Yes Lakota is Misleading People: Painting over the dirt

Georgetta
voteyeslakota@aol.com
75.185.0.41
Submitted on 2011/01/20 at 11:14 pm
 Evil prevails when good people do nothing. I am a good person and I am about good education. I am doing something: speaking out. Rich Hoffman is misleading people. Teachers teach children so they DON’T end up working themselves into an early grave and barely making payments on a lot in a trailer park. The good teachers will go elsewhere in order to make a living wage. Rich Hoffman raised children and his wife didn’t work. Apparently he is making too much money. Yet, I hear no one attacking him. Some of us have to have both parents work in order to put food on the table.

Georgetta here reflects many of the comments that I get from people who think just like her. The premise is this, that education is a right, they hide the actual numbers in the scribble of government bureaucracy, and if you show that you don’t support it, or if you even question their reasoning, they use “peer pressure” to shape the community to their will, just like kids on a playground. That’s the mentality. They end up sounding like children with their minds wrapped up in extreme assertions to make their points seem to carry more weight.

The first thing they do is attack you “the tax payer” and your ability to pay the increase in tax. They’ll say, “Public education was there for your children, but now that you don’t have children in the school, you don’t want to pay.” They do the same with business leaders, “We built the good schools and you provided the homes, and now you don’t want to pay.” What doesn’t get said is that as all this growth was going on, the LEA, the teachers union at Lakota, negotiated an aggressive contract in October of 2008 that was focused on wages and that contract is bankrupting the community because at the same time, indications were that state funding was on a decreasing trend. So the contract was irresponsible, and what is happening now, is the community is establishing the parameters of future contract negotiations, because we can’t trust school officials to do the job, otherwise it wouldn’t have gotten this far out of control.

These pro levy people will attempt to proclaim that nobody but them can look at the numbers and understand the situation. They sadly put out apologist groups to plead the case like what you will hear in the below interview. What they don’t want to discuss is why there is a financial crises. They simply discuss finance as if it were beyond their control. When listening to this interview ask these questions, if cutting only a million here, or there isn’t much because the numbers are so large, then why is it such a large savings that cutting busing to 9000 students will only save $600,000, then why cut busing? And how has Lakota done everything it can do before cutting busing. Did the LEA come to the bargaining table to renegotiate their contract? And how does the tax dollars stay in the district when the union spends the union dues on political candidates. One of the reasons the LEA wants its teachers to make so much is so that the teachers will want to pay their union dues without hardship. But nobody talks about any of that here. The sum of this discussion is that there isn’t an answer. These are nice parents that just want the system to work long enough for their children to get an education. Nobody wants to play the hot potato game when the music stops, and the music is stopping. All they can really do in an interview like this is paint over the dirt.

All businesses whether they are service oriented or manufacturing oriented have a responsibility to keep their costs in line. One way that businesses do that is to use the 10-80-10 rule as it’s applied to labor. That rule states that 10% of your workforce will be your typical “top” performers, and they will get the most dramatic increases, 4% to 15% depending on the situation. 80% of your workers are average, and will typically get a standard 2% to 3% increase, otherwise considered a “cost of living” increase. And of course every place of business has approximately 10% that are poor performers and they won’t get an increase of any kind. Why? Because those bottom 10% you want to look for another job, and you want them to leave so you don’t have to pay them. It gives you a chance to hire somebody that might want to compete for the top 10% percentile. If you manage things correctly, your bottom 10% are the kind of people that your competition is hiring at the middle 80%, and you want that so you can maintain a competitive edge.

What you don’t do is uniformly advance everyone in your place of business with some socialist “everybody is equal” policy like what we have in school systems, and unions advocate. That’s a disastrous concept and gives employees like Ryan Fahrenkemp time and the luxury of job security to participate in an evil deed like child pornography. I would argue from experience that if Ryan had to fear for his job, and didn’t feel comfortable hiding in the muddy 80%, he probably would have not indulged in his warped perversion while at school. He might have done it in hiding, or in his mother’s basement, but not with his students, and not with school equipment. And he certainly wouldn’t have been making 70K at only age 42 no matter how much experience he had with the amount of tenure he’d accumulated in a relatively short time.

I used Fahrenkemp as an example because he belonged in the bottom 10% and somebody didn’t do their job in the review process of weeding him out. And that didn’t happen because he was protected by the complicated process created by the OEA which the president of the LEA had been a big part of, and knew how to manipulate the system to the advantage of her members.

So I’d say to you Yes Lakota people, who say that I am misleading people. Who is doing the misleading?

I’d say you are, by telling the tax payers that the budget just “grows” on its own. That the school system had no way to deal with people like Fahrenkemp, and that all teachers are worth over 62K, and if the community doesn’t pay it, those beloved teachers will leave the district for another one.

I would say any teacher that would leave Lakota is only in it for the money, and those are personalities that I would rate low on a review, and may be tempted to put them on the bottom 10% anyway, so for them to leave would be desirable.

All the Yes Lakota people have to argue with is emotion,
• “The money is for the kids.” No it’s not, if it was, the LEA wouldn’t have threatened to strike in 2008 to get more money, and again in the spring of 2010.
• “We have to offer top pay for top teachers or they will leave.” No they won’t because the other districts are broke too and are getting ready to go through the same process Lakota is.
• “We have to protect property values by voting for the schools.” No you don’t. If taxes keep increasing that will kill real estate values anyway, tax payers in the district already pay $11 per $1000 assessment on their property.
• “I’m for education.” No you’re not. If you were, you’d keep the budget under $160 million. Throwing money at something doesn’t mean you’re for education. It means you don’t value the source of the money but want what the money can buy.
• “We have had explosive growth and must adjust to it.” Growth, like budgets can be controlled. If the cost is too high, growth will slow down, and growth will slow down because of the economy. Growth will also slow down from parents wanting to go to Lakota who aren’t willing to pay for the extra things they want, too. One of the reasons Yes People want sports and extracurricular activities is so enrollment will increase, so parents looking for those items can move to the district and participate cheaply. It’s all about job creating and getting parents used to programs that the district tax payers fund collectively. No different from colleges with NCAA programs that are nationally known for their sports, will see increases in enrollment. It’s always about increased enrollment so money can be justified.
• “The state is forcing us to all-day kindergarten.” No, the OEA lobbied to get all-day kindergarten passed, and the Republicans in the state house are getting ready to eliminate that unfunded mandate along with many other mandates lacking funding. So that anticipated requirement will be taken away from district budgets.
• “We have to spend $50,000 dollars to get the best superintendent we can get.” No, you are throwing money at the situation like you do everything else. It’s that kind of mentality that locked us into the contract with the LEA that is causing the current financial crises. Money does not equal quality. It seldom does. Money can be used to create competition, but it is useless without competition. If money is not getting you dramatic results, it is simply killing your budget.
• “Paying for a school levy keeps your money in the community.” No it doesn’t. The union dues collected by school unions are directly applied to liberal politicians that further perpetuate the bureaucratic mess creating expensive economic necessity. The OEA had revenue of over $62 million dollars in 2008. Where did that money come from? They don’t make any products that they can sell? Check the info for yourself here. http://teachersunionexposed.com/state.cfm?state=OH All that money comes from union dues, paid from the salaries of teachers that are paid exceptionally well by the local tax payers. The average pay at Lakota for teachers is 62K per year. So the money doesn’t stay in the community.

Those are just some examples of how the Yes Lakota people are misleading the good people of the Lakota District. And they will continue to treat the voters like the fools they believe they are as long as it works.

Get ready for the next levy announcement for May. They’ll do it because they don’t know how to do anything else but ask for more money.

And you Yes Lakota people go ahead and leave your comments. I’ll post them, and I’ll use them. People need to see your thoughts. For those of you wanting to see some of them, read the comments here. I am quite aware that there are many people at many levels reading all the posts I’ve put up here and you’re looking for a way to spin it to your advantage. For an example, have a look at the work David Little from Progress Ohio attempted. I’m happy to fight your sloppy facts with the truth and if you want to spin the community around and make them so dizzy they can’t tell which way is up or down, I’ll continue to prevent it, as I have. And I’ll do it because I love my community, and I want to see education continue to be an option for families in the future. But it won’t be in a form controlled by organized labor. Those days are over.

Don’t believe me; read this from your parent union the OEA, this is how bad the financial situation is. Even the union staff is threatening to strike and the union itself is participating in union busting strategies.

The Ohio Education Association and Its Goose

The executives of the Ohio Education Association sent a memo informing local presidents that if the union gave in to striking staffers’ demands, it would require an $80 to $90 dues increase per member. Such an increase would raise roughly $10 million. That sounded familiar to me, so I checked the archives and found this, in the May 8, 2000 EIA Communiqué:
Ohio Education Association in Severe Financial Straits. The last time the Ohio Education Association negotiated a staff contract, in September 1997, it resulted in a two-week strike, restraining orders against picketers, and a lot of bad publicity. That contract expires this year and it’s bad financial news all around for OEA, its members, and the staff. OEA recently informed its local presidents that the union is facing a projected deficit of $6.3 million for next year. The union is asking staff to accept benefit cuts totaling $4 million. The rest of the deficit would be eliminated through a dues increase of up to $25 per member.

“Specifically, and regrettably, we can no longer afford to sustain the current number of OEA employees at their current level of compensation and benefits and continue to provide the expected level of services and programs without significantly raising OEA dues for you and every other member,” reads a memo from OEA President Mike Billirakis and Executive Director Robert Barkley.

Read the rest of the article here:
http://www.eiaonline.com/intercepts/2010/09/03/the-ohio-education-association-and-its-goose/

If our community is going to continue to be a “great” and “excellent” district, we have to get in front of this problem. Not avoid it by tossing more money at the problem. And the Yes Lakota people need to listen to the No Lakota People, because the solution is in good business strategy. The same tired old bullet points won’t be valid any longer. I’ll make sure of it.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

The Superintendent of Tomorrow

Bill Cunningham had on a superintendent from Clermont Northeastern that has been very successful at saving his district money by thinking “outside the box.” Listen to that interview here.

Here is a link to the district website: http://www.cneschools.org/

What’s interesting about that interview is the superintendent is actively pursuing innovative cost savings as opposed to the approach at Lakota where they spent over $50,000 just searching for a new superintendent to replace the retiring Mike Taylor. The Lakota method is the “old” way, where inflated costs are built into every step of the process, and the footprints most always lead to organized labor.

The superintendent of tomorrow will find ways to save money at every turn, including the elimination of such extraordinary candidate searches as Lakota participated in. The School Board elected to spend $40,000 looking for a treasurer, and $50,000 looking for a superintendent that they haven’t yet hired.

The superintendent of tomorrow will not be bullied by union leaders as what happened at Lakota on the last Thursday of October 2008 where the teacher’s union of 1,200 members threatened to walk out on all 18,000 students they profess to think so much of. What was the primary issue in that proposed strike? Pay!

The superintendent of tomorrow wouldn’t have paid into the union system for 25 years or more and then take a passive position at the negotiating table as what happened when both sides, the LEA and the Lakota officials sat down after school that memorable Wednesday just before Halloween and finally hammered out an agreement at 12:30 AM Thursday morning, the day the LEA was ready to walk off the job.

I know quite a few teachers around the country. Specifically, in Oldham County, KY, which is one of Kentucky’s most exclusive communities, there is a teacher with a master’s degree in science that teaches geology, and his rate of pay is just shy of 50K. Doc Thompson a few weeks ago had on another teacher that was from Atlanta that was making wages in the mid-40’s, and I thought he had some valid arguments.

At Lakota, the LEA has been successful at convincing the School Board and the Superintendent that teachers should be paid on average over 62K per year, which is what they are currently being paid at Lakota. In fact, Mike Taylor is quoted saying, “I don’t think teachers are paid enough.” Such superintendents have recklessly encouraged the extraordinary wage rates that are occurring at Lakota.

And the economic disaster that is being described which is hitting Lakota is caused by these same wages that are too high if it is considered that state money is not a factor and that the communities must fund the budget on their own. The superintendent of tomorrow will help keep wage cost in line to protect the communities they serve and still maintain great teachers for a good price.

The superintendent of tomorrow will reflect the community, and will build an administration that does the same, and not be lap dogs for powerful unions, that takes the union dues collected from each teacher and applies those funds to progressive political candidates that only exacerbate the situation further at the state level. When it’s said that our tax money stays local, it does not. Those union dues work in a way to support democratic and progressive candidates, and are only a cleaver way invented by organized labor to prop up the candidates they support. The money originally comes from the local tax payer that just wants to have the community schools teach their children.

When we find this superintendent of tomorrow, we can begin to solve some of the problems of today, but not until then.

Now for those of you that want more information check out this press release from from the Buckeye Institute. I’m not the only one saying this stuff. Feel free to check the link at the end of the press release. Oh, and you YesLakota people, I’m for education too. Keep it under our 160 million dollar budget and we’ll all get along. But don’t ask the community to pay for your poor business understanding. Go ahead, check the link below.

Buckeye Institute News Alert
Where Transparency Is More Than A Slogan And Ideas Really Do Matter

PRESS RELEASE January 18, 2010

Contact: Matt Mayer,

2010 K-12 Teacher Salary and Estimated Pension Data added to Searchable Database along with Search Counter

COLUMBUS – The Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions today released on its website the 2010 K-12 salary and estimated pension data for all Ohio public school teachers. Unlike the data collected for previous years, the 2010 data includes salary and pension information for many superintendents, principals, and other administrative staff members. The pension data includes each teacher’s salary based on a 2,080-hour year (40 hour work-week, 52 week year) so users can properly evaluate teacher pay, as most teachers are contractually limited to working 1,350 hours per year.

In 2010, approximately 1,800 school employees earned over $100,000 per year. Due to increasing staffing costs, Ohio’s 613 public school districts are expected to face a $7.6 billion funding deficit by 2015, with personnel expenses consuming 96 percent of tax revenues.

In the last election, citizens used the Teacher Salary Database to hold their school districts accountable for spending choices, citing that average teacher salaries had grown at rates that, in many cases, far outpaced inflation.

In addition to the new data, the website now contains a search counter which records the number of searches performed in the eight database tools (State Salary, Federal Salary, Higher Ed Salary, Teacher Salary, Local Salary, School Data, County Data, and State Lobbyists). Since the website’s launch on April 30, 2010, visitors from 473 Ohio cities, the 49 other states, and 119 foreign countries have spent over 20,000 hours conducting almost 1.5 million data searches.

Buckeye Institute President Matt A. Mayer stated: “With so many school districts under financial duress, it is now even more important than ever that taxpayers know how school districts are spending their money. Instead of cutting staff positions, sports, bussing, and other programs, most school districts could balance their budgets without raising taxes through cutting staff compensation packages by a small percentage.”

The Teacher Salary data tool is available at www.buckeyeinstitute.org.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

The Lakota Busing Cuts: Going Forward in Reverse

Seeing miles and miles of backed up traffic the morning that Lakota’s busing cuts were implemented was like watching a world of sanity coming undone and going backwards into a time of primeval foolishness. Scott Sloan and Tracy Jones capture the lunacy wonderfully.

It was the day after the dreaded “B Day” busing cuts at Lakota when I discussed the aftermath on The Big One with Doc Thompson.

So what’s the next step? Without question, the school system is poised to put another levy issue on the ballot targeting the roughly 10% that are anti-tax but only moderately. Those people will have to decide if they will be steadfast, or buckle under the pressure extorted by the busing cut strategy, because it’s all about converting a few percentage points in voter turnout, into a “yes” vote.

Oh, and click here to get a taste of what Doc was talking about regarding college education.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

The Taxpayers Deserve Better: Evil Prevails When Good People Do Nothing

It was a busy weekend and there was a lot of mud getting slung on the eve of the busing cuts. Once the owner of the Starkerz Bar and Grill, discussed in the audio clip from the Darryl Parks show on January 17, 2011, stated that she was willing to provide a statement that she’d stand behind, I felt comfortable to tell the story.

Even so, telling that story made me sick, because the whole event seems so petty. I don’t like being in the middle of that kind of thing, “mudslinging” but I am often reminded of how the Pro Side came after me when David Little was hired to attempt to smear my name with obvious attempts at slander. For instance, in that now famous six paragraph letter, there were 4 complete lies about me proclaimed in the body of the letter, along with several statements not even closely rooted to the truth, but designed to anger the people reading the letter.

I confronted Little about what he wrote, and he lied to me again, telling me that he hadn’t sent that letter to anyone. What he didn’t know was that I was tipped off by more than one person in the press, and Little confirmed my suspicions when he assumed the leak was WLW, which it wasn’t.

But that’s the game these people chose to play and every time I see them perpetuating the games progress, it reminds me of why these out-of-control budgets need to be brought into a realistic expectation.

Darryl mentioned that I did the Lakota Levy all by myself. It feels that way some of the time, but that’s not the case. There are lots of good people behind me. Most of them wanted to think about something else after the election, and to enjoy the holidays. The outrage over the bar and grill story brought many people’s minds back into the subject lately because that story is a very personal issue with many involved and is so openly wrong.

I’ve stayed with this topic all this time because the education system needs to be fixed, and the people getting in the way are bullies. They may wear perfume and dress nice. They may have a smile on their faces when they do the bullying, but the behavior I keep seeing has no other name.

And tax payers deserve better. And they are going to have it…………………………………….

So those of you that are up to no good, and want to play these games, remember, there will be leaks. And when I get them, I’ll post them. I won’t do it until someone is willing to stand behind the statements. There has to be proof. But I will hold those accountable that wish to bully others into turning a blind eye to the disingenuous behavior exhibited toward our community tax payers.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Forensic Anthropology Jobs Needed: Another Government Debacle

My wife and I had dinner with an instructor for Forensic Anthropology on Saturday and I learned how there is a shortage of Forensic Anthropologists. That little fact surprised me. “How can that be? Where do you find Forensic Anthropology employment? Who’s paying for them?” It was an honest question.

I received an honest answer. “The shortage is due to museums and other research facilities that are trying to comply with the “Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act”

“The what?” I asked. “What the hell is that?”

He proceeded to educate me which is most accurately described in this definition from Wikipedia.
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The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), Pub.L. 101-601, 104 Stat. 3048, is a United States federal law passed on 16 November 1990 requiring federal agencies and institutions that receive federal funding[1] to return Native American cultural items and human remains to their respective peoples. Cultural items include funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony. In addition, it authorizes a program of federal grants to assist in the repatriation process. It is now the strongest federal legislation pertaining to aboriginal remains and artifacts.
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“Are you kidding me?” I asked. “What bunch of idiots passed that law? That has to cost a fortune.”

My dinner guest was agreeing with me, but being a man of science, he is eternally sympathetic to funding needs. Then I remembered when he and I had watched John Dunbar’s epic journey into the land of the Sioux Nation together around that time, then it came back to me. The film Dances with Wolves by Kevin Costner came out on November 21st of 1990. And the NAGPRA was passed just days before the release of the film.

The Heard Museum Report had been debated for three years starting in 1987 and had been passed by the 101st Congress as advanced copies of Dances With Wolves was circulating around Washington, after all Costner has just had a wild success with Field of Dreams. So there was a lot of buzz around the new movie about Native Americans. So with the usual sentimentality that engulfs the puffy coffee enriched minds of bureaucracy, they passed the NAGPRA without thinking much about the cost to science, or the tax payer.

“That is one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever heard in the history of bad ideas,” I stated in clichéd fashion, knowing it was a cliché when I said it.

My dinner guest proceeded to educate me on various cases and pointed me in the direction of an article by Jan Bernstein:
________________________________________________________________________________________________________

NAGPRA – Future Applicability Rule
Article written for SPNHC by Jan Bernstein
Does the institution that you work for have Native American cultural items under its control or in its possession and does it also receive Federal funds? If so, more than likely you already know that your institution is a “museum” and therefore is legally required to comply with 25 U.S.C. 3001, which is more commonly known as the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act or NAGPRA. But what you might not know is that there are new NAGPRA compliance rules for what is known in the Act as Future Applicability.

These rules apply to the following situations: 1) The museum or Federal agency acquires a new collection item or finds a previously unreported item that may be covered by the Act (covered items are Native American human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony; 2) A previously unrecognized Indian group is recognized by the Federal government as an Indian tribe. 3) An institution in possession or control of an item or items that may be covered by the Act receives Federal funds for the first time; and 4) The museum or Federal agency revises a decision previously published in the Federal Register.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was signed into law on November 16, 1990, but it wasn’t until March 21, 2007 that the final rule for §10.13 Future Applicability of NAGPRA was promulgated. It was published in Federal Register Volume 72, Number 54 and it applies to existing and newly acquired museum collections. Those are Sections Five, Six, and Seven of the Act. It does not apply to inadvertent discoveries or planned excavations which are addressed in Section Three of the Act.

The Future Applicability rules became effective on April 20, 2007. And on that date it established statutory deadlines for completion of NAGPRA Section Five Human Remains Inventories/Notices of Inventory Completion and NAGPRA Section Six Summaries (unassociated funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony). For you organization, the first deadline may be October 20, 2007. The rule set a six months deadline to produce and distribute a NAGPRA Section Six Summary for a new holding or a previously unreported holding newly located that may be unassociated funerary objects, sacred objects, or objects of cultural patrimony. October 20, 2007 is the deadline for the Summary distribution if the new holding was acquired or found prior to April 20, 2007. Your organization has two years from the promulgation date or acquisition/discovery date to prepare a NAGPRA Section Five Human Remains Inventory/Notice of Inventory Completion in consultation with affiliated Indian tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations. If the new holding was acquired or located prior to April 20, 2007, you have until April 20, 2009 to do culturally affiliation consultation and distribute a NAGPRA Section Five Human Remains Inventory and publish a Notice of Inventory Completion in the Federal Register.

A newly Federally recognized Indian tribe has standing under NAGPRA and museums and Federal agencies covered by the Act are required by the Future Applicability Rule to send Section Six Summaries to these Tribes within six month of recognition. Federal Agencies and museums are also required within two years of recognition to prepare in consultation with culturally affiliated Indian tribes NAGPRA Section Five Inventories/Notices of Inventory Completion.

Maybe your organization didn’t receive any Federal funds between November 16, 1990 when the law passed and November 16, 1995 when the last deadline occurred. But since that time it began to receive such funds. Those funds may be flowing directly to your organization or to your parent organization. For example, maybe you are working for private college anthropology or art department and another department at the college started to accept Federal contracts or grants after 11/16/1995. Those funds have redefined your department as a museum covered by NAGPRA. If this is the case, your organization is required to comply with NAGPRA. If you find your organization is in this situation, you must within three years from the time the Federal funds were received or from the effective date of the Rule (4/10/07), whichever is later provide a Section Six Summary to Indian tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations that are most likely to be culturally affiliated. Within Five years of the date of receipt of Federal funds, or within five years of the effective date of this Rule, whichever is later, you must prepare, in consultation with affiliated Indian tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations, a Section Five Human Remains Inventory/Notice of Inventory Completion.

If your organization previously published a Notice of Inventory Completion, but the information has since substantively changed, the Future Applicability Rule requires a Notice of Inventory Completion Correction be published in the Federal Register. A substantive change is a change in the culturally affiliated Indian tribes or a change in the minimum number of individuals count. The National NAGPRA Program will assist you with this process.

What does this mean for those of you who represent a Federally Recognized Indian tribe? Well, I hope you will see some new Summaries hitting your desk as well as an increase in the number of requests to consult in preparation of new human remains Inventories.
The rules can be found on the National NAGPRA Program’s web site. I wish you all great success in your NAGPRA compliance efforts.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“How can an anthropologist or archeologist be expected to return the remains of Indian Tribes when much of the tribal movements aren’t even understood by anybody yet? There are still completely mysterious cultures that no science organization understands regarding Native Americans.” I was thinking of Cahokia outside of St. Louis, and several of the mound builders in the Ohio Valley. The Shawnee had in fact migrated from Florida before settling in Ohio. Few tribes could be traced back for thousands of years.

The instructor laughed. “That’s part of the problem. There are a lot of finds and burial relics that predate 1492, so it is nearly impossible to return cultural items to specific tribes.”

I was getting angry. “What about the ancestors of Anglo Saxons that were fleeing tyrants of Europe to settle the frontier that were cannibalized in giant kettles and eaten like soup, entire families were slain for no reason what-so-ever.”

“That’s not politically correct,” he laughed at me.

“That’s politics, which is the same as what comes out of an elephants ass.”

“Well,” he said, “its business. Laws like that put people to work and make people feel like they’re doing something important.”

He mentioned Bernstein and Associates, who I looked up and read their literature.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Bernstein & Associates, LLC
We work with Indian tribes, museums, universities, and governmental agencies on Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) compliance projects.

Services we provide to our clients

NAGPRA Grant Writing
We write successful Consultation/Documentation and Repatriation grant proposals.
Our clients have received over $1,000,000 (one million dollars) in
NAGPRA Consultation/Documentation and Repatriation Grant grant awards.
Annually since 1999, we have written at least one NAGPRA Consultation/Documentation grant for clients and every year we’ve had a grant funded.

Jan Bernstein teaches a two-day NAGPRA Grant Writing Seminar for the National Preservation Institute.

NAGPRA Consultation Support
There is a tremendous amount of work that goes into NAGPRA consultation planning, implementation, documentation, and follow-up. Official tribal representatives frequently praise our culturally sensitive, insightful, respectful approach to consultation. Bernstein & Associates helps Indian tribes, museums, and federal agencies with all phases to whatever degree suits your needs:
• Meeting planning
• Consultation preparation including document research and assembly
• Consultation documentation
• Consultation follow-up

Since 1990, we have organized and facilitated several hundred individual and group consultations with tribes that have traditional territory in all regions of the country including Alaska and Hawaii.

Repatriation, Physical Transfer, and Reburial
We have worked with tribal leaders, official tribal NAGPRA representatives, and traditional religious leaders in the Southwest, Plains, Great Basin, and Southeastern US as well as Peru (non-NAGPRA) to facilitate the repatriation and reburial of nearly 1000 individuals and hundreds of cultural items. Bernstein & Associates is available to:
• Write repatriation grant proposals for up to $15,000 to defray the costs associated with reburial
• Provide assistance in writing valid repatriation requests and repatriation claims
• Write draft notices of intent to repatriate
• Facilitate the development and implementation of reburial plans and agreements

NAGPRA Summary and Human Remains Inventory Preparation
Because of the long-standing, positive working relationships that we have built with the tribes throughout the U.S since the mid 1980s, we are extremely successful in aiding clients in the preparation of culturally sensitive NAGPRA Summaries and Inventories. Every client utilizes our services in a slightly different way. Some of the many services we provided to clients are:
. Assess collections to determine which tribes should receive summaries and invitations to consult on cultural affiliation for development of Inventories
– Write letters to tribes using our tribal contact database, which is constantly updated with current contact information for tribal leaders and NAGPRA reps, as well as consultation style preferences
– Initiate Summary consultation after initial correspondence
– Facilitate NAGPRA consultation conferences

Strategic Planning

We help clients assess what needs to be done to comply with NAGPRA, how long it will take, and develop a chronology. We then break it down into manageable projects that could be funded by grants for museum clients. We provide clients with a written plan that can be used to track progress.

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“So it’s all about getting federal grants,” I asked.

He smiled and sipped his wine. “It’s always about money, and that’s why there’s a need for Forensic Anthropologists.”
Then our conversation over the rest of the wine migrated to the Kennewick Man, which I found a nice back story below.
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Source World of Forensic Science
The remains of an ancient human found along a river in Kennewick, Washington, in 1996 set off a heated debate about the ownership and future of the skeleton. Scientists argued that the skeleton, dubbed Kennewick Man, could provide new information about human migration in North America, while Native Americans claimed him as an ancestor and wanted to bury him according to their rites. Forensic anthropological findings and cultural evidence were presented in court procedures over the course of nine years while the fate of the Kennewick Man was debated.

The story of Kennewick Man began in July 1996, when two college students watching hydroplane races found a human skeleton along the Columbia River. The young men turned the remains over to local police, who realized that they were probably very old. The bones were then given to forensic anthropologist James Chatters for evaluation. Chatters reconstructed the skeleton, which was 80–90% complete. He determined that it was from a man who was probably five feet nine or 10 inches and about 40–50 years old when he died. He showed little evidence of arthritis, indicating that he wasn’t used to carrying heavy weights and that he might have been a wandering hunter. Dental examinations showed that the skull contained 30 of the 32 teeth and that they were in good shape, indicating that he probably had a diet that included lots of soft foods like meat. He was taller and thinner than most ancient Native Americans and the back of his skull was not flattened from a cradleboard as is commonly observed in skeletons of ancient Native Americans. In addition, the man had a stone spear point lodged in his pelvis and there was evidence of severe trauma to his rib cage that probably limited the use of his arm. Using computerized tomography (CT), Chatters determined that the spear point was serrated and leaf-shaped and typical of the types of spears used between 8500–4500 years ago. He hypothesized that the skeleton was either from a European pioneer who had been attacked by native people using stone-age weapons or from an ancient human. Chatters sent pieces of the bones to a laboratory for carbon dating, which determined that the age of the skeleton was between 9,200–9,400 years old, making the skeleton one of the oldest, and most complete, ever found in North America.
Once the age of the skeleton was determined, several groups came forward, vying for control of the remains. A group of five Native American tribes in the region, the Umatilla, the Yakama, the Nez Perce, the Wanapum, and the Colville, wanted to accord the remains the same rites given to any Native American, namely a speedy burial. They cited the legal authority of the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act (NAGRA), which requires the return of American Indian remains to tribes. As news of the unique find spread throughout the scientific community, a coalition of eight anthropologists and archaeologists petitioned for their right to study the ancient remains prior to burial. The scientists believed that study of the Kennewick Man could reveal important information about early human migrations into North America. The Native American group believed that any manipulation of the remains would show enormous disrespect to the dead and vehemently opposed scientific investigation of the skeleton, which they called the Ancient One. Because some of the features of the Kennewick Man, such as his height and the shape of his skull, indicated that he might not be of Native American ancestry but rather of European descent, a group of people representing the ancient Norse religion called Asatru also petitioned the court for the right to the remains.

The ensuing legal battle raged for more than nine years. One of the key questions of debate in the courts concerned whether or not the skeleton was subject to NAGRA. NAGRA requires that all Native American remains be returned to the tribe for burial, however it was unclear if the Kennewick man was of Native American ancestry. Eventually the court ruled that some scientific study was required in order to establish the origin of the skeleton and between 1998 and 2000, the Department of the Interior coordinated these studies. A 1999 physical examination of the bones established that the Kennewick Man shared most physical characteristics with people from Southern Asia. In April 2000, samples of bone from the Kennewick Man’s skeleton were removed and sent to two different laboratories for DNA testing. Because of the age of the bones, it was impossible to extract sufficient DNA for analysis and the results of the study were inconclusive. After a series of appeals by all sides, in February 2004, a U.S. Federal judge ruled that it was impossible to prove that the Kennewick Man’s ancestry was culturally affiliated to any of the Native American tribes in the region and gave scientists the right to go forward with their investigation. In 2005, plans were outlined for study three-phase study involving as many as 23 different scientists.

The dinner was over and it was time to go home. The impact of this NAGPRA has seriously hampered science by bringing politics into the whole business and allowed ourselves to be hampered by sensitivity. America had allowed our guilt over pushing the Native American’s westward to cripple us the same way we currently do over slavery, neither of which we can do anything about now. All we can do is learn from those experiences, which is what science is all about.

Instead of learning and expanding our worldly knowledge, we’re wasting time appeasing political factions, getting grants so we can move some bones around the country and argue over bones that pre-date our known understanding of history, which is shallow at best.

But that is the nature of politics. It’s equivalent to living life in a straight jacket. All I can do is shake my head at the invention of yet another useless government created position, a Forensic Anthropologist that spends less time digging and understanding the past, and more time filling out papers to qualify for federal grants.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Things Will Never Be the Same! Educate Ohio is Uniting the State

I’ve been working with a group of reform minded people all over Ohio. In fact there are a number of these types of movements going on, while sadly, the school systems are playing the same old game. Here is an article from Larry Budd, writer for the Dayton Daily News.

To give a bit of background, Kelly is a board member for Springboro whom I’ve had some great discussions with, and Paul Lambert has been instrumental at getting things started with some fantastic facts and figures. He resides and does most of his business in Columbus and is a great resource. You can see some of Paul’s work here:

http://savethehilliardschools.blogspot.com/

Paul and Kelly are a lot more patient than I am regarding politics, and are great people to be at the front of this effort.

School-levy foes back to work on new state group

Educate Ohio would be an alternative to the Ohio School Boards Association.

By Lawrence Budd, Staff Writer Updated 2:04 AM Friday, January 14, 2011

CLEARCREEK TWP., Warren County — Selected board members from school districts in six Ohio counties will huddle Saturday in Warren County to continue the creation of Educate Ohio, a new organization designed in part to make up for perceived shortcomings of the Ohio School Boards Association.

“There are board members that aren’t necessarily following the teachings of OSBA,” said Springboro board member Kelly Kohls. “It’s probably a presentation of the other side of issues. We need someone presenting the taxpayer points of view.”
OSBA executive director Rick Lewis said his group — governed by board members supported by all but three of Ohio’s 719 school districts, including Springboro — communicates information and curriculum used to educate school board members across the country.

“We’re very responsive to changing our priorities,” he said. “Sometimes there’s just different perspectives on how to get there.”

Kohls said her group would provide the public different perspectives on budgeting, tax levies and negotiating contracts with teachers’ unions.

The state teachers’ union, the Ohio Education Association, questioned whether the public would turn to Educate Ohio for information.

“The media and the public tend to turn to state educational organizations that represent hundreds of thousands of education personnel. They have a proven track record of working with education policy,” said spokeswoman Michele Prater.
Educate Ohio also would help other grass-roots statewide organizations, such as Educate Springboro, Educate Hilliard and Educate Worthington, which opposed recent levies in those districts.

The group was conceived in Hilliard by school board member and blogger Paul Lambert.
“We’re not trying to build some statewide political force. We really want to help the folks in the local communities,” he said.
Lambert purchased the educateohio.com web address, as well as web addresses for community-based offshoots in Hilliard and Worthington, two Columbus suburbs. He provided the address used by Educate Springboro, a community group that formed a political action committee to oppose a November property tax levy that would have generated new operating money for the district.

While a founder of Educate Ohio, Kohls has emphasized she is not a member of Educate Springboro.
“You have to kind of remove yourself from any political-action group,” said Don Miller, incoming president of the Springboro board. “It’s kind of our job to look at it from a big-picture perspective.”

Current, former or aspiring board members from Marysville to Versailles and Kettering to Springboro are planning to attend the 2 p.m. meeting at the Clearcreek Twp. Government Center. Yet Miller said, “I had no idea” about the meeting in his district.

It is the group’s second meeting following one in December at the Golden Lamb Inn in Lebanon. In addition to current, former or aspiring board members from Springboro, Hilliard, Marysville and Grove City districts, the meeting is expected to attract people such as Rich Hoffman of nolakota.com, which opposed a recent levy for Lakota Local Schools in Butler County.
Hoffman suggested public education reform hinges on decisions by Gov. John Kasich and progress in settling debates over equity in school funding that go back decades.

Herb Ernst, a former Oakwood board member affiliated with Citizens Advocating Responsible Government, a PAC that questioned school spending in Kettering, said his local group is considering adopting the name, Educate Kettering.
While hesitating to yet call himself an Educate Ohio member, Ernst said he planned to attend Saturday’s meeting.
“I think there’s going to be growing interest,” Ernst said.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

A Gaze Back and Looking Forward: Education Funding is Changing Forever

The gravy days are over. The citizens are paying attention to many aspects of education that were never discussed, like teacher salaries being excessively high, and buildings with luxurious amenities. In a recent survey from Braun Research Inc. who conducted phone interviews with more than 3,400 Hoosier registered voters November 12-17, 2010, that firm’s president, Paul Braun, expressed confidence in the accuracy of the study’s results, due to “thorough briefings stressing objectivity, heavy monitoring, sample performance reviews, verifications and post-data-collection checks on each survey by interviewer and phone center.” Of the many conclusions of that survey Indiana voters lacked awareness and information about how much is spent in public schools. Nearly two out of three respondents (64 percent) underestimated per-student spending in the public schools.

As usual, Doc Thompson did some great work on this topic that he covered on the January 12, 2011 broadcast that is worth listening to. It is refreshing to have real discussions about these issues now. The gist of this discussion is that things are going to change, and change rapidly for public education funding.

But know the door has been opened. I know how difficult it was and I felt the wrath of attacks when I first started the enterprise of enlightening the public about education funding. The organized labor behind these tax levies attempted to apply The Delphi Technique on me, like they do everyone who speaks against wasteful spending, so I understand first-hand how the information has been kept quiet all over the nation for such a long time.

I countered that technique by using aspects of my personality that are entertainment oriented, something I’ve developed over the years performing in wild west shows and interviews for other projects, to throw a curve-ball at their strategy and start the ball rolling so others could hold the door open, and then others behind them could start pouring in to get control of the out-of-control spending that has been occurring in schools. It took that initial surprise from the organized unions by my approach to pry the door open. They really believed that by painting me as some hick cowboy running around with a whip that I would be made into something of a fool, which they counted on. What they didn’t know was that I have a business background, and I’m better at understanding difficult concepts than I am with the whip work. So because of their one-dimensional understanding of people, they were unprepared. And much to my surprise, people enjoyed the image I was projecting, of rugged individualism, and standing firm in overwhelming odds.

The truth of the matter was that it felt that way to me, like I was against the world. But I actually had hundreds of people behind me supporting the structure of everything, people who put up the money for the yard signs, people who went to all the meetings and took notes that they’d pass to me. People from inside the school system that was tipping us off to what was going on, and people who were going door to door to pass out literature. There were other people who worked the email campaign, and helped in so many other ways. But since I was the face of it, the wrath came at me, and I deflected it with the cowboy image while the business side worked with some very smart people to crunch numbers and get to the truth.

At the end of the day, that cowboy image says more about me than the business side. My children and grandchildren won’t discuss someday how good I was at working with numbers in a spreadsheet or negotiated a contentious point in a dispute. They’ll talk about the speed and accuracy competitions at cowboy events, and the many times I’ve shocked audiences with my fire whip displays, including professional stuntmen. So that image is far from just some conjured up image for marketing reasons. But it did help in this case, to overcome the opposition in a unique way.

What usually happens in management is that once you show people how to do something, they’ll then take that information and put their own spin on it. And that’s what’s happening by people who are far more passionate about education reform than I am. I have discovered now through correspondence from people who have been fighting this fight for many, many years, that all some of these people needed was a crack in the door. And they understand more about how the game is played than ever, now that we’ve started having really intelligent conversations on WLW.

Darryl Parks has been talking this talk much longer than I have, so it wasn’t difficult for him and me to feel some passion about the shake-down that occurs. But I think everyone was surprised when I went on WLW with our treasurer, Dan Varney and discussed the wage levels back in September, because that information was straight out of the newspaper. But the game that is played is that information is released in March, when the last things people are thinking about are schools or elections. Spring is on their minds, and coming out of a long winter. So most people would wad up the paper and toss it in the trash.

But my good buddy Graham George, who is a senior citizen, and is always organized kept that paper from March of 2010, and we went on the air at WLW and discussed it with Scott Sloan. The reaction from the public was so violent and sudden that I was surprised that nobody had done this kind of thing before.

Fortunately I had scheduled with the Cincinnati Enquire to have a backyard interview with me because of my YouTube video, A Whip Trick to Save America the very next day, and they wanted to do a feature about that and how it applied to my resistance to the school levy. So when that story came out, the gloves came off. The progressives all over the state that were listening to WLW decided to make me out to be some illiterate cowboy, which of course didn’t fit the facts I was able to put out on the radio broadcasts. People saw how the game was played and when I didn’t turn away and hide, but only increased my activity, it allowed people to see the structure of the game.

Now that the deed is done, the School Board is struggling to figure out what to do next. They are talking about solar panels, which is fine, but still doesn’t address the largest cost to the budget which is wages, and should be explored regardless of a budget crisis. The board is now fighting for the president position arguing over who should lead. Ray Murry is talking the right type of issues, discussing whether or not the district should have spent 90K on an employment search for a new treasure and superintendent. Those are nice discussions and I’m happy to hear the debate on both sides, but in reality, it’s just politics because the numbers are just peanuts compared to the elephant eating them.

However, the problems will only get tougher, so while the School Board is struggling with each other to figure out what the community wants, they would be very “wise” to accept the help of our local business leaders that have offered to assist.

I have placed the offer to the board and was told that “most business people would probably become frustrated by the restrictions.” That was a polite way to say that the situation is too complicated for most businessmen to deal with. Well, that complication has been made complicated for a reason, and it’s to prevent “outsiders” from being able to offer fixes. It’s all part of the organized labor strategy, and the community knows it.

And I can promise that the education of those types of methods will only increase as more and more people send me information hoping that I’ll articulate it on the radio or on this blog.

So it is advisable that the games stop now. Grab the hands that are offering to help and be ready to do things you’d consider unthinkable 6 months ago. If you do it now, you can save the district and yourselves, and many, many jobs. If you don’t we will go off a cliff as a district.

The next levy attempt will not be about Rich Hoffman the cowboy whip cracker. Too many people want to be involved and I will gladly accept their help. I have enough personality and success that I don’t need the attention. I’ll put myself out there if people don’t feel comfortable doing it themselves, but I don’t see that being a problem in 2011. Because I see a wave of volunteerism, and other people who can speak coming boldly forth to push that door open even wider. So the decision doesn’t just sit on the shoulders of Lakota, but every public school everywhere.

So stop the games. Embrace the public, because they are your employers anyway, and be ready to do what’s right. Things are at a point where many things can be fixed and nobody has to be contentious enemies. It’s just business, and there are people who can offer that assistance for free, and once it’s done, Lakota could serve as a bright light of hope for all others to follow. But it takes one school to courageously step forward and be the first to open the door. Everything else will take care of itself.

But cling to the way things have been done, and the world will soon swallow you up. So make a decision…..quick!

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

School Choice is a New Choice: Education Funding for the Future

Doc Thompson had on Chad from School Choice Ohio on 700WLW. If you don’t know what School Choice is, listen to the conversation with Chad below. Not only do they talk about School Choice, but there is some great discussion of several incidents of gross waste from districts surrounding Cincinnati.

I’m a tremendous supporter of School Choice, because people are thinking and it is working where it’s being used. So why isn’t it being implemented? Well, organized labor is very much against it, because they have to maintain the current structure in order to support the collective bargaining agreements they’ve negotiated for themselves.

School Choice is being tossed around by a new group of several representatives from districts all over Ohio that have been meeting to implement educational changes, called Educate Ohio, which I’m a proud part of.

There are options out there. We don’t have to just do the same old thing time and time again, which are just to put funding issues on a ballot for a school levy against our property taxes.

I spoke recently on WLW about how both my kids took online classes during their senior years and finished their entire senior year before Christmas. Now my kids are smart kids. They had been on the honor roll a number of times all through their education and tested well above average on their SAT tests. They attended Mason for about half their youth, were home schooled by their mother for about a year, and then spent their high school years at Lakota. During their entire education lives they excelled. But once they got past their junior years, they wanted to move on, which they get from their father, not having the patience to just cruise through life held back by the shackles of people happy with a mundane existence. Both my children spent their remaining years of their senior years traveling Europe, camping at Stonehenge and exploring places like the British Museum, and I’m eternally proud of them, while the other kids their age were spending their Friday and Saturday nights drunk and puking at mindless parties and wasting away while they waited for college classes to start in the fall of the following year.

The system we’ve had in my opinion is broken. I’m happy to go along with things as long as all those mediocre enablers called school officials don’t ask for more money than we already pay in property tax.

But they are asking for more money, and asking for us to pay for their communist leaning tendencies, and yes, they do have a communist leaning. If you don’t know that, or can’t understand that, or don’t want to call it that, go do some reading, then get back to me. I’m not going to waste my time giving you an education that you should already have.

Meanwhile, it’s time to explore other options that bring out the best in our individuality, and we reject the collectivism that has emerged with the current, “expensive” system, because we can’t afford it, financially, or intellectually.

Check out the below article from Indiana. This is the way things will be done in the future. The sooner we get started, the better.

New Poll: Indiana Voters Support Choice in Education, Substantially Underestimate Public Education Spending
INDIANAPOLIS, IN – Voters in Indiana decidedly favor school vouchers and charter schools, and desire a balanced variety of options when it comes to educating their children, according to a poll released today by the Indianapolis-based Foundation for Educational Choice.

The poll-“Indiana K-12 & School Choice Survey”-also reveals that Indiana voters are unaware of how much is spent in public schools; most respondents substantially underestimated per-student spending.

“Hoosiers see the tremendous value in giving families options,” said Robert Enlow, President and CEO of The Foundation for Educational Choice. “If a school voucher, charter school, private, or home school can give a child an effective, personalized education, that child has a right to receive it. This poll shows Indiana voters agree.”

Braun Research Inc. conducted phone interviews with more than 3,400 Hoosier registered voters November 12-17, 2010.That firm’s president, Paul Braun, expressed confidence in the accuracy of the study’s results, due to “thorough briefings stressing objectivity, heavy monitoring, sample performance reviews, verifications and post-data-collection checks on each survey by interviewer and phone center.”

The following are the poll’s key findings:

Indiana voters are unsatisfied with the current public education system. On average, registered voters in Indiana are more likely to think K-12 education is on the “wrong track” (51 percent) compared to the “right direction” (31 percent). Indiana voters describe the state’s public school system more often as “fair” or “poor” (55 percent) versus “good” or “excellent” (42 percent).

Indiana voters lack awareness and information about how much is spent in public schools. Nearly two out of three respondents (64 percent) underestimated per-student spending in the public schools.

Hoosiers support charter schools. Indiana voters are far more likely to favor charter schools (66 percent) than to oppose such schools (16 percent). Respondents who said they “strongly favor” charter schools outnumber those who say they “strongly oppose” by a four-to-one ratio.

Hoosiers support school vouchers. Indiana voters are far more likely to favor school vouchers (66 percent) than to oppose them (24 percent).

Indiana voters indicate they should have a variety of schooling options. If they had the option to select any type of school to obtain the best education for their child, 41 percent said they would choose a private school, 10 percent a charter school, and 7 percent a home school.

“This poll shows most Indiana voters do not realize how many of their tax dollars are being spent on an education system they do not even consider effective,” said Enlow. “Giving families the freedom to choose the education that’s best for their children would ensure funds were spent more effectively, and it would give every child access to the education they deserve.”

To see a summary of survey results, a series of PowerPoint slides highlighting key findings, and description of the methodology, visit http://www.EdChoice.org/IN-Survey.
Braun Research callers interviewed 1,017 registered voters in Indiana to produce an initial statewide sample. Braun Research then made additional phone calls to achieve at least 350 total completed interviews in each of eight counties. The margin of sampling error for the statewide survey is ±3.1 percentage points and approximately ± 5.4 percentage points for each of the eight countywide samples.

About The Foundation for Educational Choice

The Foundation for Educational Choice is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and nonpartisan organization, solely dedicated to advancing Milton and Rose Friedman’s vision of school choice for all children. First established as the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation in 1996, the Foundation continues to promote school choice as the most effective and equitable way to improve the quality of K-12 education in America. The Foundation is dedicated to research, education, and outreach on the vital issues and implications related to choice and competition in K-12 education.

Please visit our website to read the full study at http://www.EdChoice.org/IN-Survey.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Thanks For Reading: Over 10,000 Views in December!

Since I began this web log, a lot has changed. The intent was to provide some conservative views to combat the numerous liberal sites that are out there. One thing the left is good at is selling their position. Conservatives tend to trust the law and keep themselves out of some of the crazy rhetoric that one must engage in to combat the radicalism of the left’s strategy. Conservatives have great ideas, and often have history on their side. They just need to become better at selling it, and have lost over the last two decades terribly to the radical left at communicating ideas.

There have been great strides at the top-level of communication, to sell logic and traditional principles. Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and many others have emerged to fill the market void that exists due to many Americans that lean-to the right. Only a small percentage lean left, yet it is the left, because they are more aggressive that is shaping the world in a way the majority of Americans don’t want. But those top names can’t due it on their own. The left has managed to be very successful at having their own big names at the top, people like Michael Moore, Sean Penn, George Clooney, Keith Obermann, and James Carvel do their work, but they also have active grass-roots to carry the baton MoveOn.org and the Huffington Post along with many, many others to lead an active online campaign that occurs daily and fills millions of email boxes with a leftist spin that partially inquiring minds have difficulty combating.

There is a radical left that has an agenda and wants to reshape the world. They showed themselves quickly when the terrible tragedy in Arizona took place. That is why I decided to take steps over the summer of 2010 to begin my own site that could grow over time and capture great radio, and commentary from the conservative side in an attempt to off-set the aggression of the radical left and the direction they want to take the country.

Radio like what Doc Thompson does locally on WLW is particularly powerful, and while those sounds broadcast over 50,000 watts to hundreds of thousands of ears, people often forget what they heard just a few hours later. It is my intent to capture some of those moments so people can return to them later and listen at their convenience. Stations like WLW makes it available for complete podcasts of these programs, but I seek to make it easier for people to filter out the important moments, so I am going to the trouble to provide some professional editorial help for the convenience of the curious listener. One such example is the below section of Doc’s show from January 10, 2011, the first time he was on the air after the Arizona Shooting.

There are other conservative blog sites out there. I particularly like American Thinker, and The Blaze.com. But, I have found that I have some abilities that are particularly beneficial to the blog medium, experience in video, editorial training, and the ability to write thousands of fresh words each day that is pertinent to current events and complimentary to the other work within the conservative movement. I also understand the value of entertainment, and live a colorful life that people find inspiring. It is a pleasure to share that with people to use in their own lives. In other words, not all conservatives are suit-and-tie men and work in the law profession. So I have a unique position to speak from and I’ve found that people enjoy it because it loosens up the seriousness of some of the topics.

Currently I’m drooling over my copy of Colonel Roosevelt, the new book just released by Edmund Morris and given to me by my youngest daughter for Christmas. I had some things to finish up before being able to jump into that book. Roosevelt back then read a voracious amount, and I share with him a childlike curiosity for everything. I adored the previous two books on Roosevelt by Morris called The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and Theodore Rex so I understand his ravenous appetite for fun and knowledge that only children seem able to combine. I have often wondered what a man like that would be like in today’s culture where a person can read on a digital pad, write on a keyboard as fast as his mind can produce the information, and be exposed to thousands of various media in television, radio, and the internet.

I can imagine because in my own life I often write while walking, read whenever I’m sitting, and if I get pinned down in my living room I watch two televisions at the same time while scanning the internet on a lap top, and playing Xbox. My wife has gotten used to my multimedia abilities even though she is accustomed to reading 12 to 16 hours per day in the same spot without any noise, which is how she prefers it. She often cringes when I come home and “power up” plugging myself into the world. She prefers to turn off the world so she can see it clearly. But as for personalities I can relate to, Roosevelt is one of them. He was a Republican. He was a lot more power-hungry than I am, but his adventurous nature and insatiable appetite for knowledge I share with him. I was very disappointed to hear Glenn Beck proclaim that Roosevelt was the creator of the Progressive Movement, which anyone who has read my stuff here knows I despise. But those events had not yet been explored in Theodore Rex, and would not be revealed until this Colonel Roosevelt volume. I am hungry to see how those events transpired.

Glenn Beck I think feels the same as me about Roosevelt, because Beck himself appears to be a similar personality, always plugged in and learning and doing it with a childlike curiosity. And he knows that the creation of the Progressive Party, which Roosevelt ran against the Republican Party, ushered in Woodrow Wilson.

I don’t personally know Beck. I’ve only been around him, so I can only make assessments about him based on the work he does, which is the volumes of books he reads, he is writing about three books a year, does three hours of radio, one hour of television and still values time with his family. Roosevelt did much the same, while President he wrote books, read many more, and still had time for all his interests. And I’ve been getting the same type of comments, “how do you have time to write all this.” And, “how do you scan all those videos, and listen to all that radio content, and read too. Is your wife lonely? What do you do for a living?”

All I can really say is that it has something to do with never really growing up. If more people took into their adulthood the energy of their childhoods, they’d find they can do a lot more with their lives. And they’d be less prone to chemical abuse such as smoking, over-eating, and drinking. An active mind is a happy mind, and that is what will be finding its way to this web log.

What makes me happy is sharing with people who things can be different. WordPress sent me the December numbers and seemed shocked that there were over 10,000 readers of my articles, which WordPress seemed to be very impressed with. And in just one business quarter I can see that many, many people want to help with the Lakota School Levy next time, which will make it a lot easier on me and the other people who worked hard on that campaign. Back in August you couldn’t find anyone wanting to even stick their name next to a controversial idea like saying no to the levy. And people are reading the stuff that is more libertarian and those articles are getting passed from email to email and is having an effect, even if it is only encouraging people to get involved in their local Tea Party, or the 9/12 Project and any of the movements emerging. It is a useful service to offer, which is to provide a place for people to meditate on some of these ideas at their leisure.

After putting topics on this web log, such as the pay rate of the teachers at Lakota, and the governor pay rates, and the amount of people that did not go to college, but are successful anyway, it has allowed people to openly question sacred cows that have simply been glazed over in the past, and I feel very privileged to have been able to provide that.

For the third No Lakota Campaign, there is now a line of people that want to be a part of the campaign. People heard me on the radio, and read what I wrote, and they saw that the levy failed, and now they are drooling to be a part of the next victory campaign, and not just at Lakota. There are districts all over Ohio that feel empowered to act. And that is much to my delight. A group called Educate Ohio is emerging from some of those curious minds, and that is something which brings me great delight.

I feel I can inspire more people to action the way I have been doing, which ultimately puts more troops on the battlefield. I avoid long drawn out meetings like the School Board Meetings at Lakota because they are very inefficient meetings. I tend to rely on “eyes and ears” for the important stuff. I attend when absolutely needed, which is something I’ve learned to do in management work. What’s coming is something that people who see clearly need to be free to articulate. So I will keep myself free of peril with tenacious equanimity. I welcome those who want to help and ad their names to the great fight to jump on board and help anyway possible. For it is the dream of all artists that their work inspires some didactic reaction to move beyond ones previous limits, and it gives me great pleasure to see that happening as a result of the work done at this site. Such a reaction is more important to me than money, fame, or any form of orthodox social acceptance. There is room for everyone that wants to cast an arrow on behalf of truth, justice, and the American Way!

So enjoy the ride! Much, much, much more to come.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Defend Ohio Rally in Columbus was Organized by Socialists

The shooting in Arizona is tragic. But at this time, the facts are still coming in, and there is other news going on at the same time that needs attention. One of those news stories is the impact of the man who structured the Defend Ohio rally up in Columbus to protest John Kasich’s position on organized labor is a Socialist!

Meet him here:

Doc Thompson had a great banter with a spokesman from Defend Ohio, a group I had never heard of because it was apparently formed just last weekend to attack John Kasich’s Administration before it could even get started. But the fellow came on WLW to discuss his position, and for that I give him credit. Listen to that conversation here:

If these people weren’t so dangerous, in trying to compete legitimately in the battlefield of ideas, I might just pat them on the head and encourage them to keep learning and trying. But, as I’ve discussed on this forum many times and in many ways, socialism, communism, progressivism, imperialism, and on and on, are infantile mutterings of the lazy, collective oriented that lack true courage, because they seek to hide their ambition behind a government entity that they wish to use as a bargaining chip.

I have news for those childish minds. The country was built on capitalist principles. Not socialist principles and unions. In fact, the growth of our nation has stopped since socialist started penetrating our political culture and used the aspects of American Culture we collectively feel guilty about, like slavery, like our treatment of women, and the handling of the poor, to manipulate the political spectrum in a way that has made the United States less competitive. For people who believe such things, their minds are like shallow streams and their recollections of American History are just as deep. American History may only be as deep as a mighty river, but there is much more under the surface that makes up the contents of the river. America is not just simple poor against rich, working man against the white-collar man, black against white, men against women, its swirls of all those things and a lot more to add. Such duality in thinking is only useful to small-minded souls that can’t see beyond their individual cages.

When I heard the interview above on Doc Thompson’s show, I thought the man from Defend Ohio was naive, but well-intentioned, and I had figured he just needed to think things through a lot deeper. But now I know after a little research, that the people behind this rally are socialists! No wonder they don’t like Kasich!

Before 2010, I thought communists and socialists in our American society was something that was attempted during the McCarthy era, and even then, I actually thought that McCarthy was far-reaching in his pursuit to weed out communists. I thought that because I believed what the media told me, that Joseph McCarthy was a right-winged-paranoid-do-gooder. I started to question the media when I saw that they used the same approach to attack Kenneth Star, when he investigated Bill Clinton. Star was just doing his job. Clinton had flat-out lied in federal court. It happened right in front of our faces, so that made me question the reporting of the socialists in the McCarthy hearings.

Now, the evidence is everywhere. Socialists have their own party. They try to put up candidates, they have infiltrated unions, newspapers, television, Hollywood, publishing. They are a legitimate competitor for political ideas and they have done it under the radar.

So now they have met at the capital of Ohio on January 8, 2011 to protest a Governor that is trying to bring capitalism oriented ideas back to a state to attempt to save that great state from the damage done by socialist that have infiltrated the political culture for decades. The difference between now, and when they originally started, is it’s out in the open who and what they are. And America has to make the decision about what they want to do about it.

It’s ok to be wrong. And socialist are out-of-their-minds wrong. But it’s not OK to wreck American Culture to pursue the infant diatribes of half-baked minds.

Now, to understand what is behind Defend Ohio, read this article. I put it up here so it doesn’t disappear after this rally turns out embarrassing for the organizers.

U.S. | Labor & Workers
SOCIALIST CANDIDATE’S BACKERS FOUND NEW ORGANIZATION TO FIGHT TO DEFEND OHIO JOBS AND SER
by Dan La Botz
Tuesday Dec 7th, 2010 8:33 AM
Ohio leftists create Defend Ohio campaign and launch Stop Kasich movement against new government’s radically anti-worker program

Supporters of the Dan La Botz, Socialist for Senate campaign of 2010 met in Columbus, Ohio over the weekend to found a new organization and launch a campaign to fight for jobs and public services in Ohio—and they pledged to resist the policies of Republic Governor-elect John Kasich. Dan La Botz was the Socialist Party candidate for the U.S. Senate in Ohio in November 2010 and received 25,000 votes.

The labor and movement activists from cities throughout Ohio created the Buckeye Socialist Network (there will soon be a BuckeyeSocialist.org website). The Network’s first campaign is called DEFEND OHIO and will focus on defending public employees’ jobs and public services.

“Governor Kasich has unleashed a class war in Ohio,” said Dan La Botz. “And we intend to fight back. Kasich’s inauguration is the ideal occasion for Ohio’s working people to protest in at the Capital in Columbus and to show the governor that he is going to face four years of fierce resistance by unions and social movements.

“Kasich,” said La Botz, “pledged to revoke the union organizing rights of home care and child care workers in Ohio. This is a vicious and despicable attack on the some of the state’s hardest working and lowest paid workers. And it is not so different from President Obama’s recent promise to freeze the wages of Federal employees. These attacks on public employees parallel the private employers drive for two-tier labor contracts intended to lower wages and they parallel attacks on social programs for low-income people in our society.

“We will be organizing working people to fight to defend public employees’ jobs, their wages, and their right to unionize. We will be fighting to defend all of the many services that these workers—teachers, social workers, water workers, garbage collectors, and so many others—provide. In doing so, we will be beginning the fight to rebuild the power of unions in Ohio.”

Union members from the Teamsters, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, American Federation of Government Employees, Communication Workers of America, and United Food and Commercial Workers were among those in attendance at the founding meeting of the Buckeye Socialist Network. Representatives from Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton/Yellow Springs, Canton, and New Philadelphia attended the half-day meeting.

…………………………………………….

Hey, you can’t make this stuff up. Progress Ohio has their name all over this. These “types” of people are in the minority, but because they are motivated radicals, they must be dealt with equal passion from those of us that think correctly. And yes, there is a correct way to think and an incorrect way to think. Individuality and the power of the individual are correct. Collectivism is wrong. It allows the worst of people to live in a state of mediocrity. This popular video of the New York Public worker wrecking a car on a snowy street is a perfect example of what you get when you allow people to live in that state of mediocrity. This is your typical union employee. And I say that from lots of experience.

Don’t ever ask me to pay for people like this with tax dollars.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

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