Category: Creative Writing

The Far Reaching Schools: DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY BECAUSE THEY WILL FIND YOU

If society is looked at without emotion, like an archeologist examines a civilization long over with neutral observation, then it is easy to see the problems. Since my love in life puts science first, before anything, then it is not difficult to look at our current civilization and detect where we are going wrong.

Doc Thompson did a great segment on the far-reaching culture of modern public education, where they attempt to extend their authority well into the private lives of children, all in the name of “protecting” them from bullying, or even from their own parents. Listen to that broadcast here.

When I see adults blindly submitting to authority, such as when they are pulled over by a police officer, it’s almost like a switch goes off in their minds that when they see the uniform of a police officer, they immediately revert into a mode of submission. The officer says, “Put your hands up where I can see them,” and automatically the hands go up without any conscious control. The same thing happens when an officer pulls over a speeding driver, the cop puts on the lights, and the immediate reaction is for the driver to pull over. To some extent, it’s probably good that this mechanism is in place, because society would probably have more conflict involved. But on the other hand, the same tendency that makes human beings become compliant to police officers also makes people prone to believe all symbols of authority, which includes politicians and spin doctors.

This is very bad, because even though people like the President of the United States are seen as leaders to the rest of the world, people tend to listen to him as though he actually carried a level of authority. If the President calls for war, there are people in the military that will carry out the order even if it means their deaths. If the President says society needs to care for the poor, then suddenly people will become more aware of the poor. This tendency is consistent all the way down the chain of command all the way down to a child’s local soccer coach.

The adults I know do not question enough what is going on in the world around them, and this is happening because they were taught very early to respect authority. In American culture what is required to maintain an honest republic is a respect of authority, but independence and free-will must be embraced by the culture even above authority in order for it to last. American children are learning to respect authority from their parents, their family, their siblings, friends, and public education.

Public education is spending too much money, and too much time teaching children to respect authority in my opinion. They are creating a society of grown-ups that automatically freeze up in the face of authority figures, and this is a very bad thing. As I said, a little authority is good, respect for mankind and others in general is important, but blind obedience is terrible for the sustainability of any culture. It leaves society vulnerable to tyrants.

This move by public education to intrude into the personal lives of the students we send to these schools is reprehensible and must stop. And it will not stop until parents demand it to stop. It’s not just an economic factor, because more teachers require more asserted authority, and we not only pay for those teachers, but we pay in how they teach our children to blindly accept authority and not embrace the nature of freedom.

The bottom line behind most everyone that pursues the life of an authority figure is that they wish to position themselves in a lucrative paying field of endeavor, where they can make a very good income, while also satisfying some inner inferiority complex that resides within them. They often are not people who should be followed under any circumstance what-so-ever. They should be despised and ridiculed for what they are, and that’s tyrants. So they need people to believe that their authority is needed to hold society together. But what they are really doing is destroying the very fabric of what makes American society unique, and fruitful.

So long as there is a fear of authority in American society, the republic from which that society is built will be flimsy, and easy to topple, which is how they want it. Because to the tyrant, they only care for gratification of the moment, and there are a lot of tyrants wondering about in positions of authority.

It sickens me each time I see people complying without question to the demands of an authority figure. And that process begins when the teacher tells a young child in public school not to run down the hall. The nail to the coffin is driven home when a teacher has the ability to reach into the private life of the child and police what the child says on Facebook, or even what they say on a private web-site. Once the child accepts that type of authority they will grow up and become weak-kneed adults that believe easily what a sappy politician tells them. Those adults will become terrible, over-emotional voters that will not know what’s good from bad, because their decision-making skills are tainted with the corruption of compliance.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

The Next Three Days Review: A Great Film………………what would you do?

I was looking for a movie to watch that fit a theme I have been working on in my Tail of the Dragon novel when I saw that Paul Haggis had directed Russell Crow and Liam Neeson in a story that explores what happens when the law is not necessarily your friend, when the system is turned against you completely. That story is called The Next Three Days.

The film is different from the story I worked on. Mine is all this along with a bit of Bonnie and Clyde mixed in. But this film intrigued me greatly. I loved it!

Paul Haggis was the screenwriter for a couple of Eastwood films that I love, Million Dollar Baby and Flags of our Fathers. He also had a writing credit for Terminator Salvation. Haggis also directed Crash, which was brilliant, so another film directed by him was something I was not going to miss.

I’m not going to reveal the details of this film. It is full of surprises and it’s a wonderful film. In the film, I can’t blame the decisions Russell Crow’s character made. It asks the hard questions like, how valid is “the law?” Is our legal system just? What is right and what is wrong and do they hold true if the perspective shifts?

I think we have become too reliant on law enforcement much in the same way as we have with teachers. We expect the police to keep us safe, which is unrealistic, because police really aren’t much of a deterrent. All they can really do is show up after a crime has been committed and build a case hoping that they can gather enough evidence to find the bad guy and bring about justice.

I don’t think the ineffectiveness of police officers in preventing crime is worth the freedoms we give up to have them. In a scene of the film shown in the preview where the police break down the door to Russell Crows home and came into his house forcefully, I became infuriated. I can say that if the same thing happened at my home, someone would have ended up hurt. There isn’t a force on earth, no gun, no club, no taser, nothing that would allow me to submit to a forceful entry into my home against my will. Property in America is everything, and when law enforcement can enter your property for the “greater goods security” then there simply isn’t any freedom.

In a lot of ways, that’s what The Next Three Days was all about. It took most of the film to arrive at that message, which doesn’t make it a bad film at all, but the movie was certainly targeted at the types of suburbanites that live around Paul in Santa Monica, a town that lives in its own insulated reality. So the characters in the film go through the transition that if they want freedom, they must take it. Nobody is going to give it to them. If they trust the legal system, it will let them down, just like education does. There is no easy fix.

I mention the film here because movies are a way to explore ideas, and a film like The Next Three Days is one of those types of films that everyone should see, then consider what they would do if they found themselves in the same situation. I suspect many people would do the disgraceful thing, and that’s to accept the rule of law, move on with another spouse, and live a nice safe life.

But, as shown in The Next Three Days, the law is only as good as the people who run it. If the lawyers, prosecutors, Supreme Court, and cops are lazy, and they are, because they’re government workers, then there is always a chance to become a victim to their complacency. So when that happens do you just take it and let their incompetence ruin your life?

I say no. It might have taken the characters 3 years to get to the point that I would have been at within a few hours, but the merit is still what it is, that when a force of any size, or complexity threatens your sovereignty, then war to defend your position is perfectly justified. It is in fact demanded.

That’s why I recommend watching this film and asking the question, how effective is law enforcement? Is it what we really want? Does it represent what being an American is all about, or are we willing to toss those ideas away in favor of an imperfect pursuit of safety.

Watch The Next Three Days for a thrill, excitement, and much-needed contemplation.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

The New Overmanwarrior.com: A Father’s Day Present to Launch the Future

One of the challenges in analyzing profit and lose responsibilities as an occupation, mixed with entertainment, being a “watch dog political activist,” culminating with multiple writing endeavors it is inevitable that a web site presence is needed. I started Overmanwarrior.com last year to meet the growing need to maintain some sort of window into the world I participate in, since there are clients that want that information, fans of my book; The Symposium of Justice that enjoy keeping up with what I’m doing, and my activity working with bullwhips for various entertainment venues. I named the site overmanwarrior.com because of a term used in my book The Symposium of Justice, and it seemed most fitting for what I’ve been doing.

The political work I’ve been doing is an added element that was not anticipated when I started Overmanwarrior.com. That work came out of necessity, because it’s happening in my community, which makes me obligated to act when I see that something is wrong. I am not one of those writers that sits around writing about what the world should be, but lacks the courage to implement my thoughts. I cannot in good consciousness write passionately about the corruption that is taking place in books like The Symposium of Justice, which was very controversial when it came out. Time has proven it to be ahead of it’s time. My new book which is due out in 2012 and is under contract currently in the editorial phase is just as critical of the social norms built around a political superstructure that is crushing on the human spirit. On this book, I didn’t aim so far into the future as I did with Symposium, because the battle is right in front of us.

It would be hypocritical for me to write so passionately about these topics and still allow corruption to take place in my own back yard without me applying the same level of work in fighting tyranny in real life. I’m not that kind of person.

I never planned to be an activist. I despise political politicians. I want the minimum government possible. I do not want large public school organizations that are over staffed and too expense teaching kids to “comply.” I do not want to deal with a society of brain dead followers in American society. That leads to my extreme dislike of police authority. Nothing against those in law enforcement occupations but I don’t want to support anything resembling a police state. I understand that police need to have the ability to go after criminals, but to my eyes, I see criminals still selling drugs. I still see prostitution going on. Murders still happen. People still break into homes. I believe that the greater deterrent to crime, physical assaults, and murder is the Second Amendment. It is out of a socialist desire for larger government, to give law enforcement jobs to do, that the gun control legislation is pushed forward, so with such views, that I explore in my fiction, I cannot turn my eyes away from reality.

This has led to a collection of media appearances that I’ve been a part of that have accumulated over some time. My work as an entertainer and my work as a “watch dog” are unique in a kind of merging involving both entertainment of political awareness, so I needed a website update that reflected these two aspects of my life, since both aspects are simultaneously important to any curious investigation into my life.

To do this, I turned to the person that designed the No Lakota Levy website. I had designed the first Overmanwarrior.com and many complained that it was too busy and not as effective as it needed to be. I developed the Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom site which evolved into what it is now, and took over as my personal platform, but the blog is sort of all the contents of my house, where the website is the door to that house, and I needed a new door. When I had to formalize resistance to the No Lakota Levy effort to counter the effort of the OEA, and other organized groups that seemed “hell bent” to increase my local taxes for no good apparent reason, it was the website that had started a successful campaign.

As a group, the No Lakota Levy group had access to professional web designers and public relations people. But I was hesitant, because we needed a unique web presence that was on the cutting edge. We wanted a better site than what the Lakota website had. So I turned to my daughter.

Her work on that site gave her accolades from public relations professionals, and media specialists everywhere. It’s not because of the technical aspect. There are many young people these days that understand how to write code for web design. But there aren’t many that have artistic ability that actually surpasses the technical ability. For No Lakota, I gave my daughter a series of production notes explaining what the website needed to accomplish. She nailed it. She produced a website that far exceeded my expectations, properly utilized video and social media into a top notch flash oriented website.

Once I learned that American Publishing wanted to publish my second book Tail of the Dragon, and that the marketing of that book would involve nationwide media attention, I needed a website that provided a door to my extensive collection of media, primarily all the work I’ve done on Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom, and my YouTube efforts which is equally vast. I needed this door because this second book will be put on a much larger platform than my previous work so everything needs to represent that level of professionalism.

This door to my life needs to be simple, yet inviting into the world I’m involved in, and it needs to stand out. I didn’t want it to be just another website that is the standard these days. I wanted something that was current, state-of-the-art with a world-class design. So again, I turned to my daughter. She knows me; she has the technical ability, and what she is still learning she is able to use existing programs where another firm may be able to create the whole thing in code. But she has the ability of vision that is unique, where maybe a handful of people in the country could actually pull off a job like this based on my written instructions.

Did she do it? YES! I told her I need something that embodies my “watch dog” work without sacrificing all the work I’ve done in entertainment. My roots as a western arts advocate needs to be there, without being overstated. It needs to be patriotic, because I am. But it also needs to represent my literary work, which in this stage of my life is becoming increasingly more important. With those basic descriptions, she came up with the new Overmanwarrior.com site and I love the results.

With the creation of this new site, it launches a new level of commitment to the type of life that is before me. From the doorway of this site daily updates of my work on Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom will be uploaded by a Twitter feed. Some of my favorite articles out of the hundreds and hundreds I’ve written are archived as sample work. There are many video’s seamlessly incorporated into the design along with other links that will take the visitor on an extensive journey without being too complex visually. I’ve also done many hours of radio that is also listed at this site which supports my “watch dog” work and is easily available.

Tail of the Dragon is going to be a tremendous work. I am very proud of it, so far, and it’s going to give me an opportunity to discuss nationally, an issue that is even more taboo than teachers, law enforcement. What it is, why we do or do not need it, and what are the solutions to the problems. It’s an exciting book that I wanted to see written, and since it wasn’t, I wrote it. My new website of Overmanwarrior.com embodies this spirit along with everything else I’m doing, and I’m proud that out of all the thousands and thousands of dollars I could have spent having this site designed for me, that my daughter was able to hit it beyond my expectations.

I am happy to announce that as of June 20, 2011, Overmanwarrior.com has taken the next step into a larger world as the ideas explored continue to increase. The unusual task for me, the client, and my daughter the designer is how to represent a guy that is very active as a “watch dog” while not being the least bit politically interested, yet deeply involved in entertainment and business. This site is it! And she was successful in every way possible…….again!

She told me that the completion of this site and the many hours she put into its design was a Father’s Day present. Nobody could have done anything for me better than this, so yes, my Father’s Day was wonderful.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Educate Ohio and The Original Argument: My Speech and a Special Gift

A friend of mine gave me a new book. Every time I get a new book, I have a good day. This particular book was The Original Argument, by Glenn Beck and Joshua Charles, at an event I was speaking at called Educate Ohio.

The event had about 30 to 40 school board members, teachers and education reform advocates where I gave a presentation on how excessive wages under union contracts are bankrupting school districts.

After the meeting I learned how the book came into my friend’s possession. The book had just be released and a woman had bought 50 of them and was passing them out at the Lebanon Racetrack, a popular meeting place for the Lebanon Tea Party, and she gave my friend 5 of them and told her to pass them out to people who would do something with the book. My friend then gave me one of those 5, which is a treasure to me greater than gold.

I read the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist papers last summer. They were respectfully hard reads because of the old dialogue, but it was those books that inspired me to start this site, Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom. I wanted this blog site to be a kind of modern Federalist Papers using all the tools of the modern age to paint the picture of America’s situation. I had heard that Beck and Joshua were attempting to update the Federalist Papers into modern language that everyone could understand, and that’s what The Original Argument is. It is wonderful that finally every day people will be able to read this book and actually understand how the American government is supposed to be.

One of the speakers before me at the Educate Ohio Conference was Paul Lambert from Columbus, who said something in his presentation that made me connect the two things together, Glenn Beck’s new book, and this education event. He said, “Schools are one of the last things in our republic that we still actually control locally.” He was right; our school districts are one of the last bastions of America that are left. We elect our school boards locally, and we pay for them locally, at least for the most part. And we see that our schools have gotten away from us, they are being run by large unions that have their eyes on state and federal money that they can turn around and use indirectly to manipulate the political process, and it’s happening right under our noses.

When I gave my speech, there were many people there that were from Pickerington, Ohio where the new superintendent for my school district of Lakota comes from. This has been another issue that has exploded on the scene over the last couple of days and I am deeply disappointed in our school board’s decision to hire this person. Here is a preview of my comments that will appear in the Pulse Journal this coming Thursday. Click on the article to go to the I-Team Investigation video on double-dipping superintendents and learn the real story behind the scam. Click here to hear the radio broadcast done by that same reporter on 700 WLW. This is important!
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I thought Ron Spurlock was doing a great job as superintendent of Lakota. He was innovative, energetic, had the ability to unite people, and he was cheaper. So it is baffling to me why the school board elected to hire a double-dipping superintendent from just up the road for $165,000, about $50,000 more than they were paying Ron, and they spent 50K to find her. Didn’t anybody learn anything from the Channel 9 I-Team report we did in May?

I’m sure Mantia is a nice lady. I’m willing to give her a chance, so long as she doesn’t ask for more tax money. My problem is in the absolute preposterous understanding of economics. The school board spent $100,000 dollars that it didn’t need to. Why?

Did the school board think that getting a superintendent from outside of the district like Mantia is what the No Lakota Levy people wanted? She’s more of the same. You’re personnel costs are too high, and decisions like what was made in hiring Mantia perfectly exhibits the folly. You had a guy right in front of you and you hired a woman playing the system. And we are supposed to believe we should increase our taxes even higher than they are now to pay for this lack of understanding?

Lakota doesn’t need more revenue to fund their inflated ideas about what education is. It needs to dump its high dollar, ineffective teachers and administrators, keep people like Mr. Duff, but dump the ones you plainly know do not deserve 75K per year, and replace them with ambitious, cheaper labor fresh out of college. Don’t tell me you don’t know the difference between a good teacher and a bad one. Here’s a hint, the bad ones are working just for money, and just like superintendents that retire the minute they turn 55 then seek to be rehired so they can double-dip. Let those bad teachers go to another district. It will create a job vacancy for us.

If Lakota wants to stay excellent, it can’t just tread water. It’s has to become sustainable over time.

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The arrogance of the school board to play politics in plain site is an obvious sign of disrespect. The people I talk to are aware of it, but aren’t sure what to do about it, because things have always been this way in their lives. People are only now waking up to it because the money is running out, and it’s not so easy to just toss money at corrupt people anymore to just shut them up. People are finally starting to look at how things are supposed to be.

As I packed up all my notes, and presentation material from my speech, I looked at the book that was left for me in the back of the room under my camera tripod, The Original Argument, by Glenn Beck, given to me by someone that had it given to them, who simply wanted to wake people up so they can understand how to defend themselves. A woman that bought 50 copies of the book with her own money and gave them away in all hope that someone would learn, and just possibly one person out of that 50 would do something to stop the madness.

As my wife and I left the building into the hot June sun, I thought about Paul’s words about how schools are the last things we still can control, and the woman who hoped that the foundations of the country would be re-learned. I watched the people leaving the Educate Ohio Conference and I saw that the battle lines were right in front of me. This is the stand that must be taken, and it must be defeated before any government reform can precede, this debate over school funding, and education content.

I ran my fingers over the cover of that book and took a moment to be grateful that such a literary achievement could even be published, and purchased, and brought to my hands with the best of intentions, because it’s not too late for an army of thought to gather in order to combat the massive tyranny that has hid itself in complicated legislation and ancient language. Holding that book gave me the feeling of rebirth in America, and that good would triumph over pure evil.

After my speech I thought of several people who had approached me, and as I unlocked my car to get in and drive away I reflected about what I said to them. “What are we to do, how can we stop this massive corruption?”

I told them, “They’ve already lost. They hide like cockroaches because they have to. They can’t talk about the facts because they rely on your emotions to control you. If you do like you’re doing, come to conferences like this, read, and pay attention, you will beat them sooner than you can imagine. Just keep focused, stay with the truth, and give them no place to hide. And you’ll get your country back.”
We’ve already won. The trouble is, the bad guys don’t know it yet because they’re too stupid and arrogant to see that they’ve been caught. All people need is the truth, and it will literally set them free in every way possible.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Jimmy McMillan is the Real Deal: in a house of warped mirrors and flashy lighting

Jimmy McMillan is awesome! The radio interview he did on June 17, 2011 with Doc Thompson is classic. In this interview he declared his candidacy for President of the United States. He also tells the story about how in the past when his kids were hungry and he needed money how he went to the strip club and became a stripper working the poles so his children could eat. As outrageous as much of the stuff he says on this interview is, he articulates what most every single person in America feels.

I may not agree with everything Jimmy says. I don’t think it’s the government’s job to do much of anything for people. I don’t want a “daddy” watching over me. But Jimmy is a real person, a passionate person, who truly cares. If he was just after publicity he would have given up long ago.

Read all about Jimmy here:

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

Early campaigns
McMillan’s first run for political office came in 1993, when he ran for Mayor of New York on the Rent Is Too Damn High ticket. In the course of that campaign, McMillan was at one point tied to a tree and doused with gasoline;[5] he would later climb the Brooklyn Bridge and refuse to come down from it unless television stations broadcast his message.[6] He was ultimately disqualified from the ballot for coming 300 petition signatures short of the 7,500 needed to qualify for the general election ballot.

McMillan next ran for governor of New York in 1994 by traveling from his home in Brooklyn through upstate New York to Buffalo on foot, staying in homeless shelters along the way; his original itinerary had him walking back to Brooklyn as well, but an injury in Rochester led to him taking a bus home.[7] When he arrived in Buffalo, the site of the state Democratic convention, McMillan disrupted a speech by incumbent governor Mario Cuomo at the convention and was thrown out because of it.[8] After failing to collect enough signatures to get onto the ballot, he continued in a write-in campaign.

The Federal Elections Commission has a record of McMillan entering himself in the United States presidential election, 1996 as a Republican; McMillan did not get onto any primary ballots.
McMillan was removed from the ballot during the 2000 U.S. Senate election in New York.[9]

McMillan’s political positions contain heavy influence from populist principles. The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle described his 1994 platform as such: “While McMillan said he hopes to be a spokesman for the poor in his bid for Governor, his solutions make him sound more like a Republican.”[7]

• McMillan has come out against federal bailouts, specifically the Wall Street Bailout of 2008 and the Obama Administration’s bailout of General Motors. Referencing the bailout and his presidential run, he said of Obama: “If you don’t do your job right, I am coming at you.”[30]

• McMillan believes that global warming is a natural occurrence that occurs every 15,000 years. He disputes the idea that is caused by man and pollution, saying he “isn’t buying [the] punk science” of Al Gore.

• A supporter of same-sex marriage, McMillan joked in the 2010 gubernatorial debate he would allow marriage between a person and a shoe.[31][32][33]

• McMillan, as founder of the Rent Is Too Damn High Party, is against high rent and property taxes for homeowners. He believes that lowering rent and cutting taxes will ease financial stress and help eradicate hunger and poverty, as well as raise tax revenue. He surmises that reducing rent would “create 3 to 6 million jobs” by freeing up capital to give businesses a chance to hire people. He also favors tax credits for commuters.[34][35]

• McMillan and the party are in favor of writing off all taxes owed to the state, consolidating the rent boards in New York, seizure of unoccupied apartment buildings, reforming the state court system, and free college tuition.[34][35]

• McMillan is in favor of having fixed rate of low rent across America, which would be the same regardless of property value. He states that adjusting the rent for property value “is a bunch of crap” and “a scheme to run out the poor.”[citation needed]

• McMillan supports allowing laws to be influenced by Christianity. His website states that “we need more reliance on the moral laws brought by religion and not limit out goodwill to our neighbors and co-workers to what the law demands alone.” He also spoke of “restoring family values” and making sure that one parent remains at home to watch children.[36]

• McMillan and the party oppose any spending cuts to education or elderly care services.[34][35]

• McMillan has called for investigations of, and has sought to increase awareness of, fraud and Ponzi schemes in the real estate markets.[37]

• Of his potential Republican opponents for the Presidential nomination, he thinks of Newt Gingrich as a “good liar” in the vein of John Edwards and that “people look at him and laugh,” Mitt Romney as a “good-looking guy [that] will keep the ladies from looking at me.” He has also stated that he loves Sarah Palin[38] and holds an extremely negative view of New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.[39]

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The problem with Jimmy McMillan is that he is all over the map regarding policy. Traditional conservative platform points are already established and the progressive press has laid out the ground rules. Any Republican that runs for any office knows that they must fit in with some sort of “talking point” within the established rules, the same thing for the Democratic candidate. I could argue with Jimmy for hours that education should be cut, issues around same-sex-marriage and other political sticking points should be other than what he believes, but that’s not the point. The problem is we have a two party system that is built to appease the American public in a controllable way. The reason I like Jimmy McMillan is that he is outside of that control. He is a product of his life’s journey, as a Vet, as a stripper, and long time political activists that boldly threw caution to the wind. He has not had a charmed life of privilege. Nobody has given him a break, a chance, or even a helping hand. Yet he is determined to get out his message, the way a wise man that lives through a lifetime should.

The same media that propped up Anthony Wiener and John Edwards will look at Jimmy McMillan as a joke when in reality it’s the other way around. I’d rather know about the real guy that runs for office than some contrived piece of crap like Anthony Wiener.

Talk about a joke, this is a guy that was the press darling just a few weeks ago. Is he any more credible than Jimmy McMillan? The hecklers are just saying what we all feel. Nobody likes to be lied to and Anthony Wiener did lie to us all, just as President Bill Clinton did.

John Edwards is a complete scum bag. I despise that any money I’ve ever given to the federal government might have found its way to him even in an indirect way. What a waste of tax payer money.

Remember when Ron Blagojevich tried to sell Barack Obama’s Senate seat. He got caught on tape selling the seat away to the highest bidder. Ouch.

And of course just like all the radicals Obama has surrounded himself with, when they get caught, he washes his hands of the subject, hangs them out to dry, and changes the subject.

In the screwed up, backward world we live in, the thieves become celebrities and heroes while the good among us are ridiculed, punished and shoved into a corner. Here is Ron Blagojevich’s wife Patty on a reality TV show, an opportunity she would have never had if the media had not propped her up in pursuit of finding a way to redeem the actions of her husband.

So before anyone says that Jimmy McMillan is not the real deal, that he is somehow not a credible candidate for any office, I would suggest that you need to rethink what it is that you are looking for in an elected servant. Do you want the same old liar, cheat, thief, manipulator, and selfish sell-out, or do you want common sense to govern?

I want common sense. I want the least polished candidate that is functioning from true intentions. And more than any of that, I want a guy that has made peace with themselves, and is happy with who they are, because such people are less likely to attempt to use public money to fill the voids in their lives.

That’s why I love Jimmy McMillan. He’s the real deal. He’s broke, but he doesn’t care. He finds a way. I love this interview. He wears an Underarmor shirt with a business jacket………..authentic.

Half of what he says in this next clip, I don’t agree with at all. But he’s right about one big thing, government is corrupt.

I think that once Jimmy had an elected office he is smart enough to figure out what’s right and wrong. I’d trust him well before I’d trust another candidate.

We all get the kind of government we deserve, and if we lack the courage to take a chance with someone outside the mainstream, that is looking at the world through the lens of common-sense and not party politics, then we will suffer under the maneuvers of the corrupt looters of our political system. We’ll continue to wistfully laugh and smile at people like Jimmy McMillan and their honesty like we shrug off the comment of a child while the adults go to the voting booth in the real world and vote for one guy they know will lie to them over another guy they know will lie to them. The choice is yours. You have options, but will you use them?

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Lakota’s New Superintendent is a DOUBLE DIPPER: It’s all about plunder…I mean kids

All it took was one guy from our No Lakota Levy group to show just the slightest inclination to break away from the main group before the district fluffed their wings and assumed that an opening was available to sneak on a school levy in November. This news came on the heels of Lakota’s new superintendent announcement of Karen Mantia. As I listen to Mantia and her priorities I can’t help but wonder why her primary focus is on our children’s retirement.

She has a reputation supposedly of thinking outside the box, but most of what she’s said so far sounds rather typical. How does she know that retirement will even be an option for the children of tomorrow? With all the life extension methods that are up and coming in science, retirement could be pushed to over 100 years old by then. People may live to well over 100 maybe even 150 years old. Retirement is a baby boomer idea that is quickly proving unrealistic. People just aren’t dying at 70 any more like they used to. So that seems like a strange priority. I would think that if she’s so well-educated, she’d be aware of these scientific advances. But she’s new, maybe she was just nervous and said the first thing that came to her mind.

It looks however that she is a double-dipper. Click here to watch a special report done by Channel 9 on this very issue. She retired from Sycamore in July 31, 2006 – likely after having 30 years of service. If she was 55 when she retried, her retirement is 66% of her salary. If she was making $100K when she retired, she will be bringing in $231K and that’s not counting the other benefits that are undoubtedly in her contract. If that’s the case, that’s a major issue with me, as a tax payer I’m paying for her retirement package, indirectly, but the money still came from somewhere, and now she is being paid by Lakota $165,000 per year, which is more than the last superintendent that I thought was paid too much. Lakota also spent 50K to find her, and she was just up the road. It doesn’t make sense to me.

But I’m happy to give her a chance. She’ll be alright with me until she asks for more money.

As to the article in the Pulse Journal where the Pro Levy people exploded in exhilaration that Mark Sennet showed signs of defecting. Read that article here:

‘No Lakota’ group split on next levy

Some would OK ‘conservative’ levy in November; others don’t want any levy.

Staff Writer 11:32 AM Thursday, June 16, 2011

LIBERTY TWP. — Members of the No Lakota group are in disagreement about whether they would support a levy if Lakota puts one on the ballot.

West Chester Twp. resident Mark Sennet spoke to the board of education Monday, saying the No Lakota group would support a “conservative” levy in 2012 if the board would bypass the election this November.
However, No Lakota member Rich Hoffman, who has typically spoken on behalf of the group, said no discussion had occurred at a meeting about supporting a levy, and he was holding fast to his stance on never supporting a levy.

Hoffman said there may be a split in the group, but he thinks the 50-and-older crowd will stand with him.
Sennet said Lakota officials have made “a valiant effort to try to work and control spending,” but people still need time to recover from the economic crisis. He said he and several developers would be on the board’s side if it waited for November 2012.

“We acknowledge that there were changes made,” he said. “The businesses had to make changes. The citizens had to make changes, and we were glad to see the union and teachers and board agreed to a pay freeze. But if the levy were to pass, then I guess that would be good for the community.”

Board member Ray Murray said he was pleased the business community is recognizing the district’s transparency and how it is listening to the community.

“There are going to be people who are not going to ever say yes to anything, and there’s nothing you can do about it,” he said. “We’ve got to generate more revenue. We can’t survive on a 2005 budget.”
Former For Lakota levy chairwoman Sandy Wheatley said the board and district representatives have been mending fences with those in opposition since the last election.

“Everyone has kind of stepped up to the plate to do their part,” she said. “Now, with all those pieces in place — because this is the only way Ohio has left us in terms of ways to fund schools — I think the community will see this as now it is time for us to put the last piece together by doing our part to support the tax issue. … Perhaps the residents now will be better critical thinkers around if what they are hearing is accurate information.”

Board president Joan Powell said the board will meet for a work session at the end of the month to study an updated five-year forecast and discuss options.

__________________________________________________________________

Mark and some of the other developers in our group have always been about trying to reduce the rates of tax on the properties they are holding that aren’t making any money in a tough economy. Mark just wants to get through a tough year and he’ll probably support a levy. I’ve always known that defection of a few of these guys was inevitable. They were welcome to ride along as long was we all fought for a common cause. We have many supporters of many different degrees of belief.

I do take offense however at Ray Murry’s comments where he says some people, (like me) will never support a levy.

Why would I support a levy when I can see in the light of day that labor costs are the number one problem at Lakota, and the teacher’s unions are the primary culprits that drove up those costs? Why would I think that a silly contract agreement that freezes actual step increases is enough? That’s only a three-year band-aid. Heck, three years ago I remember the teachers union in 2008 threatening a strike demanding higher wages. That wasn’t that long ago and I remember it vividly. When the union did that, I decided that public sector unions had no place in any tax payer organization. So there is no reason to even discuss a levy when so much money at the top is used on union activity. Unions drive up the labor costs not just for a couple of exceptional employees, but for everyone! There are no controls over how much a teacher can make. They are free to get a degree which immediately drives up their salary regardless of whether or not their degree actually contributes to a child’s education, because I don’t think it does. Unions just cost too much, so while they are in place, and I don’t want my money being scrapped off the top by them, why would I support them? If the union was out-of-the-way and the community could see the actual cost of what education costs, then I’d be more inclined to support a levy. I already pay a lot in taxes each year, so it’s not like people who don’t want more taxes on their property don’t support their schools and the kids that go to them. People like me don’t support public unions.

If that is a radical position, too bad, but it’s the facts. People like Mr. Murry are trying to justify why the school board has not been acting as a management protection, because they can’t. They are just figureheads. Lakota will attempt another levy because they have a new superintendent, they think our No Lakota Group is split, and they don’t know how to do anything else. Like Ray says, “We’ve got to generate more revenue. We can’t survive on a 2005 budget.” I’d say, “Why not?”

$10K per child is too high for poor performance, and the United States is not in first place in the world education market, and Mrs. Mantia’s Global Program won’t do anything to help. It’s just another way of dressing up what kids are already supposed to be learning in school.

But the state is cutting funding. The federal government is cutting money too! Hey, folks, get used to it. The gravy train the unions used with all the free money that was lost in bureaucratic nonsense is gone, and the expectation is that local communities are going to cover the difference. No, we won’t be. That’s simply not going to happen.

What’s going to happen is that schools are going to have to cut back their real costs, their wages, or they will become extinct. Property owners are not going to cover the cost of the outrageous expectations the unions have negotiated for themselves. Unions took advantage of government, as they always do, of the fact that nobody had any real skin in the game. When state and federal money is coming, it was easy to divide up the spoils, and they did. As a group, the teachers unions got greedy. Now that is coming to an end as states try to balance their budgets. And property owners do have skin in the game……their property!

So if Lakota chooses to put a levy on the ballot this November, or even in 2012, without cutting the wasted cost in excessive wages schools are enduring, then the No Lakota Group will be there to fight them.

During the last levy attempt of 2010 we held back. I personally had a lot more to throw out, but for the sake of the community, I held back a lot. If Lakota elects to go after the tax payers again with another levy before the teachers union reduces the wages for their top wage earners by 30%, or while superintendents like Karen Manita draws retirement from Sycamore where she retired at exactly 55 years old, then turned around and took another job so she could double-dip, then quit that district to come to Lakota, get a 20K raise then stand in front of everyone and tell the residents of the district is “for the kids.”

Hiding behind kids, exploiting the hard work of property owners to create lucrative jobs for themselves does not necessitate a levy request until the run-away costs are controlled, and if that means getting rid of the union, fine. If that means the union takes a pay cut, but stays put as an organization, fine. If S.B.5 gives school boards the ability to dramatically cut their labor costs, then fine. But it is not acceptable to ask for more money from the tax payer to cover the cost of lost state and federal revenue. We are not picking up the bill when the unions took too much, and they did in 2008. It’s time for them to give back, or move along so we can hire cheaper teachers, that will still keep Lakota one of the best schools in the state. Because failure, of any kind, is not an option.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Rich Hart Explains the Strange World of Economics: The Devil is in the details

One of the most perplexing aspects of human culture is economics. Most people do not enjoy economics. Economics is a large, confusing tangle of numbers and obscure facts. This is the reason that thieves, looters and other predatory parasites linger in the midst of economics, because there is money to be made in the obscurity. When the average American would prefer to stand in their garage with their friends or family and watch football or NASCAR on a TV sipping on a beer, they are all too happy to just throw money at the government and hope everything works out. But it doesn’t because waiting in the confusion, in the rules and regulation, are the hands of many devils hoping to pull a fast one over on people everywhere to gain wealth themselves.

Paul Ryan’s economic plan is trying to solve this problem, and save the country from financial ruin. Many like Ryan on the inside understand that the looters who are putting America in the financial situation it is currently in, have little loyalty to the United States. The looters would be just as happy to live under United Nations control on an island in the Bahamas or in Nigeria, so long as they are wealthy. Those are the people who are against Paul Ryan’s economic plan.

I had the pleasure of meeting recently Paul Ryan’s economics professor, Rich Hart of Miami University. I was very impressed with Mr. Hart’s knowledge of Keynesian economics and overall ability to take a very complicated topic and explain it in a relatively simple way. So it was a pleasure to get Mr. Hart on with Doc Thompson to give half a million listeners a basic, free class in economics that some of the brightest in this country could only get by taking Harts class at Miami University, as Paul Ryan had.

In my mind Paul Ryan’s plan doesn’t go far enough. To me, if the goal for a smaller government is desired, then naturally employees of the federal government will be decreased dramatically, which has to happen. As proven with the school budget issues, it is labor costs that are the big budget breaker in public school. Unions took advantage of the housing bubble. But people were willing to vote in favor of higher taxes because the value of their property showed high on paper, so because Americans are generous by nature, they passed their local levies. They didn’t pay attention to the outrageous pay increases the teachers gave themselves, or the police and firefighters. That group of public employee is no different from congressman and city council members that give themselves pay increases. Yet here we are, in a budget crunch, the housing bubble burst so taxpayers have to look at the actual value of their money, and are learning that they’ve been scammed, and the feeling isn’t pleasant.

On top of the high cost of the public employee, there is the cost of corruption. Lobbyists are a major problem. But waste is the worst. Medicare alone costs over $60 billion each year. There is simply no way to balance any kind of budget when so many people are benefiting off the waste and corruption of these major government programs. You can read the source article for the $60 billion in waste here:

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/medicare-fraud-costs-taxpayers-60-billion-year/story?id=10126555

 

If you want to know who the thieves are, just listen to the people who criticize any kind of reform such as what Paul Ryan proposed. Paul built his plan based on the sound economics of one of the countries finest economics professors from one of the countries finest universities. Are those critics against Ryan’s plan because the economic theory is wrong? No, it’s because the critics are using Keynesian economics to plunder money for themselves and they want the money train to keep on rolling at tax payer expense.

Keynesian economics also called (Keynesianism and Keynesian theory) is a macroeconomic theory based on the ideas of 20th century English economist John Maynard Keynes. Keynesian economics argues that private sector decisions sometimes lead to inefficient macroeconomic outcomes and therefore advocates active policy responses by the public sector, including monetary policy actions by the central bank and fiscal policy actions by the government to stabilize output over the business cycle.[1] The theories forming the basis of Keynesian economics were first presented in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, published in 1936; the interpretations of Keynes are contentious, and several schools of thought claim his legacy.
Read the rest of that article here:

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

John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was a British economist whose ideas have profoundly affected the theory and practice of modern macroeconomics, as well as the economic policies of governments. He greatly refined earlier work on the causes of business cycles, and advocated the use of fiscal and monetary measures to mitigate the adverse effects of economic recessions and depressions. His ideas are the basis for the school of thought known as Keynesian economics, as well as its various offshoots.

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

Keynesian economics does not work as explained by Rich Hart. It can now be officially declared that Keynesian economics is the economics of socialism which Britain was experimenting with under thinkers like Keynes. Public officials like Obama, and those who work in modern government know that Keynesian economics does not work, yet they support it because they either desire the results of a collapsing economy, or they have no stomach for the change in the status quo.

This isn’t hard to imagine. Most people work in an occupation where they know things are wrong, but they proceed on because they don’t want to upset the applecart of their income. In politics, we’ve made public service so lucrative, so highly paid, that politicians will lie, steal, cheat, manipulate, whatever it takes to keep their job. They’ll do this because they tend to be low quality people to begin with, and could not in their wildest dreams perform a private sector job and make as much money as they can in government. Look at Anthony Weiner and how he’s holding onto his job with both hands. He’s doing that because he simply couldn’t work anywhere else. Who’d hire him? A lobbyist? Maybe one of them, but he couldn’t work for any legitimate company. And he knows it. Weiner like the rest of his co-workers in congress and the senate know that Keynesian economics is their ticket to salvation and the good people who pay their salaries don’t want to deal with the complicated nature of economics, so the scam is never dealt with, and the looters know it.

If there is ever to be any real reform in the United States, American’s have to take some interest in economic activity. Citizens need to push to simplify the terminology so they can understand economics, they need to force the budgets to become smaller so waste and corruption cannot be so easily hidden in the details, and this is something that must happen, if any preservation of America is to take place.

So go back and listen to Rich Hart again, and again and begin your economic education so that you can begin to understand the forces that are working against you and why, because it will take more than one or two people to fix this problem. It will take a majority of the nation. This is why the looters fear the Tea Party, because if the nation begins to pay attention, the game is over for them. They’ve already made their bets that people will openly chose to stay asleep. Only time will tell what fate delivers.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Carbon Party, Wine, Motorcycles and the Tea Party: Why Environmental Wacko’s are big business con artists

It was a glorious June 12th, 2011 afternoon. Doc Thompson was hosting a Carbon Party, a gathering that was needed in order to off-set all the greenie weenies as we’ve come to affectionately refer to those pushing a political green movement. Listen here to Doc Thompson speaking with radio personality Matt Clark  talk radio host on WAAM Talk 1600 from Michigan the night before.

It was ironic that this carbon consuming event was held at a winery, a place that would typically be associated with environmentalist. But then when logic presents itself, all the people present were celebrating nature. Trees and all plant life consume carbon-dioxide. In fact, the more carbon dioxide produced the better for all the plant life shown in this video of the event where Doc Thompson was the master of ceremonies and spoke of some of the hypocrisy involved in the green movement, which was quite funny.

As I watched Doc’s speech and spoke with him throughout the afternoon, and spoke with others that were present, it was apparent that here, with the 200 or so people who showed up for an event in the middle of the countryside on a Sunday afternoon when there were thousands of other things to do with that time, these are the guardians of America in this modern age. It was those people as I mentioned in my report from the Glenn Beck event in Wilmington, Ohio that are the hope for America’s future.

The people came from all backgrounds, there were young, there were old, there were bikers, there were yuppies. There were politicians, business men, and nature enthusiasts. What we all had in common was a memory and recognition of all the B.S that the environmental advocates have professed with such religious fervor that logic has been abandoned.

What came to my mind was Al Gore, the pot smoking hippie congressman from Tennessee that seems to have lost all his brain cells during his college days and has lost the opportunity to think. All he seems able to do is repeat what is told to him, and he’s turned the green movement into his hippie quest established in the haze of marijuana smoke. One would hope that a grown man would have evolved like most people do in their lives to a level of higher wisdom gaining an understanding of the symbiotic relationship that humans play in the greater scheme of the environment. Such childish notions as those espoused by Gore and his financial backers can only see life from the point of view of the environment. And the reason is that they really see profit for themselves in the green movement, so like most things, the environmental wacko’s, the greenie weenies, the hippies, the dope headed geeks, the burnt-out politician that cooked their brain in college over drug use see the environment as their ticket to prosperity and a method to achieve their childish world view.

Al Gore would be virtually useless as a human being if he did not enter politics, loot money from the tax payer using emotional jargon, or allowing his name to be used by the socialist oriented green movement to be a mouth piece and front man for their aims.

I recently watched The Social Network, which is about Mark Zuckerberg and the creation of Facebook. Zuckerberg is obviously a highly intelligent guy that was able to write code for computer programs. But there are a lot of geniuses out there. Mark wanted revenge on a girlfriend that found his personality, like many did, repulsive. Without Facebook, Mark would just be another obscure geek. However, because the code of his program was able to crawl through existing data bases and match up similar people with interests he invented something that was highly lucrative to the snoopy aspect of human nature, that desire to be an exhibitionist but doing so behind a curtain of protection. Meanwhile users willingly provide information about themselves that companies would spend millions to get a hold of, spending habits, behavior patterns, demographic information, and family relationships, Facebook is that ant trap where the sweet nectar of the trap proves too lucrative for the logical mind to resist. Mark and his partners didn’t know how to make money with Facebook, until he met the ambitious Sean Parker who had worked with Napster and had extensive experience with the consequences of taking on the music industry with free downloads. The money wasn’t in the free software, it was in court settlements and the threat of what that software could do to existing companies. In effect, Sean Parker was nothing more than a pirate that Mark picked up on and learned to use to his advantage. Zuckerberg sold out to a company of investors that saw more money than just advertising revenue in Facebook. It was the databases that Facebook could create on people who made Facebook worth 25 billion dollars. Think about it, 25 billion dollars for a free service. It’s an ant trap people, sorry.

But this isn’t about Facebook. It’s about looters. Zuckerberg to this day is Time Magazines man of the year, President Obama has private conversations with him, but in reality he is simply a looter that made a free service out of revenge against his girlfriend. He made a weapon that makes it easier for other looters to gather information they can use to exploit the public. Does that make Zuckerberg a bad guy, no. He’s a computer hacker, just like his friend Sean Parker. They are thieves that just like pirates took their plunder, and they had something valuable to other looters, which is an information gathering service. I use the Zuckerberg story because everyone can relate, because most people use Facebook and know who Zuckerberg is. With that definition of a looter established, then my feelings about Al Gore can be illustrated.

I remember when Gore said he invented the internet. It’s been a joke for years. I find it bewildering that in Gores mind he could even say or believe such a thing. But he says it, and seems to believe it. He has the mind of a looter, so truth has no value to people like Al Gore. All that matters is images and how people like him can use images to loot money from people, or better yet, convince people to give him money without bloodshed, or violence. The worst kind of looter is the type of person that convinces people to give away their money while believing they are doing it for their own good.

I remember back in the 90’s when Al Gore was vice-president when the Ohio River flooded heavily down in Cincinnati. Al Gore came to town to show “federal concern” over the queen city. When he arrived the TV cameras were rolling down by the river where a large dry area along the river bank provided plenty of room for cameras, reporters and other VIP’s had gathered. Al Gore showed up and wadded out into the water with his shoes on and suit, knowing that the cameras would capture his action and exaggerate the situation. The people present all scratched their heads and wondered why Gore was standing in the water when there was plenty of dry land. But they were thinking with logic, not with the mind of a looter. Gore, the looter, later went on TV to say that the Ohio River was flooding because of global warming.

Years and years of this kind of looting from people like Gore has went on, and people scratch their heads but don’t take the time to put two and two together. Why would a government even be involved in selling carbon credits? Because it’s a scam, just like Facebook is a scam to get people to put their personal activity and personal connections into a giant data base daily, the green movement is a scam to steal money from people over nothing.

One of the reasons the Carbon Party was such a great event was because it was attended by people with common sense, who all behaved with a level of intelligence and an ability to think, so the wine tasted better because the company was good.

Before I left the event that day Doc Thompson and I were talking, he was holding a large cigar in his mouth as a line of his radio fans were gathered next to him to meet him, hungry for his attention. “I don’t want to tie you up, Doc. Your fans are waiting. But I’m glad you put this whole thing together. It’s a wonderful day, people have a chance to taste what America is supposed to be,” I said to him.

Doc rolled the cigar in his lips so he could properly articulate speech, “Great isn’t it.”

Yes it was. The smell of hot dogs, hamburgers, beer, wine and the gentle breeze that blew in from the west which we could see over the horizon of the earth filled our senses. People were happy, and nature was something we all were openly enjoying. But I realized that the primary reason we were having so much fun was because the event was free of looters, lairs and other manipulators of the facts whose true motive is to steal money for their own plunder, and using the mask of a legitimate cause to do it.

That’s what the Carbon Party was celebrating, truth, relaxation, and understanding in an environment that was the best and most pristine that planet earth and the mind of man can create together. It was a wonderful event.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Tail of the Dragon Coming Soon to a Bookstore Near You: Action, philosophy, romance, and a celebration of America’s roots

It is now official; American Publishing will be bringing my new book Tail of the Dragon to bookstores in 2012 and are committed to giving life to this stunning story. It will now proceed into a phase where their editor and I will work on the final manuscript in the coming months. This process could take up to a year which is why the book is scheduled for a 2012 delivery. It is more fitting for a release during that year because of the presidential election that is coming up.

In the book tentatively called, Tail of the Dragon, the governor in Tennessee is making a presidential run for the White House and he’s putting a lot of police on the street to help his campaign with public perception and the F.O.P union. However, to pay for those police officers, the various districts all over the state have increased their citation rates as a way to generate revenue, to cover the costs the governor has imposed upon the tax payers of Tennessee.

I’ve made it well-known on these pages how I feel about taxes and abuse by authority, so the issues of this story is something I feel very passionate about, more passionate than I do over education issues. I have a long history with law enforcement, much of it not good, and a long history with politicians. Law enforcement imposes the law that politicians create. If you believe as I do, that a majority of the politicians are simply corrupt at heart, lured into office because they lack the confidence to perform private sector work, and attempt to justify their positions by creating more laws, then the process is inherently broken, and it’s wrong to ask a tax payer to pay the salary of an unneeded police officer just so a politician wants to pander to the public’s desire for safety, then use those officers to write citations against those same tax payers as another way to generate money for the state, which turns out to be a disguised tax.

One of the best places in the country where this conflict can be seen is in Tennessee, on the western frontier of the Smoky Mountains in a place known the world over as one of the greatest roads ever built, it’s called, The Tail of the Dragon, it’s 318 curves in an 11 mile stretch of RT 129 that lures every car enthusiast, race car driver, motorcyclist, automotive engineer, and photographer in the country to test their abilities on it.

With speed, tourists, and radical bikers all concentrated in a known area where the law is openly being broken, the temptation of the Tennessee Highway Patrol to gather their citation quotas are too lucrative. Citation abuse is rampant as seen in the following videos.

I set the story of my book in this particular region because I’ve run the Dragon with my wife, daughter and son-in-law and saw the conflict there as a larger metaphor for what is going on in the rest of the country. The south is still refreshingly anti-progressive, so their resistance to progressive legislation is openly hostile. Tennessee is interesting because it is the state of Al Gore, yet they still embrace confederate battle flags at their tourism sites, so a kind of battle is being waged among progressive politicians and the kind of fans that love NASCAR.

The large resort town of Gatlinburg, Tennessee is very close to the Tail of the Dragon, so I set out to tell a romantic story of a couple that goes to that mountain town in order to rekindle their marriage and run the Dragon on their new motorcycle.

Many of the people who run the Dragon view getting pulled over by the cops there as a rite of passage. They figure the fines are worth it, for the chance to run the Dragon. After all, so many people run the Dragon on a Saturday afternoon that the police can’t pull over everyone. So part of the thrill is getting away with speeding on the Dragon and running the gauntlet of police without a fine. In this next video there are a couple of motorcycle riders that were pulled over even though they were driving pretty slow.

The premise behind my new book is this; what would happen if our couple going to the Smoky Mountains to put a spark into their marriage and have a little fun on their motorcycle were pulled over by the aggressive Tennessee Highway Patrol and refused to recognize the authority of the officers and the obvious money scam that is going on. What follows is a remarkable story about the meaning of life; the role of government, the desire for freedom, and the spirit of individuality as the entire reach of law enforcement both local and federal descend upon the couple to force compliance to the law.
Deep in the culture of America, and the south in particular is a love of thumbing their noses at the law, which in my opinion is a healthy system of checks and balances. It is good to dislike too much authority and southern culture still embraces such rebellion.

It is sort of a sad state of our country and its heritage that The Dukes of Hazard, a TV show from the 70’s and early 80’s are still so beloved by millions of Americans, and in the south, the General Lee (car) could run for president and be elected. It’s sad because in the coastal cultures of America, (New York and Los Angeles) the need for this rebellious heritage has been ignored in favor of progressive agendas, so new material has not been produced to fulfill the obvious hunger for this type of entertainment, leaving a large part of America still yearning for such an old TV show.

It is in such shows that the hearts and minds of the young live out their inner desire to be truly free of authority and to live their lives of their own accord, without the government trying to stick their noses into their business. This tendency is still strong in the south because many of the people from that region are the descendents of moonshiners from the prohibition age, where progressives removed alcohol from American culture in the 1920’s. It was the moonshiners that started NASCAR and in Gatlinburg to this very day moonshine is still an important part of the cultural heritage, a heritage that dislikes too much authority.

This is why the typical past time among many young men and hot-blooded women on a Saturday afternoon is a NASCAR race, or a trip to the local drag strip to race the cars they’ve spent all week working on.

This is why riders on the Tail of the Dragon are so willing to risk themselves, and financial penalties on a quest for thrills and freedom, sometimes to tragic results.

Even big named celebrities make frequent runs to the Dragon. Here is a charity run organized by Kyle Petty. Such sites are common at the Dragon. Thousands of motorcycles and cars run that stretch of road every day.

One of the reasons places like Gatlinburg are so popular and relaxing is similar to Key West, Florida. There is an open distaste for the law and people can get away from the politics of their jobs, their communities, their states, and their nation, and relish in a place where honesty is embraced and common sense rules.

I look forward to delivering to America a book that will embrace everything shown here and more, in a book that needed to be written because nobody else has done it. It is a book that is uniquely about American culture and its true desires.

So start looking forward to a unique literary experience that will take you on a journey that only a madman would seek. On that journey essential truths will be revealed about the nature and character of the American spirit, and it all starts by simply refusing to submit to authority and the chain reaction of events that are destined to follow.

2012 is not that far away………………………..I promise. Soon you will be able to read, Tail of the Dragon at a book store near you.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Photographic Genius at Newport on the Levee: The art of an adventurous soul

My daughter, Brooke did a marvelous thing, she is one of the featured artists who is displaying their work at the Stonebrook Winery at Newport on the Levee. They put her photography work on a wall there and she wanted to bring her mom and me down to have a look.

It wasn’t difficult. As I’ve discussed, my wife and I love Newport on the Levee. We love the Irish Pub there, and we love Mitchell’s Fish Market. In fact, one of the best dishes my wife makes is Voodoo Shrimp that the cook at Mitchell’s in Newport gave her personally. We love the view of the city from Newport on the Levee, so it is with great pleasure that I learned that my daughter was a featured artist.

Here’s her website:

http://www.brooketownsendphotography.com/

My daughter is a tenacious photographer. The world is her playground and everything is a subject of her art. In fact, she and her sister are excessively creative people who have a unique perspective on the world, and they capture those perspectives in their work.

My son-in-law, my wife, and my two daughters hit the levee in the sporadic rain as frequent lightning sizzled across the sky. This created some unusually wonderful light over the cityscape of Cincinnati while along the river was an Italian Festival complete with funhouses, Ferris wheels and Italian food of every kind mixed with the fresh rain and persistent fragrance of the Ohio River.

While walking through the winery, it was a pleasure to see patrons looking over my daughters work while sipping from their glasses of wine. I sat in a rocking chair hand-made by a retired engineer and relished it’s comfort as I watched my daughter answer questions about her work and discuss the aesthetic relationships between her nature photography and her self-portraits. Naturally her political photography is stunning, and her Washington D.C. pictures are unlike any I and many others have ever seen.

One of the greatest pleasures in life is to create something that wasn’t there before you made it and then share that with people to enjoy. Among those of us present, my youngest daughter is an excellent illustrator, web designer and photographer in her own right, of course my daughter being featured, my son-in-law a social network guru and entrepreneur. My wife has made a blanket for every child and married couple brought into our family for almost two decades, and I’ve written books, designed t-shirts, been a Wild West performer, a screen writer, an independent filmmaker, and I’ve started and ran several businesses, so among us we’ve had a lot of experience. Every endeavor doesn’t work out, in fact most don’t, but it never gets old to start a new venture and study the dazzle on customer’s faces when they experience something they never would have felt if the artist had not brought those emotions about through some form of art.

If you are looking for that special something to put on your wall that needs some life and energy injected there, go down to the Newport on the Levee Stonebrook Winery and Art Gallery and look up Brooke Townsend. She’ll be the most spectacular photography at the exhibit, so you won’t miss it, and do yourself a favor, and get yourself a gift of vision that will give back to you each time you look at it. And enjoy the journey of getting there, because Newport on the Levee is always a fun place to visit.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
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www.overmanwarrior.com