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TORN From the Inside Out & THE JOURNEY

 MEMOIRS In 1973,  a young woman, barely sixteen years old, and a zealous member of a cultist religious group, married a twenty-three year-o...

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Colleen McCullough Dies at age 77, Author of Thorn Birds

Colleen McCullough, the author of the internationally acclaimed bookThe Thorn Birds, died at age 77.

"She was one of the first Australian writers to succeed on the world stage," HarperCollins Australia publishing director Shona Martyn said.
READ more ABC News

The Thorn Birds on Amazon

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Blizzard Coming: 'Monster Storm'

CNN: 'Monster Storm' to hit A monster snowstorm is expected to slam into the Northeast on Monday and Tuesday, dumping what could be up to 3 feet of snow in Boston and New York..

Thursday, January 15, 2015

World War III: Is a Third World War Looming? By Sara Niles



I learned about history from my Great-Great Uncle Robert, who was himself born in 1883, and witnessed both the Great World Wars as an adult. By the time I was introduced to the world wars as part of my history education, I already had a feel  for the climate of war, or the state of affairs that signal a tinder box of influences have converged to set the stage for ‘war’, or the preliminary technological and economic behaviors of today’s modern war. There have been hints of a ‘Third World War’ cropping up in the news, either as a direct suggestion, an innuendo, or as a likely path that the world is headed toward.  Pope Francis spoke of war September, 2013 when he was quoted as saying "Even today, after the second failure of another world war, perhaps one can speak of a third war, one fought piecemeal, with crimes, massacres, destruction,"  The UK Telegraph The UK Telegraph: Pope Warns of a Third Wold War

Is the presumption that another Great War is in the making a paranoid idea of those inclined to yell ‘the sky is falling’, or is it a real and an imminent threat supported by experts in the fields of politics and economics? According to  The Examiner, credible experts  suggest a legitimate fear of a third world war, due to the unstable global economy and the complicated mixture of security threats as well as the resulting alliances that may result.  The stage is set for world mayhem, as leaders struggle to maintain the fragile hold on the relative ‘peace and security’ that exists within their countries as nuclear weapons are being forged by North Korea and  by Syria

 It is important to note that only five nations are legally allowed to have weapons, and they are China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA, with the U.S.A. and Russia holding 93% of the world’s total nuclear arsenal.

Russia and the United States were the two big players in the nuclear armaments race when I was young (my age shall remain a mystery). During the 1970’s  the armaments race had created so many nuclear weapons, and created such fear that we kids had ‘Fallout Shelter’ training in the schools as we watched reels of film in darkened classrooms warning of what to do in case of the ever possible nuclear fallout from a nuclear bomb.

Little did we know at that time the combined total of destructive nuclear power would have wiped the planet clean of all human life many times over, not to mention animal and plant life. We had more to fear then than we could possibly imagine. The world today has much more to fear.
 
Today the international world is more connected than it has ever been at any time in the past, with over 7 billion people 7 Billion People: The Worldometer in 196 countries, connected by an economy that affects the world through interconnected global markets, and networked through social networks via the internet. The world has changed drastically in the last fifty years, as information and ideas are exchanged at lightning speed. The economic chains that connect the global markets are subject to the power of information. The minute the job markets reports losses, or the Gross Domestic Product drops, the stock market reflects the changes internationally, as though the market itself is a giant thermometer measuring the world’s temperature. Fear breeds fear, and the emotional climate of the world is part of the recipe for either stability or chaos. The United States, Great Britain, and the United Nations, have served to aid in the stabilization of the international political scene, as well as serving to foster a spirit of soundness in the world. The principles and values of great democracies promote unification of the world as well as the humanitarian treatment of others, and the United States is a leader in that regard, serving as a world ‘police presence’ of sorts when great atrocities are committed.

The United States is not only a world leader, but it is considered to be the sole ‘superpower’, although China, India, and the European Union, are close on its heels and subject to gaining superpower status during this century. So why is there a reason to fear?

The appeal of what seemed at first to be radical acts of a few deranged groups, is now gaining ground all over the world: ISIS. Although ISIS is a relatively small force, with a wicked ideology, the danger is not so much a result of the power they hold among their own, but the danger lies in their appeal to lost souls, and disenfranchised individuals looking for a cause. When the world climate is stable, groups like ISIS are not as powerful; their power grows when too many people are unhappy and confused. Chaos breeds chaos.

Will there be a Third Great War? No one knows, or can know, but the signs of war are foreboding in the chaos and ‘piecemeal’ chaos, with “crimes, massacre and destruction” as Pope Francis stated.
http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/



Sunday, January 11, 2015

Paris: Huffington Post 'Millions' Rally in support

Paris: National Unity Rally Rouses Thousands

"More than 40 world leaders and what government officials say were between 1.2 and 1.6 million people streamed into the heart of Paris on Sunday for a rally of national unity to honor the 17 victims of three days of terror"

Friday, January 9, 2015

Phylicia Rashad and the Cosby Truthers

It is hard to see both sides of a two-faced person, especially if they person lives a dual life. Bill Cosby was the good man and the friend to some-is it possible they are 'invested in an image' instead of the real man behind the image?
The Daily Beast: Phylicia Rashad Defends Bill Cosby

Friday, January 2, 2015

elvis presley - in the ghetto

Homicide In the Street by Sara Niles


Nonfiction 
Essay-length short story 4558 words 
One Full chapter from Out of the Maelstrom



Sara Niles fled for her life with her five children in 1987, as a victim homicidal domestic violence from her deranged husband; over a decade later, Niles begins work with a nonprofit domestic violence agency, dealing directly with victims of crime and violence. 
Homicide in the Street is the story of one of the most notorious of the abusers whose murder happened in the street in front of her adult son's home. It is through the telling of this story that the sad outcome of extreme violence is brought to the fore through the lens of society and the cultural mores of the times. 

Excerpt from Chapter of Out of the Maelstrom by Sara Niles

He was dead, alright. The sight of death is an ugly and fearsome thing I thought, as I absorbed the tragic sight in front of me. It was a man, ‘The man’ , who was lying in the road with blackish-red blood pooled around his head, and as he lay face down with his feet in his own yard, while his head and shoulders were planted in the street, giving the appearance of a killed animal felled in its tracks by a hunter.




By the time I arrived, yellow crime scene tape was strapped around the trees, while blue and red lights flashed out of sync with each other, providing the warning surges of light emanating from the tops of police cars and through the windshields of undercover detective vehicles; while the ambulance was parked askew with the neat, uniformed workers eerily standing almost idly by, in no apparent rush to ‘save’ the life of the already ‘dead’ man. I had rushed over as soon as I got the phone call, alerting me to what I was seeing with my own eyes. The phone call had been from my oldest son Tommy, who had reached me at the local domestic violence shelter with the news: “He’s dead! Mama-somebody just shot him-right out in the middle of the street!” 
Tommy had tersely stated, as a matter-of -fact summation of a wasted and dangerous life. The man was killed within fifty feet of my adult son Tommy’s yard, so naturally I felt I had a license to investigate, to see if he was indeed ‘really’ dead.