The Glory of Spring in a Capitalist Culture: Loving life and the flowers that emerge from it

I have to take a moment to just step away from the treacherous topics of the day and utter an appreciation for the majestic opulence of spring. I continue to be amazed by American culture within capitalist climates and how resilient they are to positive stimulation. We have invented for ourselves a continuous parade of positive celebration which is fueled throughout the year with a new activity every other week. When I speak to foreign nationals and explain American culture to them my optimism is not a false one. Recently we just had a Super Bowl in the hardest part of winter, then some minor holidays like Valentines Day, St Patrick’s Day and so on, then there was the Final Four, and coming up is the opening day of baseball, the NFL draft, and every weekend there is NASCAR racing. But there is nothing that sets the tone for human activity more than the period around Easter when spring is in the air and a renewal of life begins. Stepping into Wal-Mart the other day the shelves were filled with flowers waiting to be planted and the freshness of a heavy rain was filtering the outside air with an ionized cleanliness that only comes after a spring time storm.   Easter decorations were complete with their vibrant colors and promises of family gatherings, and I knew that life was good.image

Spring is where all the fun starts for a human being in free, capitalist society. It’s about lawn mowers, radio broadcasted baseball games around the grill, and landscaping private property in a way that reflects the pride of ownership. It’s about fresh water and flowers as buds emerge from trees coming alive again after the stifling cold of winter. Spring tells us that we have gotten through it and are ready for the sun, the pool, and amusement parks in the upcoming summer months. I never tire of spring—ever.

I love the upcoming summer movie season where every weekend produces a potential blockbuster of some sign stimuli meaning, and then there are the holidays, first Mother’s Day, then Memorial Day, Father’s Day, then the Fourth of July. I am always a little sad when Labor Day hits in September and the WEBN Fireworks blast away the memories of summer in my downtown of Cincinnati. But the NFL starts the weekend after and every weekend for the rest of the year is a festivity of epic drama as we pick our favorite teams for Sunday clashes. Then there is Halloween and the cool air of October and all the mythology of pagan rituals long forgotten. Then there is Thanksgiving and Black Friday—time with family and all day football games around a raging fireplace. After all that comes Christmas and New Year where the world takes a deep breath and some time off work to appreciate everything and everyone in their lives only to start the whole process all over again—with every two weeks or so producing some new product of some human beings mind.

But I love most of all when stores put out their flowers for spring planting because it means more to the human consciousness than anyone cares to articulate. I love to get the lawn mower started for the first cut of the year as Reds baseball plays in the background, with drawers to my tool boxes opened for the many gadgets and gizmos I’ve picked up over time. The air in Ohio is just cool enough to not wear a jacket, but not hot enough to sweat and the sun begins to direct its rays with more precision into the Northern Hemisphere—and the plants reach out to it like fans at some great concert listening to a symphony that the rest of our solar system cannot conduct—because it lacks human beings to organize all the elements around a centerpiece of culture.

When it comes down to it, I’m not in love with the nature of what the earth provides, the rain, the flowers and the trees which spring forth in this particular time part of the year. I love what human beings do with those elements to enrich their lives—I love the creativity of the human spirit to invent something to always look forward to—to always lean forward as a means to awake each day to face new challenges. I love the way America celebrates the seasons and I wish every culture on earth would take notes from us and do better in their own cultures.

It would be fair to say that I’m rather obsessed with culture building. Most of the contents of this blog are a means to successfully recognize elements in our lives—mostly political—that allow for a successful culture. Management of resources after all is all about building a culture whether the intent is to fuel the lives of individual people with a livelihood or to deliver products to a global marketplace. The best kinds of culture are those which do both things and I never tire of contemplating the best means of achieving those elusive tasks. For me spring represents the best aspects of creation—it’s about creativity and the innate possibility for renewal.

My wife and I use our outside hot tub nearly every day—even on the harshest winter days. It gives us a reason to go outside and stare at the sky. If not for the hot tub, we wouldn’t typically spend an hour a day nearly everyday outside looking up. I love to study the weather patterns across the vast canvas of the sky, to watch the clouds form along cold fronts, or the high thin clouds of a hot day. But equally I like the menacing storms that roll in and dump a lot of rain and are propelled along by gusts of wind. From our hot tub we watch them all and the formlessness of their configurations never gets tiring. But another element that never goes away is the wonder of watching the stars come out at night as a roar of a train blowing out its horn emerges from the valley at the end of my street. I love trains because they are big, powerful, and they haul around the heavy products of mankind to markets a long way from their base of manufacture. When I hear the evening trains travel into the night from my hot tub as I count the stars in the sky on a blackened canvass I think often that out of most of those stars they are all lacking a culture—a simple train that is carrying products to market from the mind of imagination—and I feel sorry for them. I don’t think of the oceans and volcanoes on distant planets—I think about the products of human kind—and the happiness they bring to minds able to appreciate them.

I was at my daughter’s house yesterday and their dog was playing with my grandson. To cool off he lay down in a puddle of freshly placed water which had come from the last torrential downpour of the day. The dog just wanted to be a part of the water and to cool off after playing hard outside. The dog is one who was raised to be nearly human, my daughter talks to him like another person, so he tries with all his ability to be—human. But he doesn’t of course have all the senses and intellect to pull off the task and gets frustrated when he can’t carry on a conversation. I often look into his eyes and feel sorry for him because he cannot be a person—because he obviously wants to be. He would love to put on a pair of pants and hunt Easter eggs with my grandson and trade in his four legs for our two in less than a second. Then later I was taking a shower when a newly hatched bug fell into the bottom of the tub. I scooped him up before he went down the drain and took him outside. The little fella’ just hatched and being sucked down a drain right out of the gate is a rough life to live. Again, I felt sorry for the little bug, because it was just acting out of impulse toward living. But it didn’t have the intellectual facilities to appreciate the culture of spring and even though I saved it from certain death, it still wouldn’t enjoy life the way I do every day. However, that is the beauty of spring in a lot of ways. It happens whether or not we want it to and it comes again and again always offering a chance at renewal. Spring is best appreciated by the human being—and it is there that everyone should consider themselves lucky. The rest of the star laced sky would love to trade with us in our American culture and our continuous parade of celebration created by many minds for the pure service of our intellectual entertainment. When it comes to appreciating a season, I do spring more than any other for all these reasons and many more. Life is good—because through living, we get to experience all the culture of our imaginations—and the products of that enterprise never ceases to amaze me.

We bought some of those flowers at Wal-Mart, and I was glad we did.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Doc Thompson and Skip LeCombe: The Henry Reardens of talk radio

Doc Thompson and Skip LeCombe on their Morning Blaze radio show have been doing daily wrap-ups for the topics they covered during their 6 AM to 9 AM time slot on a video summary. Below is a sample of their show from April 1st 2015 which I picked because at the end Doc shows off his Rearden Steel t-shirt. The two of them have done a great job keeping a lively and informative broadcast that has become for me essential to beginning my day. Breakfast just wouldn’t be breakfast without Doc and Skip on The Blaze Radio Network.

One of the best parts of the Morning Blaze Show is the police blotters that come on at around ten minutes to 7 AM. Doc reads various news stories featuring police arrests in an old-fashioned style that is laced with rhyming comedy. It takes some work everyday, but they put their time in and do it right leaving me openly laughing during the segment much of the time. The segment encapsulates to what extent Doc and Skip do just a little bit extra above everyone else in talk radio to give their audience something fresh.

Most radio hosts show up on the radio and talk for 1 to 3 hours—take a few calls and essentially read the news to listeners, which for me is a valuable service. But Doc and Skip go just a bit further every day consciously mixing comedy with some rather pointed commentary on contemporary events. They know their subjects and relish in breaking down some of the most complicated topics of the news cycle.

In a lot of ways the Doc and Skip Show on the Morning Blaze reminds me of something that would come out of Atlantis in the book Atlas Shrugged. I know Doc enjoys that book—I wasn’t sure how much over the years he had retained his enjoyment, but obviously he enjoys it enough to wear a shirt featuring it. Ayn Rand for many conservatives is tricky stuff, mainly because she was an atheist, and I know that Doc is a Christian. In my own life, I wouldn’t call myself a Christian, and I wouldn’t say I’m a libertarian—I’m certainly not a social liberal. I’m not loosy goosy on topics of conduct. There is a lot I like about Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism just as I like a lot about the Christian faith as a religion, but neither tenant of thought goes far enough for me. The problem with Christianity is that I love the values, but I hate the notion of surrendering life to a deity in a spirit of sacrifice. Ayn Rand is really one of the only writers to emerge to capture the spirit of productivity and to embrace capitalism as a moral premise. But the religions of the world—Christianity included—are at odds with it. Rand dared to ask why sacrifice was necessary for a productive society, as capitalism is the mode of the creative. If people are creative and make things from their minds, why is sacrifice needed in a culture at all? That is the greatest moral dilemma of our age and humanity is facing it for the first time.

Over the years I have become less religious not leaning toward atheism in any fashion, but in developing a thought process that has the values of Christianity, but the empowerment of Objectivism. Current religions don’t go far enough in my opinion to solve the riddles of our age—and instead stay too far anchored into the past. I want to see more responsibility out of individuals instead of just pointing to the heavens and declaring that God wills something to be done in my life, so thus it shall be done—good or bad. That doesn’t work for me and never has.

Henry Rearden from Atlas Shrugged, the head of the company on Doc’s shirt—was a very self-empowered person, and there is a serious lesson to be learned from that book which should be expanded and promoted in a much greater fashion.   Of those in modern media, there aren’t many like Doc who has not run away from an association with Ayn Rand’s philosophy. He may not agree with everything about Rand’s Objectivism—but he understands the message of personal responsibility that pours from it in defining why some people do things that are really important in life, and why some just become parasitic entities for their entire existence. Without that very important distinction, there would be no proper identification in our art to properly explain why capitalism is important to societies.

Much of what Doc does on his show is paint the world from a vantage point as though he were broadcasting from a real life Atlantis featured in Atlas Shrugged. Viewed through the prism of a person who has read and understood the Ayn Rand classic, the news on the Morning Blaze is unquestionably in that spirit—which is why it has become a must in the morning for me. As the world crashes down around us, there are pockets of sanity popping up around the country that are migrating to The Blaze to live our lives independent of the wrecked economies of socialism, including the embrace of American culture of more European style collectivism.

In my own life I feel like every character who was a protagonist in Atlas Shrugged wrapped up into one person—and I’m living that life currently. I have a little Ragnar, a lot of Rearden, but even minor characters like Richard Halley I understand all too well. In my own work I am seeking to step beyond Rand’s musings, which is now over 50 years old and explore topics spawning off her initial concepts. I am less interested in pleasing the masses of society, and have instead come to broadcast them to a much smaller audience in a metaphorical Atlantis for the same reasons that Halley did in Atlas Shrugged. My Curse of Fort Seven Mile is one of those projects that I know going into it that will not be accepted in New York literature circles, and I don’t care. I write those stories for people like Doc Thompson—not for the pop culture icons of progressive definitions of coolness. Since I read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead I have wanted more to the story, but there just isn’t many writers out there who can write that kind of material with the authority and definition that Ayn Rand did. First of all they lack the experience, but mostly they lack the personal conviction and couldn’t write such a thing in their wildest fantasies. Just as there are a lot of talk radio hosts, there really aren’t any like Doc Thompson who puts forth just a bit more effort shown proportionally throughout his endeavors, like his police blotters.

Doc Thompson could be a talk show host at the level of Howard Stern if he wanted to be. I remember when he was brought to Cincinnati to take over as the primary man on WLW. But Doc has never really played well with others, not where it had to compromise who he is—even if the opportunity for more money and fame threw themselves at his feet. He has stubbornly been like Henry Rearden from Atlas Shrugged and conducted his radio show his way for his own purposes, and it took someone like Glenn Beck to recognize the benefits and to give him a prime slot on a global network. But even with the reach of The Blaze, the primary audience is an extreme minority—like the members of the fictional Atlantis from Atlas Shrugged. For those people Doc and Skip put on a great daily show. To the rest of the world, they are sadly being left behind. Even though the broadcast is easy and free to them, most of the time they will find themselves the butt of Doc’s jokes, instead of on the side of the typical audience member—and laughing intellectually at the follies of the world.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

The Iranian Obamanation: A socialist apocalypse in the Middle East

So the deadline came and went between Obama’s administration and Iran yet the result essentially was nothing but to talk more. The Obama people lost their momentum well before Bibi came to speak before congress. They lost it when the administration set the deadline in the first place and let those hostile to America—and capitalism in general—know that there was a light at the end of the tunnel on sanctions if they played their cards close to their vest. Meanwhile, many in the streets of Iran chanted, “death to America” as John Kerry tried to spin the situation into something positive. Yet again, the actions of the Obamanation showed just how stupid the President is, and the people around him—how tactfully ignorant they truly are. It is the second time in the course of a week that I have been too embarrassed by President Obama and his team to even utter a criticism, the first was the Bowe Bergdahl situation. It is simply unbelievable that an American president could be so stupid.

Iran has a long history with communism and socialism, in the 1920s it was the Hizb-e Socialysist Party. Into the 50s, 60s and 70s a variety of Marxist groups penetrated Iran and the rest of the Muslim world ranging in the spectrum between Trotskyist to Moaist recruited largely through universities and inciting the working poor against the capitalism of the West. Several generations of Iranians now have been nurtured into a hatred of capitalism because of the long history that Iran has with socialism. They have destroyed their economy nearly completely because of their commitment to socialism. The people of Iran are so under developed that they cannot ever hope to embrace the gifts of the West in their lifetimes—so hatred has seethed there for decades made worse as time has went on. When the United States launched sanctions against Iran it cut off the only hope that common people in the nation could have had for a good life—since internally the socialism of their country destroyed all potential prosperity. Most Iranians would have loved to have the arrangement that communist China has with the United States—because at least there are jobs given to them, but since Iranians are now two generations of sanctions into years of a dismal economic activity they really have nothing left to lose but to lash out at others like parentless children desperate for attention.

Cut off from capitalism, and some resemblance of an honorable living, the Iranian people are stuck fighting among themselves like dogs over scraps of meat—since their economy is so dismal, due to their choices. As a strategy against the world they have nothing to offer the world but a reprieve from violence—because that is what their adherence to socialism has done for them masked behind Islamic faith. To get the attention of the developed countries they have sponsored terrorism, and created anxiety over nuclear weapons to maintain some relevancy on the world stage.

The Obama administration, leaning toward socialism in their own way, is sympathetic to the collectivism efforts of Iran over the capitalist leanings of Israel—and they despise any trace of the West in the Middle East—not so much due to religious differences, but in the differences between a capitalist economy and a socialist one.   They want to lift the sanctions in a similar way as Obama did for communist Cuba—and Iran knows it. So the power in negotiations goes to Iran. America also wants everyone in the Middle East to have equality without the qualifier of a capitalist country or a socialist one using collectivism to destroy commerce. This again gives power to Iran over America. Yet the worst of all is that America has a deadline whereas Iran has all the time in the world. They have absolutely nothing to lose in negotiations with America—whereas Obama wants to make Iran a part of his legacy as President. Of course Iran has the upper hand in such an exchange giving nothing to Obama’s team in the form of leverage. Like insane fools they have rushed to enter negotiations against an adversary that wants to kill all Americans as a collective society.

Choking on ideology and really poor strategy, Obama lost before he ever went to the table against Iran—and they were at least smart enough to realize it. They should have seen what was clear to everyone from the beginning, but they ignored the evidence and chose to view the world with rose-colored glasses and the pipe dreams of typical liberals taught through academia to trust logic to the gods of speculation and wishful thinking. And in Iran, there is nothing to wish for leaving only desperate foes and scandalous bandits seeking with great desperation to get their hands on a nuclear weapon so that they might bomb their way to a loaf of bread, or a used 1970s American car—because in the beginning—they chose socialism over capitalism, and their world is suffering an apocalypse as a result.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Rich Hoffman Hosting WAAM Radio: Matt Clark’s Honeymoon and Hillary’s destruction of evidence

The news is fresh; my friend Matt Clark at WAAM in Ann Arbor, Michigan is getting married in June 2015, and has asked me to cover for his show while he’s on his honeymoon. Of course I said yes, because I like the station and what they are doing in a part of the country that is typically a blue state. Matt’s show is a shout in the darkness toward entrenched liberalism with their hand firmly on the light switch. Yet Matt does his show each week even though he doesn’t need to financially, just as I do with my blog. The show is an extension of himself in the perpetual fight for freedom. We always have a good time on Matt’s show, which was obvious from the clip shown below where we discussed Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails.

Several years ago I was offered a similar deal at 700 WLW with Doc Thompson just prior to his own honeymoon, which eventually cost him his job. Not because he asked me to fill in for him, but because the station was preparing behind the scenes to get rid of him. After Doc’s termination I more or less cut my ties to WLW and Clear Channel in Cincinnati including 55 KRC. Some of that led to the controversy the following month—they were as eager to part ways with Doc’s memory as I was of them. The other person I was loyal to at WLW was Darryl Parks, and he was not far behind Doc as far as a termination—the station obviously wanted to go into a different, more moderate direction, which did not fit the scope of my concerns. So I drug my feet with Doc because instinct told me something was wrong. I wasn’t sure what, but it was obvious that something was brewing, so I knew to stay away. I turned out to be more than right—as usual.

I have no such concerns at WAAM and have no problem making a commitment to the station even this far out. It will be fun to fill in for Matt, and I’m sure it will make his honeymoon just a bit sweeter knowing that someone of like mind is taking care of his show while he’s traveling. Like me, Matt does quite well for himself so his radio show is mostly a labor of love for the republic that is America. It means more to him to have the show do what he wants it to do while he embarks on one of life’s great adventures—marriage.

As far as the content of the show we did together about the Hillary emails, his take on it comparing her to The Office was spot on. Obviously she is obstructing justice by destroying evidence and covering up her involvement in the death of people who lost their lives because of her actions—or inaction. Her management of the situation in Benghazi led to the death of people and empowered the terrorists in the region on her watch to grow into the threat it is today. We had some fun with it on talk radio because the only other option is to grow depressed about how far we’ve fallen as a nation where the expectations of people in positions like Secretary of State have become simply a stepping stone to the presidency. The message behind the Hillary emails is that no evidence of incompetence would be allowed to be seen to derail that objective of obtaining the Oval Office. Hillary is the ultimate case of why institutionalism is nearly always a failure when individual responsibility is not nurtured.

Hillary Clinton is such a bad person that she will literally stop at nothing to obtain her personal quest for power and prestige—which is gained from collective enterprise and social acceptance. She’s a disgusting person, and is the reason that people like Matt Clark does a radio show every week. There are bad people in the world, and somebody has to call them out on their treachery and on Matt’s show, it’s a way to do that even if the task might seem like a drop in an ocean of corruption. Calling out the actions of one bad act, or even five during the airtime on WAAM is better than allowing them to go unanswered.

So yes, I’ll enjoy hosting Matt’s show. I’m sure we’ll light some fireworks and fire them off in a way that might be a little different. But I know that Matt wants what I do—and that is to save the Republic one broadcast at a time, one blog post at a time, one speech, or sometimes a whip crack all in the name of justice. The books I write and activities of enterprise I embark on are not necessarily for the immediate gratification of financial security—as I am a productive person, and already have those bases covered. They are for a functioning philosophy for the 22nd century. It will take that long to turn back the wheels of progressivism and get people thinking of a new and better way of maintaining and preserving a free republic with an intellectual aptitude that is required to sustain it for subsequent centuries. America has not yet come to those terms—and neither has mankind for that matter. But it never will so long as people like Hillary hide evidence of their incompetence to fulfill personal ambitions rooted in collectivism. The inept and treacherous find it too easy to hide under the covers of collectivism—which is why they support such things, and are often the loudest voices in favor of progressivism, socialism, and communism.

I will promise one thing, and those who read here every day know full well, I will make it count on the airwaves. It may be for a short time, but I will promise to give people something they haven’t received before—just because that’s my tendency when doing things like this. Otherwise, anybody could fill in for such a spot. Since Matt asked me, I will give him what he’s looking for. And for the listeners of WAAM, they will enjoy it immensely.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

The Meaning of Cliffhanger: Boons beyond the edge of safety

It has come up more than once over the last several weeks, most noticeably after the recent release of the latest installment of the Cliffhanger stories, The Curse of Santa Maurta as to what’s behind the name. The name of Cliffhanger for me is a personal one for two reasons, first I grew up loving the Jules Verne inspired films, Journey to the Center of the Earth and Island at the top of the World. Those films were done with a style and approach to adventure consistent with the best cliffhanger serials of their day and I fell in love with the optimism of how they combined science and adventure—much which was refined so well in the 1980s by the Indian Jones films, and Back to the Future specifically in the character of Doc Brown. I think I always wanted to grow up into something of a mix between Doc Brown, Indiana Jones, and Dirty Harry—and all of those stories were very top-heavy in the swashbuckling cliffhanger style of story telling typical in early cinema. For me personally the start of a love for cliffhangers was in the Disney classic, Island at the Top of the World. I always loved the fearless desire to solve problems in that movie while pushing to see what was around the next corner always presented in the style of a cliffhanger.

Also, for as long as I can remember, up until just yesterday, I have had a nearly obsessive quest to live life on the edge. I love danger and taking very large chances. When I was a kid I was always the first to jump from one cliff face to another while in a high adventure explorer post. And now I am involved in politics and transactions with other human beings that could have perilous consequences with even a slight misstep. But, in spite of giving peace a chance—I just can’t do it. If there isn’t a certain amount of danger in my daily life—I’m just not happy. I have always believed that some of the freshest and most innovative ideas come to a mind on the edge of reality—pushing the limits—and somewhere in that science is the key to invention.

My first jobs before I was 19 years of age consisted of a body-guard, a repo man, a fashion model and other colorful, short-lived enterprises consisting of living a very fast life as quickly as possible. It was on the way to a live stage performance as a model that I decided to marry my wife and chose a way of life that didn’t involve taking so many chances—thinking at the time that at some point my luck might run out. It turned out to be the very best thing for me as my first endeavors emerging straight out of a stable relationship were a gunsmith, an inventor, and an entrepreneur by starting a little company called Cliffhanger Research and Development. I desired greatly to invent new tools and concepts traveling to trade shows and filing patents on my ideas—and I did this for several years—until I was in my mid-twenties and realized what was stacked against me–politically. The world seemed poised to destroy the type of adventurous spirit I fell in love with in movies like Island at the Top of the World, and wanted to stuff my spirit into a box to be controlled. During this period of my life I met mayors, the extreme wealthy and learned to read the tides of politics. I learned a lot from one particular woman who lived in Indian Hill and had a very successful husband who spent most of the year traveling around the world avoiding his wife. I wondered often why a man like him would leave the fruits of so much labor behind to avoid his responsibilities in marriage, as his wife at the time had a lot of influence in the media around Cincinnati. After many offers from this woman and her immediate friends around Indian Hill to become a gigolo to them—it was an obvious conclusion that their husbands were driven by the same condition that pushed me along—a need for danger and adventure in their lives. However, I didn’t want in my wake such chaos and destruction. There had to be a better way, which displayed clearly to me that a new philosophy was needed in our culture that was clearly missing.

Instead of becoming wealthy from all my adventures I ended up being sued, owing a lot of money in taxes to the government, and putting a lot of strain on my own marriage just from some of the sheer risks that I always wanted to take. All of my endeavors where legitimate and well in the spirit of Doc Brown, but the world was deliberately standing in my way for some reason, and that condition became the next danger to overcome. It was the reason why I named my company Cliffhanger Research and Development. Much of my life was coming from the edge where literally every day could have been the end of my life as I knew it, and I was most comfortable in that position. I needed, and still do, to know that life is unpredictable from moment to moment and that anything can happen.

Over the years I’ve learned to waltz with this tendency of mine without leaving so much destruction in my wake. The desire to live life as a cliffhanger has become quite an asset instead of a liability—I never have a shortage of fresh ideas to solve complicated problems—because as I’ve always felt, most good ideas come from the edge of acceptable reality—the parameters of safe travel, intellectually. So I can take massive chances to my heart’s content—the luck never runs out not because its given out by some strange unmet gods, but because it’s internally generated through natural optimism, and I live a pretty good life without any regrets. I would still like to make my living as an inventor, but in the barriers to entry to that marketplace I found a much more lucrative target—the failed philosophy of Eastern and Western civilization.

The best way to tackle many of our modern problems and all the inventions that are being held back from human civilization because of a failed way to embrace a proper philosophy is the reason I created the character of Cliffhanger to fight crime and a world hell-bent on internal personal destruction. The characters in my Cliffhanger stories come directly from my past which is vibrant and full of color in a way that is unique. Really the lessons I learned living life so recklessly on the edge in my late teens and twenties has given me an insight into things that I haven’t been able to find in any books or stories that I have ever read. For me it goes back to that woman in Indian Hill who had it all—a wonderful home in an exclusive community, all her bills paid into the future for a hundred lifetimes of excess lifestyle, a beautiful pool in the back with a pool house larger and better furnished than most wealthy people’s homes, and a husband who liked her enough to marry and at least keep her from having to work for an employer. She had the adoration of the Cincinnati media and could call up some of the wealthiest people in the country any time she wanted. But she wasn’t happy—and her husband wasn’t either. They had lost their edge to life—the very thing that made them fall in love with life, and made them rich in the first place. They lost as they tried to secure their holdings with political maneuvers that took their fortune and placed it on the safe bets—thus destroying them as people.

For many years thereafter a friend of mine and I worked as part of his tree trimming business. We would climb trees and remove them from dangerous precipices on the property of many wealthy people. The men were always the same no matter where we went, and the women all had that hunger in their eyes for some needed adventure. During their climb for wealth they had lost something—that edge some sports teams have when they have a lead late in the game, then start playing it safe to protect it. More often than not they shockingly lose the game in the final seconds. The reason for that behavior became an obsession of mine.

I could now in my life become one of those people—but I avoid it like the plague. At a stop light just this week the temperature was 32 degrees outside and it was pouring rain at 6 AM. I was on my motorcycle as usual, my tires were bald from a hard winter of everyday driving, and the bike nearly slid to every stop I made. A guy pulls up to me at a stop light and yells, “F**kin’ ride hard man! You rock! Livin’ the dream!” He was of course referring to a middle-aged man riding a motorcycle on bald tires in near freezing conditions in a pouring rainstorm during early morning rush hour traffic. He desired himself to be out in the danger of life with me, but likely he was taught at some time in his past not to do things like that for fear of his own safety. Instead he takes other chances against life itself, like drinking too much, having relationships with other people who are dangerous and unhealthy and approaching safety in his life with a passive-aggressive rebellion they think nobody notices—like getting a tattoo where they think nobody can see.

Like the heroes from the movie Island at the Top of the World I have discovered in people something they don’t know much about themselves—perhaps not to the degree that I feel it—but most people do. There is a deep child-like yearning for adventure—for cliffhangers in their life where each day is a new one, and they never know what might happen. I am most happy in those conditions. I love the fire and I seek to stand right in the middle of it wherever it’s at. Because within it there is a boon to society that lives out on the edge, over the cliff—and often you have to hang over and extend yourself to reach it. So I invented Cliffhanger as a character to explore those boons. It is my hope that people who find their lives too safe and un-tempered in the fires of life will get what they need through my Cliffhanger stories. The safest way to bring people the needed danger their lives demand is through a character that is as fearless as anything ever put to print. But for those stories to have validity, they have to come from something tangible, and in the case of Cliffhanger—it does—a life lived hard and without a single day of reflection into something safer.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

The Obamanation: Just too embarrassing to discuss

I don’t like Obama, I think as a president he’s an idiot, and he’s at best one of the worst things that’s ever happened to America. But today I actually feel sorry for him. It would be terrible to live in his shoes, to have such an intellect that has led to so much destruction—and to be solely responsible for it. What a mess his presidency is—its not even dignified enough to have a closure as Nixon did—with a resignation ahead of impeachment. Obama’s time in the White House is such a miserable failure that it can’t even end with dishonor and an apology. He is so bad that such things wouldn’t even help.

“Was it worth it?”

That’s the first question Fox News host Megan Kelly posed to State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki on Wednesday night, several hours after the U.S. Army announced they were charging Bowe Bergdahl with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. The Obama administration released five Taliban commanders to free the former Army sergeant from captivity last year.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/03/25/megyn-kelly-gets-tough-with-state-dept-spokeswoman-on-bergdahl-swap-was-it-worth-it/

I hate to say it, but I reported on all this in 2014 when Obama brought the Bergdahl family to the Rose Garden for a press conference as if his actions in releasing a very controversial figure would give him a chance to wipe his hand across the ass of the deserter’s mother and allow the father to show the radical roots of their son through his speech. Obama stood by and smiled a knowing smile looking fully supportive of the misunderstood terrorist of the Taliban as Bob Bergdahl spoke Pashto–as if the Bergdahl family represented the future fate of all Americans—soon to buckle under the weight of Stockholm syndrome complete with a Taliban beard and worship of Allah from the White House. Obama had just made plans to release 5 terrorists for a deserter and had the parents of the weak-kneed solider thank the god of the terrorists in front of millions of people. Somehow Obama calculated that his Saul Alinsky tricks would wipe the minds of America so that they wouldn’t see what he was doing.

It took the army most of a year to release their findings but finally they had to agree that Bowe Bergdahl was in fact a deserter and had actually caused the death of American soldiers trying to retrieve him from his defection to the Taliban. There was no way for them to spin the situation in the White House but Jen Psaki tried—but to no avail. What was she thinking even going on the Kelly File to try to spin the story? As I watched I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her—as all her words would go down in history and never be forgotten. Even worse was the thought that Obama himself was watching and hoping for a half court miracle shot by Jen to turn the tide against public opinion. But she only dug the Obamanation deeper into the quandary of failure.

It was ugly. So ugly, I can’t even write any more about it. I’ve said all this before, and as usual, I was more right than I wanted to be. But even as much as I despise Barack Obama as an American president, I don’t hate anybody that much—to watch them make such complete idiots of themselves—the failure of the White House is complete. And they have nobody to blame on earth but themselves—and that is the worst punishment for their crimes imaginable, because it will be stuck to all of them for the rest of their lives. This Bergdahl situation is simply that bad. It is embarrassing, insulting, and deeply revealing all in a single action. And it is a story that will have legs for a long time, and go down in history books for centuries.

Even worse look who is defending people like Bob Bergdahl. Here is a quote from the extremely liberal New Yorker.

“Imagine that you have a child, a wanderer by nature, who gets caught up in a war that has persisted aimlessly for many years; his roaming has festered into a chronic pathology for which there is no known cure. Then imagine that the child, who had hoped to help make a change for the better, becomes so disillusioned that he or she decides that there is no choice but to just walk away into unknown territory. If that were your child, what would you do?”

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/bob-bergdahl-good-father

Clearly, Bob and his wife started the process of imbedding in the young Bowe the type of weakness that made him a deserter. For that family, as bad as the embarrassment is for Obama—it will be worse. What a mess!

These are just embarrassing human beings.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Sacrifice to Santa Maurta: Understanding the nature of terrorism

It is a pleasure to release the third installment of the Cliffhanger story, The Curse of Fort Seven Mile titled “Sacrifice to Santa Maurta.” These stories are part of an ongoing project I have to contemplate a philosophy for the next century dealing with themes that go well beyond the typical action adventure story. They are specifically construimagected to cover difficult aspects of our culture and weave them into the motivations of the present through a mythological means greatly underutilized in modern entertainment. The Cliffhanger series allows me to cover very difficult subject matter similar in manner to one of my favorite books, The Republic, by Plato where he uses Socrates as a character canvas for concepts of a philosophic nature to articulate the thoughts of their day. Using the modern Cliffhanger as a type of modern Zorro/Batman character it allows me to explore difficult contemporary subjects that just aren’t getting coverage any other way. A fine example of that is in our modern drug culture.

It is hard for people to understand the motivations of terrorist groups like ISIS or the drug cartels on the Mexican/American border. In many ways, I see the drug cartels as every bit as dangerous as ISIS. Like the Islamic extremists of late, the drug cartels routinely cut the heads off their enemies and incite terror all over the south western states and all across Central America. Terrorist cartels run Mexico and it gets very little press coverage leaving most people uninformed as to their motivations. What drug cartels and ISIS have in common is a sense of collectivism where the gang of thugs for which they are members are considered part of a family unit—and they partake in deity worship. In the ISIS case it’s Allah, in the typical drug cartel it’s Santa Maurte. This latest Cliffhanger story puts readers into the minds of a typical drug cartel member and covers some very provocative ground intellectually. I’m very proud of the way the story has come together and how it fits into a much larger philosophy which is of course the intention. The following description is what the “Sacrifice to Santa Maurta” is all about.  I changed the spelling a bit to avoid a direct insult of a goddess that is quite popular today.

The Los Ebola drug cartel is executing a young woman as part of a sinister plan to enact terrorism, drug addiction, and social unrest through-out America. Of their prime concern is the drug trafficking lanes lost recently to a rival cartel into the neighborhoods of Fort Seven Mile. The goddess of their religion, Santa Murata demands to be fed the blood sacrifice of an offering to turn their luck back to a favorable standing.

Yet the bandit Cliffhanger has other plans and uses his flaming bullwhips under the cover of darkness to enact justice against the blood thirsty desires of the skeletal deity and her otherworldly plans for global insurrection. But first a damsel in distress is in need across railroad tracks as a freight train looms upon her intent on creating a corpse. In spite of Cliffhanger’s heroics a forbidden technology is brought forth that will point to an answer that is more mysterious than the question—who is Cliffhanger?

It is exciting even though the subject matter is quite serious, to tell stories like this.   There is the typical swashbuckling aspect which is consistent to what they are becoming known for. That’s entirely on purpose. I’ve always thought that classic westerns were wonderful vehicles for instructing contemporary values and that is something missing from our culture. Cliffhanger as a series of stories is certainly modeled after my love of westerns and the villains are often dirty politicians, and drug cartels, but something that extends this into the work of philosophy is that the primary villain is a philosophy of collectivism as opposed to just an individual functioning from greed. That takes this work out of the realm of whimsical fantasy and makes it a platform for philosophy.

In the “Sacrifice to Santa Maurta” a concept is explored that permeates all collective based cultures—the concept of sacrifice, and the belief that something must be given up to something so that something else can happen. So far in the overall story arch of The Curse of Fort Seven Mile, sacrifice has been a consistent message. In the first installment, the police union wanted the community to sacrifice money to their requirements of a collective bargaining agreement to bring safety to Fort Seven Mile after a series of deaths and tragedies grabbed headlines. In the second installment, “Latté Sipping Prostitutes” a teacher’s union expected a sacrifice on behalf of the community in order to care for the children attending their schools. In this installment, “Sacrifice to Santa Maurta” the belief in sacrifice isn’t disguised behind altruism like it is in typical political efforts previously described—it is quite literal and cuts straight to the thoughts of the typical drug trafficker.

To write this story I reflected back to personal experience. The first adults I knew outside of my family professionally were hit men, money launderers and drug traffickers. Even though I was never part of their criminal activities I was recruited and had their trust, and they’d tell me things. I learned what being a “heavy” was before I had a driver’s license and would hear stories of bringing enforcement to their targets. It was a good experience that I would never trade away even if I disagreed with the way those people made their living. What we all had in common was a love of the dying order of manhood where bravery and valor were still traits men admired in each other—even if they were politically and ideologically opposed. I learned close-up how those types of people thought and it sent me on a life-long quest to understand all the nuances.

Drug cartels in Mexico tend to name themselves after dangerous diseases and superstitions. Their real life belief in Santa Maurte is a mix of Mayan culture and the Catholic influences of the Spanish conquistadors. She is a grim reaper like figure that is commonly found at drug festivals, paraphernalia shops, and flea markets. She also has many shrines dedicated to her along southern American highways. They are much like ISIS in their desire to incite terrorism among their targets. They don’t often see themselves as evil, but as opportunists who are fighting for some noble cause. They see America as a corrupt and evil place largely because they were raised in socialist cultures south of the border taught to hate capitalism. They see America as a place that lacks spiritual direction and have no problem with poisoning the culture of North America so it softens the great capitalist nation for their subtle invasion—a revenge for the Spanish-American war.

It might be noted that the leader of the notorious Zetas drug cartel was captured recently in the city of Monterrey. Alejandro Trevino-Morales nicknamed Omar was the head of one of the most violent modern drug cartels. He was so dangerous that the Mexican government had a $2 million dollar reward for his capture and it’s beyond question that he’s directly responsible for many killings, beheadings and general terrorism inflicted among many innocents. But in the cartel business, it will be the next man up. Omar’s capture will do nothing to curb the supply of drugs coming into America because the demand out-weighs the risk of supply. Just before the arrest of Omar Servando “La Tuta” Gomez leader of the Knights Templar cartel was arrested. Yet the drugs continue because the cartels are built from the foundations of collectivism and sacrifice where their actions in this life are measured toward the aims of the afterlife—and that makes them dangerous. They actually believe that they will gain some measure of success in their post life years because of the violence and terror they inflict on behalf of their deities.

To really comprehend terrorism in general you have to understand the ridiculous nature of the fuel which feeds them—which is the notion that by sacrificing themselves or others to a cause of greater importance—that they gain redemption in the afterlife. Their definition of greater importance is defined by the parameters of collectivism not the individual motivations of property rights. Their hatred points straight back to the gulf between socialists and capitalists.

In The Curse of Fort Seven Mile stories Cliffhanger is an unfettered capitalist and the hints as to what extent are first shown in “Sacrifice to Santa Maurta.” It becomes clear toward the end of this story and in the next couple of installments why Cliffhanger is viewed as a villain by the collectivist organizations so far shown, first the police union, then the teacher’s union, and now a drug cartel. Cliffhanger is fighting for something philosophically foreign to collectivists and they hate him for his success. It is in that conflict that I am proud because it’s difficult to frame in a way that can become part of a story and the necessity of entertainment value. The essence is a long forged contemplation that can be brought forth through such a charismatic character. Some will hate him, some will love him—and the reasons why there are different interpretations of the same character are why this can only be a work of philosophy intended for a new century of understanding as the old modes of instruction have contaminated the minds of many with improper thinking and lost values misplaced due to their notion of sacrifice and its social necessity.

Read the “Sacrifice to Santa Maurta” by clicking the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/Sacrifice-Santa-Maurta-Curse-Seven-ebook/dp/B00VC0ORII/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1427577126&sr=1-1

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

The Cincinnati Tablet: B.L. Freeborn’s answer in mathmatics

One of the great miracles of our day, as I have stated often is the decentralization of intellectual aptitude. Although it’s nice if sound science comes from some intellectual at Harvard or Oxford, it’s no longer necessary. In fact, most of the time it’s a handicap because most colleges teach to an agenda shaped by the political currents of our day—which is not the way college was ever envisioned. It is however a grim reality. So not having to move through gate keepers in the industry any longer–adventurers, scientists and armchair archaeologists are now able to behave as fortune hunters did at the turn of the last century—with open ability not limited by anything but their personal dedication and imagination. On the downside the quality of presentations and research typically go down, but on the upside, the proposals of theory driven by imagination have increased dramatically. This is certainly the case for B.L. Freeborn who wrote a very interesting book, The Deep Mystery: The Day the Pole Moved.

Even though the book has the obvious sign of self-publishing—lacking the fine finish of a good editor, there is a genius to it that is worth noting. I would say that B.L. Freeborn is functioning from intelligence that few have the sentiment for— brilliance in the beauty and patterns of numbers. Freeborn sees patterns in numbers that might be purely speculative, or formed around a mythology of his choosing just because of his sheer mastery of them. It is probable that some of his assumptions are incorrect. Likely, with some of his proposals, perhaps only 15 to 20% could be assumed as a likely theory backed by scientific evidence. That does not mean that everything he says should be discounted just because his average is not 100%. Unfortunately, his competition, the orthodox science of the university system is reluctant to discuss 15% of a truth surrounding a theory because they are not motivated to extend themselves beyond the previous claims of the establishment without 100% of the truth being confirmed. Because of the way science is often funded—through grants and donations—it is unlikely that any university would desire to reverse a previous opinion such as what is demanded by the obscure relic found in Cincinnati, Ohio called The Cincinnati Tablet—which is on display at the Museum Center just a few miles to the west of its discovery location.

Few know it today but in the location of the current Fountain Square area within the city was a gigantic burial mound common to Ohio. It was part of the massive and mysterious mound building culture so prominent in the area typically attributed to the Adena Indians. Before one building was ever erected upon the founding of the Queen City, the mound was there and excavated around the middle of the 1800s and within it was found parts of a skeleton and The Cincinnati Tablet. The Tablet was very intricate for a hunter and gatherer culture leaving many to speculate that it was a hoax. However, time has declared that there is something more to it, and if it is added to the many other discoveries from the Mound Builders emerging it appears that the culture that made The Cincinnati Tablet was part of a vast society with very intricate and advanced mathematics. B.L. Freeborn is one of many new age archaeology enthusiasts who commit vast amounts of time and energy to uncovering the past with new tools available to them. They often don’t get paid, they occasionally write a few self-published books that sell a copy or two, and spend most of their time in obscurity digesting vast amounts of information trying to puzzle through the mysteries left behind by a historical record that was carelessly erased through institutional arrogance. At first cities were built and archaeology was destroyed without any real desire to understand the cultures that came before—because that was the way that things were done prior to the 20th century—mainly for religious preservation. The religions of previous cultures were destroyed to enable a new cult to hold the minds of their societies—sort of like what ISIS is currently doing with Christianity. When a city like Cincinnati was erected, or Lexington for that matter—which has been built on the remains of an entire ancient city—settlers didn’t look at relics like The Cincinnati Tablet and declare themselves to solving the riddles of the forgotten culture. Typically they donated the findings to a museum or historic society for others to figure out—and if the relics were really, really lucky—like The Cincinnati Tablet is, it ended up in the dark corner of a nice museum like the one at Union Terminal. Typical professionals in academia would take such a find and attribute it to their published findings on the Adena culture. In the case of The Cincinnati Tablet, mounds had been associated as strictly burial mounds built by the Adena and Hopewll Indians and any further inquiry might cost grant money for further research. So it was much easier for archaeologists and anthropologists to consider the case closed, and head to the next charity event sponsored by their funding structure.

People like B.L. Freeborn aren’t motivated by any of those concerns so most of their energy goes directly into solving the puzzles. And one thing is clear about Freeborn, he has put a lot of thought into The Cincinnati Tablet—and similar archaeological discoveries. His theories are as good as anybody’s and in my opinion better. Much of what he declares below I would consider a reach—but he presents a strong enough case to indicate that he’s on the right path. The only way to really understand history when so much of it has been erased and destroyed by politics and religion is to turn toward mythology and decode what the past has to tell us. And with that, B.L. Freeborn has a marvelous theory that deserves attention. As a reminder, this tablet can be seen in the Cincinnati Museum Center currently and indicates that there was much more to the people who lived in North America than anyone previous accepted.

  1. L. Freeborn’s report on The Cincinnati Tablet and understanding the forgotten culture that made it—click the link at the end to learn more.

If they understood longitude and latitude they should have understood where they were. The longitude and latitude of Cincinnati at the location where the tablet was found is North 39 degrees 6′, West 84 degrees 32′. The sum 39 + 84 is 123. The sum of 32 + 6 = 38. Twice 38 is 76. The sum of the longitude and latitude values of nearby Milford where several complex mounds were built is 123.45. The sum at Fort Ancient is 123.5. The location of the Great Serpent Mound is 83 degrees 25′ 48″ W, 39 degrees 1’31” N and the location of the Newark Earthworks is 82 degrees 25′ 50″ W, 40 degrees 2′ 26″. This is exactly one degree of longitude apart. The location of the Seip Mounds is 83 degrees and zero minutes west and 39 degrees 22′ N. The sum of these two numbers is 122 and 22. Beyond coincidence?

Since we have begun counting we shall continue. Prominently at the top 7 spaces are marked out (or 8 lines). At the bottom there are 6 spaces (or 7 lines). This creates the number 76 and as noted in previous posts, it suggests the period of Halley’s Comet which is 76 to 77 years. This confirms the topic is about comets. Combine the numbers as 77 and obtain another reference to the comet. Combine them as 86 and obtain a reference to the diameter of the Sun (864,000 miles). Combine them as 78 and obtain the diameter of Earth through the pole (7899 miles). Sum the 6, 7, 7 and 8 and obtain 28 or half of 56.

Even more eloquent, notice that there are actually 9 spaces at the top but only 7 within the hash marks and 2 outside. Create 792 easily from them and compare this to the diameter of the planet at 7920 miles. Similarly, count the bottom as 8, 6 and 2 or create 862 which reminds one of the diameter of the Sun

The very edge of the top and bottom are scored with small marks. J. Ralston Skinner counted the marks and reported them in his 1885-1886 report on this stone. He noted 24 spaces/ 25 hash marks on the top and 23 spaces/ 24 hash marks on the bottom. The sum of these numbers is 96 and the average is 24. There are 24 hours in a day. The top has 23 spaces. There are 23.934 hours in a sidereal day. Combining 23 and 96 obtain 23.96 or very nearly this number.

 

Count out the dots. There are 16. The Earth travels 1.6 million miles in a day. There are 2 bars. The 2 and 16 combined creates 216. The diameter of the Moon is 2160 miles.

There are 8 dots in the upper third. There are 6 dots in the middle third. There are 4 dots in the center. There are 2 dots at the bottom. This creates the series 8642 or it refers to the diameter of the Sun at 864,336 miles.

The upper third has 3 dots left and right and 2 in the center. From the center out then is found 23. Reversing it is 32. The Arctic Circle ends at 23 degrees and 30 seconds. The tilt of the planet is this same value. The square of 5.65 is 32.

The center third provides 222. A square of sides 2222 has a diagonal equal to the constant pi (3.14) times 1000. The sum of 22 and 22 is 44. Divide the circumference of the planet by 44 and obtain 565 miles. Forty-four is found in the center bar as well. Count the 4 dots and notice there are 4 bump outs. Recall also a square with sides of 4 has a diagonal of 5.65.

The dots on each side number 6 which creates 66. The velocity of the planet is 66,600 miles per hour. In the center there are 4 dots. Below this is the one dot in the negative. This creates the number 5. Combine this with the 6 on each side and obtain 56 once again. Or count it out as 1 and 4 which reminds us of the fingers in the Gaitskill Clay Tablet. Combine them and create 14 and then recall there are 4 bumps in the center. 4 x 14 is 56.

The exterior dimensions of the stone and its shape provide numbers that appear familiar. It was measured in 1885 by Skinner to be 3.00″ x 5.00″ x 5/8 inch thick. The width of the narrow middle is 2.5 inches. The sum of these three numbers is 3 + 5 + .625 or 8.625 which recalls the diameter of the Sun. The diagonal of the piece is 5.831 inches. The distance Earth travels in a year is 584 million miles. The thickness expressed as 5/8 repeats this value. The circumference of the piece is 16. The Earth travels 1.6 million miles in a day.

The curved portion on each side recalls the idea of a crater. They are 4.5 inches across and .25 inches deep. The area of the curve on each side is .563 inches. The ratio of the narrow width to the length is 2.5 to 5 or .5. The ratio of the width to the length is 3 to 5 or .6. The ratios are .5 and .6 or a reminder of 56 once again.

 

2014 B. L. Freeborn

 

http://noahsage.com/2015/01/17/the-adena-tablets-of-ancient-ohio-the-cincinnati-tablet/

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

 

 

The Great Copper Kingdom: What is behind the veil of government sponsored history

 

I was never a fan of public education. When attending, I did alright. I looked at it as a prison sentence, had discipline problems with the teachers, but had more friends than I wanted and often excelled at public speeches and athletics. I never took what they were trying to teach me too seriously. Most of what I learned I did on my own. However I did a lot of exploring as a youth and some things just didn’t match up with what they taught us in 4th grade Ohio History. I generally accepted that the Hopewell and Adena Indians built the mounds at Fort Ancient and the purpose of the earthworks were for burial. End of story. I also generally accepted that in 6 grade history class, the pyramids of Egypt were intended for the burial of Khufu. End of story. But as I moved into high school and took anthropology in my senior year—after I had been reading books on the subject for nearly a decade at that point—I knew something was wrong—somebody wasn’t tell the whole truth, nothing but the truth—so help them. Something was fishy about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the whole Nebuchadnezzar issue. Further, in college I was even more suspicious when my philosophy professor was hell-bent on teaching about Lao-Tze author of Tao Te Ching so to pave the way to incorporating Maoism into Western Culture. No, that didn’t work for me. So my education turned to the famed scholar Joseph Campbell and many late nights at Waffle House reading lots and lots of books for about 10 years looking for a fresh look at the mythologies of the world and the real history of the human race incorrectly documented by impatient scholars trying to satisfy their federal grants with all too convenient papers that supported the Catholic version of European expansion.

The next step for me came in reading the Allen Eckert books starting with The Frontiersman. I had lived in the Cincinnati area all of my life and I was learning things in those books that simply shocked me—which should have been covered in the 4th grade way back in Ohio History. I was learning for the first time about the Chief Logan incidents, the fact that Pittsburg was built on the ruins of Fort Duquesne, how Cincinnati was founded and all about the life and times of Simon Kenton. I certainly didn’t know about the massacre in Piqua, Ohio or the Shawnee silver treasure hidden in Xenia, all these were topics new to my adult mind which should have been introduced in grade school. That’s when I realized that historians were too quick to settle on very shallow historic points when thinking of history. For instance in grade school most of the history was focused on the various wars—World War II seemed like ancient history so anything before that was irrelevant and useless. If you really dug into history the Revolutionary War was studied. And of course the Civil War was taught to bring up discussions of slavery and equality without digging any further into the past.

But digging a bit beyond the Revolution I learned that the pirate Henry Morgan had a lot to do with the Jefferson version of America through the philosopher John Locke and that the United States and capitalism in general was invented during the raiding of Spanish galleons looting the desperate Mayans and Aztecs in Central America. Studying those ancient cultures it quickly became clear that there were even more ancient roots settling those societies, especially in Central Mexico before the Aztecs in the city of Tenochititlan. That city had advanced canals and a social structure that obviously came from a history not recorded, which is completely buried under modern-day Mexico City—which seems intentional. Cortez could have started a Spanish city anywhere, but he chose to build on top of a “pagan Holy spot, which was common, and still is.” None of that was taught in my public education and I felt cheated—and angry.

I now largely disregard most things taught in government schools as a smokescreen to reality. I don’t believe the intentions of public education are good or even attempting to have an accurate investigation into reality. They are simply concerned with shaping public perception to the goals of the state.  The truth is that Christopher Columbus was not the first to arrive in America—far from it. When Columbus arrived under a Spanish flag and a Catholic religion behind him, a great North American culture that had already been participating in global trade had risen and fallen over the 10,000 years prior. A vast portion of the historic puzzle had been erased from our memory and revised around the popular religions of the day ignoring archaeological evidence that was pouring in from thousands of wanna’ be Indiana Jones’ wanting to find their own Ark of the Covenant. A flood of archaeology was sweeping our culture and it was discovering that the previous documented history shaped largely by the government supported Smithsonian Institute was wrong and nothing could be trusted that they said. Some could, but you just can’t tell how much of it—so most has to be completely thrown out, which is a shame.

The evidence was clear. I had been visiting mound sites all over Ohio for most of my life, and seldom did I ever see excavation going on to further investigate the strange formations. Why was that? Well, it’s obvious that nobody wants to dig up anything that might rattle the cage of previous reports. For instance, at Serpent Mound, which is a frequent favorite of mine, they dug up a few bones, put them into a museum and called it a day even though its one of the world’s most intriguing mysteries.   Government institutions around the globe are involved in a massive cover-up and are well aware of the danger of further finds confirming the truth—which is currently hidden behind the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act—which has little to do with actual history. The typical “Indian” who was running around as nomads when Columbus arrived were the remnants of a civilization that had already fallen from grace centuries before—and had lost their way. The NAGPRA gave a segment of the population wronged by previous governments nearly complete control of archaeology in North America not to protect their interests, but to keep the past truly hidden.

But it’s not working, the evidence is pouring in with overwhelming abundance. Armchair archaeologists are doing better work more quickly than the college institution backed scientists and this is problematic for maintaining the future of the cover-up. For instance, the below paragraph is from Richard Dewhurst who wrote an interesting book titled The Ancient Giants Who Ruled America. In it he talks about “The Great Copper Kingdom”:

When reconstructing the true history of the mound builders in America, there is no more important place than Isle Royal, situated in Lake Superior, just off the Keweenaw Peninsula in northern Michigan. Because of a freak volcanic event that twisted the copper-bearing bedrock above the water line, thus allowing all the sulphur impurities to burn away in the open air, the copper found at Isle Royal is the purest found anywhere in the world. The entire region is scarred by ancient mine pits and trenches up to 20 feet deep. Carbon-dating testing of wood remains found in sockets of copper artifacts indicates that some are at least 5700 years old, while other open digs around the area have been dated to 8-10,000 years old. The most conservative estimates calculate that during a ten thousand-year period, over 500,000 tons of copper was taken from the mines. At the other end of the spectrum in “Prehistoric Copper Mining in the Lake Superior Region,” published in 1961, Drier and Du Temple estimated that over 1.5 billion pounds of copper had been mined from the region. Since traditional researchers refuse to analyze European copper for its probable Michigan signature, no one has been able to account for where all this copper ended up. That it was traded and used extensively across the United States by the Mound Builders there is no question. But this is no way can account for the magnitude of copper taken out of these unique mines. What researchers have determined is a continuous history mining activity that begun in 8,000 B.C. and then abruptly ended around 1500 B.C., contemporaneous with the volcanic explosion on Cretan Thera (Santorini). Since rock-cut pictures of Cretan trading vessels have been found in the area, this lends credence to the Cretan connection in North America at a very early date. In addition, researchers have also determined that copper mining activity resumed again around 900 A.D. This date corresponds perfectly with related evidence of a Viking presence in the area around that same date.

 

http://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/DewhurstR1.php

 

Imagine the implication of this statement—how much European copper could be traced back to this Michigan mine? If any could be it would destroy the premise that Columbus discovered America which would be a really deep nail in the coffin of Catholic history and domination after the Roman Empire. Essentially the last claims of greatness of that same Roman Empire would be swept away as they had previously attempted to erase evidence of any culture that came before them having any level of sophistication. But it appears quite obvious that Western Civilization wishes to believe that all human thought, science, philosophy, and history started around 450 BC with Socrates—which is simply not true. It looks as though thought, science, and philosophy in a fairly advanced state existed in frequent trade from America to Europe for over 10,000 years before Socrates—and this is something that the religions of Europe simply can’t deal with.

Yet the facts are the facts, they are there in front of us to pick up and look at, yet nobody dares to look from the established sciences—because they are afraid of the answer. They don’t want to know, and they don’t want anybody digging it up—which at this point is beyond their scope of control. Archaeology is flourishing on the History and Travel Channel—it is being suppressed in the education institutions to fulfill a government backed agenda to preserve grant funding. And that is why we don’t know more than we do, which should anger everyone. It does me. There is no Columbus Day because he didn’t discover America—he simply had a hand in naming it. Likely the Hopi Indians of Northern Arizona are stranded Chinese who mixed with the Aztec cultures and are likely older versions of other Chinese people who settled or traded in a global trade network that reaches back to the time of the Great Pyramid of Khufu. We have been mislead dear reader, and we celebrate all the wrong holidays and pay reverence to historic origins that are as fictitious as a Star Wars movie. The real history is much more interesting and has yet to be uncovered. But with the new breed of armchair archaeologists doing such good work out there—it’s only a matter of time. But regarding public education, we all have good reason to despise it for the roll it has played in hiding history from the minds that deserve to know better.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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The Phantom Kids of Lakota: Losing 100 baby sitters and the desire to hire more

All public schools are the same, so my national readers should find the story regarding my Lakota local palatable—and informative. Lakota is hiring more baby sitters in the disguise of teachers. The superintendent and teacher union president believe “high-quality teachers are in demand, making it critical that we get out in the job market and start recruiting early. We are looking for teachers who are well-trained in their specialty areas, care deeply about each child’s success and are committed members of our schools and our community.” Also according to the official school newspaper, Today’s Pulse “a more diverse staff to match the 26 percent racial diversity among Lakota students is important in future hiring.” No wonder most people leave that free paper at the end of their driveway destined directly for the trash. The cause of this hiring need is that 100 teachers recently retired leaving staffing positions vacated—hence the need to hire more baby sitters because after all the fancy talk by the government employees of the district school—that’s all that’s really required.

I have written about the incompetence of the school superintendent of Lakota before. Karen Mantia is a good politician, but a terrible manager doing what has always been done in public schools to deal with their budget short-falls—ask for more tax money to deal with their lopsided collective bargaining agreements with the teachers union, the Sharon Mays led LEA. My group in the past, No Lakota Levy has shown the district from the inside and out how to manage their money—but they have refused to listen instead relying on political theatrics to extract more money from the community—as all public schools do. However, in Lakota’s situation, they have been given a gift—it’s called declining enrolment.

For the next ten years Lakota will see fewer students than they had in the previous years, and losing 100 teachers is a great way to reduce their internal payroll. If Mantia really wanted to be considered equal to a CEO of a company—she would instantly recognize that the retirements were a blessing to Lakota—a way to drop millions of dollars in payroll without a RIF—but instead she instantly thought of ways to replace those positions so that the school would remain top-heavy with their staffing. She is a former teacher after all and is more concerned about appeasing the school employees than the tax payers of the district.

Mantia recently in the same paper, has been doing a lot of sucking up to the school board to renew her contract—for her it’s an easy gig. She locks herself arm and arm with Sharon and gives the teachers whatever they want and when the money runs out, they just go to the tax payers to extract more money from property owners for their glorified baby sitting service.

The Today’s Pulse reporter Eric Schwartzberg didn’t do much work in his recent article because he sought quotes from the cause of the problem herself, Sharon Mays, president of the teachers’ union at Lakota to provide expert opinion on the matter. That’s like asking a fox why it eats chickens. Of course Sharon wants more members for her teacher union, more lobby power to send letters of extortion to local politicians and more bell-bottomed parasites passing out levy support information during the next election. 100 more employees to Sharon is another 100 foot soldiers of progressive influence. What Eric should have done is put the school board members on the spot and made them give their opinion. Not pawning the article away to the two biggest pro tax people at Lakota who owe their employment to them. Even through Sharon is the president of the union, she is still an employee of the district, and that management of that district should fall on the elected school board.

But that wasn’t the intention; the goal of Lakota is to always grow, even if there aren’t students there to support the hiring. It is a good thing that Lakota’s teaching staff dropped 17.4 percent from 2010 to 2013. The drop in employees almost gave Lakota a surpluses in their budget—but Mantia and the gang wanted to give all their overpaid baby sitters raises on wages that average over $63K per year—so they sought yet another tax increase. They won that increase by spending a lot of tax money on public relations and still only won by just a hair over 1%. In 2010 there were roughly 1,100 employees which dropped down to 923 currently. Further reductions would of course save more money and avoid the need for future tax increases.

However, the goal of Lakota and all public schools are not to save money, or even teach kids. It is to give kids someplace to go while their parents work, that’s why Lakota is supporting pre kindergarten glasses so that children under five can go someplace while their parents save money on day care. That is the one and only function of a public school because lets face it, kids aren’t learning anything meaningful. Parents might argue that they want their child to have an opportunity to get into college with a sports scholarship or some other benefit—but the merit of the enterprise is completely ridiculous and false.

I knew a couple recently who took their daughter from the years of 9 to 14 years old to gymnastic classes everyday hoping that she would become good enough to become an Olympic gymnast. The little girl was good but the parents weren’t doing all this work for her—even though that’s what they said to everyone—they were doing it to save their marriage and the failed expectations of their miserable adult lives. They were using the little girl as a meal ticket and they ruined the kid. The girl now is a drug abuser just shy of her 18th birthday and is a mess. The parents ruined the kid by processing her into a system looking for glory through her success so they could ride her coat tails. Most children in public school sports are in a similar situation—their parents are trying to live through them—rather than teaching them anything meaningful. So even the cited positives of the public education experience, the dances, the sports, the community involvement with friends is an illusion. The public school is only there to do for children what their parents are too lazy to do for themselves, and parasites living off the community like Karen Mantia and Sharon Mays are happy to provide the service of relieving those parents of their guilt. But at a cost.

In this case, the 100 employees that Karen and Sharon want to replace at Lakota are for phantom kids that don’t even exist. The only purpose of those employees would be to keep their employment numbers up over 900 so that they could remain statistically one of the largest employers in Butler County. For Sharon it means more union fees. For Karen it means more employee hires under her watch. But for the tax payers it’s just another useless cost to be applied to kids that aren’t even in need. Over the coming years there will be even fewer children attending Lakota and a greater need to reduce the employees at Lakota through a RIF. But don’t expect Karen, Sharon or the Lakota newspaper The Pulse to recognize that, because the parents have a need for the baby sitting service of Lakota to alleviate their stress, and their personal failures.

If Butler County is concerned about job creation the 100 jobs lost at Lakota will be filled down the road at the new Culvers restaurant in Monroe opening near Cincinnati Premium Outlets. They are opening in August and are hiring 60 positions. That almost covers the situation job for job. By the time Liberty Way opens there will be a surplus of jobs in Butler County so there will be growth. The big difference is that the government jobs are shrinking and the private sector jobs are increasing—and that is the real issue. To me the advanced college degrees mean nothing to the Lakota baby sitters—it just makes them overpaid labor to watch kids while their parents build careers. A waitress or cashier job at Culvers is equal to the typical Lakota teacher. Anyone who thinks otherwise is kidding themselves.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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