I wrote the below quoted passage while fleshing out the protagonist in my novel The Symposium of Justice. It was written ten years ago and is fun for me to revisit. Since I wrote that passage I have engaged myself in the reality of those accusations to prove that my thoughts were not just theory. Unlike other writers, I am not happy making observations of reality, then simply writing about them in some creative context. For me, I have to prove them—which then leads me to experiments validating the observed reality.
I am proud to report that the observations I had made about the human condition in the ten years leading up to the below passage have since been proven in the subsequent ten years leading to the present time. When I write a novel I often write hundreds if not thousands of pages of back up material for the characters, which was the case during The Symposium of Justice. I had to understand the character, and one of the ways in doing so was to provide background material that may not directly find its way into the text of the story. The below passage is one of these types of works.
I can report in June of 2013 that re-reading the ten-year old material brought a smile to my face, and I now understand the why behind the action, instead of just observing the action. In many cases, the observation by creative types is enough. But for me, I require that next step. Now reading over the old material I have to say, the passage was extremely prophetic, and exceptionally socially relevant.
Wisdom from Fletcher Finnegan
I say to you who work with those small-minded fools, and aspire to greatness through the open doors of your superior officers, that greatness or financial gain will never be obtained through those simple trickles in the oceans of life. Those men that pride themselves on their position and tenure are dangerous. More dangerous to themselves, for ill-health and neurosis, and will gladly pull down anyone about them.
I can say for myself that I fear no human being or living entity on this planet or elsewhere. To fear the mediocre tendencies of the feeble ones is a crime against yourself. They will seek to use fear to place you about in invisible shackles of bondage. The villanies upon you by these beings are a crime. It is an assault against the nature of life which desires freedom and the impulse to live.
This notion that one should not strive to be superior is preposterous. What gain is there in pretending to be a fool so those in power don’t feel the threat? I tell you this, that this mythology was invented to suppress the strong, and prevent challenges to phantom thrones that make up the mind of a tyrant’s thoughts. Pretending to be a fop with thoughts about the weather, foreign and domestic policy, and sports so to stay under the radar–to what avail?
I have been told many times to maintain such a low profile. I’ve been told to not be so good. I have seen men applaud other men for showing weakness with women. I have seen much back slapping to the drunk that collapses unconscious on a Friday night, as opposed to the hard worker that stays behind a book all night to gain an advantage over their opponents. I have heard many preachers of peace proclaim honor in such a mundane embrace of values.
Think how preposterous it sounds to hear tales of a night with friends where everyone became “trashed” and so much so that they cannot remember the evening. Compare this to the heroic figure that donates their evening to helping people, or improving themselves. I say that it is the times formation around control that endorses idiotic behavior and encourages us all to pursue that course. The trick to all is that there is profit in failure, which you will succeed if you stay under the radar and not become a threat to the current administrations by being the well-behaved lamb. Look at the established religions, where the behavior of Jesus is shown to be the way to everlasting glory. Jesus is even referred to as a lamb. Does no one question these motives? With the fine mind provided to humans, why are humans so susceptible to bondage? Does it not seem strange that so-called Christians, Hindus, Muslims, even Buddhists seem so preoccupied with enduring the pain of this current life in order to reach some evasive light at the end of the tunnel. That we should joyfully endure our masters in this life for trade of everlasting glory in the next.
So you ask me what an Overman is. I say to you that it is embracing the concept of being more than just human. It is in accepting your fate that life is meant to be lived now as well as later. At all times, as an individual, you are in control of your vessel as you navigate through a jagged life. At times, when you meet with another independent soul, that you may come into conflict with them by the will of nature and that this conflict is needed and healthy. When you come to these times of war, you should fight with all your vigor and enjoy the spilling of blood, especially if it is your opponents. You should enjoy it because if their goal was to stop your ability to exercise free will then you have used your free will to destroy their devices that could hinder you.
As the actions are self-evident, and crises are unfolding, to avoid repeating myself over and over again, I wasn’t going to speak much on the topic of the large rally held in Washington D.C where Tea Party Patriots from across the country joined together to protest the IRS. But the hilarious analysis of Jason Easley from a very left-winged progressive publication deserves exploration. Little does young Jason know or bother to discover, but the protests were not just in Washington on that pleasant June afternoon, but all across the nation. One rally, smaller than the one in Washington was at the office of John Boehner led by my friend Ann Becker president of the Cincinnati Tea Party, as seen in the video below, where many who couldn’t make the trip to Washington due to time constraints gathered to achieve the same intent—to get the attention of politicians who work as our public servants.
Before explaining the significance of the rally in Washington, and West Chester, have a look at what left-leaning dreamer Jason Easley had to say:
DC Tea Party Rally Bombs as Crowd For ‘Epic’ IRS Protest Rally Is Just 5,000-10,000
By: Jason Easley Jun. 19th, 2013
Moments before a tea party rally that is loaded with right-wing heroes like Glenn Beck, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Michele Bachmann was about to begin the crowd was estimated at just 5,000-10,000.
At the height of his fame, Glenn Beck drew 87,000 to DC for his Rally to Restore Honor in April 2010. The Tea Party Patriots promised that this would be the biggest tea party rally since 2009-2010, “At noon tomorrow, we are going to tell the world about how the IRS tried to crush the Tea Party movement,” organizers with the Tea Party Patriots organization said in an email to supporters, “…Thousands of volunteers will rally in the largest demonstration of Tea Party support since 2010.”
They aren’t going to even get close to Glenn Beck’s biggest crowd. The livestream host for the rally, The Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft, estimated the crowd to be at 5,000-10,000. I would say that may be on the high-end of things, but it could be a potentially realistic estimate for the overall crowd by the time it is all said and done.
It is a major failure for a rally that has been hyped so hard across conservative media to draw such a small crowd. For the sake of comparison, Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity in 2010 drew 250,000 to DC.
Unless there are about 90,000 people stuck in traffic, it looks like this rally won’t be the biggest tea party event since 2010.
It is rather pathetic that an event featuring Glenn Beck, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Michele Bachmann can’t draw a bigger conservative crowd. Once again, the power of the tea party has been greatly exaggerated. The rally only runs from 12-2 PM, so it is not looking good for a huge turnout. The people speaking at and attending this rally won’t believe it, but the IRS scandal has already been debunked.
The first problem with the leftist article by young Jason is of an attendance number that is not in dispute. Progressives are notorious for attempting to alter reality to their own liking, as their belief system is not rooted in facts, but feeling. With that said, 87,000 people were just in the front row at the Glenn Beck rally mentioned in the text. The real number in attendance was a quarter million people. Progressives needing a response to the overwhelming conservative outcry responded one month later with the John Stewart rally also mentioned which did have decent numbers from bused in union members to make the crowd look as big as Glenn Beck’s rally. But this report of the event should come as no surprise as the mode of operation for all progressives is evident in the article—pretend that something doesn’t exist which is unpleasant or a threat to their illusion of reality, then carry on as if their version of reality determined through consensus–fact.
The June 2013 Tea Party rally in Washington was able to drum up around 10,000 people in the middle of the week during the summer months. Additional rallies occurred all across the country, yet the young progressive writer wished to ignore the impact of the rally and instead compared it to the very large and organized rallies of 2010 using that benchmark as the reference point for judgment. He did such a thing as those combinations of facts fit the reality he was trying to build up in his mind.
Progressives are able to re-write their recollection of events at will because they practice a philosophy of anti-concepts, meaning they strip meaning away from everything so that no value can be attached to anything. So long as the world functions in this fashion, progressivism can be advocated. However, the world comes crashing down upon progressives when value is attached to even small things. In the face of such value progressives lose the argument 100% of the time. In reporting about the Tea Party rallies all across America, Jason Easley wrote what he wished to be true, not what was actually true. This is why progressives are parasites to the human condition, and are especially untrustworthy, because they do not deal with facts of reality, but only slinky emotions based on desire.
The facts of the matter are that after three to four years of activity the Tea Party can still organize to stand against the government even after suffering through two years of IRS harassment, and an attempt by the media to completely suppress the movement. The Tea Party is still able to show up on a whim at the Capital building lawn in the tens of thousands and protest their government while doing the same elsewhere in the country. And the most frightening aspect of these actions are that the Tea Party, unlike the government employees who work for labor unions, such as what the IRS functions under, are not paid to be there.
The Tea Party does not pay their protestors like the progressive rallies do. During the John Stewart rally mentioned above compared to the Glenn Beck rally, the AFL-CIO, SEIU, and many teacher unions bused in their members who were actually paid to be present. For the Glenn Beck rally, the participants paid for the whole event out of their own pocket. That is the big difference, and that is what terrifies the progressives. They see vigilant activity still coming from the Tea Party after many attempts have been made to suppress them, yet they still are showing up, and they are angrier than ever. In the face of such facts, Jason Easley could only count heads and attempt to compare apples to grapes hoping that he could alter reality just by believing that his thoughts can change reality—but they can’t.
I don’t even take the Lakota School System serious any more. Since January of this year, a group of residents, teachers, students, administrators and school board members have been working together to form a strategic plan that will help guide the future of the Lakota Local School District. The result of this so-called first phase, which covers the strategic areas and goals identified by the mentioned “group,” is now available for the Lakota community’s review and comment, before the board considers adoption of the recommended plan next Monday, June 24. You can see that plan for yourself at the link below, but let me save you some time. The intent of the whole “phase one” strategy is listed on page four, after all the flowery details in the preceding pages. Lakota, after all the discussion we’ve engaged in and the millions upon millions of dollars in salary that has been spent on these people, have come up with a brilliant strategy…………..to simply ask for more money. Here are “their” words. They want to “transition Lakota to an organization with sustainable resources and funding to achieve its goals and mission.” They want to “build a financial plan that merits continued public investment and will sustain the mission.” They want to “develop a resource plan that will help sustain the mission.” Then they want to “communicate the financial status to increase understanding and support.” In short what that means is they want to find a way to pass more school levies then find a way to use the West Chester Community Foundation to get a few business owners to turn the other way and cough while they raise taxes on their properties, putting pressure on other businesses to do the same with peer pressure. Lakota hasn’t learned a thing.
If it were me and I had given Lakota schools a business assignment to provide a financial sustainability analysis of their future needs and they got together in a group of the mentioned patrons from January 2013 after spending thousands upon thousands of dollars in 2012 and 2013 on the “Community Conversations” program, and 5 months later presented me with that PDF file in a presentation, I would have fired every single person who worked on it. The work they presented is an insult to the intelligence of anyone reading it. It is a scam at best, and then to write “draft” in the background of the document attempting to make the gibberish look more important is just rubbing salt into a wound cut open by such a ridiculously camouflaged levy request. They might as well have said, phase one, we want to find a way to ask for more money. Phase two, we intended to propose another tax increase trying to make it look like we did a whole lot of thinking before putting the issue on the ballot. And Phase three, we spend the money we get from the tax increase on new union contracts which are up in the summer of 2014 for renewal.
I am convinced now more than ever that all government services from schools to the police and EMS services are designed by statist supports for aims that were constructed by the 1958 book, TheNaked Communist. CLICK HERE TO REVIEW. That is the only reasonable conclusion one can make when the end game to a parade of never ending tax requests are made by government organizations is analyzed. Just in my local area alone, the below tax increase requests are listed for the August and November elections of 2013. Many of these communities just passed similar taxes just a few years ago, so there is no plan on how to sustainably grow a community. There is no care given when one branch of government such as police and fire services ask for property tax money for their needs then a few months later a school asks for another levy on the same property tax. They are all government yet they all want to be treated individually as they do not share their funding. For instance if public education operated with a surplus, they would never think to share the money with police and fire services. They simply give their unions pay increases then ask for more money. The police and fire fighting unions do the same, but they all take money from the same pot…….property ownership.
Issues filed for August 6, 2013 Special Election
Filing deadline is May 8, 2013
1 Deerfield Twp Replacement & Increase 4.0 mills, Police & EMS continuing period of time.
2 Franklin City School District Additional 7.92 mills, Current expenses continuing period of
time.
3 Lebanon City School District Renewal 2.0 mills, Permanent Improvement 5 yrs.
Issues filed for November 5, 2013 General Election
Filing deadline is August 7, 2013 4:00 pm
Lebanon City Additional 7.0 mills, Fire & Ambulance 5 yrs. Franklin Public Library Additional 1.0 mill, current expenses continuing period of time. Washington Twp Additional 3.0 mills, Fire & EMS continuing period of time.
The only thing that makes sense when viewing the public behavior of these government workers is that they are paid so well that they don’t question the statist strategy that they inherited from the “feds” but are simply doing their jobs. Those jobs were designed by radicals in the far away land of Washington with the intentions against America that were outlined in The Naked Communist. There simply is not another explanation for the lunacy that government services continue to offer as reasonable justifications for their absurd fiscal policies. At some point in time property ownership gets taxed to a saturation point, and then it’s over. Government buys up the defaulted properties through government backed loans, and a free society is nudged into a statist one with the corrosive, incremental votes of a naive public.
I wish I could say that the latest drivel coming from my home district of Lakota was a surprise, but it’s not. They are like virtually every public school in America. They were designed by statists in the Department of Education to destroy property ownership by tricking Americans to vote their rights away through the free babysitting service that is public education. The employees involved if they worked for any competent employer would be fired on the spot for presenting such ridiculous justifications for their ineptness. The people who put together that document for the Phase One development of levy request at Lakota are in denial on two fronts. First is the real intent of public education which they don’t want to consider since they are so well paid as government workers. Two, that a community will be willing to always support an institution of learning that has no control over its finances—no control over the collective bargaining agreement with its union. They expect that taxes can always go up and that there is no limit. That is the essence of what their Phase One presentation defines as their objectives after a lot of money was spent formulating it, and time consumed which can never be redeemed. For those reasons, I would terminate all employees involved and turn the document over to some first graders, who could surely do a better job. If that is all the highly paid administrators can come up with at Lakota for dealing with their financial situation, our community could do no worse, because the proposal of Phase One is simply pathetic.
Man In The Moon is the exciting new stage spectacle by America’s premiere storyteller—Glenn Beck! On July 6th, prepare yourself for a truly once in a lifetime experience. Under the stars in Salt Lake City, Utah’s USANA Amphitheatre, Glenn will present his “moon’s eye view” of the building of America. It’s Glenn Beck’s imagination come to life. It’s Man In The Moon, a story like no other from the creative mind of a storyteller like no other—Glenn Beck.
Man In The Moon will excite and engage all your senses. At times, it will seem to defy logic. The visual spectacle will be beside you…in front of you…behind you. You’re not just watching a show—you’re inside the show. You’ll be swept into a world of mesmerizing creations. Everything will be larger than life, and the moon itself will be there, shining bigger and brighter than you have ever seen it. The moon reminds us of how small we are, and how infinite the universe. The moon has been there from the beginning, reminding us that there is something bigger, something greater than us.
If you’re ready for the ultimate Glenn Beck experience, you’ll definitely want to take advantage of a Gold, Silver or Bronze VIP ticket package. Not only will they treat you to “can’t get ‘em anywhere else” collectibles, but you’ll also slip behind the velvet rope and get to enjoy a weekend full of activities, including a special breakfast speech, a Q&A session, a delicious BBQ, an exciting and informative FreedomWorks event, and an up-close-and-personal meet and greet with Glenn himself! Of course, if you just want to see this incredible show, the Preferred or General Admission Lawn seating are fantastic options as well. As long as you’re there, you’re in for a night you’ll never forget.
This show that will help you see our history from a completely different point of view, one that will give you hope. Glenn has created an experience that will lift up your family, bring you closer together, and forever change the way we all look at ourselves and the Man In the Moon. We were always the people who believed a brighter future was just about to dawn. On July 6th, Glenn Beck will make you believe that again.
This whole show is about magic and hope…light and dark…family and God…history and the future. It’s a story of struggle and triumph, good and evil, and simple people finding a better way. It’s about what millions of Americans want: Hope, and to believe in goodness and our country again. Make a new American Memory with your family that none of you will ever forget. Believe In America…believe in us again! Remember, as long as you buy your ticket, you’ll get to say that you were there to see Glenn Beck’sMan In The Moon!
It is fair to say that most politicians get involved in politics so that they can be important. They want to be deal makers and heart takers, yet they often lack the skill to be those things on their own merit in professional business. Politics offers a way for the mediocre to be exceptional off the confiscated wealth of government for the benefit of the truly weak. It’s not against any moral law to be weak, or not to be the best. But it is to steal value from others so that everyone can have the illusion of equality. Digging into the history of politics, it appears that this trend was even worse in years past. Today there are politicians that I know personally who think the way I do, and get into politics to implement those values and wrestle power away from the mediocre so that society can advance under the leadership of the truly gifted. In politics it’s all about the deal, deals made with other people’s money which makes mediocre malcontents feel like gods among man, and why they get into, and stay in politics. In Ohio many Tea Party types saw what happened when supposed conservative Governor Kasich went from being a fighter against state imposition of Obamacare, only to cave under the pressure of lobbyists and attempt to expand Medicaid as a thinly veiled attempt to win votes by giving away services so he can stay in power during the 2014 election. In New Jersey, the popular conservative Governor in Chris Christie went from a Obama basher and future presidential candidate to a Obama kissing patriarch of liberal loving cheerleading. What Kasich and Christie both have in common besides personal friendship is that both governors had environmental tragedies which required them to take federal money to solve their financial problems. In Ohio it was an extremely large tornado which struck towns in southern Ohio. For Christie it was Hurricane Sandy. After those storms both men found themselves willing to bend and accept big government to alleviate the pain and suffering of environmental tragedy under their leadership which President Obama clearly understands. For him to implement his Obamacare takeover of a fifth of America’s economy he would have to get Republican governors to support him, and the way he’s doing it is through the kind of political deals that have given politics the dirty name it deserves. Obama’s minions have attached Obamacare to federal money, which states need to balance their budget from either environmental disasters, or economic chaos. This is certainly the case in Michigan where the governor there has just implemented right to work passage against the labor unions but has found himself pulled into the political black hole of financial limitations to avert economic disasters, particularly due to the failing city of Detroit which is technically in bankruptcy. The Michigan Governor wants to expand Medicaid for reasons that are mysterious and defy conservative logic but without question extend into a deal made on the front of Obamacare’s money allocation that any financially strapped governor would find tempting. But it is a trap surrendering state sovereignty for the short-term gain of economic viability, a problem that Matt Clark was uncovering dramatically from his radio rebellion in south central Michigan. Listen below to a former staunch opponent to Medicaid expansion attempt to explain why he is now a supporter of Obamacare strategies while still pretending that he stands for Tea Party ideas of fiscal responsibility.
Michigan State Representative Mike Shirkey (R) argued that the Medicaid expansion in Michigan was more about reform than increasing the size of the program, yet he’s not kidding anyone, including himself which came out in the heated debate in the video. Matt believes Medicaid and Obamacare are meant as a driving force to bring America toward a single payer system and Shirkey revealed that he has now helped to facilitate that gigantic government takeover of American medicine.
A key element of the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as “Obamacare,” is the expansion of Medicaid in every state, so for it to work, conservative opposition must be removed and this is often done behind closed doors and on golf courses. Before the Supreme Court ruling in 2012, Medicaid expansion was required; however, it’s now an option for the states. It would appear that conservatives were prepared to take the money all along for the financial support that comes with Obamacare while publically denying it until the Supreme Court put the ball in their court with their ruling. After that, they found they could not turn away from the money, or the votes gained by giving things away that was not theirs to give.
The greatest danger of Obamacare is that the government is removing incentive from the medical field. Government bureaucrats believe that doctors on the front of medical innovation will continue to work in the field of medicine under their control, which won’t happen. It’s as ridiculous to believe that if the government nationalized the fast food industry, which they hope to regulate through Obamacare, That McDonald’s would continue to expand its reach of food supply to virtually every corner of the globe. Under such a government takeover of food supply, McDonald’s would simply cut their losses and shield their money from government looters. The medical industry is about to do the same thing. Through Medicaid expansion many more uninsured participants will be thrown into the system who have largely made poor decisions in their life ranging from a terrible diet, smoking, to other debilitating illnesses caused by their poor decisions. Meanwhile, there will be less supply of those services as partnering with government will prove unprofitable, so there will be fewer doctors to tend to the growing demand. In this way, the decent medical innovations that are experienced in 2013 America will decrease into the waiting lists that are seen in Europe where it is not uncommon to wait for years for hip replacement surgery or other ailments that Americans have come to take for granted. In America when a patient needs open heart surgery, or some other form of surgery, they schedule the treatment and within days it gets done. Under Obamacare, there will be lists, and the treatment will take months to years and will be done only by doctors who have accepted government partnership equally creating far less competency than what is experienced today.
In the interview with Matt Clark Michigan State Representative Mike Shirkey knows all this, and like Kasich in Ohio, and Christie in New Jersey, they are accepting the Obamacare march toward a single payer system with the naive notion that they can pray and somehow, someway, everything will work out in the end. Conservatives are finding themselves the victim of a long played strategy, the same one that is unfolding over immigration amnesty, where the communist oriented political left has bought votes with other people’s money and in order to stay relevant in such a scheme, Republicans are discovering they must do the same, or become irrelevant. This is the game of the progressive, to play both sides against the middle where they have influenced the behavior of their enemies in the chess game of politics by forcing the hand of conservatives into doing exactly what they don’t want to do knowing full well that they lack the courage and fortitude to resist.
It is good to see Matt Clark giving Shirkey some honest debate which clearly the state representative was uncomfortable with. Shirkey wishes to believe that he is a bastion of conservatism and free market ideas, but now he is on the record as accepting a strategy of Barack Obama and the party of progressives who want a single payer system. They are using “conservatives” like Shirkey to get it with money dangled to Michigan through Obamacare by accepting Medicaid expansion. This is where the faulty minds of the typical politician find themselves played and the expansion of government occurs even when the participants, like Representative Shirkey think of themselves as fiscal sharks. Politics is all about “the deal” and those deals are never made with skin off their own backs, but the looted money of others. In this way, politicians are simply like children playing house in the business world pretending to be “big shots” when in fact they are just small-minded imbeciles playing a game that is too big, and complex for them to even grasp. But it makes them feel powerful, so they can maintain the illusion so long as they stay in office which is how Obamacare gets them. To stay in office they must give things away to voters and appeal to their short attention spans and lack of personal knowledge. This is why Republicans are playing into Obama’s progressive hands, and why politics over many years of similar manipulations are a detriment to society that is supposed to be a republic, but has simply regulated itself to a thuggish democracy.
It is an absolutely appalling joke that Bill Clinton has been named Father of the Year by the National Father’s Day Committee. I would consider the former president who was impeached by congress during his term, to be the anti-father compared to many of the fathers who were celebrated during the 2013 annual Father’s Day recognition ceremonies. Clinton like the typical notion of a progressive “anti-concept” represents the undoing of fatherhood much more than a pillar of strength that most children wish for in the male portion of their parenting role-models. Clinton is virtually everything a good person is not—so naming him “Father of the Year” is equivalent to calling the stupid family on the old Fox television Married with Children the family of the year. Read more here:
The National Father’s Day Committee, an entity of the Father’s Day/Mother’s Day Council, each year confers Father of the Year Honors on contemporary lifestyle leaders of our culture whose lives are dedicated to family, citizenship, charity, civility, responsibility and reverence. The funds raised by our Annual Father of the Year Awards Presentation are directed to the support of worthwhile concerns affecting men, fathers, and families. The objective of our program is to enhance the meaning of Father’s Day and encourage universal observance.
Apparently the National Father’s Day Committee has no idea what a good father is, otherwise they would have never put Clinton on the list, let alone giving him such a perceived honor. I know something about fatherhood, and I am a fantastic father. Saying that Clinton is an exceptional father is simply an insult. Fathers are not habitual liars, womanizing punks, or call out hits on political opponents. They also don’t eliminate whistle blowers, or have women who are the same age as their daughters perform oral sex on them in the Oval Office. Good fathers are the opposite of all those traits, yet the NFDC named Clinton anyway.
Back in the 90s when Married with Children was on the air, and Slick Willie was in the White House, my wife and I refused to watch that show, even though it was very popular. We watched a few scenes of it here and there just to see if we were missing the great wave of popularity that the show garnered, but I never completed a full episode. The show was incredibly demeaning to traditional families and helped pave the way to a lot of the terrible attitudes people have toward their families in this more contemporary age.
Of course the cat is out of the bag now as to why shows like Married with Children were made in the first place getting money while programs like Little House on the Prairie went off the air, and weren’t being invited back on traditional networks. The progressive age was in full swing and presidents like Bill Clinton were committed to finishing the task that Woodrow Wilson started making sons as unlike their fathers as possible. The progressive statists entered politics, founded and ran the Department of Education and immediately created curriculums that degraded traditional parenting which paved the way for audiences to desire programming like Married with Children and electing the Al Bundy of politics, Bill Clinton. Most of America during the 90’s could not relate with the old-fashioned ideas of John Wayne westerns but rather Oliver Stone through his cocaine trips of left leaning films. America had lost its moral compass through its public education system, and shows like Married with Children reinforced the insecurities taught to them by government schools. Politicians like Clinton simply brought to the real world the kind of characters millions of Americans had grown familiar with in Married with Children.
It would seem that the criteria for judging Father of the Year by the NFDC is in comparing all candidates to Al Bundy from that old Fox comedy. With that as the criteria, I am proud to not be a part of the judging process because fathers like Bill Clinton and I are on opposite ends of the earth, as apparently the morally lost souls of the NFDC committee are too. Their award to Bill Clinton is just further evidence of how treacherously lost our society has become in identifying good from bad, and right from wrong. Anyone who can see what is wrong with the world will quickly see what a terrible father Bill Clinton is no matter what poor little Chelsea Clinton thinks. She’s stuck with being born to such a low-life, so she’s not the best judge of character—no fault of hers.
Next year when the NFDC decides that they want to award another Father of the Year I would suggest that they not look in the local strip joints, lobbyist back rooms, and married women’s bedrooms for the sacred honor of a father. The first step would be to look outside the political scene of New York and Washington D.C. There is a big world outside of those very small places, and in it are a lot of fathers who are truly great, and their families love them for it. They are Father’s of the Year not for the fanfare, the political spot light, or the social status gained from some trivial social recognition. They are great fathers because they truly love their children, and their families know it with the greatest honor that can be bestowed upon a man, the recognition from his family that they appreciate all that he does without a single outside soul knowing anything about it.
As for my own father’s day, my wife and kids treated me to a nice day at our local amusement park of Kings Island to visit the Dinosaurs Alive exhibit with my new grandson. They gave me as gifts a picture collage of some of our past adventures together and personal notes of fond recollection. They also gave me the soundtrack to the new Superman movie which meant a lot to me. As I loaded the soundtrack onto my iPod I thought of what the music was saying to me………………….and it doesn’t bring to mind images of Bill Clinton, unless of course the musical theme is that of the villain. I doubt Chelsea thinks of Superman when she thinks of her father, the supposed Father of the Year!
As I was working in the garage trying to fix a broken pool pump, I was listening to some sports radio commentary. I have been listening to The Blaze Radio continuously of late, but decided to turn on the old AM radio to see what was going on in the world of local sports when I heard the commentator state about a former star player’s fall from grace that, “he thought he was bigger than the team.” Upon hearing this I tossed my wrench aside and turned up the radio and the commentator said it again, “the player fell from grace because he thought he was bigger than ‘the team.’” I turned off the radio and turned The Blaze back on as I heard the words of Buck Sexton come over the airwaves talking about things that actually matter.
One of the largest misunderstandings that modern society has is this ridiculous notion that a “team” is greater than any individual, and that individuals should “sacrifice” themselves for the good of it. This is the menace that is being taught by high school sports all across the county, and the belief is re-enforced by idiots, beer drinkers, and drunk scallywags everywhere who contemplate why some sports teams are better than others between belches and greasy chicken wings. Knowing a thing or two about the management of people, I can report that the best way to get a team to do what a couch or manager wishes to accomplish is to get a group of individuals to aim their focus in the direction the leader establishes. But to do this, a leader must not crush the individuality of the “team members.” The leader must know that the individual attributes are much more important to the “team” than the collective sacrifice of a player to a cause “bigger than themselves.” Such an idea of sacrifice is hogwash.
In sports, all individuals are bigger than the team concept, for if any individual fails, the team will be weaker. All individuals must do their jobs to their highest ability, and as independently from one another as possible. For a team to be good, it needs a group of strong individuals who all do their jobs uniquely well to succeed, and the self-assurance to understand that they are the best at what they do, and not worried about being replaced by another because they are so good at their job.
In the case of the radio commentator, the star player in question had become a show-boater and was eventually ejected out of professional sports. But he was not ejected for being a show-boater, but because it was realized too late, that he was playing above his actual skill level. The player used his show-boating ability to cover his incompetence, which was eventually exposed. The way this lack of skill went undetected is that the management of the “team” this player played for was unable to evaluate individual attributes as their focus was on “the team.” This show-boating player uplifted the entire team with his antics, which made the coaching staff believe falsely that their team was better than it really was, because they assimilated the value of the show-boating in the same way that the player used to hide his incompetency. This failure was the fault of the “team concept.”
When some idiot says that there is no “I” in team, they are speaking of their vast ignorance on the matter. When a radio commentator says foolishly that “no player is bigger than the team,” they are speaking with a mind that is greatly deficient. All players are more important than a “team.” A team is only great if the individuals on it are superior to other individual players. A team is just a collection of individual wills and nothing more. A leader’s job is to direct those wills toward a tactical goal they set without crushing the individualism of the participants.
The lazy leader attempts to crush the individual will of each player to consider the self-sacrifice of the collective unit. The fool will allow the personal identities of individuals to be destroyed through hazing rituals, and other group assimilation hoping that by putting the “team concept” above individual ego, that success will follow…………….but it never does. Many sports players when they give interviews repeat blindly the whole team first concept, but if they are great players, they have never accepted it. They have learned to simply utter the lie to the press so to create good public relations for their teams, but they know that it is the extra hours they practice beyond the “team practice,” the extra work they do as individuals to become better than their competition that makes the difference between success and failure.
Team sports are never about the “team” but the individuals who make up the team. The leader’s job on teams is to align individual behavior with the team needs, but never to crush individual contribution as a kind of sacrifice for the collective whole. Such an idea is completely foolish which is why it shocked me to hear a sports commentator speak such an idea so openly. A lot of people say such things mindlessly because they have been taught incorrectly to think in such ways, but they are wrong. And for a sports commentator who spends their entire life thinking about sports, it would be assumed that they’d understand such an elementary concept. But this particular commentator was quite serious when he stated the error of a star player believing that they were “greater than the team.” Individuals are ALWAYS greater than a team. ALWAYS!
As I heard the statement I thought of all the dads all across the country who were also in their garages working on something similar who heard the same thing I did and thought……….yeah………he’s right. They tell their kids who play for some high school sports team the same thing, and the coaches of those teams also utter the same nonsense—then they are all confused why their teams are always mediocre. It is because their philosophy on the matter is wrong. Their understanding of the values needed to be a winner is incorrect, and they are teaching the young student athlete to grow up not to be successful contributors to all the future teams they will play on from sports to business, but only mediocre sacrificial lambs ready to throw themselves upon whatever alter the foolish coach tells them to. That same student athlete will then grow up to be mediocre, to raise mediocre children, live a mediocre life with vacations that are mediocre at best. They’ll cheat on their spouses with mediocre replacements and have mediocre friendships that are as deep as a dry river bed in a scorching desert and they’ll wonder why they are failures at life. It will be because they allowed in their mind the ridiculous, preposterous, nonsensical notion that no individual is greater than the “team” when the truth of the matter is the exact opposite.
“There are 11 million reasons to pass common-sense immigration reform that mends our broken system — 11 million stories of heartbreak and suffering that should motivate Congress to act,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said
In reference to the millions of immigrants currently in the country illegally, President Obama said, “Yes, they broke the rules; they didn’t wait their turn. They shouldn’t be let off easy. They shouldn’t be allowed to game the system.” Doc Thompson covered this complicated issue at the video below, with more detail at the following link:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Speaker, thank you for doin’ this. Let’s talk first about these– revelations about the National Security Agency. Edward Snowden has come forward, said he brought the documents into the public eye. His supporters say he’s– a whistle-blowing patriot. His critics say he’s betrayed the country, broken the law. Where do you stand?
JOHN BOEHNER: He’s a traitor. The president outlined last week that these were important national security programs to help keep Americans safe, and give us tools– to fight the terrorist threat th– that we face. The president also outlined that there are appropriate safeguards in place– to make sure that– there’s– there’s no– snooping, if you will– on Americans– here at home. But– the disclosure of this information– puts Americans at risk. It shows– our adversaries what our capabilities are. And– it’s a giant violation of the law.
STEPHANOPOULOS: As you point out, the president has said these programs are effective. They’re fully constitutional, fully approved by Congress, and limited. Do you agree with all that?
BOEHNER: I do. I’ve been briefed on all of these programs. Remember, this is all past– and– and broad bipartisan majorities in both the House and Senate. And– and when you look at these programs, there are clear safeguards. There’s no American who’s gonna be snooped on in any way– unless they’re in contact– with some terrorists somewhere around the world.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So even though all of these phone records, not phone calls, but all these phone records are being scooped up– you believe that Americans’ privacy is still protected?
BOEHNER: Absolutely. And every time– that I’ve been in a briefing, nine of the ten people in a room are lawyers– there to protect– the privacy of the American people. George, throughout our history we’ve had this– we’ve had this tug– between our principle responsibility as the government to– to keep Americans safe– and at the same time, protect their privacy.
And so there’s this balancing act– that goes on. And I believe– that when you look at this program and what it does– we– you’ll find– that we protect the privacy of the American people– while at the same time, giving us tools– to keep Americans safe and to go after the terrorist.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator John McCain– I think he agrees with you in large measure. But he said that there should be an open hearing so the American public can be reassured about the program. Senator Feinstein, chair of the Intelligence Committee also says she’s open to that. Do you think that’s a good idea?
BOEHNER: Well, I’ll let– the– the chairs of the Intelligence Committees– make that decision. But there is heavy oversight of this program– by the House Intelligence Committee on a bipartisan basis and the Senate Intelligence Committee. And that’s why I feel comfortable– that– that we can operate this program and protect the privacy rights of– of our citizens
The real issue with the NSA, the TSA, the Department of Homeland Security and every other government expansion program that was created in the wake of 9/11 is that the terrorist attack created by Osama Bin Laden against the World Trade Center was allowed because government did not do its job to begin with. It failed to recognize that radical Muslims are dangerous, it failed to teach people that they should over-take an airplane hijacked by terrorists carrying only box cutters, and it allowed the training of those terrorists to learn to fly an airplane when they showed no interest in landing. The FBI and CIA were aware of these terrorists from the start, and no amount of national security gathered by snooping can overcome incompetence, which is what happened during 9/11. It was incompetence that allowed the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and nothing more. Many alarms were raised and nobody acted on them.
The same alarm flags were raised when the participants of the Boston Bombings of 2013 participated in radical Islamic rhetoric which migrated to the level radicalism in killing and maiming hundreds of Americans during the Boston Marathon, yet nobody acted on the information. Without question the NSA, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the CIA all had hundreds if not thousands of emails, phone calls and other surveillance information indicating that the Boston Bombers were a threat to national security. Yet all those agencies because of the presence of political correctness were unable to call evil, evil for the sake of safety and act on their hunches, because they were paralyzed by the Muslim faith’s radical behavior and fearful of being targeted by their aggression. So nobody acted on the information gathered.
Because the government is incompetent they have decided in the wake of 9/11 to over-react and throw endless amounts of government jobs at every possible terrorist threat so that nobody in the public can ever accuse them of not doing everything they can. However, the issue of government failing to do their jobs time and time again to begin with is never brought up, so Boehner is as guilty as Obama for being an incompetent fool who has spent too many years in government and needs a private sector job to calibrate his rationale. Conspiracy theorists who appear more right than wrong will add that all this NSA nonsense has been established for years under the New World Order strategies that were outlined in the Jim Marrs book, Rule by Secrecy. Those same conspiracy theorists will say that the government has always had these plans in mind and simply were waiting for a good excuse to capitalize on the next terrorist attempt for which to launch the full NSA surveillance program that had been long-planned.
In the interview between John Boehner and George Stephanopoulos it is clear that what separates John Boehner the Republican from socialist (Democrat/Progressive) Barack Obama is very little. They both support an over-reaching government that snoops on every aspect of our lives so that they can never be held accountable for not doing everything possible to protect America from evil. That is everything except name evil by its proper name and hold people who are terrorists and breed terror accountable for their actions. For bureaucrats like Boehner and his golf buddy Obama, it is easier to just spy on everyone and hope that it serves as a deterrent for terrorism which the Boston Bombings proved false. Unable to act, or name evil by a proper name, all government can do is infringe on everyone so that nobody dare step out of line—thus keeping their incompetent political class out of the hot-seat, and in office long enough to become rich by looting the American tax payer, while never having to do anything substantial to earn the money.
Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation—or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind’s wings should have grown.
Ayn Rand — Speech to the United States Military Academy at West Point on March 6th 1974.
That was the first thought I had upon closing the book to Gavin Menzies masterpiece, 1421: The Year China Discovered the World or more specifically, discovered America. I had put the Menzies book on my “to read” list a long time ago, and recently found a window to give it the kind of attention I wanted. The birth of the desire to read Menzies book was sent my way when a strategy game my family enjoyed playing released a very rare constructible 10-Masted Jade Rebellion Treasure Ship called the Baochuan with Admiral Zheng He as the crew. The game was called Pirates: The Constructible Strategy Game. The objective was to buy cards at a local Wal-Mart or Target in the gaming section, take them home and build the ships that were in the packs of cards, then use those ships to wage war on other gamers by turning every kitchen table available into a roaring sea of treasure hunting, naval warfare, and epic drama, CLICK HERE TO REVIEW. My wife presented me with the valuable ship as a father’s day present in 2006 and to this day it is one of my most treasured possessions, as it can be seen from the picture below. The gift was more than a miniature card cut-out that gave me a dramatically tactical advantage in that game, but it was the first exposure I had ever had to the gigantic treasure fleets of Zheng He constructed by 3rd Emperor of the Ming Dynasty Zhu Di. The gigantic ships were over 400 feet long, half the size of the Titanic and were able to cross the oceans with sustainable living conditions which were absolutely unheard of with any sea fairing fleet anywhere in the world at that time. The treasure ship my wife gave me as a simple game piece placed upon my mind countless answers to questions I had been trying to piece together my entire life, so the gift was magnificent not for the material value, but for the adventure it carried my mind on as the wings of my imagination grew even larger than they had been previously.
The Wiz Kids gaming company had read Menzies book, and incorporated his theories into the overall mythology of the popular role-playing pirate game, which went to great lengths to unify sea fairing folklore with actual history. It took me some time to accept the reality of the giant Chinese ships because they made the European counterparts of the Portuguese and Spanish fleets look like child’s toys in comparison. So I did not run out and buy the Menzies book right away as I had a lot on my plate at the time professionally and such a concept of Chinese superiority that Menzies was making, would have long-range ramifications on world history, which would require special time to explore the concept. So for over six years now, I have looked at my model of the Boachuan and wondered about the giant Chinese junks which explored the entire world while all of Europe and the occupants of the Mediterranean Sea were paddling around comparatively in canoes. Finally, after many years, I had a window to read the Menzies book, and I took it.
The results were astonishing. One of the apprehensions I had about Menzies was that most of his statements in the book were based on educated conjecture formulated by his unique life. Once I started reading, the conjecture with which Menzies assembled his theories was no different from the failures of scholarship revealed so wonderfully in the great book Forbidden Archeology or the Leakey theories of mankind’s origin in Africa. Menzies as a retired British submarine lieutenant commander and author had already traveled every corner of the world prior to his multi-year research which went into 1421: The Year China Discovered the World but he did it again as a researcher plotting with great accuracy detailed analysis of the navigation maps which were generated well before Columbus ever set sail from Spain. Reading 1421 was like taking a trip around the world. I feel I know the currents and wind directions of the world’s distant oceans and understand how to navigate ships by the star Polaris. In the book, Menzies takes the reader on a journey at approximately 4 to 6 knots across the entire globe, from China to India, then to the coasts of Africa. The fleet of Zheng He which numbered in the hundreds, if not thousands divided up their efforts and traveled in many different directions from there. Some returned to China, some rounded Africa and moved up into the Atlantic splitting up once again near the Caribbean Sea. Some of the Chinese went on to North America, some went to South America. The fleet in South America split up once again to explore Antarctica traveling back to the East toward Australia. The remainder traveled around the tip of South America then proceeded to Australia to split up once again, some heading back out into the Pacific and circling around by Canada and the west coast of North America interacting with land and indigenous people the entire distance. Back to the journey of the east coast of North America, I learned of the Menzies theory off North Bimini Island which has long-held that the strange remains there are left over from Atlantis. Menzies using the same conjecture that he constructed the entire book with logic, evidence, and a vast knowledge of how life at sea works, provided the best explanation I have ever heard of those strange remains which I contemplate heavily every time I visit Florida and look off to the east across the choppy ocean at the ruins that are a day’s boat ride from our family condo.
Without question, Christopher Columbus did NOT discover America. Rather, he and his brother ripped off maps from the Portuguese government who had acquired charts of the world during trade with the Chinese in Calicut which were made during the Zheng He voyages. The Chinese at the time under Emperor Zhu Di wished to show their world domination of the arts, which at the time had no rival. After the Occident lost its power and influence during the terrible loss of the Library in Alexandria, which I have written about also, then lost Rome to the barbarians soon after, Europe and most of the northern Africa was plunged into the Dark Ages. If not for the Muslims, the works of Greek philosophers might never have seen the light of day again. China did not experience such an intellectual set-back, and instead progressed on only experiencing an invasion by the Mongolians that did not have the same effect as the European Dark Ages. The culture of China was not destroyed in the same way and once the Mongolians were defeated in rebellion, the Ming Dynasty took over and re-instated themselves as the dominate culture in the world. Emperor Zhu Di rebuilt the Great Wall of China, and constructed the Forbidden City. With the same zeal he built the largest fleet of ships ever constructed and the largest ever built prior to that time with only one exception, the tessarakonteres of Greek legend in the second century A.D. In doing so the Emperor nearly bankrupted China of its resources leaving his successors to erase the far-reaching scope of the heart-broken Emperor who lost his favorite concubine in a fire started during a lightning strike igniting the Forbidden City in flame. Upon the Emperor’s death, the records of the great treasure fleets of Zheng He were purged so that the taint of foreign cultures could not rot China as it had during Zhu Di’s reign. The mandarin overseers destroyed all evidence except for a few personal diaries of the mammoth voyages to put the walls up against the world which had shown itself to be backward, and lost to ignorance. This was a period where China would experience to a much less degree the loss of culture that the Occident experienced after the destruction of the Library at Alexandria. This was the great purge of the Orient.
Under Zhu Di, he had wished to show the world how powerful China was by trading with every country his fleets could reach using a tribute system to keep every nation on earth in debt to the glory of China. The Chinese would routinely give fine porcelain to villages along the African coastline and get in return jewelry of sea shells, which were worthless in comparison. But the Chinese didn’t care, because the debt between the values kept the African countries in perpetual obligation to the Emperor. It was this policy that the mandarins later would resent, and cause future Emperors to not duplicate the errors of Zhu Di by draining China of its wealth just to prove its superiority to the barbarian nations of the world who couldn’t even figure out how to use gunpowder.
The key to these wondrous voyages were the massive ships, the extremely large treasure ships half the size of the Titanic. But with those gigantic vessels were hundreds of support ships, most of which would still dwarf any European ship in the early 1400s. Most of the support junks were anywhere from 100 to 300 feet in length. For comparison, the Victoria, which Magellan used to circumnavigate the world was only 70 feet long. The treasure ships provided fresh water in gigantic tanks which actually housed sea lions which were used to herd fish into their nets at sea. The treasure ships held horses which consumed roughly 3 gallons of water each every day along with other animals from all over the world. The Chinese had the ability to desalinate their water while in transit keeping fresh water in plentiful supply. On the decks of the big ships were vast gardens so that fresh vegetables could be constantly grown to provide a balanced diet while months at sea between landfalls. If hostile nations attempted to attack the ships, the treasure fleets easily eradicated their opponents as these ships were the first to have cannons. A confrontation with the treasure fleet would spell doom to anyone who tried to stand in their way. With such ships 50 to 60 foot waves were much more manageable than the typical European vessel that would find themselves tossed about like toys. The key to accepting the voyages of Zheng He who clearly mapped the world while Europe was still in the Dark Ages is in understanding that the Chinese had the ability to build such large ships, which have been denied as an impossibility by traditional scholars. Yet the evidence is apparent, and even though the ships have long decayed, historians who have built vast careers on the myth that Christopher Columbus discovered America, or are willing to grudgingly concede that the Vikings entered North America as a bunch of barbarian hoards raping and pillaging wherever they went, the idea that the Chinese were trading goods and services all over the world well before the Europeans learned to put a sail to the wind on the open sea is not a pleasant one.
The reason I thought of the Ayn Rand quote stated at the beginning of this article after reading 1421 is because the evidence that Menzies provided convinced me beyond a shred of doubt that the Chinese were far superior to Europe during the same time, and had in fact most likely settled North America not just through migration across the Bering Strait tens of thousands of years ago, but were trading with the Mayans, and forming tribes in America that would later be called “Native Americans” such as the Shawnee, the Navajo, and the ancient Cahokians. Modern academia found the Menzies information “inconvenient” and an attack on their world view, so they have rejected him. Of Menzies 2002 release of 1421 historian Robert Finlay said in 2004 that “Unfortunately, this reckless manner of dealing with evidence is typical of 1421, vitiating all its extraordinary claims: the voyages it describes never took place, Chinese information never reached Prince Henry and Columbus, and there is no evidence of the Ming fleets in newly discovered lands.” The comments of Robert Finlay and many other academics that attacked Menzies for his extremely educated conjecture epitomize the quote stated at the start from Ayn Rand illuminating their fragmented minds built upon years of academic denials unable to accept that their own conjectures were incomplete upon their utterances and the new evidence provided by further research destroyed their previous theories. Columbus did not discover America!
Menzies to my mind has accomplished a level of expertise that many of the academic critics of his work are desperately lacking. Gavin Menzies as a British submarine lieutenant commander had a unique perspective shaped by years at sea. Then in his retirement under the finance of his wife, he spent years and years skipping around the globe gathering up evidence, reading maps and charts in a way that only an old submarine commander could, and touched the far corners of the world by following in the footsteps of Zheng He the way a blood hound catches the scent of a target they cannot see or touch but can smell. Academics and political progressives who wish to cover their faulty minds, their junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, have no choice but to slander the great work of Menzies from the comfort of their academic offices where the chill of the outside air gives them goose bumps. They are all too willing to abandon logic for belief, and they wish to continue believing that Christopher Columbus discovered America. To admit anything less is to change the way they see European history, and they might have to go to all the trouble of removing Columbus Day from their calendars which usually means a day off for government workers in the United States. Nobody wants to give up a free holiday, so it is much easier to attack Gavin Menzies for a theory that will change the way human history sees itself.
For me the journey started with the little model junk that my wife gave me for Father’s Day, which provided me a new idea taking me to Menzies book six years later. I have seen countless examples of modern academia standing in the way of science and the Menzies case is no different. Academic arguments are not built upon logic, reason, or even a strict adherence to scientific validation. Menzies has provided in his books the exact locations of several ship wrecks that are most likely the junks from Zheng He’s fleet, yet governments operate the waters of these wrecks, and governments work with academics to hold together the acceptable parameters of human thought. There is no desire to dive those wrecks by established science and governments to prove Menzies correct even though the evidence is right under the water and is known to all. Rather, governments and academics would rather drag their feet so to maintain plausible deniability of any truth that is contrary to their continued belief that it was the Europeans who settled North America not ships from half a world away. Menzies developed a rare ability in all his years traveling the world’s oceans and putting into exotic ports even in the most remote portions of the globe–he developed wings for his mind where imagination meets reason to logically conjecture the evidence which has been destroyed to hide truths from a public who are to look to academics and politicians with the grace of royalty. Those wings which the average academic lacks, takes Menzies to places where most historians can’t even dream to go, and upon reading 1421: The Year China Discovered the World the reader of that fine book has no choice but to grow wings of their own and follow on a journey that is epic in scope, and history altering in its implication. It is a book of writing that is the best of the best in every category for which the written word was ever intended to paint a picture with imagination that will change the way those with wings upon their own minds see the world forever. It is an epically brilliant book that is now one of my all-time favorites.
Now, please do watch the above documentaries so that the picture of this book’s importance can be placed in perspective. Then read the book! Out of ten stars, I give 1421: The Year China Discovered the World a perfect TWENTY!
You can get the book from Gavin’s website and follow all the latest discoveries which he continues to unravel each and every day.
The text of Menzies book contains castrations, gallivants with concubines, dangerous naval warfare, journeys to exotic lands, political intrigue, betrayal, cannibalism, and correspondence with the supernatural. 
