Tag: Free Will

Lee Wong Supports Communist China: As a boot-licker he has proposed danger to our economy

Like I said previously, Lee Wong should not be running for the 4th District Senate seat in Ohio let alone polluting the streets of West Chester with his signs four months before the primary. But since he is, he’s more than open to criticism. I make no attempts to hide my support for George Lang for that same position. It’s not just because I’ve known him for a long time, but its due mainly to George knows how the game is played and he can play it without losing himself. Lee does not, he has no idea what he’s doing and it is reasons like his support of that ridiculous Chinese trade trip that he and Mayor of Cincinnati John Cranley went on under the umbrella of economic expansion with China that make me a George Lang fan in that race for the Senate of Ohio in the upcoming primary.

The game with China is one that all those representatives mentioned, especially the universities have missed the mark on. I doubt that they openly support the communist regime in China, but philosophically they are aligned at the hip and that makes all of them dangerous, domestically. Thank goodness President Trump understood the situation and he has played the leverage game against the Chinese very well, a trade deal with them will be signed very soon and our Dow Jones will shoot up to over 30,000 in the very near future. But to get there we couldn’t do as Lee Wong and his liberal partners wanted to do. I say liberal because Lee has listed himself as a Republican because he must in Butler County. If he were in Hamilton County with John Cranley, he’d be a registered Democrat, just for context. People who don’t understand business and the game of leverage believed even a year ago that because China has over a billion people in it, that they were all ripe for a new customer market. But, unfortunately, most of those billion people don’t have much money and all of them are tightly controlled by the communist government in China. So to get access to that market, American companies had to do a lot of boot-licking led by our inept politicians who were guilty of propping up the communist government with false power and appeasement.

Although the effort to reach out to China’s city of Jiaozhou as a sister city to Cincinnati with a trade agreement looks nice, its purely political and a not so disguised appeasement to the power of communism which with Lee’s often very vocal support of Chinese-American relationships, he is clearly not on the side of capitalist free market decision making. Whenever pressed on this topic the usual thing for Lee to do is cite his military service which he mistakenly believes is a trump card to any questioning of his patriotism. He even goes on the attack to suggest that he’s the only patriotic politician in the region because of his military service. But as we know, there are many circumstances where military people go bad and are less than patriotic, so Lee’s military service does not omit him from discussions about supporting communists. In short, if you support China in its current form, you are supporting communism. Until the Chinese overthrow their communist government and replace it with something better, they are a tyrannical regime that is a threat to the world. They are not our friends and they do not have leverage of our future—as Lee and many liberal economists would like you to believe. A good question for Lee in the upcoming debates would be for him to denounce China as a communist manipulator in the world markets, something that will reveal his true intentions and economic beliefs.

Fortunately, we are now looking at this issue in hindsight. I know George Lang stood with President Trump on the trade standoff that has been going on for a long time. The President is going to come out on top in that exchange. He of course understands the nature of economics and knew that China was a paper tiger looking important in theatrics only. Their population that is over 1 billion people are largely poor and unimaginative due to their communist rule, so they are not effective in marketplace competition, only when the rest of the world fears their population. Once that fear is removed, or any debt holdings they may have on assets to gain leverage in a negotiation, it becomes clear quickly what China is and has always been about, the ultimate spread of communism to the world and world domination by putting everyone in debt to the Chinese. It was always the plan and leftists in America know it, which is why nearly every university in North America have been kissing the ass of the communists for decades. It is what they wanted for America until Donald Trump came along and proved otherwise.

Trump called the Chinese bluff and once he did that, and he was very alone in doing so—China was exposed for what they were, looters who steal ideas and wealth from other countries by fluffing their feathers like peacocks to look bigger and badder than they really were. In the end, without America to loot off of, their economic leverage tanked in a big way and it forced them to the negotiating table with Trump and he knew it all along. He could wait them out, they couldn’t survive long without American imports and jobs to carry them along. That was the secret of the trade deal that’s coming. America had all the cards; China only had a massive population of potential consumers to dangle out there as a potential market expansion lure. But the truth in the end was that to gain market access our companies had to bend to the rules of communism, which Google, Nike, and the NBA were more than willing to do. And politicians like Lee Wong were there to pave the way for the embarrassments.

A basic rule in politics and in business that is true around the world, those who have the gold, rule. When negotiating with China, America had all the gold. China wanted some of it, so they are the ones who must bend in the negotiations. Not America. But if anybody had listened to all the dumb universities, John Cranley and Lee Wong, America would still be licking the boots of China. Lucky for us, Trump put an end to it, and I can say that there isn’t a more pro business Trump supporter in the Midwest than George Lang, the obvious best choice for the upcoming Ohio senate seat. Lee’s blind support of an obvious sentimental favorite of China leads to bad decisions and a very poor political philosophy. This is nothing new for those who know Lee best, the people who work with him. Having screwed up political beliefs doesn’t make a person bad. But it makes them dangerous in leadership positions and is just another reason why nobody should vote for Lee Wong, I would say for anything. Certainly not for Senate, but not for any public position. He uses the mask of being a Republican to stay in office, but his sentiments have and will always be with communist China.

Rich Hoffman

Another Way To Know Why Lee Wong is not a Republican: The cars we drive say everything about us

Another way that you can tell that Lee Wong, the West Chester trustee who is a clear Democrat pretending to be a Republican so he can get some votes in the 4th Senate District in Ohio, is by the car he drives. I didn’t know myself until I saw a video from a protestor confronting Lee while walking around his neighborhood. Under pressure from the protestor Lee went to his car as seen below and it was one of those ridiculous Fortwo cars that are considered “smart” cars and healthy for the environment. Those stupid little cars are nonsense and dangerous and should be illegal on our roads at only 70 HP with a 1.0L 3-cyl engine. No real Republican would be caught dead in one of those greenie weenie cars. The only people who have them are those who have allowed themselves to be caught up in the fiction of global warming, which is shorthand for the spread of communism around the world using environmental concerns as the change agent. You can’t be a pro capitalist Republican and drive one of these stupid cars—it’s just an un-American thing to do. Yet, I was not surprised knowing what I do about him to see that he was one of “those guys.”

Of course, whenever Lee gets pinned down with such statements his first thing to say is that he was in the military and that if you didn’t serve, then he is more of a patriot than you are for being in the armed services. So before going on about cars and what they say about the kind of person you are, let’s cover this little issue. I don’t begrudge anybody who serves in the military. I think it’s a great place to train tomorrow’s talent. I like having the best in the world, but I am not a yes sir, no sir kind of person. Its just not in me to follow orders from anybody. My life is far more valuable than the so-called “higher calling” they teach in the military, so I don’t feel a need to thank every veteran. Good for them for whatever duty they have done for God and country, but I view them as people far behind on their personal journeys. Anybody somewhat healthy can join the military and learn to follow orders. Learning to follow orders is not how you get the next great leaders, so in my mind, if that is not the objective, it’s a wasted effort, and the military isn’t about creating leaders, it creates people who learn to follow orders, which creates problems later in life when we have to teach veterans to think for themselves. So, I’m not a fan of veterans who promote themselves as the next political leaders managing our communities. I can see that even President Trump has had to learn this harsh reality, most of the big generals he brought into his administration have turned out to be Democrats, because by their nature, they are just other versions of government employees. My two favorite generals of all time were Claire Lee Chennault and Patton, and both of those guys were in trouble with the military all the time. I am far more rebellious than those guys, so Lee’s military service is just another blight on his record in my opinion. He didn’t lay down his life for me, he did what many do, he hid from responsibility by joining up to become just another government employee, which he never got over after all these years.

But we must talk about this stupid car, this little eco friendly piece of crap that should never be on a public road with much, much larger vehicles that Lee Wong drives. First of all he shows bad judgment in falling for the communist green movement dialogue that we should all do the responsible thing and surrender our desire for big SUVs and reduce our environmental footprint by driving smaller cars. Well, no, we shouldn’t. Rather we should drive the biggest and most powerful cars we can get our hands on because it says about us that we value our individualism in a capitalist culture and that our vehicles are extensions of ourselves in the grand scheme of things, which is why at any stop light in America that is double-laned in all directions, you’d be hard pressed to see any two cars lined up in the multitudes that are the same make and model—or even color. As American’s we like choice, and we like power and our cars reflect that. The greenie weenies who produced that ridiculous piece of crap, the Smart Fortwos were attacking the nature of American life by going as far to the opposite extreme as the SUV market was pushing for to make a political statement against American values. Pure and simple.

The car in an American market, which you don’t see elsewhere in the world, except a bit in Japan who have adopted our love of cars to some extent, is a statement and an extension of our homes. You don’t work hard in life to have a quarter million-dollar home and drive around a piece of crap–the car should be an extension of our life in general. If you are young, we understand you are working your way up in life, but your goal should be something bigger and better—always. You should never sacrifice your pleasures for the benefit of some climate change fiction made up by Democrats to control people through fear. You should get the best car you can get to go with the best house, the best clothes—the best of everything you can manage for yourself because that fuel drives capitalism and our American life that is the envy of the world. With Lee driving one of those stupid cars he’s announcing to the world that he is one of “those” anti-American forces working in the world to change the way we do things. And when he gets pressed on it he quickly retreats to his service in the armed forces as a defense. Yet obvious to me is that Lee is hiding behind his military service, to mask his tendency to follow the orders of whatever mass movement is happening at the time. In this case, its submission to the global warming communists. He is so enchanted with their message that he actually spent money on one of those stupid Smart Fortwo cars that could be toppled over easily with a strong wind.

What you drive says a lot about who you are in American cultures. Many people when they meet me wonder why I’m not driving around in a sports car, which I’d love to. Only I’m a big family person who often finds myself hauling around lots of people, so mini vans and SUVs are necessary for my life. I have a hot rod car in the garage waiting for a clear schedule and that keeps me appeased. But people just reading this blog site think I would have something more ostentatious, but reality has a way of sifting through an image to the heart of a person, and that usually ends up being the case. We drive our cars in my family for a long time, but we always buy them new, and as big as possible for the reasons described. People who make a choice to buy a smaller car, especially when they are older and have the means to do anything they want financially, are making a political statement contrary to the nature of American life, and that isn’t just villainous, its anti-Republican.

Rich Hoffman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rich Hoffman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rich Hoffman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rich Hoffman

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

Impeachment Will Only Help Trump in Ohio: Reflections on politics under the Liberty Tree

I was having a great time at one of my favorite places in the world when I got a call from an big time reporter from Cincinnati wanting to know if I could give a comment on camera about the impeachment of President Trump. As much as I wanted to, I was just getting off Mission to Space and my wife and I had a date planned over at The Land. I was as happy as I can get, the political world was shut out and had been all week and before me was all the optimism and fun that the Disney Company put in front of people able to see it. Yet, I was able to get my head back into the topic of the day and let him know what I thought, even if we didn’t do a formal camera interview due to my remote location. Now that all that fun is over and I’m back into the reality of a typical business day, I have a little time to answer the question properly that he asked me, which was, what did I think would be the impact of congress impeaching President Trump with a vote they are planning soon on his support in Ohio? My answer was that I thought the impeachment would help Trump and help Republicans win back the House. Democrats had severely overplayed their hand, and they would pay for it.

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The Liberty Tree! #disney #travel #life

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Part of the purpose of this trip to Disney for me was not the usual Mickey Mouse stuff that most people enjoy. Disney is good at what they do, there is literally something for everyone. My first priority was to see all the new Star Wars stuff, but deeper than that was all the great dedications to adventure that have come from their Animal Kingdom investments, yet even more specifically is the long time stand on patriotism that was a benchmark of Walt Disney from the beginning, so that people wouldn’t forget what made America great, ever. My kids are getting into their 30s now and my grandkids are just a bit too young for all the walking, so this little window to go to Disney with just my wife was open, and we jumped through it. The things I wanted to do and see were things that only I would appreciate so we bought the park hopper option and walked 40 miles over a four day period seeing all the things I wanted to do, specifically spending enormous amounts of time at the Epcot Center at the American Adventure pavilion and hanging out in Liberty Square at the Magic Kingdom by the Liberty Tree in ways I had never been able to do before, because it was just my wife and I. I was looking to recharge my patriotism and that is why Disney wanted those exhibits and it really helped put things in context for me.

I could go on an on about the imprint that modern politics plays on the management of Disney as a company, but there is no question about it, Disney World is one of the best shrines to the American experience that there is anywhere in the world. It is not lost on me that there are massive immigration influxes in the Orlando area where traditional white people are in the vast minority. That’s not a problem to me, so long as they don’t try to change America into the dumps they escaped from, and Disney World for them is their first and best experience as to what American patriotism is supposed to be about. With all that said, I just sat under the Liberty Tree for a while and watched the steam powered paddle boat run guests around Tom Sawyer Island with the wild west buildings extending all the way down to Thunder Mountain Railroad lingering in the background and I thought a lot about President Trump. I hadn’t been able to just linger in that spot most of my adult life because it was boring for my kids, but this trip I was able to before going into the Hall of Presidents and seeing the animatronic of President Trump speaking on the stage in the traditions of that presentation. Since he was elected I wanted to see what Disney had done with him in that popular exhibit and I was looking as forward to that as I was to pilot the Millennium Falcon at the new Galaxy’s Edge over at Hollywood Studios.

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What a great place! #life #disney #family

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The presentation didn’t disappoint. As I watched Trump speak I thought it was well done. Trump is the first president that I’ve actually met, and I had been close to his campaign as opposed to the other presidents, but the event was very inspiring in that it provided context to history, especially this impeachment attempt. What was happening now was every bit as contentious as Lincoln trying to keep the country together during the Civil War. We were every bit as involved in history as all the presidents on that stage had faced over time, only this was just the latest chapter of the American story. Modern executives at Disney may not like Trump, but the presidency is bigger than the moment and in the context of history, the trends were obvious, which is why I wanted to go to Disney World so bad. Just to sit under the Liberty Tree and have a Coke was pure gold to my mind and allowed me to spend many hours enwrapped in patriotism.

So, to answer the question started at the beginning of this little piece, the Democrats are on the wrong side of history and it won’t be long before it is just one more story in the Hall of Presidents at Disney World. The Democrats have made themselves villains to the world, and they would pay for it. And that isn’t just partisan opinion, it’s the trend of our times. As I landed back in Cincinnati from Orlando, England had just had their election and the socialist Labour Party had their worst defeat since 1935. Democrats in America know the writing is on the wall for them and that is why they are impeaching Trump with what will end up being a nail in their own coffin. People see that they can’t win an election outright, they have no candidates, they have no ideas, they are losing their grip on people’s minds around the world and this impeachment attempt will only piss off people and inspire in them their own rebellions. Not with guns, but with votes, and that is bad for the future of liberalism, and great for the future of our country.

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What a great view of Liberty Square #disney #life #family

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In that context I think the impeachment attack is the best thing that can happen because it puts everyone’s cards on the table and forces reality to be dealt with. As I sat under the Liberty Tree sipping on my drink and thinking about these things in that magnificent setting, it was quite clear to me. Impeaching the president would not only help Trump in Ohio, but it would solidify him for the next election across the nation. We are in a battle currently as a nation, but every generation has their challenges. What lasts is the spirit of freedom that drives all of us, all over the world, people to come to Orlando for a chance at a decent job, Americans wanting to raise families, buy houses and take their kids to Disney World, or the people of England wanting to throw off the shackles of socialism once and for all, and even in Hong Kong where protestors are demanding freedom putting China in a terrible negotiating position with the tariffs. Trump is doing a great job as president and the enemies of America hate him for it. That’s why it will help him win Ohio by even larger margins and solidify his win in 2020.

Rich Hoffman

The Best Couple of Days of My Life: Galaxy’s Edge was a true masterpiece and marvel of achievement toward creativity

Anybody who knows me, knows that the way to my heart is through creativity, anything that shows an effort at outside the box creativity is the way to win me over to any effort. This applies to food, buildings, works of art, even relationships. I judge just about everything on the creative level of input from the participants, and if they don’t show an effort at creativity, I quickly disregard whatever it is as useless. I’m largely a Star Wars fan because the film franchise, the toys, the merchandise in general have always been very creative, and its fun to visit anything Star Wars as to offer from a creative standpoint. I always find that the reality of Star Wars is better than the reality of our present society because in Star Wars they are asking creatively how things could be instead of crying about how things are. If I had to sum up my love of Star Wars in one sentence, that would be it. So with all that context I visited finally Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Hollywood Studios and I have to say with great enthusiasm that it was a dream come true. I have to thank the Disney Imagineers and Bob Iger’s vision to turn them loose on this $1 billion dedication to creativity and everything that Star Wars could be, so that I could walk around and see, touch, taste and experience a Star Wars reality that I really thought would never be possible, even with my considerable talents at creativity being what they are.

I found my visits this past week to Galaxy’s Edge mind bending, and simply jaw dropping. I’ve traveled around the world and experienced many cultures. Nothing comes close to what I experienced at Galaxy’s Edge. Even though it is all a fictional reality, I found it quite clear that the Imagineers of Disney had not just recreated a Star Wars experience for fans of the films and books, but had created a better reality for which the stories of Star Wars had always been endeavoring to create in the minds of their fans. Only now it was real, you could see it, touch it, and taste it. The perfect symphonic elements of good storytelling I don’t think have ever been done this well anywhere in the world, ever.

I remember when The Lion King was all the rage on Broadway and how the use of the puppet props to recreate the story of the animated movie The Lion King touched people in what many thought was a sophisticated way. It was considered high art by even the most hardened social critics. Walking into this Galaxy’s Edge land dedicated to Star Wars with all the great sounds and music by John Williams genius work was not just watching a concert where the actors and musicians were on stage performing for you, but that you were now part of the story and the action was happening to you. It was an entirely new way to present a high art concept using a popular film franchise as the launching point. Everywhere I looked was an obvious, “this is how it could be” message by Disney Imagineers. The ever important asking of the question, “what if?”

To start by asking a question, “what if the values of cowboy cinema and Saturday morning serials could be met to the needs of the next generation of space traveler” was the question George Lucas asked years ago before using Joseph Campbell’s studies on mythology to launch the Star Wars film franchise. Then to see it evolve into a full three dimensional reality with the promise of more, and more for me was the most ambitious attempt ever conducted at such an audacious task, the realization of a fantasy into a known reality even on such a level as Star Wars is known for. This was the highest form of storytelling that I have ever seen in any format by any level of content. It was sophisticated, honest, and hopeful in inspiring people to ask those next level questions about our own reality. If you can have Star Wars in Disney World, then why not everywhere, and on any planet? As I walked around Galaxy’s Edge I thought of Elon Musk and what designs his engineers at Space X might be inspired to upon visiting this place and how the Mars expeditions of the future might take shape directly inspired by these constructs. In all my years of reading about mythology, comparative religion and science fiction in general, nobody had ever come close to doing anything remotely close to what Disney had done at Galaxy’s Edge. When they said this was the most ambitious project they had ever attempted, they weren’t kidding.

I couldn’t get enough of that place. It was the most comfortable I can remember ever feeling anywhere at any point in my life. When I was a kid I had a very creative place in my parents basement that was dedicated to Star Wars. I built lots of models and landscapes dedicated to the old Kenner toys and I enjoyed that until about age 13 when my parents were concerned that I’d rather spend time there than in dating and socializing. They took it down while I was at school one day and let me know that they were going to fix up the basement and were going to move me down there so I could have my own room through my teenage years. I never really got over that experience, I was so angry about it that I carried it around for years. Not that I could blame them, they thought they were doing the right thing. But for my kind of mind, it was the worst thing they could have done. I just wanted to have a creative space for my mind and when they took that away, there wasn’t a replacement so I internalized everything because there was no other choice.

And even when you grow up, it doesn’t get any easier. People want pieces of you every hour of every day, and if you are a good person, you do all you can to help them out with their problems. For me, the more people who come into your life the harder it is to find time to think, which is what I like doing the most. So as ridiculous as it sounds, I have been craving that creative space for myself all these years since then to now, but life just doesn’t give it to you. You either get it as a kid or never again because kids don’t yet have the responsibility of life. So they get free time to think about things, and when life came to interrupt my creative solitude, I did the best I could with it, but nothing life offered was ever as satisfying as that creative space I had in my parent’s basement when I was 9 to 13 years old. Walking through Galaxy’s Edge it was obvious that my sentiments were not alone to me, but that many of the people who had built the place, under the power of Disney’s financial abilities, had similar experiences as me, and this was a love letter from them to the efforts of creativity. It was a place I had been thinking of building since I was a little kid and seeing it and being there was very special.

I can’t say enough good things about it. I’m so glad to have the opportunity to visit the place. It was and will likely remain one of the best couple of days of my life.

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