Tag: Donald Trump

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

How to Improve Oga’s Cantina at Galaxy’s Edge: Where creativity and a vastly expanding mythology can improve life dramatically

Obviously, my recent trip to Disney World had a positive impact on me, and I thought it would. It had been decades since I was really able to take a trip like that and just enjoy it without a whole lot of tag along projects. I could write a lot about all the positive experiences I had the week I was in Orlando at Disney World visiting all the parks and Disney Springs in general. But specifically I observed in the context of creativity some jaw dropping elements put forth by the new Star Wars land they call Galaxy’s Edge and I had a kind of moment after it all soaked in where I was in the Oga’s Cantina, a kind of recreation of the popular spaceport bar that was seen in the very first Star Wars movie way back in 1977, and I was awe struck. It was 2019, I was 51 years old and remember seeing that place for the first time in the movie and buying the album of the soundtrack and listening to the music over and over again on a record player. That popular cantina song was the gateway for my generation to science fiction and adventure, and here was the real thing, and they were selling drinks to an adult audience with barely standing room only around the bar. I included a few video clips of my point of view from the cantina that night here for reference, but it was really quite ostentatious that I could leave where I was having a couple of drinks with my wife and go outside to see the Millennium Falcon sitting there in a setting that belonged in a movie of the most fantastic type. It was quite an achievement to build, let alone experience and I couldn’t help but feel that something very important was happening to our human species.

Imagination had stepped over a kind of intellectual barrier and a new reality had been created born from a new kind of thinking driven by myth. Before visiting the cantina that night I had purchased from the marketplace just around the corner a much-desired deck of Sabacc cards which I had been waiting for really all of my life. After hundreds of books that I had read on that popular intergalactic poker game, finally Disney’s Galaxy’s Edge had invented a real game with real cards that could only be bought at that location and I was having quite a time with them. It was all a bit overwhelming and I had a lot of thoughts about what should come next to such an experience. Since a new reality has been born there at Galaxy’s Edge, and from the looks of the crowd, that cantina wasn’t big enough, nor would it be in the future I am offering my thoughts to help the story advance based on my observations. Granted, I never thought such a place would have ever been possible. But since it is, we should talk about improvements.

I’m not much of a drinker, so going to the cantina at Galaxy’s Edge was more out of curiosity than anything else. I’m not into the drinking songs and other things that go on in bars. But I do think the cantina should be more of a social destination, a place to meet people, get away from the heat of the day, and to freshen up. Since that cantina has the reservations booked for the whole day before you can even enter the park, its not a relaxing place to go. It’s certainly cool, but not relaxing. If I were program managing Galaxy’s Edge, I would offer some free advice to them–they need to build several more cantinas around the complex. The one they have isn’t enough. They need at least two more, and both of those need to be larger. They can be in the designs of other locations in the movies, but it is very obvious that Star Wars fans going to Galaxy’s Edge want to hang out and talk to other fans without a time limit, so more cantina space is required.

Also, the cantina management need to give happy hour prices to fans who cosplay, so that there are more people in the cantina who look like people from all over the Star Wars galaxy. Many people would willingly dress up in creature costumes if they could get significant costs knocked off their drinks and that would solve the environment problem of having the place full of non-Star Wars looking tourists. I would be surprised to learn that this wasn’t already happening, but I must suggest it because it’s the most logical thing to consider. That was really the only thing missing is the atmosphere full of strange creatures. Everything else looked great.

Additionally, as I had my drinks watching the crowds feeling like the best thing to do would be to have a good Sabacc game at the bar or in one of the booths. The booths around the outside parameter were full of families so such a game wouldn’t be possible. The cantina staff wanted quick turnover inside to make room for the lines of people outside, so playing Sabacc in the cantina just wasn’t an option and it should be. In fact, Disney I think has done such a good job marketing their new Sabacc game, that I think in a year or so there will be so many people playing it that they should host Sabacc tournaments at Galaxy’s Edge the way that poker tournaments are held in Vegas. I would go, I love the game. In a lot of ways I think it is much better than poker or black jack and it is otherworldly enough to allow participants to embroil themselves into the Star Wars mythology. Fantasy Flight Games has had great success with their X-Wing games and other Star Wars games. This Sabacc game would be the perfect meeting game in Galaxy’s Edge for years to come and would really enhance the cantina feel that you should experience when you enter those types of places. That would make the cantina more of a function than just a novelty act.

Going even further, I would think a cantina like Oga’s, except much, much, larger should be build at Disney Springs and it is there that yearly Sabacc championships should be played from players all over the country. The stakes could be simple, a week vacation package for four to the parks and hotels, that way it wouldn’t be gambling where money is exchanged, but still the prize would be in the tens of thousands and worth practicing all year to have a chance to win. And the tournaments could be broadcast on Disney+ the way poker games are broadcast on cable networks currently. I’ve been playing the game since I picked it up that day and it would be very good for television, and for cantina events.

All things come from imagination, even the games of our past like poker. When film and literature create in the imaginations of people the kind of demand I saw at Oga’s Cantina in Galaxy’s Edge at Hollywood Studios, we are on the frontier of some new kind of thinking, and that is very exciting. I can see future engineers for space stations on Mars and beyond playing Sabacc to pass the time on those long space voyages that they started learning to play at Galaxy’s Edge in one of these cantinas. Its more appropriate for the future than the games of the past, and that is something that is astonishing to see, how intellect is inspiring creations not born of rigid societies, but of creativity and vastly expanding mythology.

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

Democrats Aren’t Very Smart: McConnell is doing the right thing

Let me explain something to all Democrats, the same thing I have been saying to family and associates at all these Holiday events, congresspeople should consider themselves lucky that Mitch McConnell is working with the White House on this impeachment trial in the senate. As I’ve said on many occasions, I do not hate Democrats. But I do look at them as undeveloped people who require more learning in the ways of life. We are not all equal, some of us work harder than others, some of us are smarter than others, and some of us care a whole hell of a lot more than others. Democrats are far behind on the evolutionary instruction that it takes to be a complete person. They do not have a right to destroy our republic just because they cannot create a viable candidate to run for the office of president—which is all this congressional impeachment attempt has been. Democrats are lucky that they aren’t being beaten in the streets with a war, rather just having McConnell state that the impeachment is going nowhere in the senate. Because if that wasn’t the case, then violence against participating Democrats is the next step, and they don’t want that.

People do not have a right to ruin your life, and that is what Democrats are attempting to do by removing President Trump. The Dow Jones this past week closed at over 28,000 and has the potential of going into the mid-30s once Trump is re-elected in 2020. I’ve spelled it out in these articles that I have done over the last decade. I was the one who said what would happen to our economy if we just took away all the ridiculous, self-imposed regulatory burdens that were stifling our way of life. There was a very interesting article in the Wall Street Journal on December 14th titled, “Economists Got the Decade All Wrong. They’re Trying to Figure Out Why.” Well, I explained it with hundreds of articles on the matter. Everyone was predicting a recession; this is the first one we’ve had in America where a recession did not happen. Well, its due to Trump unleashing the market. That alone makes him one of the greatest presidents that we’ve ever had. And really, we could point to many hundreds of real accomplishments as to why he should be re-elected. Who cares what party he’s from? Democrats have benefited from the Trump presidency as much as anybody, yet they can’t admit it because they are just too stupid for their own good.

The Trump economy is great because he didn’t follow the advice of all the micro managers who cause economic downturns. Trump ignored the cycles and concentrated on positive pro-growth influences and the results are unmistakable, and far from an accident. Since the Trump election, consumer confidence in the markets has exploded and have continued in spite of all the attempts at bad news by the Democrats over the last three years. We should all be angry at the attempted coup by the FBI—ran by Democrats. We should deeply resent this impeachment attempt, since the FBI coup failed. And we should hate the attempts to sabotage the markets with so much negativity and second guessing that went on with the Chinese trade dispute. In spite of everything we still have a strong economy with the potential of much, much better days ahead. So why should we care about Democrats and their desire to impeach Trump because as a party they are trying to attack our way of life? Its insane to think we should care.

I’m not one who thinks everyone deserves a seat at the table out of fairness if the other participants haven’t worked very hard to understand how life works. Even that the Wall Street Journal would consider exploring why the economy did not behave the way they predicted should say everything about why Democrats are not prepared for this election, because they don’t understand market forces and how the psychology of human behavior works the way it does. I sympathize that not everyone thinks about these things as much as I do for instance. When I talk to people, especially at these holiday settings, I am shocked by how much people like to drink and to forget, as opposed to stimulate their intellects so that they can make better decisions. I don’t talk to people much because its often a hindrance to furtherance, so I just let everyone else gabble on sipping on their stupid alcoholic drinks and rolling in the mud of their own ignorance trying to sound smart when the only way they can do so is to get everyone drunk around them to create the illusion. If that’s what they want to do, have at it, but don’t expect the rest of the world to cater to your weaknesses. That is precisely what Democrats expect out of this impeachment trial and once McConnell signaled that he wasn’t going to play along, the wind went out of their sails quickly, as it should have.

Republicans and Democrats are not equal sides of some American philosophy, Democrats are typically stupid people not very intellectually curious about the ways of the world. It doesn’t say much that most educators are Democrats, because they have simply attempted to dumb down the system to match their scope. But they aren’t very smart, they don’t know much about history, they aren’t very smart on understanding markets, they don’t know much about business, or even international philosophy of intertwining cultures. If they did know more, they would likely end up being Republicans. I would say that Trump used to be a Democrat and the more he learned about life, the more he became a Republican. I’ve said often that Ronald Reagan once thought about communist ideas and was a supporter of socialism when he was a young actor. As he grew up he became more of a conservative and eventually became a great Republican. The difference between the two, is not that they are equals, but rather evolutionary states of being. Democrats are lazy thinkers and that’s why they are stupid. They may be nice people who shop at the GAP and spend money going out to dinner, but they are not great characters of intellect who have any answers, let alone equal points of view.

And that’s what’s at stake with this impeachment, it’s the stupid people versus the smart people. Smart people generally aren’t born that way, they work to be in that state. Stupid people decide to be stupid because they are either too lazy to do the work, or they are just not courageous enough to step out of the crowd to establish themselves as people of intellect when the tides stand against it. That in itself doesn’t make them bad people, just people who are not far enough along their evolutionary tract to qualify to make decisions within a republic for which we all stand. Being a Republican is an evolutionary path more than just a side of the pyramid for which everyone has their own point of view that must be compromised. McConnell and the rest of the Republicans have an obligation to stand with Trump, and that lesson is what Democrats are going to have to face and they should consider themselves lucky. They could experience great violence, and if we had a less civil republic, they likely wouldn’t be walking around in a healthy condition.

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 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 Mandalorian: One great show on Disney+

So the Mandalorian television show for Star Wars showing on Disney+ continues to impress me and make me very happy to have the new streaming service option as part of a massive collection of entertainment options. At this point there have been five episodes and its quite clear that the creators understand what Star Wars is all about, even if critics are still mystified as to the magic. Most people love the show, many of them like it. I have yet to hear from people who hate it. Critics in the industry continue to measure “greatness” by the amount of social justice in any entertainment product, and Star Wars has never been about that. When Disney has tried to make social justice part of the experience, Star Wars fails. And that is not the case with The Mandalorian. I wouldn’t say that Episode 5 was my favorite so far, but I do love the title, “The Gunslinger.”

It was fun to travel back to Mos Eisley spaceport on Tatooine from the original Star Wars movie and see the cantina, the Dewbacks, and the docking bays that originally started us all on this massive journey. This particular episode reminded me again of many of the great westerns that I grew up loving, specifically in this case, The Unforgiven with the stupid young kid playing off the much more experienced gunfighter. Critics keep providing a disclaimer that this series is Saturday morning cartoon material, and more specifically, Saturday morning matinee material which George Lucas grew up on. OK, so what? That’s what makes this kind of entertainment so special. That’s how Star Wars was born to begin with, so its not surprising that the creators are trying to get back to the roots of what makes the brand so special. Sometimes its good to tell a story without trying to change a public narrative, but one that reflects the one we have. Disney has certainly listened to the fans even if the industry is still trying to scratch their heads at why returning back to Mos Eisley was so much fun for fans.

I think its great that female directors are working on The Mandalorian. I thought Bryce Dallas Howard did a great job with Episode 4, brilliant even. It doesn’t matter to me if the director is a man or a woman, what matters is if the content is good, and with this show, it is. So long as nobody tries to turn the show into something that its not, The Mandalorian will continue to be a hit. I found myself looking forward to this latest episode all week and its been a very long time since I’ve had that experience, especially these days with all the on demand content that you can binge watch. Having a show that is this much fun to look forward to after a long hard work week is a wonderful thing to have, and I must thank Disney+ for giving it to us.

What is unexpected by me at this point in the show’s run is the popularity of Baby Yoda which is all anybody who is anyone is talking about. The little creature from The Mandalorian is taking over the internet and people are falling all over themselves for a chance to get the first merchandise that goes on sale. The Mandalorian is a cool show, so it’s a bit odd that such a cute character that so many people love has come out of it is the surprise. At this point in the season I wouldn’t have guessed that so many people would be talking about it. I would say the character is so popular that if we put Baby Yoda on the ballot for the next presidential election, that he’d win. That is the state of our political life these days, and maybe that’s not a bad thing.

The value of something from a scientific perspective is whether or not its fun. In a society of thinking human beings, we all need a little fun in our lives, and anything that gives that to us is a tremendous benefit. Having fun gives us the ability to set perspective and manage stress, so in that regard, The Mandalorian is better than just a show, it’s a wonderful stress management tool full of big ideas as this gunfighter/bounty hunter travels around a galaxy in a cool starship and interacts with all kinds of challenges without getting too emotional. That makes these shows fun and a great relief from the mundane outside world that is addicted to problems and stagnant thinking. So far, The Mandalorian never seems too far from a solution no matter how great the problem has been. In this Episode 5 The Mandalorian gets into a dogfight in space with someone trying to collect a bounty on him, and his ship is knocked out stranding him. He doesn’t panic and cry to his mom, he just calmly fixes his ship and gets going again. Traditionally, that is what the Saturday morning serials did for young people, show them how to deal with tragedy with a kind of bravado that made all their normal problems seem small, and in that way, solutions were easy to find.

Everyone in entertainment could take a lessen from The Mandalorian. Nobody says that a good show must have a huge budget and a bunch of cry baby characters to be good. Just giving the audience what they are looking for is the most important thing. Nothing about The Mandalorian is trying to be the next critically acclaimed show, it’s just having fun being what it is and its kind of strange to find that so refreshing because when I was growing up, most everything that was produced had that kind of whimsical quality. Most of the time, the best things are the things that critics don’t like, because many of them have some social agenda they are trying to steer creative people to, such as social justice concerns that are here today and gone tomorrow as a political priority. The things that matter most to people are things that last no matter how politics are aligned.

If Disney keeps up this kind of production I will be firmly in their camp. I have been skeptical about them as a company as they have been way to political for me, even as recently as Frozen II. I am very much a lover of traditional Walt Disney productions, and this Mandalorian title and the direction of Star Wars recently gives me hope that we can get back to that kind of story telling and cultural reverence. But I’m bound to like anything that has the title, “The Gunslinger.” Kids need a lot more entertainment like that, the values extend deep into our culture not just into our past, but for our future. But heck with the kids, I need more of this, and apparently so do many other fans of the show. Baby Yoda is cute, and it makes the show better. However, what makes the show good is that its fun, and its not afraid to take some chances which is why I look forward to it all week long, and watch it at my first available moment every Friday.

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

A Look Behind the Democrat Veil: There is nothing but smoke, not even a mirror

My history with lunatics, sword swallowers, and magicians helps me more often than all the people I know with doctorates and master’s degrees in understanding the truly life ending behavior of the Democrats, which might not be covered by anybody else in the entire world, even Rush Limbaugh. And so it went that the strategy of the entire DNC was on full display Thursday, December 5th as Nancy Pelosi announced that her congress would move forward with impeachment of President Trump. The less observed truth to their entire strategy was revealed by a fight at a rally for Mayor Pete, Joe Biden called a guy “fat” as he sparred with him over his own corruption scandal in Ukraine, and Hillary Clinton attempted to reset her dismal personality on the Howard Stern Show, almost simultaneously. In short, the objective is to get rid of Trump with impeachment so that one of the DNC candidates can make some ground, then try to create their own Trump moments to capture the attention of voters. The only problem is, they have no idea what they are doing or why people voted for Trump in the first place.

Democrats are trying to be Trump without having the authenticity of character that made so many people vote for him for president in 2016. They think they can play act some of his character traits, like going onto Howard Stern and “winging” it with flamboyance and bravado and that suddenly it might catapult them into the hearts and minds of America. But the crowds tell the whole story, what was astonishing in both Joe Biden’s townhall where he fought with the old man at that event challenging him to a push up contest and calling him names, or at the Mayor Pete event that sounded like it only had about four people there including the old lady who tried to hit a protestor with her walker. There just isn’t any excitement for these people yet the media who are fully in on the act, are trying to make them appear legitimate, but its not working.

In Biden’s case, the entire impeachment premise that the Democrats have put forth assume that Joe Biden was Donald Trump’s rival for the 2020 seat. But that guy isn’t in the running, he’s certainly not in first place. After watching him over these last several weeks, the polls that show him as the front runner must be phony, because if that is the best that the DNC have, (which I think he is) then they are in real trouble. Talk about a gaffe driven loser, between his comments about kids jumping in his lap and wanting to rub his hairy legs, then this mess with calling this guy at his townhall fat, Biden will never survive the one on one debates with Trump. And apparently everyone knows it, which is why they are trying to at least tarnish Trump with some impeachment scandal that is completely phony, so they can hope to have a shit shots chance in Hell at getting some votes in the next election. But I say it’s over for them before they can even get started because what they are trying to do is way too obvious. They don’t have any original ideas of their own, or personalities that inspire leadership, so they are copying elements of Trump without understanding why it worked in the first place. It’s one of the most pathetic things that I’ve ever seen, especially taken not individually, but rather in the context of the DNC presidential strategy for which they are all trying to play some part.

Hillary was right about some parts of Trump’s success, he did do interviews with anybody anywhere, even in his pajamas. His access to the media was explosive, but even if she had done the same, she still wouldn’t have won, and here’s why. Nobody cared about what she had to say. Nobody wanted to hear about her stupid glass ceiling of victimization womanhood, nobody wanted to hear her cough every five seconds. And nobody wanted to hear the way she really screws up saying “R’s.” She’s the crazy working mom that nobody wants to play at her house, because she’s so overbearing, stiff, and unimaginative. And she’s what the Democrats thought of as their best.

We’ve watched for a few years now the Democrats attempt put out on the market what they think voters want espousing issues that they hope people care about, like marijuana legalization, socialism for all, and open borders. Yet their people are really just used up pot heads who don’t have any pizzazz because they are cardboard cut-outs of what they think are real people. Trump is a complete person with a big personality who is where he is in life due to his wild life and many wins that have shaped him into an interesting character who can get things done. People want an achiever, not a copycat—they want authenticity. What’s insulting is that these people, Joe Biden, Clinton, Mayor Pete—and all the rest of them both in front of the camera and behind—and with all their educations, professional experience, and power in politics—they can’t come up with anything better. And that is the sad truth for them.

Then what’s worse is that while they feel they have to copy elements of Trump from 2016 to win some votes and get their base excited about something, they have conspired with a phony claim of corruption, for which Joe Biden is actually guilty of, to remove Trump from office before the election even happens because they have no other cards to play. If you think of things that way, the whole situation is entirely pathetic. That they think we are all that stupid is even worse. Because they do think that little of us.

You can tell a lot about people when the pressure is on, how they manage the stress. Biden folds like a piece of wet paper. He will never be able to go toe to toe with anybody in prime time, he can’t even do it when the media is rigged in his favor. Hillary already failed to match Trump in an election. She tried, but she was exhausted. In hindsight, she may want to do more interviews, and attend more campaign stops to match the Trump effort, but she just doesn’t have the health and stamina to do it. Talking about it is one thing, doing it is quite another. It takes a lot more than just going on Howard Stern, you must have something to say that people actually want to hear. And the rest of the DNC candidates aren’t any better off. Nancy Pelosi is even in on the game trying to copy elements of the Tea Party in her impeachment delivery sounding more like Butters from South Park than some historian evoking the sentiment of our founding documents. She misses the mark as bad if not worse than the rest of them because she thinks that by copying the Tea Party, which is where Donald Trump came from in the first place, that she will inspire action toward her Democrats. Which of course is the worst miscalculation in the history of politics. Taken all together the DNC is a disaster without a plan, character, or original ideas. And copying what does work won’t save them.

Rich Hoffman