People close to the situation wondered if I was upset that the production team of The Immortals used film clips of my work on the Peter Facinelli short called The Delivery produced by Real D 3D in the footage shown at the link for the Daily Motion, instead of bringing me out to Hollywood to do the stand-in work. Real D 3D was involved in both The Delivery and The Immortals.
(EVERYTHING YOU SEE IN THIS CLIP THAT INVOLVES A BULLWHIP IS ME, EXCEPT WHERE PETER IS JUST HOLDING THE FLAMING WHIP–and you may have to watch a 30 second commercial before the actual video plays. Also, remember the whole purpose was to shoot the short with Real D 3D’s new camera system to show what it could do as a sample of 3D for studio investment)
But as I told the 6’8” former offensive tackle Mat Willig who was also on the set, “No, even the work I’m doing on this film can be replaced. They’re getting great reference shots off what I’m doing here.”
As I watched the men and women, boys and girls within that popular ice cream hang out blissfully unaware of the world around them, except when they are required to do something, such as vote, I could see that it was the media, the ghost of Walter Lippmann who used the college education institution to create an entire industry that created short little snippets of information and thus kept all of society on the surface of any knowledge.
Many of the reporters I spoke with on Election Day wanted to know what I was going to do to “celebrate” on that very contentious night. “I’m going to play Wii Golf with my wife,” I told them, which garnered some strange looks.
That wasn’t the worst comment. Here’s another, “I just don’t think people, who don’t have children in school, think about what the ramifications really are. They just don’t want to pay more money. Trust me, I don’t want to pay more money, but I have to make a commitment to the community I live in,” said Felice Fishman parent of two children in the Lakota school district.
“It is very frustrating,” said Chiqui Aull, who is a parent of two in the Lakota school district. “It doesn’t make sense to vote against it because everyone who owns property in West Chester just had their property go down.
“It is sad because people moved to West Chester for Lakota because of the school system and they could end up choosing Mason or Fairfield, who just passed a levy.”
That is why the No Lakota Levy says that before there is ever another levy attempt that the administration at Lakota should sit down with the teachers union (LEA) and require them to bring their compensation costs into the range of the approved budget. That’s what the election was all about, what is the “approved budget.” This community is not in the mood for the silly union games of extortion, of inconvenience in order to force higher taxes. It is the responsibility of the employees of the Lakota School District to maintain the high level of service we expect. And we expect our management to control the costs. Not for the costs to control management!If there are members of the LEA who don’t want to comply with this fact, then look for a job in a different district and see if they are willing to pay for the bloated salaries. Those employees could be replaced easily with more affordable and eager young professionals.
“You look tired,” Mr. Predator says to a little girl in his high school class.
“Yes, my mom and dad are……….having trouble,” says the little girl.
“Oh, that can be so hard on the kids. I’m sorry to hear about that.”
The little girl looks up at Mr. Predator. “Thanks.”
Mr. Predator puts his hands on the shoulder of the little girl. “Any time you need Mr. Predator, just let me know.”
Mr. Predator then proceeds to find reasons to deal exclusively with the little girl and manages to use her to arrange conferences with her mother.
“I can see that you are having difficulty in class. Will you give your mother my email address here at the school and tell her I’d like to speak with her about getting you some help?”
The little girl looks up at Mr. Predator bright-eyed and grateful. “Yes, thank you for all your help.”
The little girl goes home and gives her mother the email address to Mr. Predator.
Soon the mother contacts Mr. Predator and they are exchanging frequent emails. The mother angry at her husband over marital difficulties finds the divorcee Mr. Predator’s flirtatious advances inviting and soon Mr. Predator is sending emails to the mother such as, “You are a hot little cougar.”
Mr. Predator goes up to the little girl, “You look tired.”
“Mommy and Daddy were fighting. It was awful.”
“Oh,” says Mr. Predator. “I’m so sorry to hear such a thing. That’s really hard on the kids. What were they fighting about?”
The little girl looks up at her teacher. “They were fighting about you, Mr. Predator.”
Mr. Predator pretends to be shocked. But the little girl isn’t done. “Mr. Predator, why did you write in my planner that it was your birthday, and for me to get you an expensive present? I don’t have any money. My daddy thinks you wrote that for mommy to see.”
The couple resolved their differences and came to terms with the marital difficulties they had been experiencing, and once the smoke cleared they assessed with a fresh perspective the folly of their circumstances.
“How did you meet him?” asks the father.
“Through our daughter, it’s Mr. Predator. He is her teacher. He said she needed ‘extra’ help.”
“So he was using our kid to actually get to you,” the father says bluntly.
When the father learns that the teacher Mr. Predator has simply been moved to a different school he goes to the school board for help where Joan Powell takes an interest and reveals that there have been other problems at this particular school and that there wasn’t much she could do about it. This shocked the father. “Doesn’t the school board have any power to help with this?”
“No.”
So the father turned to Ron Spurlock, who genuinely tried to help with the situation. Being the assistant superintendent, his hands were tied also. So when the new superintendent was hired in Mrs. Mantia, the father tried to get a straight answer out of her. “Again, there isn’t anything we can do. It’s consenting adults.”
“Don’t you people have control over your employees?” the father pleaded.
“Do I need legal counsel?”
“I’m not talking about legal counsel,” the father said. “I just want someone to take responsibility for something.”
Public schools are too concerned with legalisms when they should be concerned about community values. I have watched and seen many people like this father get isolated as a “trouble-maker” by administration officials and turned into a radical in the courts of legal perception. “Mr. Father, you don’t have a case. Your wife engaged in a relationship with our teacher.”
“But the teacher used our child to start the relationship, at school. My wife was vulnerable and because of my child being in Mr. Predator’s class, he learned about that vulnerability. He sent home messages to contact my wife and lure her into his arms. He seduced her and he used my child to do it!”
Blank stares from the administration. “Mr. Father, we are very sorry but there is nothing we can do.”
The father is frustrated that all any of the administrators are concerned with is covering their asses. “Are you happy knowing you have an employee who has these behavioral tendencies still on your payroll?”
Behavioral tendencies are those nasty little things that indicate a person is prone to trouble. In this case once Mr. Predator had been suspended for the investigation he was simply moved to another high school. Without clamping down on the behavior, the teacher was simply told, “watch out, keep things on the down low. This father is out to get you.”
This is why wives should not typically go to night clubs with their girlfriends, because going to such places are an advertisement that you are on the market and looking. Men should not do the same, because in so doing, they are inviting opportunities for sexual relations outside of the sanctity of their marriage. The same holds true for a man taking a female friend to a social event, or out for lunch. Most of the time, probably 80% of the time, the man is searching for an opportunity to have some sort of sexual relationship with a woman using such activities as the introductory platform. The married couple must navigate those activities carefully and among themselves without social interference.
As I was looking at a Move Forward Lakota Levy sign at a traffic light where the people who placed it stuck it directly in front of one of our No Lakota Levy signs so people couldn’t see our sign, I had to laugh at the behavior. It was symbolic of many of the problems discussed here, were parents put on blinders to the behavior of a school in a belief that they will get an excellent product if they simply toss money at it. But Lakota seems to have an administrative tendency whether it is the story of this father upset that a Lakota teacher seduced his wife through his child within his classroom, or Ryan Fahrenkemp taking pictures of the kids in his classroom on a field trip in states of undress, or even the golfer who committed suicide. The alarm flags were up but nobody acted. The tendency of the administration at Lakota is to MOVE FORWARD, there is nothing to see here.
The West Chester Police did a good thing and that’s act quickly on an internal investigation of one of their own. The nine-year veteran 37-year-old David Busemeyer was investigated and indicted by a grand jury of three felony charges, obstruction of official business, obstruction of justice and attempted tampering with evidence. Busemeyer is of course innocent until proven guilty, but this entire internal investigation is a reminder that public servants are not perfect. And I don’t expect them to be. What I expect is for West Chester to do exactly as it did, and that is bring about justice even when it involves their own.
The trouble with “collective begging” which is the union term that Cunningham has adopted to refer to the “collective bargaining” reform bill of Issue 2 is that “collective bargaining” is not practical, is expensive, and allows employees who can’t achieve large wage levels under their own merit to make excellent wages under that system. Using West Chester purely as an example since it’s my community it’s not a big deal if David Busemeyer makes $70,032.20 if there was some sort of evaluation procedure that delivered him that type of wage. Maybe he does a lot of high risk work, or maybe he can speak in several languages and act as a translator for illegal immigration busts. But under collective bargaining, EVERYONE makes that kind of money. All a public employee has to do is show up for work, do what they are told within the union rules, and keep their nose clean, somewhat, and they will receive an automatic increase based on their collective bargaining contract.And instead of one employee making great money, you have hundreds making that kind of money and every bit of it must come from the tax payer.
I hired Willie about 15 years ago to be my spokesman for a line of T-shirts I was producing to help get out a message I had which stated, “TAKE AN AX TO OUR TAX.” We were making the shirts at cost during the 1996 election season to bring high taxes to people’s attention. Rob Portman actually bought one from me, and I took one down to city hall and gave it to Roxanne Quals, the mayor of Cincinnati at the time. Willie was hired to do our commercial which we ran on 700 WLW.
I was set to go on with Bill Cunningham during his 9 PM show on a summer Friday night. As I was headed to the station Cunningham had on a segment where he had strippers on doing a live strip show while Cunningham did play-by-play commentary. My wife told me, “This is the guy you’ve hired to be your spokesman?”
I said, “No, he’s a conservative. Willie is just doing this for ratings.”
My wife said, “And you’re going to go on behind this?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Doesn’t this compromise your message?” My wife said. “You hate Howard Stern because he has no ethics. You hate Jerry Springer because he’ll do anything for money. How is this guy any different? And you’re going to go on his show and let him pretend he’s a conservative. You’re going to acknowledge his existence? You’re going to even give him the time of day?”
In the video above, Cunningham has fantasies that his words actually carry weight, and there is a certain percentage of the population out there who would listen to advice from Jerry Springer, Howard Stern, or Bill Cunningham. Those types of personalities try to be everything to everybody, and actually believe in nothing. But then again, most lawyers are that way. They’ll believe whatever you tell them to, so long as the money is green.
Doc Thompson did a segment about this controversy and I came on toward the end of it to provide some background about how S.B.5 was born and why all public workers were placed under the umbrella of Issue 2, which Doc felt was causing much of the problems that are starting to emerge. Both sides are getting furious and undermining each other with dirty tricks.
Obviously, the repeal attempt is attempting to manipulate the public, and they haven’t even thought about what will happen if Issue 2 gets repealed. The overwhelming amount of selfishness exhibited by the Repeal People is even bewildering to me. Collective bargaining has never been a “right” yet the government employee culture has come to expect disproportionate benefits from the tax payer and they have shown they will do anything to get them, even if the benefits come at the expense of their co-workers who are under them in seniority. Without Issue 2 there will be no legal way to balance our budgets, and massive layoffs will occur, and we will lose teachers, firefighters and police. So the YES ISSUE 2 people put together the ad you see below which turns the first ad back around on that same group with truth, which caused the controversy.
I was at a GameStop the other day buying a new video game and a woman about my age was at the counter talking to the staff member who was trying to explain to the woman who if she used a special promotional offer that GameStop was offering, the woman could save $15 dollars on the game she was buying for her son. To my shock the woman said, “Do I look like I need to save money!” I took note of her large diamond rings, her very nice attire, her manicured hands, her hair, and her ear rings. I had heard her say earlier that she lived in Blue Ash so it was important to her that people saw that she made a lot of money. I have heard the same thing from parents who want me to support the school levies. “Can’t you afford $40 more a month? What’s wrong with you?” It is the same mentality.
And many people are already at that point. My wife and I were dining at Chili’s recently and I studied the people at the bar while we ate. Many of the couples there were watching the baseball playoff games being shown and were drinking large quantities of alcohol. I knew a few of them, and knew that they were putting the bill on their credit cards and that their wives secretly resented their own jobs and wished they had the ability to stay home as my wife does. But those couples came to Chili’s to meet with other friends and keep up appearances because it’s important to them to be able to say they dined out and did some socializing. I’ve told those same men that you are working too hard to pay too much tax that if you paid less tax, you could enjoy coming to Chili’s and have the money to pay for it without worry.
“But I have plenty of money. I’ll pay of the American Express in full when it comes. No problem.”
At Lakota while this broadcast was roaming across the Eastern United States, mailmen were putting the letter you see below into the mail boxes of “select” supporters of Joan Powell, the school board president. Have a look at that letter for yourself. The first thing that should send an alarm up your spine is that Joan chose to put pictures of her grandchildren on the letter, that always means there is something hidden underneath the surface of the message.
VOTE NO on the LAKOTA SCHOOL LEVY. Vote for any candidates except for Jamie Green and Julie Shaffer. And VOTE YES on Issue 2 so this school board can actually manage its costs in the future and not keep asking us to pass school levies while people like Joan toss that money into a bottomless pit called the Teachers Union.
• No, I never had a teacher that guided me through a tough time. They tried, but I rejected them, so not to rob me of the benefit of self-reliance. If they helped me, I did not get the benefit of discovery. They get the benefit of teaching, so the act is more about them, which becomes a selfish gesture. I have been that way my entire life and have never once felt lesser for it. Too often moochers in life do things like building a road, or forcing through law that you take their education class, even if you are already beyond them, and then when you are successful, they attempt to take credit for your success as if to justify their work, which they imposed on you to begin with. I have little tolerance for this behavior. I put up with it for the good of my community, because not everyone is able to see things as I do, and I understand that. I pay my taxes to support those activities for my neighbors, but my children and grandchildren will be taught by better instructors under my tutelage, and that is in the instructions of self-reliance.
• I have never in my life turned away from a dangerous situation when it was in front of me. I’ve been shot at, hunted, threatened in just about every conceivable way, schemed against, virtually every human folly that the imagination can produce has found its way against my wits. And all of those attempts were initiated by the other party in anger because I would not subscribe to their system of doing things, but instead relied on self-reliance. I have seen the fury of those who claim to be brave, but still seek the safety of peer numbers which consciously justify their meager existence (thus my hatred of unions and all collectivism). I have been trapped in cave on my belly unable to move in any direction but forward into a darkened abyss with no light. I have been trapped in a tree of great height (over 50’) alone as the extended ladder fell to the ground and the trunk was so large I couldn’t even begin to put my arms around to shimmy down. The branches of the tree alone were the size of a large man’s torso. I have been in several severe car accidents. I’ve suffered broken bones, severe lacerations, and much blunt trauma such as concussions and skin that ripped open because the pressure of the blood beneath could not move away fast enough but to explode upon impact. Yet you can count on two hands the times I’ve been to a doctor or surgeon. I only attend medical professionals to patch me up or fix an ailment which I have diagnosed. Most of my serious injuries I’ve fixed myself including a broken ankle I suffered in Panama City jumping off a 20’ peer onto a not so sandy beach. My health is supreme, my blood pressure, and all such concerns stout. I take absolutely no drugs of any kind, except when they are needed to finish a work day and I need the boost to complete the task at hand. I’ve been to some of the most remote places on the plant yet never, ever been lost. In fact, I couldn’t get lost if I were dropped into the middle of Siberia blind folded. I do not need a compass, GPS, or even a map to find my way anywhere in this world. When I hear from the people of the world that they are doing something to save me, to help me, I say back, “I do not need your help. You are not more qualified at anything than me. You mind your business and leave me to mine. If you need help ask, but you will never hear me ask for it.”
• Most of the taxes I pay are not for my benefit. If there was no road, I’d make my own or not use one. I would walk, ride a bicycle, or build a helicopter in my back yard to take me where I wish to go, because if I want to go someplace, I’ll go. Terrain or other terrestrial objects will not stop me. Government builds things with my money and I use them because they are there. But my life is not dependent upon them. As to my safety, I have the Second Amendment. I pity the person who attempts to bring harm to my family or to me. It’s been tried before, and it will be tried again and those that discover the wrath of that ill-fated enterprise have been warned. I have represented myself in court more than once since I do not trust lawyers for the most part, and I have been successful many more times than once. So virtually every tax dollar I spend is not for me, it is for mankind and I cringe to watch them waste my money on neurosis. I will never take a Social Security check yet I pay it. And Medicare is not an option. I’d go bankrupt first before accepting Medicare. I’d be willing to do that because I know that as long as I breathe, I can always rebuild myself. I’ve lost everything only to start completely over again at least three times and I’d do it 30 more times before I took a government check, a government job, or help from a neighbor.
I’ve stated that I put up with it for the sake of societies majority, whom I view as weak, mentally reduced, impudent, and hopeless, I pay my taxes so those people can have their care, their social welfare. To those people I appear as “anti-social” or even “cold hearted,” because they measure social success in acts of weakness, or masked kindness. The proof that society is wrong in its measure can be heard in those 911 calls, collectivism as shown in the video below disgust me because they produce future 911 callers and higher taxes to support their public safety net philosophy.
There was a lot of dispute about the removal of Senator Bill Seitz from a key committee during the final days of the vote on Senate Bill 5 which would become Issue 2. See an interview from Seitz with Channel 9 who is from the Cincinnati area.
I’ve known a lot of attorneys, and one of the common tactics they use when they have a weak case is to drag their feet and extend out a case. And Seitz obviously blindly loyal to labor interests even though he sells himself as a conservative was not able to see Senate Bill 5 for what it was, a good healthy culture change for public sector employment. Seitz, the labor attorney, listed as one of the best in America, as you can see at the link below, looks to have sabotaged and watered down the impact of Issue 2 from the very beginning by loading it down with unnecessary politics, which went against the kind of reform Kasich and many in the house and senate were looking for.
And this explains the behavior of Bill Cunningham on 700 WLW as well. In the brotherhood of attorneys, it is the mask of conservatism that they use for their act, but in reality when the make-up is taken off to who the individual truly is, the union of attorney brotherhood speaks of the true actions and now that Issue 2 for the first time in my adult life attempts REAL reform, it scares the people who have built their lives around the chaos of litigation.
In the middle of the night I received a message from Laura Sanders who is working on the Move Forward Lakota campaign, a group that is advocating the passage of a new levy at the Lakota School District. She wanted to show me her new video, which is nice and I think well-edited. But like I wrote her, where in the video does it say “WHY is more money required?” We know teachers are valuable to the community. But Lakota is not underfunded. It’s a district with $165 million dollar budget that we know about, and in all reality is closer to $250 million in total revenue. Yet it is the average pay rate of the employees in the district that hovers just over $63K per year that is driving up those costs, so how much is too much?
Like I said to Laura, having money to put on a glitzy show does not provide justification for the expenses. We cannot manage our district if teacher pay is simply a bottomless pit. Lakota has at least $30,000 to start their levy campaign with and I’m sure they will receive more over this next campaign. To see who gives money to them and what their campaign finances look like read this article which breaks down how much they spent last year, how much they have to spend this year, and who gave them money by clicking on the link below:
The belief from the Move Forward Campaign is that if they spend money, they will automatically convince people of their need. And that’s what they’ve done with their new ad. In the heading Laura titled it “Creative Battle” I suppose in response to the No Lakota Levy’s latest video which you can see here:
You can see our website at www.NOLAKOTALEVY.com where that video launches upon your visit.
I have heard some of the most foolish comments in my adult life regarding Issue 2, which is the ultimate fix for these budget problems, especially at Lakota. I know for a fact that there are teachers at the top of the pay scale that aren’t worth 45K per year let alone 80K and 90K. Only in a union under collective bargaining could weak people earn so much. But then there are some teachers that are worth that much money. But if the Lakota Levy fails and cuts are made, it will be the newer teachers who cost the least and generally have the most ambition that we’ll lose, unless Issue 2 holds. The argument the public workers are making is similar to me telling my editor that, “the book will be terrible if we lose these characters. I refuse to make revisions to my 110,000 word manuscript!” They would then say, “Ok, thank you for the opportunity to work with you Mr. Hoffman, but we can’t afford the publishing cost of a book that large. Such a large book has limited market value because statistics show that most people are intimidated by large books, so we would never recover our initial investment, so good luck on finding another publisher.” The Issue 2 group does not understand that by trimming down a manuscript or a school district we make them stronger.
While all this discussion over Issue 2 is percolating and unions are dug in deep with their rhetoric and talking points, Lakota is after more money to supplement a contract with it’s union that is excessively high, the Cincinnati Reds are floating offers for their star player in Joey Votto, who is currently the gem of our local baseball team. He’s the ideal baseball player and we’d all like to see him stay in Cincinnati for his entire career. But in reality, Joey will most likely decline in production over the coming years, and he is set to make more than 20 million a year, because his contract dictates that much. So the Reds should follow the formula of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and dump him for a fresh young player that costs much less but can give comparable numbers. The Reds would have to do this because to keep Votto means they couldn’t afford other players that will be needed to create a valuable franchise. So at some point in the near future, the Reds will have to cut Votto, which will be painful, just like editing a book, or managing a school district. It’s painful, and emotional, but we are REQUIRED to do what is right for the organization we are representing. What dictates the Reds cut Votto is that they don’t have a budget which allows for him in the future. Public workers don’t understand this. They simply believe that tax increases will allow for them to have everything, job security and all employees making healthy wages without competition driving costs down. They believe this because a budget limit has never been established, which is what we are doing with the No Lakota Levy group, helping to manage costs by setting a limit.
The Overmanwarrior 