Tag: Bullwhips

Lee Wong is Wrong for Ohio’s 4th Senate Seat: He’s only qualified to be “maybe” a Wal-Mart greeter

Alright, the primary isn’t until March where Ohio’s 4th State Senate District will pick their next candidate for that seat on the Republican side of the slate, yet going to Jags the other evening, and elsewhere around West Chester Lee Wong, has already put out his signs for the campaign, just as signs from the previous November campaign are still littered throughout the region. In that little act, which may appear to be inauspicious, Lee says a lot about why he is just the wrong Wong for any political office, especially a senate seat. He is not a good trustee in West Chester, and is an obvious liberal with his voting record and he believes that if he is the first to get his signs out, and that he puts on them that he’s a veteran, that it will get him enough coverage to win some votes in that primary.

Lee is a nice guy, but so are a lot of idiots, they have to be so they don’t get their butts kicked by people more capable. People like Lee know that they trend toward Democrat, but they live in hard Republican areas, so they must go along to get along, which is in itself dishonest. I’ve been at the Sushi Monk when Lee has tried to come in the back door looking for some free food using his position as a trustee to “make friends” and enjoy the benefits of being a big shot in the community imposing himself on the good spirit of the hosts, uncomfortably. At Trustee meetings Lee usually, if not always goes around the room and introduces himself to the public and makes them feel hospital to their local government. Visually he does a lot of things that look nice and seem sincere, but under the veil is a person who is always what he’s not showing and he governs in the ways of a Democrat and is a wolf clearly in sheep’s clothing. He uses his niceness and his willingness to engage the public early and often as that sheep’s clothing yet the true merit of his actions, such as him putting his signs out before any other candidates shows his true nature. As a West Chester trustee he knows the townships policy on liter and signage in general, and he’s ignoring the policy for his own gain, and that is precisely how he governs, and is the core reason why he would be bad for a senate seat—because he’s never who he says he is.

I’ve met and known Lee for a long time, and since clear Republicans—at least they used to be—were running the township, I didn’t pay much mind to Lee. They had two votes to his one for sidewalks, and every other Agenda 21 feel good zoning pitch, so it wasn’t necessary to expose Lee in a harsh campaign. But a fair warning to him. Since he is running for a senate seat, one that I am very concerned with due to the kind of pro Second Amendment legislation that needs to get done in 2020 and after the Trump win in November, the first quarter of 2021, the last thing I want to see is some Democrat posing as a Republican in a Senate seat causing the kind of trouble that he often does as a West Chester trustee, such as when he brought in a bunch of union radicals to sabotage Mark Welch not very long ago. I didn’t ask him to stick his head up out of the ground, especially this early, so the treatment of him is going to be ruthless. Let me just say that for his own benefit. I think he’s a nice neighbor, but the political seats are important and we can’t afford the wrong people in them.

I’ll also say the same about the Democrats who plan to run for that same seat after the primary is over. Being a nice person isn’t enough. Just as in the Lakota school board election from the last time, and coming up again when Brad Lovell’s seat will come open, ruthlessness should be expected, because it is a kind of war for the hearts and minds of voters, and to be properly vetted, and since our local newspapers are too weak to do the job themselves, I can assure everyone that every dirty little secret, every little tryst to a local hotel or prostitutes on East Avenue will be exposed. I want to see the right people in the right jobs, not people hiding behind a façade of goodness who intend to do all the wrong things based on the direction needed in our own state government. Mike DeWine is about as liberal as I’m personally willing to put up with. Even that I would say is too far, but he serves as an adequate warning and benchmark of what is expected.

Since Lee has already put out his signs to get a jump on his competition then he is opening himself up to analysis as well as to his behavior and voting record which points straight back to the kind of philosophy which governs his voting pattern which is critical to the senate position he is seeking, and invites all the criticism available to display why Wong is Wrong for the job. I think he’s a terrible trustee in West Chester, but he’s even worse for a state seat of any kind. I wouldn’t trust him to be a bus driver to take senators to Columbus for a vote, I think he is that incompetent. To understand why, you must know more than what he shows through a handshake, it’s in what he believes that is the problem. And when pinned down, how he reacts and manipulates things to his advantage.

I’m not going to say that politics is not a harsh business and that games are part of the chess game, such as what he played in West Chester with the union debate orchestrated so deceptively against his fellow trustees at the time, one of which he is running against for that same senate seat now. People like Lee sell their scandal by using niceness to disarm their opposition, and they believe that being early to the worm will get the meal of the day, and in times past, that might have worked. But not anymore, and certainly not in the Trump circles of Ohio politics. I would say that for any seat in Ohio, but especially this senate seat. There is a lot at stake and dirt, scandal and everything imaginable are targets worth their salt in this one, so he better be ready for the crushing effects of sticking his head up so early. Because in so doing he reveals a lot about himself, even as a trustee who should know better. He is littering up the countryside during Christmas with his early signs ignoring West Chester’s policy on such things because in the end Lee doesn’t care so long as what he does serves his political ambitions and he will do the same and more with a higher position. And that is precisely why Lee Wong, is wrong for not only the 4th State Senate District seat that is coming up in the primary, he’s wrong for everything that involves public trust. He may be qualified to be a Wal-Mart greeter with is good demeanor, but that’s about it, keep him away from money or anything of responsibility—because he can’t be trusted.

Rich Hoffman

A Review of ‘The Rise of Skywalker’: Star Wars is back and has a lot in common with the Trump impeachment

Sometimes things happen that are very good and you have an experience that was much better than you thought it would be and that was certainly the case of the latest Rise of Skywalker Star Wars film. I know a lot of my readers are perplexed as to why I write so much about Star Wars, and to understand why, I would point to this movie. It has a lot in common with the Donald Trump impeachment by the press, a desired narrative designed to shape a social argument. While the president represents in people a desire to push back against oppressive institutions—which is a continuous theme of all Star Wars movies and shows, the media itself has become one of those oppressive institutions where there trained minds within it find Star Wars ideas threatening, not just childish, but dangerous. So I read with interest hundreds and hundreds of reviews this week about the Rise of Skywalker while many of the same publications framed similar opinions about the presidency of Donald Trump. The common statement was that this new Star Wars film wasn’t very good, it didn’t take the needed chances, and lets face it, it steered away from the progressive politics of the last film, which caused a lot of trouble in the fan community. The Rise of Skywalker was a damn, good movie and a real love letter from the filmmakers to the fan base and it left me feeling very good about it and extremely hopeful for the future.

What Star Wars means to our society I cannot understate enough, the magic it has on our culture is invaluable. I think its very powerful, and important. As a kid’s movie it has the potential to set high goals in the minds of viewers, especially young ones and this Rise of Skywalker film understood that responsibility. These are not movies about reality, or progressive politics, plot points that film school losers studied were important, the Star Wars movies, all of them are about creativity and thinking beyond the scope of your present circumstances. They are also about overcoming impossible odds when faced with dire circumstances. In that fashion, there were parts of Rise of Skywalker that reminded me a lot of the original Wizard of Oz, particularly when the heroes of the story were trying to rescue Chewbacca from a First Order star destroyer. The themes were light on their feet and fun. Reality wasn’t the goal but the flow of optimism was and that made parts of this movie pure magic.

The reason the reviewers choose not to like movies like this and why they don’t like President Trump is that they wish to live their lives in a victimized status, to have something to blame for why they are losers in life. President Trump is about overcoming loser status, and so are Star Wars films at their heart. They are all about using creative tools and technology to help the viewers of the films unlock optimism in their lives hopefully well beyond the time that the lights come back up and the movie is over. The Rise of Skywalker was an optimistic love letter to the audience. Obviously, Lucasfilm has listened to the complaints of the previous films. And I will have to give credit to Bob Iger at Disney, he listened too. There was a lot going on in The Rise of Skywalker that was optimistic, ambitious and a real throwback to the Saturday morning serials that caused George Lucas to make these films so long ago. The opening credits complete with what was likely one of John Williams’ final musical scores was wonderful and set the stage the way these kinds of stories have for hundreds of years, and have been the key to why they are so beloved by so many generations of audiences.

Rather than give away the movie, I’d rather cover the spirit of the film and encourage everyone to go see the movie and reward Disney with a big box office score. I’d like to see this one break some records, because it deserves to. I keep hearing from critics that The Rise of Skywalker didn’t take any chances, the way people have become accustomed to in other theatrical releases, like a Tarantino film, or some movie that advances the political ideologies of the left where women rights are the dominate objectives. Let me tell you about risk, try taking a very private story telling film that Star Wars started out as in 1977 and hold its creative looseness intact as it transitions over to corporate media while still telling stories of individual input and sustenance as the pressures otherwise push down on the attempt. I never said it would be easy for Disney to make these movies, only that they should respect the fans that have stayed with the franchise for over 40 years of storytelling. There was a couple sitting next to me who were older than I was, probably by over ten years and they were sitting there at the end of the credits with me with tears streaming down their faces and a smile from ear to ear. I asked them if they liked the film and of course they were beyond words with approval.

I met similar people in line at Disney World just a week before The Rise of Skywalker was released. They like me had spent thousands and thousands of dollars to take a vacation to Disney World and ride the new Rise of the Resistance at Galaxy’s Edge at Hollywood Studios. There were little kids in the line that took over four hours to get through, and there were people who were likely in their 20s in 1977 when the first movie came out and they were happy to participate in this mythology that had grown all these decades into these modern miracles of ride technology. What’s risky is in serving those types of fans while continuing to growth the business needs and take care of the corporate expectations, and Disney certainly put their best foot forward with this one. It may have taken them most of the last decade to get there, but from what I saw, they have finally found their footing. The results of The Rise of Skywalker were obviously good.

The most notable improvement was the return of romance to Star Wars, which had been avoided due to the political upheavals of our modern world. All the main characters ended up with love interests by the end of the film which was very satisfying intellectually, because lets face it, that’s how people think about things. It is unnatural to have passionate stories told in the refrigerator of modern politically correct politics. Yet Disney listened to the fans and gave Fin his third girlfriend of the series. I don’t want to make too much of it, only to note that the writers of the film obviously understood why the previous Star Wars films were missing the mark with fans, and this movie set out to correct that situation rather boldly. Hurray for good ol’ fashioned filmmaking and a turn for Hollywood to correct its course with this obvious attempt to appease the fans. Not the critics, but the people who actually buy a ticket, pay for their popcorns with a king’s ransom, and just want to think about something bigger than everyday life, instead of the restrictions of the unimaginative. Hurray for us all, Star Wars is back!

Rich Hoffman

REVENGE: Before we talk about violance against Democrats, let’s vote

It took me a while to cool down enough to even talk about the congressional impeachment vote they held on December 18th, a few decades to the exact day that Bill Clinton was impeached. The date and precise timing of the effort was obvious revenge for that vote which was then held by Republicans, only for a much more justified reason. Bill Clinton had actually perjured himself and broke the law. For this one against Trump, and all those of us who voted for him, this impeachment vote was a shit shot in the dark for a losing party on their heels falling out of bounds. Sure, sometimes the ball does go in the basket, only these idiots weren’t even on the right basketball court where the game was being played, so their shot had no chance of scoring any points. It was in all aspects a resolution to a prediction I had made many years ago on WAAM radio in Ann Arbor, Michigan where I predicted the end of the Democrat Party as we knew it. Well, this was the end for them, and for that, perspective took some time to come to.

To be fair I watched the debates prior to the impeachment vote just as I did two decades ago for the Clinton hearing, and for the truth of it, the intellect of the Democrats has dropped considerably. They were always bad, Dick Gephardt was never a vestige of intellect. Back then they did a much better job of hiding their socialism for which is at the heart of all their party philosophy. But at least there was an assumption of law and order, and of fairness. We all had much higher expectations of congresspeople and senators at that time. Well, not anymore. The people talking for the Trump impeachment were lost, mindless, blind ideologues of a failed philosophy who really didn’t know what to do next. Impeaching the president was a political move meant to put a black mark on his resume prior to the next election hoping that it would cost him voters. Their short-sighted virtue meant that they had lowered the bar on impeachment to anything. When another Obama type was president in the future, this case provided a means of swift removal the next time Republicans held the House and Senate as they did in 2012 and could have ripped Barack Obama from the White House rather easily for the scandals that were obvious, not to mention the ones that weren’t.

Then more reality came into a clearer focus for me. I had recently vacationed in Disney World and stepped out of my daily grind to see how normal people live, who don’t pay so much attention to politics like you and I do dear reader. As I watched those idiots talk it was clear that they didn’t know that the latest episode of The Mandalorian was released on Disney+ and that a new Star Wars film was being released this week and that pop culture was entirely focused on these events. Nobody cared about impeachment of the president. All they cared about was whether they had money in their wallets and enough credit to buy a new car. Congress had lost its credibility a long time ago with most people and Trump understood that as he took the stage in Michigan to an overflow crowd in Battlecreek to berate the attempts made against him.

And on cue, the same losers who thought the new Star Wars film didn’t have enough lesbian sex in it, or progressive political stances, because Disney did listen and wanted to fix things with the fans, so they rated the film poorly hoping to hurt its financial success, they had up the impeachment articles hoping to shape the narrative against Trump, as they had planned with the Democrat Party for years. Only Baby Yoda was still trending higher than impeachment perplexing those on the left who for the life of them couldn’t understand why. The Democrats and their supporters were just out of ideas and the world has moved on without them, and for all the reasons that they feel they have to cheat to win elections, such as tampering with the 2020 one to even have a shot with this impeachment attempt, they are completely disconnected as to what people want in a president or their elected representatives. Most people have already moved on from them and don’t pay them any attention, at all. I think that is dangerous for a republic, but it’s a grim reality.

My first thoughts during the impeachment vote was to inflict violence against them and overtake our government back into reasonable hands. It wouldn’t take much for a person like me to organize and I spent much of the 18th thinking in just such a fashion, until it became obvious that these idiots didn’t have the slightest clue as to what they were doing. They were pretentious and disconnected from reality, and in the long game, that was a good thing. Their vote essentially sealed their own fate as a party, because for those who did care, and were watching and not thinking about the latest iTunes download from Tayler Swift, the next election would be hell for them because the Democrats had just pissed off all the people who still do care, and they were failing to bring people over into their cause. There were fewer stars from Hollywood willing to make political stands in 2020 than there were even in 2016 and this impeachment effort wasn’t rallying people toward their side, it was pushing them away.

Most people only have time for so much in their lives, and people these days don’t have time or energy for this impeachment attempt by loser Democrats who they can see can’t compete with Donald Trump in the upcoming election. The writing is quite clear on the wall, and apparently everyone can see it but the Democrats who are still stuck on the impeachment revenge of December 18th, 1998 of Clinton, their knight in shining armor. And if they have been upset about that very justified event, what do they think is going to happen over the next 30 years after this Trump attempt? Do they think we’ll just all go to sleep and forget about it? Hell no, people like me will want to paint our homes in their blood for many years to come, they will never get off the hook and that is something they seem to never have considered. Perhaps they are just too stupid to think about it, but whatever it is, they have stamped themselves to it forever, and to their own detriment.

So I would offer that the best revenge is to activate the votes for all Republicans in the next election and to show up in droves to put them in office and knock out the Democrats from every position up and down the line. It is better to take them out of office than to think about putting bullets in their heads with a bloody rebellion. Why get all dirty when all you have to do is show up and vote? Now if we find out that the Democrats find a way to massively tamper with the elections, which I wouldn’t put it past them to try, then we can talk about violence. But for now, we have all the cards to play with and they have nothing. The best thing is to beat them in elections, which at this point should be easy. Then lets talk about the future.

Rich Hoffman

Anger and Revenge: Democrats impeachment vote is a shot at us all

The only thing that comes to my mind regarding the current congress of Democrats voting to impeach President Trump is anger and a necessity for revenge. When I think back to when Republicans had both the House and Senate and could have impeached President Obama on many more accounts, now that this ridiculous standard against Trump has been set, it is clear that we should have. We could have impeached Obama over Benghazi, Fast and Furious, the IRS scandal, the off the mic promises to the Russians that he’d give them more support after the election, we could have thrown Obama out of office before the end of his first term.

Instead of calling for violence against our government for participating in this coup, I’m going to think about more pleasant things for a few days while I cool down. Its not enough to call this impeachment vote a joke, because at the heart of it is aggression against everyone who voted for Trump, and that isn’t OK.

Rich Hoffman

What Disney Calls Magic is what Chick Fil A Calls Competency: Taking away the excusses to happiness

People have been wondering why as a grown man who could go anywhere in the world why my wife and I went to Disney World for vacation, without any kids. Well, there were a lot of reasons, but one of the main ones is something I don’t hear a lot of people talking about, but its at the core of their theme park business model, and its very similar to Chick Fil A. What Disney sells is happiness, its in their mission statement which is clear the moment you enter the property in Orlando welcoming you to the happiest place on earth. Obviously the first thing that cynical people think of in Disney are the huge expenses and the long lines, but there is a reason everything costs so much yet is so extraordinarily crowded. Its essentially for the same reason that Chick Fil A is crowded every afternoon just for selling chicken, it’s because as a company, they don’t make excuses for failure and have a can do spirit on everything, and that is precisely what people are looking for at the Disney Parks, and why I specifically wanted to vacation there. I’m a very positive person and professionally everywhere I have turned over the last year and a half was some drag asser looking for every little excuse not to do something, and it was driving me crazy. It had been time for a Disney vacation.

That doesn’t mean that what you get at Disney is happiness. I watched carefully during my vacation the other people who were looking for the same thing as me, but obviously were not so inclined to experience such a product as Disney calls “magic.” Magic is the word for it, because in reality, its only the performance of illusions, not some mystical energy created to manipulate the impossible. Magic to create happiness is a series of tricks designed to evoke in the user a feeling they couldn’t get anywhere else, but not all people are prepared to experience it. So they can go to Disney World and spend many tens of thousands of dollars, they can have their magic bands and take the shuttle from the airport to the parks without paying all the tolls on the highways between the two, and all they’ll see are long lines and misery. They’ll complain later that Disney World is all about just making a buck and is for kids as they seek some psychological distance between their present reality and any future attempt at happiness. For many people, they do not want to be happy, because there is responsibility in it, so even going to Disney World can’t do it for them. But on this trip, I wanted particularly to study Disney as a company and how they maintained their brand so I was watching with different eyes than I normally would in times past.

One thing that was obvious, and likely the key to their success at Disney was that all of their employees were taught to buy into the philosophy, like Chick Fil A. You don’t go to Disney to hear excuses about why this or that can’t or won’t happen. With them anything is possible. Any request from a customer is entertained, and it’s done so with a smile on their faces. As I went everywhere and asked lots of questions of what they call “cast members” a personality trait emerged that was part of their employee development. The customer was always right, and the employees of Disney were taught never to complain, or to let it out that they disagreed with those very valuable customers. Everything was on time; no rides or attractions were shut down because they didn’t have enough employees to operate the activities. Nothing stopped at Disney World due to massive call offs of a weak labor pool to draw from. To make the parks work magically each day, it literally took tens of thousands of park employees to make the massive operation run. If 10% of their work force didn’t show up for work on time there would be big problems in selling that happiness, yet Disney didn’t have that problem at all. The reason why is the key to the answer.

To conduct my experiments my wife and I stayed in Kissimmee and spent some time out of the park interacting with the various work cultures there to draw some long-held conclusions that I have had. In years past, whenever we went to central Florida, we would meet at the family condo over in Cape Canaveral, and a fair amount of socializing was always part of the trip. This time, we didn’t talk to anybody, we just conducted my experiment spending a lot of time at all four Disney Parks, eating and interacting with their various resorts, and crawling over every inch of their Disney Springs development. We used all their various transportation systems and even talked to the janitors who walked around the park cleaning up the trash. I purposely looked for the ugly side of Disney, any peeled paint, any decaying wood, any sign of shortcuts toward the magic illusions that Disney was so obsessed with creating. Then once the parks closed, or before they opened, we would eat and shop down in Kissimmee and the differences in culture were obvious.

We were staying only two miles from the entrance to Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios the entire time along RT 192 which had a lot of great Gatlinburg types of tourist traps that I love so much. Only the employees almost everywhere we went sucked, and I mean, they sucked big time. We went to Joe’s Crab Shack which was just a stone’s throw to the south of Animal Kingdom, off the Disney property and it was obviously mismanaged in a terrible way. It took 15 minutes for someone to even ask to seat us, even with most of the place full of empty tables. Then we were told it would take an additional 15 minutes to seat us. When I asked why, they told us that they had a few call-offs and that they were running behind. Disney operates hundreds of restaurants, hotels, rides, and other vendors and I don’t think they would permit any of their employees from making such a ridiculous statement. Why would a business make their mismanagement problems the problems of the paying customer? Its an absurd concept, so we left Joe’s Crab Shack and looked for other options. And we found the same behavior everywhere else, including a Cracker Barrel

Our hotel had half dead slugs running the place, the room cleaners kept forgetting to give us new towels, coffee packs and whatever we asked for because they were not engaged in maintaining our happiness. They were just going through the motions like the rest of the world. Disney by contrast didn’t permit such excuses and that was obviously part of what they called magic. From the airport in Orlando to the surrounding establishments around the Disney World property, the contrasts were obvious, and a key to the success story. It really came down to a management decision to take away the excuses of unhappiness. If people wanted to see the strings and hidden chambers of the magic show, they could. But Disney would not be responsible for it. Their whole thing was to take away the excuses to be miserable. If people chose to be miserable anyway, that was on them.

I am one who likes to be happy, so it didn’t take much for me to enjoy that level of competency. In such a “can do” culture it doesn’t take much for me to respect such a thing. The cast members no matter how important their roles were in the customer experience held to the company motto and it was obviously successful. It shows what can be done when a company has expectations from their employees to behave a certain way and to ensure that the customer experience from their side is positive and excuse free. And in that, there are lots of lessons for the outside world to come to grips with, which is precisely why I chose this vacation over other options, which I’m glad I did.

Rich Hoffman

The IG Report Has Come and Gone: So what does it all mean?

I’ve had a lot of requests for my opinion on the IG Report released last week, while I was on vacation at Disney World. I could have written something on the matter, but I felt I had already said much of the nature of it prior to my vacation. Perhaps not on the IG Report specifically, but on the nature of the government and where all this activity was headed. I watched the report while on the move on vacation at the Orlando International Airport and my thoughts were that it was what was expected. While it was disappointing to see that Michael Horowitz did not have the guts to go against the institutions of government who had committed crimes of spying against the Trump administration directed by the Obama administration, the “evidence” that would link everything was ignored or destroyed in the process of the investigation. So the emphasis of the report was that nobody admitted to the evidence so therefor conclusions couldn’t be made. This allowed the FBI to fall on the sword and admit to procedural errors, while taking the edge off the deeper problems of corruption that would bring down so many of our government institutions.

The reason they didn’t find bias is because they refused to look at it, even though it was right in front of all their faces, because as every lawyer knows, especially those who defend criminals in murder cases, you can never admit to something because once you do, you are culpable. That’s why they always advise clients to plead “not guilty” even if they believe them to be guilty as hell. Because once you admit to something, you own it. But if you don’t you force the evidence to be put forth, and if the FBI and other government agencies destroy the evidence along the way and refuse to properly document it, then they know it can never be proven in a court of law. So why admit to it. What the IG Report states emphatically is that the Obama FBI deliberately misled the FISA Court to spy on incoming President Trump with an intention to build a coup against him and remove him from office. The fact that no political bias was found in the multitude of documents reviewed was because nobody admitted to it. Its that simple.

The light tone of the report was just too complicated for most American people busy with their lives to understand. And the government is counting on that to keep their institutions in check. Michael Horowitz and many in his office, and connected to the report including Trump himself understand that this case could easily destroy public faith in the FBI, the DOJ, and everything connected up to the White House. There is a real danger of the further implications as to what has happened that may destroy our faith in them forever so by admitting to the political bias there is a real fear of what that might cost the established institutions as they are functioning today.

It was interesting to watch James Comey attempt to spin the IG Report into a forgiveness effort of the FBI which he handled so poorly. He felt it was giving him a way out of actually having to go to jail for the crimes that were implied, and were so egregious that justice would destroy everything our government was built on. To go back in time and admit that the Obama White House went so far is unfathomable to the institutions so the hope remains that all this will blow over without jail time and a collapse of the FBI from the top down. If anything, the IG Report makes it so that Comey and his FBI look even worse, but the truth of it is hidden in lawyerly words that do not say in bold letters, THE FBI COMMITTED A CRIME. Instead, it requires reading the report and understanding that the investigation was done by the people who were largely guilty of the crime. Of course, they aren’t going to come out and admit to their bias, that would admit to guilt and nobody in their right mind—legally would do that—thinking as lawyers do. It might be ethically correct to admit to such a thing, but we aren’t talking about ethical people in this case.

After getting off my plane and heading over to Disney Springs to kill some time before the check in to our hotel a few hours later I had some time to read the report and watch some coverage of it on my phone while sipping on some drinks at Jock Lindsey’s Hanger Bar with a nice view of the lake there. Nobody in that packed place or in the surrounding areas cared about the IG Report or about the Democrat impeachment attempt. And as much as that bothers me, because people should care that these government types broke the law and would throw the book and anything else they could at any of us if the situation was reversed. How can you have 17 errors by the FBI in the very simple FISA court process and not have someone get in trouble over it? According to the government, sloppiness is not a criminal misconduct. Try telling that to a cop when they want to search your car for a gun when you tell them you don’t have one, then they search and find one under the seat. A sloppiness defense would not be acceptable. A night in jail would be imminent.

The corruption that is evident in the IG Report is so bad that it is simply beyond belief for most people. People, especially at that place reported, from the very busy airport over to the Disney Springs shopping complex couldn’t care less about Comey, the IG Report, the FBI or what President Obama might have done or when he did it. All they cared about was whether or not they had money to spend there and if they could have an opportunity to make more. And with President Trump, the economy is great and getting better, and in the end of all this, that is all anybody is ever going to care about. That realization was disappointing to me and certainly didn’t inspire me to write a response while on my vacation, but it’s the truth. I’d love to see people go to jail, because they should. But Trump is going to get re-elected and the following four years I have a feeling will bring forth justice in ways the Democrats can’t even fathom yet.

I think for myself I am more interested in justice than in improved finances. I have made that decision in my own life many, many times. But that is not the way people are, they want what they want, when they want it, and what they want is Trump and his great economy. They don’t care about the IG Report which gives losers like these old FBI agents such as Comey a free pass to lie to our faces and claim they are not guilty, so that they don’t have to pay for their crimes since there is no stomach to press them on it by anybody. It still doesn’t change the crimes that were committed in the IG Report. Those crimes were real, and they did happen even though nobody is admitting to it, because nobody has the guts.

Rich Hoffman

The Best Rides at Disney World: Enjoying the technical marvels of boundless imagination

I suppose I enjoy writing about anything, but rarely I get to write about something as enjoyable as the topic of today. Sure, even with all the concerns that there are in the world, it is nice to take a moment to have a little fun, and that’s what I did for myself for Christmas this year. I’m a fan of Star Wars, and very specifically the Millennium Falcon and it just so happens that they opened recently the new ride Smuggler’s Run at Disney World. So, I planned a trip to ride it giving myself no cost restrictions due to the unique nature of this particular vacation. I timed my visit to enjoy another Star Wars ride that just opened called Rise of the Resistance which appears to be the most technical ride ever created anywhere in the world to date. The result was an extremely enjoyable five amusement park journey over a 5-day period and over 40 miles of walking that exposed me to some really wonderful moments of pop culture development and technical mastery through wild imaginations. The story I tell here is one that would have helped me while planning this trip so I offer it to those who are in such a need, so that they can enjoy their vacations as much, or more than I did.

I wasn’t going to spend that much money and time dedication to a vacation and not see the most technical ride ever made that was themed to Star Wars so seeing Rise of the Resistance for me was paramount. The ride opened on December 5th and I targeted my visit for five days later once some of the technical kinks and consumer drop off had occurred. I hoped that the Star Wars franchise had been damaged to the point where I might actually be able to get on the ride in the middle of a work week at Disney World on a winter day between Holidays. But, the demand for this ride from the public was so intense that the ride was selling out just minutes after the park was opening each day, so approaching my dates at the parks, I was getting a little worried. I wasn’t sure if the ride would even stay running long enough to allow the visitors who wanted to ride the thing time to actually ride it. So there was a lot that could have kept me from riding it which made getting the opportunity a unique adventure in perseverance.

While my wife and I were traveling to Orlando Disney had created a boarding party policy to help alleviate all the intense traffic that wanted to ride the ride each day, something they were calling a virtual line. In their other very cool and technical ride that has now been open for over a year, the Avatar attraction called Flight of Passage, the average wait times are in the 190-minute range. Disney knew that for Rise of the Resistance that the times would be even greater, so they used this virtual line concept to get people access to the rides. That meant that you had to get to the park early and get in line to get a boarding pass designation that would then give you a kind of time slot to ride the ride. This is where things got tricky, the boarding passes couldn’t be booked but by a phone app, once you entered the park. There was a lot of digital interactions that I was very weary of, because I felt a lot of things could have gone wrong, and often do in other places. But the level of Disney competence turned out to be extraordinary and it all worked out in the end with hindsight. But it was very stressful if you were dead set in riding this new attraction—which I was. People were lining up to get their place in line essentially at 4 AM. The gates to Hollywood Studios, which is the Disney park that holds the new Star Wars rides didn’t post openings until 8 AM, yet unofficially the gates were being opened at 6:30 AM and within a few moments of that early time, all the boarding passes for the entire day were being given out. I knew we had to get to the park early—really early, and that we’d have to fight our way to get a boarding pass from a restless crowd.

What made things even worse, was that the ride was breaking down a lot and the park wasn’t getting through all their boarding passes issued in a day so even if you managed to get a boarding pass, you still might not get to ride. So to ensure that we’d get a boarding pass we arrived at the park at 3:50 in the morning and were the seventh car in line waiting for the parking lot to open. And sure enough, more people started arriving in droves. Security let everyone enter the parking lot without paying since they didn’t have any workers at the park yet to run the admittance booth. By 4 AM a massive line had formed at the security check in that lasted until it was thousands of people. At around 5:30 AM they ran everyone through security so that a new line could form at the front gate of Hollywood Studios. It was there where the real race would be on. You had to zap your way into the park before they’d allow you to join a boarding party for Rise of the Resistance and all those people would be doing the same thing at essentially the same time. Boarding parties could change, you might be one of the first people in the park, but if you had trouble with your phone, or the system crashed, a ten-minute delay could put you from 20 to 50 quickly. Anything under 50 had a good shot of riding that day, anything over was sketchy. The Rise of the Resistance looked to do about 100 boarding parties per day, so there weren’t infinite rides to accommodate all the people who were there. So we were stressed about getting that boarding pass even though we were at the front of the lines in all the phases. Still, lots of things could have gone wrong.

At 6:30 AM, they let us in, my wife and I zapped our Magic Bands at the station and in we were. Within seconds we had the app opened and much to my relief, we were boarding party 13, which meant we were sure to get a ride that day. And as it turned out, we’d have the chance to get on the ride in about a half hour. By 7:30 AM we were off the ride and in line to ride the great Smuggler’s Run. By 9 AM we had explored most of what we wanted to see at the new Galaxy’s Edge and were free to use our Park Hopper option to explore the other parks and the best of their best attractions. It was good that Disney had opened their park so early to take away the pressure of the day and to give themselves more time to give everyone they could rides on Rise of the Resistance. Without knowing but hoping that they’d do the same kind of thing at Animal Kingdom for the new Avatar ride, we showed up at 8 AM for the 9 AM open and were delighted that Disney opened the park there early as well, at 8:30 AM. Since we were one of the first in line we headed to Flight of Passage and were able to get on the ride before 9 AM.

In the end after riding everything, which was spectacular, the Smuggler’s Run turned out to be my favorite ride at Disney. My wife and I rode a lot of rides on our vacation, but we ended up riding Smuggler’s Run 8 times and each time I found myself enjoying it more and more. It wasn’t just because I’m sentimental toward the Millennium Falcon, but because the ride is a technical marvel to me that was a lot of fun to fly. I was equally impressed by Flight of Passage and Rise of the Resistance, but the flamboyant nature of Smuggler’s Run won the day for me. It turned out to be a couple of the most enjoyable days of my life.

Disney was brilliant in their marketing strategy. They liked that Rise of the Resistance was overselling and that they had to show sell-outs which only increased the desire for demand. People not willing to get up as early as I did weren’t going to get a ticket, and that made it the hottest ticket in the country for something that turned out to be more Broadway play than amusement park attraction. All these rides were more than just rides, they were theatrical experiences in many ways and were deeply impressive. Disney turned out to be very flexible on their openings so that they could build up ride experiences by thinking out of the box and I was very impressed with them. They not only built some of the greatest rides in the history of the world released all within a short time of each other, but they knew how to build the anticipation. Getting on Rise of the Resistance was more treasure hunt than just slugging through a line, and that made it that much more special. And that turned out to be the secret to getting on the rides at Disney World that people wanted to see so much. If you were willing to get there early, they’d find a way. They get the long lines to market, you get to experience something very cool, and that did make it a truly magical experience.

Rich Hoffman

The Full Sized Millennium Falcon at Hollywood Studios: A dream come true

I’ve been writing these articles every day for the last ten years, except for a month of two here and there. And during that entire time, I occasionally do these Millennium Falcon articles about that fictional ship from Star Wars because simply put, I’ve been in love that that vessel most of my life. When I was little it captured my imagination in many positive ways and has been a very important part of my life. It has always represented to me what could be instead of what is, and the excitement of such an intergalactic hot rod that is like a deep space RV has always been something of a goal of mine to see as a reality. I have thought of building one myself. I have supported other people who have attempted to do so. And whenever there has been some kind of movie prop or promotional material regarding the Millennium Falcon, I would go way out of my way to see it. Recently when Disney was promoting Solo: A Star Wars Story at NKU in the Cincinnati area, I took a very rare day off work to go see it. I am not a guy who stands in lines for much of anything, but for that one I showed up many hours early just to see an exhibit in a cargo container set up in the university parking lot. So you might imagine dear reader what it was like for me to finally see the Millennium Falcon in real life at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and to actually get the opportunity to fly the thing in a simulator environment. I would call it a religious experience above seeing Moses come down off Mount Sinai to present the Ten Commandments. For me, it was bigger than that.

Over 20 years ago I was invited with a special contingent of people to attend a unique viewing of Star Wars at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. It was a museum dedication to the costumes and model props from the actual films and how the power of myth had helped shape our society. It was a big deal for me, I was there with the Joseph Campbell Foundation for which George Lucas himself was on the board of directors. I had at that point spent most of a decade reading Joseph Campbell and much of his source material from Nietzsche, to Thomas Mann, Carl Jung, James Joyce including Finnegan’s Wake which has turned out to be one of my favorite books ever, and many, many others—so this was a very scholarly group I was meeting in Washington D.C. I was able to meet Joseph Campbell’s wife Jean at this event and I had brought my wife and kids so the weekend was promising to be very intellectual and a great networking event. Publishers were there, filmmakers, producers, it was a good group.

I got to the event at the Smithsonian and we stopped at the actual model of the Millennium Falcon, the big one, from The Empire Strikes back that was over two feet long. I froze there looking at it for what turned out to be the rest of the day. Everyone else moved on, but I stayed there looking at that model close up for the first time for the rest of the day, and what turned out to be the rest of the weekend. I didn’t meet up with everyone later, but instead spent the rest of the weekend looking at the rest of the exhibit with my family and returning back to that Millennium Falcon model over and over again taking countless pictures of it from every angle in a time when you still had to develop film, before anybody had digital cameras or even a hint at an iPhone. I never forgot every little detail on that model and have been thinking about it every day since. So seeing the full sized model of the Millennium Falcon that the Imagineers had built at Galaxy’s Edge at Hollywood Studios, Florida was well beyond a mind bending experience for me. It was God himself sitting there for me to indulge in until my heart’s content. It was a massive collision of imagination and engineering wrapped up into infinite possibilities that for me were beyond exciting.

I have talked about how excited I was to be finally at Galaxy’s Edge to walk around in the world of Star Wars. Well, I do have a voluminous vocabulary, and I don’t have words for how I felt about this experience, of seeing the Millennium Falcon aaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnddddddd, being able to go inside it and fly it. It was the most exciting thing I can ever remember doing, not just in the function, but in the possibility of it in thinking that such a thing would never have been possible. If there is anything of a heaven in my life, I could put that experience on loop for all eternity and not feel like I missed any other opportunity at happiness. That experience for me was the definition of happiness and my only regret is that I can’t have that experience every day for the rest of my life,

I can only thank the Imagineers and for Disney as a company for building such a thing. I might even buy some Disney stock after this wonderful vacation experience. For all the talk about social justice from Disney ruining Star Wars, this experience went a long way for me to forgive them for their mistakes. Disney could have gone cheap on this attraction and done something on much less of a scale, like the AT AT at Star Tours which I’ve always loved, but wished had been full sized. That full-sized model of the Falcon was as detailed if not more so as the Smithsonian model I fell in love with all those years ago. It was so special to see it up close, to eat near it, to walk inside it, to be a part of it in a reality created by Disney Imagineers for the love of people like me. They didn’t have to go that far, but they did, and I feel so much better for the experience of it.

I’m a very positive person, I have lived through lots and lots of very distinct disappointments that likely would have killed most people. But I never remember going to bed at night and waking up the next day without hope in thinking that today could be the best day of my life. In a lot of ways my source of inspiration was always the Millennium Falcon, a beat up old ship that everyone thought was junk that always ended up saving the day, and by the time it has arrived to these new movies, is the last hope for everyone in surviving to a new day. That has always been my relationship to that fictional spacecraft. And to that effect, I can say that no matter how tough life has ever been, no matter how disappointing days could sometimes be, it was worth waking up each day to arrive at a point in life where seeing this full-sized Millennium Falcon was possible. To say that I am filled with exuberance is an understatement. Seeing that thing that is much more than a movie prop in symbology is one of those things that I will always say was one of the best things I’ve ever had the privilege to experience. And that in itself is saying quite a lot.  It is a reminder that no matter how bad things get in life, its worth pushing through because somedays you have days like the ones I’ve just had where dreams do come true.  The fight is worth it just to have such opportunities.  So you should never cut yourself short and give up when things get tough, because they can always get better so long as you keep trying and working at it.

Rich Hoffman

The Great Work of Disney Imagineers at Disney Springs: Every zoning board in America should pay attention to the good work there

One of the things I was most curious about, regarding the Disney Springs renovation from what used to be called Downtown Disney, to its present form, was why the Imagineers felt they had to create a fictional back-story about what is essentially a shopping and entertainment destination. I have always loved Downtown Disney and when Disney bought Lucasfilm back in 2012 I had a strong feeling they would do good things with the Indiana Jones property and was excited to see what it might be. I was a little surprised that the creation of Jock Lindsey’s Hanger Bar was one of their first projects so upon landing in Florida during a recent vacation it was the very first place I went. I couldn’t wait to get there as I had been watching the re-construction of Downtown Disney into Disney Springs for much of the last decade and I had to see, smell and touch everything.

My point of reference for these kinds of places is Atlantis from the great book Atlas Shrugged, the kind of world that if human creativity was left alone to do its thing, what kind of great things could we make. The closest I can think of anywhere in the world is the Disney managed properties of Disney World, for which Disney Springs is a part. I don’t care that things are so enormously expensive there, because like the book Atlas Shrugged, the value for money and any other currency is in the product themselves. Disney sells happiness, and if you have enough money, you can buy some. Their Imagineers are happy to give you happiness, so if you can afford it, you can purchase for yourself. But its not free. So using that as my guide, I was delighted to visit the place and compare it to other places around the country that I admire, particularly a shopping complex in my hometown called Liberty Center which I love quite a lot.

But what mystified me, even as a person who understands the importance of mythology in everything, is that Disney created this fake backstory about Disney Springs and even Jock Lindsey’s Hanger Bar and that as guests we were supposed to accept it in the same way we might accept some reality from the theme parks they are so known for. In fact, just about every new hotel and construction experience on the Disney property in Florida these days has some kind of made-up backstory which I found perplexing until I visited the place for myself. Even watching the construction updates from a distance for several years really couldn’t bring context to the effort until you physically visited a place like that.

Upon seeing the creation of the springs at Disney Springs I understood immediately what the Imagineers were going for, its what I would call a “conceptual faculty,” the ability to see an abstract concept in your mind so that you can bring it forth into a reality. By creating all these back stories for stores and restaurants at Disney Springs the designers were able to use mythology to elevate the construction and its psychological impact on the consumers. Normally it would be up to the companies who become tenants at such a place to set the tone of a project, but in this case the backstory of the concept allowed all participants to align the scope of the project to a unified vision, and it was pulled off brilliantly. For me it was quite a magical moment to spend the afternoon in Jock Lindsey’s looking at all the relics from his past in chasing Indiana Jones all over the world and to stroll a few short steps from that front door to the fantastic springs of Disney Springs with all the commercial activity situated around it.

The thing that struck me most about Disney Springs is that in no way in the world would any zoning board trained at today’s colleges approve such a plan and allow an entertainment district like Disney Springs to be built along the many natural springs that are found all over Florida. The political bureaucracy would be mind bending dull and laborious. It just wouldn’t happen. So to sidestep that little problem, Disney Imagineers just created their own lakes and springs so that commercial development could take place around it, and the result would be spectacularly beautiful. The result as I could see it was essentially John Galt’s Atlantis where great creations from great people were on full display without the imprint of local and state governments regulating fun beyond recognition. That is largely because Disney controls what happens on their property to the most extent that any modern company could. I don’t think it would be possible to build something like a Disney Springs off the Disney controlled property due to local regulations picking it apart until there was nothing left.

Even at Galaxy’s Edge, the new Star Wars land which I will be talking about alot, the backstory that was created for it as a project gave the Imagineers something to build to, a way to conceptualize the project and overcome whatever problems came before it. Such a method of approaching a construction project had really improved Disney Springs since my last visit and the overall approach of the entire network of theme parks. This point hit me hard while traveling on the new Skyliner system of gondolas that are now connecting Hollywood Studios with the Epcot Center. Many of the hotel complexes that had been created recently along that gondola path all had similar backstories as were used to create Disney Springs and the elevated mythology had propelled the scope of the projects to a much higher level than would have otherwise been achieved using traditional building methods at the development stage. This ability Disney has been using with its Imagineering department to help guide all their construction departments had yielded results in the final presentation they wouldn’t have achieved any other way.

To that effect I was greatly impressed by the work at Disney Springs. I would say that the complex alone would deserve its own vacation destination, but for me it was only one very small part of my trip experience into enjoying the fantastic work of the Disney Imagineers. Locals obviously were taking the place for granted, but it was clear to me that what was happening there was very unique. It would be great to see other places utilize the same methods to push up their own projects to such bold levels. Like John Galt’s Atlantis the mind of mankind has shown time and time again that it can do better than nature, and if nature is in the way, that we can simply build over it and do a much better job. As a company I’m sure Disney wants to appease the climate activists, but clearly as an organization their ability to put story before sentiment has helped their creative people in the Imagineering department do things they otherwise wouldn’t be able to do. The results are obvious and very exciting. Even if I was a little skeptical, it quickly became clear that this approach was something everyone should be doing, and it was a wave of the future that was not so obvious except in seeing the results firsthand.

Rich Hoffman

The Rise of the Resistance is Now Open: What a marvel of techical mythology

I plan to geek out on Star Wars for the next several weeks. I’m sure I’ll cover other current events as my readers expect, but for my own enjoyment, there is a lot to enjoy as a Star Wars fan that I think is very relevant to our modern world and the philosophies that spawn off them. Star Wars if you peel away the stories in space, the black and white view of good and evil, the fairy tale aspect of the mythology is unique in that its essentially about the tyranny of rules and how humans crave the freedom to be whimsical and untethered to the concoctions of authority. As the new ride opened up in Galaxy’s Edge called Rise of the Resistance and I watched the live streams of the opening ceremony, I couldn’t help but think of how wonderfully unifying the whole thing was, as people of all kinds of political backgrounds could at least agree on something showing that we all have more in common than not. I had been looking forward to the opening of this Disney attraction for a very long time writing about it way back in 2012 with great gusto. Well now its here, and I have some opinions about it that are worth talking about.

Even as a little kid I loved the making of Star Wars as much so, if not more than the movies themselves. I see the creative process as an opportunity to break previous rules and to innovate and that has always been at the core of all Star Wars experiences that are good, whether the endeavor is in literature, film, television, amusement attractions, comics, video games—Star Wars is always best when they are breaking the rules of previous assumptions and the hope when Disney bought the franchise from George Lucas back in 2012 was that something like this Rise of the Resistance attraction, and the Galaxy’s Edge land in Disneyland and Disney World would actually happen. And when it did, the rules would be pushed to the creative limit and we’d all get something very special.

On the opening day of this new ride the traffic was backed up at the gates of Hollywood Studios well before 4 AM in the morning. And the rides for the entire day were already booked up before 8 AM. The energy and anticipation for this ride attraction is astonishing and for good reason, the technical achievements that were made to make it were mind bending cool and the best that modern technology could utilize. It’s something that only Disney as a company could do due to their massive cash reserves and collection of very imaginative people within their Imagineering group. It has taken a while for the Disney Company to figure out their role in this new ownership, and to step beyond the temptations to limit the scope to modern political concerns and social justice perspective, but its quite clear to me that with all their efforts at Galaxy’s Edge and the story of Batuu, they have done a great job. Over the past several months I have read all the comics about this exciting new land at Disney World, read the books, The Black Spire and The Resistance Reborn, and I have been excited to see how the media company would be able to tie all these elements together into a grand modern mythology.

For perspective, I am the kind of guy who geeked out in Canterbury, England because I was able to walk the sites of one of my favorite books, The Canterbury Tales. I feel much the same way when it comes to James Joyce and is work in and around Dublin, Ireland. Wherever great acts of thought and imagination have taken place I find reverence there because for me, that is one of the most important things in the entire world, creativity of thought and action. And typically, we only see those kinds of things spring out in the world through some great literary work, or a good movie or musical piece. And we go through our entire lives and see such things only here and there and not too often. But with Star Wars, we see a lot of creativity and we always have. The stories are always about the perils of tyranny and living under the thumb of too many rules where individual rights are smashed to give way to a compliant society. But that’s not it, Star Wars both in front of the camera and behind is about unleashing the imagination so that something bigger and better could be born, and people can feel that even if they can’t articulate what it is they feel.

When people rushed to be the first to ride Rise of the Resistance, which is without question the most technical ride in the history of the world up to this point, they were pushing to touch this aspect of Star Wars that makes it so special. The ability to enjoy something that is specific to human beings, not only to think of a story that communicates to so many people across so many demographic barriers, but to entertain ourselves with its complete immersive environment. As I say that I have been playing a lot of Battlefront II with my oldest grandson lately which is just another layer of this new mythology. Additionally, in November I took a long weekend and shut off the world professionally to just play the new Star Wars game, Fallen Order, which was wonderfully entertaining. To be able to explore these places in a video game environment to me is a jaw dropping experience given that my background was at the start of the video game age. What they can do these days to me is amazing. But to step out of the movies, books and video games and into a real environment like what they have created with Rise of the Resistance at Disney World is nothing short of awe inspiring.

It gives me a lot of hope for the human race whenever these big Star Wars events happen and I can see so many people excited about it. I enjoy conventions and big video game releases because of this very element, but its been a long time, if ever that I’ve seen anything like the energy that came out of the opening of Rise of the Resistance at Disney World. The energy of the participants was amazing as viewed by the videos within this article. To see the level of detail that the Imagineers at Disney World were able to pull off with this attraction is more than impressive, but what’s better is that so many people appreciated it to the extent that some of them were willing to wait for days to ride the ride. Yet Disney deserves the credit for putting their money where their mouth was. They spent a billion dollars on this attraction and it shows, which was a massive investment on their part into their fans. People can complain that Disney is too expensive and that they are a giant media corporation that has a monopoly on talent. But they gained all that prestige through being good at what they do. And its not often that people can get such a return on investment as we are all getting with Rise of the Resistance, the ride.

Rich Hoffman