Articles

For the Children? I Don't Think So!

3/21/2023

After plummeting test scores in the Los Angeles County School District over the last decade, the teachers who already had about two years off due to COVID, are now on strike. Here are a few of their conditions: 1) They want a 30% wage increase and a $2 an hour "equity wage adjustment." 2) More staffing 3) Equitable access to health care.
I don't know what "Equity Wage," or "Equitable Access," to healthcare mean. I'm getting tired of even seeing or hearing those words.

In the private sector, if you're not performing well and getting results, you lose your job. This isn't the case in the public sector. It's like pulling teeth to get bad apples out of the system. L.A.'s public school system is performing terribly leading to horrific outcomes. Their prison system is filled with people who aren't efficient at arithmetic, reading, and writing. Coincidence?

And even though they're performing terribly, they want more money. They also do everything they can to keep competition out like "School Choice." Teachers at private schools aren't out striking. They also kept teaching in the classroom during COVID. Remember how the L.A. school district wouldn't go back to work even though their previous demands were met? Their students were the last thing on their minds.

The best way to enhance our young peoples' futures at this point, is to squeeze out the impact that public schools have where they aren't performing and put our support behind the parents, not the teachers. Fire the Teacher's Union.

The Life of a Viking

3/19/2023

Seafaring warriors, also called Vikings, were around from the 9th Century into the 11th Century. They were mostly pagan farmers who worshipped many gods, but they began building boats that could take them to other lands where they began pillaging other villages that were under the protection of various English kings depending on the territory. In the beginning they were mostly travelling from a home base in what is now called Norway.

Later they expanded into other Scandinavian countries like Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Greenland, and Sweden. They also travelled to North America via Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and then on to Canada, but it ended up being too difficult a journey as the seas were very rough and their boats were too small for such a trek especially since they couldn’t carry enough food and water. Their ships were great for about a month at sea, and they were definitely a great size to travel up and down rivers to where they could attack various settlements, but crossing a huge ocean was too much of a challenge.

Something I find funny is that one of the Viking leaders, when they discovered some new land, decided to name it Greenland to convince other people to travel there to basically expand their kingdom. But it wasn’t green, it was barren and icy. A small farming settlement was established but Greenland to this day is sparsely populated with a total of around 75,000 residents.

Most of the wealth at the time was in England because more people lived there, and it was convenient to invade because it was the closest country to where the Vikings were settled in Norway. The people in England anywhere near the coastline, became scared to death over the concerns that the Vikings would come because the first attack everyone heard about was when the Vikings destroyed a monastery and killed almost everyone. Many Vikings ate psychedelic flowers, mushrooms, and roots, before a battle and this is where the name “Berserk,” came from as that is how their behavior was described because they went wild when fighting.

Some of the kings in England (keep in mind they were mostly a bunch of small kingdoms at the time), made deals with the Vikings to pay them gold and silver if they’d stop attacking and they promised to give them some land to farm. The various kings got tired of this after a couple of years and decided to put an army together and run the Vikings out of the country. At this point, the Vikings were building sturdier ships and they decided to discover other countries (which were all inhabited), such as France, Spain, Italy, and Turkey. They even had a large settlement in Kiev (yes, now the capitol of Ukraine), where they had to fight the Rus, later called Russians.

The men and women Vikings who travelled to some of these other countries saw things they could never imagine. They didn’t have beautiful palaces where they came from nor all the beautiful creatures, flowers, and weather. If there was anything that the Vikings loved most, it was spices. They hadn’t eaten anything with spices before and they went crazy over the food.

They wanted to get out of the raiding business but their problem was that they had nothing to trade. Scandinavian countries didn’t have too many things other countries were interested in. The Silk Road was bringing countries together like never before by having huge markets for pretty much everything imaginable, so people came from all over Asia, Europe, and Africa to buy, sell, or trade. They had products other countries were interested in, Scandinavia did not.

The demise of the Vikings was mostly due to 1) They were so spread out with villages in several countries, so the Viking culture got watered down by the home country especially when it came to Christianity taking over paganism. Vikings were tied to paganism and as their religion went away, so went the Vikings. 2) They could never successfully centralize control. Everyone wanted to be a king, so they became too spread out around the then known world to be powerful.

It was the Vikings that helped Britain become the rulers of the sea for so long. Since they were getting tired of Viking ships coming around and stealing, they decided to build ships of their own that were more sea worthy and built specifically with fighting in mind. The ships were larger than the Viking ships because they didn’t build them to go up and down rivers. So they would patrol a few miles off shore and attacking the Viking ships at sea to where they didn’t have a chance. I guess a great example of that which does not kill you makes you stronger. Britain’s Royal Navy was extraordinary.

One last thing. Many females were Viking warriors as well. They performed various roles including being shield maidens to where they’d hold the shields up in front of the men while the men attacked the enemy on the other side. Many female Vikings also became extremely effective fighting with a bow and arrow. Men from other countries were shocked to see women engaged in the battles especially when some of the female Vikings came after them with axes and swords, screaming and hopped up on drugs. Now that’s scary. 😊

Aspirin

3/19/2023

After using Willow bark as a means of pain relief for 2,400 years, a scientist in France developed the first version of aspirin (it wasn't called aspirin then), in 1853. In 1897, the Bayer company reformulated the medicine to make it a faster and less stomach irritating. They also drastically improved the production of the aspirin and began marketing it around the world and calling it Bayer Aspirin. After all these years, they still rule the branded aspirin market.

A few tidbits: 1) Aspirin is still one of the most prescribed medicines in the world for its broad range of medicinal benefits and cost effectiveness. 2) Around 100 billion pills are consumed each year.

They Should Be Embarrassed

3/19/2023

So now Hunter Biden is suing the owner of the computer shop for sharing information from his laptop. Can they be any more corrupt? I'd love to be the shop owner's lawyer because I'd counter with the following arguments:

1) Hunter neglected to pick up the laptop which according to a computer repair contract, customers have a period of time before it's confiscated as the computer repair shop doesn't want to be a storage house for their customers. The shop owner has records of trying to contact Hunter but as we all know, Hunter was in a bad place at the time due to his drug use.

2) Hunter said the laptop wasn't his so why wouldn't the owner have been able to access its contents? There are no laws against this from a civil or criminal standpoint.

3) Maybe the owner felt okay with accessing and sharing the information because he was told it was Russian disinformation by the Biden's.

If anything, this lawsuit goes to show how desperate the Biden's have become. The money trail from China going to their family is now exposed and it's ugly. Which begs the question why didn't the FBI get to the bottom of this until republicans took over the oversight committees and subpoenaed the laptops contents? The FBI had the laptop for three years and did nothing with it according to dozens of FBI informants/witnesses who were livid about it being treated as a political hot potato versus an investigation into crimes committed.

And why would the Chinese Communist Party pay Biden's daughter-in-law money? She's a school counselor, I doubt if she did anything for them. Plus, there's the fact that the Biden's began receiving millions of dollars two months after Joe left office and it continued. What kind of business dealings were they doing to where China would continue to send them money and give Hunter a diamond worth over $1 million dollars with none of it being reported to the IRS? This fact alone should have put the Biden's in prison just as it has done to countless Americans who committed tax fraud. From a national security perspective, we must know the truth. Are we compromised when it comes to China? It sure looks that way based on how well they've been treated even though they've broken international laws against us and other countries who are too small to do anything about it.

The Bidens don't have a legitimate answer for these continued payments as to the services they were rendering nor why the money was routed several different times before it landed in their accounts. That's why this scandal will be one of the worst in world history compliments of the Democratic Party. Absolutely disgusting!

Home Alone

3/17/2023

The screen writer for the film Home Alone, was John Hughes who wrote so many famous movies like the National Lampoon's Vacation, series. He also wrote Mr. Mom, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Pretty in Pink, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and Uncle Buck. These last two movies made John Candy and Hughes very good friends.

MGM decided to produce Home Alone and were told it would cost around $10 million. Although they used an actual house in Chicago for outside shots, they had built the entire inside of the house in an abandoned high school. The scene where water was flooding the basement was filmed inside the school's Olympic size pool.

When it comes to Joe Pesci, about every other word out of his mouth in person or on screen, are cusswords so they worried that he wouldn't be able to stay with the script. To combat it, Joe came up with his own way of cussing so that the movie could stay PG. It also made the movie even funnier.

John Candy played a very funny role in the film as the guy with a Polka band. Because the movie's budget was low, Candy performed in the movie out of his friendship with Hughes and was paid just $500 which was the minimum the actor's union would allow anyone to be paid for a day's work.

The film was going over budget, so the director and producer went to MGM to ask for $4.7 million more dollars to finish the project and MGM declined. They were willing to scrap their initial investment and move on. An MGM representative went to the school and began going around telling people they were fired. But what the MGM person didn't know is that the director and producer saw the writing on the wall and had already pitched the idea for Home Alone, to 20th Century Fox and they said if MGM canceled the project, they'd come in with investment money to finish it.

So at pretty much the same time people were hearing they were fired, the director and producer went around telling them they still had their jobs and were now working for FOX. The movie remained number one at the box office for around 12 weeks and has now brought in over $500 million and counting. Needless to say, some MGM executives made the worst decision of their careers bailing on this movie.

John Candy made one more film after this then tragically died at the age of 43. The amazing screenwriter, John Hughes, died of a sudden heart attack at 59 while walking on a sidewalk in New York City. He and his wife were there visiting their son and new grandbaby. He was truly one of the best and most productive screenwriters of our time.

By the way, everyone involved in the film loved Macaulay Culkin. If you think about it, risking $14 million dollars on an 11-year-old kid who's supposed to carry the film, is pretty gutsy. Well played.

You've Got to Be Kidding Me!

3/16/2023

The Biden Administration is going to send undercover agents to various colleges and universities with the goals of identifying inequity in recruitment, transfers of credits, job placement rates, withdrawal rates, graduation rates, earning potential after college, distribution of student aid, etc.

Let me ask you, do you think this is a federal government responsibility? But more importantly, do you think they're going to do anything but perform woke investigations? They'll blow up the Civil Rights Act by creating reverse discrimination of every aspect of college attendance including who will do the teaching and what subjects are offered. It's what is to be expected when part of your political party's platform is indoctrination over education.

Oscar's Best Picture Debacle

3/16/2023

There are so many reasons why The Oscars, mean so little these days. If I see that a film is "Oscar Winning," I definitely stay away from it because it will more than likely have some wokeness and not be entertaining.

These are the movies which won "Best Picture," over the last ten years starting at 2013: 1) Argo 2) 12 Years a Slave 2) Birdman 3) Spotlight 4) Moonlight 5) The Shape of Water 6) Green Book 7) Parasite 8) Nomadland 9) CODA 10) Everything, Everywhere, All at Once.

Not only were most of these movies not good performers at the box office, once the hype of winning was over, they flopped completely in subsequent revenue streams such as Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, and On Demand.

So, what exactly makes for a "Best Picture, movie? Certainly not popularity. But one thing most of the movies above have in common is that they're talking down to the audience with various woke initiatives. I certainly don't mind if people want to create these types of movies, but I consider it very shady to attempt to make people think they're good movies when they aren't even close.

These are some of the movies which won "Best Picture," before the run of wokeness began: 1) Gladiator 2) A Beautiful Mind 3) Chicago 4) Lord of the Rings 5) Million Dollar Baby 6) Crash 7) The Departed 8) No Country for Old Men 9) Slum Dog Millionaire 10) The Hurt Locker which barely beat out Avatar.

Not only did most of these movies do great in the Box Office they've been watched countless times on other outlets, so they've brought in a lot of revenues. If Russel Crowe is getting any royalties from the movie Gladiator, he won't have to work another day in his life as it's still being watched repeatedly.

So, what happened? The Academy used to get it right in many cases but now they honor movies which are basically flops when compared to what other movies have done.

My message to all movie and television producers is to bring back entertainment and stop trying to use propaganda in an attempt to influence my ideology. I get enough of that all around me, I look to them for an escape from all of that. If they don't change their strategies, they will become more and more obsolete.

They're a Lying Machine

3/16/2023

As usual, the leaders of our country and military, have lied. Right after our drone was taken out by Russia over the Black Sea, the Biden Administration, including General Milley, made it sound as if Russia didn't mean to knock our drone out of the sky, claiming it was an accident. I guess they didn't expect that the video from the drone would leak, and we'd find out the truth which is Russia intentionally destroyed our drone. The question is why did they lie about it?

Here's another lie. They claim it isn't a problem for Russia to find the wreckage because the drone would be in pieces. How do they know this? The reason the Biden Administration wants to make it sound like us not salvaging it isn't a big deal is because they removed our two warships from the Black Sea in 2021. We don't have the means to recover the aircraft and that's why they're trying to play it down. Another question is why they removed our two ships from the Black Sea? Why does the Biden Administration again and again, make us more vulnerable to our enemies?

I've never seen so much corruption in my life and the scary thing is that so many democrats are okay with it; they encourage it with a mentality of the end justifies the means. I'm afraid that "the end," to them means causing the end of our Republic.

A Very Unique and Cool Song

3/15/2023

I think the below song that Dan Fogelberg wrote is awesome. It's based on a true story during the Gold Rush. Just hearing him do a folk song is really cool.

National Endowment for the Arts

3/15/2023

I’ve written about this organization before and brought up some of the outrageous “art” exhibits they sponsor that are vulgar in an average person’s eyes like a portrait of someone urinating on a Bible. It’s almost like the more outlandish the art exhibits the more funding they get for pushing the envelope.

It is a sub-agency of the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities, along with the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Our country is broke and in horrendous debt, why do we continue to support agencies which are wants and not needs and this includes the Department of Education which certainly isn't necessary.

The foundation also sponsors the ballet, operas, and symphony orchestras which are generally attended by people with plenty of money to pay for tickets without them needing to be subsidized by taxpayer dollars. Democrats say they're for the little guy, but they sure don't show it.

The head of the National Endowment of the Arts is appointed by the President, and the person serves as long as the President is in office. They have a huge budget with over 400 employees with average salaries of over $100,000 (more than twice the average salary in the private sector). It definitely pays to work for the federal government.

<<Previous

For the Children? I Don't Think So!

The Life of a Viking

Aspirin

They Should Be Embarrassed

Home Alone

You've Got to Be Kidding Me!

Oscar's Best Picture Debacle

They're a Lying Machine

A Very Unique and Cool Song

National Endowment for the Arts

Author: John Mann

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