Category: Movie Review

Glendale Tea Party Rally and the Opening of Atlas Shrugged: the film averaged $5,608 per screen, GREAT JOB!

What you see above is the back cover of The Coming Insurrection written by The Invisible Committee. It’s in the philosophy section of my second favorite book store in town, the Barnes and Nobles at Newport on the Levy. I have read that book in two trips to that store. I started it on a trip to Newport about 5 weeks ago where my wife was looking for an exotic cookbook, so I had some time to knock out about 50 pages, then I finished it on Friday night.

I didn’t buy the book because it is what I’d consider evil. I wouldn’t want to put a dime into the pocket of its publishers. I don’t believe in banning books, but fear nothing in reading the mind of my enemy. And that’s what those people, and any who wish to think like them, are. Let’s be clear about that. But fighting with guns and knives and sticking the decapitated head of my enemies on a pike is getting a bit ahead of things. After all, we are still able to attempt a diplomatic approach where the rule of law still has some weight, and as long as it does, I’m happy to participate in the battlefield of ideas with superior thoughts. But the threat from these fringe leftist groups is looming, and they intend to break down that diplomacy which will be to their detriment. For when and if they succeed, they will find that the only protection they had from people like me was that precious law they sought to overthrow and rewrite in their image. I feel such a warning is only fair; after all, they started the threats of violence. Richard Trumka has insinuated as much and given his connections to the White House, I can only conclude based on the arrogance of President Obama that a violent insurrection from those fringe groups is coming. And when it does, they won’t find complacent participants to steamroll over.

Part of that diplomacy and avoidance of some violent future is in the Tea Parties all across the United States. It’s laughable that many in politics consider the Tea Party group extreme, because as far as Tea Partiers go, they are a lot more peace-loving than I am. On April 15th 2011 it was a particularly important day for those of us that hope for a peaceful resolution to the growing tendency of a new kind of civil war within the United States, this time over class warfare. I was full of exuberance on this particular rainy evening as my wife and I attended the Cincinnati Tea Party Rally in Glendale, Ohio where Doc Thompson was the master of ceremonies.

It was a wonderful event set up in the town square that reminded me a lot of Glenn Beck’s rally in Wilmington, Ohio just a few months ago. Seeing people attend these meetings, hearing speakers like Doc and Mike Wilson, and meeting Senator Shannon Jones it gives me hope that intelligence may actually get our nation under control from the types of people who are openly seeking to rob us all with our eyes wide open, and avoid the future I hinted to above. Does saying such a thing make me an extremist? Hey, gas prices are headed toward $5 a gallon, and government seems to be accelerating the problem pushing us to electric cars. Public employees are threatening to repeal S.B.5 in Ohio with a rally of their own in downtown Hamilton on Saturday April, 16 2011. The people in that crowd were led by people like David Pepper. Look into the faces of freedom’s adversary. Here the Hamilton County Commissioner advocates his narrow view of the world with those like him, conspirators in the economic decline of our nation.

Here are those same types of people at a Seattle Tea Party Rally showing themselves in action and the contents of their minds.

This is the kind of guy our President is. I see his Health Care Bill as a direct assault on my country, and my personal sovereignty. I think his union support is an alliance of thieves, and I don’t appreciate him speaking to my representatives the way he does in this back-room meeting. If I were in that room and he spoke to me like that, I would have smashed him like a bug. That’s no threat, I’ve done it before to people over less, and his tone is “fighting words” by any definition. Very disrespectful.

That tone is no different from an invitation to a parking lot fist fight and I would have obliged him instantly. I can’t believe this guy is our president. I don’t have any tolerance for his “Chicago” style politics. Obama, Bill Ayers, Trumka have openly threatened violence, and I’m the type of person that will meet that blow for blow. I can beat people like that any way they want to play. They don’t have the intellect to rely on, so if violence is their game, fine. Big mistake on their part.

The rally at Glendale was very metaphoric. As I stood in the square filming and taking pictures there were three trains that passed by the station there, each at least 20 to 30 cars each. That meant there were 60 to 90 train cars going someplace coming from somewhere and that made me feel happy. The reason was that I had butterflies in my stomach over the premier of Atlas Shrugged Part 1 down at Newport on the Levy and I had read a lot of bad reviews from the Hollywood establishment and I loved the book and really wanted the movie to be good. The reviewers criticized the film for not adopting to the modern age by getting rid of the train oriented story line. And here I was watching three trains roar by in a half an hour from the CSX Line. Trains are a sign of an economy where things are happening. So it was my first inclination that the reviewers were missing the point of the film and were wrong about it. I had promised the booking agent for the film that Cincinnati would be a great market and I promised a sellout at the Newport on the Levy location, so all during the rally with the Cincinnati Tea Party I was thinking of our next destination which was the 8:20 PM showing of Atlas.

My wife and I left the rally to arrive at Newport in the drifting rain. The lights were on at Great American Ball Park across the river as the Reds were playing the Pirates. We arrived at around 7:45 and much to my relief, Atlas Shrugged was SOLD OUT! I have never been so glad to not be able to buy a ticket. We picked up tickets to the 10:45 show and headed to the Claddagh Irish Pub which is a favorite of ours when we go to Newport. We had a few beers, and watched the Reds game on the big screen while a major storm rolled in across the river outside. We like Claddagh because it’s a medieval looking place full of cubbyholes for the kind of meetings I attend a lot, where your neighbor can’t listen to what you’re saying. If offers the good kind of privacy for passing time, especially with your wife.

But that only went so far and after an hour or so, we went over to our favorite book store where I finished reading The Coming Insurrection. I became angry at the tone of that book, especially what was on the back cover shown in that picture.

We went to our movie; I was relieved that it was good. I already put up a review, so there isn’t any reason to repeat it here. Needless to say the weekend numbers were reputable. The film made a respectable $1,676,917 gross, averaging $5,608 per theater. The producers are considering expanding to over 1000 screens for the next weekend so that’s great.

I went to bed with hope that a violent future can be averted. If enough people become educated, watch movies that aren’t controlled by radical left-winged filmmakers which is just about everyone, and reading books that pander to a liberal publishing industry, while liberal unions are pushing for even more taxes to pay for their very expensive public wages, if the Tea Party continues to do its work and films like Atlas Shrugged are shown to people who haven’t or won’t read the book, this country has a chance.

The voice of reason has been quiet on the front of small government types and the loud mouthed big government types have had the microphone for way too long. John’s work on Atlas Shrugged is encouraging. I hope it goes a long way to waking up enough people to hold off the looters, and leaches attached to public service.

We are not a democracy. We are a republic. Union jobs are not middle-class. If they are public jobs, they work for the tax payer and the tax payer is not required to increase their budgets just to pay for labor we don’t need for a government that just wants to keep growing and infringe itself upon us. For too long we’ve let these big government types have their way with running our government and it’s time to stop. They can stop with reason and of their own accord but if they have in mind violence, they’ll get back more than they can imagine because they don’t have a right to steal from the rest of us. And they don’t have a right to a job. And they don’t have a right to over-regulate our states and nation just to create a job. Just visit your local BMV to see them in action. And on a Friday night, the cops with the checkpoints to issue out speeding tickets and DUI’s in order to drum up business for the courts, and god forbid the tax looters of all kinds.

If there is anything that one must reflect on tax day it’s, why do we pay so much in taxes, and why are there so many that want us to pay more!

I like the trend and I hope that the pendulum will continue to swing to the right and bring things more to the middle, because the radical talk I’m hearing from the left are fighting words that can only lead to one end, and that’s not what they want, believe me.

It’s not radical to not accept threats issued by these radical leftist groups, unions and public officials. It’s not radical to demand that government shrink. It’s only radical to the people foolish enough to take public jobs thinking that government was the way to build a career. The clash is inevitable with these people because they built their livelihoods on the backs of those that supply all the money and are tired of carrying the extra load.

Some of my personal critics have said about me, “you don’t work well with others. You don’t collaborate.” No……I don’t. When I’m hired for a job, I am the dictator that functions as the sole decision maker. Why, because to me, it is a wasted effort to carry around everyone else. I compare collaboration to hauling around a wheel barrel full of rocks, the minds of co-workers and other management being the sluggish rocks that do very little but slow you down and add weight to your load. My view of government is the same. Most of them are just dead weight that doesn’t contribute anything productive to the world around us. We throw money at them just to give them a job, and to me that is a tremendous waste. And the same thing applies to this whole big government versus small government issue. Government is not there to give you a job. Anybody that thinks so is sadly mistaken, and you should do yourself a favor and start looking for another line of work. It’s fair warning from fair people. Don’t make the transition any more difficult than it needs to be. But don’t make threats. And don’t play Chicago politics………………it’s a fair warning.

The Coming Insurrection might work in Europe where their minds are soft and their hearts are softer, but you can forget about it in the United States. Don’t even try it.

Rich Hoffman

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

Atlas Shrugged is Coming: Obama and Lakota need to see it to learn about economics

It took me a full day for the anger to steam away from my mind once I took three showers and spent hours reading to relax from the most audacious speech I can recall hearing from a president of the United States. The president’s speech was very telling, and ignorant. It is everything warned to us by Ayn Rand over 50 years ago.

Rand warned us in the epic book published in 1957 called Atlas Shrugged of everything the president said in that speech and more.  And finally, a movie is hitting the big screen from that prophetic work.  That movie comes out April 15, 2011. GO SEE IT!!!!!! What is most infuriating with the way the president stood up in front of a room full of people and declared that taxes must be increased to pay for a great America, is that he was simply saying the same mindless rhetoric that our local politicians throw our way when they are trying to pass a school levy. The thought from these people is that money equals success, so we must raise taxes to achieve more success……………………………..

………………are you freaking serious????????????????????


Where do these people come from? Obama is a so-called academic, yet did he take a single class on finance, or don’t they teach that to kids anymore?

I recently spoke about these topics but focused on the local issue of the Lakota School District finance issues to Pulse Journal reporter Lindsey Hilty which she composed in the below article.

The theme of the article was that Lakota is operating with fewer administrators than the state average, so doesn’t that mean they are operating more efficiently than other school districts?


No. Statements like that, just like the president’s speech, is full of smoke and mirrors designed to justify excessively high costs of an out-of-control government at all levels, hoping that people will be foolish enough to just look at the smoke and not at what causes it.
Read that article here:

Lakota has 58% fewer administrators per pupil than state average, report says
By Lindsey Hilty, Staff Writer Updated 1:43 AM Thursday, April 14, 2011

LIBERTY TWP. — At a time when finances of the Lakota Local School District have come under intense scrutiny from voters, officials say state data shows they are running a lean operation.

The district has 58 percent fewer administrators per pupil than the state average, and 20 percent fewer administrators than similar districts, which are categorized by size and demographics, according to the latest report released from the Ohio Department of Education in March.

In the 2009 report, Lakota had 43 percent fewer administrators than the state average, Interim Superintendent Ron Spurlcok said; however, “with our recent budget reductions and consolidations, we have seen that number grow.”
While that number may be touted as a good thing for the bottom line, he warned that it puts a strain on operations.

Assistant principals are responsible for discipline and also must sit in on all individual education plan meetings for students with disabilities.

“We realize economies of scale by running larger buildings, so we can economize where possible,” Kursman said.
However, fewer administrators in larger buildings means a bigger demand for their time, whether it is handling parent concerns, analyzing student data or reviewing teacher performance.

Many buildings now share assistant principals, she said, if the principal is called away for a meeting or to direct traffic due to transportation cuts, there is no one left to manage the building.

Levy opponent Rich Hoffman said he isn’t impressed with the numbers.
“I don’t believe any of the stats they give me anymore, because the reality is that they could do a lot more with a lot less if things really get pushy,” he said.

Hoffman said administrators could be reduced more, but they aren’t the issue.

The problem, he said, is “I think Lakota has drowned itself in salary obligations, and when you’re trying to cover 22 buildings when management of those salary obligations has been bad, it turns out to be a catastrophic mistake. Administrators get paid a lot, but there aren’t so many of them that it affects the bottom line costs, so their damage to the budget is negligible.”

There are too many employees netting more than $65,000 annually, he said, and that is the crux of the problem. He pointed to the salary lists recently published in the Pulse-Journal, and said the increase in employees in just one year who reached the $65,000 plus benchmark is unsustainable.

“You have to get the costs in line, but the costs are your salaries … None of us can afford it anymore.”
Hoffman called for tough negotiations as the board as the Lakota Education Association reopen the 2011-2012 school year contract, and said many in the community would stand behind the board as long as it was aggressive in controlling costs.

In fiscal year 2010, Lakota spent $96 million on salaries. In 2011, that number dropped $2 million due to retirements, no increase to the base salaries and a reduction in force. Employees still earned close to $2 million in step raises, Treasurer Jenni Logan said, but one third of employees, who are at the top of the pay scale, saw no step increase.
As details from legislation like SB 5 keep the district in a holding pattern, Logan said, “Inside the walls of Lakota, we’re focusing on the job at hand, which is educating our students.”

This isn’t just centered on the Lakota School District. Not even the President of the United States seems smart enough to understand the basics of finance. These people who think that showing some false numbers like “Lakota has fewer administrators,” will convince people who all the money we send their way will be spent wisely, are sadly mistaken.

Only a fool thinks that, and in the last Lakota Levy there were many fools that blindly spouted phantom facts because they were too lazy to think about the real problem. Just as the President of the United States received rounds of applause for embarrassing our nation in the eyes of anyone that has any sense throughout the world. Their collective belief is that money will make something better, when all it really ever does is compound the original problems.

It is my hope that when Atlas Shrugged Part 1 comes to the big screen that people intimidated by the length of the book will begin to understand the complex nature of freedom and the value of it.

Rich Hoffman

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

Atlas Shrugged Movie Review: Early Slam by the Hollywood Reporter to keep you from wanting to see the film

 

As sure as the sun came up today I knew that the Hollywood establishment would seek to discourage people from wanting to see Atlas Shrugged.  As I’ve pointed out, Hollywood considers strong characters that rely on their individuality as being one-dimensional, or two-dimensional characters.  Hollywood likes flawed characters and communism, so it is without question that the Hollywood establishment is bracing themselves for a strong financial showing of Atlas Shrugged.

Do not expect good reviews of this film.  Most of the press will hate the premise that Atlas Shrugged is built upon, and those same media outlets hate the Tea Party.  So it goes without saying that on a Tuesday before the film’s opening on Friday that the Hollywood Reporter rushed a review of the film out to hopefully set the pace for the USA Today reviews and all other city newspapers all across the country. 

The best way to combat this type of undercutting from the media is to prove them wrong.  Go see the movie and support it with the purchase of a ticket. 

Now, study how the left will attempt to frame the opinions of the masses in the review from Todd McCarthy of the Hollywood Reporter.  Notice that many of the comments are similar to the way the government reports they can’t cut spending, or a school levy attempts passage.  It’s spin toward a “collective” society. 

 

Atlas Shrugged: Film Review

4:02 PM 4/7/2011 by Todd McCarthy

 

The Bottom Line

Flubbed, under-produced representation of the first third of Ayn Rand’s still controversial novel bodes ill for parts two and three.

Opens

April 15

Cast

Taylor Schilling, Grant Bowler, Matthew Marsden, Edi Gathegi, Grahame Beckel, Jsu Garcia, Jon Polito, Michael Lerner, Rebecca Wisocky, Neill Barry

Director

Paul Johansson

The independently financed-and-distributed rendition of the book’s first third is unlikely to generate sufficient box office to inspire production of the final two installments.

“There were a few rare men of talent around her, but they were becoming rarer every year,” it is lamented about the circle surrounding Ayn Rand‘s ultra-capable heroine Dagny Taggart in Atlas Shrugged, and the complaint certainly applies in the case of this botched partial screen adaptation of the mammoth novel that has materialized 54 years after the book’s publication. Although the recent surge in annual sales of the revered and despised author’s fictional manifesto arguably testifies to its continuing relevance, the central battle between fearsomely independent corporate mavericks and hostile big government has been updated in a half-baked, unconvincing way that’s exacerbated by button-pushing TV-style direction, threadbare production values and blah performances except for that of Taylor Schilling in the central role. Set to bow in roughly 200 theaters on April 15, this independently financed-and-distributed rendition of the book’s first third is unlikely to generate sufficient box office to inspire production of the final two installments (the 1,000-plus-page novel is divided into three sections of 10 chapters apiece), although the producers could conceivably forge ahead anyway if their pockets are deep enough. A TV miniseries with a high-powered cast–several were planned at various points over the past four decades–would have been a preferable way to go with this didactic, sometimes risible but still powerful material.

Published in 1957, Rand’s summation novel continues to compel and repel; designed as a paean and exhortation to fulfillment of personal excellence and unrestrained industrial productivity, it is also seen as an abject endorsement of wanton selfishness and the right of the capable few to lord it over the parasitical many. Especially as former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan had been an ardent Randian, it’s recently become easier than ever to blame contemporary economic ills on the fallout from her unregulated philosophy, even if the fiscal blundering of many governments provides equally persuasive arguments on the other side.

 

These philosophical debates can and will go on forever, but screenwriters Brian Patrick O’Toole and John Aglialoro (also a producer) have themselves bungled in their attempt to remain faithful to the letter of the sacred text while moving the action to the near-future (specifically, 2016). Many scenes are devoted to dull conversations among business fatcats about the economics of railways and steel, central industries that helped drive the nation 60 years ago but seem like afterthoughts today (Amtrak, anyone?). Updating the story would provide a provocative test to any writer but could certainly be done; however, to do so without acknowledging the present-day realities of high-tech industries, outsourcing, shifting transportation modes and advanced information technology (the characters here actually read newspapers) places the action in an unrecognizable twilight zone. So does the fact that the central manufacturing triumph here is the construction of a high-speed train (managed from scratch within a few months, no less). Not only is it unremarked that Asia and Europe are decades ahead on this front, but conservatives who might be perceived as the core audience for this film are the very ones currently fighting against fast-train funding and construction in the U.S. 

 

For these reasons alone, a serious cultural/historical disjunction derails the enterprise from the outset. Television news clips portray a nation in recognizable disarray and decay, as well as a Middle East that has imploded, triggering unimaginable oil prices, but these seem like overwhelming issues unlikely to be turned around by the efforts of the laser-focused Dagny to take over decision-making at rail giant Taggart Transcontinental from her ineffectual brother James (Matthew Marsden).

 

Poised, beautifully groomed and impeccably coiffed, Dagny strides through the corridors of male hesitation, indecision and ineffectuality with a fierce confidence shaken only by the inexplicable “retirement” of certain skilled executives and the baffling question she increasingly hears at unexpected moments, “Who is John Galt?” This is a query that may or may not ever be answered onscreen, depending upon whether the next two parts are made, but suffice it to say that in Part I he is a shadowy figure resembling the Humphrey Bogart character in Woody Allen‘s “Play It Again, Sam.”

 

Galt is impersonated here by Paul Johansson, a young actor who stepped in to direct Atlas Shrugged when the original director left shortly before shooting began. The best that can be said for his work is that it’s perfunctory, a word that also describes all the performances except that of Schilling, a blond beauty whose open face, direct gaze and plain speaking do more than anything else to make watching the film tolerable. One has little doubt that, in a more substantial version of this story, one populated by strong actors in the other principal roles, she would have held her own and moreso, justifying the casting of a relative unknown in the most important part.

 

Although ostensibly set in New York City, the film features various buildings and cityscapes recognizable from Los Angeles and Chicago. 

Opens: April 15 (Strike Prods. Release)
Production: Harmon Kaslow, John Aglialoro Prods.
Cast: Taylor Schilling, Grant Bowler, Matthew Marsden, Edi Gathegi, Grahame Beckel, Jsu Garcia, Jon Polito, Michael Lerner, Rebecca Wisocky, Neill Barry
Director: Paul Johansson
Screenwriters: Brian Patrick O’Toole, John Aglialoro

 

Rich Hoffman

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

The Cannibals of the United States: Sacrifice the RICH!!!! Save the needy!!

On my way home today I was riding my motorcycle in the pouring rain and listening to the soundtrack to the film Apocalypto on my Ipod. It was a surreal kind of experience that I enjoy a great deal, and the simplicity of a complicated problem made itself known to me through that cryptic music as the rain tried desperately to penetrate the confines of my helmet.

If you’ve studied other cultures, their rise and fall, there are common themes. Visit any ruin of an ancient civilization and you will see that all those societies bankrupted themselves. They either ran out of water, food, or their currency. Visit Ankor Watt, Chitzen Itza, or any city in Egypt and you’ll see it. Study the past to see your future.

In Mel Gibson’s brilliant film, Apocalypto Gibson showed wonderfully the height of the Mayan Empire and displayed the problems they were having. The Mayans built huge cities, depleted their food supply and built a corrupt hierarchy of politics that sought human sacrifice to appease the mob, and to keep the masses believing that the ruling class held some sort of power with the “gods,” so that society could continue for just a bit longer hoping by some miracle that if they cut off just one more head, or paint their faces just a few more colors so the gods would take mercy on their lives and save them all. In this case the god is Kukulcan. For those of you that don’t know much about history, the main street in Cancun that all the nightclubs are on, is named after that god.

The civilization of Cahokia, just outside of St. Louis, did much the same thing. They had sacrifices which were buried in Mound 72. It is highly likely that this culture along the Mississippi River was trading with the Mayans across the Gulf of Mexico and they had cultural influences on one another. The cultures were remarkably similar resembling the type of societies found in Mesopotamia during the pre-Christian era.
During excavation of Mound 72, a ridge-top burial mound south of Monk’s Mound, archaeologists found the remains of a man in his 40s who was probably an important Cahokian ruler. The man was buried on a bed of more than 20,000 marine-shell disc beads arranged in the shape of a falcon,[16] with the bird’s head appearing beneath and beside the man’s head, and its wings and tail beneath his arms and legs. The falcon warrior or “birdman” is a common motif in Mississippian culture. This burial clearly had powerful iconographic significance. In addition, a cache of sophisticated, finely worked arrowheads in a variety of different styles and materials was found near the grave of this important man. Separated into four types, each from a different geographical region, the arrowheads demonstrated Cahokia’s extensive trade links in North America.
Archeologists recovered more than 250 other skeletons from Mound 72. Scholars believe almost 62 percent of these were sacrificial victims, based on signs of ritual execution, method of burial, and other factors. The skeletons include:
• Four young males, missing their hands and skulls.
• A mass grave of more than 50 women around 21 years old, with the bodies arranged in two layers separated by matting.

• A mass burial containing 40 men and women who appear to have been violently killed. The suggestion has been made that some of these were buried alive: “From the vertical position of some of the fingers, which appear to have been digging in the sand, it is apparent that not all of the victims were dead when they were interred – that some had been trying to pull themselves out of the mass of bodies.”
The relationship of these burials to the central burial is unclear. It is unlikely that they were all deposited at the same time. Wood in several parts of the mound has been radiocarbon-dated to between 950 and 1000 CE. Check out more about this from this article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahokia

Many people don’t even know that Cahokia is even there in the middle of the United States. It’s the giant hill alongside the highway on the way into St. Louis. You can see the arch of St. Louis easily from the ruins of Cahokia, yet people don’t know much about the ancient city. In fact, Cahokia wasn’t even discovered until developers tried to build a neighborhood over it. I wrote a screenplay about the place for some financial people a few years ago and we had an actress and a director, but the whole thing fell apart in pre-production. But here was the conception teaser for it. The history that I speak about is real. The modern aspect of it is fiction.

So why am I talking about cultures declining and human sacrifice? Well, listen to Porter Stansberry talk to Doc Thompson on 700 WLW. We’re doing the same thing now as those collapsing civilizations did then. We are in a state of decline. The mob you saw in the Apocalypto clip is the poor, the welfare recipients, the union workers in the modern-day. The chants are the same. If you go back and watch the clip from Apocalypto you’ll see their union ancestors chanting at the bottom of the pyramid where the high priest is basically saying the same thing that President Obama is saying now. And who is being sacrificed…..who are getting their heads cut off. The people who produce.

In a culture like the United States it is the producers that are being sacrificed through regulation, taxes, Federal red tape. New inventions are being restricted out of fairness. New medical technology is being held back so government can pursue Obama Care.

Education reform is being held back by the corrupt unions that are only trying to protect the jobs of the teachers, forget about the effectiveness on the children. It is new ideas and the producers who create them that are lined up on the great pyramid steps waiting to have their heads cut off to appease a mob of fools.

We are told that the dollar is fine, because Obama and his gang of union thugs are running Washington. Who believes that? Our government can’t even agree on what to cut out of our federal budget, because we as a civilization are paying for everything, Planned Parenthood, which should be for profit, NPR, which should have always been for profit, Social Security which should work more like a 401K and be privatized, Medicare that has more corruption than most countries can endure just on that issue alone, and needs a major overhaul.

All cultures that failed went through these steps. In fact, at Cahokia they had a thing called Woodhenge, which was a bunch of logs stuck in the ground in a circle just to the west of Monks Mound, on the East St. Louis side of the ruin. The only function of that artifact was to convince the mob that the high priests could predict the sun rise, the spring and winter equinox, and other astrological observations. The intent was to prove that they “the ruling class” had mastery over the “heavens.” All they really did was make observations, and that’s all our current ruling class of fools is doing, making observations that they sell to us as mastery over economics.

On the other hand there are people like Porter Standsberry out there that are “really” looking at the real problems coming to our culture, and people like Porter are the kind of people our government wants to cut their head off in human sacrifice, figuratively speaking of course.

All cultures that believe in sacrifice, and most agriculturally based societies do to some extent or another is limited in their vision, and leaders of those cultures should be removed immediately. Because in the world of productivity, there is no limit, only in the capacity of machinery, or manpower, but demand can be infinite. Sacrifice to the “gods” whether literal or to economic gods is foolish and short-sighted.

I saw a sign over the weekend from a woman protesting the government cuts saying “don’t cut down the economic recovery.” It is amazing that people like that are out there, that they believe there is enough money, that the recovery we are having is somehow created by government and not business owners that have decided that now that there are Republicans running a branch of government, they are investing back in business again. The woman holding that sign is no different from that mob of Mayans chanting for more blood at the foot of a giant pyramid. And the high priest will be all too happy to appease the mob so long as there are sacrificial bodies. The same type of signs are being held by people protesting S.B.5. “Keep collective bargaining.” There’s that word……collective. That is one of the most evil words in the English language, disguised as an angel, but doing the work of the devil.

For society to thrive, the rich should be encouraged and not penalized. Those less fortunate should be pushed to work not just given a check.

A few years ago I walked the streets of Washington D.C. and was about to head into a McDonalds to get a bite to eat. A beggar asked me for some change. He was sitting outside of McDonalds right next to a “Help Wanted” sign. I asked him if he had applied for a job. He ignored me and asked a woman who walked by, which she gave freely with a polite smile. The man had lost his pride and allowed himself to be a beggar. There was a job opportunity right behind him, but he’d rather plead to the high priest for the blood of another, which the priest will always be willing to oblige. There’s no shortage of those types of people, power-hungry and craving to stand on the top of a pyramid and cut off the head of sacrificial victims.

Taxes are a form of sacrifice, property taken from those that have, and given to those that have not. It’s not the head of the sacrificial victim, but it is still their property. Estate Taxes are along the same lines, when a person dies, their property, “part of their living essence and history on earth” is taken by government and handed out to the vicious mob.

Sacrifice is the kind of behavior that will only take us in one direction. And it won’t be the way of success. Clinging to old, sacrificial activity, like high taxation, cumbersome education methods, and a stifling environment that fears competition from new technology will destroy our civilization and leave us all as just one more ruin in the history of the world. That is, unless we can take our civilization back from the looters, the high priests, and other derelicts that act as a cancer upon it.

What a bunch of idiots………..

Oh, and while some may say that Mel Gibson is crazy, hey, Mel has done crazy things with women for years. He cheated on his wife, drank heavily, and was generally a wreck of a person for many years, and the media covered it up just like they do George Clooney and Robert Downey Jr. But, Mel’s a great artist and a great director. It was after he made The Passion of Christ, then Apocalypto that Hollywood turned against him. If he hadn’t made The Passion, Hollywood and the press that feeds it would still be making excuses for his behavior. That’s the world we’re living in people. The high priests with all their fancy headdresses want the mob to believe they are gods! God forbid someone like Gibson comes along and shows the truth of something. Is that acceptable to you?

It’s not to me.

Rich Hoffman

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

GO SEE ATLAS SHRUGGED: Watch the movie, learn how the scam works, and vote this November against “collective bargaining”

I am proud to announce that I just spoke to the booking agent of Atlas Shrugged and he assured me that a print of the film will be sent to Newport on the Levee and it appears now to also be showing in two other locations within Cincinnati. This is good news for a film that was originally slated for only New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Now, because a lot of you participated in the action requested on this site, the producers of Atlas Shrugged are showing the movie in Cincinnati. So pat yourselves on the back.

A few years ago I was speaking to an agent about my script, The Lost Cannibals of Cahokia that won awards in the horror and action adventure category at the Indie Gathering Film Festival, and the people that read it there liked it a lot. But a film festival in middle-America is different than the culture of Wilshire Blvd and Santa Monica. And this agent I was talking to about pitching that script to the studios of Hollywood were the type of people that lived that “cultured” life in LA, which is nice, but far removed from what is really going on in America.

Their criticism of my story and a subsequent script that also won a few awards called “The Overman” was “your characters are too strong. They don’t appear to have any weaknesses. People identify with characters that have faults. You need to alter your leads to have something in their lives that they fear, and must overcome by the end of the movie. Also, you’re film is too bloody. And I find it hard to believe that any of these characters could survive the dangerous situations you’ve created for them. It appears to be unrealistic.”

I could only shake my head. Some of the most powerful characters in film history exhibited such traits so the agent was wrong. I thought of Indiana Jones, James Bond, Lara Croft, The Man with No Name, the list in my mind went on as to popular characters that are the kind of personalities that people love. And one of those characters that will soon come to film but has only lived in literature is John Galt.

John Galt is one of those characters that people will love once they meet him in the movie Atlas Shrugged which comes out on April 15th 2011. I think it is important for films like Atlas Shrugged to have success for all my personal reasons, because I have learned over the years that Hollywood certainly has an agenda and that agenda speaks loudly on television and film. The agenda is that people should not strive to be too good. People should not pay too close attention to the world around them. And people should focus on the “collective.” They routinely shy away from stories with strong characters, even though the box office shows a great hunger for such characters. And it is very rare that a major film makes it through the jungle of opposition and ends up on the screen with an anti-progressive message.

And that’s what Atlas Shrugged is; anti-progressive.

In the film you will learn:

• How government regulation chokes off business.
• How people who invent new, and better products are bribed by the government to not reveal those products to the market place for fear of putting older companies out of business.
• You will learn the secret behind farm subsidies.
• You will see how corruption migrates from the smallest character on the street all the way up the political ladder.
• You will see how unions shape public policy through corrupt politics.
• You will see what the true nature of American pride is.
• You will understand the definition of merit.

Those are just a few of the topics from the film and this is just the first movie of a three movie series.

There will be a lot of people that will misread the messages of the film. I’m already reading that liberals think the film endorses high speed rail. The trains in the film are there because trains were important in 1957 when Ayn Rand wrote the book. So to stay true to the book, they built the story around “trains.” The gist of the story is how government destroys innovation. It openly explores the greatness possible in the human race and shows the reason for the decadence of the many that fall short of greatness. But the theme is one of greatness, something progressives avoid like the plague.

So now that the film is coming to Cincinnati, GO SEE IT! If you want to spend your hard earned money on something useful, see that movie on April 15th. Sell it out! Spread this message around to your friends and make sure they see it too. Because in my mind, filmmakers that have went against the grain as much as the producers of Atlas Shrugged have “deserve” our support, because if they get it, Hollywood will be inclined to make more films like Atlas Shrugged. So your participation in the opening is sort of a vote. Your ticket to that film is the same as voting in a voting booth on election night. The Hollywood Reporter will be ready to declare Atlas Shrugged a failure because nobody in Hollywood wants to see this film become successful, because of the anti-progressive message.

By seeing this movie you will do more than enjoy a good movie. You will send a powerful message to a progressive establishment. This film hopefully is the first of a wave of films and stories that will emerge in our society that grabs hold of what Americanism truly is. In American art, it is time to explore the American identity so that future generations can embrace that spirit. That’s a spirit not created in war, such as World War II. It’s not an identity created in the Revolution, or the Civil War. The American spirit was created in its inventions, and its industry. In its skyscrapers and its film culture. It’s in the farms all across the country on a Sunday afternoon with an AM radio blaring a baseball game from a garage.

I have seen the American culture intimately in Wild West Arts shows that I’ve been a part of. It’s watching the guys from the Single Action Shooting Society (SASS) dressed like cowboys and dueling each other in quick drawl competitions. I’ve seen the face of the American in the white man, the black man, the woman, the Indian, the handicapped. The American is in the small town and works from sun up till sun down. They come up with a better way to do jobs because they want to spend more of their time doing something else, which only a rich culture can incentivize one to do. All those facets are explored in Atlas Shrugged for the first time in film history. And you will now have a chance to see it. So go…….see the movie and get on the train that will deliver you to truth and understanding of the world we live in and understand why things are the way they are.

And consider also that if this movie does well, and has a good running at the theater, the film should hit the DVD market around September, just in time for the very important election that we will see in Ohio over S.B.5. It will be a great thing for those of us defending Ohio from collective bargaining if voters can begin to understand what the genius behind Kasich’s plan truly is, and how collective bargaining only helps those in the unions, leaving the rest of us bankrupt. All those themes are explored in this film, so go get in line now, and see this film again and again and again and again………………………!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then go read the book, and see the movie again!!!!!!!

Rich Hoffman

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

“I AM JOHN GALT”: Take Action Now–SEE THE MOVIE!

When you hear the progressive battle cry, that the rich are the enemy, tax them more; you are hearing an ignorant fool. A mindless, aimless, illiterate, unmitigated fool. You are hearing a person that has every aim to undo our civilization like a cancer cell in an otherwise healthy body. To illustrate that point clearly, here is a fantastic video that will give you everything you need to know about such foolish statements.

I have been beating the Atlas Shrugged drum for the primary reason discussed on this episode of Hannity.

In that story, Atlas Shrugged, government brought society to a complete stop in all the ways we are seeing today from those mindless, aimless, illiterate, unmitigated fools in politics that use the mask of public welfare to hide their own insecurities and grabs for power. Thus, it became the effort to confront that evil encroachment on mankind’s liberties, advancement, and it’s very soul by John Galt to draw a line in the sand and bring those parasites to their knees by removing the “men of the mind” from the social equation.

Here is part of John Galt’s speech to those parasites:

And with that I present to you one of the people close to the film version of Atlas Shrugged with a special message and task for all those who look at the progressive movement and feel helpless against it. This man has a challenge for you and a way for you to become a part of history.

I believe that once people who are intimidated by the length of the book, see the movie, they will become “enlightened” to what is now, and has been going on for quite some time, are the real motives of the progressive movement.

Take the challenge, read the book, and see the movie, many, many times. It’s important in so many ways. One of my passions is history, particularly archeology and anthropology along with comparative religion and mythology. I understand how important it is to discover relics from the past to help us comprehend our future. Atlas Shrugged is a relic from America’s past that is uniquely American. And by dusting it off and understanding it fully we can begin to identify finally and conclusively what being an “American” truly is. I can tell you what being an American isn’t, it’s not a white person, a black person, an Indian, a Jew, a Christian, or any hyphenated American term. An American is a thinker, an adventurer, a freedom craver among many things that are complete opposites of everything a progressive believes. It is now time to realize that in all of us is a little John Galt, and it’s time we awaken to that spirit.

Rich Hoffman

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

Creators and Feeders: The blueprint to save America is at your local book store

To those that want to know the answers to everything they are right in front of you. Literature, even though considered a harbor for the liberal arts degree, thus creating just another damn hippie to cast their unproductive concepts of love and peace in a world that is quite the opposite, literature is about truth ultimately. It is in the interpretation of that truth that everything gets distorted.

This is what happened in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which I’ve proclaimed openly, is my favorite book. Zarathustra came down out of the mountains to help “mankind” understand that they can become “better” than just human beings. That’s where the Ubermensch idea comes from translated loosely into English as “the overman.” I learned about Nietzsche reading a lot of Joseph Campbell and was drawn to Nietzsche’s anti-institutional ideas in quotes that littered the massive body of work known as The Masks of God, which is a four volume set that Campbell spent many years writing based on the course he taught at Sara Lawrence College. One thing that Campbell was doing in his comparative mythology work was breaking down the differences between collective societies, such as you find in the east, and individual oriented societies that you find in the Occident, otherwise the west.

Where the west fails, and I’m thinking of Europe in this case is when they attempt to copy the east with their own culture. Somewhere in that attempt progressivism was created, and has been and will always be a disease to the creative power of the individual which propels all society.

There is a reason that you don’t find development in Africa except what the American or European mind brought to it. There is a reason that China spent many years as a stagnate country. They had periods of renaissance, one such period during our European dark ages was quite explosive, but fizzled out only to be reawakened once England handed Hong Kong back to the Chinese in 1999 which they then decided to adopt their culture around which has helped create the renaissance they are currently experiencing. But ultimately collectivism, especially progressivism, is an idea killer that hinders society in terrible ways for the trade-off of social security.

Two bodies of literature jump out at me exhibiting these collectivism warnings. One is A Brave New World, the other is Atlas Shrugged.

I wrote my own book, The Symposium of Justice in 2004, many years before I eventually read Atlas Shrugged myself. I was surprised that Ayn Rand had created similar characters and themes as I did, and she did it over 50 years ago. It might have something to do with the fact that we both studied Nietzsche at some length. I’m thinking particularly of the diner scene, which seemed awfully close to something I did without knowledge of Ayn’s work. The reason? Because truth is truth. There aren’t these degrees of negotiation along some political lines where there are extreme right-winged views or extreme left-winged views and somehow in government these views must be compromised into some stew of thought representing everyone as best as possible. People who seek the truth and find it, come to similar conclusions that cannot be escaped.

Because of my kids, I get to meet a lot of young people, and I must say they are a very disappointing group, bent and distorted around years of progressive thought. I blame progressivism for their foolish behavior, the desire to get “trashed” as they put it, where their right of passage to adulthood is the ability to drink and lose consciousness. That is a pathetic goal. These young people are a soft species robbed of honor because they have been taught to be entirely too sensitive for their own good, indecisive, insecure, raised in broken homes where step parents are a major factor, the whole situation is a mess, and progressive thought is to blame. The most recent catastrophe cast upon the fragile psyche of today’s youth is a thing called Facebook Depression. Listen to Doc Thompson of 700 WLW talk about this mysterious new progressive illness here.

One young boy that my youngest daughter knows lost his job for sleeping and playing on Facebook during his work hours. The kid is a video game wiz so I know there is intelligence there. But he can’t handle basics of reality. For him, it is acceptable to fall off the horse and let the horse keep on running down the path leaving him behind. I feel sorry for the kid because his fundamental belief system will prevent him from seeing the truth of the reasons he continues to fail. You could sit the kid down and scream at him and it would be no different from yelling at a dog that wants to please you, but can only wag its tail or drop its ears, completely unable to understand what you’re trying to tell it.

This kid is just a product of progressivism. I don’t blame him as much as I feel pity, much like I feel pity of an insect that falls into a swimming pool and struggles to free itself, hoping a kind hand lifts it from the water before it drowns. There are millions upon millions of these kids functioning in the world today, most of them completely lost by adults that are just as lost. This is the result of progressivism. Progressives seek a level of fairness that is not earned, but is perceived as a right, which it’s not.

The world is built by people who produce. It is very simple. There is no room for interpretation or negotiation on that simple fact. There are those who create. Then there are those that feed off that creation. The trouble always occurs when those that feed off creation take too much, or stand in the way of that creation. And the problem with modern society is that we don’t create enough, and those that do create keep it to themselves so they can avoid the problems with progressive thought.

Ayn Rand’s book has been out there for everyone to read for a great number of years. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel here. When a congressman or senator says to the Speaker of the House, “you need to abandon the tea party,” they just don’t get it. They are as foolish as the young person I told you about that think something is going to fall out of the sky and somehow fix his life if only he drinks one more drink, or goes to school and gets a degree for a job that doesn’t exist. It is only by getting down in the mud and fighting, and creating a new job that anything happens. The tea party knows what Ayn Rand knew 50 years ago, that progressive thought will kill your country.

She wrote Atlas Shrugged at a time that socialism hadn’t failed yet. In fact, there was a real threat that the Soviet Union might overtake the United States and its capitalist ways. When Ronald Reagan took the gloves off for a bit in the 80’s, we saw how rapidly capitalism could work, and how quickly socialism failed. Reagan’s strategy worked and proved Ayn Rand correct. Now, in hind-sight we have the benefit to go back to her work and admire how she arrived at truthful conclusions that are truly American in their context. The critics talk about the 80’s as a selfish age, which ironically is explored in great detail in Atlas Shrugged from all angles. Selfish or terms like it are cast from those in the progressive camp, from their distorted perspective corrupted by a sense of entitled fairness which does not exist anywhere in the universe because the laws of physics prohibit such a preposterous notion.

One element in that book that haunts me is the discovery of a new type of engine built by a genius that turns his back on the world in a way because he knows that the world as it is designed through progressive thought will reject new ideas because all new ideas threaten the security of people. This engine runs off strictly static electricity. It would never need fuel, oil or any other element. It would run along the same premise that lightning is generated in the atmosphere. The sickening thing about that bit of science fiction is that it is rooted in fact.

I’ve told you on these pages about regenerative medicine. I’ve told you about the Skycar. There are many, many inventions sitting on the shelf right now, that are being held back from society for all the reasons that progressivism fails, and that failure is outlined beautifully in the book Atlas Shrugged.

If you haven’t read it and you want to know the truth of what is going on in the world. If you want to understand why the welfare system fails, why government regulation is bad, and how the feeders in life, called “the looters” in the book are destructive read that book. Forget the mindless politicians. They are looters, every one of them. We must have some level of government in this country, but we don’t need it to be nearly as large as it is now.

It is true that there will be suffering. Those that are feeders off society will have a difficult time adapting, but this process must happen. It is not a matter of right or left. It is literally right or wrong.

Nature does not lie. The reason progressives believe that the earth is so vulnerable is because at their true nature, their mentality, they believe that they can change the world. They can engineer thought. They can engineer control of the whole world. But with nature, it is survival of the fittest. Progressives seek to change that. The reason, well not everyone can be the fittest, so in the pursuit of fairness the strong are attacked, and the strong are what everyone feeds off of. If you bring down the strong, there is nothing for anybody to feed off of. And government, especially a large, progressive government that is extremely expensive is that there are too many people feeding off the strong and society will crumble.

The key is that if you want to be a feeder, or a “looter,” then find yourself a creator that is a fair-minded person that appreciates your labor, because through competition, the creator in order to get a competitive edge over other creators will adapt to necessity, just as a stream will always run downhill and find the path of least resistance. If you want the benefit of that flow, put yourself in that path of least resistance and you’ll always be employed and of a benefit to a creator. And if you are a creator, create. Don’t attempt to be a feeder if you are a creator. You will only frustrate the hell out of yourself.

Every single politician in existence is a feeder. They are almost completely worthless. Yet they believe that they have some kind of dominion over everything that is created. And that is what needs to change. This is a belief given to us from Europe, which is a corrupt notion. It hasn’t worked for them, and it won’t work for us.

If you want to know how to do that, understand what needs to be done or how to fix what’s wrong with America and you want the truth go to your local book store and read Atlas Shrugged. The movie will be out soon also. But if you really want to soak up something that won’t lie to you, go get that book! Today! Then watch the news armed with the truth and see what you think about comments over the federal budget and what we can cut or should cut.

The cost if you don’t take a step to understand the truth, as a taxpayer, is that we will find ourselves in the situation that London found itself over the weekend, which is ridiculous and pathetic, headed up by people like the kid I described above, someone who thinks they are entitled to a good life and everything will magically fall in their lap without them doing anything to create that reality. Because they believe the great lie of progressive thought, which is an audacious naïveté of human influence seeking to alter the behavior of nature itself.

Literature, especially literature that has stood the test of time, will cast light where the darkness of progressivism resides like termites deep in the foundations of our existence. Figure out who you are and be it. That’s the first step because we’re not all equal in the world of Mother Nature and never will be.

If there is a book that can give America a blueprint on how to rebuild the country, it’s Atlas Shrugged. Read it word for word and understand it sentence by sentence.

Rich Hoffman

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

Bring Atlas Shrugged to Newport on the Levee: Ayn Rand’s Epic Novel is coming to a theater near you.

If you’re like me and admire greatly the work of Ayn Rand, then you’re looking forward to the film being released on April 15th called Atlas Shrugged.

I would consider this a very important and timely film. One that contributes to our culture and it gives me great hope listening to the producer explain to Doc Thompson that the film makers are doing everything in their power to remain true to the original book. The last time a filmmaker spent that kind of time being authentic to a body of literary work it was a little film project called Lord of the Rings.

The Atlas Shrugged series will be divided into three parts the first of which is coming out this April. Hollywood will be watching closely how this film is received. It is entirely possible that the success of this film could change the direction of Hollywood for years.

Why? Because Hollywood is dying on the vine. They are holding onto their former glory with mere finger nails. I know a few friends in Hollywood and even worked on a project or two. (Here is the latest. Everything you see that has a whip in it is me doing stand in work for Peter Facinelli. And yes the stunts are all real, no CGI, including the backward whip crack of the cigarette.) See a more detailed article on that here. In other words I know a bit about what I’m talking about regarding the film industry. Book publishing is in the same boat really.

The young people making films today are as lost as the films they are producing. The other day my wife and I were discussing whether or not we wanted to see the film Paul. I told her it looked a lot like ET to me. We’ll probably see it, but will come away feeling a hunger for more.

It is no accident that the films celebrated at the “big” theme parks like Disney World and Universal Studios are celebrating the films of yesterday. Disney World is an obvious celebration of the films from the 30’s to the 90’s with a gap in the late 70’s to the late 80’s. Universal Studios is basically a celebration of Steve Spielberg and the music of John Williams.

But recently, where are the “big bold films?” Well, I dare say that Atlas Shrugged will be one of those films, and once released, and proven successful, will send a powerful message to Hollywood and the liberal film critics that have attempted to steer the direction of our film industry into a ridiculous collectivism that is obviously not what Americans want in the movies.

I’ve said it before, it’s not an accident that Star Wars is still one of the greatest movies of all time, not because of all the special effects, or cute little creatures, but because it has a fundamental message of the individual against the collectivism of the Empire. Such themes run deep in the human conciousness and are understood in the context of a story. It’s not always easy to apply those understandings to real life, but the human mind understands the dilemma well.

That’s why Atlas Shrugged has the potential to be more than just a movie. It has the potential to revitalize our American civilization at a time that many are asking the very questions that Ayn Rand offered in a time that nobody wanted to listen.

Go to the Atlas Shrugged web site and let them know you want a print of the film to be shown at Newport on the Levee. Also, contact that theater so they can set up a screening with the producers so we can help that film prove how powerful the viewings in the Midwest are. This will convince Hollywood to release the film on a wide release, which is of paramount importance.

Go to this link and just type in your zip code to cast your vote to bring this great film to Cincinnati, or whatever city you live in. 

http://eventful.com/performers/atlas-shrugged-part-1-/P0-001-000245241-9/demand?widget=1&viral=0

Here is the link to the home page of the film website.

http://www.atlasshruggedpart1.com/?gclid=CP3P_ra21KcCFcW8KgodShQA-w

Hollywood through films and television forgets time and time again that just putting special effects into a film with stunts and set in time periods similar to classics like Star Wars, or the Godfather, or an epic like Lord of the Rings won’t guarantee success. Citizen Kane is not one of the greatest films ever made because it had great effects or even great acting. Those films are great because they mean something, and the contents of the story don’t leave the viewer by the time they get back to their car in a theater parking lot. Stories filled with big ideas matter. Even low budget phenomena’s like Smokey and the Bandit from the 1970’s hold a special place in the viewers that watch it, because the movie is about individualism in its most raw form, and that’s what America loves.

It’s one thing to battle politicians for fiscal responsibility. It’s probably more important to battle these problems from the aspects of culture, and our movie industry is one of the greatest communication devices of our culture. Atlas Shrugged and the success of its subsequent films will achieve a great deal to educating the millions of young people that are currently getting the wrong message from MTV, the film Hangover, and American Pie 5 or 6, and TV shows like Two and a Half Men, and How I MetYour Mother. Those entertainment pieces show exactly why our culture is failing. And it’s time that new myths communicate the important attributes of American culture, and one of the best opportunities for that to happen is in Atlas Shrugged Part 1.

Some of my favorite scenes brought to life!

Rich Hoffman

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

The Guts to be BOLD: The Option of School Choice

It was bitter cold as I gazed across the windswept snowy tundra of several suburban Mason yards to the towering mass of the Big One’s radio tower looming in the distance. The evening sun preparing to drop over the horizon at only 5 pm lit the tower in a majestic way. It made me wonder if Doc Thompson of 700 WLW would actually show up at the School Choice event culminating School Choice Week at the Liberty Bible Academy. He said he would, and announced the event over the station’s 50,000 watts, so my hopes were high.

“Is this a religious event?” My wife asked me as we stepped up to knock on the door to Jennifer Miller’s house. Jennifer is a former Mason School Board member and firebrand for School Choice. She was hosting a dinner for the “key” people in Southern Ohio behind education reform and she wanted me to personally meet Jeff Reed, who was the featured speaker at the event that started at 7 pm.

“Why, because it’s being held at a bible academy?” I knew what she was thinking. “No. But people firm in religion tend to be support choices in education, so that’s probably why the academy is donating the space for the event. “

Our conversation didn’t have time to advance as the small frame of Jennifer greeted us with an open door. Jennifer is a “small” woman, but she had a reputation for being very “LOUD” when she set her mind to a fight.

She led my wife and me to the dinner table and a reunion with Sharon Poe and her husband. Sharon led the anti-Mason Levy effort and worked closely with me while I did the same for Lakota. Sandra Tugrul was putting bread from the lasagna dinner on her husband Yil’s plate as she enthusiastically said hello to me. Sandy is a former Board of Education member for Lakota and is very active in education reform. She along with Jennifer had realized long ago that the system was irreparably broken, and School Choice was the best option on the horizon. The two of them were the architects of tonight’s event. As Jennifer took a seat placing a bowl of salad in the center of the table, Vicky Roarke, a former teacher helped her out from her seat at the head of the table.

My wife, Wendy sat down next to Doug, Jennifer’s husband, a man we had come to know already and I sat down directly across from Jeff Reed who was speaking so rapidly that he held the same piece of lasagna on his fork for exactly 7 minutes. “Good to meet you, I’ve heard a lot,” he said taking my hand. “Glad to see so many people around here taking an active position on this. It’s a great program. Jeb Bush has made great strides in Florida…….the teachers union tried everything they could to defeat him…..Indiana is moving in this direction…..and Ohio is further along than you might think……….” He went on like that until we reminded him to eat his food. His passion was evident!

“How many states are doing this,” I asked. I first heard about School Choice from Jennifer only a few months back as I was looking for options. My role in defeating the Lakota Levy with the NoLakotaLevy Group was noted, but I felt responsible to offer a solution to the district instead of just saying “No” to school levies.

Jeff gobbled up a few more bites of his food then said, “I’m glad you asked that! So far, Arizona, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, and Wisconsin. Now they’re not what our goal is which 100% eligibility for every student in those states. Right now for instance, Ohio only has 3% eligibility, but it’s a start.”

My wife and I looked surprised at each other, and then I said to Jeff, “I’m surprised that I haven’t heard of this before.”

Jeff was still a young man with a well-groomed beard not yet 40, and fit looking. He smiled knowingly. “You probably wouldn’t. People are still attached to brick and mortar schools. And teachers unions have spent a lot of money to paint school vouchers in a bad way. For them, it’s protective business. School Choice brings competition to education, and that is something they don’t want.”

From that moment I liked Jeff Reed, he was speaking my language.

But Jeff wasn’t done. “Albert Shanker, who founded the teachers union, said it best regarding the union philosophy regarding education, ‘when school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of schoolchildren.’ That is the behavior that we are all dealing with, and why they hate school vouchers.”

Jeff was reflecting an opinion that I had formulated during the Lakota Levy campaign which is modern education is basically being run like a flashy casino in Vegas. When you go to Vegas, or any casino for that matter, they use flashy lights, alcohol, sexy imagery, and exotic buffets to draw human beings like insects to a trap. The goal of the casino is to get you to spend money so the house makes money. They’re not in the business of giving away money, even though they sell their service that way. Brick and mortar schools use sports, local patriotism, luxurious accommodations, and convenience of transportation to get local residents “addicted” to their services. I’ve met many people who display addictive behavior toward alcohol, and gambling, and the look of a parent that has built their professional lives around their children’s schedule at school, and the promise of sports scholarships as a kind of “jackpot” is the same basic human frailty.

“So is School Choice just another name for school vouchers?” my wife asked.

Jeff took a few more bites and wanted to answer, but Jennifer did it for him. “No, not at all, school choice can be that of course, but the money comes from the state and goes directly to the parent for homeschooling, which has grown from 15,000 students in 1970 to over 1.5 million now, the money can go to virtual schools of online schooling, it can go to charter schools, or it can go to your public school. The key is that if the parent has options, it will force all schools to do like all businesses do and that’s be competitive, and that will bring responsibility to what education costs.”

Then Sandy chimed in, “and that’s how we can break up these monopolies that the unions have over public education. It’s just not fair to the students, and it’s really not fair to the parents to have to endure the outrageous costs of maintaining these monopolies.”

Sharon had been pretty quiet listening attentively, “the cost in Mason per pupil is now almost $10,000. And most of the cost of that is tied up in salaries and that’s what’s driving up the cost and forcing these levies.“

“Because they have monopoly statues that is protected by government.” I added.

Jeff finished chewing quickly so he could answer me, “exactly, do you know that schools in New Jersey are spending over $15,000 per student! And they aren’t getting any better results with those students than schools in say, Alabama, or Mississippi which are among the lowest per pupil.”

Sandy looked passionate, “That’s why Chris Christie is fighting the unions there so aggressively. I can say from experience that the unions put their own interests first and that’s what is driving up these school budgets so aggressively.”

Up till this point Vicky, the former teacher, at the head of the table had been quiet. “Back when I was a teacher, when a levy was passed, we saw money. That was the talk in the teacher’s lounge and that was our primary worry, it was about the pay day.”

I looked at her, “how did you end up with this group?”

She looked back at me with sincerity. “I want to help make it right.”

Jeff was all smiles, “may I say that I LOVE THIS GROUP. Man, I wish everyone had this much enthusiasm.”

I looked at my wife, then at Sharon, Jennifer, Sandy, then at Jeff. “We’re very serious about this. Something is going to be done and that seed is planted here in Southern Ohio. We’re here to fight and move forward.“

The conversation went on for another hour going into more detail over those same topics, much of it revealed in Jeff’s speech at the Academy which you can see below.

As 7 pm approached we left Jennifer’s house and headed over to the Liberty Bible Academy where Sharon, Vicky and Jennifer had to get everything set up. I had to find a good spot to set up the camera, whether or not to use a tripod, and figure out how to get good sound to my camera. I elected not to use a tripod because the room filled quickly with over 60 people and I wanted the freedom to move the camera around for different angles. This gave me some rough video moments, but the effort was worth it in the end.

At just before 7 pm I met Doc Thompson out in the lobby. I was glad to see him, a guy of his reputation and talent could have done half a million things on a cold Thursday night on the last of January. I recognized his tall, lanky form instantly and grabbed his hand to shake it.

“Hey, good to see you. “

“Is this the place? I just had dinner at Bravo’s right over there recently,” Doc’s voice boomed. His voice was magnificent, belonging on the radio which is theater of the mind.

“Yes, you’re at the right place. This is Sharon who was on with you yesterday, and this little woman here is Jennifer who was on with you on Monday, the day you had on Kyle Olson of School Choice.”

Doc took their hands and was genuinely happy to meet them. He stood what looked like well over 6’,3” and towered over Jennifer. After his greeting he returned to me. “So, is this it in here,” looking into the crowded room behind us.

“Yeah, I think we’re about to get started.”

“Yeah, yeah, OK.” His long legs took him to the front where Jeff Reed sat, who had been on his show the day before as well. Doc took Jeff’s hand and shook it sincerely. I noticed shaking hands and looking people in the eye was important to Doc, which is an admirable trait. He took a seat in the front so he could be engaged with the speakers. I found I respected Doc even more than I had before. He had just completed a 12 hour day working between 700 WLW in Cincinnati, and WRVA in Richmond Virginia. And here he was as promised looking at education options like the rest of us. He was far more than just another “radio shock jock.” He cared about the issues he covered on the radio.

People fluttered in and took their seats as Jeff took the podium and gave his speech.

Pete Beck was the next speaker. Pete was mayor of Mason from 2007 to 2009 where he became a member of the Ohio House representing the 67th house district of Warren County. Pete before that was a member of Mason City Council from 1995 to 2007.

Contact Pete here:
http://www.house.state.oh.us/index.php?option=com_displaymembers&task=detail&district=67

The next speaker was Bill Coley, whom I know because he represents me in Butler County. Bill did a good thing under the Strickland Administration. He managed to put Ohio on the doorstep to “true innovation” with digital technological learning. Under his plan, School Choice would be the ideal option to capitalize on the Ohio Revised Code that he’s already established, which is signed into law. In addition to being a Representative for the house 55th District he is an inaugural member with Governor Jeb Bush of the Digital Learning Council.

Here is the website Bill referred to.
http://www.oln.org/
Contact Bill here:
http://www.house.state.oh.us/index.php?option=com_displaymembers&task=detail&district=55

After the speakers there was a passionate Q & A session that went on for a couple of hours. The part that dealt with the Little Miami District I made into a section of its own, because the discussion was so constructive. But I put a good portion of that Q & A session here.

In this clip, Bill Coley is addressing State Senator Cates of District 4 who was in the back of the room sitting with my wife.

At the end, we all shook hands and went home. The event had the feeling of the “start” of something much larger. Doc spoke to Coley about putting him on his Richmond Radio show because this was the first Doc had heard about a digital learning bill that actually passed a state house anywhere and had a governor’s signature on it!

What I learned was this, that the money that the state would typically give the school district would go to the parent of the child instead, which sounds like a good idea. As far as who collects the property tax and where it goes is still something that will have to be debated in the state house. As discussed, the current method of collecting property tax was found unconstitutional. Currently the state of Ohio is spending about $4,100 on 13,000 students for a voucher program over 273 different schools. The program started in 2005 and began operation in 2006 and has increased steadily since then. That gives an idea how new the program is. The School Choice program would work much the same way. An amount of money determined by the state would go to the parent and depending on what school the parent wanted their child to go to, they’d cover the rest on their own. Either the parent would not pay the addition property tax and could afford to cover the difference in cost, or the property tax money would go into a savings account similar to the Flex accounts available in the insurance industry.

The reason School Choice as an option is important is the trend is for the cost of educating students in Ohio is hovering around $9,000 per student, communities all across the state must find a way to get those costs down, and only competition can do that.

About 6 months ago when my daughter went to the studio of WLW with me to photograph the experience for promotional reasons we had a long talk while driving there. She doesn’t live with me any longer, but we’ve always been really close, and father, daughter talks are hard to come by without spouses and other people always around. “Quality time” is something that is rare when kids grow up and move away. So we made my trip to The Big One studio a fun, father daughter day, which is why staring at that tower on the way to Jennifer’s house held so much reverence for me.

“Dad, don’t take this wrong,” as we pulled into the parking garage at The Death Star, where all the Clear Channel Stations are located. Scott Sloan was promoting my visit as we hit the garage and my daughter thought I was getting in over my head a bit. “You’re kind of a fist fight in the parking lot kind of guy. Why are you suddenly interested in school reform? I mean, you wear a cowboy hat, and you hate politics.”

I parked the car and we sat there a moment in silence. “Because it’s the right thing to do. I see that these unions are controlling the school districts and it’s bankrupting the community. I’ve worked around unions all my life. I’ve seen them destroy companies, and people making their minds lazy because through collective bargaining people forget how to fight for anything, even knowledge. I see kids your age looking blank and passionless, and I see senior citizens scared that property tax increases will push them out of their homes since they’re on a fixed income. I see parents addicted to the services schools provide with glee, that behaving like education is a right that must be provided to them, because their “drug pushers” have convinced them they’re entitled to a type of collectivism more at home in communist theory than in the guts of what America was built on, and it’s time to fight the drug pushers.”

My daughter made a face. “You’re not going to say that on the air are you, sounds a bit extreme?”

“No, I’ll calm down before I say anything stupid, but between you and me, the kind of extortion these people are doing is worse than what the mob bosses in Las Vegas have been guilty of doing. These people use the children of our community to gain for themselves a level of selfishness that is evil, because they’d be willing to hurt countless families to secure their own livelihoods. And it has to stop somewhere. So we’re going up to the Scott Sloan show and we’re going to tell 500,000 people what the real problem is. And we’ll let the people figure out for themselves what to do. I’m only going to make them aware of what’s really behind the curtain.

And that’s what we did, and that fight is just getting started.

Back when I was in school, there weren’t any alternatives, because technology was evolving. But the guy that made Star Wars was using a lot of the money he made off those films to change the way kids learn much to my admiration.

A lot of people don’t know it, but George Lucas has been out in front of this whole issue for over twenty years. He founded a company called Lucas Learning which would be an ideal program for Bill Coley’s new legislation in Ohio.

Check out the website here http://www.lucaslearning.com/

Lucas has always been committed to helping improve education. Education was his primary reason for producing the very good Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, which used a very popular character to teach his viewers a bit about history at the turn of the century.

George Lucas has done great things with his success and I learned to dare to think “outside” the education box by watching his work at Lucas Learning, and seeing the experiments he embarked on in popular forms of entertainment. I consider that Young Indy series to be a “pinnacle work.” Lucas’s method worked for me, and I used it on my own kids, and like I said, they spent their senior year’s touring Europe. If you want to do something great with your kids watch those films on DVD. They were released on DVD a few years ago and come with hundreds of hours of documentaries that were purchased by the History Channel. The work was for education to be taught in a fun way. The TV show was created as the computer industry was coming to its own, so it represents Lucas’s attempt to trying something different with the way kids learn.

But now that the computer is here to stay, education under the research started at places like Lucas Learning can greatly enhance our children’s lives. George is now involved in a company called Edutopia. Check it out:



When I finished my spot on WLW that day, my daughter and I went to the Kenwood Mall and had a Smoothie, just the two of us. She told me she was proud that I restrained my anger. She knew what I was talking about when I spoke about the thug mentality of teachers unions. She had spent thousands and thousands of hours watching movies that I showed her and her sister over the years, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles being most prominent and memorable among them. My wife and I had homeschooled our kids for a bit, and both kids finished their high school years online. So as a family we have experience in this issue and know what works and what doesn’t. My kids watched me and decided to push themselves into a lifelong education, not just a goal based education to secure employment.

Throwing money at public education just to meet the status quo isn’t the right thing to do. It doesn’t have any merit to me if a school has an “excellent” rating or not. Because the rating system comes from the same people that push the confusing and expensive legislation which are incentivized to support the whole current system that is producing mediocre results. If that’s what society wants, that’s fine with me. But I’m not going to endorse spending over $10,000 per kid to have it.

If mediocre results are what everyone wants, then I want a 50% reduction in cost.

Or we can embrace a program like School Choice to use competition to change the system not only for ourselves, but for the betterment of our children. If you still want your kids to go to Lakota, Mason, Little Miami, or wherever, that’s fine. But if those schools don’t give you good customer service, you could leave. And the threat of that will keep their costs in line.

It’s up to you. I have let you into my little circle of friends here, and introduced you to good people that have been working on education reform for decades. All you have to do is support their work and let them know you want options.

Let your state representatives know you want changes and will have their back if they extend themselves to the teeth of teachers unions and other lobbyist that will attempt to make life difficult for them. Let them know that you’re there for them with an email, or a letter. But before you do any of that have the courage in yourself to be “BOLD.”

Victory goes to those “Bold” enough to demand action. And our kids deserve to have “bold” members of the communities they are growing up in to give them better than a mediocre existence.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Forensic Anthropology Jobs Needed: Another Government Debacle

My wife and I had dinner with an instructor for Forensic Anthropology on Saturday and I learned how there is a shortage of Forensic Anthropologists. That little fact surprised me. “How can that be? Where do you find Forensic Anthropology employment? Who’s paying for them?” It was an honest question.

I received an honest answer. “The shortage is due to museums and other research facilities that are trying to comply with the “Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act”

“The what?” I asked. “What the hell is that?”

He proceeded to educate me which is most accurately described in this definition from Wikipedia.
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The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), Pub.L. 101-601, 104 Stat. 3048, is a United States federal law passed on 16 November 1990 requiring federal agencies and institutions that receive federal funding[1] to return Native American cultural items and human remains to their respective peoples. Cultural items include funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony. In addition, it authorizes a program of federal grants to assist in the repatriation process. It is now the strongest federal legislation pertaining to aboriginal remains and artifacts.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Are you kidding me?” I asked. “What bunch of idiots passed that law? That has to cost a fortune.”

My dinner guest was agreeing with me, but being a man of science, he is eternally sympathetic to funding needs. Then I remembered when he and I had watched John Dunbar’s epic journey into the land of the Sioux Nation together around that time, then it came back to me. The film Dances with Wolves by Kevin Costner came out on November 21st of 1990. And the NAGPRA was passed just days before the release of the film.

The Heard Museum Report had been debated for three years starting in 1987 and had been passed by the 101st Congress as advanced copies of Dances With Wolves was circulating around Washington, after all Costner has just had a wild success with Field of Dreams. So there was a lot of buzz around the new movie about Native Americans. So with the usual sentimentality that engulfs the puffy coffee enriched minds of bureaucracy, they passed the NAGPRA without thinking much about the cost to science, or the tax payer.

“That is one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever heard in the history of bad ideas,” I stated in clichéd fashion, knowing it was a cliché when I said it.

My dinner guest proceeded to educate me on various cases and pointed me in the direction of an article by Jan Bernstein:
________________________________________________________________________________________________________

NAGPRA – Future Applicability Rule
Article written for SPNHC by Jan Bernstein
Does the institution that you work for have Native American cultural items under its control or in its possession and does it also receive Federal funds? If so, more than likely you already know that your institution is a “museum” and therefore is legally required to comply with 25 U.S.C. 3001, which is more commonly known as the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act or NAGPRA. But what you might not know is that there are new NAGPRA compliance rules for what is known in the Act as Future Applicability.

These rules apply to the following situations: 1) The museum or Federal agency acquires a new collection item or finds a previously unreported item that may be covered by the Act (covered items are Native American human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony; 2) A previously unrecognized Indian group is recognized by the Federal government as an Indian tribe. 3) An institution in possession or control of an item or items that may be covered by the Act receives Federal funds for the first time; and 4) The museum or Federal agency revises a decision previously published in the Federal Register.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was signed into law on November 16, 1990, but it wasn’t until March 21, 2007 that the final rule for §10.13 Future Applicability of NAGPRA was promulgated. It was published in Federal Register Volume 72, Number 54 and it applies to existing and newly acquired museum collections. Those are Sections Five, Six, and Seven of the Act. It does not apply to inadvertent discoveries or planned excavations which are addressed in Section Three of the Act.

The Future Applicability rules became effective on April 20, 2007. And on that date it established statutory deadlines for completion of NAGPRA Section Five Human Remains Inventories/Notices of Inventory Completion and NAGPRA Section Six Summaries (unassociated funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony). For you organization, the first deadline may be October 20, 2007. The rule set a six months deadline to produce and distribute a NAGPRA Section Six Summary for a new holding or a previously unreported holding newly located that may be unassociated funerary objects, sacred objects, or objects of cultural patrimony. October 20, 2007 is the deadline for the Summary distribution if the new holding was acquired or found prior to April 20, 2007. Your organization has two years from the promulgation date or acquisition/discovery date to prepare a NAGPRA Section Five Human Remains Inventory/Notice of Inventory Completion in consultation with affiliated Indian tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations. If the new holding was acquired or located prior to April 20, 2007, you have until April 20, 2009 to do culturally affiliation consultation and distribute a NAGPRA Section Five Human Remains Inventory and publish a Notice of Inventory Completion in the Federal Register.

A newly Federally recognized Indian tribe has standing under NAGPRA and museums and Federal agencies covered by the Act are required by the Future Applicability Rule to send Section Six Summaries to these Tribes within six month of recognition. Federal Agencies and museums are also required within two years of recognition to prepare in consultation with culturally affiliated Indian tribes NAGPRA Section Five Inventories/Notices of Inventory Completion.

Maybe your organization didn’t receive any Federal funds between November 16, 1990 when the law passed and November 16, 1995 when the last deadline occurred. But since that time it began to receive such funds. Those funds may be flowing directly to your organization or to your parent organization. For example, maybe you are working for private college anthropology or art department and another department at the college started to accept Federal contracts or grants after 11/16/1995. Those funds have redefined your department as a museum covered by NAGPRA. If this is the case, your organization is required to comply with NAGPRA. If you find your organization is in this situation, you must within three years from the time the Federal funds were received or from the effective date of the Rule (4/10/07), whichever is later provide a Section Six Summary to Indian tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations that are most likely to be culturally affiliated. Within Five years of the date of receipt of Federal funds, or within five years of the effective date of this Rule, whichever is later, you must prepare, in consultation with affiliated Indian tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations, a Section Five Human Remains Inventory/Notice of Inventory Completion.

If your organization previously published a Notice of Inventory Completion, but the information has since substantively changed, the Future Applicability Rule requires a Notice of Inventory Completion Correction be published in the Federal Register. A substantive change is a change in the culturally affiliated Indian tribes or a change in the minimum number of individuals count. The National NAGPRA Program will assist you with this process.

What does this mean for those of you who represent a Federally Recognized Indian tribe? Well, I hope you will see some new Summaries hitting your desk as well as an increase in the number of requests to consult in preparation of new human remains Inventories.
The rules can be found on the National NAGPRA Program’s web site. I wish you all great success in your NAGPRA compliance efforts.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“How can an anthropologist or archeologist be expected to return the remains of Indian Tribes when much of the tribal movements aren’t even understood by anybody yet? There are still completely mysterious cultures that no science organization understands regarding Native Americans.” I was thinking of Cahokia outside of St. Louis, and several of the mound builders in the Ohio Valley. The Shawnee had in fact migrated from Florida before settling in Ohio. Few tribes could be traced back for thousands of years.

The instructor laughed. “That’s part of the problem. There are a lot of finds and burial relics that predate 1492, so it is nearly impossible to return cultural items to specific tribes.”

I was getting angry. “What about the ancestors of Anglo Saxons that were fleeing tyrants of Europe to settle the frontier that were cannibalized in giant kettles and eaten like soup, entire families were slain for no reason what-so-ever.”

“That’s not politically correct,” he laughed at me.

“That’s politics, which is the same as what comes out of an elephants ass.”

“Well,” he said, “its business. Laws like that put people to work and make people feel like they’re doing something important.”

He mentioned Bernstein and Associates, who I looked up and read their literature.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Bernstein & Associates, LLC
We work with Indian tribes, museums, universities, and governmental agencies on Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) compliance projects.

Services we provide to our clients

NAGPRA Grant Writing
We write successful Consultation/Documentation and Repatriation grant proposals.
Our clients have received over $1,000,000 (one million dollars) in
NAGPRA Consultation/Documentation and Repatriation Grant grant awards.
Annually since 1999, we have written at least one NAGPRA Consultation/Documentation grant for clients and every year we’ve had a grant funded.

Jan Bernstein teaches a two-day NAGPRA Grant Writing Seminar for the National Preservation Institute.

NAGPRA Consultation Support
There is a tremendous amount of work that goes into NAGPRA consultation planning, implementation, documentation, and follow-up. Official tribal representatives frequently praise our culturally sensitive, insightful, respectful approach to consultation. Bernstein & Associates helps Indian tribes, museums, and federal agencies with all phases to whatever degree suits your needs:
• Meeting planning
• Consultation preparation including document research and assembly
• Consultation documentation
• Consultation follow-up

Since 1990, we have organized and facilitated several hundred individual and group consultations with tribes that have traditional territory in all regions of the country including Alaska and Hawaii.

Repatriation, Physical Transfer, and Reburial
We have worked with tribal leaders, official tribal NAGPRA representatives, and traditional religious leaders in the Southwest, Plains, Great Basin, and Southeastern US as well as Peru (non-NAGPRA) to facilitate the repatriation and reburial of nearly 1000 individuals and hundreds of cultural items. Bernstein & Associates is available to:
• Write repatriation grant proposals for up to $15,000 to defray the costs associated with reburial
• Provide assistance in writing valid repatriation requests and repatriation claims
• Write draft notices of intent to repatriate
• Facilitate the development and implementation of reburial plans and agreements

NAGPRA Summary and Human Remains Inventory Preparation
Because of the long-standing, positive working relationships that we have built with the tribes throughout the U.S since the mid 1980s, we are extremely successful in aiding clients in the preparation of culturally sensitive NAGPRA Summaries and Inventories. Every client utilizes our services in a slightly different way. Some of the many services we provided to clients are:
. Assess collections to determine which tribes should receive summaries and invitations to consult on cultural affiliation for development of Inventories
– Write letters to tribes using our tribal contact database, which is constantly updated with current contact information for tribal leaders and NAGPRA reps, as well as consultation style preferences
– Initiate Summary consultation after initial correspondence
– Facilitate NAGPRA consultation conferences

Strategic Planning

We help clients assess what needs to be done to comply with NAGPRA, how long it will take, and develop a chronology. We then break it down into manageable projects that could be funded by grants for museum clients. We provide clients with a written plan that can be used to track progress.

____________________________________________________________
“So it’s all about getting federal grants,” I asked.

He smiled and sipped his wine. “It’s always about money, and that’s why there’s a need for Forensic Anthropologists.”
Then our conversation over the rest of the wine migrated to the Kennewick Man, which I found a nice back story below.
__________________________________________
Source World of Forensic Science
The remains of an ancient human found along a river in Kennewick, Washington, in 1996 set off a heated debate about the ownership and future of the skeleton. Scientists argued that the skeleton, dubbed Kennewick Man, could provide new information about human migration in North America, while Native Americans claimed him as an ancestor and wanted to bury him according to their rites. Forensic anthropological findings and cultural evidence were presented in court procedures over the course of nine years while the fate of the Kennewick Man was debated.

The story of Kennewick Man began in July 1996, when two college students watching hydroplane races found a human skeleton along the Columbia River. The young men turned the remains over to local police, who realized that they were probably very old. The bones were then given to forensic anthropologist James Chatters for evaluation. Chatters reconstructed the skeleton, which was 80–90% complete. He determined that it was from a man who was probably five feet nine or 10 inches and about 40–50 years old when he died. He showed little evidence of arthritis, indicating that he wasn’t used to carrying heavy weights and that he might have been a wandering hunter. Dental examinations showed that the skull contained 30 of the 32 teeth and that they were in good shape, indicating that he probably had a diet that included lots of soft foods like meat. He was taller and thinner than most ancient Native Americans and the back of his skull was not flattened from a cradleboard as is commonly observed in skeletons of ancient Native Americans. In addition, the man had a stone spear point lodged in his pelvis and there was evidence of severe trauma to his rib cage that probably limited the use of his arm. Using computerized tomography (CT), Chatters determined that the spear point was serrated and leaf-shaped and typical of the types of spears used between 8500–4500 years ago. He hypothesized that the skeleton was either from a European pioneer who had been attacked by native people using stone-age weapons or from an ancient human. Chatters sent pieces of the bones to a laboratory for carbon dating, which determined that the age of the skeleton was between 9,200–9,400 years old, making the skeleton one of the oldest, and most complete, ever found in North America.
Once the age of the skeleton was determined, several groups came forward, vying for control of the remains. A group of five Native American tribes in the region, the Umatilla, the Yakama, the Nez Perce, the Wanapum, and the Colville, wanted to accord the remains the same rites given to any Native American, namely a speedy burial. They cited the legal authority of the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act (NAGRA), which requires the return of American Indian remains to tribes. As news of the unique find spread throughout the scientific community, a coalition of eight anthropologists and archaeologists petitioned for their right to study the ancient remains prior to burial. The scientists believed that study of the Kennewick Man could reveal important information about early human migrations into North America. The Native American group believed that any manipulation of the remains would show enormous disrespect to the dead and vehemently opposed scientific investigation of the skeleton, which they called the Ancient One. Because some of the features of the Kennewick Man, such as his height and the shape of his skull, indicated that he might not be of Native American ancestry but rather of European descent, a group of people representing the ancient Norse religion called Asatru also petitioned the court for the right to the remains.

The ensuing legal battle raged for more than nine years. One of the key questions of debate in the courts concerned whether or not the skeleton was subject to NAGRA. NAGRA requires that all Native American remains be returned to the tribe for burial, however it was unclear if the Kennewick man was of Native American ancestry. Eventually the court ruled that some scientific study was required in order to establish the origin of the skeleton and between 1998 and 2000, the Department of the Interior coordinated these studies. A 1999 physical examination of the bones established that the Kennewick Man shared most physical characteristics with people from Southern Asia. In April 2000, samples of bone from the Kennewick Man’s skeleton were removed and sent to two different laboratories for DNA testing. Because of the age of the bones, it was impossible to extract sufficient DNA for analysis and the results of the study were inconclusive. After a series of appeals by all sides, in February 2004, a U.S. Federal judge ruled that it was impossible to prove that the Kennewick Man’s ancestry was culturally affiliated to any of the Native American tribes in the region and gave scientists the right to go forward with their investigation. In 2005, plans were outlined for study three-phase study involving as many as 23 different scientists.

The dinner was over and it was time to go home. The impact of this NAGPRA has seriously hampered science by bringing politics into the whole business and allowed ourselves to be hampered by sensitivity. America had allowed our guilt over pushing the Native American’s westward to cripple us the same way we currently do over slavery, neither of which we can do anything about now. All we can do is learn from those experiences, which is what science is all about.

Instead of learning and expanding our worldly knowledge, we’re wasting time appeasing political factions, getting grants so we can move some bones around the country and argue over bones that pre-date our known understanding of history, which is shallow at best.

But that is the nature of politics. It’s equivalent to living life in a straight jacket. All I can do is shake my head at the invention of yet another useless government created position, a Forensic Anthropologist that spends less time digging and understanding the past, and more time filling out papers to qualify for federal grants.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com