 20th century and considers where we find ourselves today.

Guillermo Pineda is a double degree MA global studies candidate at Leipzig University and Roskilde University. He founded the Center for the Study of Capitalism in Guatemala and has studied and promoted Objectivist philosophy for several years.  Now, grab a snack and enjoy listening to Pineda’s 2 part lesson on capitalism.

Rich Hoffman

“If they attack first………..blast em’!”

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

THE NOTHING

For years now I have wondered if Glenn Beck was getting his show topics based on my articles here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom.  What he speaks about and what I write about seemed to parallel closely over a long period of time.  I know I don’t have time to watch and listen to Glenn Beck in much detail.  My exposure to Beck is usually what people send to me in the form of clips through email.  On Beck’s end, given his success over the last 5 years, I’m sure he has the same problem that I do only 100 times worse, so I doubt he has time to read my articles—unless somebody he trusts sends them to him.  But it is beyond coincidence that he has arrived at just about the same place that I have in regard to public education at virtually the same time.  The only rational explanation is that people like Glenn Beck, Judge Napolitano, John Stossel and of course myself have arrived at the same independent conclusions based on our observations of public education because logic has delivered us to truth’s door.  The conclusion of those observations that is difficult for many to hear is that if you love your child, you should take them far away from public education.  If you love your country, you should take your children out of public education.  If you love humanity, you should take your children out of public education.  In short, public education is a terribly corrosive social element that is destroying everything we are as human beings toward an aim that is beyond human comprehension.  Watch Glenn Beck state the same things I have been saying for quite a long time now:

When I first worked with No Lakota Levy to reform the cost impact of our local government school I didn’t feel so strongly until I learned how mindless the collectivism in public education truly was.  But a few years into the levy fighting efforts and three elections later which were ignored by the administrators, I began to realize that Glenn Beck’s statements above were true, and a sad realization.  It was actually hard for me to accept and I have never been a fan of public education or collective endeavors of any kind.  Even in my own school days when many of the coaches wanted me to be on their track and football teams I was always hesitant because of the collective nature of the “team” concept.  Even as a young man I never yielded my individuality to a collective endeavor—so with that position in mind it was hard for me to realize that public education needed to be scrapped in America in favor of a system that is independently competitive, and innovative.  Anything attached to government control needs to be rejected and since The Department of Education was created at the federal level in 1979, public education has quickly degraded into a propaganda arm of progressive causes.  But why is this so?

The best explanation for the degradation tendency of public education and collectivism in general cannot be found in the rally cry toward socialism or communism that comes from the political leanings of progressives—it’s a far deeper philosophical problem than those types of ideologies.  To date, the best explanation behind the type of evil that is in the wake of public education was best defined in the fantasy film The Never Ending Story which came out in the 1980s just a few years after the creation of the DOE.  The Never Ending Story is a fantasy about a young hero who must slay a fathomless enemy called The Nothing and the pursuit of the hero’s journey for the main character is to learn that it is imagination that destroys The Nothing.  The way to destroy the evil that is destroying the world is to recharge the world with imagination—(thought).

Childhood mythologies often contain within them the stories of morality that all of society needs to keep order to their own value system.  As anyone who reads me often understands, mythology is the most important ingredient that a society produces which is why I so openly support the Star Wars franchise, because the product of Lucasfilm is in the manufacturing of values society is hungry for.  The reason that fantasy is so popular culturally in movies and books is because humankind seeks to counter the effects of the mythical “Nothing” which imposes itself on their lives—as defined in The Never Ending Story.  WATCH THE BELOW CLIP to learn more about The Nothing.

When I was in the fourth grade my class went on a field trip to see the Cincinnati Pops at Music Hall play a symphonic rendition of John Williams’s music for Star Wars.  Hanging behind the orchestra was a giant projection screen which displayed slides of the movie characters during the performance and the entire building rumbled with cheers as each slide arrived in procession celebrating the movie that had taken America by storm in 1977.  Star Wars to all my young classmates from schools all over Cincinnati were being enchanted with the values of the music and the film behind the characters that contained limitless imagination and boundless energy.  I thought the experience was a wonderful one.  But later, when we returned back to the school on a silent school bus and were back in the seats of our classroom our teacher unleashed a fury of anger at how inconsiderate we were for cheering on the heroes of Star Wars and ignoring the efforts of the members of the symphony.  Even as a young fellow in the fourth grade I shook my head at the obvious ignorance of the teacher. I knew that the teacher represented The Nothing well before The Never Ending Story so accurately placed a name on the type of evil she was spewing.  Her values taught to her as an educator pursing the field of instruction through years of college thought the symphony was more valuable than the characters the music reflected—her values came from The Nothing.  She valued the collective symphony as the source of goodness behind Star Wars instead of the individual characters who were the real heroes of the afternoon.  The music only supported the plight of the heroes.  She misidentified the value system of the entire event.

Years later when I first saw The Never Ending Story I had an awwh haaa moment while watching it, and it hit me most when I was first married and had a young child of my own sitting on my lap looking for family friendly programming to show my daughter.  When the wolf explained what The Nothing was, I immediately thought of the political world in the wake of the Reagan Presidency, my personal experiences with public education, the relationship between public sector jobs and private sector and all the drama of local politics.  The situation in America was not quite as bad as it is now so the impact of The Nothing was not yet in place so obviously.  I could see The Nothing even then as clearly as can be expected for something that doesn’t exists–because even a blank space is “something.”  The Nothing can only be seen for what it destroys, not for any mass it holds.  It can only be measured by what is missing from one moment to the next.

Now, in 2013 many years after the release of The Never Ending Story following 4 years of George Bush senior, 8 years of Clinton, 8 years of Bush Jr., and now 5 years of Barack Obama as Presidents of The United States, it is easy to see that The Nothing is moving easily through the world and it uses people like the wolf did in The Never Ending Story to carry the message of The Nothing.  The Nothing seeks to destroy thinking.  It is what Ayn Rand calls “evasion” in the philosophy of Objectivism.  In mythologies like Star Wars it is called The Dark Side of the Force. But in The Never Ending Story, it is most accurately described as “The Nothing.”

The products of The Nothing are all forms of collectivism which seek to strip away individual thought and action on behalf of a greater good.  The greater good is never on behalf of individual freedom, it is always in service of The Nothing—the evil behind the evil that some cultures call The Devil, Sith Lords, demons, or any face of sinister display. The attempt to articulate such collectivism with a face only names the crime—but does not define the origin of the crime, or the tendency to succumb to it.  In public education young people are stripped away of their minds and are vehicles for The Nothing which has slowly destroyed the entire world right in front of our faces.  No one person controls The Nothing.  But individual people dance to its strings just as the wolf did in The Never Ending Story.  In that context it could be said that The Nothing is behind government seeking to increase taxes forcing parents to have two incomes to accomplish what one used to—to strip mothers away from their children leaving kids open and vulnerable to The Nothing of public education.  It is The Nothing that moves the mouth of Barack Obama seeking to place every child in America during age four into pre-school so that a mind numb teacher can begin to teach young people to turn off their thoughts, and imaginations in dedication to The Nothing.  The Nothing is often difficult to see.  But in public education, it is evident for those with eyes that are open and willing to take notice.  Public schools—government schools–are dedicated to The Nothing like a religion.  To see The Nothing speak to people and learn what is NOT there.  That is how you know The Nothing is at work.

It is The Nothing that Pink Floyd sang about in their Wall album.  Many pot smoking patrons declared that the movie The Wall could only be understood when they were “high,” (mentally impaired, intoxicated—or otherwise inebriated) which has been the running dialogue among young people for the last 30 years.  But for me, as a young man of 16, 17, and 18 years old who didn’t do drugs of any kind, I understood The Wall on my first viewing, and knew the protagonist was fighting against The Nothing ultimately.  Pot smokers could only begin to wrap their minds around freedom from The Nothing when they were “stoned” and had turned off the rules of society.  This is why people do drugs and get drunk, so they can have momentary release from the grip of The Nothing.  But when the intoxication wears off, The Nothing has them again, and the poor souls become mindless dogs lobbying for more school levies, advocating more socialism under President Obama, and seeking to expand government so that it destroys each and every individual on planet Earth.

I know that many reading this will wonder how I can connect all these dots, and may even question whether or not I am even sane—because relative to their social position, these are outlandish claims.  For many people fantasies like The Never Ending Story or Star Wars are just entertainment and the lessons of mythology contained within those stories are dead to them.  Those are the kinds of people who are the wolves in our society who help The Nothing destroy the world without knowing it.  Like the teacher from the fourth grade who represented The Nothing yelling at our class her embarrassment of students clapping and cheering the images on a slide show instead of the live collective symphony of the Cincinnati Pops, The Nothing destroys by ripping away the source of goodness through deferment.  The teacher played her role in destroying the imagination of her students year by year until the kids were less mentally than what they were when they first entered kindergarten.  Teachers like that fourth grade instructor plant the seeds of The Nothing so that the adult of 50 years of age has less of a mind than the 3-year-old, because The Nothing lives in their minds and eats their thoughts.  It doesn’t mean the 50-year-old does not have statistical knowledge.  But the ability to think independently has been destroyed in such individuals—and that is the result of The Nothing.

When Glenn Beck says to take children out of public schools he is saying the same thing that I have been saying and for the same reasons.  However, it is not just collectivism that is the ultimate threat, but it is The Nothing that is behind the collectivism that we must fight against.  The way to beat The Nothing is with thought and independent values produced by a mind free of collectivism.  That was the lesson of The Never Ending Story which never does end.  We are living the story today as we have in the past and will in the future.  It never goes away; The Nothing will always seek to destroy mankind with the obscure allure of collectivism.  It takes an imagination to see the truth and understand the shape of The Nothing.  It also takes an imagination to apply thought and mythology to the legal world of the functioning adult which is what I spend a lot of time doing here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom.  Just because it is difficult for many to grapple with, does not mean the evil does not exist.  To stop that evil, every parent who claims to truly love their child should pull their children from public schools as soon as possible and find an alternative.  If parents do not do this, they will subject their children to a doomed life in service of The Nothing, which already holds the hearts and minds of 99.999999999999999999999% of the adult population.  Only a few—like Glenn Beck has managed to escape and report what is obvious to those not consumed by The Nothing—that public education is the vehicle that is used to destroy our children—and the problem is far bigger than most people are willing to accept.  But The Nothing still is there hunting us all for its collective consumption in a quest that will last all eternity if left unchecked.

It is because of what I have learned about public education that my feelings have evolved over time to seek answers for these modern problems in the myths that have built our society.  The logic of political life does not contain the answers—yet the childhood stories of our past contains the wisdom needed to understand the obscure problem of our present—why our children are growing ignorant over time instead of more intelligent and why our adults walk around like mindless zombies full of arrogance due to their years of exposure to The Nothing.  At golf courses they add up their scores over a day time beverage and whisk their children to and fro soccer practice thinking they are parents of the year—only to discover too late that they have delivered their children to the gates of doom.  The trivia of the adult, and school levy supporter who blindly believes that public education is the savior of society, are simply agents of The Nothing who reside behind all forms of collectivism and is instructed to our world population through public education universally committed to the kind of evil that only occupied the minds of childhood nightmares when the purity of youth could still tell the difference.

For the facts to sustain the assertions above click the link below:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/07/cscope-exposing-the-nations-most-controversial-public-school-curriculum-system/

That is how bad the system is.  If you have a child in public school, they are being trained by those methods.  Every child in a school district is being exposed to these things, and it is our tax money from property values that pay for it.

Rich Hoffman

“If they attack first………..blast em’!”

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ an unexpected TRIUMPH

I have been writing about The Hobbit movie and its December release for over a year now and I have been very excited for its long-awaited arrival in theaters.  My wife and I took my large family and some of their friends to see it during a prime time showing over the weekend, and before I get into any kind of review I need to provide some context.  Our society is changing rapidly, and not all of it is bad.  When religion was very strong in our society, it taught young and old alike about the nature of good and evil—which I spend a lot of time writing and thinking about.  But in 2012 in a quest that really started in 1977 with the first Star Wars film, it is clear that mythological values in our society has moved from books into many other visual formats that explore more deeply than ever the nature of evil, and the necessity of good.  I did not expect The Hobbit, An Unexpected Journey to be over-the-top excellent.  I just expected it to be good and an enjoyable tribute to stories I have loved my entire lifetime.  As stated in previous articles here at the OW I have allowed myself to enjoy on many nights the words of J.R.R. Tokens’ many works by candlelight, or on a backyard porch under swift moving nighttime clouds next to a lantern.  So I have a passion already present for the material offered in The Hobbit.  Aside from that, I also followed closely the development of the film through the legal hurdles it had to pass in order to arrive in theaters under Peter Jackson’s direction, which for a long time I never thought would happen—because of the stunning success of The Lord of the Rings trilogy a decade ago.  So it was with some pent-up reverence that I took my family to the movies on December 15, 2012 and let me declare that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is an unexpected delight.  The Hobbit as a film is jaw-dropping great and filled to the absolute brim with passion, rich storytelling, and a fully flushed out journey into Middle-Earth that will change the lives of many people who see it for the better.  It is a stunningly fantastic movie—a cut from the tapestry of cinema that will set new heights of expectation from audiences permanently.  I did not think it was possible to make a movie version of The Hobbit that exceeded, or even matched the effort of Lord of the Rings—but Peter Jackson has been successful in that daunting task and then some.

The Hobbit is essentially a treasure hunt that is triggered when a dragon pushes a society of dwarves from their home in the Lonely Mountain.  Bilbo Baggins is recruited as a burglar/thief to penetrate the mountain and help remove the terrible dragon Smoug who is now residing there bathing his massive body in mountains of gold stolen from the dwarves.  I will admit that reviewers did discourage me a bit when they reported that Warner Brothers had pushed Jackson into stretching the 300-page book of The Hobbit which is a kid’s book into three—three hour films, and that the first half of An Unexpected Journey was boring.  For such reviewers, I can only say that they have become spoiled brats, and the action of The Hobbit was very intense at the end making the rather story driven beginning seem like a very different movie.  But the beauty is that Jackson was able to make The Hobbit into a better story then the actual book was—which is almost never the case—without violating the literary material of Tolkien at all.    Only under Peter Jackson’s direction could this have been done with such a close association with Lord of the Rings as The Hobbit takes place 60 years before the Rings films.  The beginning is only boring compared to a very intense ending—more intense than any movie I can remember seeing—and I’ve seen most of them.

For me personally, I found the deep secrets and constant references to an evil that is slowly seething up into Middle-Earth to be fascinating in reference to the events of Lord of the Rings.  The Hobbit takes the time to show how the seeds of evil are actually planted and how slowly over time they can emerge right under the noses of some of the wisest minds.  In The Hobbit it is the wizard Gandalf who looks like a crazed fool in comparison to his mentor Sauruman the White Wizard, Elrond the Lord of Rivendell, and Galadriel co-ruler of Lothlórien.  Gandalf in a scene that was one of my favorites attempts to tell these leaders of Middle-Earth of his devious plot to rid the Lonely Mountain of the dragon, but also to combat a seething evil that is emerging slowly in the cracks of society.  It was my favorite scene in the film because I feel a lot like Gandalf in real life uttering the same kinds of warnings, schemes and mechanisms that I have involved myself in only to have a White Wizard type politician declare—“show me the proof of these allegations.”  Evil does not grow within the honesty of critical assessment, and nobody but Gandalf and Galadriel can even remotely see it.  Of course, we know that Gandalf was right and that 60 years later that evil will have arrived fully in Middle-Earth in the events of Lord of the Rings.  In An Unexpected Journey Gandalf sees the evil before everyone else, and must face that realization alone—which is realistically, often the case.

In many ways Peter Jackson has done with The Hobbit what George Lucas did with the prequels of Star Wars and that is to pull back wide on Middle-Earth to tell of the events that led up to the Academy Award winning movies that were previously done.  But Jackson has not violated the original Tolkien material to perform the task, he’s only added to it with previously unrelated Tolkien material about Middle-Earth which led to controversy with some critics.  Usually in novel translations things get left out of a movie version of a great book.  It is not often—if ever that things that were not specifically in the source novel find their way into the film version without deviating away from the source, but following it sincerely.  This is what Jackson has done, and he did an absolutely marvelous job of it.  Literally breath-taking in just how spectacular of a job he did—if viewers thought that Middle-Earth had been adequately flushed out in the Lord of the Rings films, The Hobbit will prove that there is much more to explore, and it is an exciting adventure all its own.

I am an old fan of these types of stories, and it is hard to impress me.  But—The Hobbit impressed me in every category, music, visual effects, character development, mythological significance, plot validation; The Hobbit is successful in every single category of filmmaking splendor.  And the characters go through one cliffhanger after another in some of the most astonishing conflicts that have ever taken place between characters on a movie screen.  There is nothing like The Hobbit that has ever been done in any film to date.  Many of the sequences step up and over Lord of the Rings in sheer brutality, and cinematic effectiveness.  If the Academy Awards snub this film because of internal Hollywood politics, it will be a shame—because The Unexpected Journey deserves the same kind of respect that Return of the King garnered.  This first Hobbit film is simply that good.

I could write on about this movie for thousands of pages, and still not get out everything I want to say—so do yourself a favor and go see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and enjoy the adventure of a lifetime.   As Gandalf tells Bilbo in the film, “if you take this adventure you will never be the same again”—so to, will audience members never be quiet the same after seeing the first movie of a three-part Hobbit series.  I am riveted now waiting for the second addition to this excellent film series titled The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug which will be entirely about the slaying of the terrible dragon that is guarding the gold in the Lonely Mountain.  In the meantime, I think my wife and I will go see The Unexpected Journey about 19,000 more times.  Enjoy! 

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

  

Doc Thompson Fights for Detroit: Michigan becomes a Right-to-Work State

The biggest mistake that all organized labor advocates make is that they believe collective bargaining is a viable device for gaining wages, which it is not. From the employer’s point of view, wages are the way employers can motivate the best and brightest of their work force to excel, which ultimately sifts the bad workers from the good, the lazy from the ambitious.  In the game of football and other sports, there is a tryout process, and players that excel because of their skill and ambition are the ones who often end up making the most money.  Collective bargaining destroys this entire discovery endeavor.  It imposes upon the revenue generating entity an equal distribution of wages that all the employees do not deserve, because not all employees perform equally.  It is this very economic misconception that has destroyed the economy of Detroit, and is why the city is considering Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy protection after years of gradual decline.  The city was built by the car industry, and the unions killed the car making business in Detroit.  To understand why, just read Atlas Shrugged written in 1957 for the long answer.  Here is a USA Today article on the issue.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/10/march-toward-bankruptcy-detroit/1758305/

It was good to see my old friend Doc Thompson who is now doing radio in Detroit acting as he did when he was in Cincinnati and that is pointing out where the discrepancy is in perception between public sector unions and economic reality.  As Michigan has looked at Detroit and learned some hard lessons, they have come to realize that the best way to bring business back to the state is by passing right-to-work legislation as Indiana has, and Wisconsin.  As predicted the unions have taken to the streets in an all out assault to defend their legal rights to loot and pillage from the American tax payer.  Doc had some wonderful appearances on the Kudlow Report on CNBC talking about this very volatile issue.

 

When Doc was in Cincinnati as a radio personality he hosted a debate between factions involving Ohio’s Senate Bill 5 which was in essence an attempt to make public unions a right-to-work option, which of course the unions attacked heavily out of fear that if employees had the freedom to join a union without coercion, that most employees would elect to not pay the union dues—which is all the unions really care about.  The money they make off union dues gives them lobby power over politics.  Doc handled the radical crowd fairly.  CLICK HERE FOR A REVIEW.  I was a much bigger supporter of Senate Bill 5 than Doc was at the time because I saw it as a chance to take control of our local government politics away from public sector unions—which was essential to keeping taxes minimized.  But now that Doc is in Detroit, he can see clearly what the unions have done to that once great city, and he has stepped up to the front line to fight the parasite that the unions have made of themselves at the expense of South Michigan’s entire economy.

The villain of Detroit is the labor unions that are rooted in communism that is forced upon employers with “collective bargaining.”  Labor unions controlling management that are in the business of making goods like cars, cans of beer, and paper find that through “collective bargaining” the cost matrix of operating a business pushes up their labor costs way too much for a business to properly function, so the business locates to a state, or a country where they can control their labor costs.  Labor union’s answer to this trend is to spread communism to every corner of the world so that businesses have nowhere to go and thus no option but to pay employees through “collective bargaining” extraordinarily high wages that most of them do not deserve.  This is why public schools are failing, because bad teachers and good teachers all make the same amount of money no matter what they do, so failure is incentivized.  Businesses, like sports and other entertainment have survived under high organized labor costs because the public has so far supported the extraordinary mark-ups in the product to subsidize the collective bargaining impact.  But even those industries are about 10 years away from total collapse of their profit profiles.  Movie actors are paid too much as ticket prices at the box office have capped out, which will lead to a recession in the movie business.  And sports franchises are hitting the same cap, the public can’t afford in general to spend more than $200 for a football game so the profit matrixes for the NFL are about to hit a brick wall as well.  But that brick wall hit Detroit many years ago as companies like Toyota, and Honda have made better cars cheaper than the union wages of Detroit, leading to a collapse of that industry.

Michigan will be a right-to-work state, and Ohio will follow shortly thereafter.  They will become freedom to work states because the economy demands these actions.  Anything else leads to direct socialism, which will choke off the economy and send too many American citizens to welfare programs to survive, which will collapse the GDP of our nation, so there isn’t a choice.  The only fools who haven’t received the memo are the union workers who want to believe that pixy dust will save their hides from their own stupidity—and the Keynesian economics that politicians like Barack Obama subscribe to, which is destroying the economy of Europe presently, will have to be abandoned.  These are facts that cannot be ignored, even though all politicians who cozy up to organized labor practices “evasion” in denying the facts of economic reality.

No economy can flourish if the potential for profit from the job creators is taken away, and labor unions take away from management the tools designed to produce wealth.  Once a company loses its ability to manage their costs, and can no longer raise their price to off-set the labor costs, they have no choice but to file bankruptcy, or move their business to a more business friendly environment.  However, in the case of Detroit, the entire city cannot just pick up and move, it will simply fail, and become part of a long list of once thriving areas that prospered economically for a time, then failed under their own stupidity.  Detroit will join cities such as the Native American city of Cahokia, the mysterious, Teotihuacan, or Ankor Wat all which found their previous flourishing economic periods erode away due to droughts, disease, poor crop yields, or just political corruption which had the city of Chichen Itza on decline before the Spanish ever set foot on the Yucatan Peninsula.  Detroit is failing because it cannot manufacture goods to export, and people are abandoning the city because there are no jobs, and those jobs where ran out-of-town because of labor unions.  The economic failure is unlike those other ancient cities.  Detroit is a victim of self-imposed greed, and lack of proper economic understanding.  I feel honored to know Doc Thompson personally and see that he is still fighting for what’s right, even when it might otherwise be unpopular, or socially unfashionable.  The fix to Detroit’s problems, or America’s are not to glaze over the obvious economic facts of organized labor failures, but to fix the problem before one of America’s once great cities becomes only a distant memory.  Right-to-work cannot come soon enough for the poor state of Michigan.

Read more at the link below:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/angry-union-protesters-shout-down-tea-partiers-in-michigan-and-state-rep-tweets-violent-threat/

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com