“I WAS ONLY DOING MY JOB”: Why Lois Lerner should be tarred and feathered

When John Adams defended the shooters of the Boston Massacre the essence of the defense was that the soldier, who fell under pressure from a raging mob—largely led by John Adams cousin Sam, accidentally fired into the crowd launching a barrage of shots from the other English troops killing several in the crowd. The defense was that the soldier was simply doing his job as a servant to the Crown and the uniform. Later of course John Adams would take up the patriot cause more and more until he would be an eventual President of The United States. However, the foundations of his argument hastens back to the many evils often perpetrated by individuals in service to a system created by collectivism and uttered by the simple words—“I was only doing my job.”

The term is used daily all across the world when phrased as an explanation for something that goes wrong. The presumption is that the individual is somehow disassociated from an act because of service to a system and the requirements of surrendering thought to collective action. When somebody does something bad against someone else they often look for the escape—“I was only doing my job” to alleviate responsibility for their actions.

For instance, when a cop gives an expensive ticket to a housewife on her way to the grocery store and she declares that the only reason she was getting a ticket is because she’s driving a nice car, lives in a nice area, and has a nice life and can therefore pay the ticket without further trouble for the court—the cop says—“I am only doing my job.” With those simple words the officer shrugs off any personal responsibility for decisions and surrenders his actions to the benefit of the collective whole even though he did target the housewife instead of the Cheech and Chong look-a-likes who might have been in the next car. The housewife was an easy target, low confrontation type who typically pays the fee without any trouble. The other types might not even have the money for the fee creating defaults in court, time in jail, and all kinds of further work for the officer, so he picked the housewife for a ticket and blamed the system he served.

When a White House spokesman lies to the public to defend a president guilty of many crimes—the spokesman claims that “I was only doing my job.” When a lawyer defends a murderer whom he knows is guilty but provides a defense anyway doing whatever may be done to get the client off the punishments for the accused crime the lawyer says—“it is my job.” The term itself refers to the notion that crimes can be committed so long as they are for a collective causes within an institutional system—but if that same act is committed between individuals, then punishment is expected.

This term, “I was only doing my job” is an old archaic notion left over from our primitive past as nomads and hunters and gathers where a village chief pointed the society they led to the higher cause of collective salvation. Modern society is only a few hundred years removed from this type of remnant behavior, so the type of individuality represented by American philosophy has not yet been biologically accepted as a new static pattern socially. People are still socially, mindless creatures trying to figure out where they stand in the grand scheme of things and their personal focus is still centered on service to a system over their own impulses to think. This is what is meant when someone declares, “I am only doing my job.”

Responsibility is not lost to the phrase, just the acknowledgment of an imposition. It is impossible to blame a system blob like presence like the “federal government, or a corporation over the individual behavior of the participants. When the police declare that they are just doing their job to kick in doors and arrest people for charges more politically motivated than attempts at justice—they are allowing the institution and their service to it to guide their thought instead of contemplating the value of an order given by a “superior.” When something goes wrong, they declare—“I was just following orders.” In this fashion the current IRS scandals was thought to be avoided as the participants taken individually are likely good people who shop at the same stores as everyone else, raise kids, see movies and eat at restaurants. But when they were asked by Lois Lerner to perform illegal actions of activism they said to all who questioned them, “I am only doing my job.” In this way many crimes were committed by the IRS because the leader at the time was a political activist using the arm of the IRS for personal conquest of opponents to a big government philosophy.

When Commissioner of Customs John Malcolm was accused of telling on tea smugglers in Boston in 1773 he was stripped, tarred and feathered and paraded around the city as a victory against tyranny. Before the lynching the man attempted to declare—“I’m just doing my job” hoping that it would relieve him of judgment by the angry mob who was sick of taxation without representation and the monopoly power of the tea supply company to levy taxes. The mob, led again by Sam Adams and witnessed by his cousin John held the Commissioner responsible for his individual actions not as a member of the East India Company or a favored member of the Crown in England—but as an individual who made a conscious decision to participate in a system perpetrating tyranny against the colonies. The difference between then and now is that the Sons of Liberty involved in the Boston Tea Party were holding individuals accountable for their evils instead of allowing the responsibility of a “system” to suck blame like a black hole—and this forced change.

By those who resent America the Boston Tea Party is often thought of as a terrorist act comparable to something like the World Trade Center attack, or the Boston Marathon Bombing. But there is a distinct difference that must be brought to light. The radicals of Islam, and other related tribal mentality terrorism is utilized to attack the collective mass through fear to have an impact on the institutions represented. For instance, the World Trade Center attack was designed to strike at the American economy as an institution by attacking a collective symbol—the sky scrapers of economic activity. The essence of the Tea Party attack in 1773 Boston was to remove the mask of individual responsibility to collective evil—by negating the term—“I was only doing my job.”

The crises that John Adams felt—America’s second president—was that he had defended that institutional position when defending the Red Coats during the Boston Massacre. Because of his fair and civil defense of the Crown’s army, Adams was offered into the elite circles of the King’s personal advisors as a reward. Yet Adams turned away from this being appalled by the actions leading up to the Boston Tea Party ultimately he made the decision as a very good lawyer to stand behind individual merit instead of collective sacrifice. By the time he was nominated to attend the First Continental Congress, he had evolved as a person who could argue in defense of men guilty of crime by declaring that “they were only doing their jobs” and begin holding people accountable for their individual actions in spite of their role in the institutional representation.

Much evil is conducted behind the façade of goodness to an institutional cause. But this does not get people off the hook of judgment. They are still required to be good people and to make decisions based on what’s right as an individual–opposed to an entity functioning as a tyranny because of institutional commitment to non-thinking collectivism. The Boston Tea Party was an act of accountability—in not allowing individuals to hide behind institutional evils. The 9/11 terror attacks were collectivist attacks upon an institution thought of as American imperialism. In that circumstance the terrorists were individuals serving a collective desire—whether that desire was world bankers advancing their investments, or crazed lunatics committed to Islam it does not matter. One was an act of aggression for the good and one was for the bad. The difference between good and bad in this case is the commitment to individual value or collective based institutional assessment. America was formed upon individual value and it is there that the great differences reside. It is why John Adams came to realize that his cousin Sam was actually not such a provocateur and was actually standing for something unique on the world stage—a commitment to justice as judged by individuals as opposed to institutional preservation. In this case the term, “doing my job” has roots in the value of the individual instead of institutional concerns and does not allow vile acts to be performed behind a curtain of indecision, such as what has been happening at the IRS which dictates another type of Boston Tea Party where the individuals helping conceal the crimes should be tarred and feathered in pursuit of justice that has value where it is otherwise vacant. And this should be the fate of Lois Lerner so to send the message that institutional preservation is not going to hide behind the evils, lies and deliberate crimes of IRS leaders and their political activism paving the way for attacks against value. She was not “doing her job,” she was allowing tyranny to spread through institutional corruption and that deserves punishment.

Rich Hoffman

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Saving a Cincinnati ‘Ghost Ship’: History and methods of resurrecting the ‘Sachem’

This is part two of a story previously articulated. CLICK HERE TO SEE PART ONE.

At first a visit I took to the “Ghost Ship” of Cincinnati was just to confirm that it was there and provide my daughter with an interesting subject to photograph, as she is a professional photographer. But after doing a little research it became quickly evident that there was more to the story of this ancient vessel rusting away in a tributary of the Ohio River across from Lawrenceburg, Indiana. The story of the ship was a compelling one describing a century of exotic adventures. It was certainly an oddity that such a historic vessel would end up beached in a completely foreign setting from the Caribbean Sea where it one time roamed. Upon seeing the ship after doing the research of its history it was easy to conclude that the Sachem had a tenacity which commanded respect and was in the fight for its life surrounded by a hostile forest environment that is trying desperately to denigrate it from rust to soil once again. So the trip my daughter and I took became more than a photographic voyage into the wooded areas of Northern Kentucky, it became an investigation into the viability of actually rescuing once again the ship that D’Andrea LaRosa is trying to raise money to save through her Lawrenceburg Art Foundation seen at the link below. The current owner Robert Miller out of money for many years now is in Mexico and had saved the ship once before but appears to not have the resources to do it again, leaving us to contemplate the condition of the ship during July when the water level was low and the ship could be seen from all angles feasibly. The walk about that ship can be seen in the video below with a visual commentary on what we were seeing.

http://www.dandrealarosaartfoundation.org/SachemCampaign.html

Looking into the life more of Robert Miller to discover if there was any way of helping the guy finish the restoration project of the Sachem which he so boldly attempted, I ran across the article below describing the conditions of the first rescue from the scrap yard as far back as 1985—which went into great detail of how the ship ended up from New York to Lawrenceburg on the Ohio River. Since the article is so old I am including it in its entirety for preservation purposes but link the original article following the text. It is quite a story describing a vessel that was much closer to being destroyed a long time ago than had been previously reported.

PROUD ‘LADY’ RESCUED FROM HUDSON SLUDGE

Frances Ingraham Staff writer

Section: LIVING TODAY, Page: G1

Date: Sunday, September 14, 1986

The Sachem, a privately owned 187- foot yacht, built in 1902, once was an elegant lady of the sea. But time played its role, fortunes tossed it around, and by the time she was barely 50 years old, she was given up for dead.

However, that’s not to be. Not since Robert “Butch” Miller of Cincinnati surfaced and is determined to bring it back to life. “I’d been looking around probably eight or nine years for a steam yacht,” he said. “Not necessarily this one, and not with any intentions of purchase, because I figured it would be out of range financially for me. But I hadn’t seen any in a museum, any restored, any sunk on the bottom.. There just weren’t any around.”

However, stuck there in the sludge, where the Hudson twists into New Jersey, was the once-noble Sachem.

Seated in his cramped and cluttered living quarters on the ship that has now been raised, and docked at the Riverview Marina in Catskill, Cincinnati businessman Miller recalled how the forgotten ship became his.

He first saw it advertised for sale in Boats and Harbors magazine, but when he arrived at the site – in West, New York, N.J. – he discovered it was an endless hulk of rust bogged in the Hudson.

“The (seller) was selling his property,” he recalled, “and this was the last thing that was left. Everybody was afraid of it. They had tried to move it out a couple of times and it didn’t move. They tried to move it with bulldozers,” without success. Miller had no idea he would find it in this condition.

All the ad mentioned was that the vessel was a steel hull, it had an engine that wasn’t in running condition, and the size and the year the vessel was built.

“I thought, ‘Wow! That could be about the size of one of those old steam yachts!'” he recalled.

Miller decided to buy and restore the vessel, no matter what it took. So he paid the $7,500, called in the bulldozers and tugs and eventually prodded it in the Hudson, in the spring of ’85.

The upper deck was a shambles, leaving him the choice of sleeping outside or in the bathroom – which he didn’t recognize until he took a couple of inches of mud off it. The hull was sloshing with rain water. Parts of it leaked.

Miller wasn’t discouraged.

With his mother handling the family business of manufacturing auger bits and wire-stringing devices in Cincinnati, 35-year-old Miller has been living on, and patiently restoring, his “dream boat” ever since. Occasionally, he returns to be with his wife Deborah, a court stenographer in Cincinnati, and their five-year-old son.

One of these days, Miller says he hopes to sail the Sachem home – a 2,600-mile voyage through the Erie Canal, the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi to the Ohio River.

Just in case he should break down on his way, Miller has also bought a 12- foot, 1881 tug with a powerful engine for $1,250. Another reason he bought the tug was to save the $200 an hour it would have taken him to have the Sachem professionally tugged from Brooklyn to New Jersey before he could get his vessel going.

But why all the fuss? Why all the toil, the time away from home? Why has Miller already spent close to $50,000 to get the old tub going, and expects to spend close to $1 million before his dream boat no longer is a nightmare?

Because the Sachem isn’t just any boat, he reasoned.

The Sachem, a steel-hulled steam yacht, first named the Celt, was built by Pusey & Jones, Wilmington, Del., for a Manhattan entrepreneur J. Rogers Maxwell and launched in April 1902.

When he died, Maxwell’s widow sold it to a Matt B. Metcalf of New York City who continued to use it as a pleasure craft until 1917.

With World War I under way, the U.S. Navy requisitioned it. They thoroughly refitted the boat – removing the masts, sealed the ornate brass- fringed portholes with steel, raised the sides to make it ocean-worthy, added military navigational equipment…

By the time they were through with it, the yacht resembled a battleship.

She was pressed into service as a harbor patrol craft but was better known, at that time, as a floating laboratory for inventer Thomas A. Edison.

On board, Edison worked on and perfected more than 30 military aids, including underwater detection devices, the fog bomb, efficient nautical steering devices, underwater searchlights, airplane detectors, ship-to-ship telephonic communication.

After the war, in 1919, the Navy returned the Sachem to Metcalf who sold it to a Jake Martin. After using it for a years as a fishing charter boat out of Sheepshead Bay, L.I., the Sachem became the flagship of the Circle Line sightseeing service in Manhattan.

The vessel – close to 24 feet wide and sitting about 13 feet in the water – originally contained two deck houses, forward and aft, of solid mahogany with teak sills and brass handrails.

The furnished and accessorized state rooms, which were also finished in mahogany had adjoining bathrooms with mosaic-tiled floors, porcelain or vitreous walls that were five feet deep. It was equipped with modern plumbing and electric power throughout. The vessel was designed as a schooner, its stout masts made of Oregon pine. The engine was a four-cylinder powerhouse in an open engine room.

Miller added: “Norman Brauer, the curator of the South Street Seaport Museum (in New York City) said that there are only three of these steam engines left in the world.”

The past year “hasn’t been all unique experiences and fun for me,” said Miller. “You can’t just pull up to any ol’ dock and tie this boat up. You need a commercial-size dock and security for insurance and personal reasons.”

When he first rescued the ship, Miller he towed it to a lumber yard in Brooklyn and tied up to the loading docks.

With the engine in need of repairs, he said he would spend that time with interior renovations, then sail it to Cincinnati for further work.

It hasn’t quite worked out that way, though.

A gang of vandals applied an axe to the mahagony panels in the cabin, went to work with cans of spray paint, made off with the 2,000-pound anchor, most of Miller’s tools, a steam cleaner, band saws, paint remover, engine parts – even the garbage.

Late last September, it happened again: Vandals pitched the 900-pound engine heads overboard.

Miller tried to flee the damned area, but chronic engine problems had him grounded at the expensive Bay Street landing on Staten Island.

“It was kinda fun and scary,” Miller recalled. “I’d watch the Columbian freighters come in and vans from nowhere would pull up and park in the lot. The FBI kept an eye on me before the President’s arrival (for the Fourth of July Statue of Liberty celebrations). There was no protection or fences. Anybody, who wanted to come up on the boat, could.”

On the lighter side, while docked there, rock queen Madonna taped a fleeting moment of her new video “Papa Don’t Preach”in front of the boat’s bow.

During the past few months, Miller has shared his boat with an aging Afgahn hound. He said he has existed on a steady diet of canned goods, peanut butter, jelly, fruit and any produce he can buy.

One day soon, Miller hopes to be home with his “dream.”

“I’ve been interested in boats since I was 10 years old,” he said. “I always wanted to keep on going and not go back home at the end of the day. I thought that was the only way to go. My dad always had boats. I’ve never seen a boat or ship I didn’t want to have. I almost bought a 350-foot passenger cargo vessel once, and a P-T boat.”

Now that he’s skipper of his historic boat, Miller said: “I’m not going to make a disco, a floating shushi bar or sightseeing boat out of it. It’s just strictly my yacht; for me to be able to go whenever and wherever. Heck, I can use my 46-footer as the dingy for this boat!”

Miller always had the burning spirit of an adventurer in him, he said slowly, looking down in his cup of coffee. “Maybe now I qualify.”

http://alb.merlinone.net/mweb/wmsql.wm.request?oneimage&imageid=5453530

Surely enough Miller brought the ship across the country and boldly took it up a tributary with some idea of dry docking it for repairs. But at that point, as they often do, the adventure ran out, and reality caught up to the endeavor. The resources to repair the ship even back then would have been in the millions of dollars and now in the state it currently is, likely millions more, and there just aren’t many people out there who want to pour money into that kind of project just to preserve something. It wouldn’t make much economic sense—which has generated a very lukewarm reception of D’Andrea LaRosa’s fundraising campaign—even with the prestige of her family’s pizza empire at her back. This has left the Sachem in limbo—a kind of in between world squeezed by business finance, good intentions, historical value, and practicality. Yet as I looked at it beached in Northern Kentucky with the lush deciduous forest barking bird calls reminiscent of a rain forest in Peru I could think of many other instances where much more audacious efforts had been made for far less reason. What came to my mind were the many people who read Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom that contribute vast sums of wealth into political campaigns and if the same effort were given to the Sachem, the ship could be saved.

As I was looking at the Sachem it appeared to be stable enough to sustain lifting it out of the creek bed with a large construction crane supported at multiple points under the hull. There is a large field directly to the south which could lean over the tree line and down into the creek. Access to the field appears to be reasonable with a large truck to carry all the equipment to the proper location. The ship could then be lifted out and placed on a barge or large flatbed tractor-trailer and taken out of the area for repairs. Given the cost of making the ship sea worthy, it is likely prohibitive, but might be better suited as a dry docked museum, restaurant, or both. It would be a wonderful exhibit at Newport on the Levy, the Cincinnati Banks project, the Museum Center in Cincinnati, or even the Edison Museum in Michigan. The top of the ship could be rebuilt with wood to look like it did leaving all the plumbing and engines out of the restoration equation to save cost.

To receive the investment dollars, unconventional explorations should be utilized, such as informing location scouts for motion pictures who have a need for a location like the one where the Sachem is. As I was looking at the vessel, it looked marvelous in the woods and would fit nicely as a ship wreck for a movie that needed that type of setting. It would cost a lot to build such a location and the land around the ship would easily accommodate a film crew. Again the land to the south is flat and relatively open allowing for trailers, tents, and equipment storage for location shooting. An example of the location and how it could be filmed dramatically can be seen in the sample video my daughter and I put together during our visit seen at the start of this article. After collecting the footage we went over to McDonald’s in Lawrenceburg and cut it together as we had lunch. It was only about a 7 to 10 minute drive across the bridge from the ship to the McDonald’s so a film crew would have no trouble finding nice hotel accommodations that are very comfortable. The land around the Sachem was actually magnificent visually allowing film crews to shoot other scenes not directly related to a ship wreck and fees collected from the use could help fund the restoration of the Sachem. Film studios are usually sympathetic to these kinds of causes and might be entirely supportive. The key would be to let scouts know about the location so it could be used in this fashion. Hollywood is constantly looking for locations that offer tax incentives, which is why the new Avenger films are being shot in Ohio. Kentucky and Indiana have wonderful locations that could utilize the same resources. It is in this fashion that resurrecting the Sachem makes the most sense.

Yes it is possible, and worthy—and would require a lot of people to do it for all the right reasons putting aside their need for private wealth, prestige, or other vanities and sincerely work to give new life to the Sachem—the Cincinnati Ghost Ship. An even better project would be to produce a series on the History Channel chronicling the life of the Sachem as a 7 or 8 part series and using the proceeds generated to actually save the ship. These are the only ways that I see a project of this scope happening—it certainly will take more than D’Andrea LaRosa’s kind efforts, or the other enthusiasts who have taken up the Sachem as a personal crusade. The money for the effort has to come from somewhere and it would be up to the parties involved to make it easy for that money to take up the cause—otherwise the ship will rot away on the banks of the Ohio River.

I certainly understand Robert Miller running out of gas on the project. He worked hard to get the ship saved from a New Jersey scrap yard, and his resources ran out once he got it to that creek and he hasn’t had the ability since then to continue. But he did his job as far as I’m concerned. Apparently the person he is now and the one described in the article is the result of many hard years and disappointments. But all hope is not lost. All that’s needed is a direction change and an emphasis on new methods to generate the funds required to save this remarkable ship filled with nautical history. It will take more than Robert Miller to save the Sachem this time—and it will take more than luck. But it is possible, and quite worth the effort.

Rich Hoffman

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

The Ghost Ship of Cincinnati: John Rogers Maxwell’s spectral remains and lifetime of adventure

I have spent a lifetime climbing in and around human creations that once felt timeless and permanent in a historical context only to erode away into nothing glimpsed one last time by only a few curious eyes. The process is actually remarkably fast. I have seen towns die, homes vanish, and entire cultures philosophically collapse on themselves. I have seen companies come and go, family dynasties raise and fall and the creations of mankind flourish then founder. I have explored the empty carcasses of many old homes, cars, and cemeteries to study the static patterns of previous societies so to come to conclusions about the direction of our current one. Many of my opinions about all manners of discussion were formulated in these explorations. My mild obsessions with a giant race of men who once lived in Ohio, or the supernormal happenings in and around some of the darkest corners of our planet are rooted in observed fact and come from putting my hands and eyes on a flickering light from the past one last time before it leaves our eyes forever. So before such a thing happened to a unique part of our history residing directly across from Lawrenceburg, Indiana nearly across from the Hollywood Casino, I had to go with my daughter to visit, and chronicle the mysterious “Ghost Ship” which is quickly fading into history. See the video of our trip here:

The ship really isn’t a ghost at all, but rather was a luxury yacht named the Celt and has a real life history that is nothing short of remarkable. It was best known during World War II as The Phenakite, a training vessel designed to detect and destroy submarines. So the story of how it ended up in a tributary of the Ohio River is a complex one that carries with it the winds of dreams contemplated by the many thousands which graced its decks. From the bow of that ship enemies were destroyed, ruckus parties were conducted, beasts were tamed, musical careers were launched, and America celebrated the re-lighting of the Statue of Liberty by President Ronald Reagan. Through all of its owners, the now known “Ghost Ship” all shared a sense of permanence where they believed that their lives, culture, and history were as steady as that ship. They believed they could change its name but that the thing itself would always be there—but as the evidence of that old relic shows—nothing lasts unless it is maintained. If things fall into disrepair they end and that goes for all things created by mankind including the culture of the countries they inhabit.

The Phenakite was built 1902 as the yacht Celt by Pusey and Jones, Wilmington, Delaware, for J. Rogers Maxwell, a railroad executive. It was launched on 12 April 1902.

Shortly after the United States entry in to the First World War, it was acquired by the U.S. Navy 3 July 1917. It was placed in service as USS Sachem (SP 192) on 19 August 1917 and used as a Coastal Patrol Yacht.^[1] During its Navy service, it was loaned to inventor Thomas Edison who conducted government-funded experiments with it as a submarine killer.

After the end of World War I, the Sachem was returned to her owner, Manton B. Metcalf of New York, 10 February 1919. It was sold to Philadelphia banker Roland L. Taylor. It was resold in 1932 to Jacob “Jake” Martin who converted it into a fishing boat and adventure vessel. For $2.00 Jake would take anybody anywhere they wanted to go in the Caribbean.

It was reacquired by the Navy on 17 February 1942 for $65,000 and converted for naval service at Robert Jacobs Inc., City Island, New York. It was commissioned as USS Phenakite (PYc-25), 1 July 1942 at Tompkinsville, New York and patrolled the waters off of the Florida Keys as a training vessel for sonar reading. It was decommissioned to undergo modifications and placed back in service 17 November 1944. It was used for testing sonar systems before being placed out of service on 2 October 1945 at Tompkinsville, and transferred to the Maritime Commission for disposal on 5 November 1945.^[1]

The vessel was then returned to her previous owner, Mr. J. Martin of Brooklyn, NY and renamed Sachem on 29 December 1945. It was struck from the Naval Register 7 February 1946. It was subsequently resold to the Circle Line of New York City and renamed Sightseer, but was later renamed Circle Line V. It served as a tour boat until 1983. It appeared in Madonna‘s Papa Don’t Preach video in 1986.

It was purchased by Robert Miller in 1986.

The Circle Line V was reportedly scrapped in 1984 but was found abandoned outside of Lawrenceburg, Indiana, on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River, where it has been since 1987.^[1] It is a popular destination for kayak enthusiasts in the Cincinnati area and is commonly referred to as “The Ghost Ship”^[2] ^[3]

In March 2014 it was the subject of a story on the Internet comedy news podcast Broken News Daily. CLICK THE LINK to see a condensed visual history of the vessel.

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

It is one thing to read about these kinds of things, it is quite another to put your hands on them. When you see it with your own eyes, it is quickly determined how something can be lost to the slipping sand of an hourglass into the context of historical documentation. History is often lost because that same hourglass of time measurement is turned upside down just to keep the sand moving leaving all the patterns of the previous measurement lost forever. The Phenakite (Ghost Ship) is only 110 years old, but within a few years it will be gone only memorialized by articles like this one and a few fragmented documents. This erosion of history is happening right in front of our faces and actually right near a resort complex that houses tens of thousands of people and moves millions of dollars of economic activity per year—but is invisible to the rest of the world.

The ironic story of The Phenakite is that it has had one of the most glorious pasts that a man-made creation can have, it has known celebrity, it has known two World Wars, it has been around and done it all and even with all that prestige, it is rotting away in plain sight little known to the rest of the world. The same could be said of the Malden Island mysteries, my Giants of Ohio and their bones which sit as objects of curious speculation in private collections and museum back rooms not fitting in well with the fossil history of our known past. The crystal pyramids sitting on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The knowledge that North America was actually settled by the Chinese during the Ming Dynasty and that most of what we think of as Native Americas were a result of these voyages which took place well before the Europeans had equal naval ability. As magnificent as the yacht named Celt was in 1902 built for John Rogers Maxwell, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, and President of the Atlas Portland Cement Company, it was only a flash in the mind of history which had been audaciously neglected by those same sands of time which vanish all too quickly by minds unable to behold the meaning of that history. The yacht like its original owner who had been a director of many railroads and other companies, and an enthusiastic and widely known yachtsman died suddenly on December 10^th 1910 at his home on 78 Eighth Avenue, Brooklyn, of cerebral apoplexy. Even though the yacht would go on to embark on a century of further adventures it was the heart and will of John Rogers Maxwell that breathed the life of creation into the future “ghost ship,” which began to end the moment that creator died.

And this is the same story no matter what the topic—history is a poor caretaker of itself no matter how proud it may be of its accomplishments. Without the efforts of a dreamer and producer, all the achievements accomplished in a lifetime vanish in less than an instant. Without question Robert Miller was a man like Maxwell and had intentions of giving the old yacht new life but those goals fell short on the shores of the Ohio River. The ship became a ghost of its former owner even during its heyday as the life which was breathed into it vanished just as the history which followed soon will as well. This is the common thread that can be seen in virtually anything that is created—once that driving force is gone, the history of that object, culture, or living thing begins to end. Once the drive of a producer leaves the life of anything—decline back into the realm of nothingness begins. The force which drives history is not museums, academic scholarship, or text books—but the life of producers which advance the story for future generations so long as neglect does not enter into the equation. For The Phenakite history stopped once it was dropped off in the tributary of the Ohio River by Miller who obviously had a change in his ability to preserve the craft. But the process of that ghostly decline actually began the moment John Rogers Maxwell died in his home after a life lived well, and fully for The Phenakite and all its service to the nation, Thomas Edison, Madonna and Ronald Reagan’s Statue of Liberty lighting party in 1986 were all second-handers to the creation of a railroad tycoon. Without him, none of the magnificent history centering on The Phenakite would have happened and because of him, there is at least a history to come to an end quietly and without much notice across from Lawrenceburg, Indiana.

In tomorrow’s article, I will cover in more detail the present owner, Robert Miller and explore what might be done to save this ship from being lost to history forever.

For more on this topic see my article on Kerr City. CLICK HERE. For further reading and discovery about the Cincinnati Ghost Ship see the links below:

Rich Hoffman www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Practitioners of Drunkenness: Why ‘Gladiator’ was such a great movie

The aspect of the second-hander is the only one that makes sense when many of the world’s problems are analyzed. My hatred of the intoxication culture stems from this division between second-handers and producers—which was elaborated upon as a kind of identifiable introduction in a previous article. One of the primary reasons that I have enjoyed the movie Gladiator so intensely is because it deals squarely with this problem of producers and second-handers—as the Emperor’s son was a second hander, and Maximus was a producer. When that same son—Commodus inherited the throne through treachery—and attempted to completely destroy Maximus by killing his family, robbing him of all his social connections, and leaving him for dead in a forest the producer lead Maximus rose up through the ranks of the gladiators to challenge the entire Empire not through any other effort but sheer tenacity. Commodus could not understand how his old rival had managed to regain such respect and stature because as a second hander, he had to be given his value through others. The new Emperor believed that because he stole away the life of Maximus that he destroyed the man. But Maximus was a producer and therefore a great leader—it didn’t matter if it was among the best fighters in the world at the time of Roman legionnaires or the dregs of society as gladiators fighting for their life in the arena. Maximus thrived because he didn’t know how to do anything else but generate success—as a producer which eventually destroyed the emperor. Gladiator was a great movie primarily for this reason.

Producer types make their own way, and enjoy thinking. They typically don’t pray to the gods for success, they don’t seek to live off the inheritance of their ancestors, and they don’t gamble or purchase lottery tickets hoping to be filled by chance of a draw so that they can wake up one morning filled by the efforts of others. Everything they do is geared toward productive enterprise even when they are performing in leisurely endeavors. That said producers would typically not be comfortable in social settings like bars where intoxication is the objective. Producers do not wish to lose their mental faculties. Second handers however do wish to lose their ability to think—as mentioned in the previous article about people who prefer electric shock over thinking. The practitioners of drunkenness are second handers because they are surrendering thought to chance as relief from the responsibility of action.

Intoxication is one of the vilest activities that could be perpetrated against an active mind. Yet second handers routinely abuse their thinking because they cannot allow the impulse of their own inner producer developed as children to reemerge to the life of choice competing with their adult decisions to remain a passive second hander waiting for others to fill them with thoughts and action. When it is said that someone is “drunk with power” this is something to which they speak—taking the example of Commodus once again, the new Emperor killed the old one believing that his actions would settle the issue of who would lead next the Roman Empire after the conquest of the Germanic people of the north. But Maximus interfered with this equation with a new set of rules—that of a producer who did not care for politics—because he did not need politicians or social connections to give him authority—he simply generated it. Maximus didn’t need a god to give him authority or validation to be great—because he already knew that he was. And Maximus didn’t need favors granted by those in a bloodline of leadership because he knew he was a natural leader functioning well as a producer. So Commodus tried to have Maximus killed to preserve his illusion of power and right by blood to lead an entire region of people as if he had a right to the throne by grace of the gods.

The drunk does the same thing in essence; they drink to lose their minds from the observations of contrary reality which conflicts with their path of parasitic social behavior—that of the second hander who needs the approval of others. A room full of drunks as a bar is a palace of second handers evading their destiny as thinking producers. Instead they have surrendered their fates to being filled by others for their sustenance. Getting drunk helps them not feel the conflict of thought which is always seeking to emerge.

A constant companion of dialogue in these modern times is the term “depression” which is thrown about so flamboyantly by second handers to explain their affliction—much of which is prescribed drugs to alleviate the pain. The cause of depression is the desire for something which does not come to second handers by luck—such as love, money, respect, or general value. When those things fail to come to a second hander by the grace of invisible rulers—people find themselves depressed and seek alcohol or other drugs to relieve them of that pain. As alcohol is a depressant it often makes depression worse—but what is really sought is the numbness of thinking—not the affliction of depression which usually becomes more pronounced. A producer generally does not feel depression because their thoughts are not out of alignment from their actions. Producers are not let down because their IRS refund check did not come in the mail, or some perfect job fell upon them by social connections. They make these things for themselves and are generally a happy lot of people because they are living authentically to their nature—as producers.

If you walk into any environment where large amounts of alcohol are being consumed you are seeing a temple of second handers seeking to suppress thought and responsibility for productivity. As second handers they try to crush their inner Maximus so that their Commodus can speak to them. And what Commodus says to them often exacerbates the tendency toward depression they feel, but without thought to measure against—they are free of the pain so long as they drink. This is why second handers tend to drink to get intoxicated and producers do not. Producers value their thoughts as second handers are running away. This means that if anything is ever to be fixed in the world about us, it has to start with this tendency toward second hander behavior. The world cannot be run and built by second handers—because they are incapable and are not equal in value to the producers of the world. The issue is not one of race, sex, or even fate—it is one of decisions and mental faculties by way of focus.

Rich Hoffman

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Kevin Smith’s Report from the Episode 7 Set: Finding the Peter Pan in all of us

There was a lot of Star Wars news this past week as the world revs up for the most recent reports from that line of mythology originating during the 1970s. As I received news from Lucasfilm about their schedule at Comic Con, San Diego, a fan from Germany did a brilliant YouTube video showing vehicles from the Empire being unloaded at a foreign airport. It was a remarkable short film and showed how easy it is for anybody these days to make wonderful visual effects—putting story telling within reach of the entire world. Even more remarkable was that the creator was not an American, but was German—meaning that the very American Star Wars mythology was important enough to him to create such a video which would have taken a considerable amount of thought and time.

But most remarkable of all was the report from Kevin Smith—the filmmaker from the Clerks movies and Red State who was given permission to visit the Star Wars Episode 7 set by invitation of J.J. Abrams. Smith is personal friends with Ben Affleck and a number of notably progressive Hollywood types, but he is also a very pop culture lover of comic books and heroic endeavor. If he and I had a dinner conversation together it is likely we would agree on nothing related to politics, but everything regarding comic books and Star Wars which is the magic of that particular mythology.

I was not a fan of Smith’s movie Red State—which felt to me like a Hollywood shot at life in the Midwest. Most of the antagonists in the film were perverted versions of the type of characters Hollywood views as “Bible Thumpers” so I nearly ignored the report that Kevin Smith gave after his visit to the Star Wars set. However, under the recommendation from some of the filmmakers from the Atlas Shrugged set I gave it a chance and was glad I did. Smith gave a remarkably honest breakdown not only of what he saw there—but in how it made him feel which reaches to the heart and soul of the entire Star Wars movement.

Star Wars is a movement, philosophical, political, and religious—it is a culture building exercise that extends far beyond simple entertainment. Cultures throughout the world have spent decades now having values removed from them leaving them empty. The causes have been varied—but the results are massive cases of emptiness leaving people desperately hungry to fill themselves with something of value. Star Wars created by George Lucas was intended for children to provide value and this hunger for all things Star Wars is most reflected in the excitement level of grown adults who are rediscovering their inner—long lost child through new movies and products.

I promised my children and wife when we all saw the movie Hook together by Steven Spielberg that I would never become lost like the Robin Williams character and lose my inner Peter Pan. And I have never broken that promise to them—I understand all too well the character of Peter Pan. I live the life of Pan with every breath that I take. With that said, the bedroom of my wife and I looks like a Star Wars toy section at Target. Looming over our bed is a large Millennium Falcon and located around our bedroom are several different versions of that same ship in various sizes. I know what Star Wars means to me because I have never left that part of my life behind—instead I incorporate it seamlessly into my mature life in the way that Peter Pan had to reconcile at the end of Hook.

I’m sure that J.J. Abrams invited Kevin Smith to the Star Wars set to generate positive publicity ahead of Comic Con in San Diego and to put some of the negative rumors about Harrison Ford’s broken leg—which is healing, to rest. Ford is doing what he has always done—he’s fighting back to health so he can complete the film. (Harrison Ford suffered an ACL tear during the making of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and ruptured a disk in his back during the filming of Temple of Doom. In both cases he hit the weight room and recovered and finished his film as the star. He is doing the same thing as a 71-year-old man for Episode 7. That is what makes him great and a man’s man.) Smith came to the set and reported in a video what he saw which was captivating, but what impressed me most was his sense of understanding of what happened to him when he stepped to the top of The Millennium Falcon ramp.

It was an interesting admission that Kevin Smith made when he declared that everything he had been—as an adult—was a corrupt caricature essentially shaped by the times of society’s impression upon him. He was very honest about stating that when he visited the Star Wars set he returned back to his childhood which for him was a treasure—as it is for most people. His intense revelation about crying at the top of The Millennium Falcon ramp says a lot about our culture. It is that lost Peter Pan persona that most of us seek to regain.

So the question must be asked—why do we give up that treasure in our teenage years? Some of the most courageous among us regain that persona later in life once we become grandparents—and too old to care what people think of us. Once we lose our sex appeal, our hair, our nice skin, and the ability to impress others with our appearance there is once again a chance to become childlike with the wisdom of years of learning to support ourselves. Kids don’t care what they look like, they just like to play and have fun, and this is a trait that we should not give up on as adults.

I never have—I promised my family I never would, and I never will under any conditions. Every day in my life is like the end of the Robin Williams version of Peter Pan in Hook. I skipped right over the crises period and just went from childhood to adulthood with the same enthusiasm. What Kevin Smith, Seth McFarlane, and I all have in common is that even though we differ dramatically in our politics—we share emphatically a love of Star Wars for the same reasons—as the mythology is a direct link to the energy of childhood which should never be lost to any adult anywhere.

Kevin Smith obviously would have been a happier person if he didn’t start swearing, doing drugs, and adopting progressive causes. This is why our politics is different essentially. He would have been happier if he had kept that inner child all through his life and dropped the cynicism of adulthood. He shouldn’t have had to cry when he stepped to the top of The Millennium Falcon ramp. But, his friend J.J. Abrams probably did Smith a huge favor on a personal level by bringing him to the set to see the Star Wars shoot in person. It is good that Kevin Smith had that experience and reported it so honestly—because this is part of the healing qualities that I have spoken about so often regarding Star Wars. The culture that will come from all this will leave us all much better off than we are today—because the stories are about values that the inner child in all of us crave so deeply. The cynical adult in us has yielded to the pressures of existence which imposed compromises of those values leaving us shells of ourselves to live as caricatures of our former dreams—which is the essential story of Hook.

Disney will surely give the rest of the world the same opportunity Smith had when they build a full scale Millennium Falcon in Orlando, Florida for visitors to their theme parks. It will be a common sight to see grown adults weeping at the top of the ramp in the same way that Kevin Smith did because the long suppressed magic of childhood will come rushing back to them in that instant. It’s not immature to feel such things–it is actually rational to reacquaint an adult life with the foundations of their belief systems formed during childhood. For many people, Star Wars is the clearest representation of value that they have and is why so many fans go to such elaborate measures to touch that mythology any way they can, even if it is in a short film remarkably done like the one at the German airport. There have been few people who have put their finger on the pulse of the Star Wars movement better than Kevin Smith did when he so honestly reported his visit to the Episode 7 set.

There is no shame in rediscovering the Peter Pan in all of us—the eternal youth forever thoughtful of the hopes and dreams of discovery and imagination. When those things are lost, we are robbed of much—and it is always good to revisit these traits which we are born with. It has only been recently when there was a mythology like Star Wars providing the mechanism through simple sight of a movie prop that could make a grown man cry like a baby at the purity of the emotion—the long lost hopefulness of childhood and the values of the uncompromising dreams of youth.

Rich Hoffman

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

The Pirates of Mason, Ohio: Similarities between the MEA and Blackbeard

MASON, OH (FOX19) –

Parents and teachers in Warren County want more money and better benefits for the Mason City School District.

The Mason Education Association, which represents 650 educators, has been negotiating a new employment contract since April. Mason teachers say they’re not only concerned about money and benefits but also concerned about cuts to academic programs and facilities.

The union also declared a “no confidence” position in superintendent Gail Kist-Kline.

The district meanwhile says it’s hopeful that negotiations will continue during the summer months, and a contract settlement will be reached before the beginning of the school year.

According to school board members, Dr. Kist-Kline was hired following a levy failure, and asked to lead during a time of economic challenge that required the district to improve efficiency and make difficult decisions.

http://www.fox19.com/story/25961786/mason-educators-fight-for-more-money-better-benefits

The story continued with the MEA (Mason Education Association) threatening to go on strike and late in the afternoon on July 8^th 2014, a contract agreement was reached which will then go to a vote by the union members. Teachers all across Ohio rejoiced as one of the wealthiest districts in that state had proven that it was once again ripe for pillaging. The entire story of how the teacher’s union in Mason threatened a hostile action—work stoppage—preventing parents who pay the taxes there from retaining their free baby sitting service at the end of summer, forced the payment of ransom which were pay increases. It was all too reminiscent of an old pirate story about Blackbeard’s blockade of the Charleston harbor in 1718. That old story about pirate action was essentially the same as the modern story of the MEA in Mason, Ohio 2014.

Edward Teach (also Edward Thatch, c.1680—22 November 1718), better known as Blackbeard, was a notorious English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of the American colonies. Although little is known about his early life, he was probably born in Bristol, England. He may have been a sailor on privateer ships during Queen Anne’s War before settling on the Bahamian island of New Providence, a base for Captain Benjamin Hornigold, whose crew Teach joined sometime around 1716. Hornigold placed him in command of a sloop he had captured, and the two engaged in numerous acts of piracy. Their numbers were boosted by the addition to their fleet of two more ships, one of which was commanded by Stede Bonnet, but toward the end of 1717 Hornigold retired from piracy, taking two vessels with him.

Blockade of Charleston

By May 1718 Teach had awarded himself the rank of Commodore and was at the height of his power. Late that month his flotilla blockaded the port of Charleston (then known as Charles Town) in South Carolina. All vessels entering or leaving the port were stopped, and as the town had no guard ship,^[40] its pilot boat was the first to be captured. Over the next five or six days about nine vessels were stopped and ransacked as they attempted to sail past Charleston Bar, where Teach’s fleet was anchored. One such ship, headed for London with a group of prominent Charleston citizens which included Samuel Wragg (a member of the Council of the Province of Carolina), was the Crowley. Her passengers were questioned about the vessels still in port and then locked below decks for about half a day. Teach informed the prisoners that his fleet required medical supplies from the colonial government of South Carolina, and that if none were forthcoming, all prisoners would be executed, their heads sent to the Governor and all captured ships burnt.^[41]

Wragg agreed to Teach’s demands, and a Mr. Marks and two pirates were given two days to collect the drugs. Teach moved his fleet, and the captured ships, to within about five or six leagues from land. Three days later a messenger, sent by Marks, returned to the fleet; Marks’s boat had capsized and delayed their arrival in Charleston. Teach granted a reprieve of two days, but still the party did not return. He then called a meeting of his fellow sailors and moved eight ships into the harbor, causing panic within the town. When Marks finally returned to the fleet, he explained what had happened. On his arrival he had presented the pirates’ demands to the Governor and the drugs had been quickly gathered, but the two pirates sent to escort him had proved difficult to find; they had been busy drinking with friends and were finally discovered, drunk.^[42]

Teach kept to his side of the bargain and released the captured ships and his prisoners—albeit relieved of their valuables, including the fine clothing some had worn.^[43]

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

The behavior of the MEA was essentially of the same morality as Blackbeard’s seizer and extortion of Charleston. Blackbeard’s actions were designed to exploit the weaknesses of the governor; the MEA was designed to exploit the weaknesses of the superintendent of Mason schools. Both groups used force and fear to obtain wealth—the Blackbeard pirates used fear of physical violence, the Mason teachers’ used the fear of work stoppage by refusing to perform contracted obligations as employees of the state of Ohio. There is no real difference between the piratical acts of Blackbeard or the MEA.

So why weren’t the Mason teachers arrested for their piratical acts instead of rewarded with more money? Because the pirates run the government in 2014 unlike in 1718. The only difference between the MEA and Blackbeard is that they are now the lawyers, legislators, and union leaders who have infiltrated the law to have easy access to the plunder of the tax payers. Pirates have changed their tactics over the years—instead of violence and blockades, they just gained a government backed service—like education—and threatened to take that service away unless they obtained their desires. The ideal of the blockade of education services through a labor strike and Blackbeard’s extraction of medical supplies from the Governor of Charleston are the same because tax payers have no other option. There are no other schools for their children to attend just as there was no other way out of the harbor of Charleston for the citizens to embark on any kind of trade by sea. So Blackbeard had the city by the throat and used it to his advantage just as the MEA had Mason by the throat regarding education. The intentions were extortion to fulfill the desires of piracy. The only difference is that these modern pirates in the MEA were backed by the law which is an evolution from the days of Blackbeard. But the intentions were the same—fear, power, and plunder at the expense of others.

So if anyone dared wish to see examples of modern piracy, don’t look to the South China Sea or the dangerous waters off of Somalia—just look in Mason, Ohio at the members of the Mason Teacher’s Association and you will see pirates just as vicious and greedy as Blackbeard.

Rich Hoffman

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Producers and the Second-handers: Why people prefer electric shock over thinking

(Reuters) – So you say all you want to do is to take a few minutes to sit down and think without anyone or anything bugging you? Maybe that is true. But you might be in the minority.

A U.S. study published on Thursday showed that most volunteers who were asked to spend no more than 15 minutes alone in a room doing nothing but sitting and thinking found the task onerous.

“Many people find it difficult to use their own minds to entertain themselves, at least when asked to do it on the spot,” said University of Virginia psychology professor Timothy Wilson, who led the study appearing in the journal Science. “In this modern age, with all the gadgets we have, people seem to fill up every moment with some external activity.”

In some experiments, college volunteers were asked to sit alone in a bare laboratory room and spend six to 15 minutes doing nothing but thinking or daydreaming. They were not allowed to have a cellphone, music player, reading material or writing implements and were asked to remain in their seats and stay awake. Most reported they did not enjoy the task and found it hard to concentrate.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/03/us-science-thinking-idUSKBN0F827V20140703

That information may seem extraordinary, but it’s really not—rather it is consistent with general human behavior and is caused by two basic roles that individuals evolve into as they mature into adulthood. People will become either a producer type personality—who makes things from self-initiative and are quite rare in the world or they will become a second-hander, a person who essentially lives through others. An example of second-hander behavior would be the type of person who dates a beautiful woman because of the prestige of being seen with her might provide. An example of a producer would be a person who dates a beautiful woman because they personally enjoy her. The same could of course be applied from women to men, cars, clothing, homes, food—just about every category of human endeavor. The typical “gold digger” personality from women who marry for money would fall into this category versus the woman who marries for “love.”

These behavioral conditions can actually be seen on any playground in the world where children play. Future producers are the kids who are the first to climb to the top of the monkey bars, or help a kid stuck on the slide whose nerve has left them as they descend. Most of the kids will reside in the safety of numerical superiority watching the producers be the first to climb to the top of a slide, or crawl under a strange obstacle, or swing across a crevice. Once they see the safety of the task, they will then follow—gaining assurance from the leader—the producer.

The differences in creating these personalities come directly from the parents. If a parent lets children gain self-sufficiency by doing things on their own at the earliest possible moment—then there are favorable odds that a child will develop into a producer. But most parents coddle children and enjoy caring for them as dependents—as the behavior provides meaning to lives of parents who are otherwise insecure about their roles in existence. So too long parents carry children on their hips, feed them too long, and help them up when a child should learn to climb on their own stunting the growth of the young minds into the role of a second-hander. They learn as children to live through their parents. As older children they live through their peers. As adults they live through the rest of society.

This is why as adults they don’t know what to do with their own thoughts and would rather be electrically shocked than to think on their own for 15 minutes—a second-hander must get their next thinking actions from a producer otherwise they can’t function. It would be the producers who would happily sit for 15 minutes or more thinking quietly. The second-hander needs music made by someone else, television made by someone else, reading material made by someone else, video games made by someone else, etc—in order to have thoughts put into their head. With those things removed—they are terrified at the lack of thought in their minds and would gladly endure great amounts of abuse to have that sense of terror removed from them.

As has been declared on many occasions at this site—except without the direct correlation—public education systems are in the business of making second-hander children who will grow up to become second-hander adults. The entire ordeal of public education is primarily focused on building these types of minds which works well for consumerism—but not so great for capitalism as industry and invention are created by producer type personalities. Producer type children tend to not do so well in public school as the system is not geared to develop their skill sets—so they become frustrated. This is also why homeschooled children do better generally than publicly taught children, because homeschooled children are taught to be producers as opposed to second-handers.

As a test dear reader if you consider how something might make you look, or how others might think before you do something—you are functioning as a second-hander. If you do a task because of the curiosity of doing it when no eyes are upon you and enjoy thinking alone with no input from the outside world—then you are thinking as a producer. But it is very clear on the playground of children who will be who. The future lives of all those young people can be predicted just watching children play. You can see who will have marriage difficulties, who will have nervous breakdowns when their cars won’t start, who will bounce aimlessly from job to job—just by watching children play. You can also see who will be the future inventors, leaders, and wealthy elite—not because they are greedy, or vicious—but because they are often the first to climb to the top of the monkey bars, and will not hesitate to push bigger kids out-of-the-way to be the first to go down a slide.

What the test reported by Reuters above says—which is supposed to be shocking—is that public education systems and parents in general have successfully built a human race of second-handers who are all waiting for someone to tell them what to do next. It therefore should not be a surprise when there is so much apathy in the world. It’s not because people are bad—or stupid—it’s because they have been taught to be second-handers who cannot act until told what to do. It is for society to determine if this is acceptable.

Speaking personally, it isn’t for me. But then I’m the kind of person who could spend weeks alone in a room with everything turned off alone with my thoughts—and be perfectly happy.

Rich Hoffman

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Game Changing ‘Diagon Alley’ Is Now Open: The power and meaning of “mythos”

Mythos: The interrelated set of beliefs, attitudes, and values held by a society or cultural group

http://www.jcf.org/new/index.php

That word mythos can be seen a lot at the website link above which will take inquiring minds to the Joseph Campbell Foundation website. Mythos may be one of the most important words ever created because it is unique to human beings. While trees are objects created by nature, mountains—the same, oceans, ice bergs, rain forests, weather patterns, etc—mythos are unique in that it is a creation of man’s mind for purposes specific to the imagination. For those who have lost hope as knowledge of the very diabolical is known, it is an understanding of mythos that can point to cultural aspects that are forming and provide knowledge to the kind of world tomorrow will be. Largely we live in an existence created by a mythos generated by the Dark Ages and the kind of philosophy constructed under those conditions. But that is changing—rapidly—and when the good work of Fantasy Flight Games is mentioned—it is because of the alteration of a complex mythos that I cheer it on. As dim and dire as it sometimes feels, I see a major shift in social mythos that will shatter conventional thinking in the coming years and for all the restrictions feared today—the new mythos that is forming is the key to understanding our future. CLICK HERE to review my previous article on Fantasy Flight Games. Adding to those additions of mythic storytelling contained within those games are other aspects of culture that are exploding upon the scene. I’ve talked a lot about Star Wars, Glenn Beck continues to put out fantastic novels and books that are contributing boldly, movies like The Hunger Games are resonating with young people, and superheroes are dominating at the movie box office. Ayn Rand is still selling like hotcakes in Gatlinburg and the last movie of a three-part trilogy based on that book is about to be released which is challenging old Kantian held beliefs regarding economics, religion, and business. To understand the power of this new mythos I often point to the theme parks in Central Florida as the physical evidence of the changing mythos so evident in the human race. Once a company like Universal Studios or Disney build an attraction at a theme park, they have made a significant contribution to a social mythos as a business investment and have acknowledged the lasting impact. Never has this modern mythos been on display more dramatically than the new Harry Potter exhibit at Universal Studios, Florida with their opening this week of Diagon Alley. It is simply jaw dropping incredible. It can be seen in the video below at the 7:30 mark. I would advise watching the entire video though because the mythos brought to life in Central Florida says a lot about American culture and the direction, and impact it will have on the world for the next century.

I’m not a particularly huge Harry Potter fan. There are aspects to it that I enjoy—there is too much magic in it for me—too much mystic fantasy. There is a tendency to hope that the world is different from what it is—so fantastic creations bridge that gap intellectually. But there are some wonderful values explored in the Harry Potter books and movies that have provided many of the values today’s young people possess. But the new Diagon Alley exhibit is a living mythos—that is the point of the place—to put visitors into that world in a way that has never yet been possible anywhere on earth. But to what end—for simple entertainment? Human beings require myths to hold themselves together and put their values in line with priorities. Harry Potter was born out of this need, and it has been so successful that Universal Studios built a magnificent shrine to that mythos.

Mythos carries over into every aspect of human life. It goes to the voting booth, it becomes the focus of productive enterprise in business, it creates the values a family uses to bond themselves to one another—or to fly apart. It provides a mechanism for people to recognize evil, or good depending on the vantage point—a mythos can be either destructive or beneficial—but so long as human beings exist, there will be the creation of myths. Once those myths are created, a physical manifestation will be attempted, such as what Universal Studios has done with Diagon Alley. Visitors to those parks will attempt to bring the values of Harry Potter—for good or bad—into their daily life. So to me, watching the mythos of our world is the most important things a culture can do.

My excitement over this current mythos period is in the realization that only a few years ago none of this easy access to so much mythos was available. When I was a child, Disney World was brand new and nothing like it is now, Universal Studios was simply a dream, Dungeon and Dragons was very primitive and movies were limited in what they could create due to budget constraints and film executives functioning from the philosophies of Kant and Plato. Tolkien was the premier fantasy writer inspiring a new generation that would magnify his work hundreds of times over, the culmination being stories like Harry Potter. And video games were clunky. The opportunity to step into a mythos the way young people can now simply did not exist. But now things are changing rapidly—much more rapidly than any conniving bankers in Europe, or politicians in America can even fathom—any thoughts of potential tyranny are being crushed under the weight of a dynamically changing mythos.

That doesn’t mean all is well, there are major problems that will play out in the years to come—the bankruptcy of America, the continued attempts to spread collectivism to every corner of the earth at the expense of the individual—but those are the results of the previous mythos built by the pre and post Renaissance periods, religious ignorance, and minds so stifled with daily obligations that they did not have the liberty to think. My greatest joy of late has come from Fantasy Flight Games in that they create a product that generates not only a positive mythos—culturally, but a lot of thinking. When those types of entertainment options are coupled with the physical reality of something like Diagon Alley there are real opportunities for massive human enjoyment.

As I write this I know of several individuals planning their visit to Diagon Alley. They are reading the Harry Potter novels again at Steak and Shake at 3 AM in the morning and going to work when the sun comes up. They are playing Fantasy Flight’s Game of Thrones card game at Starbucks with their friends and are living in the mythos of those fantasy realms for a large portion of their life—and that is wonderful for the psychological well-being of their many otherwise treacherous disappointments in life. The joy of the mythos created artificially by the human minds behind Harry Potter and The Game of Thrones replaces the many areas where deficiency has otherwise occurred.

It is not good to substitute reality for fantasy—but it is not good to be crushed by too much reality—and often a positive mythos can alleviate the impact of such a disappointing force. With minds full of value, the diabolical schemes concocted by maniacal tyrants losses their ability because of the hope given by a mythos which feeds an individual mind as opposed to a soul looking to be filled by some come-lately leader drunk with power and filled with ill intent. But Universal Studios has performed a modern miracle, they have recreated Diagon Alley the way that only imaginations had previously contemplated, and made it real. The impact of this dramatic shift in mythos will resonate for quite some time in a positive way as the future unfolds itself out away from the small minds who previously wished to contain it. Diagon Alley is proof that such attempts have failed and that the human mind is now relishing in triumph over feats that are only now available for the first time on planet earth. When such things become real—they become a new reality in the realm of mythos.

Minds free to think, and contemplate new ideals create the mythos that will become the foundations of future values—but more importantly, such minds cannot be controlled. So long as a mind can contemplate mythos, a physical body will reject the chains placed upon it—literal or metaphorical. What I see in Diagon Alley is a culture in America who has professed that it values imagination and thinking to such an extent that it wanted to make it into a physical reality—which is a beacon to the world that imagination is alive and well and that tyrants have no place in Central Florida. You can feel it at the Orlando airport—as you travel down the people movers from the grand departure gate where hotel guest look down into the giant room of people traveling from everywhere in the world to see the theme parks of Florida first hand. Of those great theme parks, Universal Studios has recaptured the lead of the most spectacular attractions among them with Diagon Alley. There is nothing like it anywhere—except deep in the mind those who generate mythos upon a blank page to share with the world and incite in them the freedom of thought which is the greatest gift to civilization that there is.

Rich Hoffman www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Building The Machine: Why Deming was so wrong for American business

“Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world” ― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

That is the kind of nonsense that is being taught in public schools and has been adopted into general business practices. It is essentially behind the new Common Core methods of teaching which Glenn Beck so elaborately dismantled in his new book Conform. That book shows why well-meaning politicians and philanthropists are backing Common Core—which is a complete destruction of the American education system—specifically destroying the individuality inherit in American children—and integrating them into a more global view which embodies that basic quote of Miyamoto Musashi shown above. As traditionalists cling to the notion that Common Core must be eradicated from public education systems so to preserve the uniqueness that is desired in American children a far more sinister threat can be found behind the politics of the movement.

Most large companies in The United States cling blindly to the management teachings of William Deming—which has proven itself to be a tragedy. Deming is the man responsible for all the ridiculous attempts at Total Quality Management which has tied the hands of American business by putting engineers essentially in charge of the management of company resources so to hamper proper productivity. This trend exploded in America through the largest manufacturers in a time when it appeared that the Japanese were dominating all fields of productive endeavor threatening to overtake American methods in the 1980s. The Japanese in a desperate need to get back on their feet after World War II had embraced Deming, an engineer from America to beat their former rivals at their own game. Deming found among the Japanese people a collective based society that quickly unified behind his management methods which were essentially old Samurai strategy concepts dressed up behind mathematical formulas to justify himself being a paid consultant. Deming was perpetrating a scam to justify his celebrity status as he propped up the Japanese.

Deming was a ruse because he essentially disliked management and sought later in his classes to ridicule American executives free of their ego and to force them into collaboration with employees and co-workers through his collective based management methods. American businessmen listened to Deming as it was believed that the Japanese were dominating manufacturing because of him—which wasn’t true. The Japanese were dominating because of their sense of selfless dedication to collective causes. They thought differently than Americans and the result of their labor could be seen in their products.

It must be remembered that American businesses and the Japanese were both struggling with the spread of communism in post World War II global economic concerns, so Deming was delivering a way that management could restrict the impact of labor union quota refusals by offering managers up to laborers as sacrificial victims. This worked well in Japan who had managed to contain the spread of communism in their society through their selfless dedication to Miyamoto Musashi’s strategy guide The Book of Five Rings. As they were already functioning as a collective society, labor unions had little to offer them, so they were able to resist the push toward communism. Labor unions in Japan maintained an unusually close relationship to their companies as their identities were less focused on individual achievement and more concerned over the general health of their company. This gave Deming fertile ground to develop his management methods.

William Edwards Deming (October 14, 1900 – December 20, 1993) was an American engineer, statistician, professor, author, lecturer, and management consultant. Trained initially as an electrical engineer and later specializing in mathematical physics, he helped develop the sampling techniques still used by the Department of the Census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, championed the work of Dr. Walter Shewhart, including Statistical Process Control, Operational Definitions, and what he called The Shewhart Cycle^[1] which evolved into “PDSA” (Plan-Do-Study-Act) in his book The New Economics for Industry, Government, and Education,^[2] as a response to the growing popularity of PDSA, which he viewed as tampering with the meaning of Dr. Shewhart’s original work. ^[3] He is best known for his work in Japan after WWII, particularly his work with the leaders of Japanese industry which began in August 1950 at the Hakone Convention Center in Tokyo with a now seminal speech on what he called Statistical Product Quality Administration, which many in Japan credit with being the inspiration for what has become known as the Japanese post-war economic miracle of 1950 to 1960, rising from the ashes of war to become the second most powerful economy in the world in less than a decade, founded on the ideas first taught to them by Dr Deming:

That the problems facing manufacturers can be solved through cooperation, despite differences.
Marketing is not “sales,” but the science of knowing what people who buy your product repeatedly think of that product and whether they will buy it again, and why.
That In the initial stages of design, you must conduct market research, applying statistical techniques for experimental and planning and inspection of samples.
And you must perfect the manufacturing process.^[4]

He is best known in the United States for his 14 Points (Out of the Crisis, by Dr. W. Edwards Deming, Preface) and his system of thought he called the System of Profound Knowledge, consisting of four components, or “lenses” through which to view the world simultaneously:

An appreciation of a system,
understanding of variation,
psychology
and Epistemology, or a theory of knowledge.^[5]

Deming made a significant contribution to Japan’s later reputation for innovative, high-quality products, and for its economic power. He is regarded as having had more impact upon Japanese manufacturing and business than any other individual not of Japanese heritage. Despite being honored in Japan in 1951 with the establishment of the Deming Prize he was only just beginning to win widespread recognition in the U.S. at the time of his death in 1993.^[6] President Reagan awarded him the National Medal of Technology in 1987. The following year, Deming also received the Distinguished Career in Science award from the National Academy of Sciences.

The philosophy of W. Edwards Deming has been summarized as follows:

Dr. W. Edwards Deming taught that by adopting appropriate principles of management, organizations can increase quality and simultaneously reduce costs (by reducing waste, rework, staff attrition and litigation while increasing customer loyalty). The key is to practice continual improvement and think of manufacturing as a system, not as bits and pieces.”^[26]

In the 1970s, Deming’s philosophy was summarized by some of his Japanese proponents with the following ‘a’-versus-‘b’ comparison:

(a) When people and organizations focus primarily on quality, defined by the following ratio,

quality tends to increase and costs fall over time.

(b) However, when people and organizations focus primarily on costs, costs tend to rise and quality declines over time.

“The prevailing style of management must undergo transformation. A system cannot understand itself. The transformation requires a view from outside. The aim of this chapter is to provide an outside view—a lens—that I call a system of profound knowledge. It provides a map of theory by which to understand the organizations that we work in.

“The first step is transformation of the individual. This transformation is discontinuous. It comes from understanding of the system of profound knowledge. The individual, transformed, will perceive new meaning to his life, to events, to numbers, to interactions between people.

“Once the individual understands the system of profound knowledge, he will apply its principles in every kind of relationship with other people. He will have a basis for judgment of his own decisions and for transformation of the organizations that he belongs to. “

Deming advocated that all managers need to have what he called a System of Profound Knowledge, consisting of four parts:

Appreciation of a system: understanding the overall processes involving suppliers, producers, and customers (or recipients) of goods and services (explained below);
Knowledge of variation: the range and causes of variation in quality, and use of statistical sampling in measurements;
Theory of knowledge: the concepts explaining knowledge and the limits of what can be known.
Knowledge of psychology: concepts of human nature.

He explained, “One need not be eminent in any part nor in all four parts in order to understand it and to apply it. The 14 points for management in industry, education, and government follow naturally as application of this outside knowledge, for transformation from the present style of Western management to one of optimization.”

Key principles

Deming offered fourteen key principles to managers for transforming business effectiveness. The points were first presented in his book Out of the Crisis. (p. 23–24)^[28] Although Deming does not use the term in his book, it is credited with launching the Total Quality Management movement.^[29]

Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive, to stay in business and to provide jobs.
Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.
Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for massive inspection by building quality into the product in the first place.
End the practice of awarding business on the basis of a price tag. Instead, minimize total cost. Move towards a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.
Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.
Institute training on the job.
Institute leadership (see Point 12 and Ch. 8 of “Out of the Crisis”). The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets do a better job. Supervision of management is in need of overhaul, as well as supervision of production workers.
Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company. (See Ch. 3 of “Out of the Crisis”)
Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team, in order to foresee problems of production and usage that may be encountered with the product or service.
Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.
1. Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute with leadership.
2. Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers and numerical goals. Instead substitute with leadership.
Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality.
Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride of workmanship. This means, inter alia, abolishment of the annual or merit rating and of management by objectives (See Ch. 3 of “Out of the Crisis”).
Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody’s job.

“Massive training is required to instill the courage to break with tradition. Every activity and every job is a part of the process.”^[30]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming

Of course there is one essential ingredient that Deming avoided and if his work, lectures and methods are studied properly it will be discovered that Deming was attempting to use mathematic equations to get his mind around leadership—and he never succeeded. The Japanese succeeded because as a society they are happy to yield their individualities toward collective goals, but in The United States—which is an individually based society—workers are not. Goals for American workers have to be made to align with the company’s goals—they cannot be bent to subjugate themselves to a system devised by Eastern manufacturing methods. Deming’s methods worked in Japan, but they never have, and never will work in America. There were initial increases in profit for companies who applied Deming techniques—simply because they began with so much waste to begin with—but most large companies today have simply outsourced their manufacturing to evade the impact of Deming—because once an American worker is broken down from their individuality they become automatons and resist the impulse to innovate. Their negativity often turns into a corrosive relationship with their company as they psychologically see their employer as the source of crushing their individual will.

All through the 80s and 90s in America there was grave concern that America was somehow inferior to Japan and everyone else in the world who seemed to find success with Deming’s methods. Yet what those same critics ignored was that America produced Deming, and the machinery that won World War II, and had never had any manufacturing issues prior to Deming—so why did they need him? American executives had lost their incentive to be innovative, and to push themselves as they had been pushed into a collective goo following Deming methods of Total Quality Management that really sought to alleviate their personal input. Modern managers were discouraged in using their individual gifts to improve productivity, quality, and work environment because Deming had already provided a system that their companies were forcing them to adhere to—leaving them generally uninterested in the manufacturing process.

What Deming never put his finger on and seemed to struggle with all his life was the source of his “concept of human nature.” Within that was the realization that some people were born leaders and some people were just born followers and this equation did not fit well into the mathematical formulas of an electrical engineer. The ability to create a leader is what everyone wanted, but they lacked the ability to detect them—so companies used Deming as a second hander to give them a process that would hide their inability—and deficiency in recruiting, staffing, and mid-level leadership.

Yet, America has produced without any help from any college, or management consultant many leaders who have created companies that amassed huge amounts of wealth—Microsoft comes to mind. Yet Bill Gates who founded Microsoft as a college dropout is the premier instigator of Common Core leaving him to be thought of as the modern Deming. Politicians and other business leaders think that because Gates created a company that generated so much wealth that he is somehow qualified to provide an education method that would create a generation of children that can compete with the world. However, Americans are not like other people—there is a reason that American Excepetionalism exists and it isn’t because they can integrate themselves into a Deming process. Bill Gates with all his genius has been unable to put into any kind of mathematical formula the reason for his success—so has been unable to create an education system that can make more of him—which American companies and state governors are hoping Common Core will do for the youth.

Common Core like Deming’s Total Quality Management ignores human initiative and thus fails to find the best among human populations to instigate innovation and productive enterprise—and to capitalize off of American Excepetionalism. Instead they are seeking kill it which is why most people are ready to hang themselves in The United States after they take one of Deming’s four-day seminars. It’s not the extreme boredom of the classes, or the lack of real relevance to manufacturing—it is the destruction of individual initiative yielding toward collective causes that creates the anxiety.

The failure of Deming, and thus of every company that follows his methods is the destruction of internal leadership that was foolishly studied from the East as if such things could have been born there. Deming was an American creation and had he never went to Japan, he would have remained an obscure engineer that nobody would have listened to if he had not struck it rich bringing together a battered people in the Japanese to resurrect themselves. For Japan, Deming was like the feather Dumbo carried around making the elephant believe it could fly—Deming was a crutch to rely upon in a time of need. He didn’t give the Japanese anything they couldn’t have given themselves—because their culture would have achieved those same heights completely on their own. Deming in the United States appealed to the second-handers who live through others and looked at Japan and wanted to copy what they were doing—ignoring their own propensity toward leadership, because they failed to see who among them had the capacity to rise. When second handers are in charge and fear being replaced by those who are truly oozing with leadership and human initiative, Deming systems are adopted to protect their social status—which is why Total Quality Management ultimately fails in America.

Those same second handers are behind Common Core and for the same reasons. Bill Gates became wealthy building operating systems that could interact with machines to usher in the personal computer revolution. He doesn’t know why he was so different from everyone else—but he was. Now he hopes to do the same for education through Common Core. However, like Deming his problem is a complex one because what his methods are achieving is not self initiated leadership among work forces—but rather destroying individuals into simple machines who can function within a system. Gates is building a machine with Common Core and like Deming before him—the world is eating out of his hand hoping that Gates knows something about human nature that they don’t.

Deming his whole life struggled with the notion he obviously learned from the Japanese of profound knowledge. As he said, “once the individual understands the system of profound knowledge, he will apply its principles in every kind of relationship with other people. He will have a basis for judgment of his own decisions and for transformation of the organizations that he belongs to. ” But he never figured it out. He was seeking the basis of leadership which is not produced by any system put in place—it comes from human initiative and creativity and is a by-product of American Excepetionalism—the same Excepetionalism that invented the airplane, the light builb, and built an economy based on capitalism where the exceptional rise to the top and are easy to spot instead of being hidden behind a TQM system obscured from the eyes of the people who could most directly benefit. Common Core is essentially the same failure applied to American business from Deming—which has all but destroyed manufacturing in the United States, and passed it on to education. The crime is not that Common Core will destroy the millions of minds who are destined to be simple cogs in a grand machine that will dance willingly to Deming’s processes. The crime is that Common Core will destroy the few exceptions that will have a vast impact on the development of the human race led by America. It is for that reason that Common Core must be vanquished. Deming did enough damage for one lifetime. The world certainly doesn’t need more of him.

The proper counter to Miyamoto Musashi would be:

“Think greatly of yourself and the world will directly benefit from the fruit that springs forth from a free mind.”

–Rich Hoffman

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Arkham Horror: Thought invoked through mythmaking genius at Fantasy Flight Games

Taking a break from the usual heavy subjects explored at this site I have to say more about a company I have highlighted often in America who I think is having a major impact on world culture. This is not a movie company, a video game developer or even a traditional television broadcaster—it is Fantasy Flight Games who again appear to be at the absolute top of their field. I was at my favorite game store—Nostalgic Ink, in Mason, Ohio buying my son-in-law some expansion ships for our X-Wing Miniatures game which is a Fantasy Flight creation which I have raved about often. I had my grandson with me so he wanted to walk around the store looking at all the other products, which I of course allowed him to do. While looking elsewhere in the store I ran across the Fantasy Flight Game Arkham Horror which looked fabulous and further impressed me with what Fantasy Flight has been doing in the realm of gaming.

These types of games are a participatory mythology—meaning they allow players to jump into a scenario and live the values of a mythology. These games unlike everything else in society are all about recognizing value instead of evading it—so there isn’t any escape from the process of assessment. I wasn’t a fan of these kinds of things until my nephews and son-in-law brought them back into my life last summer while on vacation. While I don’t enjoy traditional board games like Monopoly and most of the games on the Target gaming shelf dealing with contemporary matters, I do love these mythology based games in that they are like novels lived in the field of time and space which have uncertain outcomes.

The Arkham Horror game attracted my attention because it deals with the Roaring Twenties and involves horror, monsters, and ancient secrets. Of course it is this time period I love which featured near perfect capitalism and a wonderful President in Calvin Coolidge, so the time period itself is interesting as a backdrop for such a story. At Nostalgic Ink we were in a time crunch so I didn’t buy the game as of yet, but I will at the next available moment. It plays up to eight people in a cooperative play which would do well in my family. We had a birthday party for that same son-in-law who is very skilled with these games. It’s impressive to watch him. At the party several groups broke off and played games, some in the house, some outside set up around the pool, some out under a shade tree. One of the games was Magic the Gathering which I’ve seen quite a lot, the other was my son-in-law’s new Game of Thrones card game again by Fantasy Flight Games. I watched a bit of that game and again it was another amazing creation by Fantasy Flight with the usual quality in game pieces and such detailed manuals, card design, and even box artwork.

I had been wondering if Fantasy Flight was just freakishly good at game design with their X-Wing series—because it’s Star Wars and thus sells well. But after seeing what they did with the Game of Thrones card game I’m convinced that it is just the nature of the company. Any doubts I had about buying The Arkham Horror game evaporated in that instant. The gaming that night at our house went well into the night well past the time my wife and I went to bed—so my family would love Arkham Horror.

During a typical day when things sometimes seem overwhelmingly difficult—and impossible—I take a minute and visit the Fantasy Flight Games website to see what’s going on new—which every day appears to be something. I enjoy reading the game forums for X-Wing and it actually relaxes my mind. This is distinctively different from the typical escapism, evasion tactics of something like a baseball game, or Fantasy Football—which does similar things for a more mainstream audience. For me, and my love of mythology, these games are just marvelous.

Walking the aisles at Nostalgic Ink the owner does a great job of displaying all his vast collection of games—most of them are like these Arkham Horror, and Game of Throne games. These are different from traditional board games like Life, Candyland, or card games like Uno. They have the added element of plot and story to accentuate the randomness of a dice role—and are quite intriguing. If I had time, I’d like to play one of each kind of game in Nostalgic Ink. My grandson not yet two years of age already understands that there is something special about the place, he enjoys the colors on the boxes displaying all the bizarre artwork and wanted to look at everything. It’s a very stimulating atmosphere much like how book stores used to feel minus the references to popular culture—which is often distracting when you need a break from it.

It cannot be ignored that people who play these types of Fantasy Flight Games enjoy thinking. My son-in-law certainly embodies that trait—he loves to think and in the realm of those games—is a maestro. But what’s better is the plot and advancement of intrigue that makes the experience like a shared novel. In a high-tech age such as what we live in now, it is just wonderful to see such a low tech—creative—and traditional format of storytelling that has emerged as powerfully as Fantasy Flight Games has done over these last few years. I was already a fan because of their X-Wing Miniatures work, but their efforts don’t end there. It is unlikely that I would have ever stepped into Nostalgic Ink if not to purchase my first B-Wing fighter in the September of 2013. Since then, I have been there often and now find myself going there to primarily buy gifts for other people. But for me X-Wing Miniatures has been a gateway to the rest of the Fantasy Flight Games product line. It is what they are doing now that will still have meaning many years from now when I want to play the same games with my future grandchildren and other family members who will grow up to love those games. I remember the kind of things I loved growing up and to a large extent, I still love those things. Video games and tech related entertainment has a dated feel that cheapens those experiences over time as improvements come out in future years. But these Fantasy Flight Games products will still have the magic of their appeal hundreds of years from now because the root of their effort is in the great presentation of their material– the invocation of thought as their mechanism into story telling. And it is in the stories of our society that the truths we all seek reside—whether realistic, or fantasy based, it is the process of thought which the human race most seeks. And Fantasy Flight Games has their pulse on the importance of thought—and that makes them for my money one of the best companies on earth creating one of the most important needs humans have aside from food and clothing—mythology.

Rich Hoffman www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

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