Tag: Tea Party

Binik-Thomas #26 at Tail of the Dragon: How a novel can create a Yorktown moment

IMG_1686One of the most satisfying aspects of my life is in being the facilitator of rebellion.  That is what is going on these days; it is a full-blown rebellion against the establishment that has controlled the American people subtly.  I don’t like that “establishment,” and along with many others we are forming up against it to rebel.  The extent of this modern rebellion became known to me recently when a friend of mine, Justin Binik-Thomas testified in front of the chairman of the House Policy and Legislative Oversight Committee.  The hearing was located at the University of Cincinnati College of Education, Criminal Justice and Human Services on July 25th at 1 P.M.  Justin was recently the sole target of the infamous question #26 by the IRS who was caught targeting Tea Party groups as a weapon of progressive politics to force compliance upon their establishment.  Justin being one of the founding members of the Cincinnati Tea Party was a key target of the IRS which as the investigation into their scrutiny migrates toward the truth appears to extend right into the meeting rooms of The White House.

This is where the fun begins.  Justin after his testimony went on the air with another friend of mine Matt Clark of WAAM Ann Arbor, Michigan to speak about the treacherous actions of the IRS and the results of the hearing.  There is a level of anxiety among some in this modern rebellion who fear that the IRS scandal will be swept under the rug with the large brooms of the establishment.  But Justin understands that these things take time as he and Matt discussed the nature of the IRS investigation and the pursuit of justice on WAAM radio.

Below is the rest of that interview as Matt went straight into the MSNBC clip referenced.  Jay Carney hoped that he was in friendly territory on the progressive network, but even there the hosts can see through the treachery of the IRS scandal for what it is, and things didn’t turn out well for the White House spokesman.  It is a shame that only a few people in the country watch MSNBC and missed this important broadcast.  Luckily Matt Clark is always watching as a fevering instrument of festering rebellion, he uses his vast media and technical knowledge to save the Republic one broadcast at a time.  Few remember that during George Washington’s handling of America’s first rebellion from the time of his major victory in crossing the Delaware to the magnificent victory at Yorktown four years of hard war transpired.  There were many heartaches during that revolution such as the winter at Valley Forge and betrayals most epically displayed by Benedict Arnold–victory did not come easily.  Guys like Matt Clark and Justin Binik-Thomas understand how long it takes, and they diligently chip away day by day.

Meanwhile Justin continued on with his media parade informing all what had transpired at the hearings.  Below he appeared on Fox News with Greta Van-Susteren where he has become a frequent guest.  On these broadcasts Justin wisely kept his tongue reserved yet gently blew on the winds of liberty with a keen understanding of what he’s doing and how long it takes for rebellion to take hold.  The aim of this rebellion is not armed conflict of course, but is strictly in the pursuit of justice which has been deeply suppressed by the modern progressive establishment.

But after the cameras were turned off and radio broadcasts ended, Justin took a moment to vacation in the heart of capitalism in America where the blood of rebellion pores most keenly, Gatlinburg, Tennessee and once there he visited another friend of mine, Ron Johnston.  Justin was an early reviewer of my novel Tail of the Dragon which was written by me with the intention of modernizing Thomas Pain’s efforts who wrote pamphlets during the first revolution.  Ron is the guy who ignited my imagination to write the novel.  I’ll make no bones about it, I not only intended to blow on the flames of liberty to help them spread–I wrote Tail of the Dragon to throw gasoline upon that fire.  After reading the book Justin had this to say:

Rich – Your book is exceptional. The race/chase scene had me on the edge of my seat.“Tail of the Dragon” is a dynamic action-packed thriller seamlessly integrating love for America, homage to our history, and true liberty. We ‘live’ it first hand through a NASCAResque race through the hills of Tennessee and North Carolina – a trip that captures the hearts of the citizens and even the President of the United States

– Justin Binik-Thomas, Owner, Conservative Media Group

To recharge his batteries after the IRS scandal of which he is the center, Justin visited the Tail of the Dragon and touched the face of true freedom in those rugged mountains west of downtown Gatlinburg in likely one of the freest places on earth.  Justin found Ron at his store and had his picture taken in front of the giant dragon that Ron has at the entrance to that famous road which is the centerpiece to my novel’s plot.  After speaking with Ron who is a tremendous Glenn Beck fan and after realizing who Justin was, and that he knew me, Ron had him sign his wall very near the autograph of Charlie Boorman.  Justin signed the wall #26 in reference to his IRS case much talked about in the media. Justin at the Dragon

What all these people have in common besides a love of liberty is their love of Tail of the Dragon.  Ron Johnston loved the book and upon reading it instantly gave me rights to use the name he created for the title to my novel.  Matt Clark as a modern-day youthful media wiz references the book often during his radio broadcasts as he has read it many times enjoying it more each time as the complicated themes come together more thoroughly each time.  And Justin after all that he had been through, who is also a lover of Tail of the Dragon, sought refreshment in the land that I described in the novel from the battles with the progressive establishment.   After reading the book he wanted to visit the actual place with his family, and it appears to have done everything he had hoped.

It gives me great pleasure to know that the “establishment” does not like my book which is fitting because I don’t like them.  As the author of Tail of the Dragon I did not hide my feelings about the “establishment,” nor my love of rebellion.  But people like Justin, Matt, and Ron do love my book and there are more and more every week that are discovering that rebel rousing work for themselves for the first time, and like Justin, they seek to make a pilgrimage to the actual spot to see what all the fuss is about.  Once they get there they discover that the Tail of the Dragon where Ron Johnston has his store is the heart and soul of the liberty movement and it is there that the pulse of American independence can be seen most clearly in a land far removed from politics where the residents are not afraid to show their disdain for intrusive government and nanny state politics.

It brings my mind great comfort to know that the story of Tail of the Dragon is touching so many with profound impact.   It was never my intention to have a traditional novel that dominated popular culture on the New York Times charts for a few weeks then faded off into obscurity not long after.  Rather, I always hoped to touch the minds of youth with the story of Rick Stevens and provoke there a desire to join in rebellion against establishment politics and the stagnation that lives in those fecal waters.  Witnessing Justin’s one week journey from a mutual friend in an Ann Arbor, Michigan radio show to the sharp mountains on the North Carolina/Tennessee border the common thread for all involved was a love of Tail of the Dragon the novel, and the spirit of rebellion that is its central message.  A rebellion that is not only justified, but mandated as the necessary means to bring joy to the human race globally as this second revolution is not just about a few colonies in a New World, but the entire earth.  It is time to stop allowing philosophies that don’t work to harm innocent people with tyranny and social compliance that is detrimental to their very souls.  It is time to behold a philosophy of freedom that will finally bring the world peace and prosperity—but it will not be easy.  Those who want to maintain the current establishment wish to continue this suffering because they profit from it.  It is against those people who this new rebellion is directed, and the means to the end are outlined in my novel Tail of the Dragon, that is slowly building up a nation of freedom fighters to their Yorktown moment.  And I love it!Justin 2

Rich Hoffman

Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE.  CLICK HERE!  

Ohio’s Bullwhip Fast Draw: Thoughts while listening to the ‘Lone Ranger’ soundtrack

While I was in Greeneville, Ohio participating in the annual Annie Oakley Western Showcase events a FedEx package arrived at my home two counties to the south.  The Lone Ranger soundtrack featuring Hans Zimmer’s new music for the 2013 Disney film came out on July 23rd prompting me to run all over town trying to find it.  I went to Best Buy, Barnes and Nobel, Target, any store that carried actual CD’s.  The soundtrack was actually released on July 2nd as MP3 downloads but I wanted an actual disk to call my own, and Disney had timed the release of the soundtrack to come out between the American and London release of the film.  I was hoping to have the music to listen to on the long drive up to the Darke County Fairgrounds so I went to Amazon.com and ordered The Lone Ranger soundtrack hoping it would be delivered by Friday.  Unfortunately when I checked on the shipping information before leaving for the bullwhip competitions, my treasured music was at the Hamilton hub and wouldn’t be delivered until later that day while I was gone. But I had been listening to clips of the soundtrack all month online, and was thinking of them as I participated in the yearly Ohio Bullwhip Fast Draw Championships which can be seen below.

The Bullwhip Fast Draw was invented by Gery Deer and Paul Nolan at Gerry’s studio in Jamestown, Ohio near Ceaser’s Creek.  There is nothing like it anywhere in the world.  The competition was literally born in Ohio out of a desire to display how fast bullwhips can be drawn from a coiled position and thrust out to hit a target.  At our annual Annie Oakley Western Showcase competitions the SASS (Single Action Shooting Society) is set up in the next building performing their pistol quick draw events so it only made sense for the benefit of the crowd and fun for participants to do something similar with bullwhips.

At the Annie Oakley Western Showcase expert whip handlers from all over the continental United States have come to participate over the last decade and try their hand at Ohio’s very challenging competition.  When the Bullwhip Fast Draw was first conceived by Gery the Wild West Arts Club had their big yearly meeting in Las Vegas led by Mark Allen and Alex Green so the smaller gathering in Ohio needed something to solidify its uniqueness.  That is how and why Gery invented The Bullwhip Fast Draw.  Over the years as older Western Arts acts with their aging participants left the field Ohio became the center of attention under Gery’s diligent work and enterprise.  Every year when the Annie Oakley Days hit Greenville, Ohio in Darke County the Bullwhip Fast Draw has become increasingly a crowd favorite.  It’s a very fast event that has plenty of drama and is the perfect kind of bullwhip activity to perform in front of an audience.

I won the event this year and several times in the past, but there have been many winners.  My son-in-law is particularly good at it as he and I used to practice in the back yard against each other when he lived at our house during the early days of his marriage to my daughter.  One year Richard Best’s 10-year-old granddaughter won the whole event beating everyone. Kirk Bass has done very well at it over the years which is why our stand-offs against each other are always exciting.  As a knife thrower he has the proper movement ingrained in his head so he gets to the target quickly.  Sometimes, like the instance in the video above the quick draw is so fast that the eye cannot see the result in real-time.  Only slow motion can reveal the winner.  The camera in that footage captures images at 30 frames per second, which is faster than a motion picture camera producing 24 frames per second.  By watching the Bull Whip Fast Draw in slow motion it is clearly seen that only a few images of the whips in motion can be seen from the coiled position.  As the entire Bull Whip Fast Draw takes place in a fraction of a second there are only a few images that are captured of the actual whip in flight.  When the end of the whip strikes the cup it is traveling at well over 750 MPH because the crack is a sonic boom.  The whip handler must calculate in their mind within a fraction of a moment the exact location in space and time where the end of their whip will strike the target.

Within the entire world there are only handfuls of people who are very good at the finesse aspects of whip handling.  This means performing some of the complicated cracks using two-handed maneuvers.  But when it comes to focusing those efforts on a directed point in space and applying the timing necessary to hit that point of space with all the calculations it takes to make a bullwhip arrive there is a whole different set of circumstances that has an even narrower range of experts.  This is why even very technical bullwhip performers can have difficulty when they are put up against a clock or worse yet, another human being standing across from them.  In the early days of the Bullwhip Fast Draw I always had the speed to hit targets quickly, but often found that if I tried to push out too much speed I would tend to crack the target off to the right—often missing.  A bullwhip to work right is a matter of timing, the end of the whip has to be known within fractions of a second and projected to a directed spot in three-dimensional space.  To win the Bull Whip Fast Draw a piece of the cup must be cut off, so the end of the whip needs to crack precisely on the target.  It is not enough to just run the whip through the target using downward momentum to knock the target from the holder.  To win the 750 MPH needed to obtain a crack of the whip needs to be focused in order to hit the target before the other opponent as fast as possible and that speed must be directed at the target.  Kirk Bass is so good at the Bullwhip Fast Draw because he’s not only strong, but is accustomed to directing focused energy complete with timing because he is a professional knife thrower.  Whip artists who are good at the Bullwhip Fast Draw are able to make all those calculations in fractions of a second using power, finesse, and impeccable timing to hit their target under the pressure of time.  Not at all easy, but really fun to watch and try.

Unlike traditional firearm quick draw, such as what the SASS Society engages in, the calculation is in the hand/eye coordination but with the added pressure of creating the force needed to generate a sonic boom to destroy the target.  The gun does most of the physical force work in traditional quick draw.  With the whip the force is done by the same hands that make all the calculations in time and space which is why it is such a unique event.

Like all games of skill the benefits often carry over into other aspects of life.  I find that the skills that allow me to be good at the Bullwhip Fast Draw help me in all aspects of my existence and that is the real reason for working hard to accomplish the needed skills.  Every year I enjoy the opportunity to re-calibrate myself with the wonderful people who meet me at the Annie Oakley Festival and compete against me in Ohio’s very own Bullwhip Fast Draw.  The crowd watching has a great time, but the competition for me is even better as a useful tool in measuring what works and what doesn’t.  The ability to discover how fast is too fast, and how fast is just right is useful in making virtually all decisions about all things and this is what I like most about The Bullwhip Fast Draw.

After a good day of working with some of the best whip artists there are anywhere it felt good to return home at the end of a long weekend to find The Lone Ranger soundtrack waiting for me on my front porch.  I had been humming the music in my head all during the whip competitions, especially the Bullwhip Fast Draw and my mind was in a good mood from the experience.  It is one thing to enjoy music like Hans Zimmer’s latest soundtrack to a western film which is highly unusual, especially the song, “Red’s Theater of the Absurd.”  Listen to it at the clip below. 

I LOVE THAT SONG!

But it’s quite another to be able to actually participate in events that celebrate western arts, which are the foundations of American culture while listening to it.  It was late at night but I opened the soundtrack anyway and quickly downloaded it onto my iPod.  As I drifted off to sleep thinking of my day participating in Ohio’s very own Bullwhip Fast Draw I listened to the music of The Lone Ranger.  Because Gery and Paul invented the Bullwhip Fast Draw, a unique event that has brought to my life a way of thinking that is highly unusual, and much appreciated, my life has been improved.  The musical notes of The Lone Ranger are just a little bit sweeter when it is known that all the work done in the Bullwhip Fast Draw were invented in Ohio, and seen only at the Annie Oakley Festival every year at the end of July.  It puts you in the kind of company that can be counted on only two hands as far as skill level.  It’s all about speed, calculation, and force, skills that are often needed when life deals hard problems which are not quite as literal as the relationship between a target and a bullwhip.

Rich Hoffman

Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE.  CLICK HERE!  

Sex, Sex, and More Sex at Lakota: Classroom romance by Robert Supinger

 

 

 

For the second time in a month allegations that a Lakota West High School teacher conducted improper contact with a student surfaced.  The Enquirer deserves credit for the story as they reviewed the personnel records of Lakota and discovered Robert E. Supinger, a former long-term substitute teacher at the Butler County high school had allegedly kissed a student and took her to meet his parents while he was employed by the Lakota school district.

Read more about this story at the link below:

http://westchesterbuzz.com/2013/07/31/another-lakota-teacher-punished-for-student-contact/

 

The important thing to understand about this case is the date of the offense.  Lakota did not reveal the details which were happening in parallel to the George Merk case.  The impropriety occurred during the 2011/2012 school year and was finally resolved in December of 2012 by the Ohio Department of Education.  The Merk offenses occurred during March of 2012 right after the much publicized cuts to the staff in February of 2012 because of the failed levy in 2011. 

 

It appears that the teaching culture at the Lakota school system is one of excessive sexual preoccupation.  The amount of sexually related offenses is not a coincidence, but comes from the day-to-day management of their occupational affairs.  As Robert E. Supinger was only 25 years old, he was still nearly a decade older than the girl he was parading around to his parents as an employee of the Lakota school system, which shows extremely bad judgment.  That begs the question of why Supinger was teaching high school level kids, and who made that decision.  Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for Supinger to learn the teaching profession as a substitute in the middle schools where the children are much younger?  Wouldn’t it make sense to have teachers who are “older” instructing high school aged children?

 

It can be speculated forever why so many public school teachers seem to be obsessed with sex involving their students.  Yet the worst part of this case is that Lakota has had two sexually related scandals which they attempted to conceal, and were only revealed because The Enquirer did some digging to discover the information.  It should be clear now why Lakota cut a deal with No Lakota Levy to delay a school levy attempt in 2012.  When Channel 19 called me to do a story in June of 2012 I thought the timing was odd and Lakota seemed awfully eager to make such a deal.  Now the timing makes more sense.  Robert Supinger had just gotten into trouble with inappropriate conduct with one of his students and the district wanted to put time and distance between them and their next levy attempt once the Ohio Department of Education had finished their investigations.  Lakota had two sex scandals happen close together and they wanted to suppress the story.  If The Enquirer had not dug through the public records, the tax paying public would have no knowledge of these offenses and parents would have absolutely no idea what kinds of employees Lakota was employing.  They’d be forced to take the school’s word for it, which is of course is misleading 100% of the time.

 

Parents assume when they send their children to school  that the teachers aren’t going to attempt to engage in sex with the children no matter what the age of the teachers.  Teachers are supposed to “teach” not “date” the students.  Lakota stated regarding Robert Supinger that they had terminated the employee immediately, yet they didn’t publish the results in the flowery newsletter that the school sends home with the kids advertising the need for more money for those same teachers.  When I went to Homearama this year and browsed through the booth that Lakota had set up at the home building show the school did not reveal how their human resources team had taken evasive action to discharge sexual predators from their classrooms in order to protect the children of the “community.”  If The Enquirer had not dug through the public records the public wouldn’t have any idea that Robert Supinger had even been disciplined for anything.  The case would have been swept under the rug like so many other stories that are related to public education.

 

The question is obvious—how many teachers at Lakota are engaged in sexual enterprises with the students of their classrooms?  And how many such stories are being suppressed by the public relations machine the Lakota administration spends so much tax money on?   The answer is becoming known little by little as diligent reporters discover what many disheartened parents have attempted to break open for years, that Lakota may be a good school with an excellent rating, it may have a good football team, and may actually prepare students for a life in college.  But that preparation may not be academic.  It would appear by the behavior of Lakota schools that their teachers are overly sexual in their focus and intent to prepare students for the next college party, instead of a competitive workplace that expects good conduct and at least the illusion of sexual restraint.  Lakota acts as though their management conduct is acceptable and maybe it is for the Zombies of Lakota who vote continuously for school levies to pay for teachers who simply want to seduce tax payer’s children with flights of fantasy in their classrooms.  But for me, and many other people who are voting NO on the upcoming fall school levy, these employees are not worth the money.  If we wanted this kind of behavior at Lakota we’d simply recruit the teachers from a whore house.  

Rich Hoffman

Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE.  CLICK HERE!  

Northwest Schools Thank Voters for School Levy: Oral sex and pot smoking at a teacher’s home

It may seem unfair to public schools to measure the behavior of their teachers off so many cases of bad conduct.  But they bring the scrutiny on themselves.  Every couple of years most public schools constantly ask for tax increases promising that by spending the extra money communities will make themselves stronger by being able to employee better teachers.  Then school districts hire public relations staff at tax payer expense to spin the school’s position in favor of maintaining high public approval so that levies can be passed when schools desire the money.  So when bad things happen which cannot be controlled by media handlers, the tax payers have a right to know, and to cast their disapproval in the direction of public education.  That is what has just happened in the Northwest School District.

A grand jury indicted science teacher 36-year-old Julie Hautzenroeder on two counts of sexual battery.  According to court documents, Hautzenroeder engaged in oral sex with one boy and intercourse with another between April 26 and May 15 of 2013.  Both teens were students at the school, and one boy was a 10th-grader.  Parents who know the teen said the case also involved marijuana smoking,  Hautzenroeder was escorted from the school in early May and placed on leave before the end of the school year.  She had been employed by Northwest Schools since July 2006.

Read more of the story that Karin Johnston broke at Channel 5 broke: http://www.wlwt.com/news/local-news/hamilton-county/colerain-teacher-indicted-on-student-sex-charges/-/13550662/21178788/-/1416u6e/-/index.html#ixzz2aLT7jmsk

Sex, or sexual misconduct by teachers at this point is well-known and appears to be normal in public education.  Just a few short weeks ago Lakota had a case that finally became known to the public after a year of debate.  Lakota West High School math teacher George C. Merk was placed on a 45 day license suspension beginning over the summer months because he had inappropriate sexually related text messages with his students.  CLICK HERE FOR REVIEW.  It is no surprise that Julie Hautzenroeder desired to use her position of authority to fulfill sexual fantasies with her students using marijuana smoking and various degrees of sex.  These teachers know that unless they do something really outrageous and get caught doing it; their teacher’s union will protect them so they don’t worry too much about behaving in a positive fashion.  In the case of Merk he was suspended over the summer when teachers were off anyway–so much for punishment.  With Hautzenroeder it took a grand jury for the teacher to be removed from the job as she had been on paid leave since the scandal first broke on May 15.  It literally takes getting caught red-handed with massive evidence to lose a job as a teacher because the unions are so strong.  There is simply no telling how much of this sex is going on as the behavior appears to be rampant—which is why schools require public relations staff to control the scandals from public scrutiny.

But here’s the worst of it.  It was only November of 2012 that the same school district Julie worked for was going for a 4.95-mill five year emergency operating levy to generate $7.3 million annually.  During the levy campaign the school declared to the community that the tax payers were paying for quality schools that would bring quality to their community—the same nonsense that is uttered in every public school district.  But what is never discussed is that a majority of the money raised was going directly to teacher salary.  When the levy was passed, the superintended posted the following on their Facebook page celebrating their win at the ballot box.

A note from the NWLSD Superintendent:

We won! Or more accurately, congratulations- you
won! This victory was all about our community members taking a stand and saying:
We not do want any more cuts.
We want to maintain the wide array of
outstanding programs that we offer to our students.

We want our students and staff to be able to
work together without fearing the loss of programs and jobs.
We want our community to be proud of the
programs that can offer in our schools.

I am sure that a lot more will said about this levy victory,
but for today we only need to do two things. First, we need to thank all the staff, students, parents, community members and businesses who helped pass the levy…… then we need to celebrate- this was a decisive victory for our community, our students and our staff.

Have a great day- I know I will.

Rick Glatfelter
Superintendent

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Vote-Yes-Northwest-2012/114764095286259

Within five months of that election victory Rick Glatfelter had one of his employees bringing students to her home for oral sex, standard sex, and pot smoking.  Glatfelter obviously had no control of the school employees off the Colerain property yet the arrangements were made at his school by his employee with students he was responsible for and he obviously has failed to maintain a high standard of conduct that the community he proclaimed to represent can be proud of.  Without question the superintendent will declare that he did what he could with Julie Hautzenroeder as the union had his hands tied.  As soon as he could he removed her from class, but the damage had already been done.  The events leading up to the sex at her house, the in-class flirting, the whispers from the other teachers, the gossip of the other students were not acted upon because the union has management’s hands tied into inaction.

All management at public schools can do is throw more money at teachers like Julie Hautzenroeder and hope that everyone behaves.  If somebody gets caught, then public relations specialists can bail out the district as Lakota attempted to do with the Merk case which finally came out a year too late.  In all reality nothing will happen to Merk—he’ll be teaching at the start of the 2013/2014 school year in spite of his bad behavior and without question Hautzenroder thought she’d skate along with the same disregard for her job that showed incredible arrogance and disrespect for her employers, the tax payers of Northwest Schools.  Her way of thanking the voters for approving the recent school levy was to sleep with their children and get stoned.

With the reckless attitude displayed in public schools by the employees at all levels, it is amazing that they have the audacity to even use such language as “quality,” “community,” and “excellence” when describing the services they offer to the community.  Any gutter trash of a human being can do what Julie Hautzenroeder did.  But the public schools have no way of removing such parasites off their payroll once they are hired leaving the question to ask, why didn’t Rick Glatfelter say as much during the levy attempt of 2012?  Well, the answer is that he was hired for one thing at Northwest Schools, and that was to pass a tax increase, which he did.  That was why he was able to sleep well that night of the election.  Most superintendents in Ohio are former teachers themselves and they know of many situations like the Julie Hautzenroeder case.  Their job is to run cover for the unions to protect their former profession from public scrutiny while finding new ways to wrestle from the community the money needed to pay the outrageous wages demanded by collective bargaining contracts.  At the time Julie lost her job she was making right around $50,000 a year only working at the district since 2006.  With payroll so high and the union so strong the only management that Glatfelter could perform is to throw more money into the community pot so that the teachers good and bad alike could pillage from it like ravenous wolves upon the taste of blood.  Once the money was secured, and the teachers could relax a bit on their public image campaigns during the levy periods, they were back at doing what they enjoyed doing best—surrendering their sexual urges to logic in drug induced indictments against the community that employs them with a secret smile on their faces daring anybody to confront their illicit behavior which is much more known than anybody will dare admit.

Rich Hoffman

Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE.  CLICK HERE!  

Little Nada Al-Ahdal: Escaping from arranged marriage to act like a proud American

An 11-year-old girl apparently from Yemen made an impassioned online plea for her parents to stop pressuring her into an arranged marriage which gained international attention.  In the video, brown-eyed Nada Al-Ahdal chastised her parents whom she called “criminal” and said she would rather die than be married off and throw her life away at such a young age.  For many Americans, the idea of arranged marriage is a radically foreign concept.  In America, the typical marriage arrangement is one of choice where two individuals pick one another for a shared life.  However, in many countries, even to this very day, marriages are arranged with the belief that the sacrifice of a bride to a well-connected groom is acceptable so that a family can prosper through the marriage.  Daughters are often traded away into marriages to perceptively strong families so that collectively the whole family will rise in public stature.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/07/22/11-year-old-yemeni-girl-apparently-featured-in-stunning-video-plea-i-prefer-suicide-over-arranged-marriage/

The idiocy of this belief may seem remote in The United States, but it is closer to home than many believe.  As England produced from the Royal Vagina a new baby, the world clamored to the news like mosquitoes in an early summer evening after a heavy rain.  Just for being born to a member of the Royal family, a future King of England was born.  The future King did nothing to earn the merit, yet the people of England chose to believe that there was something special about the Royal blood flowing through the new-born baby who has done nothing to earn such a social role.  There are many thousands of Englishmen who are far more qualified to be King of England based on merit, yet a baby born of Kate Middleton was given the title because of the family he was born in.

When parents attempt to arrange the marriage of their children, they are attempting to create social alliances that will benefit them in the economic world through politics and status.  The individual desires of the marriage party are of a secondary concern.  Young women in many cultures throughout the world are expected to marry spouses chosen by someone besides themselves.  In the case of this young 11-year-old Yemen girl, she only wanted the opportunity to be a little girl.  She does not want to be a wife.  She does not want to be the bed partner of a perfect stranger who can do by law whatever he pleases to her body any time he wishes.  Yet her parents were willing to trade her away in an arranged marriage so that they could earn through her life improvements to theirs.

People, who think like this, even in The United States, are the type of people who become progressives.   They are collectivists who believe that the sum of the social whole is greater than any individual.  The parents of Nada Al-Ahdal believe that the little girl’s life is subservient to their needs as a family.  The situation with this family is more obvious than the American socialite who tries to get their daughters married to some perceived powerful person like a doctor, a lawyer, or a politician because of the influence of pull that the arrangement will provide.  These mentalities have their origin in Europe and are of the same type who camped out for weeks in London to witness the birth of a Royal Prince.  The willingness to believe that a family has more merit over other families just because society has said so is the kind of belief that drives a statist society.   The belief that value is something that some people are born with as opposed to others is to not understand what gives people value—but to assume that it is granted by chance, political pull, or even heredity.  Arranged marriages, belief in Royal blood, or astrologers who believe the character of a child is shaped by the position of the sun, moon and stars in the heavenly sky are the cheerleaders of statism.  The hidden epitaphs of this statist behavior is a fear of taking responsibility for their lives, and instead are happy to throw their lives away on chance so that some mystical powers beyond their knowledge are responsible for the misery they issue to their existence.

For any Englishman to behold beyond tabloid amusement the realization that an unproven baby is qualified to be King of a nation is to shrug responsibility away from their lives and surrender their very souls to the state.  For a family to wish away their 11-year-old daughter in exchange for some alliance with another family is to shrug away their responsibility as individuals to bring fortune to themselves by their own merit.  Their actions are the same as the head-hunters of New Guinea who believed that by eating their enemies, they could gain power over their rivals.

In America these goofy ideas of arranged marriages and worshiping kings was rejected by the Declaration of Independence.  Collectivism in all forms was rejected.  In Europe the Troubadours  from France in the 13th Century were among the first people in the world to reject this collectivist notion of arranged relationships and their evolution became the norm in America.  CLICK HERE FOR MORE.  The behavior of families in Yemen who have no value for the lives of individual women, even children who are only 11 years old, is a pre-evolution social behavior that belongs in the camp ground of a Neanderthal.  And the behavior of England who collectively chanted behind their facades of socialism for the birth of their future king, they are only a step outside that same campfire as they yearn to elect a village chief to instruct them of their life’s direction.  The reason that America is the greatest country on earth is because it has a tradition of appreciating merit, and merit is obtained through individuality, which is nurtured by embracing such factors in their relationships.  In America the family traditionally is designed to invoke individual growth in their children.  In collectivist societies, the children exist to serve the collective family—who is just a microcosm of society at large.  The individuality is removed, and sacrifice is the dominate belief.

Little Nada Al-Ahdal from Yemen is only guilty of wanting to be a little girl who has the same opportunities as any American girl has—the right to marry whom she pleases, and perhaps raise a child of that union to be a king if they chose to be.  There is a reason that women in Yemen commit suicide when they realize they hate the husbands that their families have arranged for them, their country gives them no way out of the imprisonment. Nada is in the context of her culture a remarkable young woman.  When I hear her speak I think of Jasmine from the Disney film Aladdin and it would not surprise me if the little girl did not have a someone special in her life who showed her that great American classic so to inspire her to live like Jasmine and deny an arranged marriage so that she would be free to pursue the man of her dreams.  It took guts for little Nada to make such a bold proclamation to the public and I respect her for it. 

I would say that 11-year-old Nada Al-Ahdal is no longer a little girl from Yemen, but has taken the bold steps into becoming an American and claiming her life for her own right.  It is the American concept of individual recognition that she seeks, and because of her social refusal, she deserves it as she speaks for a countless horde of unfortunate young women who find themselves arranged in marriage by a social structure that sees them as needed sacrifice for the gods of benefit to rain upon an ignorant society.  Any society that believes such arranged marriages are a positive practice for their citizens is clearly functioning from ignorance, and thank goodness that within such seas of corrupt fools there are bold young women like Nada who are more like Americans living in the country of Yemen than most Americans living in New York City who are behaving like Yemenites.

Rich Hoffman

“Justice Comes with the Crack of a Whip!”

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

The Miracle of Uncle Walt Disney: Rich Hoffman and Matt Clark discuss the heart of American Exceptionalism

Hollywood StudiosWhen people ask what kind of America I want, and what am I fighting for, my conversation always comes back around to one person who delivered to me an ideal of America that I have always worked to achieve, Walt Disney.  Disney is one of the characters in real life who did just as the heroes of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged novel did, he brought to humanity wonderful gifts that have lived on for nearly 50 years after his death, and he did not do it as a collective effort, he did it with his solely driven mind.  Roy Disney, Walt’s older brother could not have done what Walt was able to do.  Roy brought a stabilizing factor to Walt’s life financially, but the collaboration did not work the other way around.  one-mans-dreamIf not for the solitary, driven mind of Walt Disney, I am entirely convinced that an entire era of Americana would have been successfully destroyed by external American enemies who planted seeds of deception into our culture that were met by only a handful of creative minds who stood as pillars against moral collapse.  The audacity to invoke into society the world over the unique human attribute of a personal dream was Walt Disney’s greatest weapon against tyranny, and most treasured gift to humankind.  My friend Matt Clark on WAAM radio in Ann Arbor, Michigan feels the same way about Uncle Walt as I do, and we spent an hour of radio time on Matt’s show during July 21st, 2013 from 2 to 3 PM talking about the importance that Walt Disney has had in preserving American culture not only in his time but in the present, long after he departed from this world.  The below conversation is unique, and Matt did a wonderful job of collecting video of the discussion complete with video examples.  I would suggest that you gather up a snack dear reader and make time to watch and listen to these two broadcasts shown below—each representing a segment of radio time between the top and bottom of the hour.  For old timers, it will be a walk down memory lane, and for the young, you will learn what all the fuss is about Disney as a company, and why they are so successful.  Disney was not an accident, but a direct product of the kind of people only America can produce.

What prompted our discussion was a nagging revelation that I had recently while visiting Disney World, specifically Hollywood Studios during a busy Fourth of July holiday.  Given my unique position where I write more than most people can even dream of, including professional writers, and my deep love of philosophy, along with unique real world experiences in politics and business many converging paths intersected at the same time to hit me with a number of intense revelations about the state of the world.  crossroads-of-the-worldNo other country on the face of planet earth, no education institution, no political system, no financial altruism, no welfare system, no friendship, no collaboration, no wish upon a star has produced another man like Walt Disney.   Disney was the very unique type of person that shared in a fictional context Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged characters.  Rand’s fictional characters and Disney’s real life character were products of a time in America where they were born at the end of a laissez-faire capitalism period before communist ideas contaminated the next generation filling up the empty minds of youth with the type of progressive tripe that is so common today.   Disney literally stood against a very tough world, through competitive studios who wanted to sink him for being too good, labor union disputes, communist infiltration, and many personal set-backs to build a company that is one of the most powerful in the entire world.  If not for Disney, there would be no ESPN, no sustainable ABC television.  And the film business may not have survived through the 1970s.  Disney single-handedly carried America on his back, and still does to this very day.  If not for Disney there would be no American Adventure at the Epcot Center, there would be no Hall of Presidents, there would be no real “Liberty Tree” and it is entirely likely that all references to the American Revolution might have been successfully erased from the minds of all after the effects of the Red Decade and the subsequent takeover of capitalist industry by the communist Trojan Horse—labor unions.   CLICK TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE LIBERTY TREE.

The enemies of Walt Disney to this very day are the progressive statist types who attempt to pick a few character flaws taken from Walt in hindsight—without the context of the times to mold the parameters of acceptability.  disneyThey assassinate his character while still trying to pander to modern Disney executives to fund their creative ideas.  Secretly there is a lot of resentment in the entertainment industry even within the Disney Company about why Walt Disney’s beliefs are so closely adhered to, when there are so many college trained CEO’s who should be able to do a superior job of management in the modern landscape politically, and economically.   The answer is of course that they can’t. walking-through-the-park Nobody can nowhere on earth, because what makes people like Walt Disney is laissez-faire capitalism and that doesn’t exist anywhere anymore.  Laissez-faire capitalism allowed Walt to be everything he dreamed of, and allowed him to take tremendous risks and receive eventually, not until much later in his life, great rewards.  It was only by the time the novel Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957 that Walt started to become personally wealthy from all his wonderful work—where he didn’t have to worry about going bankrupt.  But Walt wasn’t happy to be just another rich man from his efforts; he wanted to build his ultimate dream—Disney World, which he never lived to see.Hollywood Studios 2

When I was in Hollywood Studios over the Fourth of July period previously mentioned, I thought about Walt Disney a lot that day.  His view of America is what the Tea Party is trying to achieve, one that is morally righteous and inherently good.  water-towerThe Tea Party wants the kind of America talked about in the Davy Crockett television show, and on the famous Zorro series where crime and punishment were clear, and bad guys in politics did not win.  Walt loved freedom which is most pronounced in his Pirates of the Caribbean exhibit where he understood that it was the pirates of that period which led the way to the American Revolution which Walt was very dedicated to preserving.   He has an entire section of Disney World committed to preserving this memory that is more committed to America’s roots than the actual city of Boston which is extremely progressive.  If not for Walt Disney, there would not be a Tea Party fighting for fiscal responsibility, limited government, or free markets—the kind of themes that were uncompromisingly explored on the old shows of Davey Crockett.  Because of Disney, the world cannot forget what made America, and ultimately what made Disney– laissez-faire capitalism.  Hollywood Studios is a shrine to laissez-faire capitalism, to the free flow of ideas before the labor unions infested the industry during World War II with a dirty bomb of the kind of ideals that were destroying the world—collectivism.  Kaiden with Whip
The enemies of America did not attack California with bombs and airplanes the way it was feared when the U.S. Government took over the Disney Studios during the war with a martial law like imposition.  The real attack came with ideals of collectivism that were injected like a poison into American education institutions to slowly kill the ideal of self-rule, and the pursuit of liberty.  I am convinced that if not for Disney, America would have died on the operating table long ago as the poison of collectivism destroyed our history and our hopes.  Only one man attempted to counteract that poison with goodness from his own personal mind, and that was Walt Disney.  He died staring up at the ceiling of his one last hope for the human race—his design for The Epcot Center pinned to the ceiling over his bed by his brother Roy. Walt died in 1966, but Roy made the rest of his dreams come true by carrying on the torch to a new generation who was as clueless as the rest of the world as to the philosophy of success that Walt Disney represented, but they were at least wise enough to not change the formula and follow the teachings of Uncle Walt Disney, the last of the laissez-faire capitalists and hope for the world.Indiana Jones Stunt Show

Now watch this documentary about Walt Disney for the whole story.  The important thing to understand about laiseez-faire capitalism is that even with that economic philosophy; only a few out of millions of such minds produced can ever hope to be like Walt Disney.  But the worth to all society from those very few is infinite.

Rich Hoffman

“Justice Comes with the Crack of a Whip!”

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

Walking School Buses: More dumb ideas driven by the Zombies of Lakota

Not everyone at the Lakota school system located in an affluent northern Cincinnati suburb is a levy zombie.  16-year-old Emma as a student was fourteen during the period of time Doc Thompson referenced as he was hosting Glenn Beck’s radio show from New York City.  On that very popular midday nationwide radio broadcast Doc Thompson thought back in time to our experiences fighting the Lakota school levy when the district retaliated against voters by cutting busing to residents wishing to impose inconvenience and turn, a “no” vote to a “yes” vote in the next election.   (CLICK TO REVIEW.)  Recently Michelle Obama advocated as part of her nationwide health initiative that school districts activate a really dim-witted program called Walking School Buses, which are essentially packs of kids who walk to school instead of riding in a vehicle.  It wasn’t lost to Doc Thompson the hypocrisy as he remembered the reason for Lakota’s busing cuts and thought it ironic that now Michelle Obama—as the queen of public education avocation was proposing that the very thing districts used as weapons against tax payers was now being sold as a healthy solution.  This prompted Emma from Lakota to call Doc Thompson at his New York City studio to poke some fun at the hypocrisy.  Click the video below to listen to the hilarious radio segment.

As crazy as the dialogue between Doc and Skip was in the radio bit they were not kidding.  The Walking School Bus program is real, and an officially endorsed theory of The White House.  From the website advocates declare:

“Studies show that fewer children are walking and biking to school, and more children are at risk of becoming overweight. Changing behaviors of children and parents require creative solutions that are safe and fun.

Implementing a walking school bus can be both.

A walking school bus is a group of children walking to school with one or more adults. If that sounds simple, it is, and that’s part of the beauty of the walking school bus. It can be as informal as two families taking turns walking their children to school to as structured as a route with meeting points, a timetable and a regularly rotated schedule of trained volunteers.

When beginning a walking school bus, remember that the program can always grow. It often makes sense to start with a small bus and see how it works. Pick a single neighborhood that has a group of parents and children who are interested. It’s like a carpool—without the car—with the added benefits of exercise and visits with friends and neighbors. For an informal bus:

  1. Invite families who live nearby to walk.

  2. Pick a route and take a test walk.

  3. Decide how often the group will walk together.

  4. Have fun!”

To verify everything you have just read and everything that Doc Thompson elaborated on with comic delivery—but was 100% true, you can see the link for yourself below.

http://www.walkingschoolbus.org/

Unbelievably the site is actually maintained by the Pedestrian and BicycleInformationCenter for the Partnership for a Walkable America, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Transportation.  That means that tax payers paid for the employees who came up with this whole idea which was an obvious waste of money.

Public schools for years have done just what Lakota did when they did not pass their tax increases—they took away school busing putting the burden of transportation on homeowners to drive their children to school.  When that method failed to work, which began to happen in the summer of 2010 all across the country as per pupil averages in public schools climbed to around $10K per student, Americans had shown that they had enough and tax requests were being defeated in greater frequency as a diminishing marginal return had been reached.  Now the same kind of public employees who came up with the failed strategy of extorting tax increases against communities have changed their strategy completely and are now declaring that walking to school is good for children.

The foolishness of both stances taken by the government employees involved in these decisions is catastrophic to any society that wishes to advance.  Just for putting their name at the bottom of the Walking School Bus web site, The Department of Transportation should be eliminated.  If walking is what The Department of Transportation considers under their authority, or concern, then they are overstepping their boundaries tyrannically and must be stopped.  If this is the way they spend their time and resources, they are ineffective and worthless.

It was good to hear a young lady from Lakota call into a gigantic national show that has a footprint throughout that portion of the day which ranges between 7 million and 15 million listeners.  Doc is aware that Lakota is seeking another levy, and now that his exposure is national as opposed to regional when he was in Cincinnati his voice carries to many more ears.  It surprised me that a young lady was listening to the broadcast and cared enough to call in and offer some satirical commentary to a ridiculous problem.  The caller Emma was much younger when Lakota implemented the busing cut plan and she has seen, as many students have, the hypocrisy of those who are in charge, and it is good to witness that she cared enough to voice her opinion.  In past levies, the school has used children as pro levy advocates, and certainly Lakota has managed to recruit a fair number of Zombies of Lakota to carry on the progressive message of public education that Michelle Obama so hypocritically represents without any real thought.  But Emma was a ray of hope that not all children or even parents in Lakota are zombies and have the cognition to participate in an intelligent discussion, even on a large national stage that is heard by millions.

As for Doc, I hope he and Skip had a good time on the Flight Walk from New York.  If Michelle Obama and The Department of Transportation have their way we will all walk before we drive, walk before we fly, and find ourselves sitting around campfires awaiting orders from some village chief dictating our movements.  The march of the typical progressive is a regression to the time before invention so to not advance human kind into a new age, but to preserve Mother Earth for all time as a superior idea to the products of human intellect—which they detest.  That is why people who think the way they do are the Zombies of Lakota.

Rich Hoffman

“Justice Comes with the Crack of a Whip!”

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

Another Lakota Scandal: George C. Merk and the Levy Zombies Strike Again

There is a lot that is very wrong about the recent revelation that Lakota West High School math teacher George C. Merk paid $66,173 by the tax payers was placed on a 45 day license suspension beginning over the summer months.  The teacher admitted to inappropriate communication with students of a sexual nature which was revealed during a conference with district staff Jan. 11, 2012, concluding with a consent agreement dated June 26, 2013.  That is a long-span of time to resolve one human resources issue.  Merk’s five-year teaching license was suspended from June 12 through July 26 but he is clear for 2013-14 school year.  This case does not surprise me as I have verbal confirmation of many such stories, and usually the press does not investigate them.  However, in this case, Michael Clark broke the story in the Cincinnati Enquirer which did surprised me as it required a public records request to get to the facts.  As the story broke, both the Enquirer and the Journal had well-written stories which explained the facts in great detail by Hannah Poturalski and Michael Clark that was a great service to the community, and can be seen in their entirety below for the convenience of the curious investigator complete with original links to the stories as they appeared in online form.

 

Michael D. Clark reports: in The Cincinnati Enquirer

A Lakota West High School math teacher’s license has been suspended for “inappropriate” communications with students, including exchanging recollections of sexual experiences and orientation.

But the teacher, George C. Merk, will return to the classroom at the start of the school year next month.

Merk, 41, was previously suspended without pay in March 2012 for 10 days for what Lakota Schools Superintendent Karen Mantia described as “unacceptable, insubordinate, deceitful and unprofessional” behavior.

According to a Feb. 15, 2012, reprimand issued by Lakota officials, Merk “admitted” to communicating with students via text messages, and other means, of disallowed subjects, including:

  • “(Students’) sexual orientation and their sexual experiences.”
  • “Your sexual orientation and your first sexual experience.”
  • “You denied receiving a picture of a condom box through text message from a student.”

Mantia wrote: “This behavior is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”

A report on Merk’s behavior and suspension was then submitted to the Ohio Department of Education’s Office of Professional Conduct for further investigation. That investigation ended last month under a consent agreement between Merk and the ODE.

The agreement, obtained by The Enquirer through a public records request, revealed that Merk agreed to have his teaching license suspended during the summer break for 45 days, ending July 26. Moreover, he has to complete 24 hours of training “on appropriate teacher-student boundaries” by Sept. 1 and he will no longer “communicate with current students using social media or by other electronic communications.”

Merk’s actions were not considered criminal and did not initiate an investigation by West Chester Township Police, police said.

Merk, who previously taught at Wilmington Schools, declined to comment.

His attorney, Julie Ford of Dayton, said, “(Merk) signed the consent agreement not because he believes he was guilty of any wrongdoing but to put this matter behind him and avoid any delays in the renewals of his current teaching licenses.”

“Both the Lakota school district and Ohio Department of Education are satisfied with this resolution, and Mr. Merk looks forward to resuming his teaching work in the fall,” Ford said.

Diane Brunsman, Lakota’s executive director for human resources, said “the findings of the Ohio Department of Education investigation are not grounds for termination.”

Both Brunsman and Mantia declined to comment further.

Merk was hired by Lakota in 2002 and his current salary is $66,173.

A review of Merk’s personnel file since 2002 showed no indications of previous transgressions and overall he has received high performance reviews by Lakota officials.

Under the state agreement, Lakota is also required to submit “detailed reports” every three months for the next two years to the ODE on Merk’s conduct.

http://westchesterbuzz.com/2013/07/17/teachers-license-suspended-for-sexual-texts/

By Hannah Poturalski

Staff Writer–The Journal

LIBERTY TWP. —

A Lakota West High School teacher whose teaching license was suspended for actions with students described as insubordinate and deceitful by the district will be returning to the classroom this August.

George C. Merk, 41, of Loveland, was placed on a 10-day unpaid suspension in March 2012 following an internal investigation by school officials. He has since been approved for teaching math in the 2013-14 school year at a salary of $66,173.

During a conference with district staff on Jan. 11, 2012, Merk reportedly admitted to:

  • having text message communication with students regarding sexual orientation, first sexual experiences and other personal issues
  • failing to report a student was bullied
  • providing a student with his cell phone number through a Facebook message
  • posting Facebook statuses about students’ academic levels and disparaging Lakota West High School administration
  • receiving a text message from a student offering to buy him an iPad
  • denying having received a picture of a condom box in a text message from a student.

“This behavior is unacceptable and will not be tolerated by Lakota Local School District employees,” wrote Superintendent Karen Mantia in a formal reprimand from Feb. 15, 2012. “Mr. Merk, your actions described above were insubordinate, deceitful, unacceptable and unprofessional.”

The district then submitted a report to the Ohio Department of Education’s Office of Professional Conduct. As part of the investigation, Merk entered into a consent agreement — dated June 26, 2013 — with ODE that outlines several stipulations.

The terms of the agreement include:

  • Merk’s five-year teaching license being suspended for 45 days, from June 12 through July 26
  • detailed reports on Merk’s conduct will be submitted to ODE every three months for two years
  • completing 24 hours of training on appropriate teacher-student boundaries
  • not communicating with current students using Facebook, text messages and other electronic means.

Merk’s attorney, Julie C. Ford, of the Dayton firm Doll, Jansen, Ford & Rakay, said her client fully cooperated with the investigation by ODE.

“Mr. Merk was not accused of having a sexual or otherwise inappropriate relationship with any students; at most, the school district concluded he had discussed topics that might have been considered inappropriate,” Ford said.

The investigation ended last December, but a proposed penalty wasn’t reached until the end of the 2012-13 academic year, she said.

Ford said her client didn’t attempt to negotiate a lesser penalty or go through a full hearing process before his current teaching and principal’s licenses were to expire at the end of June.

“He therefore signed the consent agreement not because he was guilty of any wrongdoing but only to put this matter behind him and to avoid any delays in the renewals of his licenses,” Ford said. “Mr. Merk continues to be a model teacher and employee at Lakota. Mr. Merk looks forward to resuming his teaching work in the fall.”

Merk joined the Lakota teaching staff in 2002, after six years teaching at Wilmington City Schools. Merk’s personnel file at Lakota doesn’t include any other disciplinary or performance issues.

“Mr. Merk is an outstanding teacher who takes great pride in his profession,” reads an evaluation dated May 16, 2013. “He goes above and beyond the district’s expectations, and his students are successful as the result of his efforts in the classroom.”

http://www.journal-news.com/news/news/lakota-teacher-suspended-for-inappropriate-communi/nYs6q/

 

Now that this story is out, I will have a lot more to say about it in subsequent articles.  But the gist of the situation is this– George C. Merk is not worth $66,173 as a public employee and I resent having to pay such people so much money with my taxes.  People like him are low quality personalities who are instructing kids to be low-quality adults.  The very nature of Merk even desiring to inquire about the sexual nature of his students as a 41-year-old man is disgusting.  In a sexual context people are often attracted to others who share their intellectual values even though much is focused on physical attributes.  Merk’s tendency to desire juicy gossip about the sexual nature of his students indicate that Merk intellectually is equal to his students, which disqualifies him as any kind of intellectual leader by my measure and he should be terminated from the Lakota school district.  Teachers should not have access to students outside of a classroom whether it is Facebook, Twitter, or any other social network tool, because as instructors, teachers should be operating at a superior intellectual position. 

 

However, as critical as I often am of the Lakota school board, and Superintendent Mantia, they have no real control over any disciplinary action against Merk because the Lakota math teacher is protected by his labor union—which is why his punishment was just silly words issued by Mantia and his suspension was carried out when the school was already shut down for the summer.  The teachers and their labor union run the asylum where the Zombies of Lakota know that bad behavior cannot be punished, yet the tax payers are “forced” to support such behavior through force with their property values just because the school exists near their homes.  

 

The punishment to Merk for his disgraceful actions is essentially nothing but a little embarrassment.  He has still been paid a salary that is 20 to 30% more than the average Lakota resident for a job that is only active for 7.5 to 9 hour per day, five days a week, nine months out of the year.  Merk does not appreciate his job otherwise he would not have engaged in the behavior outlined above displaying a low intellectual understanding of sexual context that is closer to high school kids with thriving pituitary glands not yet acclimated to adult life.  George Merk, and people like him should not be in a class room because they lack the intellectual high ground with their students, and have lost their ability to teach.  A teacher is not an equal to the student; they should be the type of people students aspire to become.  When a teacher demonstrates that they are no better than the rest of the puberty bound young people, then moral authority is lost, and instruction is nearly impossible.  Worse than that, the people of Lakota should not be forced to pay for such employees with tax increases and social extortion. 

 

Of course I will have more to say on this issue, but for now just the contents of Merk’s actions should be considered with the punishment he received—which is to say virtually nothing.  When Merk’s attorney Julie C. Ford stated that “He (Merk) signed the consent agreement not because he was guilty of any wrongdoing but only to put this matter behind him and to avoid any delays in the renewals of his licenses, she was saying that Mr. Merk did not recognize that he did anything wrong.  When Ford said Merk was not accused of having a sexual or otherwise inappropriate relationship with any students; at most, the school district concluded he had discussed topics that might have been considered inappropriate.”  Merk and his attorney Ford in this case do not consider having text message communication with students regarding sexual orientation, sexual experiences and other personal issues to be inappropriate between a student and a teacher.  Further, failing to report a student was bullied is not negligent behavior as indicated by Merk–or providing a student with his cell phone number through a Facebook message.  Posting Facebook statuses about students’ academic levels and disparaging Lakota West High School administration is apparently acceptable behavior with these professionals based on their statements.  It is also OK to receive a text messages from students offering to buy Merk an iPad which should be considered an obvious bribe.  Those are the kinds of actions that Ford stated Merk might have performed inappropriately leaving the door open for anti-concept interpretation declaring innocence at the same time. 

These are the types of employees that tax payers are told are invaluable to Lakota’s community.  When the Levy Zombies take to the streets in the fall of 2013 for the November tax increase they are fighting for teachers like George C. Merk to continue the kind of behavior that occurred under the classroom tutelage of a Lakota West math teacher who will return to the classroom for the 2013/2014 school year.  Teachers like Merk are more interested in being “cool” to their students instead of actually teaching them anything, as the boundaries between teacher and student have been intentionally blurred by a failed education system that produces teachers who would rather be 15-year-old kids than 41-year-old adults making $66,173 a year.  The teacher is paid to be better than the children, so that students will try.  The teacher is not paid to be one of the “cool guys” in an ocean of subservient children who would rather manipulate their way to a good grade instead of actually working for it.  It is that second example that Merk is so guilty and the reason he should not be employed as a teacher in any public school anywhere. 

Oh, and the title to this article was Levy Zombies Strike Again.  CLICK HERE to read about the first time.  

Rich Hoffman

“Justice Comes with the Crack of a Whip!”

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

How to Stop Racism: Who cares what Eric Holder says?

Who cares what Eric Holder said about the George Zimmerman acquittal or Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law?  Isn’t Holder a criminal?  Isn’t he guilty of deaths from his own actions, and destruction of individual rights performed on a mass scale?   If Holder were not the top cop of the United States Government wouldn’t he find himself in jail for the same types of crimes he accuses others of?   Of course a criminal is going to wish that “Stand Your Ground” laws were obsolete, so that their crimes can be committed against others more easily.  So his comments have no merit as he should be the one on trial, not George Zimmerman, who already had his day in court.  But Holder’s foolish comments were not the most ridiculous comments that came forth in the wake of the Zimmerman murder trial in Sanford, Florida.  The dumbest comments of all came from those crying for an end to racism in America upon the Zimmerman acquittal.  Out of all the news outlets and commentators who make millions upon millions of dollars giving statements and providing opinions no one has delivered a way to rid America of racism when the accusations have been so extreme once Zimmerman was found not guilty.  So I will provide the answer where others have failed.

The way to end racism is to stop using skin color as a weapon to advance collective causes and level the playing field for all individuals by allowing merit to determine all benefits in society.  When any collective group demands “equality” they are asking for thuggish democracy to take away resources from someone and give to another so that all can have equal value.  This allows people of low value to make themselves appear to have a higher value by lowering the value of others through legalized theft (income redistribution).  People of low value may have such a status because they made bad decision in life—such as drinking too much, smoking marijuana so that they cannot hold good paying jobs that require drug tests, or having children where there is not a responsible male in a household to help provide family structure.  People who do dumb things in their lives often seek the protection of social collectivism to hide their crimes and the only way vacant personalities can find value where they have squandered it away is to take it away from someone else.

Racism has given such collective groups the illusion of value.  By seeking equality they really mean “wealth redistribution.”  This is why such groups who advocate racial inequality always fail to identify the value of human beings as a criterion for equality.  Rather the true meaning of equality is to allow all races, all sexes, all shapes, sizes, and backgrounds of all people to have equal access to success.  Racial groups wish to stack the odds of success in their favor with democratic force through collectivism rather than individual merit.  This is why racism advocates for more power and so-called “equality” do not support political candidates like Herman Cain, or Dr. Ben Carson.  In the racism debate men who have achieved success based on individual merit no matter what their skin color are always overlooked, because the goal of the equal rights movement is not equal access to success, as men like Carson and Cain represent, but in the ability to level the economic playing field of society by cutting down the high spots and filling the low spots with displaced value.

To end racism tomorrow, all society would need to do would be to recognize the value of merit.  Those who work to achieve good merit in their lives would all have equal access to value, while those who chose not to work in such a way would find themselves lacking.   If the entire world functioned from a desire to be good ethically, morally, socially—good in every respect of the  word, there would be no racism because there would be no advantage of one gang of thugs over another.  No group would have dominance over any other, as they would all be irrelevant.  After all, isn’t it the desire of the black groups to take power from the perceived, “white man” or the “white supremacists” to take power from the “one world order” or the women from the men, or the men from the women, or the children from their parents, or the public sector worker from the private—all the mentioned are aspects of society that are lacking individual merit and seek their value in the safety of collectivism.  That is where the trouble begins and ends.  The way to end racism is to judge others on individual merit, not by any group affiliation.  When the incentive to gang rule is removed, the issue of racism will be put to rest.

In the wake of the Zimmerman verdict, gangs took to the streets at all political levels to exploit the tragic death for their own social positions, using democratic imposition to force rules on society that is ultimately designed to rob value from once social sector to provide another what it’s missing.  The behavior is as stupid as a village of hunters and gathers fighting over the watering hole of an animal both are hunting, or a bunch of foolish Europeans fighting over one version of religion over another.   Collective groups are the source of the trouble because they seek to hide individual merit behind their social blanket allowing poor behavior and decisions to be supplemented by the value of others in their group.   In every case, such as the would-be criminal Eric Holder, or the members of the Black Panthers, or any of the radical demonstrators who took to the streets to vandalize property like a bunch of malcontents when Zimmerman was found not guilty—the demand is not for justice of a slain kid, the demand is for an improvement in social status without the work of actually earning it.  Behind the actions of the hoards who are declaring “equality” are drug addicts, womanizers, jobless buffoons, welfare recipients, child molesters, victims of the molested, and a whole host of characters who are lacking personal value for one reason or the other and find it is much easier to steal value from others to fill themselves than actually doing the work of being good people of good merit.  That is what racism is all about, and why it will never go away so long as groups of any kind are given sway over other groups in a perpetual battle for value that is unearned.

Rich Hoffman

“Justice Comes with the Crack of a Whip!”

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

‘The Lone Ranger’ Movie Review: A wonderful film that celebrates the individual character of America

???????????????With all the lead up to the movie being so intense here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom my lack of a review for The Lone Ranger was simply due to the fact that I was on vacation with my family when the film was released and there wasn’t time to physically go see the movie.  On two occasions while I was vacationing in Florida I intended to take my family to see The Lone Ranger, once at Downtown Disney, but had to withdrawal because the day was already overbooked, and then again at Merritt Square Mall which was down the road from our Atlantic Coast condo.  But there, getting everyone together to see the movie on a busy schedule while also coming and going from Disney World was nearly impossible, so I delayed my viewing until we were able to return home in Ohio.

But I did read the reviews that were coming in from our sea-side balcony which were actually hostile to The Lone Ranger which gave me great suspicion.  When I write about a movie with grand enthusiasm the reason is usually more than the film just being good, but because I see the struggle of the film makers to overcome the real Ellsworth Tooheys of the media who were trained by statist oriented education practices to recognize a threat to their social fabric which The Lone Ranger represents, and to assassinate such creative endeavors before they see the light of day.  I have spoken at great length about this very thing occurring with Christopher Nolan from The Dark Knight trilogy where critics attacked Nolan for his obvious warnings about an overly altruistic society.  Critics blasted Dark Knight Rises once they realized that the film was a not very concealed warning about communism in society after building up the social anticipation from the previous two films without such obvious proclamations.  Nolan saved his message for the final film, which made a billion dollars at the box office in spite of the terrible reviews the film received.  ???????????????With The Lone Ranger I expected to see even after the extremely negative reviews, a movie from Disney that was just good ol’ fashion fun—I did not expect yet another film with very heavy opinions against the government position of collectivism over the traditional rugged individualism that built America from the start.  Coming from the Disney Studios I expected a more disguised effort, especially with Johnny Depp staring as Tonto, and sharing a producing credit.  But if the nation is divided equally down the middle with Tea Party type Americans on one side, and welfare collecting altruists on the other, Disney usually makes films that all types of people will enjoy.  This is good for their box office numbers, but runs counter to the type of messages that Walt Disney himself believed who actually testified before a congressional committee against communism during the height of the McCarthy Hearings.  But this Lone Ranger was made by Disney to show favor toward the former of those demographic groups and not the later.???????????????

When The Lone Ranger is introduced as a young lawyer traveling from the East Coast by train the first bits of dialogue which come from Armie Hammer who was confronted by a religious group advocating Bible studies, was to hold up his copy of John Locke’s The Second Treatise of Government and declare, “This is my Bible.”  Upon that startling declaration I immediately knew why the film reviews were so terrible as The Lone Ranger was in love with America, and was making no mistake about it.  The film was setting out to attack many misconceptions about events which took place during a period of almost perfect capitalism in The United States, during the late 1800s.  ???????????????The Second Treatise of Government was one of the foundation books which people like Thomas Jefferson used to help shape the argument about the kind of country that America would be.  Modern Americans who regularly attend Tea Party events know that John Locke is one of the philosophers who opened the door to the way of thinking that distinctly became freedom loving.  To altruists, this is a major social danger as any message that exhibits freedom as one of the highest human endeavors also seeks to be free from social stupidity, the self-determined poor (lazy people), and the malcontents of civilization.  Social progressives have desired for years to shape American thought into reflecting European sentiment of sacrifice, shared suffering, and a focus on the “greater good” while steering the educated masses away from a personal love of individual freedom.  ???????????????Opening the film with a direct node to John Locke was a bold declaration that I was surprised made it past the Disney executives screening the film.  It’s possible that some of them did not know what the book meant to American foundation, but it is unlikely to have slipped by so many eyes without anybody knowing, especially Johnny Depp, who has been known to show up to film screenings showing his open support of Che Guevara.  I thought the John Locke reference was quite extraordinary but the references did not end there so I know that it was not an accident.

The film continued on as a fantastic western that was often a cross between the old Sergio Leone westerns composed musically by Ennio Morricone and the hysterical romp through the old west that was touched on by Back to the Future III.   The movie was very funny at times as Johnny Depp’s Tonto was brilliantly eccentric.  The film was wonderfully photographed, evenly paced, and was very passionate about its subject matter.  ???????????????It was an unapologetic western that might have been an early episode of the TV show Davy Crockett, only with Industrial Light and Magic doing some spectacular visual effects.  The stunts were ambitious, and the scope of the project was mammoth.  It was the largest scale western I think has ever been attempted.  But The Lone Ranger himself does not drink, does not curse, does not use tobacco (he refused when offered), he does not want to kill people, and is a naively good guy from the beginning to the end of the film.  The only character arch that John Reid embarked on evolving from the beginning to the end was in hardening up from a naive lawyer to a man who isn’t afraid to pull the trigger on a bad guy by the end of the film.  Reid never had a moment of weakness in the film where he got drunk, caved into the seductions of a woman, or lost his moral compass.  He was firmly focused on justice from the beginning of the film till the very end.???????????????

The bad guy in the film however was Cole played brilliantly by Tom Wilkinson.  I suspect that many of the reviewers who wrote such bad things about The Lone Ranger as a movie saw themselves as the evil character Cole, who spoke often very flowery about the need for “social sacrifice,” the “greater good,” and destroying entire groups of people if they stood in his way of vision for progress.  The film showed the Indian rebellions with extraordinary glory which was much more epic than Dances with Wolves ever managed, and even captured how the United States cavalry found itself caught in an uncompromising position of picking sides.  It was a complicated series of events that were manipulated by the villain Cole who appeared to be a good guy though 2/3rds of the movie.

By the time The Lone Ranger had competed his hero journey and arrived with his horse Silver to save the day at the end of the film with his six guns in his hands, a bullwhip on his hip and his uncompromising white hat running across the rooftops of the town on a horse to jump onto a moving train all to the William Tell Overture I thought I had died and gone to heaven.  For me that scene was the best moment of movie magic I have experienced since I was 12 years old and Indiana Jones ran his horse down a hillside to jump onto a moving truck to save the Ark of the Covenant from the evil Nazis.??????????????? There was pure magic in The Lone Ranger which was none stop for the last half hour of the film.  It helped that I went to the movie as a Lone Ranger fan as I think I have seen every bit of film ever produced about the Lone Ranger, but nobody makes movies like The Lone Ranger any more.  The last real attempt was the Indiana Jones films which I constantly thought about during the film. Ironically, Indiana Jones was modeled after the old Lone Ranger Republic Serials, so the ending to The Lone Ranger was a tribute to the history of film that took action to the next level.  The Lone Ranger was an instant favorite of mine that will go on my top twenty list.???????????????

But what was different about this Lone Ranger as opposed to other renditions was that Tonto was extraordinarily good.  Johnny Depp created one of the best characters of his career with Tonto and I found the scenes that took place in 1933 as the old Tonto was telling The Lone Ranger story to a little boy to be emotionally captivating.  These scenes were simply Johnny Depp at his absolute finest as an actor.  Tonto was a social outcast to his tribe that was living life with one firm foot planted into the spirit world and saw reality all too clearly giving the impression that he was insane through most of the film.  But he wasn’t, and it was obvious by the end of the film that Tonto as an extremely old man was deeply committed to the actual reality of justice that is hidden to most of the world, portraying a Yoda quality from The Empire Strikes Back that was captivating as a performance all by itself.

The only regret that I have about the movie is that I feel like it was made for people like me in mind, traditional Americans who love westerns, and characters who are uncompromisingly good.  It will not make a billion dollars at the box office like Iron Man and the last Pirates of the Caribbean film.  ???????????????It will be lucky to recover its $215 million dollar budget, which is unheard of for a western.  Only a company like Disney could have made a film like this, which was risky, so it is unlikely that Armie Hammer will have the chance to reprise his Lone Ranger role in the way that Robert Downey Jr has for Iron Man, and make future films.  The film by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Gore Verbinski using music by Hans Zimmer pulled out all the stops to make a great film under the penmanship of Ted Elliott, Justin Haythe, and Terry Rossio. ??????????????? Everyone involved with The Lone Ranger is among the best in their fields of endeavor, and it is a shame that the magic will probably never be seen again, because the box office will prevent it.  The Lone Ranger is one of those films that will percolate in America culture for a long time.  It will not have a big pop at the box office, but will be watched and loved for many years in a quiet way as viewers find it wonderfully good, but unsure why they like it so much while critics and industry professionals declare that it is such a bad film.  It is not the film that is bad for progressive types, but the message. ??????????????? Most people seeing The Lone Ranger cannot identify with the hero.  But they will identify with the villain, and that tends to make people angry.  Angry people do not throw down nearly a hundred dollars to see The Lone Ranger, which is what it cost me by the time we bought tickets and snacks, a rarity for us as a family.  I spent extra money at the theater knowing that a majority of the movie goers were not spending money on The Lone Ranger, so we broke our rule and bought the overpriced popcorn and drinks anyway, to support the film, and theater showing it.

Those critics missed the points and represent most opinions……………

Disney can roll the dice on movies like The Lone Ranger because they have so many other profitable revenue streams, which is just another benefit of capitalism.  I think the film will make its money back in the worldwide market so Disney won’t lose its money and Johnny Depp won’t lose face from his production credit.  Jerry Bruckheimer will continue to have successful films, including Pirates of the Caribbean 5 which is coming up in 2015.  But this will unfortunately be the last ride of this particular Lone Ranger, and that is unfortunate.  But if not for Disney, it would have never happened to begin with.  And because it did, I am very grateful.

Rich Hoffman

“Justice Comes with the Crack of a Whip!”

www.tailofthedragonbook.com