Category: Union

Teacher James Hooker: Leaving his wife for an 18 year-old-student

Am I surprised that James Hooker the Modesto City School business and computer teacher made $110,537 in 2009?  Am I surprised that this same teacher aged 41 just left his wife and children to “follow his heart” and have a sexual relationship with one of his 18-year-old students?  Am I surprised that one of Hooker’s children is a junior at that very same school and is almost the same age as the girl Hooker is leaving his wife for?  No.  You can read the details of this terrible story at the link below.

http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_20078313

The teachers unions and other education apologists are attempting to proclaim that this relationship between teacher and student is unusual, and that such things are not wide-spread in public education.  Well, those apologists must have already forgotten the story about the teacher who fed his own semen to his students which was covered here.  CLICK HERE FOR A REVIEW.  There are thousands of these cases across the country and point at an inherit sickness in our culture that I consider to be devastating. 

Hooker as a human being is not equipped to teach anyone.  He should have never been a teacher and the evaluation process should have filtered him out of the system.  It is only because of aggressive teachers unions that a person of such low quality could be employed at a job that can pay him six figures.  Hooker is a person of low quality because of his very simple statement, “In making our choice, we’ve hurt a lot of people.  We keep asking ourselves do we make everyone else happy or do we follow our hearts.  I just kind of knew that she’s the one.”  Such a statement or resemblance of it in a sane society should have resulted in immediate termination during an evaluation process. His boss at the school should have seen in this teacher that he was functioning from an emotional foundation that is not rooted in reality, and should have ended the employment contract immediately. 

But if the administrator had done so, they probably would have lost 75% of their teaching staff and they might even have to fire themselves for being guilty of the same crime.  No teacher in America should ever—and I mean EVER teach that reality is controlled by emotional whims, yet most of them do.  A teacher may find a young girl attractive.  He might enjoy the sign stimuli of her breasts, or her buttocks.  He might like the newness of her skin and her naivety that indicates to a middle-aged man that he can return to a time before all his mistakes that he made and live again with a new start with a girl fresh off the assembly line.  Such thoughts are natural aspects of biology and they cannot be allowed to drive the mind from logic with fantasies guided by primitive cravings. 

Without a doubt Hooker in his marriage to his wife most likely believed that his wife at some point was “the one” and with his mature years of aged 41, he should have the wisdom to understand that he cannot destroy the lives of all the people who count on him to participate in resetting his own mistakes by destroying the life of an 18-year-old girl. His “following of his heart” in this case is not following his brain, which is what we expect out of a teacher. We do not expect teachers to instruct our youth to follow their feelings, but to use logic. That is why public education fails as an institution.

Hooker is however a product of his times. As a teacher he has studied the liberal doctrines of that particular profession. He has seen the left leaning bulletins from his teachers union come to him in the mail and the summation of all this progressive philosophy is that reality is determined by agnostic thinking—meaning what the mind wishes can be made into a reality. For instance, green technology will save the earth when in reality it is an elaborate scheme intended to make green technology companies billions of dollars in a global marketplace. Or teachers are valuable and essential to the stability of our nation’s future when the reality shows that even with increased spending, test scores have not improved and our youth seems to be degrading in every category of their lives. Reality says that home-schooled kids learn better than publicly educated kids yet the facts are ignored. Or that we should follow our hearts and not our heads and if we have sexual feelings for another person man or woman, we should act on those feelings. The reality is that this is a primitive desire to procreate and has nothing to do with logical human cognition. It’s purely a function of reproduction. This is a core problem in our public education system, after all isn’t this at the heart of sex education in modern America. Isn’t this what schools are teaching in health class–act on your feelings, and if the girl gets pregnant—have an abortion? Wear a condom to protect yourself from disease, especially if the sex is gay sex. Isn’t that what is being taught in public schools all across the nation? YES!

With such an emphasis is it any surprise that the teachers are unable to use their logic to fight off temptations with their young students? Should James Hooker be expected to not seduce his young, fresh student with the promise of starting over leaving the rest of his family to demise? No, because the concept of abortion says that life can be sacrificed if the individual is inconvenienced. It says that consequences can be abandoned if one simply wishes for them to be. That is the world of the public education teacher, taxes are infinite, green technology is good for the earth, and sex has no consequences. Divorce and abortion can free a person from their responsibilities if their heart tells them to. The head is to be ignored, because logic is not important.

If I ran public education I would terminate every single employee who utters such agnostic prophecies. The goal of an education institution is to teach and use one’s head. If logic is not being taught, then the teacher is ineffective and the education institution will be a failure in its intentions.

Until this problem of how teachers think is addressed, and teacher unions are no longer a factor in helping to shape public education policies with a progressive agenda, there will continue to be terrible stories of sex, abuse, and teachers in public education. It is an epidemic not because the population randomly produces a certain percentage of faulty citizens who will always misbehave, it’s an epidemic because we have a system in public education that allows poor quality people to be employed as though they have enormous value, and because of this financial comfort level, these individuals are particularly susceptible to social pressure by the progressive movement to live out the fantasies of a utopian fantasy that abandons personal responsibility.

I hear in the words of James Hooker virtually the same type of dialogue that can be heard in the classic novel and movie The Brave New World. The teacher Hooker is a product of a society that has indulged in social engineering and he is the byproduct of that folly. For all those troubled souls such as Hooker the warnings were always there in art. You can read more about those warnings in the below two articles, and if you have not yet read or seen The Brave New World, you can see it at the link below. It’s worth your time. And if you don’t believe in that source then I encourage you to watch the George Lucas classic THX-1138 also discussed in great detail at the second link below.

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2012/02/26/the-orgy-porgy-of-norma-a-brave-new-world-in-the-eyes-of-a-loving-parent/

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/05/06/thx-1138-a-great-movie-where-our-current-education-system-is-taking-us/

These teachers and the general failure of public education is a malfunction of our culture in general for embracing the wrong values. These things cannot be fixed with new laws. They cannot be fixed with money. They must be fixed with a new emphasis on the aspects of human life that we value. Until we know as a culture what we value, we can never fix anything no matter how much money is spent or what level of education we receive. The defect is in us. There is a James Hooker in too many people who casually throw away their wives and children for the lust of youth. This tendency is particularly prevalent among the liberal-minded progressives, predominantly teachers, because teachers are insulated from reality by their unions. They are insulated from the terrible consequences of their lives by an organization that seeks to perpetuate more of it in exchange for union dues and political power. And until this miserable fact is looked squarely in the eye, thousands upon thousands of young girls will find themselves targets of people like James Hooker and the multiple degrees of evil that drive their minds.

Rich Hoffman

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

Check out Rich Hoffman’s favorite website, (besides this one):

http://thepeoplescube.com/

Luke Hall for President: But first he should be a Lakota School Board member

The first day of March 1, 2012 was special for three reasons. First the morning air was cool but noticeably spring like. There was a hint to the air that indicated that spring was very near as I rode my motorcycle to work with a sunrise poking above the horizon. The clouds high overhead reflected a brilliant orange and it was just a spectacular motorcycle ride, a welcome change over the many mornings of brutal cold. It felt as though I could actually feel earth’s elliptical orbit closing back in on the sun after a long journey through the cold of space for the last three months.

The second is that I was able to turn the calendar in my office to the month of March. It’s not only special because March is the month of spring, which happens to be my favorite of the four seasons, but my calendar features various aircraft and in March it displays a gorgeous P-40 Warhawk painted up in the Flying Tiger paint scheme. (CLICK HERE to see just how much I love The Flying Tigers and why.) Needless to say, I have been looking forward to looking at that picture on that particular month since I received the calendar just prior to Christmas.

The third is that I heard from a young man I supported for the Lakota School Board named Luke Hall. Luke is a political science major at Miami University and a former student at Lakota East who worked for Spark Magazine. During the last election I thought Luke was one of the two best candidates and unfortunately I think that Luke’s youth worked against him in the court of public perception. But I was delighted to watch a recent video that Luke did where he gave the history of American politics in a rather concise video that sums up American politics in a remarkably abbreviated fashion. When I watched this video it reminded me of why it should be Luke Hall that is on the current school board, and it gave me hope that during the next election that Luke will be back, because I want a person on the school board who knows as much about politics and history as Luke does. Check it out!

When the members of the school board and other pro levy advocates proclaim that I expect too much out of the education of our youth, I hear from them a sense of laziness. And I would point them in the direction of Luke Hall as an example of what I’d expect coming out of Lakota as a student body and what level of comprehension I expect on the school board. Luke Hall is the type of person I would like to see at every single school board position. He’s what I expect out of a superintendent. He’s what I expect out of principals and teachers. And I don’t think it’s too much because Luke is in his early 20’s. He’s only been out of high school for a couple of years, so how difficult is it for grown adults to learn what Luke does when they have much more time to learn it?

I think very highly of Luke. I’ve met his parents and it is immediately obvious that he comes from a caring family, which helps a lot to encourage a young mind to excel, to read all those books that are behind him in the video. A young person has to be the one to do the act of learning, but it is the adults in a young person’s life who set the bar of expectation. And Luke has those types of people in his life and it shows.

That is not to say that Luke and I always agree. During the Election of 2011 Luke and many of his friends from the Spark Magazine took exception to my opinion of their teacher at Lakota East when I called that teacher a “radical liberal.” Luke and his friends rallied to the defense of their teacher which didn’t bother me. I like to see young people believe something, so I encourage such confrontations. But ultimately in the theater of debate, compromise is not the objective. One’s political beliefs are not to be compromised in surrender to another. This is because there is a right and a wrong answer and one cannot make a correct answer partially wrong as a “compromise” to the opposite political party.

For that very reason it does not matter to me if Luke is a Republican or a Democrat. As he said in his video, politics has changed many times over time to reflect the strategy of party politics. So the title to something cannot be completely trusted. My interest in any discussion is what the truth is. Party is not a consideration. Learning the truth is. My support of Luke Hall for school board in spite of his youth was for this reason. It doesn’t matter what his age, it doesn’t matter what his political affiliation, or it doesn’t matter if he wants to defend his teacher–what matters is whether or not Luke has the ability as an elected official to discover the truth and to act on that truth.

The budget crisis at Lakota is not a negotiation between various political factions. It’s not a compromise. Currently the school board is behaving as though if they make a few cuts around the outside of the pie, the parameter of the budget–the meaningless crust, that the community will forgive them for not touching the heart of the pie, where the real costs are. These school board members are not dealing with the truth. They are not facing reality. They are showing that they do not have a grasp on history or an understanding of economics, because they assume that the rest of the community is at the same proficiency of understanding as they are. The budget crisis at Lakota is about truth and the ability of management to arrive at that truth. Truth is not a negotiation process.

Luke has shown that he has the ability to grasp facts and to reach the truth. Where politicians go wrong is that they begin to compromise the truth in exchange for political donations, then they seek to justify their position with more fuzzy facts and over time, they become corrupt because they lose the ability to see the truth. So they fall into this whole notion of compromise with other political factions to arrive at their reality, and that is why politics is screwed up, and that is why in the history of American politics that Luke so eloquently invoked there have been so many changes that have gradually taken America away from its founding concepts.

The American Constitution was not a document that was written upon fantasy. It was written based on philosophic observation and a pursuit of basic human truths that are not negotiable. That’s why the Constitutional foundations produced the greatest civilization in the history of the known world. America is now living off its reputation but is unable to rekindle its once potent power because it’s political structure as been seduced by the notion of “compromise.”

Luke’s video made my day better because it displayed to me that there are youth coming up today that are able to understand the basics of truth, and it gives me hope for the future. Because without knowledge of history and a grasp of essential truths, society will fail, and Luke is evidence that there is optimism. As I parked my motorcycle in my place this morning and put down the kickstand I thought of the presidential primaries that are coming to Ohio this upcoming week, and Luke Hall was on my mind as a potential future candidate. Ohio has not produced many presidents of late, and I hope that Luke Hall becomes one that breaks that streak in his political future, and I hope that he begins the practice now of holding on to his essential truths along the way. His first challenge to that process will be when he is finally elected to the school board, where his first test on that path will be cast against him by the powers of politics who have built their lives upon falsehood. Luke will be a threat to them because his mind is hungry for the truth. And that is why I will support him in his next run for school board, then school board president, and eventually President of the United States. Because whether or not I agree with Luke or not isn’t important. Luke like me is in search of the truth and once it’s discovered we will act on it, in spite of our personal beliefs. Because once truths are discovered they must be incorporated into our thoughts and our beliefs must reflect them. To do anything less is a “compromise” toward corruption that is the foundations to every kind of human failure. It is in such failures that we find our current school board suffering and our nation in general.

Soon Luke will have to add to his speech in that video to describe how America had to reset itself after that long chain of events to a national respect for The Republic upon which America stands and to pursue the truth that is required to feed such an entity on a diet of authenticity without compromise to the evil of falsehood.

Luke Hall for future President of The United States! But that is the end of a long road he has not traveled down yet. I look forward to his long journey. It should be a lot of fun to watch.

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

Check out Rich Hoffman’s favorite website, (besides this one):

http://thepeoplescube.com/

The Hobbit Blog part 3: Escape toward reality and away from the mystics

Fantasy is the bridge that meets the world of reason with the perception of what one suspects is there, but does not yet have the facts, or the methods of obtaining those facts. Under such conditions we can never say with any certainty what something is. But in our rational minds we can spot truth even if it is laced in the play of fiction. It is because of these elements that I am fascinated by the production of The Hobbit directed by Peter Jackson where he takes viewers on a journey through the third video blog directly from the set. You can view my previous comments about The Hobbit by clicking on this link. You can see the next video below where Peter Jackson has traveled to London to film Christopher Lee in his pick-up shots at the legendary James Bond stages in England. There is so much to like about this clip as it is a wonderful trip into the history of film that crosses many genres to explore the significance of the dwarves in full make-up.

My enjoyment of fantasy films and books is not to say that I openly embrace the theories of mysticism, the practice of arbitrarily placing faith in ideals that do not have any roots in reality. To me, I see the theories of most modern economists, particularly those of the Federal Reserve to be more mystical than the actions of the dwarves and wizards of The Hobbit. I see blind faith into any idea to be mysticism, and that includes religions and even the political trends of global warming. Anything that is believed with an abandonment of fact is considered a form of mysticism. That includes the arbitrary statement that education funding must increase to improve education, because such statements have nothing to do with reality. The reality is that increases in funding do not improve education. Such statements are made because the participants who say those things want to believe it, not because things are actually that way in actuality.

To say that the earth is warming and therefore carbon credits must be sold to save it from mankind’s degradation is to place the same faith in fantasy and mysticism that one places in a religious figure, which is why such political measures are presented in the same fashion as a religion. People are asked to arbitrarily subscribe to a theory based on completely agnostic comprehension. They are asked to believe that the earth is in danger because “experts” told them this was the case. To me, these thought patterns are pure mysticism.

So the magic in a film like The Hobbit wielded by a wizard like Gandalf the Gray is not a lesser concept than anything proposed by a modern mystic such as those behind the global warming movement. All politicians who propose that they can heal the sick, bring riches to the poor and thus change the world for the better are simply making arbitrary claims rooted in pure mysticism. I find the literature of J.R.R. Tolkien to be more valid than those mystics who run for president or state governments. Because I have learned that I can’t believe anything that the average politician says, or the media that reports it. But I can trust in the sincerity of the characters in The Hobbit. There is a truth in their actions that point to observations not yet made with human eyes.

We are all children of the universe and we come into its existence learning greater and greater truths as each year meets us. We might not understand at age one the complexities we can fathom by age 19, or age 50. As time passes we develop the cognition to piece together observations based on reality. So with age we can be said to gain much wisdom. This is why the mystics seek to discredit the old and give power to the young, because the young are not yet developed and do not understand the tricks of the mystics. But the wise do. And in The Hobbit, it is Gandalf, the wise old wizard who embodies more truth even in his magic than most who live and breathe among us in the real world.

When I see these clips from The Hobbit I see an honesty present that is more real than a whole day of watching CSPAN on cable TV. There is less fiction in a fantasy set in an unspecified time in a fictional place called Middle-Earth, than in the suit and ties of modern politics. And that is why dear reader, I am spending so much time on this subject of the upcoming film called The Hobbit.

The mystics of our time point at fantasy stories like Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars and declare them to be harmless fantasies intended for light entertainment and escape. But the escape is not one from reality, but toward it. In these fantasies I do not seek them so diligently to leave the world of reality to immerse myself into their imaginative splendor. I seek these epic stories because there is a truth present in the actions of the characters that hint at knowledge not yet discovered through the mechanisms of deductive thinking. It is through the imagination that we see what our senses have not yet matured enough to see and the mystics of our time would have us cast away logic and drink ourselves drunk so that we are enchanted by their crooked tongues.

And even as one of the greatest film directors on the planet, Peter Jackson cannot help but be enchanted not by the film he is currently making, but by the memory of the great films of James Bond at the historic sound stage in England. Because as all story tellers and lovers of those epics know, there is truth in myth that shows the error of those actual mystics who wish to defy logic with every breath they take and word they squeeze through their teeth. It doesn’t matter if the fantasy is from The Hobbit and its magic wielding leader the wizard Gandalf, or the suave charisma of James Bond, there is truth in those fantastic movie characters that point to reality and those of us who are hungry for it.

I’m not really interested if what I’ve said here is too obscure for most to understand. I’m sure a handful of you will know what I’m saying, and a majority will be thoroughly baffled by my statements. That doesn’t matter because I’m writing to those select few who have developed the ability through their love of fictional fantasy to grasp complicated concepts. It is in those types of people who the world is not a mystery and the actions of the mystics are obvious. Because before one can see the big picture, they have to be able to grasp it in their mind and it is in fantasy that the tool for developing this ability manifests.

The world is full of false prophets and mystics at virtually every step in the human experience. Yet the answers are usually in all the places they tell you not to look. And they say not to look at fantasy films like The Hobbit for any grasp of reality. But in my experience, if it’s reality you seek, you will find it in those places of the imagination built with the scaffolding of observed logic.

Rich Hoffman

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

Check out Rich Hoffman’s favorite website, (besides this one):

http://thepeoplescube.com/

The Spy Master Takes Power: A mirror into the United States

Only in Russia does a chain represent freedom, but under Vladimir Putin’s leadership that is exactly what the Russian people are trying to convince the world of. Barred from a third term of Premiership by the Russian Constitution Putin has maneuvered himself into an obsessive quest for power and his behavior is alarmingly similar to Barack Obama’s own quest for power. It’s very interesting to observe just how close Vladimir Putin’s leadership is to Barack Obama’s. For those who forget how dangerous the Russian KGB used to be viewed world-wide it is alarming to see how accepting that same world is toward Putin who is in effect a master spy right out of a James Bond film and has found power much to his liking.

Putin loves power so much that he was the subject of Glenn Beck’s GBTV episode on this very topic. For whatever reason, most Americans find it difficult to grasp that much of the fantasy of spy films like James Bond are actually watered down revelations of the real mentality occurring in the actual world. I have provided many instances at this site about how the KGB has infiltrated American culture during the Cold War and had the intent to manipulate our culture to destroy it from within. This is a fact! It is not fiction. You can see one of those articles here:

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/06/17/do-you-believe-in-spies-review-of-the-film-salt-and-how-sleeper-cells-have-corrupted-america/

You can see the video from GBTV below where Glenn Beck breaks down the most recent manipulations by the supposedly dismantled KGB, who now has a world leader from their ranks pulling the strings. This should concern every person on planet earth.

Spies like Putin know that most people are so addicted to their static patterns that they often will refuse to see the truth even if it is placed right in front of their faces. So for the sake of education I would encourage you dear reader to Google any term I use here along with the key word “OVERMANWARRIOR” and you will see the hundreds and hundreds of articles that I have written on that term. Pick any term, and you will see that I have written on it. Serious, try it out. So when you want to understand what static patterns are, know that they are what govern your life, and if you want to change those patterns then you must introduce a dynamic pattern and accept the results. If you reject the results, then your behavior will not change the evidence provided by the dynamic. Closing one’s eyes does not make the problem go away just like pulling the covers over your face may make one feel safer, but the danger outside of the covers is still very real. There is a real science to this stuff, and KGB agents, and the CIA are VERY aware of these methods. And they use them against each other, against other governments, and against the entire human race in various applications. This is not news.

Most people however do not want to accept that many of the influences in their lives currently may be the result of war between two counter spy networks who have become so good at their jobs that they are on a quest for power themselves. I saw a young girl the other day who was working on computers and she was covered in “PEACE” symbol jewelry. It’s very fashionable for young people to buy clothing and jewelry displaying the “peace symbol” so I asked her if she knew the origin. She of course didn’t, and when I explained to her that she was a victim of Cold War politics and that the peace symbol came from the KGB implanting it in American culture in the 60’s to turn the youth against the adults so that the will to fight against Russia was diminished greatly averting the necessity for direct conflict with communist Russia. Russia knew they could not beat America in a production war because communism cannot beat capitalism. So Russia sought out to turn American youth against the adult establishment in an effort to destroy America from within. And now we have a president like Obama which is a result of these youth created by the KGB in the 60’s who openly embrace communism. The KGB is as much behind the creation of The Great Society as LBJ was, because President Johnston and Kennedy before his assassination were reacting to the communist push by the KGB infecting Cuba at the time and felt they needed to respond to the millions of protesting youth who had the power to vote.

As angry as I get at President Johnston for bringing America The Great Society and Roosevelt’s New Deal it is communism pushed upon American society by the KGB forced onto those presidents into making mistakes against our own Constitution. It was an act of war during the Cold War and freedom was the casualty, not actual human bodies. It was a casualty predicated by the KGB.

I told this story to the young girl who was no older than my youngest daughter. And she looked at me like her head was about to explode. I just smiled at the kid and let her off the hook with conversation about the computer she was fixing. Her reaction was at least more honest than that of most contemporary adults who pretend to understand what I say, then belittle the information behind my back as though by doing so it might change the facts of the matter. Most people are so intent to keep their beliefs intact that they ignore the evidence of new information which tends to shatter the illusion they wish to believe about the world around them.

Putin in Russia is doing almost exactly what Obama is doing here in the United States and considering that it is well-known that Putin is a former KGB agent, a particularly dangerous one, who has been running Russia for a number of years both in front of public image and behind the scenes, it should bring every American great concern that Obama who hasn’t been anything in his life before becoming a Federal Senator from Illinois who was propped up to become president by powers many people don’t wish to comprehend, are so similar in their behavior.

The details of what Obama has done are so numerous that I have enough material here to fill an entire book. Just go back through some of my previous articles to learn how. Obama shares with Putin a love for power, a manipulation of the people with his public image, and a desire for world domination that is alarmingly similar and that should tell Americans everything they need to know about the political world around them. But they chose to ignore the information and this is by design. I have even went to the trouble to teach your dear reader how this is done to you, and you have read the information, yet are powerless to alter your behavior to incorporate that knowledge into your daily life. For a review look at this article of how you are manipulated by virtually every entity in your life, family, friends, local politicians, national politicians, public relations experts, and spies from far away lands. There is a lot of competition for your attention and often you are so tired you don’t even know why because so many images come at you on a daily basis that it’s just too much to comprehend. So you turn on American Idol to relax and let them entertain you while your brain recovers from forces you don’t understand.

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/the-crows-test-how-the-human-race-gets-screwed-over/

Like the girl I tried to explain the peace symbol history to, most people point at the things I say and want to call it fantasy. However, they are using an inaccurate definition of fantasy. A fantasy is an assertion that is not based on any fact and the facts of a case like the spy manipulation of America by the KGB show that our culture has been transformed by Russia into a country that does not pose a threat to them. The fantasy is to declare that the opposite is true, that all these world powers want world peace and is a world that holds hands and sings songs around a campfire. That is the fantasy.

If Obama is not stopped in 2012 during our own presidential elections you can look forward to taking another step into the direction of Russia which has been their plan all along. And if you want to have an understanding of how bad Russia is compared to the United States take a hard look at the reality of the people between the two cultures. If you go online, you will see without any difficulty thousands of attractive Russian women who are willing to marry an American man just to get into the United States to live. You do not see thousands of American women putting ads in the paper to marry a Russian man to move to Moscow. The market just isn’t there. That fact alone should tell you dear reader everything you need to know about the situation. The law of supply and demand will tell you what the media, controlled by people like Putin, will not tell you. And that is how you know you’ve been scammed, even when the conditions shown to you by the spy masters of the world indicate otherwise.

Rich Hoffman

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

Check out Rich Hoffman’s favorite website, (besides this one):

http://thepeoplescube.com/

Orlando Gets a New Treasure: Getting to the finish line in spite of the looters

A friend of mine just opened a new restaurant in Orlando, Florida. Every time I hear about one of these success stories, where an entrepreneur is able to leap all the hurdles placed in front of such an endeavor to open a new establishment I find myself enjoying the announcements more than I should. To me, these types of things should be common place in America. Ideas should be allowed to flourish, and actually encouraged. But the way things are it’s a minor miracle when something like a new restaurant opens because there are so many regulations and looters involved in the process of innovation. By the time all the regulations are satisfied, the permit issues are written, the taxes are paid in addition to all the requirements involved in funding the enterprise; it is only the strongest projects with the most money behind them that survive.

The reason is that America has allowed socialism to permeate every single government position in our country so the amount of government employees that are involved in any entrepreneurial activity directly impacts the chance that a project will survive to actually open. The situation is so bad that John Stossel of the Fox Business Network and Glenn Beck discuss John’s attempt to open a lemonade stand in downtown New York. Watch this video so you can see how difficult it is to even start a business, let alone defend yourself from all the looters who attempt to rob you with law suits and excessive taxes once the business is established.

This is why I get so infuriated by government organizations, primarily schools that push for tax increases. Every business you see is a minor phenomenon. The fact that you see many businesses in your neighborhoods is evidence of 5 to 6 failures for every success. So when a new restaurant is seen opening in your neighborhood or a shopping complex, you are seeing the lucky ones who made it. If an entrepreneur is politically active and gives money to a lot of charities, they find that their chances of success increase dramatically, because paying off officials with political support and getting the crazy emotional mothers of a community appeased with charity work calls off the looting dogs as long as the money flows, but it takes money to pay off such fools. So only the luckiest of the lucky gain the ability to use their money to pay off the trolls who set up shop in our political system.

It is not the “permit” department at your local government office who creates jobs and new ideas. It’s not the regulator of any agency. It’s not the bureaucrat in any capacity who does anything, but creates a barrier for the dreamers, for the entrepreneur. These barriers push up the cost of playing the game so that only those who have been lucky enough to squeeze through the cracks before the looters realize that there is money to be made, make it, because that’s the only way one can achieve success these days. The business needs to either be established or have large financial reserves to combat the looters in court and in politics, or the business must fly under the radar of convention and arrive before the looters realize that the new business is going to be profitable.

I know this tragedy first hand. I’ve been involved in many business start-ups and all of them were made unnecessarily hard by excessive regulation. I once had a building code permit issuer tell me I had to prove to him that the HAVAC unit he was demanding I buy was not required under the Cincinnati Building Code. I spent an entire weekend reading a boring book to prove that the HAVAC unit was not necessary for my change of use submission. In a book of over 750 pages I found one sentence that disqualified my project from the imposition. Once I found it, the administrator gave me a rubber stamp with a smile on his face, as though it was an office joke whether or not I’d find the one sentence out of the thousands that would exclude me. It was literally like finding a needle in a hay stack.

But that wasn’t the end of the road. That was just one issue out of 32 similar complaints by the CBC office, and that was just one organization that had their teeth into my project. There were as many as 7 such agencies that my project had to comply with just to open and my choice was to do the work myself, or hire out a small army of lawyers, engineers, architects and other professionals to do the work of arguing each item for me. By the time all those employees are hired just to meet the cost of compliance the project budget increased by nearly a half a million dollars.

So these days I just write books, and study philosophy. I hire out my expertise because it’s unattractive to argue with all the fools in any endeavor that catapults the idea generators into the quick sand of the social looters. I determined a long time ago that since I refused to play the pay-off game because I find it ethically questionable, and too expensive on the front end, that I have no chance of getting anything off the ground in this modern environment. But I have friends who aren’t so restricted by such limits and they have managed to do the nearly impossible and open new shopping complexes, and restaurants. And for that I admire them.

That is why I get very angry when I hear people proclaim that my friends, are “rich” and they owe their school system more, or they “owe” the township more in taxes, or they “owe” Barry Obama more! They owe their state government more when it is proven that there are too many government workers to pay whose only purpose is to create more bureaucracy, which in turn drives up the cost of compliance as shown above. Anyone who says or thinks such things are correct thinking are fools—and socialist sympathizers. They are parasites to everything America has stood for and are destroyers of its future.

So I do salute with utmost respect my friend and the opening of his new restaurant. The small-minded and looter mentality will look jealousy at him and proclaim that he should do more for his community. They will say that he is wealthy, and if he has enough money to buy a restaurant then he has enough money to pay more in taxes. What those same fools don’t comprehend is that it will take years to return to my friend the money he invested, not just in opening the building, but the cost of fighting the looters along the way. And they don’t know that my friend has plans that will fuel his own retirement in the future and that these restaurants are part of that plan. He has no plans to draw a government pension or a check of any kind. He plans to take care of his own business the way every American should. And every time there is a new cost to him, a new looter who attempts to rob some of his money from him because they are too lazy to do for themselves, it pushes my friend’s retirement further into the future. The ultimate cost is to my friend who has worked hard, created jobs, and fought his way through every kind of red tape imaginable. The cost to the looter is nothing. They simply show up and demand money for doing nothing. It is my friend who must make more money to pay for more looters who have attached themselves to those who create, like my friend.

So congratulations are in order to my friend and those like him who have survived well enough to open a restaurant in the golden land of Orlando, where imagination still counts for something, and making money is expected, and not chastised as criminal behavior by the lazy looters of the government employee. The next time I’m in Orlando, I will stop by for a visit and pay homage to the great ordeal that has become of starting a business in modern-day America as controlled by the looters, the moochers, the derelicts, the welfare recipients, and the mentally deficient who occupy the jobs that make opening a restaurant such a pain in the ass.

Rich Hoffman

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

Check out Rich Hoffman’s favorite website, (besides this one):

http://thepeoplescube.com/

The Orgy-Porgy of Norma: A Brave New World in the eyes of a loving parent

It’s almost funny how predictable the pro tax levy crowd is. Always shortly after a major school announcement they leave me comments and emails about how bad I am for not blindly approving infinite pay increases to those sacred teachers of public education, and that if I did not support public education with blind obedience I would drive down the property values of my community and ruin the lives of children. They also say that my resistance to infinitely high taxes makes me some kind of money grubbing cohort—serious—they really think these things. There are people like that in the world. You can meet one below. I’m serious, and they are the ones who have ruined America and the idea of “free education.” Read one such note that I received this morning.

This is thanks to you and your other money-grubbing cohorts. We’ll be moving to Mason. Enjoy losing more property values.

Norma Stits
February 25, 2012 at 4:35 AM

That poor woman actually believes what she says. She believes that I am greedy for not wanting to pay more money than we already do in taxes. She also believes that there is no end what current residents of the Lakota School District will pay in higher taxes, therefore ruining their property values forever and making the taxes so high that nobody will ever be able to afford to buy a home in the Lakota District because of the taxes. People like Norma actually believe there is no end. She would pay forever whatever was asked by those extortionists of public education.

Well, sorry to break it to you Norma, but you are wrong. Taxes don’t just affect you in your tiny little world of your tiny little home around your tiny little family. It affects commercial interest too, and commercial business has been dried up for 5 years because of the current tax rates which need to come down, not go up. You know who those “money grubbers” are? Those evil people who build and run the shopping complexes and restaurants you visit. In Norma’s world those people should give away their services for free. They should not seek to make a profit. They should donate any earnings they make to the “youth,” so that people like Norma can have a free education for her little children whom she’s too lazy or insecure to teach herself.

Well, I have two grown daughters who are quite attractive, and because of that I’ve met many young people, particularly males that have come out of the Lakota, Fairfield and Mason school system, and I’ve seen what the schools are teaching first-hand, and I see how stupid many of these kids are when basic things are explained to them. They are future products of stupid parents like Norma, ill prepared to even pay rent, hold a job, let alone—vote. I’ve met kids who show up and attempt to impress me with big words only to see they can’t hardly pull their pants up because they are trying to copy the black culture of their favorite R&B artists, (and I say R&B in an attempt to be respectful and not come loose on a diatribe about the degradation of music). I’ve seen kids who think a fun night out is to get plastered in drunkenness and that somehow I’d be happy to let my daughter wake up passed out in a room full of guys stoned on marijuana. My kids wouldn’t do such a thing, but the boys look at me strangely and roll their eyes when they think I can’t see while I speak about why those kinds of activities are wrong. They really don’t understand! These boys don’t understand either why I expect them to have jobs instead of playing X-Box when there are bills to be paid. Or why I’d be upset that they’d rather take a welfare check so they’d have more “time for themselves.” I’m not talking about poor kids in the ghetto; I’m talking about nice middle-class kids from Lakota and Fairfield.

Through my daughters I’ve had to learn the terrible truth that there are thousands of girls who are on Care Source, which is a form of Medicare that bails out these kids when they have sex, and get pregnant because their schools and stupid parents like Norma tell them it’s alright, that there are no consequences to actions. A boy can get a girl pregnant and it’s alright, the government is there to bail them out.  The boys often claim that the act of sex just happened, that it was beyond their control.  Yet it was.  A boy had to stick a penis into a girl and inject semen into her like some parasitic animal in the wild, without thought or care. Without any thought about the next step, because the schools have taught these kids that the government will pick up the slack and pay for everything. Thousands upon thousands of kids think this way. Twenty years ago it would have been shameful to see a girl in her freshman years pregnant in school. It was scandalous. Today the teacher holds a baby shower for the girl in her classroom. The kids and their welfare mentality are victims of their environment and parents like Norma.

Norma may put her kids on Blue Cross and Blue Shield, but her behavior supports a system that endorses everything and more mentioned above. Ladies and gentlemen—and Norma, we are in serious trouble—culturally. Our youth is broken in ways that no amount of money can fix. They are truly victims of this age of broken homes, divorce, and intrusive public education establishments.

People who tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about are only mad at me because they don’t want to hear what I’m saying. They want to blindly adopt destructive policies of living that will eventually destroy them with the same intensity that a moth attempts to fly into a flame—because they like the bright light. People like Norma are in love with the idea of socialism and they do not want to see the results of their error. Well, I’ve seen it. I’ve been up close to it through my kids because I stayed involved with them even now that they are grown up, because there’s always something to learn. And I have many friends in the business community who are struggling. It’s not for Norma to say that these friends of mine should not be able to buy another restaurant, or a new second home, because people who build and make things are who move the world, and they don’t owe people like Norma an explanation as to their actions. The money they earn by creating things that people want is not Norma’s money, it’s not the money of public education, and it’s not the GOD DAMN governments! It’s their money!!!!! They earned it!!! Money made and generated is not for some group collective.

There are many problems that must be fixed in this year of 2012 that took nearly a century to arrive at. And those problems were perpetuated by people like Norma who voted in politicians like FDR. These same voters also fantasized about sleeping with JFK, and LBJ and like a porn actress swallowing semen from a stranger, these voters accept the policies of THE NEW DEAL and THE GREAT SOCEITY.

I don’t want The New Deal or The Great Society of which this Medicaid culture of welfare has sprung up and created a whole generation of weak-minded youth who have reckless sex and expect society to pay for it. Doesn’t Orgy-porgy from A Brave New World ring a bell with people like Norma, or let me guess—they haven’t read that book!

“Orgy-porgy, Ford and fun,
Kiss the girls and make them One.
Boys at 0ne with girls at peace;
Orgy-porgy gives release.”

That’s a ritual from that classic book where everyone gets in a circle and has group sex so that all sense of possession and individually is erased from their consciousness. “Kiss the girls, and make them One.” Notice the capital letter on the word “One.” That is because the word ONE is an indicator of an entity onto itself. This is the goal of The Great Society created by the womanizing presidents of the sixties. This is the aim of public education; this is the aim of government insurance, Medicare and Social Security! And these are the pathetic creatures that my kids have to associate with as friends in their peer groups, these children of this distorted government experiment. To see what this Great Society is taking us to just read A Brave New World. That book seemed like a fantasy when I read it over twenty years ago. Now it’s a pending reality.

So call me names you orgy-porgy well wishers, you welfare recipients, you apologists for The Great Society. Your opinions mean nothing to me because your path is clear for anyone with eyes to see. Your story ends only one way, in cultural demise leading to complete social destruction. The end game is as easy to add up 2+2+2+2. One thing leads to the next, which leads to the next in a very predictable manner. Only people who add all that up and give any number beyond the answer of “8” are the ones being fooled. And people like Norma will add up all these conditions and declare that the answer is whatever she decides. If she wants the answer to be 10 then it’s ten. If she wants it to be 20, then it’s twenty. She will say these things because she is not giving opinions based on reality. She is ruled by emotion, the orgy-porgy of our day. The collective orgy of thought and action where there are no consequences with the giant safety net cast by mother government.

So with that, have fun moving to Mason, and don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out. And until your house sells, and since you obviously lack culture, here’s the movie version of that book since you obviously can’t read.  Maybe you’ll learn something. 

For those who do know better than orgy-porgy Norma, please pass this to a friend to share the classic work of The Brave New World.   If they won’t read the book, maybe they’ll watch the movie. 

Rich Hoffman

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

Check out Rich Hoffman’s favorite website, (besides this one):

http://thepeoplescube.com/

The Ghosts of Lakota: Fear, and illusion from Superintendent Mantia

I woke up on the morning of February 24, 2012 with the note you can see below. It’s from a parent in the Pickerington School district who has been watching the actions of Superintendent Mantia here in Southern Ohio. This parent is uniquely positioned to give a statement about Mantia because Pickerington is the school district that the current Lakota superintendent came from in August of 2011. It read as follows:

I’m a parent of students from Pickerington and let me tell you that Dr. Mantia will ruin your schools. She removed almost all music, art, phys ed teachers and librarians. Our libraries used the most current media material and the students loved library where they learned to use podcasts, they wrote book reviews and they had the greatest book clubs. The students loved to read because of the fantastic librarians. They are gone. She has combined music, art and gym together. They currently meet as a group at a school every 6-9 weeks. That means that they only receive physical activity for one week and it isn’t intense activity either.

She took a pay raise one month before she left after resigning. Please watch her and her agenda for the sake of your students, teachers, support staff and your wallet.

As my readers here know, I declared the Lakota School District officially dead after the February 13, 2012 meeting, so I saw no point in going to this latest meeting. It was as predicted more of the same strategy of protecting the wages of the school employees with the smoke and mirrors of fancy terminology that essentially meant nothing. The concession by the Lakota School System to retreat backward as a district with these three public school board meetings instead of restructuring their very expensive labor contracts is deplorable. With this third budget cutting school board meeting, the No Lakota Levy has officially begun the campaign to end this fourth levy attempt which appears to already be underway on behalf of the school board decisions. No Lakota Levy will soon announce a major initiative in reaction to these decisions by the school board. I am done with Lakota as a governing body. I officially cast my vote of no confidence in their direction.

Lakota under the leadership of Superintendent Mantia from Pickerington elected to eliminate 36 more jobs centering on art, music, and physical education, which is consistent with the behavior indicated above by the note from the parent. This is in addition to the 69 positions cut from last weeks meeting that caused me to regulate my opinion as a nail in the coffin to the Lakota educational body as a whole.

During the meeting last night several people were texting me and asking what I was doing, and why I wasn’t there. I told them that I was watching the DVR backups of Ghost Hunters, and my TV show was more important. I said that I thought the ghosts walking around on that TV show were more real than the ghosts walking around at the Lakota School Board meeting on stage, because both were just as effective as managers. In the TV show the ghosts make noise by banging on doors and sending out cryptic EVP recordings. The Lakota School Board does the same; they make a lot of noise with a stupid program named S.T.E.A.M (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) while at the same time cutting those programs with staffing and as Jeff Kursman said at the meeting,

“These aren’t efficiencies, these are reductions. Efficiencies will include things that hopefully we’ll hear about in the next week or two. Things like outsourcing of technology when it comes with dealing with the central office, cutting back on central office administrators…centralizing purchasing or negotiating a better rate in health care. What I see you talking about here today is a degradation of liberal arts education.”

All that was occurring at the school board meeting was a bunch of ghosts making noise to a captive audience. Just like the ghosts in Ghost Hunters the ghosts are powerless to do anything in real life because they are in fact dead. The school board is powerless to do anything but scare people, just like the ghosts in Ghost Hunters. So I see no difference between the school board meeting and an episode of Ghost Hunters. With that in mind I stayed home in the comfort of my home and watched the ghosts on TV rather than waste my time at the school board meeting.

I’m happy to see the comments from Jeff Kursman and others who are now beginning to question the merit of this entire money scheming operation known as the Lakota School System. The key to meeting a balanced budget is to reduce the cost of the services, and that is to drive down the labor costs. Cutting a few teachers here and there is only a band-aid to the situation. Only by making across the board cuts to the 80% of the $160 million dollar budget can the Lakota School System meet its budget supplied generously by the community. Anything less than a contract restructuring with the Lakota labor force will be sufficient.

Karen Mantia has brought with her to the Lakota School System a strategy used at her last job of Pickerington to diminish the quality of the district in order to force parents to pass a tax increase to sustain their inflated union contracts. And to execute that objective she and the school board are willing to destroy everything that is good about Lakota to protect the wages of their union allies. That’s what these ghosts of Lakota were doing, and why I’m not interested in anything they have to say any longer. Instead, the No Lakota Levy will be shifting gears to approach our tax fighting methods without the assumption that Lakota will see the light and come to their senses by listing to our arguments. Now, we must assume that they are not even relevant, and we must find ways to remove their impact from destroying our community in an extortion ring that is evidently well underway. If this fight for more taxes were for the kids truly, then these ghosts of Lakota would not use the kids by stealing from the community’s $160 million dollar budget and take away programs while protecting employee incomes at the expense of the children.

So for now on, I will treat these employees like the ghosts they are, as irrelevant to the land of the living, and powerless to us all if they are robbed of their ability to invoke fear. Because as far as usefulness, they are lacking completely in any ability required in the real world, and are truly manifestations from the land of the dead.

Rich Hoffman

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

Check out Rich Hoffman’s favorite website, (besides this one):

http://thepeoplescube.com/

Firebombs at the Agnostics: The public education fantasy

I have heard the criticisms coming from the pro levy people already who proclaim that it is easy to cast dispersions from the sideline as opposed to jumping in and helping to solve problems. These critics of course are attempting to highlight their volunteerism, or paid resolve as though they were helping to solve problems as opposed to someone like me who writes about what a bunch of fools they are. “Oh Rich Hoffman, you criticize but do not offer to help. Instead you throw in firebombs when you should move into an elected position or serve on a finance committee.”

This is a blanket statement that could cover any ground from the president of the United States, to my local school board of Lakota, but nobody can help people or their jobs if their beliefs are not grounded in reality. I have covered many topics and offered plenty of advice that I would hope some of these people might use to solve their problems. Particularly regarding the Lakota School Board, which I consider a microcosm of the federal government in general, I have identified the problem and determined that my volunteerism or even paid help will not help that body of government no matter how much money or good intentions I might invest. That is why I determined on February 13, 2012 that the school system was in fact effectively dead in its current form. It is my assessment that nothing can be done to save it because the parties involved in the process are in denial of their reality, and are therefore unable to alter it. So my involvement unless they would listen 100% to my direction would ultimately lead to their doom.

As I speak hereafter about Lakota as a school district I might as well speak about virtually all school districts and government in general, because all these public entities are suffering from the same problem. They are not functioning from a grounding in the rules of reality. I don’t mean that facetiously, but quite literally. It’s a philosophical problem that infects the very nature of civilization. And without having that philosophic problem fixed, there is nothing that can help those who do not live within the realm of reality. So with that said, the reality of the situation pertaining to the Lakota School System, and public schools in general is that they have built the entire structure not for the benefit of the students, (the product) but for the employees themselves. To exhibit this point please refer to this article on The Blaze about the Buffalo teachers union contract that has perks so outrageous that it covers plastic surgery, including liposuction.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/buffalo-ny-teachers-still-getting-state-funded-cosmetic-surgery-why/

I have been in Lakota School Board meetings where the teachers union has protested any increases in their health care benefits. I’ve seen them threaten to go on strike to drive up their wages. And their behavior is exactly in line with those of the Buffalo teachers union. The reality of the situation is that the employees of these public schools are a selfish lot who wish to loot from the community the wealth of the districts.

However, like a drug dealer tries to convince themselves that their actions do not harm people, or the prostitute who pretends they do not destroy families, or the drunk that convinces themselves that they are not a menace to their families, the public education teacher tries to convince themselves that they critical members of a community and important to a child’s life. They believe that they are providing a service that cannot be done by anybody else in society and that if they do not perform their task that our country will crumble to ash.

What teachers are professing with those thoughts are wishes, not reality. Reality says that even a stay-at-home mom without a teaching degree can teach their children better than public education can. The stats prove it. But the wish from these particular public employees is that all such evidence would be wiped away so that they can sustain their fantasy–that they are as important in reality as they are in their own minds.

This is called the Tinker Bell complex. These poor fools have been raised to believe that if they just wish upon a star, or rub Aladdin’s magic lamp that they will be granted wishes, and they wish to these invisible gods beyond reality to be important in the scheme of society. They believe that because they dream it in their small minds that reality can be bent to their wishes.

This is why they hate me, because they cannot argue against the facts that I’ve given them. They see my spreadsheets which point out reality and they react as though I just threw Holy Water on their demon infested souls. They whither in pain and protest and attempt to call me names and discredit my facts rooted in reality. They are like the small child who has just been told that the Little Mermaid is just a cartoon–that Ariel is not real. Or the Fairy Godmother will not turn their pumpkin into a magic carriage, because these are the actions of fantasy, of dreams, and wishes.

It might be fun to dream and make wishes. It might bring comfort to the mind to see a falling star and make a wish that something in our lives might be made better by asking the mysteries of the universe to help us with a problem. Or a birthday cake with lit candles where a wish is made before blowing them out. Our culture is built on wishes and pleadings to entities that exist outside of reality and this is part of our modern social problem. Too often people would resort to magic and wishes rather than hard work and wisdom, and this is the source of much social misery. So the public employee teachers are in good company, but their status in life is merely a wish outside the boundaries of reality. They wish themselves to be valuable and worth $63,000 a year because their unions have told them they have a value equitable to such a value. But the reality is that the average wage mentioned is about $20,000 more than the true market value. That entire amount of $63K per year is artificially propped up by hopes, dreams and wishes.

I know one of the daughters of a former union president locally and every time I see her she looks like she has a dead cat on her head which is intended to be fashionable, but in reality just looks ridiculous. She obviously gets her nails done frequently and is a continuous visitor to the hair salon. She always wears the latest fashion and is quite the socialite. Now none of those things are necessarily bad, but every time I see her I think of what she would have been if her mother had not been the union president who would twist the arm of a school board for everything they had in them. I’m sure this cat headed lady has a master’s degree and all the “qualifications” that the labor union deems important, but what is her real value? Is it $63K per year or $83K per year? Well, by my assessment of her talent and role in a school district I’d say it’s no more than $50K per year. She’s too young to make more than that off any pay scale and could have only arrived at a large salary by obtaining yearly increases exceeding 5% to 7% a year beginning with a very excessive starting point. Because of this inflated value this person gets to pretend they have true value and when she gets her hair done, and her other cosmetic work, she is functioning from a fantasy outside of realty. She did not earn her wealth. She stole it. Her mother stole it. Her mother stole it for all her union members, not just the daughter. The money wasn’t earned. It was gained through manipulation, extortion, and coercion by creating the illusion that all this activity somehow benefited children with the campaign slogan, “it’s for the children.” But in reality children have nothing to do with the actions or desires. The reality is that the members of the union, including the cat haired lady become wealthy off tax dollars without providing a service of real value. The real product was fear of what the world would be like without their service. Not the actual teaching of children.

This behavior is in no way exclusive to the cat haired woman or her mother. They are just playing the game of well wishers. They wish in their minds that their efforts in public education might actually be valuable, but the reality says teachers who make much less and with less experience could do the same work for equal outcome. The reality says that it is the participation of parents and the quality of them that makes all the difference in a child’s life. It is not the teacher no matter what the pay scale.

In order to fix the problem these participants have to stop wishing the world is one way when in fact it is another. Until that action takes place nothing I can do will help these poor people. They will continue to be lost in their own fantasies because they refuse to see the truth. I can place the facts right in front of their faces, but they will not see them because they are more attracted to the fantasies of their minds rather than the reality of their lives. The public employee teachers seek to cover the gap between their fantasy and actual realty with looted wealth and that is simply not acceptable. I am happy to help these poor people with their problems, but like an alcoholic, they cannot be helped till they realize that their wishes do not determine realty. And their wish is that they are indispensably important to the culture of public education. But the facts do not support this, and I am personally finished with trying to ease their minds back into reality. It is their task to get with the program, not society’s, and it’s not our burden to throw money at their fantasies in order to make them happy, so until they are prepared for the truth, they cannot be helped, and my time is too valuable to waste on looters of reality, so I will continue with the firebombs until they finally get the point. At that time when they ask, I will solve all their problems in about one month and at half the cost. But I will not be lured into playing their game their way in a land of illusion and fantastic wishes.

Rich Hoffman

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

Check out Rich Hoffman’s favorite website, (besides this one):

http://thepeoplescube.com/

Peter Jackson Takes a Stand: Saving Jobs in New Zealand from labor union looting

Sometimes the best way to see something clearly is to back up so you can put it in focus. It also helps to not view the world exclusively through one particular specialization of which one makes a living. Living life should be a constant adventure of always learning and expanding ones viewpoint, and not relegating a perception to just those within the field of one’s occupation. This is the role of philosophy and story tellers, people I enjoy spending time around more than any other, because they often see the bigger picture of things, excel in this skill and do society great justice when they share the fruits of their labor.

This is also why I have been spending some time talking about the new film The Hobbit by Peter Jackson, because stories like this are much bigger than the small issues that surround us on a daily basis, so in placing our energy onto such projects metaphors of our own reality can be analyzed. So let me share with you dear reader a clip from the video blog of The Hobbit hosted by Peter Jackson before we plunge into a bit of darkness in our discussion today. When watching this clip it reminded me of two things—first I am happy to see that Jackson is filming The Hobbit, for the first time in 48 frames a second and in 3D. I had the privilege of working with Real D 3D a few years ago on the development of a new camera system they were testing for the 3D market which is very similar to the version seen in this clip, so it excites me greatly to see this kind of technology being utilized to the furthest extent of artistic interpretation. Second—for the reasons that have held up The Hobbit as a production and almost prevented it from being filmed in New Zealand are the same that I will probably never get the chance to do work in Hollywood again, because of my stances against unions in my written work.

The dark story of making The Hobbit is one that has held the project up for years and is yet another story about how labor unions are corrosive organizations. And its statements like that which have blacklisted me from any future work within the Hollywood community. I made this choice consciously knowing that I will instead shift my attention in these middle years of my life to writing novels instead. So I am happy to let my whip work and other entertainment talents drift into the nature of that independent task of authorship. Because there is no going back now, I’ve said too much.

But what I said needed to be said. It’s the things that Peter Jackson doesn’t want, or need to say. It’s the things that the distributors at Warner Brothers can’t talk about even if their opinions are harsh on the matter privately. This is because a subtle harness is placed upon the entertainment industry and that harness is the exact same gag that exists on public education, and is preventing the open learning and creativity of millions of children from realizing their full potential. It is that of the labor unions.

During Lord of the Rings, the production could be said to be very successful because Peter Jackson as a director is extremely personable, grounded, and fantastic at multitasking. He kept his set fun which allowed for a bonding to occur between his technical staff and his actors which showed up on-screen in a tremendous way. It is unlikely that Lord of the Rings would have been such a great production if Jackson had not been the director, or if the entire film had not been shot in New Zealand.

My wife and I made serious plans to move to New Zealand in the early years of our marriage and live on a sailboat. So I understand the appeal of a country that as of now prides itself on rugged individuality. When one thinks of New Zealand government of any kind does not come to mind, just big open fields, mountains, horses and–sheep. But the one great thing that I’ll say about New Zealand that the film industry can’t say is that one of the reasons Lord of the Rings went together so impressively, and all members of the crew got along unusually well, and communication worked at all levels was the absence of a labor union in New Zealand involving the actors and technical unions. Before Lord of the Rings came out there were only a few major films to come out of New Zealand, The Man from Snowy River films, and the George Lucas spectacle Willow. So the labor unions didn’t protest too intensely when New Line Cinema aligned with Wingnut films to produce a massive three film adaptation to the Tolkien classic, the unions didn’t pay much attention. Jackson wisely shot the films back-to-back while Fellowship of the Ring was still in post production and had not yet hit theaters. The Lord of the Rings films were able to be made outside of the chaos of the usual Hollywood production without a lot of union influence in an almost campfire style production where everyone bonded on the set.

However, success breeds the looters, and after multiple Academy Awards the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance union from Australia decided it wanted to move over into the New Zealand market because they feared that such high-profile big budget films in the future would go to New Zealand instead of Australia where the Star Wars films were shot over similar concerns. These big productions could not be done in the United States, because there is too much hassle these days over labor disputes, so film companies run from unions out of necessity, and in this case New Zealand is the last far-flung corner of the globe without one of these labor unions controlling the industry, so The Hobbit will be the last of its kind. The unions took action against The Hobbit production joining with the Screen Actors Guild and four other international unions to boycott the production.

You can read an article about this mess here:

http://news.sky.com/home/showbiz-news/article/15772110

Peter Jackson in an effort to save his home country of New Zealand the thousands upon thousands of jobs The Hobbit would bring to craftsman and film personnel refused to buckle under the union pressure and called the union what it was, a bully looking for money, membership and power. He threatened to take the production of The Hobbit and its $300 million budget to Europe in order to make the film. You can read that article here:

http://news.sky.com/home/showbiz-news/article/15745443

Thankfully the whole situation settled as thousands of New Zealanders protested to keep The Hobbit production in New Zealand, so the unions backed off socially, and Jackson was able to go and make the film the way he likes to make them. For me personally it is very nice to see Peter walking around on his sets casually without all the egotistical authority that so many of his predecessors displayed. It’s Jackson’s directorial style to be very open, fair and forthcoming in his dealings with his cast and crew. Jackson is certainly a director who would suffer from too much outside control on his projects which is what the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance union was trying to do. They saw Jackson’s success and they wanted to loot off his back, off his creations, and his relationships so they could get a piece of the pie for themselves.

This is what teachers unions have done to our schools. It’s no different in any respect. A school cannot pick up and move like Jackson threatened to settle a union dispute. A community has a school and it’s fixed in place. So if a union infests it with their looting tendency, the community is forced to deal with the extortion measures they employ.

The Disney Company deals with the unions by tossing more money at the problem which is why the Pirate films are so expensive. Disney has the advantage of generating a tremendous amount of money through their subsidiary companies, so they can play that game. They are too big to fly under the radar like Jackson does today, or Spielberg and Lucas used to. Notice that as Spielberg became bigger and more successful over the years, that his films seemed to become more and more bogged down. He still makes pretty good films, but nothing like his final year as a master filmmaker in 1993 with the release of Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List. I know people get angry with Spielberg and Tim Burton (who I think is a fantastic director) for sucking up to the Obama administration now, and the Clinton administration’s back in the 90’s, but at the heart of that evil is a desire for creative people to make their movies as a wall of opposition known as the entertainment unions stand in the way. The union influence shows up in the final product and it does rob the production of some magic. The audience can tell the difference and it does affect Hollywood’s bottom line. They respond by making more comedies, and easy productions that aren’t overly complicated and can be shot around Los Angeles or Las Vegas–easy set ups. The creative minds behind the movies attempt to keep the protesting communists who run the labor unions at bay with appeasement. Disney throws money at unions to advance a project which works, but prevents smaller film makers from being able to compete on equal footing, because the unions hold all producers to the same standard as a company like Disney. Unless the filmmaker makes the film out of the country like Jackson has, they find themselves encumbered needlessly both creatively and financially.

As I see the previews and clips coming in from The Hobbit I am starting to get excited, because such films—stories of such depth are rare for all the reasons described, and are true treasures of our culture. I desire a world where people can speak and do business with each other without the looters standing in the way trying to make easy money for themselves. And yes, my comments here about the education unions have blacklisted me in entertainment which will go on forever. But I have other talents and I’ll use them to tell the story of how human beings get themselves into these fixes. It’s a difficult thing to balance out the need to make a living and then to make a living that is honest and true. Because the chances are, even if you are a wealthy film maker, if your love is to make movies you still need the industry system to make them, so you do your best to shut your mouth and put up with the parts you don’t like. You give money to the Obama administrations as a payoff to a mobster thug and hope they leave you alone politically. And the same holds true for the teaching profession. Or any profession that is controlled by labor unions, it’s hard to come out and speak against it, and to call it what it is, because the system is designed to exclude any voice of dissention. But I will do it, because I’ve already started the process, so I might as well see it through. And in the meantime, I will cheer with much vigor the upcoming film The Hobbit for all these reasons and more. Great stories are so few and far between, and I’m so excited about this one that I may just go get in line for it right now.

Click here to see the TAIL OF THE DRAGON press release for an update on my most recent project:

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

Check out Rich Hoffman’s favorite website, (besides this one):

http://thepeoplescube.com/

The Day Lakota Died: February 13th 2012–the decision to be taken off life support

When Mike Schell of Fox 19 met me in the hall at Lakota East to get a few comments for his story on the epic school board meeting held at Lakota East’s auditorium that was packed to the ceiling with concerned Lakota residents, he asked me why I was there since I have been such a staunch advocate against the tax increases. I told him I was curious as to what the administration was going to do, that they had some time to get things right since the election, and I was coming to the meeting with an open mind hoping that Mantia and the gang of administrators were going to do something bold, and good for the future of Lakota. Mike then told me the cliff notes version of the meeting which he had in his hand. The proposal was 69 teaching positions cut and reducing the teaching day from a 7 period day to 6. I shook my head and told Mike I was disappointed. You can see the rest of the interview at the Channel 19 site and what I said next.

http://www.fox19.com/story/16927607/phase-ii-of-proposed-cuts-for-lakota-schools

I was disappointed as I sat with my wife in the top row of the large auditorium and watched the proceeding with growing revulsion as the meeting began at 7 PM. To me, the school boards choice was an easy one. After the defeat of the levy in November, they had a mandate from the community with over 18,000 voters turning down their third levy attempt to ask the teachers union to take a 5% pay cut, which isn’t a big deal since the average pay at Lakota is $63K per year. That simple request would have put Lakota’s budget in line with the revenue stream coming to it where residents pay around $1,140 per 100K of property value on their businesses and residence. That tax is already high. So much so that it does discourage existing businesses and prospective businesses from coming to the Lakota district. That number is the breaking point, so from my vantage point and many who support the NO LAKOTA LEVY group, the tax burden needs to be decreased, not increased.

At the school board meeting the only way to describe my nausea at the obvious scheme to launch the district into a FOURTH tax levy attempt was to compare it to the visitation of a funeral. That’s how it felt. The participants on that large stage in front of a vast audience fumbled about like an episode of the Three Stooges. These buffoons had the audacity to attempt to attract this large crowd to the biggest venue in the district so they could show a PowerPoint presentation on a very large screen to look good for the cameras. I instantly recognized the tactic by Superintendent Mantia, because she used almost the exact same forum up in Pickerington when she lobbied for a levy passage that passed just this last August. The goal of the meeting, (THE REAL GOAL) was not to announce any real cuts. It was to say that the Lakota School System was going to go to state minimums and do only what they had to do to get by. In fact, the teachers are going to teach one less class a day since they are getting rid of the 7th period! So they are doing less work than they do now! How is that beneficial?

Hidden in the dialog throughout the evening was the reminder that if the community did pass a levy, that some of what was being taken away could come back as a kind of Plan B. The entire event was a page ripped right out of Saul Alinsky’s The Delphi Technique. The school board batted around comments like tennis players hitting a ball and a bewildered audience watched waiting for a score. A woman in front of me took vigorous notes until 8:30 as her three kids started getting restless. The meeting began with a lot of energy, but by 9 PM the energy had died and people started to look at the exits. The entire goal of the meeting was to drag out a large audience, complain about how little money the board had to work with, and then use a lot of terminology that the audience would think sounded impressive to appear efficient.

The only strategic option the school board had was to force the union to take further concessions and if the union refused, to use that against them in a public relations campaign. That is if the school board wished the future solvency of the district and not just some short shot in the arm from a tax increase by a levy passage. Increased taxes are not an option. It will cripple the growth of the Lakota district not only in families moving to the area, but also the commercial business that is prevalent in the community. Yet the school board showed at this latest meeting without any doubt that they are completely on the side of the union labor and lack the resolve to meet the budget crises head on and actually solve it. After several months of work after a failed levy, our triple dipping superintendent Karen Mantia from Pickerington, Ohio who makes nearly a quarter of a million dollars in overall compensation can do nothing more with her budget than cut teachers and services as an extortion racket to set up another school levy attempt in 2012.

I witnessed from the top row the funeral of public education, which I’ve never been a fan of, but saw it die right in front of my face. Any hope that public education could resurrect itself was beyond doubt gone from that stage at Lakota East on February 13, 2012. Lakota is the 7th largest district in the state of Ohio; it’s been excellent with distinction for over a decade. Lakota is the best of the best when it comes to public education, and it is a scam. So if Lakota is a scam, then what are all those schools who aren’t as good as Lakota? Lakota is a scam because there was never any intention to balance their budget no matter what combination of personnel was put on the board, because the system itself is on life support and what the audience has to do is decide whether or not to pull the plug or not.

As I watched a parade of parents plead with the school board to find ways to reach out to those of us in the NO LAKOTA LEVY so that some common ground could be found to pass the next levy, I saw a group of people addicted to money like a dying patient might be addicted to morphine. The public school of Lakota is comatose because its employees lack the will to make any hard decisions. They think the school exists so that their employees can make healthy incomes, double-dip in their retirements, have great insurance benefits, and have all summer off. And they are willing to feed off kids to achieve their goal. Their very lives require vast sums of money to feed their addiction and once that money is cut off it is clear that their collective minds lack any direction, imagination, or leadership to exist on their own. So the moment they are taken off that supply of money they become sick and are ready to die.

I’ve joked about it here, I’ve ranted about it on these very pages, but public education is in all essence dead. Tax levies are the life support that keeps them living, and they are in such a condition because they are money addicts. Their philosophy is essentially wrong and this has led to the addictive behavior that they don’t even understand about themselves. It was obvious to me and to others in the audience who see that the body is already dead even as that body attempts to put on a big show to pretend they are in fact alive and well. They aren’t. Because the moment there isn’t any money to keep them alive, they are ready to die, unable to break themselves of that addiction. The school as a whole would rather cut off parts of their body in labor reductions and reduce their offerings to the community as a service than adjust their bloated bodies with the hard decision of restructuring their lives to what the community is supplying them with in funding.

I left the meeting at a quarter till 10 PM as a slow boil of anger swelled within me well into the next day that finally erupted halfway through the following afternoon during a contentious conference call on an unrelated matter. As my wife and I left, it had the same feeling that we’ve had as we’ve left the visitation of a family member at a funeral. The school board members and supporters of public education are so far out of touch that they didn’t know they were already dead. Instead they reside like ghosts who refuse to move on hovering over their bodies in confusion as if somehow they would spring back to life.

It was sad to see, but also revolting all the same. It’s an insult to be told by a ghost how to live life, yet that is what the Lakota School Board did at their meeting. It’s like taking advice from an alcoholic how to avoid drinking too much; it’s an insult to listen to the slurred speech of the drunkard lecture on the evils of drinking. The school board instructed the audience of the need for cutting money while at the same time asking for more, so they could live just a few minutes longer, just one more year. Once 2014 hits the pay freeze will be lifted and Lakota will have an onslaught of employees expecting 3% to 6% increases to make up for their losses during the three-year pay freeze designed to get a levy passed.

Public education is a joke. The employees of the system are a joke. And the administrators are a joke and in bed with the employees. The whole system is a failure of money addicts lost in a reality of their own making. And they have committed their own suicide by their actions and lack of realism. When residents of the nearby neighborhood of Four Bridges are paying over $5000 a year on their homes, as both parents work hard to just keep their property as their value plummets and job opportunities are restricted, the idea of a further tax on homes like that are unbearable, not to mention the senior citizens on a fixed income or the businesses that are barely getting by and thinking of leaving their leases for a cheaper district. The Lakota School System under the leadership of the Ohio School Board Association in Columbus and the Ohio Education Association and its parent organization the National Education Association of socialists have painted themselves into a corner and expect to be rescued with life support to sustain their addiction to money. But the money isn’t there anymore and the community must now decide whether or not to pull the plug on a loved one in order to ease their own minds to the terminal patient that will never get better on their own.

To me the thing is already dead. It might look like its breathing; it might even look into your eyes. But it’s the drugs talking. In this case it’s a $160 million dollar plus budget that somehow isn’t enough. And given that fact, I’m prepared to pull the plug and leave the hospital. Because the death is inevitable—it’s just waiting for someone to make the hard decision.

Rich Hoffman

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

Check out Rich Hoffman’s favorite website, (besides this one):

http://thepeoplescube.com/