Tag: Rich Hoffman

‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ an unexpected TRIUMPH

I have been writing about The Hobbit movie and its December release for over a year now and I have been very excited for its long-awaited arrival in theaters.  My wife and I took my large family and some of their friends to see it during a prime time showing over the weekend, and before I get into any kind of review I need to provide some context.  Our society is changing rapidly, and not all of it is bad.  When religion was very strong in our society, it taught young and old alike about the nature of good and evil—which I spend a lot of time writing and thinking about.  But in 2012 in a quest that really started in 1977 with the first Star Wars film, it is clear that mythological values in our society has moved from books into many other visual formats that explore more deeply than ever the nature of evil, and the necessity of good.  I did not expect The Hobbit, An Unexpected Journey to be over-the-top excellent.  I just expected it to be good and an enjoyable tribute to stories I have loved my entire lifetime.  As stated in previous articles here at the OW I have allowed myself to enjoy on many nights the words of J.R.R. Tokens’ many works by candlelight, or on a backyard porch under swift moving nighttime clouds next to a lantern.  So I have a passion already present for the material offered in The Hobbit.  Aside from that, I also followed closely the development of the film through the legal hurdles it had to pass in order to arrive in theaters under Peter Jackson’s direction, which for a long time I never thought would happen—because of the stunning success of The Lord of the Rings trilogy a decade ago.  So it was with some pent-up reverence that I took my family to the movies on December 15, 2012 and let me declare that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is an unexpected delight.  The Hobbit as a film is jaw-dropping great and filled to the absolute brim with passion, rich storytelling, and a fully flushed out journey into Middle-Earth that will change the lives of many people who see it for the better.  It is a stunningly fantastic movie—a cut from the tapestry of cinema that will set new heights of expectation from audiences permanently.  I did not think it was possible to make a movie version of The Hobbit that exceeded, or even matched the effort of Lord of the Rings—but Peter Jackson has been successful in that daunting task and then some.

The Hobbit is essentially a treasure hunt that is triggered when a dragon pushes a society of dwarves from their home in the Lonely Mountain.  Bilbo Baggins is recruited as a burglar/thief to penetrate the mountain and help remove the terrible dragon Smoug who is now residing there bathing his massive body in mountains of gold stolen from the dwarves.  I will admit that reviewers did discourage me a bit when they reported that Warner Brothers had pushed Jackson into stretching the 300-page book of The Hobbit which is a kid’s book into three—three hour films, and that the first half of An Unexpected Journey was boring.  For such reviewers, I can only say that they have become spoiled brats, and the action of The Hobbit was very intense at the end making the rather story driven beginning seem like a very different movie.  But the beauty is that Jackson was able to make The Hobbit into a better story then the actual book was—which is almost never the case—without violating the literary material of Tolkien at all.    Only under Peter Jackson’s direction could this have been done with such a close association with Lord of the Rings as The Hobbit takes place 60 years before the Rings films.  The beginning is only boring compared to a very intense ending—more intense than any movie I can remember seeing—and I’ve seen most of them.

For me personally, I found the deep secrets and constant references to an evil that is slowly seething up into Middle-Earth to be fascinating in reference to the events of Lord of the Rings.  The Hobbit takes the time to show how the seeds of evil are actually planted and how slowly over time they can emerge right under the noses of some of the wisest minds.  In The Hobbit it is the wizard Gandalf who looks like a crazed fool in comparison to his mentor Sauruman the White Wizard, Elrond the Lord of Rivendell, and Galadriel co-ruler of Lothlórien.  Gandalf in a scene that was one of my favorites attempts to tell these leaders of Middle-Earth of his devious plot to rid the Lonely Mountain of the dragon, but also to combat a seething evil that is emerging slowly in the cracks of society.  It was my favorite scene in the film because I feel a lot like Gandalf in real life uttering the same kinds of warnings, schemes and mechanisms that I have involved myself in only to have a White Wizard type politician declare—“show me the proof of these allegations.”  Evil does not grow within the honesty of critical assessment, and nobody but Gandalf and Galadriel can even remotely see it.  Of course, we know that Gandalf was right and that 60 years later that evil will have arrived fully in Middle-Earth in the events of Lord of the Rings.  In An Unexpected Journey Gandalf sees the evil before everyone else, and must face that realization alone—which is realistically, often the case.

In many ways Peter Jackson has done with The Hobbit what George Lucas did with the prequels of Star Wars and that is to pull back wide on Middle-Earth to tell of the events that led up to the Academy Award winning movies that were previously done.  But Jackson has not violated the original Tolkien material to perform the task, he’s only added to it with previously unrelated Tolkien material about Middle-Earth which led to controversy with some critics.  Usually in novel translations things get left out of a movie version of a great book.  It is not often—if ever that things that were not specifically in the source novel find their way into the film version without deviating away from the source, but following it sincerely.  This is what Jackson has done, and he did an absolutely marvelous job of it.  Literally breath-taking in just how spectacular of a job he did—if viewers thought that Middle-Earth had been adequately flushed out in the Lord of the Rings films, The Hobbit will prove that there is much more to explore, and it is an exciting adventure all its own.

I am an old fan of these types of stories, and it is hard to impress me.  But—The Hobbit impressed me in every category, music, visual effects, character development, mythological significance, plot validation; The Hobbit is successful in every single category of filmmaking splendor.  And the characters go through one cliffhanger after another in some of the most astonishing conflicts that have ever taken place between characters on a movie screen.  There is nothing like The Hobbit that has ever been done in any film to date.  Many of the sequences step up and over Lord of the Rings in sheer brutality, and cinematic effectiveness.  If the Academy Awards snub this film because of internal Hollywood politics, it will be a shame—because The Unexpected Journey deserves the same kind of respect that Return of the King garnered.  This first Hobbit film is simply that good.

I could write on about this movie for thousands of pages, and still not get out everything I want to say—so do yourself a favor and go see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and enjoy the adventure of a lifetime.   As Gandalf tells Bilbo in the film, “if you take this adventure you will never be the same again”—so to, will audience members never be quiet the same after seeing the first movie of a three-part Hobbit series.  I am riveted now waiting for the second addition to this excellent film series titled The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug which will be entirely about the slaying of the terrible dragon that is guarding the gold in the Lonely Mountain.  In the meantime, I think my wife and I will go see The Unexpected Journey about 19,000 more times.  Enjoy! 

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

  

Tom Cruise in the film ‘Jack Reacher’: The Future of ‘Tail of the Dragon?’

The number one comment that readers of my new novel Tail of the Dragon ask me is when will it be a movie, because the car chase in the book—which takes place over half of the story is so stunningly exciting that they want to see it up on the silver screen. I have been telling them that it’s not likely to be soon, because Hollywood isn’t making many car chase films these days, not like they did in the 1970s, which was my inspiration behind the book. On top of that–I am a conservative writer, and while Hollywood does endorse far left political activists like George Clooney and Sean Penn, it does not have a tolerance for people as fiscally and socially conservative as I am. So the list of producers and actors out there that would be able to take Tail of the Dragon from a novel and put it up on a movie screen in the manner that it is written is pretty short.

The other big problem is that the main character of Rick Stevens is so iconic, and strong that Hollywood isn’t producing actors that are able to reach the kind of emotional firmness that can capture the hero of Tail of the Dragon with the proper valor required. In these more politically left leaning times, characters like Rick Stevens are way too sure of themselves, and that is currently out of fashion in American film—where it used to be common place in Hollywood. Tail of the Dragon is in essence dedicated to all the great car chases of my youth set into overdrive. To accurately portray the high-speed chases that Rick Stevens embarks on in Tail of the Dragon it would require an actor like Steve McQueen, or a Burt Reynolds type who is actually a tough guy in real life–a thrill seeker, and would need to be a professional driver in some regard. Because the stunts that would be required to put Tail of the Dragon up on the silver screen would be unlike anything ever filmed before in any motion picture—so I don’t have much hope of finding the right combination of studio involvement, actor skill level, and financial commitment. CLICK HERE FOR SOME OF MY PREVIOUS WORK IN HOLLYWOOD. That is until I saw the clip below on Top Gear discussing the new Tom Cruise film Jack Reacher—which looks very promising.

It would take an actor/producer like Tom Cruise to bring the larger than life character of Rick Stevens to film, and it appears Cruise is back in that kind of character generating business, as his Jack Reacher looks like the kind of old-fashion throwback to the decades prior to 1990 filmmaking. That shouldn’t surprise me as Cruise is from Cincinnati just as Steven Spielberg is along with George Clooney and it takes someone from the Midwest to understand a story that takes place in the heart of the country. Tail of the Dragon is truly a modern version of Smokey and the Bandit and the great Tom Cruise classic Days of Thunder, so Tom Cruise would be a good fit—if the stars lined up properly.

I knew when I wrote the novel that it was a bit out of fashion in the present day as it makes no attempt to be contemporary except for the fact that the 700 HP 1977 Firebird in the story runs off a special vegetable oil fuel mixture which is very much in line with modern technical achievement, but the rest of the story is good ol ‘fashioned storytelling that is unapologetic in its larger-than-life presentation. I figured that sometime over the next 20 years such personal valor as exhibited from Rick Stevens in Tail of the Dragon would come back into style, and at that time there might be a chance for such a grand story to find its way to the silver screen.

I am delighted to see that Tom Cruise is back at it with Jack Reacher because honestly, I have missed these types of films terribly. The Fast and Furious films are good, but there is human nobility that is missing from those characters that is all too common in so many modern stories. Tom Cruise made his living for many years playing larger than life characters in films like Top Gun, Days of Thunder, and Mission Impossible, so there are still actors/producers in Hollywood who are capable of getting behind the wheel of a car like the one in Tail of the Dragon and telling the story of Rick Stevens and his bold, high-speed adventure through the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina.

In the meantime, I think I’m going to go see Jack Reacher and relish in Tom Cruise’s latest movie. There is a part of me that is rooting for Cruise to make a comeback to the silver screen, because honestly, I think Hollywood needs him.

To learn more about Tail of the Dragon CLICK HERE.

And how fast is Tail of the Dragon?  CLICK HERE!

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

  

Public Education is more Dangerous than Guns: Why the Sandy Hook Shooting makes people anguish

I was a bit baffled by the panic that the collective nation felt in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut.  I understand the sadness, but to hear news personalities and politicians so distraught—to see the nation turning on their televisions after work and mashing their faces against the screens wanting to learn more information goes several steps beyond simple grief.  There was a fear invoked by the events of December 14th, 2012 where a 20-year-old shooter walked into a school and gunned down over twenty people, mostly kids, before taking his own life, that exceeds rationality and the reason is not what anyone is willing to discuss.

My thoughts about public education have evolved over the last couple of years from something that I previously tolerated as a local nuisance to a national menace of the American psyche.   I have learned through my school levy fights that most parents don’t care one iota what their kids are learning in school, or what damage to their social futures that government schools might do to their children over 13 years of elementary school and high school education.  Parents simply view public education as a babysitting service while they conduct their busy lives climbing a career ladder hoping that instead of love for their children they can purchase respect with the incomes they’ve earned from their occupations.  Some parents do get involved in their children’s education, particularly in sports.  However, many of these parents deep down inside hope their children’s participation in extracurricular activities will save money through scholarship earnings when it comes time to pay for college tuition leaving some of the savings that parents toiled over for years free for a nice vacation.  The sports participation is not one of love for the child as much as it is hope that their child will land a cherished scholarship.  It is rare to see parents in modern America taking an active role in their children’s education because they figure that is the job of the school—and in the back of their minds, the parents reserve the right to blame the school and the teachers for their failures as parents when things go wrong later.  That is the essence of modern public education in government schools.  The labor unions are happy to exploit this trend to their advantage, and they have.  Politicians are happy to exploit the guilt parents feel over their lack of involvement to enrich themselves as social looters.  But the real victims have always been the kids who just want parents to love them, teach them, and launch them into a life of their own with some measure of confidence—which they often find completely void.

So I did not feel stunned as others might have when hearing about the Sandy Hook shooting.  In fact, due to the social conditions involved on all sides, I am surprised that it doesn’t happen more often.  The failure is truly in social collectivism, where parents, kids, and politicians have embedded themselves into each other’s lives like mashed potatoes on a Thanksgiving Day dinner to be consumed by modern society and defecated out as waste products of a life dedicated to serving the collective whole.   When it comes to gun violence and the most vulnerable places that they are occurring with the most emotional impact, it is in school settings that they are most rampant.  This latest rampage, coming less than two weeks before Christmas, was the nation’s second-deadliest school shooting, exceeded only by the Virginia Tech massacre that claimed 33 lives in 2007.  Before that it was the Columbine shooting that was so glorified by the communist leaning Michael Moore film Bowling for Columbine.

The logical conclusion that one could make if they thought clearly on the matter is that if parents wanted their children to be truly safe, and to get a proper education that they would home-school their children instead of sending them to a public school full of unarmed progressive advocates where the children are vulnerable to the collective whims of society.  It is in such whims that distorted minds like Adam Lanza can make victims of unarmed children and naive human beings who prefer the peace sign over the barrel of a gun with a continued belief that evil can be legislated out of Earth’s social fabric.   People who think in such ways are the real danger to children because they are functioning from a false philosophy that is not driven by logic, but by their own internal selfishness.  They do not wish to take the time to raise their  own children properly so they send them to public school hoping the government can do it for them—but in so doing, their children are vulnerable to progressive politics, global power grabs, collective identity, and the barbarous malcontents of mental erosion.

My wife and I never left our kids to the fate of public education.  My wife was always a stay-at-home mom who drove my kids to school every day and helped them with their homework every night.  She also home-schooled them when the school wanted to teach my kids things we didn’t think they should be learning in the fourth grade—such as sex education.  Most of what my kids learned they learned with the input of my wife and me spending time with them and taking an active role in their lives which still exists to this day.  Many of my kid’s friends they went to school with who had parents who did not take an active role in their child’s lives, are rudderless despots drowning in the oceans of daily living, and that fate was sealed by their parents who used public education to do the job of parenting.   We have watched the decline first hand over the last decade and the differences are incredibly obvious.

It is dangerous to place children in large groups unarmed in a school room that only has one door in or out and is guarded by pacifist progressive leaning teachers radicalized by national teachers unions.  The policies of progressivism are failing in modern life, and there will be more incidents like the Sandy Hook Elementary school massacre.  There will be more because all the sorrow in the world can’t remove evil from the planet.  Evil cannot be controlled by more rules and regulation.  It cannot be quelled by guidance councilors or even more tax money.    Success in every American child requires a parent or mentor who will take direct responsibility for a child with real love and understanding that is rooted in individual responsibility.  The collectivism that is taught in modern society will produce many more troubled youth like Adam Lanza and leave millions of children perpetually vulnerable in classrooms all over the country because parents use public education as an extension of day care leaving complacent employees to safe guard the lives of Americas children—which is a recipe for disaster.

If parents really wanted their kids to be safe, they would withdrawal them from public school, teach them at home on a computer with online education within the safety and sanctity of private property guarded by American sovereignty, and one of the spouses would quit their full-time job and become a full-time parent because that’s what it takes.  The fear that society felt on the day of the dreadful Sandy Hook Massacre was not because of the victims—it was the realization that a system that most everyone has accepted as “good” is actually a very vulnerable environment that is well out of the control of the parents.   That vulnerability has been glazed over while busy parents pursue their individual careers, but the knowledge that a crazed lunatic can walk into any public school known to be full of unarmed—naive human beings is a lucrative target for the mentally anguished like Adam Lanza.  The fear that people felt upon hearing the news is that what they believed to be safe is quite the opposite, and if they want to keep their kids out of the grips of deaths embrace, or the many social pressures that lead to small losses of innocence, that the parents will have to take more active roles in their family’s lives.  And if I were them, I would take my children out of public school and do the job myself—so that I could ensure safety and success.  The grief that people are feeling is not for the unfortunate victims and their families, it is the realization that the responsibility for children cannot be pawned off on a group collective, but are the sole enterprises of a parent and their children, and is best protected with a personal firearm, a solid peace-loving religion, and a thirst for learning that is as free of social degradation as possible.

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

  

The Connecticut Shooting and Alex Jones: Gun grabbers call for the murder of NRA’s president

When it comes to progressives and gun grabbing lunatics, nothing surprises me regarding what extremes change agents of personal liberty will embark upon to instigate their visions for human kind.  It would appear that 20-year-old Adam Lanza had a disagreement with his mother who was a teacher causing him to shoot her in the face killing her, then proceeded to her classroom to kill his mother’s students.  It would be an obvious assumption that Lanza was jealous of the students his mother taught, and was so enraged by them that he wanted to remove them from life.  The result of this act of violence is 28 people dead, twenty who were little children.

But the swiftness that Obama, Eric Holder and the other progressive advocates jumped to the gun grabbing argument is oddly suspicious.  Within hours emotionally charged, panic driven neurotics called out for the murder of the NRA President looking for a way to channel their helpless anger.  CLICK BELOW to read more:

http://www.infowars.com/gun-grabbers-call-for-murder-of-nra-president-supporters-in-wake-of-mass-shooting/

But………………I have learned not to take these stories at face value.  There is more to this story, and gun legislation is always behind it.  The timing of this latest tragic occurrence, on the back of other incidents that have not moved the hearts and minds of most Americans is deeply troubling.  Alex Jones has a background in conspiracy theory, but his thoughts deserve recognition in the wake of this tragedy.  The villains are still lingering in the shadows of our society.  If they are not directly involved, as Alex suggests, they are guilty in that they have destroyed the American family through their policies, and weakened the back of America by robbing citizens of their inner valor.  Remember the motto of the progressive, “Never let a crisis go to waste.”  And sometimes, the crises must be created through any method possible.

I do believe that progressives are so evil that they are not beneath such treachery or sinister mechanisms.  CLICK HERE to review the recent Aurora shooting and the possible “false flag” that happened there.  Believe dear reader that Adam Lanza may have easily been “nudged” into the evil he conducted.  To understand how, read Cass Sunstein’s book “Nudge.”

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

  

More Proof Obama’s White House is Red: Communists in American Government

Jeffrey Immelt–Obama’s jobs council head and the CEO of General Electric proved that he is a far inferior replacement to his protégé Jack Welsh when he said about China’s economic power that one thing “actually works” in governance and that is “state-run Communism” in China.  Such comments show a lack of worldly understanding about demographic tendencies between people in the East versus the West, and a lack of understanding about what makes China work as an economy—and how dependent they actually are on The United States economy, and technology developed under capitalism. China has been good at stealing Western technology through an intense spy network, and forcing their workers to do things that would be unheard of in The United States, and these are the sources of their modern-day success, not a superior political philosophy.  For more about the conditions of China from the standpoint of a citizens living under communism in that country refer to a previous article I have written by CLICKING HERE.

CEOs and political pundits often don’t understand how facts are strung together behind the scenes; they tend only to look only at bottom-line results, or just a small piece of the overall picture.  They look at China and see over 1 billion people who are outpacing the GDP of America but they don’t see the crash course that China is on culturally.  Communist China would easily be in jeopardy if America turned its policies of socialism back to capitalism preventing so much manufacturing from fleeing to China to avoid organized labor in the states.  States in America are doing just that by passing right-to-work legislation to stop the manufacture bleeding that has been taking place, and if such things become common place in America, along with tax breaks, businesses will flee China for America in a heart beat.  But such things were not on the mind of Charlie Rose who brought up “the ‘growth rate’ of China has been falling from double digits to about eight percent,” as Immelt chimed in, “Look, I think it’s good for China,” he said. “To a certain extent, Charlie, 11 to 12 percent is unsustainable. You end up getting too much stimulus or a misallocation of resources. They are much better off working on a more consumer-based economy, less dependent on exports, driving technology and innovation harder. Really, the one thing that actually works, state-run communism may not be your cup of tea, but their government works.”  You can read more about this at the link below:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/head-of-obamas-jobs-council-state-run-communism-actually-works/

The reason the Chinese government works under communism is because the people of China are collectivists by their nature—dictated by their religion and other cultural background criteria.  Americans are not, but the public education system driven by current government policies are attempting to make Americans into collectivists so that communism will be received as a world-wide philosophy.  This was one of the key attempts of The Department of Education when it was founded in 1979, and is not news that comes out of conspiracy theory.  The information is clear for anyone who wishes to Google it—but few desire to acknowledge such a terrible truth—because it’s inconvenient.  But for a validation of the depth of communist penetration into the American government, and public education system read this American Thinker article:

  http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/11/pay_no_attention_to_the_commun.html

Communism only works if the society is mindless, and inquisitively evasive.  It takes “no thinking” to make a society into a communist one, and it doesn’t take a miracle to produce 1 billion brain-dead drones who can manufacture goods for a fraction of what it costs in The United States, if those drones do not question their reality.  And many communists are willing to trade thinking for comfort, which is the clear message in today’s public schools.  Young people are taught to take orders, follow directions, and comply with authority.  They are not taught to rebel, to think for themselves, to revel in their own independence.  Those types of behaviors are discriminated against in the society of government workers, and their brain-dead products.

People like Jeffrey Immelt and his boss Barack Obama don’t value individuality even though Immelt is politically listed as a Republican.  Such Republicans are of the “progressive” type, which is clearly indicated by his statement about China.  America, as it is now, would never comply with government orders, put up with the government restrictions on personal liberty, and absorb the loss of such personal luxury as the Chinese do while still showing up to work each day to work for bread and water.  Only a communist country of conquered people can get by with something like that—and the big government types are trying in America—but they will fail.

If China were held to the same regulatory standards as The United States is with socialist labor unions, aggressive EPA regulations, and a standard of living that expects more than 1000 SF of living space per person and all the food they can eat, China will find it’s economic growth evaporate in a flash.  And in the future, that is how America can beat China economically, by loosening the regulations, the taxes, and the socialism from labor unions, then America will thrive once again—because behind the mind of Americans is a thriving mind that craves individual freedom, and behind the oriental is a dominated collectivist that is easily controlled by authority lacking imagination as an entire country totaling millions upon millions of blank thinkers.  All together, they cannot compete creatively with the average American not because their minds are less—but because their political and spiritual philosophy limits them to restrictions of their imaginations—which are the ultimate fuel behind economic development.

Government looters ignore such facts, and it is for those reasons that they are so incredibly inept as managers, leaders, and financial tycoons.

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

  

The Joys of Christmas: What to put under the tree this year?

I do love Christmas for all the reasons that tradition holds.  I suspect that many people are lost to those reasons as culturally society has failed them.  I noticed the longing gaze in the eye of a bank teller the other day when I took out the money to buy my wife’s Christmas present. I could see that she was married, and wished that somebody went to the trouble that I was for my spouse to see that she had a good Christmas.  I revealed my plans to the young lady because of the amount of money that I was taking out in cash, which most people wouldn’t feel comfortable carrying around with them.  I explained that this was the only way I could keep the present a secret from my wife with the hope of lasting till Christmas Day.

She let out several long gasps as she counted the money in stacks of hundred-dollar bills and I could tell that she wished for the same kind of cloak and dagger type maneuvers from her own spouse.  I told her to be patient, that if she could stay married for a quarter of a century like my wife and I have, that such a thing would be possible in her own future.  She smiled, at that and seemed to perk up as she lost track of her count and had to start all over again.

For what Christmas means to me, CLICK HERE and learn what my favorite Christmas song is and why.  I don’t think I will ever tire of Christmas morning, and waking up to unleash the many devious plots that I had been pondering for months toward all the people in my family that were carefully concealed acts of espionage designed to make them happy.  I truly enjoy those magical mornings of cold winter delight as for just a moment the world takes a deep breath and enjoys the company of one another.  And I truly love surprising people, especially my wife, since she is so incredibly hard to catch off guard.

In all our years of marriage, there have only been a handful of times that I have been able to “catch” her with a surprise of any worth.  Some years it is a treasured book that is hard to get, some years it is a gift that she would never buy for herself.  Of recent years, I was able to give her a slick monokini from Victoria Secret that she could wear in the streets of Key West and Cancun without being too over-the-top, and not look like a 17 year-old-girl.  Hard to do with her, and not cheap, since she is extremely picky—extremely.   That was over four years ago, and I haven’t been able to get her quite that good since—until this year.

Another year, my oldest daughter caught me off-guard with a book called Way of the Fighter, which I had been looking for over 20 years.  (CLICK HERE FOR REVIEW)  It’s a rare out-of-print book that costs over $100 dollars from used book venders.  During one of my trips to Los Angeles as I had time to kill from my business there, I spent entire days at the large used book stores on Brand Boulevard looking for a copy of that book from some deceased celebrity’s estate where the kids sold off all the things they thought didn’t have value.  But to no avail.  Somehow, my daughter had tracked down a copy of that book and gave it to me on Christmas, which to date is one of the greatest gifts I have ever received during all my many Christmases over the years.

But the gist of the gifts have not always been about the money, or how much they cost, it is the value of the thoughts behind them, the scheming all in the name of love that goes on in behalf of coaxing just a bit of joy out of a loved one for just a moment.  It is the selfish joy of seeing someone you care about open a gift that you carefully prepared, and plotted to give under the cloak of secrecy for the sustained joy of the gift’s intended recipient.

I suspect Christmas at my house this year will be one of the good ones, and I worked hard to position it that way, and the payday is on the morning of December 25th—and I frankly can’t wait.  But as we wait for that fateful day, if there is a freedom fighter in your family, or a Tea Party patriot, a young NASCAR fan, a hopeless romantic, an avid reader, or just a rebellious renegade then might I suggest you give them for Christmas my book, Tail of the Dragon.  Aside from a last-minute plug for the book, it is a story that will continue giving well into 2013, and they will love you for it.  So if you order one now from the links below, the book should arrive well before shipping companies close down for Christmas, with Saturday the 22nd being the last day.  Amazon.com has been sold out for most of December, but my publisher just sent them a heap of books to fill the need.  And I’m pretty sure that Barnes and Noble has been able to keep up their stock.  So this is just a friendly reminder for the last of those gifts you wish to give that special someone who are truly unique, there is still a chance to put Tail of the Dragon under the tree before Christmas.

For my readers here, I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.  No matter how dark and dreary things appear at times, it is always the human qualities that are best expressed on Christmas morning that ensure that the human race will always persevere over tyranny and chaos to find joy on a new day as the best of what’s in all of us come out on that wonderful—joyous day of December 25th each and every year.

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TheNovelRich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

  

David P. Little Protests at Boehner’s Office: Lap dog reporters get their bellies scratched

I always imagined that activist David P. Little from Progress Ohio who came after me personally a couple of years ago, looked a lot like Jeffery Stec who is currently parading all over the Lakota School District with Karen Mantia attempting to cushion the blow of their next tax increase attempt using their “Community Conversations” campaign.  Jeffery is a younger guy who worked on the streetcar issue in downtown Cincinnati—one of those progressive utopian projects designed by Agenda 21 to be a people mover once high taxes and excessive regulation nudge people back into the cities where authorities can have more control over populations and their behavior.  No, David P. Little is not what I imagined once I saw recent pictures of him.  2 years ago Darryl Parks and I exposed the progressive activist on 700 WLW after Little directly attacked my character calling me a “wealthy businessman” (sound familiar) among other things for my opposition to the Lakota School Levy.  CLICK HERE TO REVIEW THAT EPISODE. 

The videos below are from Progress Ohio so it can be seen what kind of people are involved in that organization.

After the incident I communicated with Little through email, as I was just a bit enraged over the incident.  Up to that point I hadn’t yet become the target of leftist progressive radicals, so they really didn’t know what to make of me in a conflict.  I didn’t imagine that Little was just another “flower child” from the sun-baked 60’s generation, which is what he has turned out to be.  (CLICK HERE TO SEE HIM.)  I thought he was a young guy like Stec trying to make a name for himself with progressive politics.  In that story, Little representing Progress Ohio did a “hit” piece on me that Michael Clark from the Cincinnati Enquirer tipped me off to, and I was thankful that he did.  Back then, Clark and I got along fine, and fairly and he gave me the heads up to what Little was doing against me.  Sadly, just a few years later when a similar “hit” piece was being assembled against me after the third levy defeat, Clark played the other side of the fence as many people warned me he would, so it wasn’t a big surprise, just a disappointment in such predictable human behavior.    CLICK HERE TO REVIEW.  However over the David Little incident, Clark came through which allowed me to answer the story right out of the gate. 

Well, David Little has been back in West Chester politics as he was recently heading up a protest outside of John Boehner’s office urging the Speaker of the House to cut the industrial military complex that is “nation building” throughout the world in lieu of the upcoming “fiscal cliff.”  Little at the protest argued that there would be more money for things like education, and public employees if the military industry in America were diminished to nothing and all the evil contractors would perish into joblessness.  Here is the link to the Pulse Journal article from the reporter covering the story.

http://www.pulsejournal.com/news/news/group-rallies-outside-boehners-local-office/nTPZ3/

I don’t blame the Pulse Journal for not doing proper research into who David Little was.  When Little came after me way back then that particular reporter was probably drawing in coloring books in grade school, as the reporter turn-over rate at the Pulse Journal is excessively high, and their editorial staff has been looking for lapdogs to act as public relations spokesman for Lakota and other community advocate groups.  So the young reporter wouldn’t know the history of Little and his involvement in Lakota, or myself over the years.

Back when I first encountered Little I only argued that costs needed to be brought down in public education.  Since then I have learned what groups like Progess Ohio and public education really have in mind for America, and I have been very vocal about it, which is why many of the reporters who used to speak to me on a regular basis no longer do, because everyone’s comfort level has been smashed when dealing with the actual facts of these stories.   The Pulse Journal as a paper would never reveal how radical Progress Ohio is or their progressive philosophy of undermining The United States with mush minded ideas and pixy dust politics.  But I have went on record calling Little and the groups he fronts for what I think of them, which of course leads to tension—which is my right to do since it was they who drew blood first.

It was cute to see 15 miscreants show up at Boehner’s office with David Little as the spokesman and argue for the dismantling of the military complex in America to pay for a debt that progressive politicians have intentionally driven up to cause the current financial crises in the first place.  The debt is being driven by the old Cloward and Piven strategy of economic collapse to force “change” which is what this whole fiscal cliff idea really comes down to.  The economic perils are part of an attack offensive driven by progressive politics and it is good to see that David Little is at the forefront of the movement.

It is sad that The Enquirer and the Pulse Journal did not report the activity of David Little for what it was, but subtly attempted to pile on the opposition against Boehner as the fiscal cliff nears with the opinion of a fossilized flower child and his progressive philosophy of destruction.   But in these days of social media and changing roles, it is the citizen journalists who are tasked with the traditional roles of watchdog observation, as the current crop of reporters are in league with the masters of destruction implementing a plot of terror that is quietly lethal all because such positions are convenient.

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

  

Communism in Public Educaton: The California Teachers Union Video

Growing up at the end of the Cold War like I did, communism was a dirty word, and was a constant threat.  Many today think that the threat of communism went away after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which started in the early 60’s and was observed by intelligence officers as far back as the Cuban Missile Crises.  The Soviet Union was going to collapse, it was just a matter of time when.  They were collapsing because their political philosophy of communism destroyed ambition and productivity, leaving all of Russia and the gigantic land mass of China to turn those countries into the economies of the third world.  CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO.  Communism is an evil political philosophy because it demands national collectivism to work, which requires individual support—violating personal sovereignty.  Communism cannot work without destroying individuality, and in the process, destroying the kind of ambition that manufactures productivity.

But communism is not gone from the world—it has never left.   It is alive and well today through the labor movement, through the Obama presidency, through any nation’s tendency toward big government.  All that has changed with communism is that advocates have changed the names around to hide their true intentions.  This makes it hard to identify who America’s friends are from their foes when the red flag of the U.S.S.R is removed from the face of communism and is replaced with Barack Obama’s smiling mug advocating progressivism.  The threats to individual sovereignty is the same as it always has been, but the marketing of the ideas did change to appear less threatening, so that the idea of communism could spread all across the world—as was always the plan.  And no place in America is communism more present than in the public education occupation—exclusively because education is controlled by massive government backed teacher unions who plan to teach our children on the merits of communism while forcing them to live under a rainbow-colored umbrella of communism in their everyday lives.  The communists look and act like any other person in our general society—that is, until they open their mouths and begin to spew the long-held philosophic ideas of Karl Marx.  The dead giveaway that a person is a communist is that they advocate high taxes for the “rich” and wealth redistribution for the “middle class.”  For proof of this radicalism, look at the video produced by the California Teachers Union narrated by long time respected actor Ed Asner.  What is being advocated in this video is communism.  This is what our kids are learning in school with tax payer money off our property values.  This is the result of a communist attack from within America that has proven far more dangerous, and sinister than even the Cuban Missile Crises was during the Kennedy years.

I know this video and the producers of it are communists in spite of their declaration that they are “progressives” because their beliefs have been tried before, most notably in the Russian Revolution in 1917 Petrograd—known today as St. Petersburg.   For anyone wishing to learn more on this communism idea they should read We The Living by Ayn Rand, published in 1936 during the “Red Decade” here in America as a warning to those in The United States who were thinking of pushing communism during our own Great Depression.   The book is widely available at any book store today as Ayn Rand books are flying off the shelves as people are going back and learning what she was trying to say during the first half of the American 20th Century.  CLICK HERE TO READ MY REVIEW OF WE THE LIVING. Communists today fear Ayn Rand’s books, so they will ridicule anyone who attempts to read them.  In Ayn Rand’s novels—particularly We The Living she shows how the process happens, and it begins by demonizing the “rich,” those who produce jobs and generate the wealth of a country.  Communists wish to remove these “wealth producers” so that the government does not have any competition for that kind of activity.  In a communist country government wishes to be the job creators by distributing the looted wealth collected from the masses, so they must eliminate those who actually make things.  That is why they attack the “rich.”

The fundamental flaw that all communists suffer from is that they do not understand what makes wealth.   They believe that money is finite, that it is not a renewable resource generated from the ideas in an individual’s head and implemented by the companies that they create.   So communists attempt to steal the wealth that has so far been created, and then they sit on that looted wealth by redistributing it to the poor and middle class.  Then they wonder why their economies failing, because the value for things goes down as the wealth leaves the country like water running through a screen door.  Committees do not produce wealth, corporations do not produce wealth, and governments do not produce wealth.  All those collectivist organizations can only “manage” the wealth created by individuals.  America has had more wealth than any other nation because it has produced individuals who could think in such a fashion to manufacture wealth.   If those individuals are looted by their government, the individuals will stop manufacturing wealth, and soon the nation will fail with devalued currency, and become a society of middle-class looters looking to government to send a check they can live on in the mail.  When they don’t get it, they will protest—just like what is happening in Greece.

The California Teachers Union along with the rest of the public employees of that state are bankrupting it with their commitment to socialism/communism, and their mentality that was wonderfully evident in their video hosted by Ed Asner.  Communists are certainly alive and well, and if you send your child to a public school, they are being taught by communists, as classically defined.  Communists thrive in public education because there is no competition, so government has paved the way to spread communism into the minds of young Americans without any fear of competing ideas interfering.  If parents don’t like their children being taught by communists at their local school, they don’t have much choice but to home school their children (as my wife and I did for a time) or send them to a private school.  Sadly, it is time to stop kidding ourselves of the value of public education when it is now so obvious that public schools are teaching children the values of communism, instead of becoming productive capitalist in a thriving economy.

If you are an older person and can remember the Cold War, you should withdrawal your support from your public school any way possible.  If you send them your money, you are helping spread the communist message to our next generations.  CLICK HERE FOR PROOF THAT THE KGB INFILTRATED PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN THE 1960’s AND NEVER LEFT.  Younger parents, who did not grow up in such a time, won’t know what is going on because they are still too immature to see history playing out before their eyes, and they will not understand.  But for those of us who do, communists have to be removed from public education, and the best way to do that is to starve them out of their hiding places.  For more proof of this communist plot in all public schools, CLICK HERE, watch the video there before assuming that I’m pulling your leg.  Because I’m not, sorry to say.  

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

  

A Lesson on Government from George Lang: how things are supposed to work

Below is an example of how local government is supposed to work—at least as a sample of the type of debate that should transpire between the participants.  This is true no matter what kind of government is presented, whether it is a school board, a group of trustees for a township which is the example below, or a city council—the elected representatives are supposed to argue and hash out issues with passionate narrative in order to arrive at a proper conclusion.  In the example provided, West Chester Trustee George Lang argues against the proposal of trustee Cathy Stoker, and Lee Wong who are voting in favor of a contract renewal with the Fraternal Order of Police that has very lucrative benefits included.  Many of the employees being discussed make very close to six figures a year.  CLICK HERE TO SEE HOW MUCH AND WHO THEY ARE (there’s over 80 comments on that link that are very entertaining).  So the employees are already well compensated, and this new contract more than insures more of the same behavior, which Lang argues West Chester may find balancing a budget will be difficult in the coming years.  Watch for yourself:

George Lang was outvoted 2 to 1, but he still went to the trouble to make the public argument for the good of West Chester, and this is why it’s important to vote in favor of more representatives like Lang at election time.  In West Chester, Cathy and Lee’s seats are coming up for re-election, so there is a chance for West Chester to vote big spenders like those two trustees out of office in favor of managers who will behave more like George Lang.

The trend in most political organizations such as school boards, trustees and city councils is to try to achieve group consensus and this is where politics fails.  When the members of the governing body are more concerned about winning a popularity contest, or being accepted by the other governing members, the chance for spirited debate is effectively squashed, and does not happen very often.  In Lang’s situation of course his position will not make him popular with the public sector unions, but he is not concerned about those kinds of things—he is trying to manage the impact of the contracts cost against the ability of the tax payers of West Chester to pay the bill without tax increases, which is how the process is supposed to work.

Ultimately the video above reveals a much more sinister evil that is at the heart of every government deal involving any public sector union, and illustrates why school boards and other management organizations lose control of their costs—third-party arbitration.  In the video Cathy Stoker discusses that if the contract is not accepted by the trustees that a third-party will be called in to resolve the dispute and force the hand of the trustees against their will.  This third-party arbitration is exactly why school boards do not have the stomachs to fight teacher unions to manage their costs, because the union will force the dispute into arbitration and trump the elected school board.  School boards don’t want to be trumped, so they go along with whatever teacher unions’ support to avoid the third-party embarrassment.

The same threat is present when involving fire fighter unions, and police unions.  In West Chester, Cathy Stoker showed in the video that she is very concerned about third-party arbitration forcing upon them costs that exceed the contract they are agreeing to, while George Lang suggests that the trustees should force the issue into arbitration and fight it out in an effort to save the costs against the tax payers of West Chester.  Lang knows that if they lose their arbitration hearing, he would then have the leverage in the media to blame the arbitration process for the high taxes imposed by the third-party.  So he is willing to roll the dice, whereas Stocker and Wong aren’t.  But at least the debate happened and all three trustees didn’t mindlessly accept the contract without spirited discussion.

When electing these kinds of politicians it is more beneficial to elect fighters instead of people who will just lie down and say “uncle” in the face of third-party arbitration.  It is this threat that drives up the cost of all these public sector workers with teachers, fire fighters, and police departments.  Public sector unions should be illegal, and third-party arbitration by un-elected officials should also be illegal.  The laws that protect this system are a travesty against the tax payers.  But thank God not all politicians are mindless “yes men” who just go through the political motions so they can have the social popularity of a name-plate upon their desks.  Some politicians like George Lang actually try to manage the costs that impact his community, which is what he was elected to do.

For those reading this who are my community neighbors thinking of running for an office there are three school board seats coming up at Lakota, two seats coming up for the West Chester Trustees, and Liberty Twp has some seats coming up, it would be advisable for you to run for one of those seats.  If you need help getting in touch with people who can help with money to run for office, then feel free to contact me, and I’ll put you in touch with those who can help with your campaigns—because I’d like to see more people like George Lang in these local positions fighting on behalf of the tax payers in the years to come.  That is the key to solving many of our future problems circulating around sustaining community growth and maintaining a positive economic future, electing politicians locally who will actually do the job as well as George Lang does.

On the other side, an example of how the job is done poorly can be seen in the video below.

See the difference?  No wonder Detroit is broke and looks the way it does.

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

  

Bill Clinton and Gennifer Flowers: The 2005 meeting attempt and progressive agenda against marriage

I kept waiting for other media outlets to pick up this story, but nobody has, so here it is. A few did, but it died on the vine rather quickly, and deserves some considerable attention. Back in the 1990’s the story of the Gennifer Flowers affair with Bill Clinton was quite a scandal—and in many ways it served progressives well by providing the template of lies, and deceit that a politician can now engage in—which was always a progressive agenda item. Bill Clinton is a hero to the progressive cause because he was one of the first of his kind of politician to lie so openly, dodge federal prosecution, and still win the hearts of America with a favorable memory of his two disastrous terms in office. It was Bill and Hillary Clinton who taught modern progressives as lawyers how to lie straight into the lens of a camera and gain public approval to crush investigations before they had a chance to happen. The tactic that Bill Clinton used in the 1990’s is the same type of tactics that Barack Obama uses today—also an attorney—and that is to win the jury in the box in spite of the evidence that is presented to a judge. Bill Clinton was and still is the master of deception. In fact, he is so arrogant about his ability to lie, cheat and manipulate the public that as recently as 2005, after denying the affair he had with Flowers for over 20 years he showed up at Flowers house to attempt to re-establish contact with her. Watch a recent interview with her below and wrap your mind around the level of deceit and treachery that she is claiming—then consider that the show she is on is a very small program of little significance. Such a story should have been plastered on every network all over the country, but story editors have long ago determined that going after Bill Clinton is a losing proposition.

Even to the extent of lying about their relationship over such a long period of time, Clinton obviously with the full knowledge of his wife Hillary—currently serving in the Obama White House—attempted to establish contact knowing that every eye in the world is watching him. He did not care, and did it anyway because he knew he could always wiggle out of it if he were caught. I have written a lot about Bill Clinton and to review some of those articles and what Clinton is really after in life, CLICK HERE. But for the case of this instance, have a look at the video below and watch the classic 60 Minutes episode where Bill and Hillary completely staged the revelation of the Flowers affair then denied it so that he could boost his name recognition. That interview put him into every living room in America at the time. Compare the video below with the video above to gain insight into just how scummy these politicians can be, and often are. Keep in mind that the purpose of the affair release was to put money in Flowers pocket, boost their presidential platform exposure to a national audience, Hillary knew everything about the affair and was alright with it—which points to the fact that Bill and Hillary have an “open marriage” and that both of them had no problem lying about the facts to achieve their political goals—and did so at whatever cost.

Most people have a strain of evil in them, and it comes out from time to time in little instances usually provoked by stress or tragedy. But they are not so maniacal to plot and scheme to such a treacherous level as people like Bill Clinton have and not worry at all whether or not they could lawyer their way out of the mess. Clinton showed progressives how to beat the system, he is the “case law” of progressive politics and that is why he is a hero in the minds of progressives even to this day. They do not care about the essence of Clinton’s character; they do not care if he is a confirmed liar, a master manipulator, or a parasite to the human race—because most progressives are. In the social collectivism they so adamantly support they do not find the individual behavior of Bill Clinton reprehensible because their continued focus is always on the greater good—which might seem like a lofty goal—but that lofty goal is often set by liars, cheats, and womanizing freaks like Bill Clinton, and is imposed on the rest of us for all of American history. The video below shows to what celebrity status Clinton has managed to maintain among his progressive base. He played a huge part in the re-election of Barack Obama using the same old manipulative tactics he used during his own presidency, and progressives love him for it. Notice the song they introduced him with at the DNC Convention—listen to the words. Welcome to the mind of the progressive and the scum and villainy they perpetuate upon mankind, as they try to convince America that “yesterday’s gone” and the only direction is the progressive “Move Forward” slogan designed to carry America away from its traditions, including traditional—monogamous—sexual relationships with their spouses. They desire a world of Orgy Porgy. CLICK HERE FOR MORE.

When the Flowers story broke in 1992 the media was a different animal, and so was America. The Clintons used a Trojan Horse strategy to get themselves into the White House so they could write their own rules in the game of politics, and they changed it forever. It is because of them that a goofball like Barack Obama can get by with such a terrible record, a checkered past and never be expected to do anything while president and still have the cheers of the crowd, because progressives reside in the very heart of evil itself. Their lives are built upon collective salvation and do not function from individual possession and traditional American principles. They are a menace to our country and cannot be trusted for anything they utter, because they have proven a willingness to look society in the eye and lie to achieve the aims of the collective for goals unspecified. And that is the real danger, that nothing they say can be trusted. Yet to the minds of many, these liars are believe heroes who have set the moral groundwork for the America of tomorrow, which has always been their sinister aim, even way back when Bill and Hillary sat on a couch during a 60 Minutes interview, Hillary’s hair cut to look like a typical modern woman, her arm placed behind her husband lovingly, and told a straight-faced lie to millions of Americans without a thought or a care as to being caught by the impropriety. They knew that once elected, they would change the rules that all of society functioned under—and to a large extent they have, to the cheers of millions.

Evil carries with it many siren songs of fatality—meant to be lucrative; otherwise the ideas would be utterly rejected. Dear reader, did you think that evil would show itself with horns and a pitchfork? The only fork one is likely to see with these modern examples of pure evil is that of the tongue that utters mountains of lies built on a foundation of progressive manipulation.

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com