Obviously, I have lived a colorful life. I have something to say about just about anything and everything and that ability was carved out of my life experience. Hey, it’s the Superbowl time of year—I love watching that game and the ceremonial nature that America dedicates to the event, so let’s have a little fun. I loved several commercials during the game but I particularly enjoyed the new Bud Light commercial “Ian Up for Whatever.” I knew from the moment that the young lady asked Ian–just a normal guy sitting in a sportsbar–that if she gave him a free Bud Light would be up for anything that followed–she was playing the role of the mythic goddess figures of the past and that Ian was in for an adventure. There have been many times when life has asked similar questions, and my typical reaction is “YES,” because you never know what kind of adventure comes next—but to get there you always have to say “YES.”
That’s the gist of things in Bud Light’s new “Ian Up For Whatever” Super Bowl commercial—a star-studded spectacle involving hidden cameras and wave after wave of celebrity cameos.
The true star of the commercial, however, is a man named “Ian” who finds himself swept up in a sequence of wild events bordering on the unimaginable, but not quite as crazy as the uninitiated might believe.
Things begin with Ian sitting alone at a bar. He’s approached by a pretty girl named Kelly, who introduces herself and takes a seat. Within moments, Ian’s new friend holds up a Bud Light and asks a single, somewhat ominous question.
“If I give this to you, are you up for whatever happens next?” Kelly asks.
“Uh, I think so,” Ian responds, obviously thinking that Kelly was coming on to him.
That’s how it starts—a night of limousines, twin parties and more Arnold Schwarzenegger ping-pong than ever conceived possible. Actually, that was my favorite part.
Ian receives a new jacket, courtesy of Friday Night Lightsstar Minka Kelly.
He also finds himself with comedian-musician Reggie Watts, who has been stuffed into a DJ booth inside the Hummer stretch limo designated to chauffeur Ian about New York for the evening.
The one prevailing tie in the commercial is the presence of Bud Light bottles, which Ian and company constantly have in hand. There’s also the omnipresent eye of the commercial’s directors and coordinators, who have the entire experience planned down to the moment and wired for video and sound.
In all, “Ian Up For Whatever” is an impressive feat of planning and videography. Any number of mishaps could’ve turned this commercial into a nightmare, but judging by the final product, things went rather swimmingly.
I could tell a number of stories where similar things have happened to me. It is often surprising how a willingness for adventure can pave the way for the unfathomable. Those events may not happen quite in the same way as Ian’s experience—and they may not involve such New York cultural pleasure, but they are often as outrageous and cryptically elusive to the mind of a planned individual. The human spirit often carries events beyond conception, and the real magic of life is often beyond those borders. I have been to such places many times—so much that nothing would shock me now. Where Ian was amazed, I would have been much more flat lined. The limo would not have surprised me, playing “baby tennis” with Arnold Schwarzenegger wouldn’t have been strange or finding oneself onstage with a major music group, relative to my personal life. Crazy things do happen, and they often start with the word “Yes.”
A good lesson from that commercial is to say “yes,” a bit more often. When your boss places before you a tough challenge……………..say, “yes.” You’d be surprised what might happen. When your car starts sputtering because you are almost out of gas, say “yes” and keep the petal depressed. See what happens when you run out of fuel a mile short of a gas station. Many adventures are likely to transpire. When you pass by a restaurant that strikes your interest, say “yes” and pull in and try it out. Stepping out of a routine can be very exciting. Say “yes” more often and let adventure into your life, and you will discover that Ian’s experience is not that unique.
Good things don’t always happen, but I still say yes to many things, because I love adventure. It is adventure that has filled my mind with so many opinions, and given voice to so many topics. I have a story for everything when I talk to younger people because in my past I have said “yes” to many outrageous adventures even the ones that appeared to be kamikaze runs. I always figured I was cleaver enough to avoid death, and I have been right more times than chance can take credit for.
Because of those adventures I love my life. I love every day of it and I don’t have regrets. Even bad decisions were part of the “saying yes” process, and the adventures that followed have led to tremendous amounts of experience which translates to personal wisdom. In this life, wisdom is capital—more powerful capital than gold, or the perceived values of finance. Wisdom can gain finances, but finances cannot gain wisdom. Wisdom is by far more valuable, and wisdom can only be obtained by living life—and to live life, you have to “say yes,” to things.
A guy who reads here a lot will recognize this story immediately but I remember a trip to Panama City with him which nearly mirrored this Bud Light commercial. It started by “saying yes” to a cold March evening, a complicated engineering problem, and a political stalemate that needed to be broken loose. It ended hours later over a thousand miles away with me playing football on a beach after jumping off a pier from about 25 feet and breaking my ankle in the sand. I wrapped the ankle and continued playing football anyway under the moonlight next to the ocean. We slept with a tent half constructed next to a harbor, and solved our problem over breakfast at a Burger King. We returned to Cincinnati within 48 hours of leaving for our next meeting and solved all our problems with a fresh perspective. Adventure is good for building wisdom.
There are hundreds of those types of stories, but most don’t involve the kind of elements seen in that Bud Light commercial. The Panama City one did, which is the reason for the reference. But all such adventures lead to the ability to have wisdom—something young people don’t have until it is developed. At the end of his adventure in the Bud Light commercial Ian was wiser than was when he simply agreed to a girl in a bar to accept whatever happened next. Adventure happens all the time to many people, and adventure builds wisdom—but before either can be obtained a person has to be willing to “say yes.” Lucky for Ian, he did. But you too Dear Reader can experience adventure in the strangest places and times. All you have to do is, “say yes.
The State of the Union speech was such a comedy this year—increasingly made so incrementally over time—that there was very little of it that I took seriously. The most comic parts of it are when for the whole previous year both political sides yapped negatively about each other with much rhetoric and fanfare—yet when the president arrived all those idiots from both sides lined up to shake his hand and get his autograph. When Obama finally arrived at the podium to stand in front of vice president Biden and Speaker of the House John Boehner, everyone shook hands politely and with great respect before Obama basically announced himself Emperor of America. It was hilarious because the politicians were all talk spewing forth criticisms like a Pro Wrestler. But behind the scenes, which is what the State of the Union is really all about—they are friends. They are all on the same team. They are all part of the Washington D.C. beltway and are divorced from the reality of the main streets of America. They are power-hungry, unethical, and more or less scum bags. Out of all the coverage I heard about the State of the Union, only The Blaze Radio Network articulated my feelings accurately. Listen to Doc Thompson’s hilarious broadcast covering the day after the State of the Union Address. It’s well worth the time. Grab a snack, turn off the television, and turn this broadcast on in the background and enjoy the next couple of hours.
Glenn Beck, who runs The Blaze had even more fun to share about his impressions of the State of the Union. I’m not the only one who makes frequent comparisons to the fictional film Star Wars these days—Beck saw much what I did in Obama’s speech. Obama might as well have been Emperor Palpatine from the Star Wars series. I remember when the film Revenge of the Sith hit theaters, many film critics from the left thought that the primary saga villain reflected George W. Bush’s constant lusting to start wars so to fill the pockets of Halliburton. That president was the one who brought us The Department of Homeland Security, and paved the way for all the NSA abuses we see today. But Obama far surpassed Bush with his 2014 State of the Union speech which was almost word for word what was said by Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith. Obama surely wasn’t even intending to copy the Star Wars villain—yet he did regardless. Obama’s power grab was driven by human innate desire—the desire to acquire power, and isn’t specific to Obama—but the people who put Obama in power. That was the point of the Star Wars films, and in the case of American politics on both political sides, fantasy reflects reality all too well. Watch Beck’s radio coverage on this topic.
The idiots looking for Obama’s autograph slobbering over themselves to shake the hand of the president knowing full well that the guy was planning to rule with Executive Orders paints the whole picture accurately. These guys are scum, they are addicted to power, and they are out to hurt us all. They aren’t legislating on behalf of the American people. They are a joke—and they really think so little of us that they will talk bad about the president to his face playing the media angle representing their side—then they turn around and slobber all over him hoping Obama rubs up against them in the hallway so they can die happy soldiers of solidarity.
The only–and I mean, only media outlet that even attempted to cover main street USA’s American perspective was The Blaze specifically Doc Thompson and Glenn Beck. Obama really thinks he’s a ruler—and his fellow politicians are perfectly willing to play the role. They are selling us out—every one of them. Every idiot who stood in line to shake the hand of an American Emperor contributed to the cause.
If I were there would I have shaken the President’s hand? I knew you were going to ask that question dear reader…………F**K NO! I might have politely shunned him and if he tried to force his hand into mine, I would have slapped it away. If I were invited to The White House under this president, I would not go—under any circumstances. I certainly would not stand in line to “touch” the dude.
This folly is not the fault of President Obama. It is a failure of the human condition, the desire to be led about and ruled which comes to us from the distant past when mankind was ruled over by a village chief who designated who made fires, who hunted for food, who had babies and when, and who would be sacrificed to the sun in order to keep it burning in the sky. One would hope that after several hundred thousand years of evolution the human being would have migrated away from such primitive thinking—but we haven’t. The slack-jawed idiots of Congress, the wishy-washy Senator, and the many guests drooling from the gallery were mostly enamored by the grace of America’s symbol of an Emperor—the one who rules them all. Very, very few of the people present were there to defend the Republic of America. Those who have defended America have been label radicals, nut-cases, and right-winged extremists by those who desire to look at Obama as the embodiment of an American Emperor.
Even Bill O’Reilly from Fox News is ga-ga over Obama. He’s actually proud that he is conducting the pre-Superbowl interview with Emperor Obama. Over the last couple of weeks O’Reilly came out in favor of Obama’s minimum wage increase of $10.10 an hour. That should make the pre-interview handshake more pleasant between O’Reilly and Obama. Both guys are wealthy beyond comprehension and are clearly out of touch. O’Reilly doesn’t care where the money comes from for the small business person. He doesn’t care that all the many workers who were making $10 an hour previously will suddenly want $12 and $13 an hour for the same work because now the minimum wage is $10 driving up all wages with inflationary value all over the country. He’s just another sell-out. I still watch him—occasionally he does some good reporting–about as good as any media outlet in the mainstream does these days, but he’s still too far to the left for me.
The White House is just a building with a bunch of bricks in it. I’ve been there and was not impressed. It is a symbol of an American Republic that no longer exists—it is a ghost of its former self and looters like Obama and most of the modern-day politicians are simply using that ghost to advance their lust for power. The White House is not sacred, it is not magical, and it is not enchanting. It is just a building and the people in it are flawed human beings corrupted by the imperfections of the flesh. They are small minded—lackluster collectivists weakened by an evolution of mankind which started in villages and is still functioning from those primal yearnings. The same dust-covered tribes of hunters and gatherers who spent all their waking moments trying to appease the king or chieftain sacrificing goats to the gods of the sun and moon are the same damn fools standing in the aisle of Congress wanting to shake the hand of a puppet in Obama. The whole event was just a ceremony designed to make human beings feel “safe.” To know that their place in the universe is protected by some symbol of authority—in this case it’s Obama. In the past it was Bush, Clinton, and Reagan. In the future it will be more watered down feel-good candidates even more useless and ceremonial as human evolution regresses further year by year until the whole thing collapses.
The humor of the situation is the declaration of dictatorship that completely went over the heads of all present—except those with a mind to notice. It was for me the funniest State of the Union yet. It was like watching Hulk Hogan standing in the center of a ring challenging all comers to a battle to the death—but knowing that off the stage, all the participants were making plans to go out to dinner and roll in the wealth of their falsehoods. Taken in that context, the entire event was quite funny—and entertaining—where it used to be just sad. There was no sadness this time—because I no longer even take it serious. It’s just entertainment by actors who aren’t even good—just cheesy marionettes of global interest.
Thank goodness yet again for The Blaze and blog sites who covered the situation for what it really was……………a travesty of justice cowering in the ghost-like mist of an American Republic.
For the Superbowl this year, even though I like and admire both teams, the defense of the Seattle Seahawks, and the offense of Payton Manning on the Broncos—it is the Broncos that I will be rooting for. During the football year of 2011, Manning was forced to sit out the entire year and watch from the booth in Indianapolis as his football career appeared to be over with a neck injury that appeared irreparable. Yet Manning, with the same resiliency he shows in all of his football games was determined to never say die even when the odds were very much against him. He calmly made arrangements to have his injury fixed with stem cells returning a year later to a new team with the Denver Broncos having a strong season. The very next year, he has taken that franchise to the Superbowl—a feat they would not have achieved without him. Payton Manning singlehandedly cared the team on his back and with leadership that is very unique. He took a team that would otherwise be average—to the most coveted sports event of the entire year—a Superbowl.
There was a wonderful article on this stem cell procedure which I thought was of interest to my readers here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom. As my frequent readers know, I am very excited about the cures for cancer, the regenerative growth technology that is happening in the medical industry, and other exciting developments in stem cell research that are currently underway. If Manning had followed the rules in The United States dictated by the FDA, Payton would have found his NFL career over two years ago. He would not be playing in a Superbowl, and Denver would still be struggling to find an identity after their experiments with Tim Tebow.
The entirety of that article can be found at the end of this article for cross-reference but the gist of it is this–Peyton Manning, first injured his neck in a game against the Washington Redskins on October 22nd, 2006 after his helmet was ripped off by Andre Carter. Manning played relatively pain-free the next few years but reinjured the neck in 2010 and soon found himself without his characteristic arm strength. Ultimately, Manning decided to go under the knife in May of 2011 to have surgery on a herniated disk that was thought to cause the pain and weakness. In the weeks following the operation, the NFL’s most marketable player appeared to be on the road to recovery1 but he suffered another setback in the summer of 2011 necessitating a second, far more serious operation: cervical spinal fusion.2 But before he had the procedure, Peyton Manning did something truly bizarre.
Shortly before the spinal fusion, Manning travelled to Europe to have stem cells harvested from his fat tissue so they could be injected into his injured neck. Upon learning of this unusual procedure, I had two questions: 1) Why did he do this? and 2) Why was it done in Europe?
Stem cells are those undifferentiated cells that, like Daniel Day-Lewis, can seemingly turn into anything. They can be harvested from bone marrow, the umbilical cord, blood, or fat tissue – plucking them from fat happens to be technically easy and relatively painless – and through the secretion of growth factors can aid in cartilage and bone regeneration. There’s no definitive evidence that stem cell injections actually work for the kind of neck injury Peyton Manning had, so when it was leaked that the quarterback had undergone the procedure, there were more than a few skeptics.
A professor of bioethics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine called Manning’s decision “an act of desperation” and Dr. Lawrence Goldstein, director of the stem cell program at the University of California, San Diego said, “It is impossible to know whether the ‘treatment’ will make Manning better or worse or merely financially poorer.”
Well, at age 37, Peyton Manning just had the best season for a quarterback in the history of the NFL. But was it because of the stem cells or in spite of them or unrelated entirely? It’s still unclear. Proponents of the procedure call Manning a poster child for stem cell therapy, while critics say he required a subsequent neck operation precisely because the stem cells didn’t work. (Manning has not commented.) While that argument plays out, a more interesting question remains: Why did Manning have to go to Europe for the procedure? The answer has to do with the FDA and how one defines risk.
A patient can either be consented individually (by signing a form, typically) for a medical procedure—like neck surgery—or exposed to an unconsented risk where regulatory assurances are already in place, like the FDA ensuring that your painkiller is potent, safe, and pure. But where do stem cell injections fall on the consent/risk spectrum? Is the injection of your own cells more like having a surgical procedure or more like taking a drug? Because there is no mass production or distribution involved, many doctors think the risk of stem cell injections is more like having surgery; it can only be estimated by the clinician who is providing the therapy, and it is up to the patient to weigh and ultimately accept the risk and provide consent. The FDA disagreed with this line or reasoning and in 2006 ruled that a patient’s own cells should be subject to the same regulation as mass-produced drugs. Peyton’s stem cells were essentially no different from a medication you’d pick up at the pharmacy.
The outcry from medical organizations was swift, and included critical statements from the American Red Cross and the American Society of Clinical Oncology, which objected, “in the strongest terms to FDA’s proposed regulation of stem cell transplants. This misguided proposal is unnecessary…and exceeds FDA’s legal authority…stem cell transplants are medical procedures. Their use is the practice of medicine, not the manufacturing of a drug as FDA asserts.”
The FDA’s ruling meant Peyton’s own stem cells fell under the purview of the FDA and were suddenly wrapped in red tape. To avoid any possible bureaucratic delay, he simply went to Europe to have the procedure done there. Manning didn’t have time to wait for the FDA or more testing of the procedure, he needed to get back on the field before he was too old. Now the presumptive MVP may be headed for the Super Bowl after a record-setting season. Was it because of the stem cells? Who knows, but the likelihood is that many more people—not just pro athletes, but weekend warriors—will be wanting to go to Europe to have this done, and Peyton won’t just be the face of junk pizza and DirecTV, but of an unproven medical procedure and skirting FDA regulation abroad.
The American government is killing people because of their intense regulations and causing many millions of others to be ill when they don’t need to be. The Peyton Manning story should be a lesson to us all of what kind of medical potential exists, but aren’t options because they threaten the power of the pharmaceutical lobby. As the world watches Peyton Manning in the Superbowl finalize a 2013 season remember that Manning would not be able to play that game if he had followed the recommendations of the American government and the ridiculous rules of the FDA. Look at your own aches and pains and remember the loved ones who painfully left your life through death and illness and answer your own question………………………..why?
The answer is because the FDA wants people sick—so they can stay relevant and keep everyone buying drugs at a pharmacy protecting the drug companies. The option of stem cell research threatens those drug companies by making it so that people could be healthy, instead of always sick. There is more money to be made off sick people than healthy ones.
For all those reasons……………….I am rooting for Payton Manning…………….one more time.
Dictator Obama with all his threats of using Executive Orders to bypass congress leading up to his State of the Union speech made one of the most reckless proposals a sitting president ever made. Obama proposed a mandatory minimum wage hike for all employees involved with government contracts and urged all companies everywhere no matter of economic ability to adhere to a minimum wage of $10.10. To the everyday person, more money for the same work sounds appealing—but those people have never struggled to collect payable accounts to make a payroll. What this president has just proposed is a mandatory decimation on labor margins that while have a devastating impact on the flow of business. Now, Obama has no idea why his dumb idea will be such a travesty. He thinks he’s helping people. But for a sitting president who wants to create jobs—he is clearly out of his mind—he’s just proposed a policy that will destroy them.
Of course the President and his advisers are proposing this hike in the minimum wage because of their belief in socialism. They don’t believe that the “greedy” business owner has a “right” to the profits of their endeavors. They believe that all people from the simple laborer to the CEO are “equal.” They believe that everyone should show up for work each day and play their roles at their places of business, take their pay at the end of the week, and live their “middle-class” lives under the rule of people like Obama and his government bureaucrats. But—their view of the world is severally flawed because it does not incorporate the most important ingredient into hiring a staff—potential.
Not all employees are equal. Some are better than others, and not all people are worth the same money. It doesn’t matter if people are white, black, purple, yellow, green males females or some combination in between—what does matter is whether or not employees have gumption—drive—and a sense of quality in their lives. The worker who makes silly fart jokes during an entire shift is not worth the same amount of pay as the worker who is always looking to stay busy and pushing themselves to advance by learning more. The worker who does not have the personal ambition to try to be a better person is not worth the same as the person who tries every day to go to bed at night better than they were when they woke up.
Obama’s minimum wage increase with the stroke of an Executive Order—bypassing congress ignores this basic premise in hiring practices and makes American productivity less competitive because the weak and un-ambitious are now getting a raise which they don’t deserve. This incentivizes companies who might consider doing business in America to take their endeavor to India, China or Malaysia where employees will work for very little money-making doing business in those countries much more appealing than in The United States.
Obama has artificially created value with his stupid little pin and his foreign Jakarta education that will guarantee wealth redistribution not from the rich and the poor in America but from The United States to third world countries many of them plagued by socialism and communism. China is a communist country………..in spite of Hong Kong being the freest city on earth. By forcing companies to push back against this minimum wage law, Obama wants those companies to relocate to poor economic regions where cheap labor resides. Isn’t it obvious? Government cannot create value—or jobs, yet Obama’s reckless attempt in spite of the good intentions are just further ignorance of his economic ignorance. Where value is created artificially the bad are rewarded while the good are penalized. The good is the productive worker, or the actual job creator. The bad is the lackluster human being who just wants to do the minimum in life, get their pay check, and buy a six-pack of beer. Many of those same stupid people are currently paying more taxes than they need to on their IRS forms so that they can get a $3000 check back in the spring because they are incapable of saving money. As they file their taxes they already have their money spent planning vacations, new computer purchases, and fancy dinners. Once the money is spent by May they will be broke until the following year waiting for their tax returns once again. Those are the dumb asses who will benefit from the minimum wage increase—not the frugal, diligent worker who may have worked hard every day for years and is currently making $10 to $11 an hour on a general labor position. Now Obama has given the less than efficient worker an equal status forcing an employer to decrease their margins—which many won’t be able to do—it will be easier to just take their operation out of America where labor is cheaper.
When the terrorists of 9/11 attacked the World Trade Center in New York City in 2001, they intended to attack America’s symbol of economic power. They hoped to bring down the American economy—and for the most part their act was successful. America handcuffed themselves in reaction for over a decade after. But Obama as performed a much more effective terrorist attack that was undoubtedly hatched long ago with his friendships with the American terrorists Bill Ayers and Michelle’s law office buddy, Bernadine Dorn. With the stroke of a pin, Obama has done much more to destroy the American economy than run a plane into some buildings. He has attacked American business directly—with an Executive Order—and a philosophy bred by socialism—and all the failures that follow in its wake.
This minimum wage law is not about being “fair.” It is about wealth redistribution not even from the rich to the poor but from one country to other countries suffering from economic depravity because of their commitment to social collectivism. To be a strong country, it takes work, innovation, and effort. Americans aren’t just born, they are made. By raising the minimum wage, Obama takes money from those who have worked, innovated and put forth effort and gives it to those who have not. He also destroys the next generation of Americans by rewarding the lazy incentivizing more people to be more so. Why should employees work harder if the good are paid to be bad? The answer is that they shouldn’t. Yet that is what’s happening, and the reason is more than just a thinly veiled attempt at fairness. It is a form of terrorism intended to drain the wealth of one nation into others—and that is why it’s a crime, not a good tiding designed to do good. It is sinister for all that will result and the evil was ushered in with cheers and fanfare……….as it always is.
I have heard for as long as I’ve interacted with people how my enjoyment of fantasy is an escape from reality brought upon by a desire to not deal with the facts of circumstance. People who desire that the earth is only 4000 years old because thinking outside of those parameters wrecks the foundations of their very lives—do not like things that rock their boat of perceived reality. They are often content to view the world as it has been prepared for them by politics, public relation firms, and religion—and react with disdain toward those who wish to think outside of those boundaries. I find such people grotesquely ignorant, small-minded, and foolishly reckless to not only their lives, but those who they come in contact with. The older I get, the more I despise those people. They are detriments to intelligence. Fantasy is the vehicle to take the mind out of circumstance and into places where new ideas are born. In the context of intelligence the need for fantasy, imagination, and out-of-boundary thought is the specific human need for mythology. Dogs, cats and gold-fish have no need for mythology—they are driven by the basic need to eat, dispose of their waste, and reproduce. Nothing else. The human being thinks—giving mythology a much more important role to their vivid imaginations bringing logic and fantasy together to consider “what if.” This important process was never so brilliantly exhibited than in the Make-A-Wish Foundation story of 5-year-old Miles Scott who is currently in remission from leukemia. Watch this!
As much as I despise President Obama, I shared with the guy a love for little Miles Scott. As much as I think San Francisco is a haven for progressivism, I loved that much of the city turned out to help make Miles Scott’s wish to become a superhero into a reality. Because of the little fellow’s intense desire to be a superhero like the mythical Batman—this is where fantasy can take the mind out of the grim reality of a situation to take mankind to a higher place. Reality says to this child that he has leukemia and that he will die. Mythology says to this child, there is hope if you can become a superhero—so the survival instinct of Miles Scott chose life over death—and to fight instead of accepting his fate.
Thank God for the Make-A-Wish Foundation showing an interest in this child. But more than that, thank God the politicians of San Francisco joined in the effort with an army of similar volunteers. I have never seen such a fine example of the power of myth applied to reality. Out of all the characters that Christian Bale will ever play, none will be more important than his Batman character because none will ever obtain the ability to pull a city like San Francisco together the way that mythology did. It started with the fantasy of Batman and his ability to overcome personal issues to fight crime in the actual comic. Then Miles using that mythology to ask the question “what if.” Then it took the Make-A-Wish Foundation to give the kid a chance at his dream while he is still healthy and alive—before leukemia attacks him again. Then it took normal every day people to help make that fantasy into a reality for little Miles. But in this case, Miles Scott was the focus—the reason for the event, and in a metaphorical way, he saved not just San Francisco—but the entire nation.
Make-A-Wish does this kind of thing all the time. They are a great organization. Recently they made a child in Anaheim Batman’s sidekick Robin and a Seattle child a secret agent. But before they can organize such things Make-A-Wish needs creative people to plant the seed of hope into the mind of a child so that something greater than their circumstance can be comprehended—so that they can make a wish. This is why superheros, comic books, fantastic movies, and big ideas expressed creatively are so important to us all. For many kids not suffering the way that Miles Scott is, the same power holds for them as well. Superheros like Batman are good for the healthy as well as the sick and give hope where reality provided none.
The reason I get so damn mad at those who proclaim that fantasy is an escape from reality is that they are essentially saying that the world would be better off without these influences. They believe that reality was shaped by the politics of the Greeks and solidified by religion 2000 years ago—and that is just stupid. Those periods were just small steps in human progress toward creating a mythology that pushed up against the limits of reality to seek something more than the world currently provides. In the case of Miles Scott and the massive world-wide fanfare that ensued from his desire to be Batkid for a day, somewhere a scientist determined that nobody should suffer death by leukemia. Likely long after Batkid has come and gone from this earth, there will be a cure that was inspired by Miles Scott’s Make-A-Wish dream and the saving of lives won’t just be a fantasy played out on the city streets of San Francisco. It will become a new reality—inspired by fantasy and a new ceiling of human limitation will be revealed—and we will all be better off for it.
That is the power of myth, and the beauty of defying reality through fantasy. Miles Scott saved society for a day by removing the “tapestries of ideology” which divide us all, and put the question on the table—why, and how can “I” fix it?
That! Is Christopher Nolan’s next film……………………..and I will be going to see it!
I suppose my political beliefs were framed within the context of three men over a four-month period long ago. Prior to the presidential election of 1992 I was in Dallas, Texas spending time with Ross Perot and his family. I learned a lot from these experiences. I had always had a fascination with the Revolutionary War and Ross Perot had a style that brought that sentiment into focus. Then just a few months later I spent a considerable amount of time with Rob Portman as he began to run for the Second Congressional seat that was coming up during a special election. I liked Rob and my opinion leaned in his direction. At a special on-air debate on 700 WLW hosted by Mike McConnell during a Sunday night in Mt Adams, Portman’s challengers attended and I was there to witness the whole extravaganza. That was when I met Bob McEwen whom I initially disliked because of a House banking scandal that hovered over him like an ominous cloud. But for three crucial hours in my life I watched McEwen and Portman have it out with skill and debate that I admired spectacularly. Portman would go on to win, and would be the kind of prominent debater that Mitt Romney would use to prepare for his prime time debates against President Obama. Ross Perot would go down in history as one of the founders of the current Tea Party as his Reform Party essentially began during that Dallas event mentioned—where he would lose his run for president against Billy Clinton. And Bob McEwen hit the lecture circuit being paid $10,000 per speech because of his vast knowledge of history, economics and insider politics. Some of these speeches can be seen below and should be watched entirely. They are real treasures—he is a very good public speaker. In spite of the check bouncing scandal he was a staunch anti-communist, a religious supporter, and an economic scholar with a deep knowledge of history. Out of the three mentioned men, I learned more from Bob McEwen once I forgave him for the congressional scandal and realized why he was targeted—because Washington D.C. wanted him out-of-town. Political insiders wanted Bob McEwen out of their “beltway.” Watch all these videos carefully—preferably many times. And send them to a friend.
McEwen was caught up in the House banking scandal, which had been seized upon by Newt Gingrich, a like-minded conservative House Republican, as an example of the corruption of Congress; members of the House had been allowed to write checks on their accounts, which were paid despite insufficient funds and without penalty. Martin Gottlieb of the Dayton Daily News said “McEwen was collateral damage” to Gingrich’s crusade.[25] McEwen initially denied bouncing any checks. Later, he admitted he had bounced a few. Then when the full totals were released by Ethics Committee investigators, the number was revealed to have been 166 over thirty-nine months. McEwen said that he always had funds available to cover the alleged overdrafts, pointing to the policy of the House sergeant-at-arms, who ran the House bank, paying checks on an overdrawn account if it would not exceed the sum of the Representative’s next paycheck.[26] In 1991, McEwen had also been criticized for his use of the franking privilege and his frequent trips overseas at taxpayer expense, but McEwen defended the trips as part of his work on the Intelligence Committee and in building relationships with legislatures overseas.[27]
Robert D. “Bob” McEwen (born January 12, 1950) is a lobbyist and American politician of the Republican Party, who was a member of the United States House of Representatives from southern Ohio‘s Sixth District, from January 3, 1981 to January 3, 1993. Tom Deimer of Cleveland‘s Plain Dealer described him as a “textbook Republican” who is “opposed to abortion, gun control, high taxes, and costly government programs.” In the House, he criticized government incompetence and charged corruption by the Democratic majority that ran the House in the 1980s. McEwen, who had easily won three terms in the Ohio House, was elected to Congress at the age of thirty to replace a retiring representative in 1980 and easily won re-election five times.
After a bruising primary battle with another incumbent whose district was combined with his, in which McEwen faced charges of bouncing checks on the House bank, he narrowly lost the 1992 general election to Democrat Ted Strickland. Following an unsuccessful run in the adjacent Second District in 1993, McEwen was largely absent from the Ohio political scene for a decade, until in 2005 he unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for Congress in the Second District special election to replace Rob Portman, who beat him in 1993, and finished second to the winner in the general election, Jean Schmidt. McEwen’s 2005 platform was familiar from his past campaigns, advocating a pro-life stance, defending Second Amendment rights, and promising to limit taxes and government spending. In 2006, he unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination in the Second District.
In Congress, McEwen, who “had a reputation as a man who thinks about politics every waking moment,” claimed Congressional Quarterly, was a staunch conservative, advocating a strong military.[2] In addition, he was a strong advocate for government works in his district — dams, roads, locks and the like much as Harsha had been — as McEwen was on the House’s Public Works and Transportation Committee.[3]The Chillicothe Gazette would salute him for his work on funding for U.S. Route 35, a limited access highway linking Chillicothe to Dayton.[4] In general, however, McEwen advocated reduced government spending.
A vehement anti-Communist, he visited Tbilisi in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia in 1991 to help tear down the hammer-and-sickle iconography of the Communist regime.[5] That year he also called for the House to establish a select committee to investigate the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue – whether any soldiers declared “missing in action” in the Vietnam War and other American wars were still alive – by sponsoring H. Res. 207.[6]
McEwen was not a man to mince words. In the heated debate in 1985 over a Congressional seat in Indiana between Republican Richard D. McIntyre, whom the Indiana Secretary of State had certified as winning a seat in the 99th Congress, and Democrat Frank McCloskey, in which the House declined to seat McIntyre, McEwen declared on the House floor, “Mr. Speaker, you know how to win votes the old-fashioned way — you steal them.”[11] When McEwen was late in 1990 to the House because of a massive traffic jam on the I-495 beltway around Washington, D.C., he said on the House floor on February 21 that the District of Columbia’s government should be replaced:
The total incompetence of the D.C. government in Washington, DC, has become an embarrassment to our entire Nation. This experiment in home rule is a disaster. All of us who serve in this Chamber, well over 95% of us, have held other positions in government. We have been mayors. We have been township trustees, State legislators, and the rest. I am convinced, Mr. Speaker, that there are well over 2,000 township trustees in my congressional district who with one arm tied behind their backs, could blindfolded do a better job of directing this city than the city council of D.C. It is high time that this experiment in home rule that has proven to be a disaster for our nation be terminated, that we return to some sort of logical government whereby the rest of us can function in this city.[12]
After McEwen was criticized for his remarks, he delivered a thirty-minute speech in the House on March 1, 1990, on “The Worst City Government in America”.[13] Because of the crime problem in the District, McEwen also attempted to pass legislation overturning the District council’s ban on mace, saying people in the District should be able to defend themselves.[14] During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, McEwen introduced legislation to end President Gerald Ford‘s ban on U.S. government employees assassinating foreign leaders (Executive Order 12333) in order to clear the way for Saddam Hussein‘s removal, McEwen objecting to the “cocoon of protection that is placed around him because he holds the position that he holds as leader of his country.”[15]
For people who believe that Cincinnati, Ohio is just a flyover city, they are sadly mistaken. The region of my home town produces very interesting people, life changing ideas, and I am proud of it. Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise, Nick Clooney, Ted Turner, Annie Oakley, Nick Longworth who married Teddy Roosevelt’s cherished daughter Alice, William Taft, the Voice of America, the Crosely brothers, Kings Island, Rob Portman and of course Bob McEwen along with many others. Not all of those names are good ones, but Cincinnati throughout history has been at the center of the heartbeat of the nation. McEwen is still out there fighting for freedom as a political outsider—pushed out of the beltway by those who didn’t like his message. And behind him is the next generation of freedom fighters. The Cincinnati Tea Party is one of the strongest in the nation and is directly challenging current House Speaker John Boehner and the fraudulent Ohio governor John Kasich who launched and won his campaign against Ted Strickland because of the Cincinnati Tea Party. Cincinnati is where the fight is at. It is the modern version of Trenton, New Jersey in the new Revolution for independence.
Bob McEwen is a product of Cincinnati, a man deeply committed to undoing the kind of progressive underpinnings brought to the city at the turn of the 20th Century by Nick Longworth and his father-in-law Teddy Roosevelt along with William Howard Taft. Before these characters, Cincinnati was where the great Simeon Kenton settled with his sheer will and a hatchet well before any “White Man” braved the wild frontier of Cincinnati. Tecumseh and his Shawnee warriors were from Cincinnati. Tecumseh was born where modern day Xenia is today and fought directly with Simeon Kenton for this holy ground of the Ohio River valley—particularly Cincinnati. Kenton was in the Ohio River Valley because he was running from the “White Men” European decedents for much the same reasons that the Indians did. Tecumseh couldn’t hold off the “White Settlers” as more and more people fled European tyranny in much the same way that Cubans risked life and limb to swim to Miami, Florida to escape communism. The Shawnee would grudgingly flee the Cincinnati area as President Washington had a fort built in his name to defend the region. Another fort to the north along the Great Miami River named Fort Hamilton was built in dedication to Washington’s right hand man—Alexander Hamilton, and just down the road was a town named after James Monroe. In between those places was a township called “Liberty” which was established in direct honor of the Revolutionary War.
I grew up next to the grave of the Revolutionary War veteran John Ayers and his wife Sarah. He fought in Elizabethtown, Van Nest Mill, Piscataway, and Monmouth. Their graves can still be visited; they are in the back yard of the homes off the Butler County Regional Highway at the 747 exit if traveling toward the east. As a kid I discovered this cemetery overrun by dirt and trampled by cows deep in the woods in the middle of nowhere. I brought home Sarah’s tombstone to my mother to prove that the place existed and she was extremely furious. I put the head stone back, and often wondered if the ghost of John Ayers plagued me with images of war, fighting for freedom, and settling an area braving the elements just to run away from European collectivism because I disturbed his wife’s grave. In all reality, it is likely that Cincinnati itself and the region of land projecting out for 75 miles in every direction has a soul that rises up to meet oppression—and the bad guys of the world know it. For decades the Soviet Union had nuclear missiles pointed at the GE plant in Evendale and Hitler wanted desperately to destroy the Voice of America in Mason, Ohio. And the Washington establishment wanted to destroy the man from Cincinnati, Bob McEwen and his crusade against communism, fiscal irresponsibility, and the preservation of Christian values.
I learned a little from everyone mentioned—some of those names were good, some were sinister—but all came from Cincinnati and had something for me to learn from—and I did—including the ghost of John Ayers and his family who I often felt patrolled the haunted woods outside my bedroom window where a highway and many homes now exist. For as long as I can remember I had an affinity for the Revolutionary War and it is likely that John Ayers had something to do with it as I spent most of my time as a kid outside hunting for old cemeteries, and the bodies buried by local politics which I despised for as long as I have memory. Bob McEwen is another of these Cincinnati products, and now that you have heard some of his speeches dear reader, you might understand why I was so taken with him as he debated Rob Portman during a special election at 700 WLW on a spring like Sunday evening. Out of Portman, Perot and McEwen, it is the later that is still as deeply committed to liberty and freedom. The rest of them either sold out, or ran out of gas—but McEwen never really gave up. He has been chipping away at the barriers for freedom for decades and really never let the ominous clouds of politics push him aside—which is why I admire him so much. I am happy to report that like the ghost of John Ayers, the Revolutionary War vet that I grew up with as a ghostly friend, Bob McEwen has been a tremendous influence on how I see the world—and perhaps you will enjoy his work as well.
I agree with Rush Limbaugh, Scott Walker’s announcement during his recent “State of the State Address” is the most important news story happening right now—and it is being kept purposely out of the mainstream news. The reason is that it proves that progressive leadership pillaging of tax payer dollars for ideological and selfish advancement has failed miserably. Scott Walker’s fiscal policies primarily in reforming collective bargaining agreements against violent Democratic, and public sector union opposition paved the way to saving Wisconsin a lot of money invoking nearly $800 million in tax cuts on the back of a $912 million dollar surplus. That is a huge story with far-reaching impact. He did what John Kasich chickened out of, and Chris Christie only alluded to—Walker’s victory was resolute and grotesquely obvious. It is a sign of the world to come. Many of the progressive policies that are currently bankrupting America and its cities started in Wisconsin during the progressive era—so it is only fitting that it end there as well. Scott Walker’s announcement essentially was a declaration of the end of progressive politics. Walker has been able to save more public sector jobs while also giving back money to the residents of Wisconsin spurring tremendous incentives for businesses to thrive under his governorship in a way that is currently unprecedented anywhere in the world. In just four years Scott Walker has turned around the economic situation in the very liberal Wisconsin right under the nose of protests, death threats and legal attempts to destroy him. Yet he has prevailed providing all of America—and the world—a “Blueprint for Prosperity” that if followed could enrich the life of even the poorest African nation within months, change the bankruptcy status of states like California, and save school districts like Lakota in Southern Ohio from neurotic slugs of cellulite trapping many human cells within the body of complete idiots. Listen to Rush’s broadcast on this matter and read more at the Breitbart link below:
I wrote the other day about the new school board at West Clermont who is planning to do essentially the same thing in their school district as Scott Walker did in the state of Wisconsin. Soon states, cities and other political districts will be forced by necessity to follow Scott Walker’s “Blueprint for Prosperity.” That promise has traditional Republicans who have suddenly found themselves well to the political left like swimmers at sea caught in a riptide. They had no idea they had drifted so far from shore—but over time they didn’t see the progressive current which had swept them along so gradually. Now they are drowning from their own neglect and stupidity—and they can only deny their follies publicly. They are attempting to turn away from the Walker news because for them, it is too late. They cannot salvage their reputations. Boehner has blown his chance, Portman has, Romney did, Mitch McConnell has, Kasich, Christie, just about everyone who calls themselves Republicans. They were all caught in the same progressive riptide and are well left of center—compared to people like Walker, Paul, and Cruz.
Democrats are even worse off, they have openly advocated socialism for the last 50 years—and it was their dumb ideas which have pretty much destroyed our country. They blamed Scott Walker over the last four years of destroying the middle-class, of giving away tax breaks to the rich—they never considered that the cost of the taxes were in dispute because the things they spent the money on were unneeded, and corrupt. Walker’s policies are only bad for public servants who have voted themselves tremendous raises as government workers. There are teachers in America who make more money than some governors of several states. The superintendent of Lakota has a compensation package that is on par with the Governor of Ohio. She makes as much money running a school district of a declining population of 17,000 students and just under 2000 employees while the governor is responsible for an entire state. She makes so much money because several Lakota teachers make six figure incomes which of course drives up the cost of management. If employees make six figures then obviously the administrators should make more so they never dispute pay increases for teachers because they have a general approach to fiscal matters that all boats rise, even if they all aren’t important, or needed. This destroys their budgets and is the primary cause of tax increases.
Not counting fuel and sales taxes I paid as much money in taxes during 2013 to purchase a luxury car with cash. I do not support the public schools, I take care of my own EMS needs, and for police—I have the Second Amendment. I don’t think America should be in bases all over the world doing the dirty work of the United Nations and I don’t want the NSA, IRS, FBI, CIA, or even the Post Office. Being conservative, it is unlikely that I used $1000 worth of the many thousands that I paid in taxes for actual services that I might value. Most of my money was stolen from me and given to derelicts and miscreants too lazy to be productive. Progressives have created more of these people by stealing my money and giving it to people who have done nothing to earn it except being born. Then these same idiots turn around and declare that abortion is good for women, and that society is somehow better without faith-based religion. Liberals and their beliefs may technically qualify them as mentally retarded. They may need help for their condition—but they certainly don’t need an office in control of budgets. Yet they have been in charge for a very long time and the tax rates have been implemented over time to be entirely too high giving back very little in real fiscal value. If I didn’t spend so much money in taxes I’d have well over a million dollars in savings for my retirement in my 40s. All Americans would be better off and the government would not be a middleman between my future and my past as they are now. Taxes are simply out of control now, so Walker’s $800 million in tax cuts are very refreshing—particularly in property taxes.
Wisconsin is proving that this formula against higher taxation works and for other states to compete with Wisconsin, they’ll have to adapt. For politicians like John Boehner, he can’t admit to it because like his Democratic partners in Washington, he is too far to the left also, and can’t endorse Walker without betraying all the deals he’s made over the years. The media because they have helped create all these social failures associated with progressivism can’t put a light on Walker’s success because it makes them look like fools. And of course Obama and his minions of socialists, communists, and former American terrorists are deeply committed to the kind of activity that Walker’s reforms attacked. Did everyone forget about the 14 Democrats who fled the state defying orders to return hoping to block a vote reforming collective bargaining—an act that brought Barack Obama to inject himself into the matter—in the long ago time of 2011? Apparently a lot of people forgot about that. Even so, Walker prevailed and won, and now all the fear mongering against him has proven to be untrue. Surprise!
Instead of the Walker story, a number of staunch Tea Party Republicans have been rounded up for prosecution on offenses much more minor than the IRS abuse story committed by The White House, the Benghazi deaths, or the Fast and Furious debacles. The message is clear; the federal government is attacking people who think like Walker hoping to impose fear into anyone who might try to duplicate his efforts. But as proven in Wisconsin, the feds don’t have any teeth. They are a bunch of pussies that lobby for millions of dollars for turtle crossings in Florida and believe that global warming is real. They are too stupid to run any economy, or put people like Dinesh D’Souza in prison. Heck even Mike Brown, the owner of The Cincinnati Bengals can beat the federal government. His team hasn’t won a playoff game during the entire 20 plus year duration of his leadership. But he can beat local and federal government. So why would anybody in their right mind fear the government? Scott Walker and a handful of law makers completely changed the direction of Wisconsin. Just think what a small army of similar conviction minded patriots could achieve. Those government idiots don’t stand a chance.
The only defense progressives have is to keep the story away from people’s eyes and ears. But it won’t work this time—the truth will be driven by results—results readily produced in Wisconsin in the last year of Governor Scott Walker’s first term.
If you were listening today across the vast frozen plains of Southern Michigan to WAAM radio in Ann Arbor you would have heard Clarkcast Radio host Matt Clark speaking to me about the future of America starting in 2014. The theme of our discussion centered around “Tapestries of Ideology” which I mentioned as a way to explain whether or not people cared enough about anything to change the direction of the Republic away from the socialism, liberalism, and sometimes open communism that has infected the American way of life by rabid progressive influence. When the “Tapestries of Ideology” are removed from people—the need for power structures to utilize pairs of opposites to herd people into a particular direction—people find they have more in common than less 100% of the time. I have had elegant dinners with “hit men” who did what they did to keep their wives wrapped in gold and perils, but loved watching Davy Crocket on The Wonderful World of Disney as kids. I’ve associated with judges who ran their entire local political structure ruthlessly—but discovered that deep down inside they loved the movie, “The Sound of Music.” Presently some of my best friends are the kind of people who used to be professional educators and would have hated me a decade ago, but find themselves united with my present crusade. Once those “Tapestries of Ideology” are removed, often it is discovered that people have more in common than not. This led to a very interesting discussion as Matt recorded it with video. He didn’t just want me to call in like a typical guest on talk radio, but he utilized Skype so he could have our discussion on a split screen—which turned out to be a really good idea. Have a look:
Progressives are often given credit for propelling forward the Civil Rights movement, bringing equality to women, and creating a five-day work week with labor union pressure against their employers. Using “Tapestries of Ideology” all those groups propelling so-called “rights”—actually exploited certain collective groups by focusing their energy on pairs of opposite duality so to steer their efforts toward progressive causes. For Civil Rights, progressive groups exploited black oppression, for women, progressives sought to create a “war against women” perpetrated by evil, vile, dirty, heterosexual men. For the weekend oriented work week, labor unions painted the pictures that corporations were evil and slave shops of doom that could not put a check on their selfish motivations. However, once those ideologies are removed from people one on one, it can easily be discovered that most women yearn to have a man’s specific touch in their life and want to be cared for in a passive way, blacks integrate quite well with whites, and most union members are happy to have a job that was created by a corporation and are often grateful. Progressive organizations can only advance their positions with duality and hate—which is why they never really wish to solve any problems. Instead they are perpetually on the outlook for more problems so that they can exploit them to gain power from the process.
What I said to Matt during our half hour broadcast was that this power trick is changing—the old progressive behavior is altering exposing the game of duality that has been played behind the “Tapestries of Ideology” for decades. When those tapestries are removed, people tend to find they have a lot in common—more so than politics would care to admit. When Denver plays Seattle in the next Superbowl entire cities supporting those respective teams will find themselves united. Ideologies of political and progressive nature will be removed because they find themselves supporting the exploits of Payton Manning or the terrific defense of the Seattle Seahawks. However, when the game is over, those tapestries of ideology go back up and the duality nature of progressive politics will return.
I most saw this duality during a game I attended in Tampa, Florida when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers retired the jersey of Mike Alstott. My wife and I flew down from Cincinnati for the game to watch the prime time Sunday night extravaganza. Before the game I attended a tailgate party where firefighters, local girls from the Penthouse strip club, cops, teachers, radio hosts, former players and a number of colorful personalities were enjoying the extended hours before the game. The event began at noon and lasted up until around 7 PM and featured great food, lots of drinks, and a very festive atmosphere. Ideologically I was opposed to most of the people at this tailgate party—but on that day at that time, we were all dressed to kill with skulls, and pirate paraphernalia with the united goal of seeing the Bucs beat the Seahawks. It was very exciting. These are some of my friends from “What The Buc?”
Old School, you are looking good man……………the weight loss is fantastic!
The Bucs won that game and Raymond James Stadium was rocking as the palm trees inside the stadium waved from a slight breeze to the massive crowed juiced up from the victory. But that wasn’t all, just across town at another stadium the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team was on a run for the World Series and were in the final innings. The game was a game seven as they had been down 4 to 1 against the Boston Red Sox just a few days before. Their comeback was one of the great sports stories at the time and if they won that particular game they’d go to the World Series against The Philadelphia Phillies. In Tampa this was an electrifying moment. My wife and I flew to Tampa essentially just for the Buccaneer game and the night before on a flight out of Baltimore the captain knowing that game 6 was so important to most of the passengers headed for Tampa piped in the game to the in-seat headsets. I listened to the Rays win that game going to game 7 the following night and the plane erupted with cheers. It was a phenomenal experience as perfect strangers were high fiving each other just because the game ended with the Tampa Bay Rays winning the game.
The next day prior to the Buccaneer tailgate party my wife and I had lunch outside at a nice restaurant at the International Mall. On October 19th 2008, it was a warm day in Florida and very pleasant around noon. We had stayed the night before at the same hotel where the Seattle Seahawks were staying. Due to the collective hostility toward them, they stayed in their rooms confined to their wing, mainly for their own protection as Tampa was revved up for their sports teams everywhere anybody went. It was a hostile environment for a visiting team to the Bay area. My wife and I ordered up a fine bottle of wine since we arrived late into town and the hotel let us have the outside pool area to ourselves until 2 AM as a special favor. We were having a nice time. This carried over to a nice breakfast by the bay, some quick phone calls to my Tampa contacts at the tailgate party, then arrangement for lunch. At the International Mall even that early in the day on a Sunday people were absolutely ecstatic having two massive sports events in town at the same time, the Buccaneer game and the Rays’ playoff game. It was an electrifying lunch which just intensified as the day wore on.
Many hours later, the Buc game ended in a victory but the Rays games was still rolling on. So the Raymond James Stadium crew turned on the rest of the Rays game onto the jumbotron scoreboards so the fans at the Buccaneers game could watch the Rays win that remarkable comeback performance against the Boston Red Sox. When David Price got the final out of that game I have never heard such an eruption of fan excitement as I did that day. The entire Raymond James Stadium exploded into cheers that were so intense that I thought the concrete of the place would shake apart. And it wasn’t just inside the stadium, but outside as well. The cars on the streets tooted their horns wherever they were and a rumble of cheers came from the city streets from as far away as sound could carry them. The ceremony went on for many hours and lasted all the way back to our hotel. The streets were clogged with people who stopped in the street and were dancing on their cars. It was an amazing experience.
I found myself joined with those people as a rugged individualist even though many of the people who wanted to shake my hand and hug me were likely people who would find my politics and social stance reprehensibly too strict for them. This was because the “Tapestries of Ideology” had been removed by the Buccaneer football game and the World Series entry of the Tampa Bay Rays. That emotion lasted until we got on a plane the next day, on a Monday and flew home. Once we landed back in Cincinnati, the “Tapestries of Ideology” were back in full force as Cincinnati had not experienced such a thing. The Reds had lost yet again, and the Bengals still sucked and people had nothing to unit them away from their personal ideologies created for them by power groups and charlatans.
As I told Matt, in 2014 the “Tapestries of Ideology” are coming down not because of a sporting event, but because information is so easy to receive from new media, video games requiring thought are outselling movies, television is being forced to produce thoughtful programming instead of sophomoric “booby humor” and the realization that most everybody has been lied to by a politician from both parties is impossible to escape. Common non-political people are sick of politics because it’s in their face now that Obamacare is taking more of their money with unjust taxation. For the same reason that the Seattle Seahawks had to stay in their hotel rooms in Tampa gazing from their balconies down onto my wife and I lounging at the pool below them trapped like convicts, politicians are finding that the world outside of Washington D.C. is not friendly to them. The “Tapestries of Ideology” are no longer hiding the antics of Obama and his miscreants of duality. They are exposed, and the things that normally divide people are failing, uniting unlikely souls toward uncharted territory.
I predicted to Matt that before 2014 ends this illuminating statistic would become more pronounced. It may not be measurable month by month—like the hands of a clock. If you stare at the situation, little movement will be observed. But if you turn away and look again five minutes from now, a huge change in hand position will be noticed. Thus, the same type of thing will occur throughout 2014. Watching day by day throughout February, March, and April, little will appear to change, but by the time that we reach December of 2014, quite a lot will. People are waking up and the old tricks executed with the “Tapestries of Ideology” are not working because people know what are behind those tapestries. They now know what they conceal and it is no longer enough to just look at the surface of things. People are looking deeper.
The top-selling books on the market are not the Steven King types as they have been in the past, they are Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Charles Krauthammer and Star Wars all works of tradition, thought, and rebellion against established thinking. The time has come and gone for the progressive. They have ruined the world, and are presently still in power, but the mess they made people resent—and they can no longer hide behind “Tapestries of Ideology.” Without those tapestries, there isn’t anything to hide the true intentions of the progressive—and that is what 2014 in the context of history most will be known for. Mark it on your calendar—because it will be a big year for truth, justice……………………..and the American Way as the “Tapestries of Ideology” come crashing down.
Did retired school board member Joan Powell and newly elected Lakota school board president Julie Shaffer really think that attacking me for going on WLW all the time illuminating the many mistakes made in public education—that the pressure against them would go away if I were not quoted on the mainstream radio and newspaper anymore? Did they think that if television stations stayed away from me because I made “incendiary” comments about women and the kind of idiots who typically join PTA groups that they would gain strategic positioning? Did they really think they’d change the dialogue using traditional tricks which I was well aware of—and used to my advantage? Apparently—they were just that stupid and continue to be as they are apparently bewildered by the large number of conservative leaning school board members entering into the public education management of districts. Here is a quote from Joan in a recent Michael Clark article in The Cincinnati Enquirer.
Still, recently retired Lakota school board President Joan Powell – a 16-year board veteran and one of the most influential school officials in the region during her tenure – wonders whether the publicly stated goals of some new board members match their political agendas.
“Unfortunately some of these individuals are not just interested in reducing expenses and maintaining taxes at their current level. There are those that have a goal to destroy public education as it exists – government schools, they call them – and use anti-tax and pro-voucher issues to reduce funding to schools to help reach that goal,” she said.
“A lot of damage can be done during a four-year term. By then voters should know what they stand for and whether (board members) are working in the best interests of the school district and the voters.”
Damage for whom—tax payers or education empire builders? The damage Joan is talking about is for her view of education, which is corrupt and devastating for American enterprise. So that’s a good thing when people like her are on the out.
Here’s a news flash that they and a whole bunch of others in the mainstream media and government school gate keepers have neglected to consider—that a plan hatched many years ago by a small number of Southern Ohio education reformers is just now manifesting into reality—and what they are seeing is just the beginning. If they think for a second that everything is going back to how public education was in the 90s and 2000s, they are sadly—and pathetically mistaken. Labor union domination of public education is ending and they are fighting to preserve a way of life that is out-dated, and destructive to American education not just in name—but actual function.
I know of about 80 different elected officials who visit this site—Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom about 3 times a week. There are even more who read here that consider running for an office and use the encouragement they receive from these words to pursue those objectives. Whoever thought that I poured so much work into 1500 word daily articles to appease the fools who have the mind of an egg-shell, and the patience of a shooting star—that the kind of people who enjoy tabloid magazines and television were my target audience? Whoever was so naive to think that each and every step over the last four years was not a carefully considered chess match where even the controversial elements were calculated to the maximum effect with deep psychological impact highlighting issues at many levels? I’m pretty good at chess—at strategy—and managing people. Sometimes the most important work is not in front of the camera or behind the microphone but in arranging an army of such people to do those tasks instead of just one person. Initially, you have to lead by example so that they can see how things should be done—but once they learn—they can then take the effort and run with it independently. Wasn’t it clear that was what was going on?
Apparently not. When Joan said, “Unfortunately some of these individuals are not just interested in reducing expenses and maintaining taxes at their current level. There are those that have a goal to destroy public education as it exists – government schools, they call them – and use anti-tax and pro-voucher issues to reduce funding to schools to help reach that goal,” she was thinking about me. The more I worked with Lakota, the more I hated government schools—and that is a term that I have increasingly used. If I were to run for school board I could not sit next to Julie Shaffer to manage the district without major, major confrontations—MAJOR confrontations. If left to me, public education would be defunded and eradicated replaced by free market options where the government was not involved at all. But I am happy to let people who do not feel quite so strongly join school boards and fight the good fight in a more civil manner. I have more impact with more people not being an elected representative as opposed to locking horns with someone like Julie wasting my time on something that is already dying on the vine. In 15 years, what will any of her arguments matter? If other people wish to engage in that argument—that is good—but I am more effective elsewhere. The strategic position for this matter is not behind a name plate—but here.
The kind of people like Julie who organized the media blitz with the Enquirer to come after me personally should never be involved in educating children. CLICK TO REVIEW. They are not competent and are only given that ability with a government monopoly. I will certainly never forgive Julie for what she tried to do to me—or Joan. They used the collective entity of Lakota to satisfy their inner desire to be relevant socially—to mask personal mistakes—and to achieve that they needed to get me out of their way so management of schools could return to the unions at the cost of children’s minds—and they’d stoop to no low to achieve it. Did they think that I’d give up and just retreat? Did they think that more would not join the fight with me? Yes, that is precisely what they believed.
The Enquirer should have seen this coming. I explained it to Clark in great detail September of 2010. I layed all this out for him in my back yard while I was cutting targets with my bullwhips and he had his photographer snapping away pictures. I knew as I spoke that he was scheming to build me up so that he could take me down again the way he and others did with Arnie Engle in Fairfield. So I let him take the bait and run with it. My plans were different—when the moment came—more than just I would move into strategic position to affect change. So whatever schemes Clark had in mind would be useless in the long run—and I knew that. He didn’t understand it just as Joan, and Julie Shaffer didn’t get it. They actually thought by pandering to their latte sipping fat ass, guilt ridden, bitchy voting base that they could continue forever the scam of public education. Well, obviously they can’t.
Sure they won their last levy at Lakota by manipulation and wasting hundreds of thousands of tax payer dollars to move the needle just a few percentage points with a wear-down tactic taught in Columbus to school board members. But it’s a short-term victory as the ship they have fought to keep afloat is sinking. Many of the districts mentioned in the Enquirer article, such as West Clermont—where I know quite a few of those people there—and they are readers here and have been for years now—the proof that schools waste tax money on teacher unions, and scam ridden politics will be exposed destroying the myth that higher taxes make for a better community. And that is what people like Joan and Julie are worried about. Ten years from now they will be shown to be wrong in their assertions about education and neurotic in their approach—and it will be embarrassing for them.
I will make damn sure of it—that everyone remembers.
We’re just getting started folks…………this is far from a completed strategy. But we’re only about four years into it. Another four years will yield even more results not in their favor and bitching about it like this news is “new” won’t take away the blunt edge of reality.
I have never felt so bad for a person as I did for Doc Thompson while on his long-planned honeymoon when he was fired from 700 WLW radio. The station wanted to make room for Eddie Fingers and Doc threatened the target market of Willie, and Cunningham had more leverage at the company. Darryl Parks who hired Doc was on his way out after taking a corporate job at Clear Channel where he found himself also terminated a year later. My involvement with WLW deteriorated quickly after Doc’s exit. They sort of put on the table for me to fill the radio role of a villain/sexist as an on air personality, but I had no desire to play along with that Chuck Fredrick strategy. My radio role was the Tax Killer as molded by Darryl Parks and put into play by Doc Thompson and I believed it with all my heart and sole, unlike the other radio characters at WLW who mostly put on an act for their audience. I had no desire to become the Andy Furman of the air waves, or Carmine Guzman. So after Doc’s exit I quickly lost interest in the station. I had other things I could do in life so not appearing on WLW wouldn’t be a big deal to me—but for Doc, it was his life. He lives, breaths, eats, drinks, and thinks talk radio 24 hours a day 7 days a week. For him, I knew the termination at 700 WLW hurt and as brave of a voice as he tried to apply to the situation when he spoke to me about it on the phone—I could tell how much pain it brought him. I felt terrible about it and was very resentful of WLW. I tried to maintain business etiquette, but they were much diminished in my eyes.
Doc Thompson now works directly for Glenn Beck and has recently just completed his first year on The Blaze Radio Network. Doc reminisced a bit about this experience celebrating his first year with his producer Skip LeCombe. Glenn had joked with Doc about going to Skip’s for lunch. The joke was in the context of when WLW fired Doc by inviting him to a Skip’s Deli for lunch to break the bad news. Beck was poking fun with Doc and Skip—but in reality after their first year—it was the opposite situation from what was experienced at WLW. Over the last year, Doc and Skip have traveled all over the United States and given hundreds of personal speeches to crowds of people on behalf of The Blaze making Doc’s new boss—Glenn Beck—very, very happy. The Blaze Radio has grown tremendously and Doc Thompson has been a big reason why. Have a listen:
Several months after the termination of Doc from WLW he had taken a job in Detroit, but that station was changing direction to an all sports channel leaving Doc and Skip on the out again. Laura Ingram had announced that she was giving up her syndication show, and Doc positioned himself to fill that spot—but it wasn’t going well. On the day after Thanksgiving in 2012 Doc hosted as a fill in for Glenn Beck and after he got off the air he called me to vent a bit. I was taking my daughter out to lunch that day but we took some time to talk with Doc as I felt badly for him yet again the bad luck hovering behind him like an evil specter. The job options for a guy like him were slim. Stations were steering away from hard conservatives and libertarians as the FCC was applying indirect pressure to diversify the airwaves with more progressive personalities. The job market for a guy like Doc was slim—really slim.
Doc wanted a syndication show and there wasn’t really a path to get there. A month after that phone call, Glenn Beck offered Doc Thompson the chance of a life time—a chance to run the prime time spot of 6 AM to 9 AM on a new radio station called The Blaze Radio which would be internet based capitalizing on the new web-based media productions that could be experienced with mobile devices, podcasts, and satellite radio. Doc would be the lead-in to Glenn Beck himself who has daily listeners in the millions—so this was the chance Doc had really been working for his entire life.
Now, a year later The Blaze has become a trusted news source for millions of people, and Doc has been at the helm. Glenn Beck as Doc mentioned in his broadcast could have taken his hundreds of millions of dollars and sat on all that money for the rest of his life living comfortably. But, instead, he has extended himself out to this freedom fight creating The Blaze for people who do not like the direction of the current United States. Because of Glenn Beck, a person like Doc and Skip have a place to work—which is a market that is shrinking rapidly as machine politics is working behind the scenes to shut down any opposition to their way of thinking. Glenn Beck with Doc Thompson has shown once again why he is so far out in front of the curve—The Blaze is now being picked up not just all over the world on iHeart Radio and Pandora, but conventional stations who are putting it into syndication.
Doc has a radio style that is the opposite of Howard Stern. Both hosts are funny, and fought their way through multiple hardships to overcome tremendous opposition against them. Both are very tall, and exceptionally intelligent. But Doc is squeaky clean and very, very funny while Stern has resorted to pubescent jokes and shock jock material to advance himself. Doc is to the radio world one of the best voices of liberty that there is—and it’s not an act—he is 100% authentic to his beliefs. What he states on the air, he believes with his very soul—and that makes him a very sincere and genuine person that is quite exceptional.
I am proud of Doc and Skip for their willingness to fight it out the way they did. I am proud of Glenn Beck for taking a chance on Doc, and I am proud off all the millions of people who have turned off traditional radio and turned on The Blaze. That decision alone has forced traditional radio to grudgingly seek syndication of Doc and Skip’s show for the kind of content that radio listeners actually want—not the kind of crap the FCC wants to ram down people’s throats. The kind of radio that WLW indicated to Doc that they were going to give to the world when they fired him at Skip’s Deli has turned out to be just another sports station with dying hosts barely shadowing their former self. With the devastating news after an otherwise wonderful honeymoon and a chance to begin a life anew WLW did Doc and the world a great favor. Doc could have rolled over and let the world crush him—but he didn’t—even in the darkest moments of his life—a period where he called me on the phone after concluding a fill-in for Glenn Beck the day after Thanksgiving where he would have been justified at being angry with the world—he didn’t give up. It is that kind of resiliency that is taking The Blaze Radio Network to new levels of entertainment and professionalism changing forever the nature of radio entertainment. It has been a good year—and the start of something truly special that will go down in history as a pinnacle moment for the human race.
The Overmanwarrior 
