tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69579290865758071652024-03-18T12:41:00.773-04:00Book Readers HeavenBooks, Reviews, Short Stories, Authors, Publicity, a little poetry, music to complement...and other stuff including politics, about life... Life is Sweet...Glenda A Bixler Reviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15829561936090262198noreply@blogger.comBlogger3152125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6957929086575807165.post-60215213248591520872024-03-18T09:49:00.000-04:002024-03-18T09:49:02.204-04:00Other Worlds Are Possible - Joss Sheldon begins... Freedom: The Case for Open Borders<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/o8GrqUSdzi0" width="479" youtube-src-id="o8GrqUSdzi0"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8x5O7DuoQ3XEqjkHzoQjanYKTxfhutEt4FD99Sta4Ci0BZIkhcAvRxtAq6_Zri8S6dm0YPU5KYbTA1Bc0gVY28lethk4yvfDukrYRmDutUXwOYCbqxpbti_FOzDDlX_Xc1NDSMG9A0HcV69w_DPuso-ep_uFgPZa6RyMxjly9RP2uGpJmDewzh7hop1U/s5364/Creative%203%20small.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3576" data-original-width="5364" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8x5O7DuoQ3XEqjkHzoQjanYKTxfhutEt4FD99Sta4Ci0BZIkhcAvRxtAq6_Zri8S6dm0YPU5KYbTA1Bc0gVY28lethk4yvfDukrYRmDutUXwOYCbqxpbti_FOzDDlX_Xc1NDSMG9A0HcV69w_DPuso-ep_uFgPZa6RyMxjly9RP2uGpJmDewzh7hop1U/w640-h426/Creative%203%20small.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>OTHER WORLDS ARE POSSIBLE </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>This book fills the void which was created by the shift towards authoritarianism--to share the ideas which are missing from the mainstream narrative--making the case for free movement. I want to arm you with the information you’ll need to challenge the anti-freedom agenda. So that when someone repeats a Trumpian falsehood--these ideas that “Immigrants take our jobs,” or that “They’re not like us”--you can respond with the facts that debunk their lies. </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>I want to help you to challenge the politics of fear and hatred, so that we may usher in new politics based on the humanity we all hold in common, no matter where we were born. </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="317" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/s7RdAufkLkk" width="432" youtube-src-id="s7RdAufkLkk"></iframe></div><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Does that sound crazy? Perhaps it does! But let’s not forget that this narrowing of the political spectrum has been a relatively recent occurrence. Politicians were willing to extend a warm welcome to their international guests, in the not-too-distant past. Do you recall the George Washington quote at the beginning of this chapter? When he said the USA was open to strangers from “All nations and religions”? Well, that kind of statement used to be the norm. Harry Truman won the 1948 presidential election, after promising to overturn controls on migration. He later stated: “We do not need to be ‘Protected’ against immigrants… On the contrary, we want to stretch out a helping hand, to save those who have managed to flee (from the USSR)… To welcome and restore them.” (Volner, 2019). John F Kennedy once said: “Immigrants have enriched and strengthened the fabric of American life.” He also declared: “We are a nation of immigrants.” And Barack Obama echoed his predecessor, when he stated: “We are and always will be a nation of immigrants.” </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>But it wasn’t only Democrats who used to speak in such a manner. Take these quotes from the three Republican presidents who preceded Donald Trump, beginning with Ronald Reagan, who said this in 1980: “(Rather than) talking about putting up a fence, why don’t we work out some recognition of our mutual problems, make it possible for them to come here legally with a work permit, and then, while they’re working and earning here, they pay taxes.” Reagan’s successor, George Bush Senior, reminded the nation that the USA was built by immigrants, when he said this in 1990: “Our nation is the enduring dream of every immigrant who ever set foot on these shores, and the millions still struggling to be free. This nation, this idea called America, was and always will be a new world--our new world.” And Bush’s son, George Junior, extolled the immigrant work ethic, while speaking in 2004: “As a Texan, I have known many immigrant families, mainly from Mexico, and I’ve seen what they add to our country. They bring to America the values of faith in God, love of family, hard work, and self-reliance--the values that made us a great nation.” George W. Bush also admitted that, “Nearly all Americans have ancestors who braved the oceans--liberty-loving risk takers in search of an ideal... Immigration is not just a link to America’s past--it’s also a bridge to America’s future.” (Ortiz, 2016).</b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>If these Republican politicians, who certainly weren’t a bunch of “bleeding heart liberals,” could’ve spoken so glowingly about immigration in the recent past, then they should be able to do so again in the future. You never know: This book might swing them back in the right direction!</b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b> </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>EVERYONE HAS A STORY </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>I suppose I have skin in the game… I was born in Barnet – a fairly anonymous suburb on London’s outermost fringe. My father grew up in the area. But my mother moved around a little--she grew up in Oxford, went to study in Liverpool, and headed down to London when she began her career. My grand-parents were also born in England. So, it’d be easy for me to consider myself British through-and-through. My family speak English with an English accent. We eat fish and chips, go to football matches, and whinge about the weather. I’ve never heard any of my relatives refer to themselves as “immigrants”. In reality, all eight of my great-grandparents moved to England from Eastern Europe, between the two World Wars--fleeing from antisemitism. If they hadn’t made that journey, they might’ve been murdered by the Nazis. I wouldn’t be here today, writing this book. How many other lives were saved, thanks to similar journeys? And how many of the six million Jews who were slaughtered, would’ve been saved had there been open borders, providing them with a passageway to safety? It’s sobering to think. But free movement, for me, isn’t something that’s limited to the dark annals of history. It’d be fair to say that without international travel, you wouldn’t be reading this book for a second, entirely different reason… In December 2012, I left my job at Northampton Town Football Club. I was determined to write and release my debut novel. But I only had a few thousand pounds in the bank. Would that money have sufficed, had I remained in England? No way! I’d have spent it in a few months, whilst I was only a fraction of the way through the first draft, and I’d have been forced to get another job to pay the bills. Perhaps I could’ve written part-time. But that book, <i>Involution & Evolution</i>, took almost two years to complete. Distracted by a job, and by fatigue, it would’ve taken even longer. Given that it was a bit of a flop, I’d have probably lacked the motivation to keep writing. The chances are that I wouldn’t have made it to book number eight, and you wouldn’t be reading it today. So, what happened? </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Well, I “moved,” of course. I put the word in quotation marks, because I didn’t take up permanent residence abroad. I was more of a nomad. I went to India--one of the cheapest countries on the planet. I rented a rather basic room, for around £70 a month. I washed my clothes by hand, on the floor beneath the shower. I cooked porridge in a kettle for breakfast, and ate my other meals at the cheapest restaurants. All in all, I survived on about £5 a day. Even when you add in the cost of flights and visas, it’s not hard to see how I made my money last for around eighteen months, enough time to complete the first two drafts of my novel. Moving to another country, helped me to launch my new career. It also helped me to put down roots… </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Even as a relatively successful author, there was no way I could’ve bought a house back in Barnet. According to Right Move, the average property in my hometown sold for £891,938 (in 2022). The average apartment cost £509,664. At the same time, according to Words Rated, the average indie author was only making a thousand dollars a year. You do the math! So, what did I do? I wrote my first two books in India and Nepal, before writing my third--<i>The Little Voice</i> while house-sitting for friends in Spain. When that began to sell, I treated myself. I wrote my fourth novel, <i>Money Power Love,</i> in the food-lovers paradise of Thailand. It was there that I met my (now) wife. We moved to the Philippines and then to Bulgaria, where we bought a three-bedroom house on the edge of the Pirin National Park. With beautiful mountain views, that little slice of paradise was a short drive away from a ski resort and an assortment of hot springs. It cost me around £30,000 – the sort of price that a moderately successful indie author could afford to pay. </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>After a few years, my wife began to miss the land of her birth--the Philippines. I could tell that she’d be happier if we returned to that island nation. So here we are today. We’ve bought a little under two hectares of land, for about £25,000, and a team of builders are erecting our home as I type--replete with a well, water-filtration system, solar panels and wind turbine. We plan to grow our food, live off-grid, and be fairly self-sufficient. It's not the sort of life everyone would wish for themselves, and it certainly has its downsides. But it’s the life we’ve chosen. And there’s no way we could’ve afforded it back in Britain. We had to move, to enjoy this lifestyle. We’ve been incredibly fortunate, to be able to do such a thing. The British passport is a powerful tool--it makes it easy for Brits to relocate. </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>But still, there’s a part of me that feels conflicted. I feel like a spoilt brat, hopping from one place to the next, whilst other people are forced to remain where they are, and accept circumstances which were imposed upon them at birth. There’s one rule for one group of people, and another rule for everyone else. That’s not right, it’s not just, and it’s not fair.</b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Everyone has a story. They tend to be fairly unique. And the nuance is often lost. We rarely hear about those people who move abroad to enjoy a cheaper cost of living. We seldom speak about those people who move for the sake of a homesick spouse. Have you ever come across anyone else who moved from Britain to India, to launch a career as an author? Discussions about migration tend to focus on the negatives. </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>But not everyone who moves is a victim--a “refugee,” an “asylum seeker,” or an impoverished “economic migrant.” People relocate for thousands of reasons--most of which we never stop to consider--most of which are positive and beautiful. People move to study, retire, or make a fresh start--to experience different cultures, climates and lifestyles. It’s true that some of us only make single journeys--emigrating from one place, and immigrating into another. But plenty of “returnees” do head back in the other direction. Other people are more nomadic. Some move around their regions, whilst others traverse the globe. They might settle down for a few weeks, a few years, or a few decades. </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Whatever the case, one fact remains: No-one chooses the place where they were born. It’s a lottery. You might be fortunate. You might be born in the perfect nation for you--one with all the opportunities you’ll need to become the best version of yourself. Then again, you might not. It seems inherently unjust to trap people in particular lands, simply because they were born there, when they could attain self-fulfilment elsewhere. It’s also a historic anomaly… </b></span></div></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span><b>Beginning with the reality of what immigration has come to mean in the world is so very difficult... </b></span><b>In America, Russia, and, through one man, even Israel, it has become a purely political matter where one party is willing to harm these people... purely to gain power! In fact, within or without the United States, we have seen what is happening when those who are known for authoritarian domains, wars have sprung up, people are dying...</b></span></div><div><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="330" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/M7TNP2OTY2g" width="466" youtube-src-id="M7TNP2OTY2g"></iframe></b></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="371" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VG-uZXKVgCc" width="477" youtube-src-id="VG-uZXKVgCc"></iframe></div></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div>Let's be specific... Putin has initiated a war against the freedom enjoyed in Ukraine... Netanyahu had been under investigation when Hamas attacked, but he has now used his authoritarian ways to keep a war going in Gaza that has already been declared inhumane and criticized across the world. The leader of Iran, </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Ali Khamenei funded Hamas and other terrorist groups who are now attacking ships in the area, and more...</span></b></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>It is quite clear to me, at least, and many others that if the past president of America would be reinstalled as president, it would be a total destruction of our lives as Trump has clearly stated that he would be a dictator on day 1 if elected and would then work with other dictators to rule supreme...</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>While I hold confidence this will not happen, nevertheless, many now live in fear, which includes, fear of those who see the United States as a safe haven. And hundreds have already come from another dictator's country, China, because of the move toward even more suppression in all ways.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>ALL OVER THE WORLD, PEOPLE ARE CRYING OUT TO BE FREE! I believe this book is not only an excellent treatise of just how much people desire--and--deserve to live free. All over the world!</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>After his introduction related to the political climate, Sheldon immediately moves into a comprehensive research review of historical account of how people lived. As I read, I began to sink further and further into the beauty, the awareness, the reality of living free. This, to me, is what God intends for all. And, for America, as guaranteed to us in our Constitution. And, then, I realized even more just how one leader of a bordered country can quickly, or slowly, remove each and every freedom... just by demanding "borders" around a perceived ownership of property!</b></span></div><div><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><blockquote><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>Homo sapiens have been moving about, establishing homes in various locations, for at least eighty thousand years. Earlier humans, such as Homo habilis, were wandering the Earth around two million years ago!</b></span></blockquote></span></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>In America most of us now have the luxury to move within the country at will... until recently. Many of us know that historically those from another world first came to America, seeing it "mostly" free of people and decided that the land was up for grabs... Many of those who were presently living on this land, who had moved from place to place, to hunt, to move for climate improvement, or to establish a home place soon learned that immigrants coming to their land were not interested in their nomadic moves based upon living in the best possible climate at any given time... Soon, it resulted in violence, murder and...theft...</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Sheldon points out that we all have some need to move, to go to places different than where we were born. In fact, he begins to give statistics of movement of people from location to location. Specifically, unless you live in Africa where you were born, all of us are immigrants in the land of the free! </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Thus begins the History of Movement</span></b></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><i>“And what is a border, if not a story? It is never simply a line, a marker, a wall, an edge. First, it’s an idea. An idea that is then presented as a reality. It doesn’t just exist in the world. It can only ever be made. It can only ever be told.” --James Crawford</i></b></span></blockquote><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Boom! No, that doesn’t do it justice. BOOM! No, that doesn’t even come close. The universe didn’t begin with a big bang. It began with a massive bang. The sort of explosion that’s impossible to conceive. A melee of gamma rays, heat and light. This massive bang dispersed all the physical matter that’s ever existed, at more than a billion kilometres per hour. That matter would go on to form stars, planets, trees, animals and humans--but it would never stop moving. Every gram of matter that exists today, has been in constant motion for 13.8 billion years--travelling away from the site of the big bang. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is no exception: It travels 2.1 million kilometres every single hour. Planet Earth is also beholden by this rule of constant motion. It’s orbiting the sun--travelling 107 million kilometres in an hour. Our solar system is also moving around the Milky Way. </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>And there’s more: That’s because the Earth is rotating on its axis. If you’re standing on the equator, you’ll be travelling 1,600 kilometres each hour, thanks to this phenomenon alone. All this means one thing: You’re migrating right now. It might not seem that way. You might be very comfortable, relaxing on a sofa, sipping a cup of cocoa. Everything might feel pretty stable. But in reality, you’re whizzing through space at a mind-boggling velocity. You’ve never been where you are at this moment, and you’ll never be there again. This has always been the case. The history of the universe, is a history of continuous travel through space. (Fraknoi, 2007).</b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Reading this book instilled a sure knowledge that freedom is precious--precious enough that we must fight to keep, or obtain, it! Now when it is so apparent in so many ways across our world, take the time to learn how and why voting is just one of the ways we can be free...</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Next: This is My Father's World!<br /></b></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div><br /></div></span></div>Glenda A Bixler Reviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15829561936090262198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6957929086575807165.post-52818073703274552732024-03-17T09:53:00.004-04:002024-03-18T12:40:25.754-04:00Freedom: The Case For Open Borders - Joss Sheldon - Introduction<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK_VrYCn_NHkbykvjdlHDd4aL0SdkBT7cjQsvXaLyTx1iDdC5xEWDDPaW5Qg_UKt0qCwjRniQK5UbALMvH3EbX3Z6eOqB5-BxMnrHnnQ17h_3Dp6dC7i_YQcjUd_AmPPm6EJ967opcaro84UkgGZIrnY6SI_3XZ0qLIT3V14la6lI6MZmAtVnqa-TnpI8/s4928/Creative%204%20small.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="4928" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK_VrYCn_NHkbykvjdlHDd4aL0SdkBT7cjQsvXaLyTx1iDdC5xEWDDPaW5Qg_UKt0qCwjRniQK5UbALMvH3EbX3Z6eOqB5-BxMnrHnnQ17h_3Dp6dC7i_YQcjUd_AmPPm6EJ967opcaro84UkgGZIrnY6SI_3XZ0qLIT3V14la6lI6MZmAtVnqa-TnpI8/w640-h424/Creative%204%20small.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p><span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>It’s the 16th of June, back in 2015. Donald Trump is riding an escalator in the Manhattan tower he’s named after himself. The skin beneath his chin is sagging over a generic red tie. His face is reddish-purple. He holds his left hand aloft, and offers a thumbs-up to the press. In the background, a couple of dozen people are standing on the level from which Trump is descending, pressed up against a golden handrail. Some wave at the reality TV star, whilst others snap photos on their phones. A few of these spectators have wandered in off the street; curious to see what’s afoot. Others are being paid $50 to attend. Trump follows his wife, Melania, who is sporting a white dress and a stoic face. He clambers up onto a makeshift stage, positions himself, and begins in the style to which the world will soon become accustomed: </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>“Our country is in serious trouble. We don’t have victories anymore. We used to have victories, but we don’t have them. When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say, China in a trade deal? They kill us. I beat China all the time. All the time. “When did we beat Japan at anything? They send their cars over by the millions, and what do we do? When was the last time you saw a Chevrolet in Tokyo? It doesn’t exist, folks. They beat us all the time. “When do we beat Mexico at the border? They’re laughing at us, at our stupidity. And now they are beating us economically. They are not our friend, believe me. But they’re killing us economically. </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>“The US has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems. “Thank you. It’s true, and these are the best and the finest. When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. “But I speak to border guards and they tell us what we’re getting. And it only makes common sense. It only makes common sense. They’re sending us not the right people. </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>“It’s coming from more than Mexico. It’s coming from all over South and Latin America, and it’s coming probably... probably... from the Middle East. But we don’t know. Because we have no protection and we have no competence, we don’t know what’s happening. And it’s got to stop.”</b></span></p><p><b style="color: #a64d79;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">These were the opening remarks from the speech that launched Trump’s campaign for office. He’d started as he meant to go on. Less than two weeks later, when NBC dumped Trump for “Derogatory statements... regarding immigrants,” the future president doubled down, claiming: “We must have strong borders and not let illegal immigrants enter the United States… Public reports routinely state great amounts of crime are being committed by illegal immigrants.” Trump insisted that the solution was a border wall: “I will build a great wall. And nobody builds walls better than me, believe me. And I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall.” </span></b></p><p><b style="color: #a64d79;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">And Trump took things to the next level, in December of that year – saying he’d implement a “Total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”: “Our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life.”</span></b></p><p><b style="color: #a64d79;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Things were pretty dire, for a significant number of Americans... Jobs had been shipped off abroad, wages had stagnated, and living costs were spiralling out of control. The aftermath of the Global Economic Crash had been devastating for everyday folk: Around ten million Americans had lost their homes, nine million had lost their jobs, and over 45 million had been plunged into poverty. (Shallby, 2018). Trump was tapping into this seam of discontent, and offering a deliciously simple answer: It’s the immigrants! They’re the bogeymen. They’re the ones who are pillaging your prosperity. But that malaise hadn’t been caused by immigrants. It was caused by the policies of Ronald Reagan, George Bush Senior, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. They were the ones who’d put corporate profits before the welfare of the American people – cutting regulation, abolishing trade barriers, and reducing union power. (Gerstle, 2022). </span></b></p><p><b style="color: #a64d79;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">And the Global Economic Crash wasn’t caused by immigrants either. It was the work of unscrupulous investment bankers, the credit agencies that gave triple-A ratings to subprime loans, and successive governments, who’d rolled back the very legislation which was designed to prevent that type of meltdown. Most of the bankers at Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns weren’t immigrants. Most of the politicians who put profit before people, were born and raised in the States. It wasn’t immigrants who closed around seventy thousand American factories, and outsourced five million manufacturing jobs. Those decisions were made by fat cat chief executives. And it wasn’t immigrants who profited from the slash-and-burn approach to managing the economy. It was a tiny cabal of shareholders. (Scott et al, 2022). </span></b></p><p><b style="color: #a64d79;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">But none of that mattered. In politics, the truth is secondary. Narrative wins the day. If you can pick at people’s discontent, work your audience into a frenzy, say you’ve identified the issue, say you have the solutions, and promise to make life better – then you’ll rack up the votes. Donald Trump did that. Hillary Clinton did not. </span></b></p><p><b style="color: #a64d79;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">THE FACTS WHICH DISAPPEARED </span></b></p><p><b style="color: #a64d79;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">But what if Hillary had tried such an approach? What if she had acknowledged the suffering of the American people? What if she’d gone as far as to say that immigration policy was to blame? Imagine the scene, if you will… Clinton and Trump have won their parties’ nominations. Trump’s rhetoric is well-known. But Hillary has been fighting fire with fire--taking an unashamedly pro-immigration stance. Her campaign has been just as controversial as Trump’s...</span></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #a64d79;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">~~~</span></b></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Imagine, if you will, that Hillary Clinton had created her own, but exact opposite, of the campaign that was used during the 2016 election. The slogan would be "Immigrants make America Great" and ads, hats and even necklaces that could be hung around a woman's neck would be seen all around. Hillary would forget about trying to out-scream Trump and, instead, she would talk about sisterly support, how she was already working with thousands of women and charitable organizations that were aimed at meeting the needs of the poor and hungry...</span></b></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Well, we already know that Clinton won the popular vote, especially after Trump's claim that he could grab the genitals of women and they wouldn't care... And all of those women who attended the large protest march at that time, had voted and asked that state representatives for her campaign would work with the electors of states, to ensure that they were singing the same tune that the majority of Americans had been singing... Clinton promises to help Immigrants from across the world, just like the Statue of Liberty guaranteed... She had recited the famous poem, "Give me your tired your poor..." followed by a rallying cry!</span></b></p><span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;"><div style="text-align: center;">And now the banner can be seen – </div></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">red, white and blue – star-spangled, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">with a three-word demand: </span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">“Open the borders!” The crowd cheers:</span></div><span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;"><div style="text-align: center;">Open the borders! </div></span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">Make America the Land of the Free!</span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I had a chance to talk briefly with my mailman yesterday and we got into politics, somehow. He was laughing that Trump had won and would win again in 2024. I pointed out that Clinton had won the 2016 popular vote--that he had won... And I mentioned the Russian hackers... Again he roared in laughter. I asked him, Do you know what report documented those who had been convicted of interfering with the election? He looked at me. I could tell he didn't and mentioned the Mueller report. Again, a blank stare...</span></b></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">How I wish that the Democratic Party had realized or knew about all that we now know! But that is history which we cannot change, even though much of Trump's actions during his presidency has been regurgitated into entirely different statements of republican <i>truth</i>...</span></b></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">BUT, I want to quickly point out that this book has little to do with politics! As I was reading, I again realized that I was to read this book NOW. Because it was purely by a God Incident that I even discovered Joss' email--I had been routinely deleting email from the address I had used as a reviewer who accepted requests for reading books from authors. And, as I read, this song came to me...</span></b></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="340" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NwqTvmpnKeE" width="448" youtube-src-id="NwqTvmpnKeE"></iframe></span></b></div><p style="text-align: left;"><b><b><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Whether you approach the care of our world from a religious or scientific viewpoint, or both, like me, is really irrelevant. It is, frankly, common sense for all of us to be alert to, and be involved in any way we can help to care for Planet Earth, all of its occupants, and the heavens above... So why are republicans unwilling to support a Climate Control program...Again!?</span></b></b></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b45f06;"><b><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Still, Sheldon is not quite finished with his Introduction of a story that began in 2015... He shares elaborate </span></b></b><b><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">RHETORIC from rallies from Candidate Clinton... Talking about the fact that all of the creators of the Constitution were Immigrants! Then she moves on to people who came from various countries, such as those now working in health care. Noting that 1.5 Immigrants work in various positions such as doctors--and I immediately thought of my doctor who performed surgery to remove a tumor from my brain, who was an immigrant, perhaps 1st or 2nd generation... But I was thrilled with his caring concern and the success of that life-saving surgery. </span></b></b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b><b><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Wouldn't you like to have seen a rousing debate between the two candidates on the same subject, rather than how it did occur?! I sure would have. But, then, again, D. J. Trump would possibly never have been indicted on 91 criminal counts, and gone back to cheating the State of New York in various ways, starting with the creation of a charitable organization which was closed due to how the donated money was being used... With a statement that the Trump family would never be able to open a charitable fund in the future...</span></b></b></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b><b><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">This week I will, with permission by the author, be sharing more than usual about this book, simply because it is a very important book...as well as because border problems are now in the forefront of our country. We need to consider our future in America and around the world... We need to realize that Freedom requires Attention and Action!</span></b></b></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b><b><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><b><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="322" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/V-e7avApR9g" width="469" youtube-src-id="V-e7avApR9g"></iframe></span></b></b></div><b><b><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /><span>Joss Sheldon speaks of Free Open Borders! Can we, as President Biden demands of Congress, begin to at least get some type of rational program at our southern border approved and funded! Don't let the republican party continue to use thousands of potential immigrants as pawns in their political grab for power! Freedom Begins With Each of Us!</span></span></b></b><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b><b><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Tomorrow: Other Worlds Are Possible!</span></b></b></p></div>Glenda A Bixler Reviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15829561936090262198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6957929086575807165.post-70233441221375616512024-03-11T14:17:00.001-04:002024-03-11T14:52:07.603-04:00First in Christian Clear Creek Series, Ryan's Ruin, by T. E. Killian is Delightful, Heartwarming and A Little Bit of Murder Mystery...<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="328" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OFhaFSc2TlA" width="471" youtube-src-id="OFhaFSc2TlA"></iframe></div><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>After a mostly sleepless night, Ryan was still planning to go through with it, but he had come up with a plan. He knew his sisters and Margie left the house between nine and nine-thirty on Sunday mornings. Since he wasn’t going to Sunday School, he didn’t have to leave until after ten-thirty. So that would give him plenty of time to get ready after the others left the house. But the question that had really kept him awake for most of the night was why. Why, after all these years, had he agreed to go to church and with Candy at that? And why did he agree so quickly and so easily, too? He didn’t really have answers to any of those questions, even now in the light of day. So, as he sat at the kitchen table drinking one last cup of coffee, he decided not to think about any of that anymore. The others had all breezed through the kitchen numerous times, getting coffee or breakfast. Now, it was about time for them all to leave. </b></span><div><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>This was the moment he’d been waiting for. Or was he really dreading it? At any rate, they all trooped through the kitchen and past him and through the garage door. Hazel was in the lead as usual, with Ernestine right behind her and Margie bringing up the rear a little way behind her aunts. Ryan had to laugh at the comical procession they made as they filed past him. His little niece was really maturing. She was at least three inches taller than her aunts now, too. Finally, they were all gone. Now what? Did he really want to go through with this or not? And if so, why? Why did he say he would go to church now when so many had tried to get him to go over the years? Why did he decide to go when a newcomer, an outsider, even a competitor, asked him to? He sat there for a few more minutes and finished his coffee. Then he remembered that he’d decided not to think about any of that anymore. He was going, and that was that. </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>But despite that resolve, as he was climbing the stairs to go to his bedroom, the answer to all the questions flying around in his head hit him like a two by four between the eyes. Candy! In spite of his concerns about her coffee shop maybe hurting his business, he liked the woman. No, it was more than that, much more. The fact was, he was drawn to her like a moth to a flame. And that was what was bothering him the most. Wasn’t that reason enough not to go? He kept arguing with himself all through getting dressed and driving out to the church. When he parked in the church parking lot, he noticed that Candy’s son, Connor, was standing on the concrete slab outside the front door, watching him. The kid disappeared inside the building and a moment later, Candy came out and stood there, looking his way. When he didn’t get out right away, she started walking briskly toward him. He jumped out of the truck and they met on the sidewalk leading from the parking lot to the front door. She was beaming at him so much that he almost turned around and hightailed it toward home. But a closer look at her stopped him in his tracks. She was wearing a dark blue dress, and it made her look fantastic, too. Whoa, stop that. “Oh Ryan, I’m so glad you came.” When she smiled at him like that, he knew why he’d come to church for the first time in thirty-five years. </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>He didn’t know what to say back at her, so he didn’t. He just walked beside her through the double glass doors and on into the foyer. Of course, Ryan should have known that pushy preacher would be there just waiting to get his hooks into him. He had never really cared much for that preacher. It seemed like the guy was always coming by at his sisters’ urging to try to talk him into going to church. Well, right now, the man looked like he’d just won the lottery. He was beaming from ear to ear and as he walked toward Ryan, his belly jiggled with each step. And of course, his equally obnoxious wife was right behind him, making all kinds of excited sounds, which sounded more like a pigeon to him. That was enough to turn Ryan around and head back home, but he suddenly felt Candy’s light touch on his arm. That stopped him cold. That touch calmed him down and put him in just the right frame of mind to face that preacher and his wife. He was surprised again when neither the preacher nor his wife said a word about it being about time or any such nonsense as that. Instead, Martin Howell shook Ryan’s hand. “Welcome to First Baptist Church Ryan. It’s good to see you here.” His wife came up to him then and tried to pull him into a hug like he was her long-lost relation or something. Well, he let her get half way but that was all. He sure didn’t hug her back, that’s for sure. </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>When he chanced to glance at Candy, she had her other hand over her mouth, like she was trying not to laugh right out loud. Well, as he thought about it, though, it was just a tad funny after all. But he wasn’t about to laugh, not here at least. After running the beltline, so to speak, of the pastor and his wife, as well as several of the deacons, Candy was finally able to get him into the big room where they had church. Of course, Ryan had been in the building quite a few times over the years for weddings and funerals. But today, the whole place had an entirely different feel to it. He couldn’t figure out what that difference was, though. Well, he knew it was too good to last. As soon as Candy led him to a row of chairs where her kids and Margie were sitting, his sisters saw him. They were sitting across the aisle with some friends of theirs. But they both let out whoops, jumped up, and rushed over to where he and Candy were. Hazel was in the lead, as usual. She stopped in front of them and grinned up at Ryan. Then she giggled. “I told you so.” With that, she hugged him, then turned to Candy and hugged her, too. He heard her whisper something to Candy that sounded like, “Thank you, Candy.” As was normal for her, Ernestine stood a few feet away, stiff as a board, frowning at him. And when she spoke, he knew he could have predicted exactly what she said if he’d just thought about it. “About time.” With that, they all settled down in their seats. He wound up on the aisle with Candy on his right and the three teenagers on her other side. He looked that way and saw Margie grinning at him. </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>He smiled back at her and turned his attention back to Candy, who was talking to him. “The kids usually have a service of their own next door, but the Youth Minister is sick today.” He was thankful that Candy explained everything else to him, as it happened all through the service. Otherwise, he might have been sitting when he should be standing, or vice versa.</b></span></div><div><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>All through Sunday School, Candy had been nervous and had kept looking at her watch. She was just so afraid that Ryan wouldn’t come. She realized it had to be hard for him suddenly to come to church after so many years. She kept praying he would indeed come, though. Then, when Sunday School was over, she had sent Connor outside to watch for Ryan. She still wasn’t sure he’d come. But then Connor had come in with a smirk on his face. “He just drove up.” She hadn’t known what to do. Should she wait for him here? Or should she go out to meet him? She tried to look through the glass doors but couldn’t see him from that angle. So, she slipped out to stand just outside the doors. When he sat in his pickup for a minute, she realized he might be getting cold feet, so she headed toward him on the sidewalk. That was when he climbed out of the truck and started toward her. When they grew close, she almost laughed from relief when she saw that smile. He was giving her that crooked smile again. What must he be thinking right now? Whatever it was, she knew somehow, she needed to make him feel comfortable quickly and try to keep him that way. She met him at the beginning of the sidewalk and smiled at him. “Oh Ryan, I’m so glad you came.” </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Earlier in Sunday School, she had explained to Tiffany and Sabrina that she wouldn’t be in the choir that morning and why. They had been so excited that they’d stopped right where they were in a hallway and prayed with her for Ryan. That had touched her so much to have such friends who were so strong in their faith. Now, the service was almost over, and she had been trying to help Ryan to know what was going on at all times and especially what was coming next. She didn’t want him feeling awkward in any way. That was when she looked up into the choir loft and saw that woman who owned the appliance store giving them a dirty look. Oh my. What had she done now? </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>As they were standing to leave, she leaned toward Ryan and spoke softly near his ear. “Ryan, is there something between you and Naomi Tidwell?” He turned to her. “No, not really. Why do you ask?” She suppressed a giggle and nodded toward the choir with her head. “She’s giving both of us a rather dirty look right now.” When he looked that way, he groaned. “Oh no! Not now!”</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>~~~</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #990000; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhILyIP1r6zSc1XXz5ikN2Mg-iIOfdE5l6OQ4dHLaoJlQh98p_4nrUXEF4j7_uS7AQwT9xg3HdEdVhM6U1eMJstXXwfwmxFzjv3Mdmmw3YqVBTEyrn1DNXhrdASQUmdLxdep-DM0O0ZXME7Y66bA6KDRL7bo3D4KlFaFUS1TOXyvtDlo3OCqvPRj4pcuGQ/s385/71HPiXam2hL._SY385_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="385" data-original-width="257" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhILyIP1r6zSc1XXz5ikN2Mg-iIOfdE5l6OQ4dHLaoJlQh98p_4nrUXEF4j7_uS7AQwT9xg3HdEdVhM6U1eMJstXXwfwmxFzjv3Mdmmw3YqVBTEyrn1DNXhrdASQUmdLxdep-DM0O0ZXME7Y66bA6KDRL7bo3D4KlFaFUS1TOXyvtDlo3OCqvPRj4pcuGQ/w428-h640/71HPiXam2hL._SY385_.jpg" width="428" /></a></div><div style="color: #990000; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><b><span style="color: #38761d;">This novel, <i>Ryan's Ruin,</i> is the first in the Clear Creek Series by T. E. Killian. I found myself smiling almost all through the book. You see, I had already read the next two books, so I knew what the ending was going to be! LOL And, I had already met the man who is named in the story's title--Ryan. I bought all of these at one time and had just started reading the first I came to on my Kindle. However, I would highly recommend you start with the first book and move through the three books in order.</span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #38761d;">Ryan and his two sisters own a small mid-town cafe which had become somewhat worrisome; he was concerned whether he could meet the costs for keeping the family inherited business in the future. So, while he was pondering what to do, he had a new neighbor move in next to his family home where he and his sisters still lived. His niece who also lived with them saw that there were teens about her age, and she excitedly starting talking to and about them...</span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #38761d;">It was then that he learned that the teens' mother, Candy, who was also a widow of ten years, was going to open a cafe exactly opposite him on the main street! He was devastated, sure that another cafe would be the ruin of their own business! Worse, she seemed like little miss sunshine, just like his talkative sister, and everybody was welcoming her to her new home and town.</span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #38761d;">On the other hand, readers will quickly discover that the people in Clear Creek, or most of them, that is, were very kind, welcoming, and, worse, involved in the local Baptist Church! Groaning, he just knew that his two sisters would be hounding him even more to go to church since Candy and her son and daughter were anxious to meet new friends there.</span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #38761d;">Worse, two of his poker buddies had immediately asked Candy out and, after a while, Ryan even became a little jealous, maybe of their loyalty to him? Or, was it really because Ryan also had noticed Candy's blue eyes, her blond hair, her...everything...</span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #38761d;">To make matters worse, the arrival of two recently released jailbirds were beginning to hone in on the family who had moved in next door. Hunter, the town's chief of police and also boss for Ryan, who was the town's mayor, had explained that the two brothers had always heard that the older woman who had died and was the owner of the house into which Candy and her family had moved, had a lot of money that she had kept hidden, and safe, within that house!</span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #38761d;">It wasn't long before the brothers started harassing Candy and even breaking into her home. Hunter knew that somebody had to help guard Candy and her children, but knew he didn't have the staff or time to do it. Given the proximity of their homes, Hunter finally convinced his best friend Ryan to guard the house each night! Ryan set up a camp bed downstairs in a small storage room, but that didn't stop their meeting from time to time as they came or left the house... And, slowly, a relationship developed... along with their mutual backstories that were very similar... But whenever something about the church or praying came up, Candy quickly realized that Ryan's quickly tensed up and pulled away... </span></b></span><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>A great start to a wonderful series.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="341" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CDdvReNKKuk" width="442" youtube-src-id="CDdvReNKKuk"></iframe></div><br /><span style="color: #38761d;">GABixlerReviews</span></b></span></div>Glenda A Bixler Reviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15829561936090262198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6957929086575807165.post-88213431189022138262024-03-10T10:24:00.004-04:002024-03-18T12:34:53.449-04:00A Cat Mystery? Of course! I'm In! Check Out - Sofie Ryan's Latest in Second Chance Mystery Series! Fur Love Or Money<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="325" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AGdMtewVJ-4" width="479" youtube-src-id="AGdMtewVJ-4"></iframe></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i><b><span style="color: #e69138; font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://gabixlerreviews-bookreadersheaven.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-whole-cat-and-caboodle-starring.html" target="_blank">See First in Series</a> <a href="https://gabixlerreviews-bookreadersheaven.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-whole-cat-and-caboodle-starring.html" target="_blank">for Background</a>!</span></b></i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #e69138; font-family: georgia;"><i></i></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVSZA8xWgfFzzYNhsB8mSGvxrcO3ET7RU34esJFHhP7ploU05VpvQ9GK0noq6Y4QNtYxgEDV_xpE0GnFxww41N8NyFEQn1XwHk28a6EBmEC6hfITmV4-HH62VXgpF_3uj5WpoPfU_zDopfE-Gvyb1SRoDZbCuIgYUDOA_PCZDuJ9Nt_S_3td8pH91eBU4/s450/9780593550243%20(1).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #e69138; font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="275" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVSZA8xWgfFzzYNhsB8mSGvxrcO3ET7RU34esJFHhP7ploU05VpvQ9GK0noq6Y4QNtYxgEDV_xpE0GnFxww41N8NyFEQn1XwHk28a6EBmEC6hfITmV4-HH62VXgpF_3uj5WpoPfU_zDopfE-Gvyb1SRoDZbCuIgYUDOA_PCZDuJ9Nt_S_3td8pH91eBU4/w392-h640/9780593550243%20(1).jpg" width="392" /></span></a></i></div><p></p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyvS5wZCxq-JUlaHW6BXjQQ4SOKWCHvLanxfAvQfzv56Jq8npZznrmR69bokTvq-4KgFYdhj7tFgSWBtbJSGjvMNQ6ICpuDsuPq7sQTsFTLvalV7Kz1qJIFMLorqTm03m-2p6TwuTZjFhKQmqzdsYjNMdu03ziJKiKNTbCq34Fs32FR5yIFkR_VsKysqs/s200/pet-of-week-001.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #e69138; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><img border="0" data-original-height="142" data-original-width="200" height="142" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyvS5wZCxq-JUlaHW6BXjQQ4SOKWCHvLanxfAvQfzv56Jq8npZznrmR69bokTvq-4KgFYdhj7tFgSWBtbJSGjvMNQ6ICpuDsuPq7sQTsFTLvalV7Kz1qJIFMLorqTm03m-2p6TwuTZjFhKQmqzdsYjNMdu03ziJKiKNTbCq34Fs32FR5yIFkR_VsKysqs/s1600/pet-of-week-001.jpg" width="200" /></b></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #e69138; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">Elvis attends meetings</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>“Are you serious?” Rose asked. “Well, of course I am,” Liz said. “People are already gossiping, speculating that Channing has been involved in helping Ian Stone avoid the authorities for nearly three years and that’s why he was staying at the cottage, which is ridiculous. I won’t have Channing’s name dragged through the mud, and the best way to stop that from happening is to find that young man’s killer and then learn where he’s been, who really was helping him and what happened to the money he swindled from his investors.” I wasn’t sure I agreed with her logic. Finding out who killed Ian Stone wasn’t necessarily going to lead to whoever had helped him fake his own death. However, I didn’t think Liz would be dissuaded if I spoke up. <br /><br />“I’m afraid the last part isn’t going to be so easy,” Mr. P. said. “People have been looking for Mr. Stone and his money since his purported death.” Liz reached for her tea. “That’s true, Alfred,” she said. “But we haven’t been.” She took a sip from the cup and set it on the table again. “We need to put our heads together.” She looked at Mac. “We’ll need all of your contacts.” Mac nodded. “You have them.” Liz turned her attention to me. “We may need Peter’s connections as well.” “I know Dad will be happy to help,” I said. Peter Kennelly was my stepfather and a former journalist. He’d helped the Angels before on more than one case and I knew without question that he’d help this time. “For the record, I am the client,” Liz said. “Not Channing.” <br /><br />“No,” Mr. P. said. All heads turned in his direction. “Excuse me?” Liz said. I knew that tone in her voice. So did Mr. P., but he didn’t seem the slightest bit alarmed. “This case is not business, Elizabeth,” he said. “As clichéd as it might be, we are a family—everyone in this room and several more who aren’t here. When one of us or somebody one of us cares about ends up in deep water we throw out a rope and we all, without question, grab that rope and pull.” I liked his metaphor. He looked around the room at each of us, coming to Liz last. “We will clear Channing’s name. I give you my word.” Liz pressed her lips together for a moment before she spoke. “Thank you,” she said. I could see the wheels turning in Rose’s mind. She was already organizing our plan of attack. She turned to Mr. P. “Alf, we need everything you can come up with on Mr. Stone, his business dealings and his so-called death.” “I’m on it, my dear,” he said. She looked at Mac. “See what you can find out that didn’t make the news, please—we need to know who made money with Mr. Stone, who lost it, who if anyone might have helped him and who hated him enough to kill him.” He nodded. “I’ll get started right away.” Rose turned to Liz. “Find out everything you can from Channing about his friendship with Richard Stone and how the rental of the cottage works. I’ll get Charlotte to see what she can find out about Victoria Stone.” “How can I help?” I asked. “You and I are going back to see Ashley and Casey. She may have heard or seen something she didn’t realize the significance of at the time.” “And we can take another look at the crime scene,” I said. I knew the way Rose’s mind worked. She smiled. “Why yes, I guess we may be able to do that, too.” “Thank you, everyone,” Liz said. I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and laid my cheek against the top of her head. “Love you, kiddo,” she said. I smiled and gave her the reply she always gave me. “Yeah, yeah, everyone does.” Liz drank the last of her tea, got to her feet and walked over to Mr. P., who had already opened up his laptop. I turned back to Mac. “Apparently ‘knock on plants’ doesn’t work.” He nodded solemnly. “I will file that away for future reference.” “Thank you for saying you’ll use your old contacts to help Liz.” He smiled. “I’m glad I have a way to contribute. And Alfred is right. We are a family.” Rose joined us then. “Could we go see Ashley and Casey tomorrow morning?” she asked. “I don’t see why not,” I said. She smiled and I got the feeling she had just checked that off on a to-do list she kept in her head. </b></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg635BeojE7zCpt5sIip318rAT57stuj7ZOR8_r3LtZSie7UMgRTyajf_OrdoAZPKfSBT9RSdWSwhvAAxhn3vEJM-trzGJkER4cq7pitCOxi3lyPrCsrdLpr7fSaCYEI7vmXIaDlXz4M4mi8eNA7msz8tEXcM6_qpMVEBMIU350iuJjHaQI1Uj69k1VYO4/s200/1406928766455_wps_15_ZED_2_YEARS_OLD_BLACK_CAT.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="125" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg635BeojE7zCpt5sIip318rAT57stuj7ZOR8_r3LtZSie7UMgRTyajf_OrdoAZPKfSBT9RSdWSwhvAAxhn3vEJM-trzGJkER4cq7pitCOxi3lyPrCsrdLpr7fSaCYEI7vmXIaDlXz4M4mi8eNA7msz8tEXcM6_qpMVEBMIU350iuJjHaQI1Uj69k1VYO4/s1600/1406928766455_wps_15_ZED_2_YEARS_OLD_BLACK_CAT.jpg" width="125" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Elvis at Jam</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>“Do you know if Nicolas will be at the jam?” Nick and I and my friend Jess were regulars at the jam, also known as the Thursday Night Jam at The Black Bear pub. Sam, who owned the place, was also a very talented musician. He and some of his friends got together every Thursday night for a couple of hours of old-style rock and roll. Anyone was welcome to join them.</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="321" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Sw-cWJ93zmU" width="440" youtube-src-id="Sw-cWJ93zmU"></iframe></span></div><b><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">“Last time I talked to him he said he’d be there,” I said. The only thing that kept Nick away from the jam was work. “Could you bring him up-to-date, please?” Rose asked. I nodded. “Sure. I can do that.” “And keep an ear out for any gossip going around,” she said. “It helps to know the scuttlebutt.” “I can do that, too,” I said. Rose turned her attention to Mac. “Alfred has a couple of questions for you.” “I’ll go talk to him right now,” he said. He looked at me. “Are you going to have lunch before you go back outside?” I nodded. “I’m going to check on Avery and Charlotte first.” “I’ll be there in five minutes,” Rose said. Mac and Rose went over to talk to Mr. P. Liz straightened up and had a brief conversation with Rose. Then she stood in the doorway. I realized she was waiting for me. I needed to check on Charlotte and Avery. “Are you coming to talk to Avery?” I asked. “I am,” she said. “You know how that child is. She doesn’t miss a thing.” “Yeah, I wonder where she learned that?” Liz glared at me but didn’t say anything. There were no customers in the shop. Avery was by herself, rearranging our collection of teacup planters and adding several of the bottles I’d seen her showing her customer earlier. “Hey, Sarah, I sold three of those ugly old vases,” she said. “And no, I didn’t say they were ugly to the customer even though they are.” “I appreciate that,” I said. Like her grandmother, Avery tended to speak her mind, but she was learning—mostly thanks to Charlotte—that sometimes it was better to keep her opinions to herself. Avery glanced up at the ceiling. “Charlotte’s upstairs looking for a bag. She’s taking two teddy bears and a tablecloth home with her. She said the bears are a bit grubby and the tablecloth is limp as a dishrag.” “That’s fine,” I said. We used the teddy bears mostly for décor and every once in a while they needed to be wiped with a damp cloth and brushed because they got handled a lot. As far as the tablecloth went, I should have known I wouldn’t be able to get away with not starching it. I saw Avery shoot her grandmother a quick sideways glance as she moved two teacups to the back of the tabletop. “You know what’s going on,” Liz said. Avery nodded. “Yeah, Nonna, I know.” I guessed that she had eavesdropped on at least part of the meeting. It wouldn’t be the first time. “So what can I do to help?” she asked. “I like Channing, and yes, he told me to call him that and not Mr. Caulfield.” I spoke before Liz could say anything, which I knew would be something about Avery staying out of the investigation. “Keep doing what you already do: listen and pay attention.” Liz’s eyes narrowed. “And what exactly is she going to listen and pay attention to?” “Everything. Anything. People often treat teenagers the same way they treat senior citizens.” “You mean they ignore us,” Avery said. I nodded. “Yes. And sometimes they say things in front of you because they didn’t notice you were there.” Avery nodded. “Yeah, teachers do that all the time. You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff I’ve heard.” I shot her a warning look. “Which you don’t really need to hear.” “If you hear anything,” I said, “anything—no matter how insignificant you think it is—you tell me or Mr. P. right away. Deal?” “Not to mention me,” Liz added. “And don’t do anything stupid, please,” I added. The teen rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she said. “Is this just your way of keeping me out of everything?” I couldn’t help laughing. It was exactly the kind of thing Liz would have said. “No. Give me credit for being smart enough to know that would never work. There’s going to be a lot of gossip about this case. It’ll help if we know some of what people are saying.” A customer came in then and Avery went to help him. I linked my arm through Liz’s. “C’mon, I’ll walk you out,” I said. “Are you sure involving that child is a good idea?” she asked as we made our way back through the workroom. “No, I’m not,” I said. “But one way or another she will end up involved because she loves you. At least this way we have a chance of knowing what she’s doing instead of her sneaking around behind our backs.” I gave her a look. “It’s not that long ago that I was a teenager.”</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: 700;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-size: medium;">~~~</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: 700;"><span style="color: #e69138; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>I read my first Sofia Ryan novel in 2014 from another series... If you enjoy cats within cozy mysteries, move to the right column and search on the author's name to find all her books I've read--so far! The Second Chance setting is also a wonderful way to get ideas about how to repurpose things that you may think should be discarded--but could be saved by somebody who knows how or just had an interest--and a business--to do the necessary work. </b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>In many ways, this series goes beyond the average one amateur detective, since as it has evolved, two of the team members have gotten their PI license. But, really, that just made what they were already doing legit! The characters are wonderfully drawn from real life inasmuch as you may identify most of them as being like someone from your own life. The original team included four older citizens who were proving that the active brains of each often far exceeded those of the local police--at least in getting the mystery worked out quickly.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>This time, however, was much more difficult. Because the man who had been murdered had already been dead years ago... Yes, I did say that right. You see, the man had faked his death after scamming millions of dollars from many of the people living in the surrounding area. Now, Ian Stone had been found dead in a storm cellar and found when Rose and Sarah were visiting a neighbor, and their dog had run away, only to be found near a large hole where a puppy was trapped... Seeing a ladder laying at the bottom of the hole, Sarah decided she could get down and then use the ladder to come back up with the puppy. While she was down there, she looked at what she thought was probably garbage... But she was curious enough to check, only to find that part of a body was within the garbage bag and then covered with a tarp!</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>Once the identity had been confirmed, the list of those who could have committed murder was long, but the first obvious one was his ex-wife who was now remarried... She was quickly eliminated, at least by the team but not the police... </b></span><b style="color: #3d85c6;">And even though the police stick with their desire to solve their case, normally they are talking with the team throughout the investigation. After all, this time it was at the request of one of the team, and the team was...all... family!</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>The number of interviews required could have gotten tedious in another series, but with so much going on in the shop as well as in the area where even dumpster dives are often brought in for their special restoring, it is never boring! Don't be surprised if you will learn a good way to remove, say, stickers from a cabinet...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>The mystery gets solved; but, if you are like me when reading a cat mystery, you'll have so much fun just reading what is happening with this fantastic set of characters where work at Second Chance and work on a murder mystery gets so intertwined that you'll forget about whodunit! Cozy lovers, animal enthusiasts, or those who enjoy senior citizen characters are bound to love this one... I recommend you start from the beginning, it's a great series!</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>GABixlerReviews </b></span></div><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>Glenda A Bixler Reviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15829561936090262198noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6957929086575807165.post-3340433467169294752024-03-08T13:06:00.000-05:002024-03-08T13:06:20.332-05:00What's Happening at Book Readers Heaven - Celebrating Women's Day, March 8th, Spotlighting Women's Issues at Forbes 30/50 Summit! And, The State of the Nation Address!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHWWYTNK8tRuAgb385pY-XrtRRZbU42qunkoejZc61zAzEkNXLgg9LjkzllNzeBrtaFXYKa26RrcV87E5k9QiJc7SPvX30Q3qG7w_8FH7gdOz-yQHEZ7gImSWQfLYLl-_OtGFDC_3JEJXJJpLSdEle0-RLi7rzwte8Itm1Fwp8Uy0oEGlVgnu-PjBDFuo/s640/international-womens-day-2024-theme-explained-2024-03-6d0a7eeff884074b2afaae1292472bce.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHWWYTNK8tRuAgb385pY-XrtRRZbU42qunkoejZc61zAzEkNXLgg9LjkzllNzeBrtaFXYKa26RrcV87E5k9QiJc7SPvX30Q3qG7w_8FH7gdOz-yQHEZ7gImSWQfLYLl-_OtGFDC_3JEJXJJpLSdEle0-RLi7rzwte8Itm1Fwp8Uy0oEGlVgnu-PjBDFuo/w640-h480/international-womens-day-2024-theme-explained-2024-03-6d0a7eeff884074b2afaae1292472bce.webp" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="327" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9jX9vQo4NYo" width="468" youtube-src-id="9jX9vQo4NYo"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="329" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kwUx-kc2sd0" width="473" youtube-src-id="kwUx-kc2sd0"></iframe></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="327" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nwy1ayKX7PY" width="481" youtube-src-id="nwy1ayKX7PY"></iframe></div><div><b style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></b></div><div><b style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">What a Wonderful Way to Celebrate my Own Birthday! I went to bed excited to have listened to President Biden's State of the Union Address to America! Are you not as excited as I am? Well, what this President has in store for his vision of his next term will be celebrated by all women! Don't you think?</b></div><p><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Obviously Women's Health Issues were spotlighted, as women affected by the chaos that has occurred since the overthrow of Roe under the previous republican president, who actually brags about it... Women, doctors and fathers are angry that once again the government wants to be a third member in every bedroom in America... stopping parents from making their own plans for their families. Biden will ensure that the will of the majority of Americans want to have Choice related to these personal issues is ensured. I've already stated my opinion. The government should NOT be involved in this matter, except as needed for providing access to basic medical support to our women...to our families!</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>And then, this morning, I listened as discussions occurred on MSNBC, as one of the moderators at the Forbes 30/50 Summit,</b></span><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b> Mika Brzezinski, discussed what was happening at this year's event! I don't remember any time in my life that I wasn't interested in supporting women in one way or another. One of the issues I thought of--which was spotlighted in Biden's plans--was about our teachers. My second-grade teacher was my neighbor during my early years. Her husband was a dentist. My Mom worked for the family, taking care of an elderly parent... That dentist provided all dental care for Mom's four children!</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Later, when I started working, in Personnel of West Virginia University, I was involved in creating the permanent employee records, including for financial benefits. I knew salaries and I knew that the level paid to our teachers in public schools and at the lower level of instructors at the university level were very low--given the fact that these were the people who were teaching us to move upward in life! Now, it is wonderful to know that the president plans to increase the salaries for teachers in public schools!</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>And so much more! Listen to all that he said last night and provided above. </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="358" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7di6IQKc4AI" width="413" youtube-src-id="7di6IQKc4AI"></iframe></span></div><p><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>My heading for this post, before all of the above, was "Are You As Frustrated As I Am?" Now, I can't even remember what I was going to write about... Our President is working for the best for America! He's now answered all the questions that many have had, clearly providing his position on each issue.</b></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsjpsKROMokfQ4VAZY-hxILjHq3S23j4Ht7vaT_Pv5eh__T6E7RYKODBPTeBWmvzm7ABQpaV-T5jZ3V3cVzmaHyn58dMngJXvVo_WCsz0rXqpBO-kmDOnWmMfJl07IYwbfBrxoU4mpASfXBBYlJe-JmcQwzhNjTmSj4enQzyv-XKt5LR2x4xNO975dbjk/s500/205719823.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="333" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsjpsKROMokfQ4VAZY-hxILjHq3S23j4Ht7vaT_Pv5eh__T6E7RYKODBPTeBWmvzm7ABQpaV-T5jZ3V3cVzmaHyn58dMngJXvVo_WCsz0rXqpBO-kmDOnWmMfJl07IYwbfBrxoU4mpASfXBBYlJe-JmcQwzhNjTmSj4enQzyv-XKt5LR2x4xNO975dbjk/s320/205719823.jpg" width="213" /></a></b></span></span></div><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>I am being led to books that respond to all the<br /> questions we might have, including about immigration which I'm now reading and will tell you about soon...</b></span></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>And finally, I'm finding more and more Christian leaders who are differentiating between being a Christian, a believer in Jesus, and that of those who speak of christian nationism, which is a group who are definitely not of Our Heavenly Father... Please believe that I had the following two videos on my "Watch Later..." list. These are the two videos that <i>He</i> led me to watch today and share! Note that the man talking says that he is an atheist. I have no problem with that, because I agree with what they are talking about. Something has happened and those of us who see it clearly in America, are concerned! America welcomes all beliefs, even those who doubt...</b></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="313" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VpoWKAVDiCA" width="485" youtube-src-id="VpoWKAVDiCA"></iframe></span></span></div><p></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="337" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0ULDu6M5KQo" width="486" youtube-src-id="0ULDu6M5KQo"></iframe></span></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>I have found a group who speaks Jesus as I know him... Below is the beginning of a longer essay. I encourage you to move next if the beginning interests you as it did me... In my opinion, it speaks to the republican party's move for retribution, violence and hate as led by the past president... Please do your research and vote, I believe, for the man who wants to support America's citizens as Jesus would...</b></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>God Bless</b></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Gabby </b></span></span></div><p><br /></p><blockquote style="background-color: white; border-left: 5px solid rgb(232, 229, 240); box-sizing: border-box; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 20px; margin: 30px 0px; padding: 0px 30px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 16px;">He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;">And his kingdom will have no end.</p></blockquote><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 16px;">There we have it. Christ is judge. And with that bit of information, there are countless people both inside and outside of the church who walk away. Why insist that Christ is judge? And why – of all things – feature it in a Creed that occupies so few lines?</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 16px;">Doesn’t this just prove that Christianity is for judgmental and cruel prudes? Doesn’t it prove that God is really out to get us? Doesn’t it prove that – for all the church has to say about love – that it is all just smokescreen and window dressing for condemning people to hell and sending a handful of people to heaven?</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 16px;">At first blush, it certainly sounds like it, especially if you have never looked evil straight in the eye. Especially, if you have never seen the unspeakable horrors it inflicts. Especially, if you have never watched your future be destroyed. But what if we get in touch with just how far we can sink?</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 16px;">Let me offer you an example. Recently, I’ve been listening to Ken Burns’s new documentary on <a class="decorated-link" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B0B6H9Q868/ref=atv_hm_hom_1_c_lZOsi7_2_3" style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: 3px solid rgb(124, 180, 166); box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.4s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">the United States and the Holocaust</a>. Burns, who confesses his own deep love of America, notes that in exploring this subject, he was troubled to learn that our history as a country is anything but straightforward and laudable.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 16px;">Contrary to the popular storyline that describes the GIs as the first Americans to discover the horrors of Nazi concentration camps, most Americans already knew that Jews were being exterminated in horrific numbers. They knew it from radio reports, newsreels and newspapers. Newspapers alone, for example, published over 3000 articles on the persecution of Jews during the first 100 days of Nazi rule in 1939. And, to be fair, many Americans were alarmed by the news and took to the streets.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 16px;"><a href="https://www.patheos.com/blogs/whatgodwantsforyourlife/2023/03/why-insist-that-jesus-is-judge/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Christians+For+a+Better+Christianity&utm_content=43&lctg=9P9c&rsid=Fwk&grcid=9P9c&gran=patheos&utm_campaign=Christians%20For%20a%20Better%20Christianity&utm_content=&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_term=" target="_blank">Continue Reading...</a></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 16px;"><br /></p>Glenda A Bixler Reviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15829561936090262198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6957929086575807165.post-7513765684798872532024-03-07T12:46:00.000-05:002024-03-07T12:46:33.160-05:00Attack From Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America - An Important Well-Documented NonFiction By Barbara McQuade <div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>“All warfare is based on deception.”</b></span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>—sun tzu, The Art of War</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1LRH87XZ86Z4020ZO0QPtSJnIBOmSr7oXX_iUr4U_rpEF3SBfcjbmWFhA72mNuXxFHL1aAX6UKLDnpDt_-lGMuNbTN_H3DcGW1O8dObQMh_vGT3rTrgduKKlma105TL5XEzeIfyArxes92oAPvU-lxXKFsEauqCe9DwDRDMHVt6J2e4A8zheOzF6sOXw/s740/misinformation-disinformation-tile_tcm7-306919_w1024_n.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="740" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1LRH87XZ86Z4020ZO0QPtSJnIBOmSr7oXX_iUr4U_rpEF3SBfcjbmWFhA72mNuXxFHL1aAX6UKLDnpDt_-lGMuNbTN_H3DcGW1O8dObQMh_vGT3rTrgduKKlma105TL5XEzeIfyArxes92oAPvU-lxXKFsEauqCe9DwDRDMHVt6J2e4A8zheOzF6sOXw/w400-h205/misinformation-disinformation-tile_tcm7-306919_w1024_n.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.apa.org/topics/journalism-facts/misinformation-disinformation#:~:text=Misinformation%20is%20false%20or%20inaccurate,mislead%E2%80%94intentionally%20misstating%20the%20facts." target="_blank"><b>Need Help Recognizing Truth?</b></a><br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div><b>Misinformation is false or inaccurate information—getting the facts wrong. Disinformation is false information which is deliberately intended to mislead—intentionally misstating the facts.</b></div></span></span><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7ZcUo6F8DEfolghoSQhfNIIGUQSDl3AZd5BX2O9TJgynBzsAlcMYcHOrvDcNrXNRiU07OaODKfdJ4dFe5YtNbictxGIqSZxqnYD1kUb1Pbp7N59XQduEwSQJvZOKZcAOz0nelEpJpJrmdsf0L9bVgyNDgjEeVUj3gSH8rStg601e0p1lg6Dljq19UTWI/s445/51ekgt1PiiL._SY445_SX342_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="302" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7ZcUo6F8DEfolghoSQhfNIIGUQSDl3AZd5BX2O9TJgynBzsAlcMYcHOrvDcNrXNRiU07OaODKfdJ4dFe5YtNbictxGIqSZxqnYD1kUb1Pbp7N59XQduEwSQJvZOKZcAOz0nelEpJpJrmdsf0L9bVgyNDgjEeVUj3gSH8rStg601e0p1lg6Dljq19UTWI/w434-h640/51ekgt1PiiL._SY445_SX342_.jpg" width="434" /></span></a></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;"><span>“In fascist politics, language is not used simply, or even chiefly, to convey information but to elicit emotion.” </span><span>—jason stanley, Jacob Urowsky</span></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="322" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GND4pxi9kwE" width="479" youtube-src-id="GND4pxi9kwE"></iframe></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #0b5394; font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: medium;">“We, the People, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense.” </span></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>—president barack obama </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span>I was visiting Ireland in the spring of 2018, when the country was considering a referendum that would end the nation’s prohibition on abortion. In a country with an official Catholic faith, I imagined that the debate would be raging with the passion of a blood feud. Instead, I was surprised to find that advocates on both sides of the issue stood on street corners, passing out literature and politely engaging passersby who expressed interest in learning more about the issue. To this day, I still keep on my desk a button that says “Tá,” Irish Gaelic for “yes”—the choice that would change the law to permit abortion and the side that ultimately prevailed in the election by an overwhelming margin. Irish feminist Ailbhe Smyth observed that the country was able to conduct the vote without becoming split.</span><span>1702</span><span> She attributed that success to “creating an empathetic framework of discourse so that people are not at each other’s throats.”</span><span>1703</span><span> Combating disinformation is a massive undertaking, and defeating it will require the kind of empathy I saw in Ireland. The Irish people were committed to preserving their national unity above all else. As I saw in Ireland, I do not expect us to find unity on the substance of issues—we will always have differences of opinion on issues such as criminal justice and government spending—but we must be united in the process of how we solve problems. The ability to solve any problem requires a shared understanding of facts and truth. <i>What is truth?</i> Philosophers and religious scholars debate the meaning of the term. There are some truths that may be unknowable to the human mind, such as the meaning of life or whether intelligent beings exist elsewhere in the cosmos. <i>But truth is different from fact. </i>Facts can be verified, even if our perceptions of them may vary. The color of the traffic light at the time of a car accident is often a knowable fact. So is the number of votes a particular candidate received in an election. Finding facts requires investigation, discovery, documentation, and testing. Scientists find facts. Researchers find facts. Ordinary people find facts every day. Are we out of milk? Did Dad take the car? These are facts that are knowable. Our opinions about facts may vary: Is the coffee hot? Do we need to fill the gas tank? Reaching conclusions requires interpretation, and reasonable minds may disagree. What I deem “hot” may be different from the preferences of others; the fuel level at which I think a car requires a refill likely varies from the risk tolerance of others. We can tell the difference between opinion and facts. And while we are all free to form our own views, we must commit to debating them from a shared set of facts. <i>Overcoming Fear</i> How do we preserve our democracy when political opportunists are willing to grab power through lies instead of adhering to democratic norms? I think the answer lies in the same strategy basic to every relationship: we need to care more about maintaining the relationship than getting our way. In American government, that means needing to care more about ensuring democracy than about imposing our will. In <i>How Democracies Die,</i> authors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt examine not only the demise of democratic governments but the factors that permit them to survive. They conclude that democracies thrive when leaders abide by “unwritten democratic norms.”</span><span>1704</span><span> In America, these norms have been “mutual toleration” and “forbearance.”</span><span>1705</span><span> They define mutual toleration as the acceptance of the opposing party as a legitimate part of our political system. In the United States, political candidates engage in mutual toleration when they concede elections to the winning opponent. Forbearance is the use of restraint in exercising power.</span><span>1706</span><span> Presidents exercise forbearance when they refrain from using their veto power over measures enacted by other branches of government.</span><span>1707</span><span> In American history, both parties have been guilty of failing to exercise forbearance at times. Legislatures engage in gerrymandering to create voting districts that will give advantages to their party.</span><span>1708</span><span> Both Republican and Democratic presidents have granted ill-advised pardons.</span><span>1709</span><span> But in recent years, the Republican Party seems to have abandoned forbearance, perhaps because its leaders see their political power dwindling. While losing the popular vote for the presidency in five of the six elections between 2000 and 2020, the GOP nonetheless managed to capture five of eight open seats on the Supreme Court during that same period, in part by violating norms. Senator Mitch McConnell was unabashedly duplicitous in holding a confirmation vote for President Trump’s nominee Amy Coney Barrett following the death of a sitting justice in an election year, after refusing to provide a hearing for President Obama’s nominee under similar circumstances.</span><span>1710</span><span> And now, we have reached the point where some political opportunists have even sacrificed the democratic norm of mutual toleration, the acceptance of the legitimacy of political rivals. <i>Is this the natural end of American democracy?</i> Sometimes democracies die. Perhaps ours has outlived its natural life. But the alternatives to democracy, as Churchill said, <i>are inferior forms of government. </i>Democracies protect the sovereign power of the people to choose who will serve and represent them. The people can hold leaders accountable and express their dissatisfaction by voting them out of office. Allowing decisions to be made in any way except by the will of the people risks creating preferences for one group of people over another, a far cry from the self-evident truth that all of us are created equal. <i>Demanding Leaders Who Speak the Truth </i>To preserve our democracy, we must commit to working together for the greater public good. That means choosing leaders who will reject the use of disinformation to achieve political gain. Democracy requires an informed electorate. While our pluralistic society will always contain differing opinions, we must start from common ground so that we may engage in meaningful debate and make decisions that are in the best interests of our country. The solutions suggested in the last chapter can help us reduce disinformation and blunt its impact, but defeating disinformation will require something more. We have real problems to solve—climate change, persistent racial injustice, growing disparities in wealth distribution, a changing economy, public health challenges, global conflict, refugee crises, poverty, crime, cyber threats, and many more. To rise to the challenges we collectively face, we need leadership that can bring us together. Our abilities to solve problems have never been greater: Technology offers unimaginable advances in medicine, food distribution, and alternative energy. Distance learning presents opportunities for job retraining and access to higher education. Social media allow us to maintain relationships with family members and friends and to collaborate with people on the other side of the world. Certainly, we face significant challenges, but leaders who offer rational solutions give us our best chance to solve them. Navigating that world requires leaders who will bring out our best hopes rather than prey on our worst fears. As he took office during the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appealed to people’s courage when he told them, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,”</span><span>1711 </span><span>assuring Americans that they could meet any threat that might come. At this moment, America needs leaders who can unite us to face our challenges with courage and optimism. <i>We the People</i> But leaders in a democracy, of course, are simply a reflection of the voters who elect them—all of us. In a time when we spend inordinate amounts of time and money on spectator sports, movies, and reality television shows, it can be argued that we get the leaders we deserve. In a democracy, a government of the people, we need responsible leadership not just from our elected officials but from our citizenry. We the people need to recognize that the use of disinformation as a weapon to exercise political power is a threat to democracy, and we must work to abolish it. We must use our voting power to insist on leaders who use facts to solve problems instead of lies to divide us. Voters must accept reasonable compromise from our leaders rather than demanding ideological purity at any cost. We can hold candidates and leaders accountable by refusing to elect or reelect those who knowingly perpetuate false claims and engage in deliberately divisive rhetoric. We should call out those who stand with any political party over country, who allow political ends to justify unscrupulous means. We should condemn leaders who glorify violence and bigotry. If we do not, we will be opening the door wider to greedy hucksters and power-hungry opportunists. We must also exercise mutual tolerance and forbearance in our own lives. We need to do the work to verify facts needed to make informed decisions about significant societal issues, such as health crises and climate stabilization. We must avoid the temptation to go along with the con when our own side uses disinformation to advance its goals. We need to exercise restraint when we see a snarky comment online. Sharing, liking, and adding a mocking comment for cheap, fleeting laughs to “own” our opponents just exacerbate divisions and fuel disinformers. Lasting Peace among Ourselves An essential way to begin to heal our divide is by offering olive branches to people with whom we disagree. We must see people with different views not just as our political opponents but as our fellow Americans. People who have been duped by constant lies, as we have seen, will be reluctant to change their minds. The way to persuade them of the facts is not by mocking their foolishness or judging their enabling behavior. According to Ruth Ben-Ghiat, those who have followed duplicitous leaders “may feel ashamed and unwilling to admit their errors in judgment unless they are approached with the right spirit of openness, at the right time.”</span><span>1712</span><span> In a polarized society, people can “dig their trenches deeper, or they can reach across the lines to stop a new cycle of destruction, knowing that solidarity, love, and dialogue” can conquer political demagogues.</span><span>1713</span><span> Taking this approach requires grace. According to journalist Anand Giridharadas, author of <i>The Persuaders,</i> a book on political reconciliation, we must meet people where they are.</span><span>1714</span><span> If we want to win over the hearts and minds of our fellow Americans, we can’t insist that everyone share all of our views. “In a time of escalating and cynical right-wing attacks on so-called wokeness,” he writes, we should all work to make space for “the still waking.”</span><span>1715</span><span> While we may have strong commitments to certain values like fighting hate and respecting personal pronouns, we should express “gentleness toward people who haven’t got it all figured out, who are confused or even unsettled by the onrushing future.”</span><span>1716</span><span> This model is not a fantasy. It was at work in Ireland in 2018. It has worked in our own history. As president, Abraham Lincoln understood the need to welcome fellow citizens back into the fold, even after a bloody civil war. As the war ended, he delivered his second inaugural address, which ended with a plea for reconciliation: With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.</span><span>1717</span><span> Respecting each other means telling each other the truth. While we can never rid politics of spin and advocacy, we can insist on facts and refuse to perpetuate assertions we know to be lies simply to make a buck or somehow get ahead. Allowing public leaders, media, businesses, and institutions to propagate falsehoods assaults the integrity of our democracy. If we want to protect our rights from tyrants and con men, we must fight disinformation as unpatriotic, a betrayal of the American people. We must denounce as traitors the liars who use members of the public as their unsuspecting political pawns. <i>To love America is to love the truth. We must make truth in democracy our national purpose. Only an unyielding commitment to the truth can save us from the fate that met Rosanne Boyland, Ashli Babbitt, and Brian Sicknick. We can best honor their memory, </i>and the memories of the service members who have sacrificed their lives for our country, <i>by working to save American democracy from death by disinformation.*</i></span></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><i><span>*</span><span>Italics my emphasis</span></i></b></span></p><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>It was about 15 years ago when I was working with an author on his first book about the Vietnam War. I remember clearly that he needed much help in proofreading and so when he used the word, disinformation many times, I thought it was an error. I had never heard of the word disinformation before then. Now, however, there is an even greater need to learn the difference between the words, misinformation and disinformation!</b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Because, as Barbara McQuade has confirmed in her book, <i>Attack From Within:</i> How Information is Sabotaging America, there is a great difference in the meaning of these two words with only one letter different! First, I learned that disinformation is created and distributed on purpose! While misinformation normally is a mistake, a misunderstanding of what actually is correct. While those in the military use disinformation to ensure safety and coverage of those are placed in danger and the disinformation is done to protect them, America has now been inundated with disinformation! The chosen decision to lie about who you are or what is happening! Indeed, I agree that in a small way moving all the way to the former head of our nation Disinformation is indeed sabotaging our democracy! But do you really understand what is happening and why it is so important? McQuade does a wonderful job through her research and her day-to-day involvement with this important matter.</b></span></div><div><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><blockquote><span style="color: #0b5394;">Barbara McQuade is a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, her alma mater, where she teaches courses in criminal law, criminal procedure, national security, and data privacy. She is also a legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, and co-host of the #SistersInLaw podcast. From 2010 to 2017, McQuade served as the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. She was appointed by President Barack Obama and was the first woman to serve in her position. Earlier in her career, she worked as a sportswriter and copy editor, a judicial law clerk, an associate in private practice, and an assistant US attorney.</span></blockquote></b></span></blockquote><p><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>I chose to excerpt the final chapter of this book. It is a great overview and places the issues right back at the feet of the readers. Because that is where they belong.</b></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-weight: bold;"><div style="text-align: center;">“The information war is about territory—just not the geographic kind. In a warm information war, the human mind is the territory.”</div></span><div style="color: #0b5394; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><span>—renée diresta, “The Digital Maginot Line”</span></div><div style="color: #0b5394; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">For me a high percentage of what is enclosed in this book was repetitive to what I've already learned. However, what this book does is put it into a format that is much easier to use in relation to an overall theme. And, there is an extensive review of all issues as have occurred either earlier in history or in other countries. There is a key overall element that we must recognize. Otherwise, the book is of little value. We must acknowledge that there is a major difference in countries headed by authoritarian leaders. Without going into a lot of detail, please consider just one issue that was recently taken away from Americans--the right of choice, the right of privacy, and the right to medical health issues related to pregnancy. When a small minority of America chose to place a leader in the White House with certain mandates, it is very clear to all of us now that they did not speak for the majority of Americans... And the results have been disastrous. Yet disinformation continues to be used, new laws are being created based upon nothing but a political desire to dominate... Consider, then, what a dictator would do related to ALL issues that are handled by the Federal Government, based upon our Constitution.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">First the writer looks back in history to those authoritarians that were once in charge of a country. Stalin was adept at word use and quickly became a dictator who murdered mass numbers of ethnic groups who he feared could be troublesome. In what was called the Great Purge he got rid of those he feared was disloyal...Then he edited all news that went out related to what had been done. Now we look to Putin in the same position, as he looks to regain control over the democracy of Ukraine. Imagine how the Russian people had lived so many years without the freedom to even hear...truth... And, of course, we now know that Disinformation was clearly part of an authoritarian government playbook both then and now.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">“The correct use of propaganda is a true art.” </span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">—adolf hitler, Mein Kampf</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">In Chapter 2, McQuade interestingly starts by moving from the political realm into our home life when she shares a story about an opera star who, after marrying, began to have memory issues, confusion and fear... Only to learn that it was her new husband who was gaslighting and lying to her... I thought this sudden switch to our individual lives, was brilliant. For surely many of us, naturally, enter into the lens of politics through our personal opinions. We have seen how America has been divided so unique from any other part of our history, yet, so similar in what has possibly occurred in our own lives. Just as the husband betrayed his wife, we see that a minority of our politicians and their followers are lying through their teeth, pushing a minority point of view that is far from what We The People believe in... </span></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">For me, I have read so many books from those who have been abused, destroyed by innuendo, or outright slander, yet, these individuals are "protected" under Freedom of Speech. When I was on a university campus, scheduling the use of facilities for classes and events, we had 2 places for those who wanted to share their opinions. Two places!!! The point was not to deny individuals the right to free speech. The point was that such free speech could not interfere with the business of the university. That has been moved to such an extreme version of free speech, that, now, most of us, in our daily lives have to question, is what I am hearing the truth? And, for many, IT WILL NOT BE.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="color: #3d85c6; font-weight: bold;"><span>“To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” </span><span>—nelson mandela</span></div><div style="color: #3d85c6; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><b><span style="color: #0b5394;"><span>In the fall of 2022, Florida suffered one of the deadliest storms in its history.</span><span>893</span><span> Hurricane Ian claimed 148 lives and caused devastating property damage.</span><span>894</span><span> It was the forty-sixth Category 4 or 5 hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean in the last twenty years—approximately the same number that had occurred over the prior forty years, a trend experts attributed to climate change.</span><span>895</span><span> In its aftermath, Vice President Kamala Harris noted, “It is our lowest-income communities and our communities of color that are most impacted by these extreme conditions and impacted by issues that are not of their own making.” In response, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene took to Twitter and wrote, “@KamalaHarris hurricanes do not target people based on the color of their skin. Hurricanes do not discriminate. And neither should the federal government [be] giving aid to people suffering from the devastation of Hurricane Ian. Is your husband’s life worth less bc he’s white?”</span><span>896</span><span> </span></span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #0b5394;"><span>The tweet was the perfect combination of race-baiting, tribe-signaling, and attention-getting, while falsely suggesting that Harris was promoting race discrimination. Only in America! </span></span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #0b5394;"><span>Our cherished freedoms are non-negotiable but bring with them certain risks. According to Richard Stengel, the former State Department official and Time magazine editor, “Disinformation is especially hard for us to fight because our adversaries use our strengths—our openness, our free press, our commitment to free speech—against us.”</span><span>897</span><span> It is warfare by jujitsu—a sport in which a smaller, weaker person can defeat a larger, stronger opponent by using their power against them. Today, our adversaries are not just foreign operatives but our fellow Americans, insiders who understand better than anyone how to use our strengths against us. When it comes to disinformation, a number of distinctly American virtues are also our vulnerabilities. First, our constitutional commitment to free speech is enshrined in the First Amendment and regarded by the left and the right with a near-religious reverence. As a result, many of us embrace the view that we would defend the right of our neighbors to express even the most offensive ideas, because their right to express them is essential to democracy. And so, with few exceptions, people are free to say anything, even if their statements are factually incorrect or, worse, intentionally deceptive. Our well-intentioned but permissive defamation laws, designed to protect robust criticism of public officials and public figures, make it difficult to deter people from making false statements. The Supreme Court’s interpretation that the First Amendment protects political spending has opened the door to dark money in campaigns. The FBI’s shameful history of infringing on civil liberties, with its counterintelligence operations of the 1960s and ’70s that targeted civil rights leaders and Vietnam War protesters, makes the agency reluctant to investigate crimes that touch on free speech or assembly. In addition to free speech, other features of American life make us susceptible to disinformation. Our capitalist instincts to favor innovation have led us to give digital media platforms immunity from lawsuits regarding content, which has fostered disinformation online. Paywalls are creating knowledge gaps among socioeconomic groups. The same demographic diversity that makes us strong also makes it easy to divide and polarize us. Our declining trust in institutions—some of it driven by disinformation—makes some of us willing to believe deceptive claims about our government and each other. All of these factors make the United States particularly fertile ground for social manipulation.</span></span><span style="color: #3d85c6;"></span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #0b5394;"><span><br /></span></span></b></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>I'm a fan of computerization and social media, as this blog proves...I will have been blogging for 20 years in 2025! No once have I purposely used disinformation. Truth has become almost an obsession for me. Why? Because the one personal thing in my life, my personal relationship with Jesus--with God, it being used as Disinformation! Purposely. Some by those who claim to be religious, purely to gain power... This...is...not...right. Nobody should have the use of Truth at their discretion! Think about it. What would our life be if every single person in the world lied!? Surely, more chaos than we have NOW!</b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><b><div style="color: #0b5394; text-align: center;"><span>“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy but because they are hard.” </span><span>—president john f. kennedy</span></div><div style="color: #0b5394; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Barbara McQuade devoted an entire chapter to possible solutions, noting those that had been tried, and failed, but continued to support the idea that We The People must do something to greatly decrease, control, or totally eliminate disinformation! I really do believe that each of us wants to think that what is being said by all within the nation is true. Let me give you one small example... After Covid, many corporations were doing strange things to try to recoup what they had lost during the shutdowns. Of course, that did not necessarily mean that each of them had actually gone into debt during the period. Many chose to decrease the size of the package, rather than increase prices! I am not dumb! Most people are not stupid! We immediately saw the difference, checked the contents size which continued to use the same measurement of weight for the content... LIES! We immediately recognized just who was lying... And we chose our purchases based upon who was giving us true sizes and weights...</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Our country has allowed false advertisements, false content materials, and more. Many products now being sold do not even go through Federal regulation! Corporate leaders and their Boards are more concerned about making the highest profit for the top people. We all know that and see it functioning in the republican party who refused to allow more taxes be required by these corporations. President Biden was the first leaders who was able to at least get approval to have medication prices negotiated. Insulin prices are not fixed at a maximum price... But the corporations have yet to pay comparable tax rates as We The People... The longer we allow politicians who take money for their own benefit, rather than working for We The People, the worse it will get, I promise you!</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Read this Book. Read it if you have no idea what the issue related to Disinformation is. Read this book to consider what has happened under a dictatorship, which is what Trump is promising if elected. Read this book to get further information on how personal lives are affected by Disinformation--Information that is knowingly used to deceive We The People! Prepare yourself to ask the right questions and if a candidate cannot answer it...do not vote for that individual. People- Each Person- chooses to use Disinformation. Do not allow yourself to be so Totally Secure in your choices that you block yourself from hearing Truth from somebody else other than your circle of friends. I believe this book will help you in finding truth...</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">GABixlerReviews</span></div></b></div></div></div></div></span><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p></div>Glenda A Bixler Reviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15829561936090262198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6957929086575807165.post-81495262986346363212024-03-03T13:14:00.001-05:002024-03-03T14:33:54.212-05:00Mary M. Schmidt Introduces Animal Poems - To Enjoy Or To Emulate!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="328" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nqye02H_H6I" width="481" youtube-src-id="nqye02H_H6I"></iframe></div><br /><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Have you noticed that more writers are using the written word to express emotions? Some are concerned--worried about what is now happening in America... Some write fiction related to those issues... But, once in a while, somebody like Mary M Schmidt chooses to write to make us smile, to bring forth laughter, even, while sharing about things we are all familiar with, but have stopped paying attention to... to escape for a little while our reality... I, for one appreciated that decision. Because, of course, I can quite easily choose to consider living as one of those animals surrounding us! Cats! Here's what she says about living as a Cat...</b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu_zJGlAqzDXhiJLyvvxRAWtfDn6M1b_jZIbaRLf78tOQspe9wqQgT9kQapSLK5pfeRy2wCrCOm7SthgmUXseuenhIYJ2fihUiDNi8Qff9AUyvEiZDpfIQ-3_lXnMo3a-GvqsBZiE0aw25cLV_GFEGQRnhfKDDY0ZiXl3z0xCM-ARQBfN9r6R3cl4TDvM/s385/71nSPD4UhOL._SY385_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="385" data-original-width="242" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu_zJGlAqzDXhiJLyvvxRAWtfDn6M1b_jZIbaRLf78tOQspe9wqQgT9kQapSLK5pfeRy2wCrCOm7SthgmUXseuenhIYJ2fihUiDNi8Qff9AUyvEiZDpfIQ-3_lXnMo3a-GvqsBZiE0aw25cLV_GFEGQRnhfKDDY0ZiXl3z0xCM-ARQBfN9r6R3cl4TDvM/w402-h640/71nSPD4UhOL._SY385_.jpg" width="402" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>CATS </b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBfV083XN9O2V1zWcDjNU6FqQwu08JOyweNGHU4fuTvQ_n7FF6iQkeWly0EYZE6p5GSUSEOr2Nm-S5SpZmAVNFMcj_cSnDdyXOf5SEa3HGiV58PVMGDN82yYvAUMVvTNDUG28rBKZj4Pwrws8AooOxEhWCwBxibNotuqBNNx9PYlX9cQQV2k18O_RvOnU/s1300/cute-animated-cat-tutorial.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1300" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBfV083XN9O2V1zWcDjNU6FqQwu08JOyweNGHU4fuTvQ_n7FF6iQkeWly0EYZE6p5GSUSEOr2Nm-S5SpZmAVNFMcj_cSnDdyXOf5SEa3HGiV58PVMGDN82yYvAUMVvTNDUG28rBKZj4Pwrws8AooOxEhWCwBxibNotuqBNNx9PYlX9cQQV2k18O_RvOnU/s320/cute-animated-cat-tutorial.gif" width="320" /></a></b></span></div><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>This is Charlie. She lives with me and now has 5 kittens to take care of... But, is she having fun or would she rather being doing cat things...</b></span></p><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">Today I am a cat,</span></div><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;"><div style="text-align: center;">I have to be on the lookout</div></span><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;"> Where is that brat? I wait, I watch, here she comes, Wait, what’s she holding now? </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">A fuzzy, cute little mouse! I slowly lift my claw, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">As her daddy warns… </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">Don’t tease that cat or she will scratch. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">I get into my position, as the rodent drops, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">all I need now is a string of cheese, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">but wait Is it another trick? </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">I see her smile, her smirk and as I release</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold;"> The most dramatic hiss, </span><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold;">warning this pest </span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">She better get out of here or I will attack! </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">What’s this, thank God, it’s Monday </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">Freedom rings, the bell goes off and now, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">I can watch soaps with Mom. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">I sit and purr listening to Mom hum the</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="349" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/s0tI3O1IZfw" width="390" youtube-src-id="s0tI3O1IZfw"></iframe> </div></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">One Life to Live tune. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">Tick, tock, I think I hear the clock. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">Is that the sound of footsteps? Do I hear the door?</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;"> Oh, no, it can’t be true… Is that brat back again?</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;"> I better run, I better hide, no, wait… </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">What, she doesn’t want to bother me today? </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: medium;">Have you had a cat? I've lived with cats for most of my life, ranging from one or two up to 30! Wow... That was not a happy time for me or them. The life of a cat is definitely one I'd have to think about as to whether I wanted to be one!</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: medium;">Maybe... A Skunk! And, of course, we remember the most well known! Pepe Le Pew!</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="335" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/svZdNI8aQns" width="443" youtube-src-id="svZdNI8aQns"></iframe></div></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZTeUzNI3kS8NC1I0QDWareM_faQH5-7hq6IySII3md6_YZSodMGInuQffnOh3oZfR2nCD91_b0VgSdQmbUnM4Biz4zuVGsvZu2mnzkuiXneXrB8gaNBcRHESx5SEtlVH52PZGc3cnu1Lo98XBPoTO0GFe8L7xnSmuOsia346T03dZXnr3nwslDYk_Np8/s498/cc082073aacc5c9e5b3c1c7a25132e50.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="361" data-original-width="498" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZTeUzNI3kS8NC1I0QDWareM_faQH5-7hq6IySII3md6_YZSodMGInuQffnOh3oZfR2nCD91_b0VgSdQmbUnM4Biz4zuVGsvZu2mnzkuiXneXrB8gaNBcRHESx5SEtlVH52PZGc3cnu1Lo98XBPoTO0GFe8L7xnSmuOsia346T03dZXnr3nwslDYk_Np8/s320/cc082073aacc5c9e5b3c1c7a25132e50.gif" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: #38761d;">Living in the country, I sometimes have had the displeasure of "smelling" a skunk... A pity, really, because they are so close to being a cat, that I'd like to pet one...LOL... Let's check out the author's thoughts:</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I think I’m cute, </span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">so why doesn’t anybody seem to like me?</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> I met this girl; I thought she was staring back at me, So I asked her out on a date…. </span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">She merely turned up her nose and pranced away, grumbling </span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">About how I smelled worse than a garbage dump</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> I couldn’t believe what I was hearing </span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">since I bathed in the creek! </span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I know she’s just imagining things; </span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">there can’t possibly be a stench, </span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I’m a great-looking French gentleman. </span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Where o where are you my beauty queen?</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> I wait here at the corner and now here she comes</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> The loveliest woman around, </span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">come here my sweet pea</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> I am the skunk of your dreams! </span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Oh, no, not again, </span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">she just clobbered me over the head, </span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Now I have to slink away in a skunk’s disgrace. </span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Uh, gee, what is that smell? Where is it coming from? I just can’t tell!</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> Let me just stand here and hitchhike</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> I stick out my thumb </span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Oh, dear, it looks like I’m in luck! </span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">It’s another girl in a convertible </span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Am I seeing this right? She looks just like me.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> I grin sheepishly as I slide in the passenger’s seat Hoping the odor is pleasantly disguised </span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">She doesn’t seem to mind as we drive into the sunset. Love is in the air for a great catch of a skunk, </span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">But who would want to date a skunk that stunk? </span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Wait a minute, she is one, too! </span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>This is a fun book and there's more... Want to be an Ant?</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9l-Mg0LDgXqlYL-qcdvMvyUNG_byXRkrh02CDzWsrHisPOwuLajHHnRFSUOXQvp6_1Yt58SEehtawhRZ_bcHwuNuz0J6RF9yYkSXr0JD6qUz7M4SXgzTV5FtWMOrNblkaMUJORDYN_nSpWM3TY6d36n-elsHV7CPWERqG71O8_hbyhVE5qxXwbcsJMUU/s665/5d63cfc871ee2151a4daac45b6f84d6c%20(1).gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="496" data-original-width="665" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9l-Mg0LDgXqlYL-qcdvMvyUNG_byXRkrh02CDzWsrHisPOwuLajHHnRFSUOXQvp6_1Yt58SEehtawhRZ_bcHwuNuz0J6RF9yYkSXr0JD6qUz7M4SXgzTV5FtWMOrNblkaMUJORDYN_nSpWM3TY6d36n-elsHV7CPWERqG71O8_hbyhVE5qxXwbcsJMUU/s320/5d63cfc871ee2151a4daac45b6f84d6c%20(1).gif" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Or a sheep?</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh5cELbkwts2s-PU2sZC2WhkXgsRPzAEUStdCk4fyVrxKxwb2LvkXFBy5S9iozOIyUL-Hw7fajV-K8tAp6slPYCSuqtAGt9kwC5OIOQ6XCgZKMzPsd2HsNKDkOyI8eWrsRikOgRnTJXwamdGKxIAElxbJuew6SdbBrTdJjgB2ag_ngqEVir7Iv6k3u0z0/s480/giphy.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh5cELbkwts2s-PU2sZC2WhkXgsRPzAEUStdCk4fyVrxKxwb2LvkXFBy5S9iozOIyUL-Hw7fajV-K8tAp6slPYCSuqtAGt9kwC5OIOQ6XCgZKMzPsd2HsNKDkOyI8eWrsRikOgRnTJXwamdGKxIAElxbJuew6SdbBrTdJjgB2ag_ngqEVir7Iv6k3u0z0/s320/giphy.gif" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: 700;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: medium;">Or a Puppy?</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLejuhM76q4PUoDTNdS93zvNppk8zurgQRJv1H-Dv8sgRFW50xbtOPKDw7i-EC2KzugGInYx0UlqnUF2SWzOnDEno_5kQW2Cby5XRpuXlGGXm5H9dota3CURALHbkzOYYwgN5EBxHNaGhZ4jDPSV1c5MYF6-OjPVR84LGt8qqyEPwFZbSaxx2nWjEh__w/s200/200w.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLejuhM76q4PUoDTNdS93zvNppk8zurgQRJv1H-Dv8sgRFW50xbtOPKDw7i-EC2KzugGInYx0UlqnUF2SWzOnDEno_5kQW2Cby5XRpuXlGGXm5H9dota3CURALHbkzOYYwgN5EBxHNaGhZ4jDPSV1c5MYF6-OjPVR84LGt8qqyEPwFZbSaxx2nWjEh__w/s1600/200w.gif" width="200" /></span></a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: 700;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: medium;">Or a Showfish</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigQ-rgJkFhpEnSghYB0Q1d2McHvoEk8NEC4WFkD1P9RBUF1mk9UV0rf6t5L_tc6rDYHJF4BLALcxxzC22H0xx4iSTOg0CgyGU7v1xhrd32QMIaMBKQlJLFPootjSwmHrZELnrU_6JSvrvKVKmi66o2iAvSjk07kWcPYpZtwM3Bmd4TxI8v0KG9I_D9mKA/s1100/323-3239227_trout-clipart-animated-gif-coral-reef-fish.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1100" data-original-width="1100" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigQ-rgJkFhpEnSghYB0Q1d2McHvoEk8NEC4WFkD1P9RBUF1mk9UV0rf6t5L_tc6rDYHJF4BLALcxxzC22H0xx4iSTOg0CgyGU7v1xhrd32QMIaMBKQlJLFPootjSwmHrZELnrU_6JSvrvKVKmi66o2iAvSjk07kWcPYpZtwM3Bmd4TxI8v0KG9I_D9mKA/s320/323-3239227_trout-clipart-animated-gif-coral-reef-fish.gif" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: 700;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: medium;">Or a Bird in a Cage?</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuvGuWKS_GZSXeFmJOwarlyf5_lKVNaH0uZFbbyYnIWmSd06gjJI2ra768xkO9-QdeSq35Xad3SmEW7EZ01uQf8_IAJGo1qWW_BXRx9Ug2KYbsmxcTLG1wz7eNNNKtUkokmBJ7SIY4ZLwDPWzyv-yKKKQDek2cC_A2gtiwqon2X0DuOPuPnbQaQ_B2ITI/s257/6fc90b335a24fe0396c0fba65815d468.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="257" data-original-width="220" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuvGuWKS_GZSXeFmJOwarlyf5_lKVNaH0uZFbbyYnIWmSd06gjJI2ra768xkO9-QdeSq35Xad3SmEW7EZ01uQf8_IAJGo1qWW_BXRx9Ug2KYbsmxcTLG1wz7eNNNKtUkokmBJ7SIY4ZLwDPWzyv-yKKKQDek2cC_A2gtiwqon2X0DuOPuPnbQaQ_B2ITI/s1600/6fc90b335a24fe0396c0fba65815d468.gif" width="220" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/k-tzTsbWswY" width="446" youtube-src-id="k-tzTsbWswY"></iframe></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /><span style="font-weight: 700;"><span style="color: #38761d;">Or a Chicken?</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjevCpfLkj_FyEyRYs-q_bRcczIPwCRP6f2gVEeb9Q2BVqB3XALEAUkPZotnlC-ucITIEVWjbrPx2HGu8tb5Ml7GOb6iVZXGlmir0XnxsobdJTawJD0Z2ECTztNcQuR2zgasTVwvXIxPcnMHI1GUoeUsfhA_W9bCqQxfI4hFdWdFSddd_g8McyAf3XiOzE/s301/d3j0etn-80a6d8be-3a36-4930-87da-86dd0c3a010d.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="301" data-original-width="276" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjevCpfLkj_FyEyRYs-q_bRcczIPwCRP6f2gVEeb9Q2BVqB3XALEAUkPZotnlC-ucITIEVWjbrPx2HGu8tb5Ml7GOb6iVZXGlmir0XnxsobdJTawJD0Z2ECTztNcQuR2zgasTVwvXIxPcnMHI1GUoeUsfhA_W9bCqQxfI4hFdWdFSddd_g8McyAf3XiOzE/s1600/d3j0etn-80a6d8be-3a36-4930-87da-86dd0c3a010d.gif" width="276" /></span></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Or a Show Rabbit?</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIL5W7IrProD1QDyACLW0YMKUbjiCmWC29ikdrzlLU4k8LE2qS01yiZVAVCt-VNoDCngvM0eEsWzHG32YhzBcGMLcH6nqbnEkFDAi-63wO6UQ7I3BD3zXJOYX2VZ7lyJr8NZ-ImYwxO0OgWdFGvG0249Wfzdf6BCK3aetYtQ6AKHS2wmifep9n9cYhSB8/s480/88fe4529fec89b3a7e7f4f3db3069da2.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIL5W7IrProD1QDyACLW0YMKUbjiCmWC29ikdrzlLU4k8LE2qS01yiZVAVCt-VNoDCngvM0eEsWzHG32YhzBcGMLcH6nqbnEkFDAi-63wO6UQ7I3BD3zXJOYX2VZ7lyJr8NZ-ImYwxO0OgWdFGvG0249Wfzdf6BCK3aetYtQ6AKHS2wmifep9n9cYhSB8/s320/88fe4529fec89b3a7e7f4f3db3069da2.gif" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /><span style="color: #38761d;"><b>Or a Squirrel?</b><br /><span style="font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitwOs3XGWP4edX9oWXzyNGKgk3ukQv7J_I1IL9qjhFIHF-zmaIuG56QxUmE51bB5ljvvkkZf10PrS20UiMPFehAU4hzFHsA8Mvyv__Bxgzm242HCt9D_NOgkY3f7xD-PXVZytNbdEiLaSW07CNJXgDB4MNUq_INIVeXCxM8rTWzHQjIRocJKD3rUxHDIU/s280/83a4a1ca7c337b560317120ceff5efc8.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="280" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitwOs3XGWP4edX9oWXzyNGKgk3ukQv7J_I1IL9qjhFIHF-zmaIuG56QxUmE51bB5ljvvkkZf10PrS20UiMPFehAU4hzFHsA8Mvyv__Bxgzm242HCt9D_NOgkY3f7xD-PXVZytNbdEiLaSW07CNJXgDB4MNUq_INIVeXCxM8rTWzHQjIRocJKD3rUxHDIU/s1600/83a4a1ca7c337b560317120ceff5efc8.gif" width="280" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: 700;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: medium;">Or a Beautiful Butterfly?</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: 700;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: 700;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxJOcLynySKZdjfsRbGJu_Vd90W9rHaGn9vhYjmJMhCWLAKRPo8b_7M1vPEShINYm6-WKWC3_VWHCeTbLw2icXsqsDSR6PCsqANvcs-quXaQD272xnVmQD6uhz7eyRUxeaZ8jtpi4X6W76LrqsKgE3ELZaQ3P9ir8TltS3NWEhvze63-7Ln9pwxLkmnkU/s400/396590_770cc%20(2).gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="361" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxJOcLynySKZdjfsRbGJu_Vd90W9rHaGn9vhYjmJMhCWLAKRPo8b_7M1vPEShINYm6-WKWC3_VWHCeTbLw2icXsqsDSR6PCsqANvcs-quXaQD272xnVmQD6uhz7eyRUxeaZ8jtpi4X6W76LrqsKgE3ELZaQ3P9ir8TltS3NWEhvze63-7Ln9pwxLkmnkU/s320/396590_770cc%20(2).gif" width="289" /></a></div></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><b>I used to crawl around on the ground </b></div><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><b>I always had to scrounge… But deep down inside</b></div><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><b> I knew I was made for so much more. </b></div><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><b>One day I saw this beautiful creature fluttering around a Cherry tree </b></div><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><b>I was amazed wishing I could be there, too. </b></div><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><b>All the ants, worms and grasshoppers laughed at me. They said I would never fly like that, </b></div><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><b>I figured that I was just another ugly bug </b></div><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><b>That slinked around in dirt and grime.</b></div><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><b> I looked up, and kept watching the sky</b></div><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><b> A cherry fell from the tree Wait a minute… </b></div><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><b>What was happening to me? </b></div><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><b>It really felt like I was spreading my wings. </b></div><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><b>All the sudden I arose, I mustered up the courage.</b></div><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><b> The impossible came alive, a miracle was born</b></div><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><b> I transformed into a beautiful butterfly! </b></div><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><b>A gorgeous day it was, a bright glowing cloudless sky. I just couldn’t describe, a picture so divine </b></div><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><b>I learned all sorts of tricks, </b></div><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><b>I turned left, I turned right, I twirled up, </b></div><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><b>I twirled down, I swarmed and buzzed </b></div><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><b>My problems were out of sight! </b></div><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><b>I love being a butterfly, </b></div><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><b>But once long ago, it just wasn’t true </b></div><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><b>I knew there was a promise, sacred and true </b></div><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><b>Mary M, Schmidt</b></div><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #38761d;">As I finished this book, I thought that it was a wonderful book to share with your children as well. Sure, we adults sometimes like to get away from the chaos, but to children, it is a way to learn all about the animals that they might meet some day...! Reading of them, sharing the life they might be leading... Yeah, this book has much potential for both children and adults...when you want to play, Let's Pretend! Fun guaranteed!</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #38761d;">GABixlerReviews</span></b></div></span></div></div>Glenda A Bixler Reviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15829561936090262198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6957929086575807165.post-39705354238417361742024-03-02T11:33:00.004-05:002024-03-02T11:33:35.410-05:00A Heartwarming Christian Romantic Suspense Novel From T. E. Killian...<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="326" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iHmDNHL9NbQ" width="492" youtube-src-id="iHmDNHL9NbQ"></iframe></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>God has a plan for each of us, and those plans tend to overlap quite a bit sometimes. But the problem is, what’s good for one person may not be good for the next person. See what I mean?” Hunter only nodded. “Well then, does Karrie seem to be permanently damaged by being away from you?” Hunter frowned and thought about that for a moment before shaking his head. “But now you and Karrie are together and maybe even for the long haul this time. Do you see how God has prepared each of you for this very time?” Hunter’s mind was suddenly on overload. He stood and walked around his desk. “Enough! I appreciate you two coming over here and helping but right now, I’ve got to get somewhere alone so I can let loose and empty my mind. But I promise you I’ll think about all the things you’ve told me, just later. Okay?”</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>~</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>They entered the foyer of the church and, after greeting Pastor Howell, who met them at the door, Sabrina stood off to the side so she could watch for Hunter. She sure hoped she wouldn’t have to wait long. Already, people were giving her strange looks. Finally, about five minutes later, she saw Hunter’s truck pull into the parking lot. But he didn’t get out right away. Was he going to leave now without even coming in? She was trying to decide if she should go out there or not when his door opened and he stepped out. At first, he just stood there, looking toward the entrance. Then he started walking toward it, but very slowly. Again, she wondered if she should go out to meet him or not. That was when she felt a hand on her shoulder and turned around to see Pastor Howell standing there. “He has to do this completely on his own, Sabrina. It’s the only way it’ll work for him.” When she gave him an incredulous look, he chuckled. “I’ve known Hunter for twenty years. He’ll always follow through with what he says he’ll do.” He held up a hand with the palm up to her. “That is as long as no one else interferes with those plans.” He smiled and added. “Just be patient and all of your plans will come about too.” Before she could react in any way to that bomb, he walked to the other end of the foyer just as Hunter stood hesitating on the other side of the door...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>~</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>So, he took a deep breath and stepped past Karrie, out into the aisle. That first step forward was the hardest step he’d ever taken. He’d jumped out of airplanes in the Army and that first step that took him out into the open air had been a scary one, but this one at least rivaled that one. He had only taken one step when he felt movement to his left and looked down to see Karrie at his side, grinning up at him. She mouthed, “Me too!” They took another step, then he felt movement on his right, and there was Sabrina, also grinning up at him. Wow! When they made it up to the preacher, who seemed to know what was going on, Hunter looked at Sabrina and she gave him a sheepish grin. He knew then she must have told the preacher ahead of time. Well, that was good. Maybe this way he wouldn’t have to do so much explaining to the preacher. The preacher held out both hands to Karrie, who took them, and he talked softly to her for a moment, then turned to Hunter. “Are you coming up here to proclaim that you have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior Hunter?” Hunter could barely manage a choked ‘yes’ past his clogged throat. He couldn’t take his eyes off his little girl who was so grown up now. The preacher prayed quietly with all of them, then turned his mic back on to address the church. “Brothers and sisters, I would like to introduce to you a new brother and sister in Christ. I’m sure most of you know Hunter Billingsley, our chief of police, but you may not know his daughter Karrie, who has recently come to live with him.” After that, the preacher told everyone about him and Sabrina getting married, then he prayed again, and the service was over. But just as he thought he could breathe a sigh of relief, the whole church descended upon them. Hunter was glad that Sabrina had prepared him for this. The first ones to make it to Hunter were Ryan and Chase, and they were both grinning and pounding him on the back. Finally, it was over and the whole group was sitting down to dinner at Ryan and Candy’s house. As usual, the teenagers were all eating in the living room, leaving the dining room for the adults. Hunter looked around that table and couldn’t keep the grin off his face. Just a year ago, the three men, no make that four men at the table, were all single and planning to stay that way. Now, even Pete and his office manager, Beverly, had just announced a few minutes ago that they were getting married, too. He had quickly looked at Sabrina’s face and knew that she had already known. Her face was simply beaming with joy.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>~~~</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheYhk1JNjdWjuNxaolR7Jw_dPhePAu2LiKvSjA7jFqrsQZKcPWdfkgJmznlhwHkc5l1sDr6SBtx4TIlNxv5ZITqv0T-2PbC5P8ecOS0Y3gTqydTuTE_kDurOM14ZPiLdvSRo8WpN7hoUZIMoLzMVhRpDCjc3lxjLym1HIqK5B-J14tiFGjgqHmp-vJuFU/s385/71NsXxq5OrL._SY385_.jpg" style="clear: left; display: inline; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="385" data-original-width="257" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheYhk1JNjdWjuNxaolR7Jw_dPhePAu2LiKvSjA7jFqrsQZKcPWdfkgJmznlhwHkc5l1sDr6SBtx4TIlNxv5ZITqv0T-2PbC5P8ecOS0Y3gTqydTuTE_kDurOM14ZPiLdvSRo8WpN7hoUZIMoLzMVhRpDCjc3lxjLym1HIqK5B-J14tiFGjgqHmp-vJuFU/w428-h640/71NsXxq5OrL._SY385_.jpg" width="428" /></a></div></div></div><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>When someone decides to hear about Jesus and his possible role in their lives, many are as confused about it as was Hunter Billingsley, the police chief of Clear Creek. He was a good man and had been in the position for twenty years. In fact, he had come to Clear Creek to join the police force. Only to have his wife soon take his daughter and leave, divorcing him at some point. It was a difficult time because his ex-wife refused to allow Hunter to have much interaction with his daughter. And, he learned later, that she had filled Karrie's mind with lies about her father, telling her that he had not wanted either of them...</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Hunter was in the midst of stopping a bank robbery and dealing with the aftermath while at the local library, a young girl, obviously in distress, came in looking around... Sabrina, the head librarian came and talked with her, taking her into her private office. At that time, she wouldn't say her name and Sabrina quietly talked with her, asking if she was hungry and then providing for her needs. Ultimately, she was to learn that Karrie was Hunter's daughter.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Sabrina had had a few squabbles with Hunter over the years, but she really had never had the chance to get to know him. She could tell, however, that Karrie was not ready to be turned over to her father, even if he was the sheriff. Actually Hunter was relieved. Although he had been thinking more and more about Karrie, he had known that his ex-wife had placed many obstacles between he and Karrie. Surely, he needed to learn more before he could even start to interact with a young teen who he barely knew... </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Sabrina is an interesting character, one that readers will find, little by little, to be an extraordinary woman. She had never married, at 41, and had thought she was content with her life, until her two best friends had both married within a short period of time. It was through those events that Sabrina had gotten to know a little about Hunter, since the two men her best friends married were best friends of Hunter...</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Karrie had remember Sabrina from the short time she had been in Clear Creek when she was little. She agreed to go home to stay with her, at least until she could deal with her past and possible future. When her mother's newest husband started touching Karrie inappropriately, she knew she had to leave. On the other hand, from what her mother had told of her father, he was mean and would likely not be willing to have her stay. But she had no place else to go. She had hitchhiked 300 miles and Sabrina knew she needed time to just relax and start to feel better. It was quite some time before she was able to tell Sabrina about what her stepfather had done...</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>When she did, she was so upset that she called Hunter who then made calls to his lawyer to start action for him to have custody, immediately.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>While the family drama is moving forward, Hunter is threatened with a rock thrown through his window with a message "You Will Die..." Hunter had chills going down his back, wondering who and why somebody wanted him dead... Suddenly there was an important reason for Karrie to continue to stay with Sabrina--to ensure her safety... But even that didn't stop the villain as the next rock was thrown where Sabrina and her father, along with Karrie, worked to restore Mustangs. Now Hunter's women were being targeted!</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>The majority of the book relates to the developing relationships among Hunter, Sabrina, and Karrie and their lives... Reading about Karrie's growth as she lived with those who loved her was truly wonderful. And, once she was more secure, she started being the young teen who she was supposed to be... Truly heartwarming as she helped in molding a new family now based in Christian love. With less than 5% of the book dealing with villain action, the development of a new life for those who fell in love with each other, including Karrie, with her father and her new Mom, Sabrina, is simply too good a book to miss. Do check it out!</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="308" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rf9KgYCQ_iY" width="487" youtube-src-id="rf9KgYCQ_iY"></iframe></b></span></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="343" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-_XoUybSmsg" width="474" youtube-src-id="-_XoUybSmsg"></iframe></span></div><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>GABixlerReviews</b></span></p>Glenda A Bixler Reviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15829561936090262198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6957929086575807165.post-70627526533800596602024-03-01T09:10:00.000-05:002024-03-01T09:10:44.293-05:00Jessica Huntington Desert Cities Mysteries - Books 1-5 Presented by Anna Celeste Burke!<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-V5NskLNe48hTJqyROwmCXzP3lWVdW9MhiU566EJWCO8jfJd2BIeoaeMN2e2ZlhoC8LAhjOmH0E13evahChJjL61mJ_L6kFKLG3h1-tdXD-28Pu6XY7WQ6D8c_fLFVo-nyuJ1AmWJMG4e7lC646w5ZLJDbJqOVc179nYE1uLvt88Qpq6Ok0T1F34jtQU/s342/41XvxL-AgKL._SX342_SY445_.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="228" data-original-width="342" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-V5NskLNe48hTJqyROwmCXzP3lWVdW9MhiU566EJWCO8jfJd2BIeoaeMN2e2ZlhoC8LAhjOmH0E13evahChJjL61mJ_L6kFKLG3h1-tdXD-28Pu6XY7WQ6D8c_fLFVo-nyuJ1AmWJMG4e7lC646w5ZLJDbJqOVc179nYE1uLvt88Qpq6Ok0T1F34jtQU/w400-h266/41XvxL-AgKL._SX342_SY445_.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Series--5 of 7<br /><br /><br /></b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tNm7MKFouPs" width="413" youtube-src-id="tNm7MKFouPs"></iframe></div><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0C24k1mWDsh_GZhpCZ04Hpfwjelx_HXxWv92vdPSZe1hwnQcERlJBXQLySZvoJwjp3_GteXR7wr9jhikRZtREf3blQajVDYiRyBt2_oxfoy8Gkd2FBxgMihU6optCMc5CvdbRsEVxKRV4ddQaC9PhjlRAAmKT66oUCaRm_FP-x5QonO7CeYCGFRBIsjQ/s300/51i11uJIEaL._PJku-sticker-v7,TopRight,0,-50._SY300_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="182" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0C24k1mWDsh_GZhpCZ04Hpfwjelx_HXxWv92vdPSZe1hwnQcERlJBXQLySZvoJwjp3_GteXR7wr9jhikRZtREf3blQajVDYiRyBt2_oxfoy8Gkd2FBxgMihU6optCMc5CvdbRsEVxKRV4ddQaC9PhjlRAAmKT66oUCaRm_FP-x5QonO7CeYCGFRBIsjQ/w388-h640/51i11uJIEaL._PJku-sticker-v7,TopRight,0,-50._SY300_.jpg" width="388" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>“What do you say, Peter? Can we do it?” “Commercial flights are booked until tomorrow morning, at the earliest. I found four seats on a flight leaving LAX at 6 a.m. which ought to get us in before 9 a.m.” </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>“No! We’ve all got to go so when we find Frank he knows we all love him.” Tommy was beginning to flush and his eyes filled with tears. “Do something, Jessica!” “I can check on a charter, but that usually requires a little notice. Let me call Dad, first. Maybe he can arrange for us to use the corporate jet.” “Paul might be able to help, too,” Jerry suggested. “I’m not sure how happy he’ll be to rescue his rival for your affections, but he won’t let that stop him from doing the right thing.” “I don’t want to ask that of him. It puts him in an awkward situation with the firm, too. If he does a favor for one associate, he can’t very well refuse others. I’ll call Dad. He can help me figure this out.” “Do you think they’ll have room for us at Palma Dorado?” Tommy asked, vibrating with anxiety and excitement. “Please tell me they’ll let you bring your service dog along. </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>You know what, Jerry? Dave and Timmy are in Cabo—they do shows in a nightclub down there. Maybe they have room for us and won’t mind a dog.” “I don’t believe it’s the dog they’ll mind,” Jerry said, and then caught himself when Tommy put both hands on his hips. “We’re going there on business—maybe dangerous business—even if we take precautions. We don’t want to get friends in trouble, do we?” Before the debate could continue, I spoke up. </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>“We stick together. We keep our mouths shut about why we’re in Cabo even if we run into people we know. Palma Dorado will accommodate pets—in their villas—not at the resort hotel.” “A villa would be good, right? You can probably squeeze most of us in there, so we might only need one or two.” He didn’t wait for an answer but turned to Anastasia. “Did you hear that? Your momma’s going to get us a villa.” Then he started to sing that old Frank Sinatra or Bing Crosby song, South of the Border, Scott had mentioned. Holding out one hand for Anastasia, she hopped up onto her hind legs, and stepped along beside Tommy as he danced. “Thomas, this isn’t a vacation. You need to settle down,” Bernadette didn’t have a knife in her hand, but she was wagging a big wooden spoon she’d brought with her from the kitchen when she heard the excitement going on in the situation room. “He won’t be like this all the way to Cabo, will he?” Laura asked. “Not if he knows what’s good for him. Bernadette will toss him out of the jet somewhere over the Sea of Cortez and let him swim the rest of the way.” “Go home and pack while Jessica makes the arrangements,” Bernadette chided. </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>“Pack? Why? At a place like Palma Dorado, they’ll have everything we need. We know this isn’t a vacation, but we don’t want to create suspicion. We’ll blow our cover if we don’t go shopping, to the spa, the nightclubs, and…” “That’s enough, Tommy!” Tommy’s eyes and mouth flew open at the tone in Jerry’s voice. I was shocked, too. That was the first time I’d ever heard Jerry speak to Tommy in that way. I held my breath, waiting for a tantrum or a crying jag. Instead, Tommy suddenly settled down. “You’re right. I’ll sleep in a tent on the beach. Can we please just bring Frank home before they kill him—his fellow cops—not the frigging drug lords.” “I’m going to see what kind of arrangements I can make for support. If Mik and his pals believe taking off for Mexico is their get out of jail free card, they’re wrong, Tommy. There’s plenty of corruption among the Mexican police, but they don’t want our fugitives from justice any more than we want theirs. They’ve got all the dirty cops they need. </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>When it comes to tracking fugitives from the U.S., they’ve been very cooperative in the past few years. Trust me on that. I’ll check to see if the feds have issued warrants for the arrest of Mik and Eckhardt—for Jenkins, too, now that we know he was the fourth man in the crew that picked up Frank Saturday morning. Heck, let them arrest Frank, too, if that’s what it takes to extricate him from Baja.” “Even if they haven’t issued arrest warrants, they ought to be willing to subpoena all of them as witnesses to crimes committed during the operation of the drug ring. We could get Frank out of there that way, too.” Peter nodded, enthusiastically. “Okay, I’ll bring that up if I need to.” “If that doesn’t work, maybe I can get Dick Tatum to help us. He just texted me that the post mortems for both Toby Foster and Jeff Baker identified marks as being left by Mik’s ring. In an earlier complaint filed by Toby Foster, hospital staff took photos documenting the same bruises which Foster told them Mik had caused. No arrest warrant was ever issued since Foster died not long after that and his death was ruled an accidental overdose. Dick can ask for that to be done now on behalf of both dead men. At least Harry Mik won’t go free.” “Why not get Dick moving on it? It can’t hurt to have another warrant out for a man like Mik. </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Do you want everyone to go home and pack? We won’t need much since if we can’t find Frank in a day or two, we ought to come home and put together another plan. If, and when we do find Frank, he’s going to want to get out of there ASAP.” “I’ll book the villas for three nights. If we want to leave before then, we’ll do it. Will you want to bring a team with you?” </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>“Let me worry about that after I speak with the feds and see what they’re willing to do,” Peter responded. “You’ve got your hands full finding accommodations for us.” “Do you think this resets our seventy-two-hour clock?” I wondered if bumping up against that limit was behind Peter’s concern about keeping our visit short. “Maybe, but we’re only halfway through that clock anyway. I don’t want to tell too many people about this, but Don, Dick Tatum, and George Hernandez need to know. Someone’s going to have to babysit while we’re gone.” “Unless the feds are willing to come and pick up our houseguests. Is there any way they can reunite Scott with his family members? Federal protective custody is a good idea for him if it can be arranged.” “That’s a great solution for Scott, Jessica. I’ll raise the subject in a ‘what if’ kind of way. Who knows how long that might take to arrange, though.” I suddenly realized how silent it had become in the situation room as Peter and I hashed things out. </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>“So?” Laura asked. “I don’t believe anyone should leave.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized that wouldn’t work. “Shoot! Do you all have passports? Are they up-to-date?” I heard a chorus of “yeses.” “You’ve got to go get them. How should we handle this, Peter? The last thing we need right now is to have one of our cats get nabbed by a fleeing rat. We haven’t changed our clothes or showered or anything like that. Maybe everyone needs to go home.” “We’ve got a laundry room to wash and dry clothes. There are bathrobes in all the closets and plenty of toiletries. I don’t see any reason we can’t all be cleaned up and ready to go in a couple of hours. Do you?” Bernadette looked around the room. That summoned a resounding round of “nos.” “I’ll go shower right now,” Laura said. “Can I borrow a t-shirt and sweats?” “Sure. You can, too, Kim. Tommy’s right, though. We can shop when we get to the resort if it’s not too late.” “Yes!” Tommy said. “If you guys strip down, I’ll wash and dry our clothes. Sorry, I don’t iron, as Jerry already knows.” “Wrinkles don’t bother him for some reason.” “There’s an iron and ironing board in the laundry room if the ‘wrinkle free’ cycle on the dryer doesn’t do it for you,” I suggested. “Once I’m cleaned up, why don’t you all give me your keys, tell me where your passports are, and one of Peter’s guys can escort me to collect them. Are they easy to find?” Jerry, one of the most well-organized among us, piped up immediately. Kim and Brien took a little longer. Heck, I needed a minute to remember where I’d stashed mine. </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>“That’ll take a while, but at least it’ll keep everyone from scattering in different directions,” I mumbled, trying to figure out if there was a better way to do this. “I can’t come up with a better idea. Brien could escort you if he didn’t have to wait for Tommy to wash his clothes. I have swim trunks, but other than that, there’s nothing in the house that’ll fit him.” Brien took that as a cue to strike a bodybuilder pose. I shook my head. “Peter, if you can spare someone, let’s go for it!” “I like the idea, although Laura doesn’t need to leave. All my associates are bonded and licensed by the state. You can trust them to go through your stuff. Keys, please. Write down where the documents are supposed to be—add your phone number in case there’s a problem.” </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>“Post-it note time!” Tommy sprang into action, leaping down the hall as if he were Nureyev. Anastasia bounded after him. We all stared for a good thirty seconds before Bernadette took charge. “That’s a yes, Peter. I’m already cleaned up, so I’m fixing lunch. Jessica, get busy with the flight and the hotel! I know where our passports are.” “Aye-aye!” I said, saluting Bernadette as she bustled off and I called Dad. I’d hardly finished explaining what we needed before he put me on hold. “Wheels up in less than an hour. The plane will be at the Jackie Cochran by two at the latest. They’ll file a flight plan if you tell me when you want to leave. It’s not a very long fight. If you leave by four or five, you should arrive at the resort in time for a late dinner. Someone at Palma Dorado should be able to tell you if Frank’s there. You have a recent picture of him, right?” “I do. Thanks so much, Dad. I hope you’re right that someone recognizes Frank, tells us which suite he’s in, and we can take him along to dinner. A piece of cake, right?” I started to fidget. Soon, I’d be bouncing like Tommy. Anastasia was on the job, though, putting her head in my lap and looking up at me with her soulful eyes to calm me down. “Let’s hope so. Don’t do anything stupid. Let Peter and the people he enlists do the heavy-lifting on this one. </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>No guns! The Mexican police won’t be as lenient as George Hernandez on Bernadette or anyone else in your party who brandishes a gun—even if they don’t fire it wildly!” “Bernadette’s learned her lesson. I don’t want anyone to do anything that might get Frank shot. George is in the loop. Don will be soon, and Peter’s on the phone to los federales and whoever else they suggest we speak to—maybe even someone with the Mexican police who specializes in finding U.S. fugitives. It’ll be hard to make a move without advice from a member of law enforcement. Hopefully, not an untrustworthy swine like the guys with Frank.” “I hope that also means if Peter’s contacts tell you stay put in Rancho Mirage, you’ll do it.” I didn’t even want to suggest that option to Tommy. “Don’t worry. We’ll do as we’re told.” I crossed my fingers. “Sure, you will. If anything goes wrong, your mother will never let me forget it. Please don’t break my heart, Jinx.” My eyes teared up when he used that silly nickname derived from Jessica Alexis. It was a holdover from a childish demand I’d made when I learned Dad’s real name was Henry even though everyone always called him Hank. I hoped my current idea to take the entire Cat Pack to find Frank wasn’t as ridiculous as that one. “I’ll be careful, and I do listen to Peter.” I hadn’t made a reservation anywhere in Cabo yet. Arriving on a Sunday night, we’d be able to find rooms somewhere—even if the resort was booked. “Please ask the crew to plan for a four o’clock departure. We’ll be there by three-thirty at the latest.” “Will do. Love you!” “Me, too. Thanks, Dad—especially for making this happen at the last minute.” </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>“I’d appreciate more notice when you invite me to the wedding.” “Wedding? What wedding?” I heard him laugh as he hung up. My face burned as I recalled Frank’s declaration of love, written with passion and determination in the note he’d left with his dad. No doubt, in a moment moment when he was profoundly disturbed at the prospect of losing everything, including his life. I hesitated to take his words seriously, even as my heart pounded furiously. “Earth to Jessica. This is Tommy calling!” Tommy stood in front of me in a bathrobe with a towel wrapped around his head. He undid the towel and drooped it over his shoulders, leaving his red hair standing up on end. “Did you say we’re leaving at four?” “That’s the plan.” He leaned in and kissed me all over my face. Anastasia loved it and wanted in on the lovefest. “Stop it, Tommy. You’re wet!” “You should be too—go! We’ve got a schedule to keep. </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>We’re going to get Cousin Frank back, aren’t we, wonder dog?” Tommy did a little kick and then stepped around in a circle. Anastasia did the same—perfectly in sync. I stared in amazement as I called Palma Dorado. “Reservations, please.”</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="366" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XDR247fmhnc" width="436" youtube-src-id="XDR247fmhnc"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b>~~~</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>I don't really like book sets for review purposes... But they are so handy for a binge read of series books that I sometimes choose the ultimate reading experience, just for the fun it provides... Readers get to meet the characters, in particular, in the very first book and after that, we know enough about each that we can sink further and further into "who" the characters are... This author, however, has done something better, potential reviewers are able to preview each of her series books available on YouTube... Because of this, I'll just be talking about the final book... The Dead Cousin... in this set.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><b>Jessica Huntington begins the series as a recently divorced woman who found her husband cheating with another woman...in their bed! Throughout the series, Jessica will have to deal with her ex and his new wife over and over until in this set, both her ex and his wife are heading to prison... And what an open marriage they had as the movie star wife creates chaos in public...and more... That might have been a little "payback" of relief for Jessica, IF she was not also in those same news papers talking about her, as if the two women were vying for attention and loyalty of the man who had been husband to both of them.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Jessica really wanted nothing to do with this couple, can you blame her? But as she began to get back into her own personal life, as a lawyer, she was caught becoming an amateur detective for murder cases happening in families of her clients... And they wanted Jessica's help. By the time of the second book, Jessica had willingly accepted her new role, even, pulling together her friends--and their friends--into what they called a Cat Pack... She lived in Cathedral City, added that to the once musical team pulled together as friends... and wound up having a Cat Pack, which, later, by the way, will have an animal join the group...but he's a Dog... LOL You'll love what happens when the Dog visits a club in Mexico!</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Jessica is rich, so rich that she has a credit card that none of us will ever own... And, when she is distressed, trying to deal with her divorce, especially, she goes on shopping binges... for her as well as all of her friends. Being rich does one thing that we see happening through the series, she is able to work to provide justice for the families of those who were dead due to violence... Bernadette, her friend and long-term house manager, slowly is helping her through the trauma and has introduced her to a local priest who is counseling her about the use of money that cannot really solve her emotional needs...</b></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Each of the books has a death of a family member, not necessarily of Huntington. As the series continues, Jessica begins to be interested in the opposite sex again--it took some time to get rid of the image of her husband in HER bed with another woman. But the first man she was attracted to happened to be gay, and, at that time, we learn more about Tommy who was the brother of a woman who had been murdered. He and Jessica came together in sorrow and Tommy looked to Jessica for the attention he had lost from his sister. Needless to say that both Tommy <i>and</i> Jerry became a part of the Cat Pack...</b></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Then Jessica had the opportunity to work in a new lawyer's office opening in her area and was attracted to the man who had hired her... While at the same time, she reconnects to a local long-time friend... Readers watch as she becomes involved with...both... and then struggles with her own emotions as she knows that she doesn't want to hurt either one, but she just is unable...to...decide. Perhaps her past disaster with her Ex is the reason she is unable to commit...</b></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Each of these books are uniquely different than the standard amateur detective books. First, because the Cat Pack keeps increasing as special skills are needed from one person or another, it seems they want to stay in the Pack! No wonder! Meetings normally have delicious food which is provided by Bernadette or catered... And, if a road trip is needed to solve the case, Jessica foots the bill for the entire Pack! But, I hasten to point out. Those who work with her are not moochers--well, maybe one or two seem to be at first, the pool boy, for instance who is always looking for something to eat--but are able to provide their special skills to meeting the needs of the team...</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>In fact, the last book involves a hesitant, but definitely a member of the team, simply because he's interested in Jessica... And when he is kidnapped, Jessica will stop at nothing to bring him back! And that, indeed, involves renting a villa in Mexico and taking the Pack who always seem hungry, needing clothes to complement their newest caper, and working hard to ensure that every single murder mystery is solved and completely explained for the readers' satisfaction.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Get the idea that I thoroughly enjoyed this delightful, but deep-dive series into how relatives are caught in a devastating loss and need help to find justice... And, find that the Cat Pack is who you're gonna call! Definitely a Winner!</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>GABixlerReviews</b></span></div>Glenda A Bixler Reviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15829561936090262198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6957929086575807165.post-70472069210172034522024-02-27T14:12:00.001-05:002024-02-27T14:12:41.506-05:00Learning About Discernment - The Hard Way - Open Memoir - A Single Christian Woman<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="331" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8PnHJPtmuIg" width="419" youtube-src-id="8PnHJPtmuIg"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i>In today's age of “tolerance,” discriminating discernment can be viewed as being judgmental (cf. “Judge not,” Matt. 7:1). Yet Jesus also taught, “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment” (John 7:24).</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Because of fear, deception, and abuse, <a href="https://www.prmi.org/what-are-spiritual-gifts/" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #234060; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">the gifts and manifestations of the Holy Spirit</a> have been shut down or not welcomed fully in the Church. This has resulted in a loss of the Holy Spirit’s power and guidance for missions and ministry. <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">(This has been the case in many evangelical, as well as liberal, mainline churches).</em></b></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>On the other hand, where there has been an uncritical acceptance of spiritual gifts, manifestations, and guidance without sufficient discernment as to what comes from the Holy Spirit and what comes from the human psyche, other problems have resulted, such as emotionalism, deception, schism, or heresy.</b></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Oftentimes, we find this comes alongside a dishonoring of the gospel.</b></p><h2 class="wp-block-heading" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Discernment is a Process</span></h2><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Discernment involves human reason and observation, in which words or behaviors may be measured against the standard of scripture.</b></span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>However, it is the eye-opening work of the Holy Spirit that reveals the source of some words or behaviors.</b></p><ul style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; line-height: 26px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 23px 1em; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"><li style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Discernment is a supernatural gift given by the Holy Spirit.</b></li><li style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Discernment is given through the Holy Spirit dwelling within us and helping us detect truth from falsehood and the presence of evil spirits.</b></li><li style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>With discernment coming from the image of God and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in all people, there exists a general awareness of spiritual realities that spring from the image of God.</b></li></ul><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>There seems to be a natural human intuitive awareness of spiritual realities such as good and evil.</b></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>This awareness springs from the shattered remnants of the image of God that remains within us. Paul confirms this and suggests that the capacity to discern is in the human conscience.</b></p><blockquote class="wp-block-quote" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-bottom-color: rgb(35, 64, 96); border-bottom-style: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-left-style: solid; border-right-color: rgb(35, 64, 96); border-right-style: initial; border-top-color: rgb(35, 64, 96); border-top-style: initial; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 0.25em; box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; margin: 0px 0px 1.75em; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; quotes: none; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.</b></p><cite style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: currentcolor; font-style: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Romans 2:14-15 (NIV) --PRMI.Org</b></cite></blockquote><p><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">Are you having trouble, as I am, in knowing truth when you hear, see, or read it? Especially when many are doing it on purpose? When have we ever been so encountered with so many people lying, willing to lie, and even changing their lies to meet their needs at any given time?</span></b></p><p><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">Recently, for a short time, I thought I was interacting with a writer whose book I had just read. There was one major question in my mind immediately: <i>Why no comments, even a thanks, for my review? </i>My first inclination was to think that was my being prideful--she had no responsibility to say anything about my thoughts on her book. I continued to interact believing, at first, I was interacting with an individual who I knew only through the news. I responded to that person as if I knew her. She or He played the part of that writer until the issue of money came up. It this case, I believe my discernment had already been watching as to what was being said, or, not said, until the individual was having trouble reacting to what I was saying, pointing out what was incorrect... Finally, I asked who it was and almost immediately the individual admitted that he had been lying.... Of course, I immediately deleted all possible interactions. But, it did bother me that at least for a short time I had "wanted" to believe she was who I wanted her to be... Note that I am talking about my own discernment... I hadn't even considered asking God...this was so routine for me to have interactions with writers... Until I was wrong...</span></b></p><p><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">Then one night recently I had a dream. I remember that I had found a number of videos about the Antichrist and marked them to watch later, skimming only one of them... The dream was a terrible one. I was in church with my mother. As we often did, we sat separately. I might be singing or playing the piano and would sit up front at those times. The pastor was new. At first I was happy because I hadn't been impressed with the last one. This one seemed to be saying the right things as I listened... But I noticed older boys--young men disrupting what was being said. The speaker didn't seem to mind, even laughed with those who were so disruptive to the service. And then a riot began, those who were being humored by the pastor began to harm those sitting in the church. I immediately worried about my mother and got up, pushing through these men who seemed to multiply by the minute and I noticed they had guns... Finally, I reached my mother, wrapped her up in her coat and carried her toward the door... I was being chased as I tried to get to my car... By the time I reached my car, my mother was dead and I realized that it was a dream, waking up... </span></b></p><p><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">But I had never had such a horrible dream before. I tried to calm down, shaking in distress. I pulled out my standard songs to calm me...</span></b></p><p><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="335" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bRwYXOkNq70" width="441" youtube-src-id="bRwYXOkNq70"></iframe></b></div><b><br /><span style="color: #ff00fe;">But I quickly stopped singing, I couldn't rest, wondering what had caused this terrible dream... First, I wondered about the interaction with the supposed writer and quickly decided that was not traumatic enough to have caused such a dream... Suddenly I remembered who had been identified as the Antichrist... Was this dream a confirmation of what will happen if he gained power to lead so many astray... For surely, disruption of a church in such a violent way could never be the result of a pastor sharing about God's Grace, His Love.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b>Then I had the first discernment confirmation: Since I could not find comfort in music, I turned to the book I had been reading... This is the scene I began to read...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote><b><blockquote>“More trouble with murder or men?” “Both. How am I supposed to figure out what I want to do about men with one unholy mess after another plopping down in front of me? I gave myself a year to figure out what to make of Jim’s betrayal. I don’t think I’ve given up on men, but I’m not ready to pick one. Help!” <i>“Have you been practicing discernimiento like Father Martin told you to do?”</i> “When?” I replied, feeling picked on—not by Bernadette—by life in general. <i>Father Martin had indeed suggested that I try developing my capacity for discernment to make wise choices and sound decisions. By that, he meant starting with a philosophical principle that had sounded vaguely familiar—something I’d studied in a college philosophy course: the desire to choose the good.</i> I’d replied with some cheeky comment about the fact that both Paul and Frank looked good to me was part of the problem. <i>“That’s exactly what St. Ignatius’ other rules for discernment help us do—make choices from among attractive alternatives. We’ve got to take the time to examine the inner movements of our hearts in a disciplined and systematic way rather than let enthusiasm carry us this way or that way like a leaf in the wind.”</i> “I’ve got a long way to go to acquire ‘the gift of the reasoning heart.’ I do need to learn to curb my enthusiasm in matters of murder and men. We’re lucky no one was shot last night. Going after David Madison seemed like such a good idea at the time.” “Come on. You’re not the only one. We all got carried away. All’s well that ends well. A dead accountant wouldn’t make you feel better. If you hadn’t tried to find him and convince him his hideout was too easy to find, you’d be blaming yourself if he’d been shot.” “Well said, oh wise woman,” I agreed as I finished my coffee and gave her a kiss. “Thank goodness you didn’t go out and buy yourself a set of army surplus camo pants since I hope we won’t ever go on a mission like that again.” “Not right away, anyway. I can use a few days to recover, too, Nina! We have a different kind of mission today. Your mom needs support. She’s got a tough week ahead.” “Yes, I know. See what I mean? How am I going to try to decide what to do about Frank or Paul when Mom needs me? The work’s piling up, too.” I was getting worked up and was about to pour more coffee when Bernadette stopped me. “More caffeine won’t help you curb your enthusiasm. Basta! Mothers and work take up time for most people. Stop complainin’.” I wasn’t done yet with my lament. “It’s worse than that! There’s a scumbag out there shooting at people. Maybe it’s the same person who killed my client, but maybe not. That well-dressed con artist and ex-Palm Beach ‘walker’ is on the loose trying to push women into fraudulent investments. Let’s not forget the Chairwoman of the ARC who wished Beverly would drop dead, her party-loving General Contractor, and a dog-hating sneak thief. It’s a crudslide! Look out below!” “You have a lot of worries on your mind. <i>That’s more reason to get organized and do what Father Martin tells you to do to sort stuff out.</i>” Anastasia loved it when I shouted what must have sounded like a command. She was on alert. Her tail beat frantically in anticipation of my next word or move. I shook my head and smiled. “Having a dog puts your life in perspective, huh? I’m ranting and she takes it as an invitation to romp.” I leaned over, rubbed her soft ears, and was rewarded with a puppy smooch. “I don’t know about romp, but a walk would give you time for <i>discernimiento</i>.”</blockquote></b></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b>And when I got up to start this post, I immediately found the first video above... Surely these God Incidents were confirming that we all needed to learn and practice discernment of what is right or wrong...Given my terror waking up from such a dream, I finally figured that what I needed to know was very important...</b></span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p></p><p><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="326" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/z43jCbNrcAs" width="486" youtube-src-id="z43jCbNrcAs"></iframe></b></div><b><br /><span style="color: #ff00fe;">Can we see what is happening in America, across the world and know what is right, what is truth? I think we can... There is evidence that we ultimately can discern. Know that somebody who speaks lies, who condones violence, even incites it, can <i>only</i> be seen as not of God. He demands no holy wars from us, for His Son, Jesus, came to give His ultimate and ever-lasting love to all who will acknowledge Him and want to follow Him. He does not demand, He does not threaten, He does not lie and condone lies to gain power or gold or position of authority in our lives...</span></b><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="319" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UK656jH80zE" width="451" youtube-src-id="UK656jH80zE"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div></span><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b>OR</b></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="319" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MQaG9-PvyGc" width="485" youtube-src-id="MQaG9-PvyGc"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="335" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zRIx75g0DQ4" width="524" youtube-src-id="zRIx75g0DQ4"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="325" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/smr7hYEZmvw" width="482" youtube-src-id="smr7hYEZmvw"></iframe></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><a href="https://gabixlerreviews-bookreadersheaven.blogspot.com/2023/12/tim-alberta-presents-kingdom-power-and.html">See Book, <i>The Kingdom, The Power and the Glory </i>by Tim Alberta (above)</a></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Yesterday, I was fortunate to have my caretaker come to help me with groceries and getting my car serviced and inspected. I tried to tell her all that had happened, and later realized that I had probably overwhelmed her with what I'd been personally involved with and thinking about. My Mother used to do that to me and now I realized that is what I had done. I'm going to share this post with her and others, hopefully to at least have a firm discussion for future interactions... LOL</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>You know, folks, when I posted my last one about a book, <i>The Church of the Heavenly KISS</i>, as I wrote my thoughts I realized that there was, on my part, an offensiveness about how the author had written his concerns about the Bible. In particular, about the crucifixion and Jesus arising from the Dead. I had to stop and realize that this book was written at the request of some of his readers. And, further, that I do not believe in book banning... Let's realize right now that not everything that is said by others is going to resonate as "good" from our point of view... And, that it was my job to review the book without prejudice. Once I got past my personally wanting to protect the name of Jesus, I did appreciate the book as it was written. I did mention that I thought he was a little "heavy" on the sarcasm just for my own opinion. However, when I think of the picture I have at the top of my right-hand column here at Book Readers Heaven, I knew that Jesus must have had to laugh off so many issues of what people say or think about Him. But, I also remembered the scripture:</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia;"><blockquote><b><dd style="background-color: white; color: #202122; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;">Matthew 31:Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.</dd><dd style="background-color: white; color: #202122; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;">32:And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.</dd></b></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>When we learn Discernment either logically or Biblically, we will recognize and differentiate as we are led... But just as Christ wasn't concerned about what man might say about Him personally, we must also see that His Holy Spirit, Who Speaks from God to each of us who carry some small or larger awareness of God within us, must be discerned. We move quickly to realize that if God Through Jesus His Son gave us just two points for us to remember, then, we, in my opinion, must be able to discern when that is <i>not happening...</i></b></span></p><p><b></b></p><blockquote><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;">Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I say to you. </span><sup style="background-color: white; color: #202122; line-height: 1;">34</sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"> A<i> </i></span><b style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"><i>new commandment</i></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"> I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. </span><sup style="background-color: white; color: #202122; line-height: 1;">35</sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"> By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. —</span><a class="extiw" href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible_(King_James)/John#13:33" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;" title="s:Bible (King James)/John">John 13:33–35</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"> (</span><a class="mw-redirect" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorized_King_James_Version" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Authorized King James Version">KJV</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;">; emphasis added)</span></span></b></blockquote><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">One other point I have thought about quite a lot since the insertion of religion into government has been through deals, deception, lies and chaos, I want to spotlight what Jesus did to those who were not of His origin... I've chosen to provide it from Wikipedia because I want to have readers dwell on the choice of Jesus versus those in America who wish to move us backward in time, supposedly, as it was in early Christian times in America... </span></b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LQcmOijUhHQ" width="455" youtube-src-id="LQcmOijUhHQ"></iframe></b></div><b><br /><p style="background-color: white; color: #202122; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; padding-bottom: 0.5em;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The <b>parable of the Good Samaritan</b> is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parables_of_Jesus" style="background: none; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Parables of Jesus">told by Jesus</a> in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Luke" style="background: none; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Gospel of Luke">Gospel of Luke</a>.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-1" style="line-height: 1; text-wrap: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Good_Samaritan#cite_note-1" style="background: none; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">[1]</a></sup> It is about a traveler (implicitly understood to be Jewish) who is stripped of clothing, beaten, and left half dead alongside the road. First, a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohen" style="background: none; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Kohen">Jewish priest</a> and then a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levite" style="background: none; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Levite">Levite</a> come by, but both avoid the man. Finally, a <a class="mw-redirect" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaritan" style="background: none; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Samaritan">Samaritan</a> happens upon the traveler. Although Samaritans and Jews were generally antagonistic towards each other, the Samaritan helps the injured man. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus" style="background: none; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Jesus">Jesus</a> is described as telling the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable" style="background: none; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Parable">parable</a> in response to a provocative question from a lawyer, "And who is my neighbor?", in the context of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Commandment" style="background: none; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Great Commandment">Great Commandment</a>. The conclusion is that the neighbor figure in the parable is the one who shows mercy to their fellow man.</span></p></b><p></p><blockquote><p style="background-color: white; color: #202122; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; padding-bottom: 0.5em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Some Christians, such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo" style="background: none; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Augustine of Hippo">Augustine</a>, have interpreted the parable allegorically, with the Samaritan representing Jesus Christ, who saves the sinful soul.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTECaird1980165_2-0" style="line-height: 1; text-wrap: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Good_Samaritan#cite_note-FOOTNOTECaird1980165-2" style="background: none; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">[2]</a></sup> Others, however, discount this <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory" style="background: none; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Allegory">allegory</a> as unrelated to the parable's original meaning<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTECaird1980165_2-1" style="line-height: 1; text-wrap: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Good_Samaritan#cite_note-FOOTNOTECaird1980165-2" style="background: none; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">[2]</a></sup> and see the parable as exemplifying the ethics of Jesus.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTESanders19956_3-0" style="line-height: 1; text-wrap: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Good_Samaritan#cite_note-FOOTNOTESanders19956-3" style="background: none; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">[3]</a></sup></b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #202122; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; padding-bottom: 0.5em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The parable has inspired painting, sculpture, satire, poetry, photography, and film. The phrase "<a class="extiw" href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Good_Samaritan" style="background: none; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;" title="wikt:Good Samaritan">Good Samaritan</a>", meaning someone who helps a stranger, derives from this parable, and many <a class="mw-redirect" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Samaritan_Hospital_(disambiguation)" style="background: none; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Good Samaritan Hospital (disambiguation)">hospitals</a> and charitable organizations are named after the Good Samaritan. The word "Samaritan" has also gained, besides the ethnoreligious meaning, the sense of a charitable person.</b></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Even though there have always been differences of opinion about what scripture parables mean, for me, some are so logical that they don't need further discernment... Take, for instance, the Samaritan. We who know The Great Commandment automatically are sure that Jesus will not pass by someone hurt, hungry, or, simply because they were of a different faith or religion. His offering of love was routinely extended to all, even though it sometimes was refused or ridiculed, or, worse, killed for that Love He Offered.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>He offered it to all and asked that if we Loved Jesus then we should love all peoples... Not just christians, not just jewish people...but everybody... Then he added that, Whoever comes to know you should be able to see the Love of Jesus... I believe America was based upon that principle... There are many Samaritans who came to America searching for freedom. America provided freedom... But, even then, some chose the historical commandments from the Bible and saw these other people as those to be rejected. But the majority of American chosen freedom that welcomed those Samaritans, no matter where they came from or what their need was, or, even, what their religion was...</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>That is the America when France saw the love extended and created a symbol of what they saw in our country as a whole:</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="349" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UbETEBCIW5U" width="448" youtube-src-id="UbETEBCIW5U"></iframe></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="327" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/i6VU17UiirQ" width="441" youtube-src-id="i6VU17UiirQ"></iframe></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><b>God Bless</b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Gabbie</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></p></span></div>Glenda A Bixler Reviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15829561936090262198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6957929086575807165.post-25462489850801799872024-02-24T14:12:00.001-05:002024-02-26T10:44:41.726-05:00Harry Harrigan Presents The Church of the Heavenly KISS: A Religion For People Who Don't Like Religion<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ofg1hwCAfm4" width="482" youtube-src-id="ofg1hwCAfm4"></iframe></div><br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3v0GhweoFiOslwgDCgD4JZ6Nw4jYXdCGzDD9oGv3eDjPCFHC_hPanwuoQkOazqL9zwLGK49_DKWmwYHfRtCHb8ZMsskKEAZ3Zt8AIIwa41l6y90gigw4qp-cqWA_hoR2av0Lad5iMCG63cB_PwwrrlPZRkjmgONqfYQNSLppHzS5awufBmZc4DddQCA4/s445/41t3cZp2U-L._SY445_SX342_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="296" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3v0GhweoFiOslwgDCgD4JZ6Nw4jYXdCGzDD9oGv3eDjPCFHC_hPanwuoQkOazqL9zwLGK49_DKWmwYHfRtCHb8ZMsskKEAZ3Zt8AIIwa41l6y90gigw4qp-cqWA_hoR2av0Lad5iMCG63cB_PwwrrlPZRkjmgONqfYQNSLppHzS5awufBmZc4DddQCA4/w426-h640/41t3cZp2U-L._SY445_SX342_.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>The Church of the Heavenly KISS was introduced in a novel I wrote in 2017 called <i>The Road King Chronicles: </i>Second Hand Snake. In that book, the idea arose from discussions among three fictional characters: an Army Ranger named Roman Keane, his brother, a Jesuit priest named Virgil Keane, and a Cherokee medicine woman named Maggie Keystone. Those three frequently talked about religion and man’s purpose in life in that book and others in the Road King Chronicles series. </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Maggie was raised in the Cherokee religion and she was taught to revere all of nature. All of the Earth; its plants, its animals and its peoples. She believed that these are gifts from an entity known as the Creator, and that it would be wrong to abuse them. When the Christian missionaries came and forced their religious beliefs on the Cherokee, she thought, well... this sounds basically like what we already believe, but with a different cast of characters and names. After she had been a medicine woman for many years, she came to believe that all religions were simply stories invented by people to explain things they did not understand. </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Roman and Virgil Keane are twins in the Road King Chronicles series. They were raised as Christians but were separated as teenagers and followed different paths through life as adults. Virgil embraced religion and devoted his life to God. He became a Jesuit, an elite organization among Catholic priests called the Society of Jesus and sometimes referred to as “Soldiers of Christ.” Like many Jesuits, Virgil was a bit unorthodox and frequently drew the ire of his superiors by straying from the standard Catholic teachings. Roman, on the other hand, didn’t think much about religion. Even as a young boy he saw that much of what he was being taught made little sense and he was acutely aware of the hypocrisy and arrogance of many in the church to which his parents belonged. </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>The question of god was as simple to him as the line from the Allman Brothers song Wasted Words: “Your wasted words already been heard, are you really god, yes or no?” Roman joined the Army, qualified as a Ranger and became the epitome of a modern warrior; tough, practical and a natural leader. </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Although Maggie, Virgil and Roman often argued about the virtues and shortcomings of religion, Virgil was the first among them to go beyond talk, printing an updated version of the Ten Commandments for his parishioners that he felt better reflected modern times. But it was Roman who came up with the concept of the Church of the Heavenly KISS. Relying on commonsense and his experiences in the military, Roman pared his beliefs about the purpose of life down to the simplest terms. He replaced the Ten Commandments of Christianity with Ten Commitments that people could make for themselves. Roman’s straightforward, simple non-religion resonated with readers who said that the Church of the Heavenly KISS may have been born in fiction, but it helped them handle the real world. Many of them shared the idea with their friends and some suggested that I write more about it. There was enough pushing and prodding that I finally produced this short book. I have expanded on Roman’s observations about religion and elaborated on his suggestions, but I have not strayed from his original simplicity. </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>The intent of this book is not to tell anyone what to believe, only to show another point of view. If you are content to follow your religion, obeying its rules and beliefs without question as many people do, then this book is not for you. Congratulations if your religion guides you along a useful life that makes you happy. However, if you are frustrated by your religion and go to church and mouth the words but doubt the truth of them, then this book is for you. If you see, like Roman, Virgil and Maggie, that all religions are basically the same and yet they are nonsensically fighting each other, then read on. If you open your eyes to the world around you and see that religion limits your possibilities and shrinks your horizons, then you may like the Church of the Heavenly KISS.</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b> You’ve only got one life and you’ve got to make the most of it. If your religion keeps you from doing that, then it’s time for a change. But ditching your religion is a huge step. How do you know if it’s right for you? You can start by asking yourself a few questions.</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>!!!</b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>In the year 2000, if somebody had suggested that I look around for another religion, I would have listened, but probably ignored looking anywhere... Don't get me wrong, I had had questions related to Christianity--not of Jesus Himself and His Words; but, in relation to the Book that was attached to Him. And, the seeming hypocrisy of many in this world.</b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>However, if you are like me, you were really thrown into a period of questioning when the Evangelical Christians moved to support the last president. What were they thinking, I wondered. Today in 2024, I've read a number of different books trying to explain that decision or listened to many videos related to religion... This book is one of them, a short book that gets right to the point of the sub-title... Are you a Person who doesn't like Religion? </b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Having grown up in the Baptist Church, and being fully active for most of my life, that seems to be a trick question, doesn't it? Because, suddenly, a group of conservative christians were supporting a man who incited hate, division, and, lately violence as part of his role in life... I have NO question that this man is NOT chosen by God to lead America as many are trying to claim. So where does that leave many of us who have become confused and, perhaps, cynical as we watch what is going on...</b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Harry Harrigan had used the phrase of the Heavenly KISS in a previous novel. After having people ask about this concept, he decided to proceed and write this book. This book has two parts: First the author suggests that you ask some basic questions about your own feelings about religion. I'm providing my thoughts--this is the more important part, don't you think? Perhaps my thoughts will expedite your thinking as well...</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Why Am I In This Church Anyway?</span></b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>I had long ago realized that I was Baptist because it was one of the two churches in my small community growing up. Since then, I've attended a Methodist Church and also visited prayer sessions with Catholic leaders. I liked that John the Baptist was the man who Jesus asked to Baptize Him and found most of the sermons relevant and beneficial... Church selection was thereafter a matter of my location and what churches were within the vicinity.</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>If I don’t really believe my parents’ religion, what’s keeping me in it?</b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Although we were all active in church, there was little actual religious ceremony within our family. Perhaps that was because my father had been killed before I was born and my Mother saw her role as getting her children into Church. Later, she ensured our involvement by having two of us taught piano so that we could share that new skill there.</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Wasn’t this country founded on Christianity?</b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Frankly, the correlation between our country with our church was never a consideration within our family. As changes were made in my life; e.g., removal of saying The Lord's Prayer in school along with the Pledge to the Flag, it made me think about this. It didn't take long for me to realize that there were many in America who were not Christian. In fact, there were atheists or others who didn't participate in any church. A number of those individuals began looking at and seeking a separation of church and state. I considered and ultimately decided that this was appropriate. After all, a relationship with Jesus was a personal interaction that, on the surface, surely, had nothing to do with living in America or any place else. </b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Don’t I need religion to be a good person?</b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>I had met many people after I started to work that were good people. Or people of another religion... Usually we worked together without any awareness of whether we were faithful to a certain religion. I remember my own analysis of being saved and going to Heaven... I was young enough, but smart enough to think logically that I'd prefer to have Jesus with me without waiting until after I died. My Mother had taught us a work ethic through her own almost 24/7 work schedule... All of her children followed this model of dedication to our jobs.</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Doesn’t the Bible tell me how to live my life?</b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Having sat through at least 50 years of sermons based upon the Bible, it would seem that an answer would be, "Of Course..." But advancing in age often resulted in my reading parts of the Bible which, to me, were simply illogical for living right now. One I quickly picked up on was that women were not allowed to speak in church. Yet, women in today's world were teaching, sometimes becoming pastors, and participating in the management of the church--I was often a member of the Board of a church... Logically, I then realized that this book contained history which was no longer applicable to daily life during my lifetime.</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>If I don’t have religion, what will happen when I die?</b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Bottom Line for Me? I knew I already had Jesus living in my heart... I knew Him as being Alive and with me. So, do I think about after death? Rarely, if Ever. I would sing the songs, contemplate Heaven from those words... and, think, "That would be nice..." But what actually happens was not a concern knowing Jesus would be There, no matter what...</b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="313" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hx_KKFQDJtE" width="431" youtube-src-id="hx_KKFQDJtE"></iframe></span></div><p style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>The second part of this book then asks you to think about what you should do after exploring these initial questions... I'm going to share the book's response:</b></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #45818e;">So, what should I do? Lift your head. Look at the world around you. Take responsibility for your own life. Let go of your fear. Use your brain to think for yourself instead of believing what others tell you. You decide. What rules are you going to follow to make the most of your only life? One of the first things you can do is look up the rationale for all the rules and traditions of your religion. The Catholic Church kept the Mass in Latin for hundreds of years, partly by tradition, but also because that kept the commoners ignorant and dependent on the clergy. Reading and interpreting the Bible was likewise reserved for the church leaders for many years, to keep the rest of us in the dark. </span></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #45818e;">But now we have the Internet, and it is a source of instant history lessons, if you’re willing to make the effort. Many of the concepts and traditions of religions, especially the one true god religions, are so painfully convoluted that they pass into the realm of ridiculous. </span></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #45818e;">For instance: Original Sin: Supposedly, we are all born tainted by the urge to sin, inherited by all humanity after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Does it make any kind of sense that every innocent child is born with a propensity to sin? </span></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #45818e;">Christmas Day: The date of December 25th as Christ’s birthday was “borrowed” by the church about four centuries after his life because the birthday of Mithras, the Roman sun god, was celebrated on that date. The Romans celebrated winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, on December 25th. Although winter solstice now occurs on December 21 or 22, back then the 25th was the important date for sun worshippers. Hundreds of years before Christ, quite a few gods were believed to have been born on December 25th, among them Hercules, Dionysus, Hermes and Adonis. The church thought pagans would be more willing to accept a god born on the same day. </span></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #45818e;">The Holy Ghost: The so-called “pagans” were into trinities, so the Christians needed a trinity of their own in order to appeal to them. The Holy Ghost was hastily invented to fill out the father-son duo. Occupying the third spot in the Christian trinity, the Holy Ghost is not a person-type god, or even a god that anyone can explain with a straight face. </span></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #45818e;">Resurrection: If someone came back from the dead today, nobody would believe it. The resurrection of Christ supposedly happened over two thousand years ago, with no witnesses and no video, so we should be more skeptical, not less. Mithras rode a chariot into heaven after his time on earth, so perhaps this was another event “borrowed” by the church to make the story of Jesus more palatable to pagans. The notion that Christ died for our sins comes from the Gospel of John, which says “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” If that is true, doesn’t Christ’s resurrection make this commitment somewhat insincere? Jesus was dead for a couple of days, but then he was alive and well again, so apparently death was only a brief inconvenience for him and not much of a sacrifice. </span></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #45818e;">Heaven: Maybe you’ve wondered about the practical logistics of heaven. For instance, where is it? And we’re supposed to get our bodies restored to us at some point, but what happens then? What age will we be? Will any infirmities we suffered be cured? Will we live in houses, wear clothes, eat, play and sleep, or will we simply exist and be happy forever? What would be the point of that? </span></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #45818e;">Hell: How are people going to burn in hell for all eternity? Wouldn’t they simply burn to a crisp in a matter of minutes? Why punish someone with agonizing pain forever for transgressions they made during their very short lives? What happened to forgiveness? Priesthood for Men Only: The Catholic Church, and many of the other religions, only allow men to be ordained as priests and ministers. The official reason for this policy is that Jesus selected only men as his apostles, but in practice it is used to keep women from any real power in the church. There are at least as many qualified women as men for the priesthood, but religions in general and the Catholic Church in particular have always excluded women from positions of decision-making and power. </span></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #45818e;">Intelligent Design: Six thousand years ago, according to people who believe in a strict interpretation of the Bible, God roused Himself after eons of apparently doing nothing and created the entire universe in the next six days, including such creatures as humans, the very odd red-lipped batfish and parasitoid wasps that lay their eggs in other insects. He was reported to have rested on the seventh day, without addressing problems such as cancer and birth defects. Even if you accept that explanation of the creation of the universe, how do you fit hundreds of millions of years’ worth of fossilized animals and plants into six thousand years? Did the dinosaurs we see in museums never exist? </span></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #45818e;">Moses and the Ten Commandments: Moses supposedly climbed a mountain where God reached down from a convenient cloud and gave him a couple of stone tablets engraved with ten commandments. People all over the world still claim to live by them, which is admirable. But have you read them closely? The first four are devoted to how you should worship God instead of how you should conduct your life. The remaining six are common sense: honor your parents, no murdering, no adultery, no stealing, no lying about your neighbor and no coveting other people’s stuff. Nine out of ten tell you what you shouldn’t do rather than what you should. Don’t do this and don’t do that.</span></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #6aa84f;">Personally, I think the author went overboard in sarcasm. However, after that statement, there certainly have always been questions about these issues... One of the issues that has bothered me, for instance, is the fact that there are soooo many different types of "Christianity," apparently because people got into arguments about doctrine, or whatever, and it got so bad that the church split and became two different bodies of people "choosing" to believe one thing versus another... More and more I've been led to believe that only the Words of Jesus are guiding us in this period. Truth and Love are the basis of His Words... Remember from History the very first split?</span></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #6aa84f;"></span></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="347" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FhGGjRjvq7w" width="474" youtube-src-id="FhGGjRjvq7w"></iframe></span></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><br /></span></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #6aa84f;">Soooo, have you figured out what The Church of the Heavenly Kiss stands for? Well, there are 10...yes, just 10 commitments that the author suggests is the basis for The Church... Interestingly enough, I support every single one of them... and have even talked about them in various postings about exactly what I believe or have shared when talking about what is happening in America. </span></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><br /></span></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #6aa84f;">As the book closes, the author talks about what makes us different than anything in the world. He notes that for religion, it is our soul... For science, it is our ability to think in the abstract... and then he suggests that it is our ability to change the world... For me, I know that historically, all nations have recognized that there must be something bigger than our world, something or someone that they feel a need to...at least, thank... I believe in God and I believe in learning as much as possible about our lives and how they interact with Him, with others, and for the benefit of the world. This short, but thought-provoking books is one that I found refreshingly open and honest in presentation, with no attempts to persuade...</span></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><br /></span></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #6aa84f;">So, dear readers, I invite you to consider this book, purely for the Words you will find herein. There is no need for references from other books, no need for trying to make it back to church, even though you are questioning exactly what is going on in America and across the world. In fact, I think you could answer "yes" if you used the coined expression, WWJD? as you read... I believe He would say Yes... Sounds Pretty Good... as I Did... In the end, I agree with the author that it is our responsibility to continue to change the world...to improve it, to learn and expand more and more the knowledge that is available... And, we must never go backward. There is a connection to the World, Our World. And He has given it to us to work on His behalf... No rules, no commandments, no sin... Only a sincere attempt to act to move our World forward in all ways possible... It's not a religious book, but the ramifications just may be exactly what you've been wondering about... Do check it out!</span></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><br /></span></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #6aa84f;">GABixlerReviews</span></b></span></div>Glenda A Bixler Reviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15829561936090262198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6957929086575807165.post-3636331073842013932024-02-20T14:49:00.002-05:002024-02-21T07:07:14.253-05:00Exclusive From Book Readers Heaven, Review Of The New Jack Ludefance Series Book, UNCANNY ALLIANCE by Behcet Kaya <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9i-UGY4Kd3q3ot5GagfnZMnzx8or83QalJKc4g2u-Ru9fDKJIXv66s40YsLMDVnDuWVDTC5Z99MKTo5CtogcWGDsX4vfTYXD62H-XiVOID2XdTD787CisegrOF65-Fqo83FSfQyJQpoqx5t-F4YTQqHOT_RSbDchJocGzbDbgl-dyEy4Fl71rF_90M-c/s736/717dcb36ac3c243d5c7940bad3d96b51.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="414" data-original-width="736" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9i-UGY4Kd3q3ot5GagfnZMnzx8or83QalJKc4g2u-Ru9fDKJIXv66s40YsLMDVnDuWVDTC5Z99MKTo5CtogcWGDsX4vfTYXD62H-XiVOID2XdTD787CisegrOF65-Fqo83FSfQyJQpoqx5t-F4YTQqHOT_RSbDchJocGzbDbgl-dyEy4Fl71rF_90M-c/w640-h360/717dcb36ac3c243d5c7940bad3d96b51.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="border: none;"> </span>“The uncanny alliance of the sacred and the profane, </b></span><b style="color: #a64d79;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">the sublime and the ridiculous,</span></b></p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div style="color: #a64d79; text-align: center;"><b>the comic and the tragic, </b><b>is a hallmark of the great</b></div><div style="color: #a64d79; text-align: center;"><b> genius of our age.” </b></div><div style="color: #a64d79; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="color: #a64d79; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><b>Gary Saul Morson</b></div><div style="color: #a64d79; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b>This morning as I once again pondered these profound words which sets the stage for Behcet (Ben) Kaya's newest Jack Ludefance Novel, hopefully to be published in late March, suddenly I wanted to know more about the man who spoke these words... It led me to a book, which is now on my Kindle. I'll be reading it next: MINDS WIDE SHUT. I Call That a God Incident... God speaking through His followers to share of His Love and Concern for ALL of His Children... More on that later...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;">Words Failed Me, at first, to describe the new novel by Behcet (Ben) Kaya. Then it came to me. In my mind, It Was Perfect. Perfection when a writer creates not only a novel of importance in today's world, but, perfect because the writer took the time to ensure that every single issue within the book was covered , checked and rechecked so that the reader would be completely satisfied when finishing this fantastic novel! </span></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;">Even reading a manuscript online and sitting for 8 hours straight could not stop me from wanting to continue to read and finish the book. Only logic told me to eat and rest for the night... I was at my desktop the next morning at 6, soon reading faster and faster, pages flying past as I was lost in the story that Ben had created. Even now as I write, I thrill at the wonder of his words, his characters, his manner of characters interacting with each other... Was that It? Was I reading a book by an author who was so attuned, so empathic, that even his characters in their daily lives knew how and what to say to each other? Routinely? Because, of course, such a writer could indeed write Perfection... I was honored to help in that process, reading and catching those final few errors that only an avid reader of words can find...</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;">And, for having read Ben's first novel and seeing his latest which surely places him into the group of major authors of our great literary nation... Please, take the time to, in the right-hand column of my blog, type in the author's name... You will get a list of his books. In fact, I recommend that you begin with the first in series for Jack Ludefance and binge on the series until the end of March when this books comes out! Let me tell you about it! I'm so excited to do so! And already thinking movies and who should play Ludefance!</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><br /></span></div></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja_Q3n-JAX2SWMc5AHAmwRui2-fPKI8Q4caZLFp-d_ZCI9hFmbQGO7xKt4zB45VVEUdDhl8mYa4_2m_PPaabior01ZQkmlQLiGw-_JRE3oXpueBJpvOEJJFqYaXrxNORJxfa7UjtWxsq-UZx2Cg7PmTiUZMaF4t1FOczAXVFFkwKeV-zJej8ZX-00-ANc/s612/istockphoto-1347616560-612x612.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="408" data-original-width="612" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja_Q3n-JAX2SWMc5AHAmwRui2-fPKI8Q4caZLFp-d_ZCI9hFmbQGO7xKt4zB45VVEUdDhl8mYa4_2m_PPaabior01ZQkmlQLiGw-_JRE3oXpueBJpvOEJJFqYaXrxNORJxfa7UjtWxsq-UZx2Cg7PmTiUZMaF4t1FOczAXVFFkwKeV-zJej8ZX-00-ANc/s320/istockphoto-1347616560-612x612.jpg" width="320" /></a></div></span><span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Kingsley University, small, elite, and privately owned, caters to the wealthiest of families who are only too happy to send their offspring to such a prestigious institution. Carrying accreditation from the Alabama Commission on Higher Education, the entrance guidelines are strict. It’s virtually impossible to be admitted without a minimum 4.0 grade average and a recommendation letter from an alum.<br />The campus is located on the outskirts of the small town of Golden Shores located on the coast of southeastern Alabama not far from the Florida state line. Situated on 195 immaculately manicured acres, it has new and sophisticated buildings, including dorms, classrooms, dining halls, and faculty housing, all unknown to the general public and virtually free from media attention. The governing body has made a conscious effort to keep the university out of the mainstream and has ensured that it’s not easily found in any Internet search engines.<br />The university offers programs for bachelor, master, and PhD degrees in a variety of topics demanded by the wealthy parents, including business leadership, investment, music, the arts, and social issues such as human ecology and environmental science. The professors hired to teach are the best of the best, with heavy emphasis on their expertise in topics of governing, economy, ecology, and investments. </b></span></div><div><b><span style="color: #a64d79;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Rebecca Forester is headed to her 9 AM appointment with her professor, Pachua Zambear. She fusses with her hair, then knocks on his office door. She is surprised when there’s no answer. She knocks again, but there still is no answer. As she moves to peer in through the side window, she accidentally pushes on the door. It </span></span></b><span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>swings open. As Rebecca steps into the office, she utters a piercing scream which shatters the quiet.<br />She stares across the office to the large couch and the body of her professor. He is lying on his side facing her, his pants pulled down to his ankles, his penis fully erect. His arms are behind his back. She can see that his dead eyes are open through the clear plastic bag covering his head.<br />Professor Zambear was a tall slender man, with a bald head and large hands. The saying goes that a man with large hands possesses a large penis and the professor lived up to that saying. He was a handsome man, always wearing some piece of unusual jewelry such as leather strands with feathers, or Amazon artifacts, around his neck.<br />The long sofa in his office was comfortable enough to sleep on and was where he had sex with his willing students. On the walls were photographs of Death Valley, California, along with unusual pictures from the Amazon River. One photograph pictured an Amazon village filled with naked villagers, the professor standing among them. There was another photograph of village huts and a bonfire with a whole pig being roasted, naked women attending the fire.<br />As Rebecca’s screams continue, office doors begin opening and faculty members rush to see what’s going on. Campus police are called, who in turn call to advise the president of the university. Campus Police Officer Zoey Harrington is first on scene, keeping everyone away from contaminating the evidence. Local police arrive twenty minutes later and begin their investigation.<br />Within several days, Stella Kingsley Zambear, the wife of Professor Zambear, is arrested and arraigned on first degree murder charges.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>~~~</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Kaya's choice to use a fictitious small but well-located university in a wealthy part of Alabama begins the novel with the death of a popular campus professor. His wife, Stella Kingsley, who is provost is immediately charged with his murder. Stella, who had been involved with Professor Zambear's hiring knew of her husband's reputation at that point, not only hiring him, but marrying him, stating that she had fallen in love with him at first sight. Then, claiming she knew what she would be getting into, could not do anything as her new husband continued in his pursuit of every willing female on campus, enjoying the notoriety, and humiliation of his wife, as well as any female who he enjoyed sexually and then left to move on to the next one... The year is 2019 when apparently sexual exploration in higher education is normal and there is no penalty whatsoever for a professor/student union!</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Stella's father as well as the university president had advised Stella NOT to seek a divorce--for the good of the institution. Readers may think that she had the right for revenge. But, Stella did not kill her husband. She acknowledged that she and her husband had sex that evening at their home. But, around 11 PM he left her to go back to his office to work... He was killed around 2 AM that morning. Stella's DNA was still on his penis; no other suspects were considered, while all external news of the salacious murder was squashed by her father, a leader in both the university and the community surrounding the university. Indeed, at the time of the murder, there was not one security camera on campus. The entire campus was enclosed with wired fence hidden by shrubbery on both sides of the fence... There were 6 campus guards on duty at all times.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>James Kingsley, himself, made the contact to Jack Ludefance, after conducting a thorough search for a private investigator to begin to investigate what had really happened, in order to free his daughter from suspicion. In the meantime, she was jailed, with no bond, due to the gravity of the situation.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH498u81uOY4KujkOVn9aK18a30vFP-XCsuiIZeWXF0TyG8dMA7zB9Aj8Sb-WcU5NBhmb-2PYoE7LtDkatppYI_onEKfw6ZHgatmsQXBTvxTrT4lAEo8eyruy8jP_rBDZWp2xnuMQL4GkyG5qzFidw-PQXhHiPEzsyyB0OYJVZBKsvUFZK9E4IT3pZntE/s239/images%20(11).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><img border="0" data-original-height="239" data-original-width="148" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH498u81uOY4KujkOVn9aK18a30vFP-XCsuiIZeWXF0TyG8dMA7zB9Aj8Sb-WcU5NBhmb-2PYoE7LtDkatppYI_onEKfw6ZHgatmsQXBTvxTrT4lAEo8eyruy8jP_rBDZWp2xnuMQL4GkyG5qzFidw-PQXhHiPEzsyyB0OYJVZBKsvUFZK9E4IT3pZntE/s1600/images%20(11).jpg" width="148" /></span></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU7yBvf8RulL2jwuM5I3XzRqd86FxKqfsp7iYxGsK5oNX3EatXPo6nDNeuFLpHzWe97uJXu2rukODYO37EgfR3xrUuRpSFj2poLYsOsQxDn-W4JDh8BYTMmpqoNRITKki67ECUbkELDeg3Gvcfh-2LU1Ae8DWDHpIlRwGGNnn6lCf9NA6EwNd7CkPT2-o/s273/download%20(7).jpg" style="clear: right; display: inline; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><img border="0" data-original-height="273" data-original-width="185" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU7yBvf8RulL2jwuM5I3XzRqd86FxKqfsp7iYxGsK5oNX3EatXPo6nDNeuFLpHzWe97uJXu2rukODYO37EgfR3xrUuRpSFj2poLYsOsQxDn-W4JDh8BYTMmpqoNRITKki67ECUbkELDeg3Gvcfh-2LU1Ae8DWDHpIlRwGGNnn6lCf9NA6EwNd7CkPT2-o/w136-h200/download%20(7).jpg" width="136" /></span></a><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">In thinking about Ludefance, I'm torn<br /> between Crocodile Dundee and Spenser... Spenser, of course, with Robert Ulrich would win; however, since Ludefance has a scar running down his face from fighting with an alligator, well, you can see Ludefance is not quite the gentleman PI individual that we think about when we're actually reading the book... Let's just say that Ludefance is worthy of being seen in future movies featuring the best known PI living at this time--at least in novels... LOL</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">Ludefance also has a little bit of OCD, which resulted in what I've considered as his best and perfect novel... Yet! He's a planner and quickly pulls in his right-hand partner and tech expert. You'll love him as much as I do... He's the perfect counterpart to his boss...</span></b></div></b></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><blockquote style="color: #a64d79; font-weight: bold;">After I arrived back at the hotel, I stopped in the bar to have a Sam Adams. Maybe it was time to call my hacker Rudy out in California and get him here to do what he does best. Moving to an empty table away from other customers, I dialed Rudy’s number. <br />As soon as the first ring finished, I heard his voice, “Hello, Boss! Do we have a case?” <br />I had to laugh. Rudy was, to say the least, a strange young man for many reasons, but he’d become invaluable to me in helping solve my last three cases. <br />“Your presumption is correct, Rudy. Yes, we have a case. It’s just your kind of job and I need you here ASAP.”<br />“Yessss!!!” came his quick and happy reply. He continued, “Boss you know how much I like working with you, and my Buzzard friends are really pleased with your generous pay. Do you think we can include them in this investigation?”<br />“What’s the matter, Rudy? You starting to slow down in hacking computers?”<br />“No! Never, Boss. And, you know I’m damn good at it!”<br />“Then why do you need your Buzzard friends?”<br />“Because as good as I am, they are much, much better. Especially with things I don’t like to get involved in. You know what I mean.”<br />“I do, Rudy. I do. So, are you behaving yourself out there?”<br />“Yeah, Boss. No problems. Oh, do you mean like have I been in jail again?”</blockquote><p style="color: #a64d79; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">~~~</p><p style="font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;">Ludefance quickly gets Rudy searching for the background of the man who was murdered... At the same time, he buys a drone to survey the campus, realizing that if the security was so tight that even the professor had called in to be allowed into his campus building, then perhaps there could be another way to get on campus. They quickly found a location where a part of the fence had been cut...</span></p><p style="font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;">But during that survey, Rudy had cried out that he thought what he was now seeing was...a...body! Yes, a young woman was found, her foot attached to a concrete block to pull her down... Did the killer even know that the lake normally became dry during summer months? Ludefance quickly checked out everything that was found with her before the police arrived... Khole Rivers had been murdered, the name of the already dead professor was in her belongings, and they found the first possible important clue. A bitcoin...</span></p><p style="font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;">It was through this woman that they found a possible twist to why the murder of </span><span style="color: #ff00fe;">Professor Zambear had occurred... Ludefance had learned that Zambear had been concerned enough about what was happening in and about the Amazon River that he had created a foundation through which funds could be diverted to his foundation through an investment program...</span></p><p style="font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;">And that's when a murder mystery quickly turned into an international thriller and when, later, even the <i>mention </i>of the Russian Mafia possibly being involved made Ludefance very nervous. He knew just how dangerous it could get, and, when he had to gun down an intruder coming into his hotel room, that's when the action heats up and I was clicking page after page as more and more information was being found through Rudy and his friends' hacking skills!</span></p><p style="font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;">Ludefance was ahead of the local police and campus officers at every point, first, by naming the professor's killer, and, second, naming the person who had killed the woman in the lake, warning the police that the latter could easily flee given her background. Which she then did!</span></p><p style="font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;">And around that time, the author is announcing that his next novel will hopefully come out in late 2024, titled, </span><span style="color: #a64d79;"><i>Deception--</i></span><span style="color: #a64d79;">In
2020, as the world faces the Covid-19 pandemic, Jack confronts the challenge of
his career, navigating through a case involving political, medical, and client
deception.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b>Personally, I'm already excited, waiting to read the NEXT book, even though you all won't be able to read this one until next month... I'm hooked on this series... much like I was on the Talanov Series by James Turner. Even though that one had been my personal favorite, I think Ludefance has surpassed it for me. The action and tension are similar, but it is the author's writing that has swayed me... I had never used the word Perfection for any other book I've read, to date! And we know that I've reviewed at least over 3000 books here at Book Readers Heaven, mostly fiction novels... </b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b>Start reading and catch up on the series, at least by reading all my previous reviews here! Better yet, get the books and meet a dynamite team just like Spenser had... Only difference is Hawk was the sometime muscle, while Rudy is a computer expert. In this book, there is even a new love interest who just might be staying in the series... We'll see!</b></span></p><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="323" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/69WB7qXoxNw" width="476" youtube-src-id="69WB7qXoxNw"></iframe></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><span style="color: #ff00fe;">Yes, I loved this book, which takes this writer to the level of the major fiction authors of this generation. It's timely, a fascinating dip into the use of cryptocurrency, and most of all character-driven. It's definitely a 2024 personal favorite for me! I'll be announcing when it is out! Watch for it!</span></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><br /></span></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">GABixlerReviews</span></b></span></div><p></p>Glenda A Bixler Reviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15829561936090262198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6957929086575807165.post-15456996059564900902024-02-16T11:41:00.000-05:002024-02-16T11:41:20.590-05:00Murder Aboard The Queen Elizabeth II - Presented by Stephen Murray<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="352" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FocK0eIuLgk" width="476" youtube-src-id="FocK0eIuLgk"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMZHC4OA8HPkQrBS2w6E2yXeDaRjXGPGFtiZ568_pGQpQEVZyipfv8wfYh7KOLRBfGDbPJ7pWd9QUL63geNhG_tPY9QYGnPjUlFeALBGuxSAzngDQ7q4ZjoxJN2ZRNCDTJNwnEofY5tsYmbFRoAp9-7I0UWULk96dIaaFWUHM5_H2_mYFVAQe9z4ah-pw/s385/71PErNddrDL._SY385_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="385" data-original-width="249" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMZHC4OA8HPkQrBS2w6E2yXeDaRjXGPGFtiZ568_pGQpQEVZyipfv8wfYh7KOLRBfGDbPJ7pWd9QUL63geNhG_tPY9QYGnPjUlFeALBGuxSAzngDQ7q4ZjoxJN2ZRNCDTJNwnEofY5tsYmbFRoAp9-7I0UWULk96dIaaFWUHM5_H2_mYFVAQe9z4ah-pw/w414-h640/71PErNddrDL._SY385_.jpg" width="414" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="328" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/958pPOFxRV8" width="481" youtube-src-id="958pPOFxRV8"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="313" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DX4MYSYGp4w" width="481" youtube-src-id="DX4MYSYGp4w"></iframe></div><div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Denise continued to bounce around the dance floor engaging her audience with her well known and crowd pleasing hits, and a few love ballads. She dazzled her audience for almost an hour before slowly moving toward the Sinclair table. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” she purred. “May I introduce you to a man to whom I owe my career — and so much more,” she added teasingly and suggestively, “Mr. Brian Sinclair.” The spotlight fell on Brian, who stood and bowed slightly as the audience applauded loudly. </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>He was slightly embarrassed. Denise kissed him softly on the cheek. Sylvia had had enough. She started to rise. Denise continued, “And please welcome his charming and delightful wife, Mrs. Sylvia Sinclair.” The spotlight fell on Sylvia. Startled, she smiled feebly, nodded and sat down again. What is she up to, the conniving witch? Sylvia thought. Denise was in her glory. “The Sinclairs are celebrating their silver wedding anniversary. Isn’t that fabulous?” The audience clapped loudly. “And now, I’d like to complete my show tonight with one of my all time favorite songs, made famous by Miss Doris Day.” As she stood in front of Brian, looking at him, she started to sing “I’ll Never Stop Loving You.”</b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b> My God, it’s as if she’s seducing him, Laura thought. Poor Sylvia, Marina empathized as she looked at her friend’s face. Sylvia remained stoic. An ominous feeling pervaded the table, as the not so subtle nuance was not lost on most of the people sitting there. The song finished. “Thank you. I love you and goodnight.” Denise blew kisses to the audience and made her way backstage, the curtains drawing behind her. There were shouts of “Bravo,” “More,” and “Encore” from the audience, but Denise continued to her dressing room. She kicked her shoes off, lit up a cigarette, poured herself some champagne and looked at herself in the mirror again. You did it gal! she said to herself. There was a sudden knock at the door. Well I wonder who that is, she thought. She walked to the door and opened it. </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>“Well, well, well. This is a surprise. I certainly never expected to see you here.” She eyed her visitor up and down. “Would you like to join me in a glass of champagne?” Denise opened her door wide, and gestured for her guest to enter.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>~~~</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">When the rich and famous are scrutinized, you will often find many characters who just don't match the lives of the average citizen... A murder mystery might just turn into a soap opera! One of the things I realized early was that the author chose a tell-not-show type of storytelling. That method quickly smacks me into an alertness... An inexperienced writer, I wondered? I found it slow and prodding. And, I knew the killer while it was happening...</span></b></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Still, I continued on reading from the beginning. As characters began to be introduced, we find Sylvia who may be considered one of the main characters. It is she who, for an anniversary coming up, chose to host an onboard party on the Queen Elizabeth II cruise ship. I've been on several cruises, so when we actually get onboard, I was interested... But first, we meet the individuals who will be invited. We meet her husband, of course and two children plus a number of business associates and friends.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">During that dialogue about who was to be invited, we begin to learn about Sylvia's husband... Sylvia already had known that her husband was a philanderer, as the rich elite say... and, yes, she had decided to stay with him. The way Sylvia was portrayed though, I felt that she did indeed love her husband and was not just staying with him for his money...</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">But did she have to have it thrown in her face? For before, they even got on board, Brian had confirmed a tryst with the wife of one of couples who would be accompanying them! And, Sylvia had heard them!</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">But worse, when they were on board, the woman with whom Brian had been engaged before her, had come on board to "surprise" them! Indeed Brian owns Sinclair Records and Denise had been one of his first singers nearly 25 years ago, so why had she chosen to disrupt their 25th Silver Anniversary? Believe me, it will get worse before Brian is murdered...</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUzZeUJjhKFijdN4wQwaMa7I3M2Px3AHTVjbb18sAip7vO1u41gCOKiceFN1zBDiCh49WLNCg8dgSoGM_9b2d9AI5Hi9q5KYB0UQ_ySBDdipsy7PTlj4wFbP0-pkWW3OtHyacK0e7SCnhxo9j_lq_8wyUzdAfHby5VAZLRI0Jblkl3zOVLhE-m577KrQ0/s1024/cannon-1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="1024" height="156" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUzZeUJjhKFijdN4wQwaMa7I3M2Px3AHTVjbb18sAip7vO1u41gCOKiceFN1zBDiCh49WLNCg8dgSoGM_9b2d9AI5Hi9q5KYB0UQ_ySBDdipsy7PTlj4wFbP0-pkWW3OtHyacK0e7SCnhxo9j_lq_8wyUzdAfHby5VAZLRI0Jblkl3zOVLhE-m577KrQ0/s320/cannon-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Fortunately for the Captain of the Ship...and readers... there was a Private Investigator on board. I had to decide just who he was like from our past PI television shows... So, you can picture Cannon, moving from interview to interview as each of those of the Sinclair Party were questioned... </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbl4xXuNhX4lzgDZTqczGZM2L0S2FzbLguorq3gZRy-vHSCrR6HvsZGKqzf7gaOiQn8MbixxARShdsWIxYsWsgvjIu1aE-8ANGdkh97x6ci1fG8TcJTxRMGUIBm57nlbLasAyhI2X0Mp2SH5Tk4_rw4es6RgQ5JJW1KY0_gyH0j6PaqyVxvvtPeR7E6VM/s1763/col.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1763" data-original-width="1175" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbl4xXuNhX4lzgDZTqczGZM2L0S2FzbLguorq3gZRy-vHSCrR6HvsZGKqzf7gaOiQn8MbixxARShdsWIxYsWsgvjIu1aE-8ANGdkh97x6ci1fG8TcJTxRMGUIBm57nlbLasAyhI2X0Mp2SH5Tk4_rw4es6RgQ5JJW1KY0_gyH0j6PaqyVxvvtPeR7E6VM/w133-h200/col.jpg" width="133" /></span></a></div><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>And so we delve into the lives of all those who surrounded Brian Sinclair... and guess what the PI found? Every single one who was traveling as guests, including his wife and family had a motive... I didn't know whether to switch to Columbo, even though he's a cop but the PI, because I could see Columbo turning around suddenly, asking still a more personal question... Richard Manning, whose name you'll hear repeated over and over and over as each individual meets the intrepid individual who invaded their privacy with everything he had learned, confronting each without regard to personal comfort or defiance... and, frankly, seemingly turns out to be the main character in all of this mess...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Of course, I had determined the whodunit right at the beginning, but not the why...which was then discovered and verified by the killer. And, o</span></b><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">ne key problem with the book is that a major crime had been brought out during all those interviews. This was totally dropped even though the involved characters were continuing to wondered... So was I. </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Still, I had kept reading and while not totally involved as I normally am with a mystery, there was enough of that "reality show" mix where you think you could care less about each character, but they are sometimes so funny, dense, or totally outlandish that you just need to know... So, after all that, I realized that there is no way I ever want to be among the rich and famous and their lifestyles... But sometimes they are funny to watch, even when you are astounded with what these people might get into...</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">For a mystery, I'd have to rank it a 2... For pure stupid entertainment for character development... it's probably a 5, but only if you can enjoy them one time and never hear about those people again in your life...LOL But not doing a proper book closeout about a potential murder moved me back for a total of 3 on a scale of 1-5... You'll have to decide on this one...</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">GABixlerReviews</span></b></div>Glenda A Bixler Reviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15829561936090262198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6957929086575807165.post-1426016513665017072024-02-15T12:12:00.000-05:002024-02-15T12:12:08.771-05:00Manny's Most Recent Book is Finished! Congratulations, Bro! But Right Now He's Sharing Here...<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="339" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/01f1wqc04xI" width="485" youtube-src-id="01f1wqc04xI"></iframe></div><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 18.75px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFktTfjWr4iYZF4ZLwKdk-dhh7IT9vpD3Yy2whCZp3f2vgF6WGgqWwku_7RcWXnEX0PTLuwMV9cYLj8UWEgLUtOtd2HxvWfrVRdyu4I_zOUX3-QoWTZ41qnae2nGOu5ASmeSwrEgx8hWRzQfP1ZT2wK_1-LwjTky75gIqMQNT9BH0On4WRHj_9nPrJ0dA/s960/426175107_308247328910152_7210873518700005697_n.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="834" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFktTfjWr4iYZF4ZLwKdk-dhh7IT9vpD3Yy2whCZp3f2vgF6WGgqWwku_7RcWXnEX0PTLuwMV9cYLj8UWEgLUtOtd2HxvWfrVRdyu4I_zOUX3-QoWTZ41qnae2nGOu5ASmeSwrEgx8hWRzQfP1ZT2wK_1-LwjTky75gIqMQNT9BH0On4WRHj_9nPrJ0dA/s320/426175107_308247328910152_7210873518700005697_n.jpg" width="278" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I'm out here by the water. It's purrrdy cold. Relaxing. Got the book finished. Now it's time to live a little...</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="367" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/G11a0UzQekI" width="471" youtube-src-id="G11a0UzQekI"></iframe></b></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">NO CAN DO</span></b></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Those who want to define me, want to confine me. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>But I know where I come from and who I am. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Hyphenations rule in their minds, not mine. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Definitions are their way </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>to lord over and control, </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>so they think. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Even my mind. My spirit. My soul. My heart. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Their systems, religion, distorted history. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Their indoctrinations, and precepts and laws. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>And education and entertainment. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Their everything. Everything belongs to them. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>And they leave me naked to society and the world, Idenified by their definitions of who I am, </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>and how I'm to be regarded as, </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>nothing more than a shell of who I really am, </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>of no consequence, of no value. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Hyphenated with their blessings, </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>to act the role they have created for me, to be. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>My response to all they have destroyed and continue to, is, </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Toma ! Itepo emouttiak bwe'ituk te Yoeme / Yaqui. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>I am proud to be Yaqui! </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>But I owe no explanations. I don't need to justify. I don' need to ask for permission. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>I'm just responding to what's been forced upon me. For centuries. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>And like my ancestors before me, I live with their inheritance, the fire, of resistance. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>A ceremony. A song. A prayer. Cannot be extinguished. Cannot be denied. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Paas into waata. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Peace and love. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Manny M.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie1J-0AHU-qxF4oAyV5yVuSv2wsoXJt-D59xn7G13ePoZT0wNKoOX64rbs6LGn23DMbeZhfzmbZ5JNqGJaUHsUeDEae7Q6kmnyv4WJMsqfJj-7alYiSoUbHE8jm4HAh4rHFcfUR6dO3fRSHTZjU9t3hn6JaWre9-uvWJlDm4mucryQt5DSblQX0lzVK_Q/s320/426374108_310556702012548_8093081138683731463_n%20(1).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="240" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie1J-0AHU-qxF4oAyV5yVuSv2wsoXJt-D59xn7G13ePoZT0wNKoOX64rbs6LGn23DMbeZhfzmbZ5JNqGJaUHsUeDEae7Q6kmnyv4WJMsqfJj-7alYiSoUbHE8jm4HAh4rHFcfUR6dO3fRSHTZjU9t3hn6JaWre9-uvWJlDm4mucryQt5DSblQX0lzVK_Q/w150-h200/426374108_310556702012548_8093081138683731463_n%20(1).jpg" width="150" /></b></span></a></div><div class="__fb-light-mode x1n2onr6" role="row" style="--accent: #0866FF; --alert-banner-corner-radius: 8px; --always-black: black; --always-dark-gradient: linear-gradient(rgba(0,0,0,0), rgba(0,0,0,0.6)); --always-dark-overlay: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.4); --always-gray-40: #65676B; --always-gray-75: #BCC0C4; --always-gray-95: #F0F2F5; --always-light-overlay: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.4); --always-white: #FFFFFF; --attachment-footer-background: #F0F2F5; --background-deemphasized: #F0F2F5; --badge-background-color-blue: var(--accent); --badge-background-color-dark-gray: var(--secondary-icon); --badge-background-color-gray: var(--disabled-icon); --badge-background-color-green: var(--positive); --badge-background-color-light-blue: var(--highlight-bg); --badge-background-color-red: var(--notification-badge); --badge-background-color-yellow: var(--base-lemon); --base-blue: #1877F2; --base-cherry: #F3425F; --base-grape: #9360F7; --base-lemon: #F7B928; --base-lime: #45BD62; --base-pink: #FF66BF; --base-seafoam: #54C7EC; --base-teal: #2ABBA7; --base-tomato: #FB724B; --blue-link: #0064D1; --blueprint-button-height-large: 48px; --blueprint-button-height-medium: 40px; --body-emphasized-font-family: Placeholder Font; --body-emphasized-font-size: 0.9375rem; --body-emphasized-font-weight: 600; --body-emphasized-line-height: 1.3333; --body-font-family: Placeholder Font; --body-font-size: 0.9375rem; --body-font-weight: 400; --body-line-height: 1.3333; --border-focused: #65676B; --button-corner-radius-large: 12px; --button-corner-radius-medium: 10px; --button-corner-radius: 6px; --button-height-large: 40px; --button-height-medium: 36px; --button-icon-padding-large: 16px; --button-icon-padding-medium: 16px; --button-inner-icon-spacing-large: 3px; --button-inner-icon-spacing-medium: 3px; --button-padding-horizontal-large: 16px; --button-padding-horizontal-medium: 16px; --card-background-flat: #F7F8FA; --card-background: #FFFFFF; --card-box-shadow: 0 12px 28px 0 var(--shadow-2), 0 2px 4px 0 var(--shadow-1); --card-corner-radius: 8px; --card-padding-horizontal: 10px; --card-padding-vertical: 20px; --chat-bubble-border-radius: 18px; --chat-bubble-padding-horizontal: 12px; --chat-bubble-padding-vertical: 8px; --chat-incoming-message-bubble-background-color: #F0F0F0; --chat-replied-message-background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); --chat-text-blockquote-color-background-line: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.12); --chat-text-blockquote-color-text-primary-media: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.7); --chip-corner-radius: 6px; --comment-background: #F0F2F5; --comment-footer-background: #F6F9FA; --dataviz-primary-1: rgb(48,200,180); --dataviz-primary-2: rgb(134,218,255); --dataviz-primary-3: rgb(95,170,255); --dataviz-secondary-1: rgb(118,62,230); --dataviz-secondary-2: rgb(147,96,247); --dataviz-secondary-3: rgb(219,26,139); --dataviz-supplementary-1: rgb(255,122,105); --dataviz-supplementary-2: rgb(241,168,23); --dataviz-supplementary-3: rgb(49,162,76); --dataviz-supplementary-4: rgb(50,52,54); --dialog-anchor-vertical-padding: 56px; --dialog-corner-radius: 8px; --dialog-size-medium-max-width: 700px; --dialog-size-medium-width: 100%; --dialog-size-small-max-width: 548px; --dialog-size-small-width: 100%; --disabled-button-background: #E4E6EB; --disabled-button-text: #BCC0C4; --disabled-icon: #BCC0C4; --disabled-text: #BCC0C4; --divider: #CED0D4; --event-date: #F3425F; --fb-logo-color: #2D88FF; --fb-logo: #0866FF; --fb-wordmark: #0866FF; --fds-animation-enter-exit-in: cubic-bezier(0.14, 1, 0.34, 1); --fds-animation-enter-exit-out: cubic-bezier(0.45, 0.1, 0.2, 1); --fds-animation-expand-collapse-in: cubic-bezier(0.17, 0.17, 0, 1); --fds-animation-expand-collapse-out: cubic-bezier(0.17, 0.17, 0, 1); --fds-animation-fade-in: cubic-bezier(0, 0, 1, 1); --fds-animation-fade-out: cubic-bezier(0, 0, 1, 1); --fds-animation-move-in: cubic-bezier(0.17, 0.17, 0, 1); --fds-animation-move-out: cubic-bezier(0.17, 0.17, 0, 1); --fds-animation-passive-move-in: cubic-bezier(0.5, 0, 0.1, 1); --fds-animation-passive-move-out: cubic-bezier(0.5, 0, 0.1, 1); --fds-animation-quick-move-in: cubic-bezier(0.1, 0.9, 0.2, 1); --fds-animation-quick-move-out: cubic-bezier(0.1, 0.9, 0.2, 1); --fds-animation-swap-shuffle-in: cubic-bezier(0.14, 1, 0.34, 1); --fds-animation-swap-shuffle-out: cubic-bezier(0.45, 0.1, 0.2, 1); --fds-black-alpha-05: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.05); --fds-black-alpha-10: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); --fds-black-alpha-15: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.15); --fds-black-alpha-20: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); --fds-black-alpha-30: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); --fds-black-alpha-40: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.4); --fds-black-alpha-50: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5); --fds-black-alpha-60: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6); --fds-black-alpha-80: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); --fds-black: #000000; --fds-blue-05: #ECF3FF; --fds-blue-30: #AAC9FF; --fds-blue-40: #77A7FF; --fds-blue-60: #1877F2; --fds-blue-70: #2851A3; --fds-blue-80: #1D3C78; --fds-button-text: #444950; --fds-comment-background: #F2F3F5; --fds-dark-mode-gray-100: #1C1C1C; --fds-dark-mode-gray-35: #CCCCCC; --fds-dark-mode-gray-50: #828282; --fds-dark-mode-gray-70: #4A4A4A; --fds-dark-mode-gray-80: #373737; --fds-dark-mode-gray-90: #282828; --fds-duration-extra-extra-short-in: 100ms; --fds-duration-extra-extra-short-out: 100ms; --fds-duration-extra-long-in: 1000ms; --fds-duration-extra-long-out: 1000ms; --fds-duration-extra-short-in: 200ms; --fds-duration-extra-short-out: 150ms; --fds-duration-long-in: 500ms; --fds-duration-long-out: 350ms; --fds-duration-medium-in: 400ms; --fds-duration-medium-out: 350ms; --fds-duration-none: 0ms; --fds-duration-short-in: 280ms; --fds-duration-short-out: 200ms; --fds-fast: 200ms; --fds-gray-00: #F5F6F7; --fds-gray-05: #F2F3F5; --fds-gray-100: #1C1E21; --fds-gray-10: #EBEDF0; --fds-gray-20: #DADDE1; --fds-gray-25: #CCD0D5; --fds-gray-30: #BEC3C9; --fds-gray-45: #8D949E; --fds-gray-70: #606770; --fds-gray-80: #444950; --fds-gray-90: #303338; --fds-green-55: #00A400; --fds-highlight-cell-background: #ECF3FF; --fds-highlight: #3578E5; --fds-primary-icon: #1C1E21; --fds-primary-text: #1C1E21; --fds-red-55: #FA383E; --fds-slow: 400ms; --fds-soft: cubic-bezier(.08,.52,.52,1); --fds-spectrum-aluminum-tint-70: #E4F0F6; --fds-spectrum-blue-gray-tint-70: #CFD1D5; --fds-spectrum-cherry-tint-70: #FBCCD2; --fds-spectrum-cherry: #F35369; --fds-spectrum-grape-tint-70: #DDD5F0; --fds-spectrum-grape-tint-90: #F4F1FA; --fds-spectrum-lemon-dark-1: #F5C33B; --fds-spectrum-lemon-tint-70: #FEF2D1; --fds-spectrum-lime-tint-70: #E4F0D5; --fds-spectrum-lime: #A3CE71; --fds-spectrum-orange-tint-70: #FCDEC5; --fds-spectrum-orange-tint-90: #FEF4EC; --fds-spectrum-seafoam-tint-70: #CAEEF9; --fds-spectrum-slate-dark-2: #89A1AC; --fds-spectrum-slate-tint-70: #EAEFF2; --fds-spectrum-teal-dark-1: #4DBBA6; --fds-spectrum-teal-dark-2: #31A38D; --fds-spectrum-teal-tint-70: #D2F0EA; --fds-spectrum-teal-tint-90: #F0FAF8; --fds-spectrum-teal: #6BCEBB; --fds-spectrum-tomato-tint-30: #F38E7B; --fds-spectrum-tomato-tint-90: #FDEFED; --fds-spectrum-tomato: #FB724B; --fds-strong: cubic-bezier(.12,.8,.32,1); --fds-white-alpha-05: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.05); --fds-white-alpha-10: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.1); --fds-white-alpha-20: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.2); --fds-white-alpha-30: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.3); --fds-white-alpha-40: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.4); --fds-white-alpha-50: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5); --fds-white-alpha-60: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.6); --fds-white-alpha-80: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.8); --fds-white: #FFFFFF; --fds-yellow-20: #FFBA00; --filter-accent: invert(19%) sepia(70%) saturate(5671%) hue-rotate(203deg) brightness(96%) contrast(101%); --filter-always-white: invert(100%); --filter-blue-link-icon: invert(30%) sepia(98%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(166.5%) hue-rotate(192deg) brightness(91%) contrast(101%); --filter-disabled-icon: invert(80%) sepia(6%) saturate(200%) saturate(120%) hue-rotate(173deg) brightness(98%) contrast(89%); --filter-negative: invert(25%) sepia(33%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(110%) hue-rotate(345deg) brightness(132%) contrast(96%); --filter-placeholder-icon: invert(59%) sepia(11%) saturate(200%) saturate(135%) hue-rotate(176deg) brightness(96%) contrast(94%); --filter-positive: invert(37%) sepia(61%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(115%) hue-rotate(91deg) brightness(97%) contrast(105%); --filter-primary-accent: invert(27%) sepia(95%) saturate(3116%) hue-rotate(212deg) brightness(99%) contrast(105%); --filter-primary-icon: invert(8%) sepia(10%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(166%) hue-rotate(177deg) brightness(104%) contrast(91%); --filter-secondary-icon: invert(39%) sepia(21%) saturate(200%) saturate(109.5%) hue-rotate(174deg) brightness(94%) contrast(86%); --filter-warning-icon: invert(77%) sepia(29%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(128%) hue-rotate(359deg) brightness(102%) contrast(107%); --focus-ring-blue: #0866FF; --focus-ring-outline-forced-colors: 2px auto transparent !important; --focus-ring-outline-link: 2px auto var(--focus-ring-blue); --focus-ring-shadow-default: 0 0 0 2px var(--always-white), 0 0 0 4px var(--focus-ring-blue); --focus-ring-shadow-inset: 0 0 0 2px var(--focus-ring-blue) inset, 0 0 0 4px var(--always-white) inset; --font-family-apple: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, '.SFNSText-Regular', sans-serif; --font-family-code: ui-monospace, Menlo, Consolas, Monaco, monospace; --font-family-default: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; --font-family-segoe: Segoe UI Historic, Segoe UI, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; --glimmer-animation-direction: alternate; --glimmer-animation-duration: 1000ms; --glimmer-animation-timing-function: steps(10, end); --glimmer-corner-radius: 8px; --glimmer-opacity-max: 1; --glimmer-opacity-min: 0.25; --glimmer-spinner-icon: #65676B; --global-panel-width-expanded: 0px; --global-panel-width: 0px; --header-height: 56px; --headline1-font-family: Optimistic Display Bold, system-ui, sans-serif; --headline1-font-size: 1.75rem; --headline1-font-weight: 700; --headline1-line-height: 1.2143; --headline2-font-family: Optimistic Display Bold, system-ui, sans-serif; --headline2-font-size: 1.5rem; --headline2-font-weight: 700; --headline2-line-height: 1.25; --headline3-font-family: Optimistic Display Bold, system-ui, sans-serif; --headline3-font-size: 1.0625rem; --headline3-font-weight: 700; --headline3-line-height: 1.2941; --hero-banner-background: #FFFFFF; --highlight-bg: #E7F3FF; --hosted-view-selected-state: #EBF5FF; --hover-overlay: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.05); --image-corner-radius: 4px; --input-background-disabled: #F0F2F5; --input-background: #FFFFFF; --input-border-color-hover: var(--placeholder-text); --input-border-color: #CED0D4; --input-border-width: 1px; --input-corner-radius: 6px; --input-label-color-highlighted: #0064D1; --list-cell-chevron: #65676B; --list-cell-corner-radius: 8px; --list-cell-min-height: 52px; --list-cell-padding-vertical-with-addon: 14px; --list-cell-padding-vertical: 20px; --media-hover: rgba(68, 73, 80, 0.15); --media-inner-border: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); --media-outer-border: #FFFFFF; --media-pressed: rgba(68, 73, 80, 0.35); --menu-item-base-margin-horizontal: 8px; --menu-item-base-padding-horizontal: 8px; --messenger-card-background: #FFFFFF; --messenger-header-background: var(--messenger-card-background); --messenger-reply-background: #F0F2F5; --meta-emphasized-font-family: Placeholder Font; --meta-emphasized-font-size: 0.8125rem; --meta-emphasized-font-weight: 600; --meta-emphasized-line-height: 1.3846; --meta-font-family: Placeholder Font; --meta-font-size: 0.8125rem; --meta-font-weight: 400; --meta-line-height: 1.3846; --mwp-message-list-profile-start-padding: 8px; --mwp-reply-background-color: var(--comment-footer-background); --nav-bar-background-gradient-wash: linear-gradient(to top, #F0F2F5, rgba(240,242,245.9), rgba(240,242,245,.7), rgba(240,242,245,.4), rgba(240,242,245,0)); --nav-bar-background-gradient: linear-gradient(to top, #FFFFFF, rgba(255,255,255.9), rgba(255,255,255,.7), rgba(255,255,255,.4), rgba(255,255,255,0)); --nav-bar-background: #FFFFFF; --nav-list-cell-corner-radius: 8px; --nav-list-cell-min-height: 0px; --nav-list-cell-padding-vertical-with-addon: 16px; --nav-list-cell-padding-vertical: 16px; --negative-background: hsl(350, 87%, 55%, 20%); --negative: hsl(350, 87%, 55%); --new-notification-background: #E7F3FF; --non-media-pressed-on-dark: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.3); --non-media-pressed: rgba(68, 73, 80, 0.15); --notification-badge: #e41e3f; --overlay-alpha-80: rgba(244, 244, 244, 0.8); --overlay-on-media: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6); --page-footer-padding-vertical: 16px; --placeholder-icon: #65676B; --placeholder-image: rgb(164, 167, 171); --placeholder-text-on-media: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5); --placeholder-text: #65676B; --popover-background: #FFFFFF; --positive-background: #DEEFE1; --positive: #31A24C; --press-overlay: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.10); --primary-button-background: #0866FF; --primary-button-icon: #FFFFFF; --primary-button-pressed: #77A7FF; --primary-button-text: #FFFFFF; --primary-deemphasized-button-background: #EBF5FF; --primary-deemphasized-button-pressed-overlay: rgba(25, 110, 255, 0.15); --primary-deemphasized-button-pressed: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.05); --primary-deemphasized-button-text: #0064D1; --primary-icon: #050505; --primary-label-font-family: Optimistic Display Medium, system-ui, sans-serif; --primary-label-font-size: 1.0625rem; --primary-label-font-weight: 500; --primary-label-line-height: 1.2941; --primary-text-on-media: #FFFFFF; --primary-text: #050505; --primary-web-focus-indicator: #D24294; --progress-ring-blue-background: #0866FF33; --progress-ring-blue-foreground: #0866FF; --progress-ring-disabled-background: rgba(190,195,201, 0.2); --progress-ring-disabled-foreground: #BEC3C9; --progress-ring-neutral-background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); --progress-ring-neutral-foreground: #000000; --progress-ring-on-media-background: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.2); --progress-ring-on-media-foreground: #FFFFFF; --radio-border-color-disabled: var(--disabled-button-background); --radio-border-color-selected: var(--accent); --radio-border-color: var(--primary-icon); --radio-border-width: 2px; --radio-checked-icon-color-disabled: var(--disabled-button-background); --radio-checked-icon-color: var(--accent); --radio-checked-icon-size-large: 12px; --radio-checked-icon-size-medium: 12px; --radio-size-large: 24px; --radio-size-medium: 20px; --rating-star-active: #EB660D; --scroll-shadow: 0 1px 2px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1), 0 -1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) inset; --scroll-thumb: #BCC0C4; --secondary-button-background-floating: #ffffff; --secondary-button-background-on-dark: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.4); --secondary-button-background: #E4E6EB; --secondary-button-pressed: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.05); --secondary-button-stroke: transparent; --secondary-button-text: #050505; --secondary-icon: #65676B; --secondary-label-font-family: Placeholder Font; --secondary-label-font-size: 0.9375rem; --secondary-label-font-weight: 500; --secondary-label-line-height: 1.3333; --secondary-text-on-media: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); --secondary-text: #65676B; --section-header-addonend-button-padding-horizontal: 0px; --section-header-addonend-button-padding-vertical: 0px; --section-header-addonend-margin-horizontal: 8px; --section-header-addonstart-margin-horizontal: 12px; --section-header-padding-vertical: 16px; --section-header-subtitle-margin-vertical: 14px; --section-header-subtitle-with-addonend-margin-vertical: 6px; --section-header-text: #4B4C4F; --shadow-1: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); --shadow-2: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); --shadow-5: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5); --shadow-8: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); --shadow-elevated: 0 8px 20px 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2), 0 2px 4px 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); --shadow-inset: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5); --shadow-persistent: 0px 0px 12px rgba(52, 72, 84, 0.05); --shadow-primary: 0px 5px 12px rgba(52, 72, 84, 0.2); --surface-background: #FFFFFF; --switch-active: hsl(214, 89%, 52%); --tertiary-label-font-family: Placeholder Font; --tertiary-label-font-size: 0.6875rem; --tertiary-label-font-weight: 500; --tertiary-label-line-height: 1.4545; --text-badge-attention-background: hsl(40, 89%, 52%); --text-badge-corner-radius: 4px; --text-badge-critical-background: #e41e3f; --text-badge-info-background: hsl(214, 89%, 52%); --text-badge-padding-horizontal: 6px; --text-badge-padding-vertical: 6px; --text-badge-success-background: #31A24C; --text-highlight: #0866FF33; --text-input-caption-margin-top: 10px; --text-input-field-font-family: Placeholder Font; --text-input-field-font-size: 1rem; --text-input-field-font-weight: 500; --text-input-field-line-height: 1.2941; --text-input-label-font-family: Placeholder Font; --text-input-label-font-size-scale-multiplier: 0.75; --text-input-label-font-size: 17px; --text-input-label-font-weight: 400; --text-input-label-line-height: 1.2941; --text-input-label-top: 22px; --text-input-min-height: 64px; --text-input-multi-padding-between-text-scrollbar: 20px; --text-input-multi-padding-scrollbar: 16px; --text-input-outside-label: #000000; --text-input-padding-vertical: 12px; --toast-addon-padding-horizontal: 6px; --toast-addon-padding-vertical: 6px; --toast-background: #FFFFFF; --toast-container-max-width: 100%; --toast-container-min-width: 288px; --toast-container-padding-horizontal: 10px; --toast-container-padding-vertical: 16px; --toast-corner-radius: 8px; --toast-text-link: #216FDB; --toast-text: #1C2B33; --toggle-active-background: #EBF5FF; --toggle-active-icon: #0064D1; --toggle-active-text: #0064D1; --toggle-button-active-background: #E7F3FF; --tooltip-background: rgba(244, 244, 244, 0.8); --tooltip-box-shadow: 0 2px 4px 0 var(--shadow-5); --tooltip-corner-radius: 8px; --typeahead-list-outer-padding-vertical: 2px; --warning: hsl(40, 89%, 52%); --wash: #E4E6EB; --web-wash: #F0F2F5; position: relative;"><div role="gridcell"><div aria-label="Details and actions" class="x1i10hfl x1qjc9v5 xjqpnuy xa49m3k xqeqjp1 x2hbi6w x13fuv20 xu3j5b3 x1q0q8m5 x26u7qi x972fbf xcfux6l x1qhh985 xm0m39n x9f619 x1ypdohk xdl72j9 x2lah0s xe8uvvx xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x2lwn1j xeuugli x16tdsg8 x1hl2dhg xggy1nq x1t137rt x3nfvp2 x1q0g3np x87ps6o x1lku1pv x1a2a7pz __fb-dark-mode x1h0vfkc x1lq5wgf xgqcy7u x30kzoy x9jhf4c x152obne xlr8s2x xz9dl7a xn6708d xsag5q8 x1ye3gou x1qiirwl x105ttfm x1vjfegm xzpqnlu x1hyvwdk xjm9jq1 x6ikm8r x10wlt62 x10l6tqk x1i1rx1s" role="button" style="--accent: #0866FF; --alert-banner-corner-radius: 8px; --always-black: black; --always-dark-gradient: linear-gradient(rgba(0,0,0,0), rgba(0,0,0,0.6)); --always-dark-overlay: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.4); --always-gray-40: #65676B; --always-gray-75: #BCC0C4; --always-gray-95: #F0F2F5; --always-light-overlay: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.4); --always-white: white; --attachment-footer-background: rgba(255,255,255,0.1); --background-deemphasized: rgba(255,255,255,0.1); --badge-background-color-blue: var(--accent); --badge-background-color-dark-gray: var(--secondary-icon); --badge-background-color-gray: var(--disabled-icon); --badge-background-color-green: var(--positive); --badge-background-color-light-blue: var(--highlight-bg); --badge-background-color-red: var(--notification-badge); --badge-background-color-yellow: var(--base-lemon); --base-blue: #1877F2; --base-cherry: #F3425F; --base-grape: #9360F7; --base-lemon: #F7B928; --base-lime: #45BD62; --base-pink: #FF66BF; --base-seafoam: #54C7EC; --base-teal: #2ABBA7; --base-tomato: #FB724B; --blue-link: #5AA7FF; --blueprint-button-height-large: 48px; --blueprint-button-height-medium: 40px; --body-emphasized-font-family: Placeholder Font; --body-emphasized-font-size: 0.9375rem; --body-emphasized-font-weight: 600; --body-emphasized-line-height: 1.3333; --body-font-family: Placeholder Font; --body-font-size: 0.9375rem; --body-font-weight: 400; --body-line-height: 1.3333; --border-focused: #8A8D91; --button-corner-radius-large: 12px; --button-corner-radius-medium: 10px; --button-corner-radius: 6px; --button-height-large: 40px; --button-height-medium: 36px; --button-icon-padding-large: 16px; --button-icon-padding-medium: 16px; --button-inner-icon-spacing-large: 3px; --button-inner-icon-spacing-medium: 3px; --button-padding-horizontal-large: 16px; --button-padding-horizontal-medium: 16px; --card-background-flat: #323436; --card-background: #242526; --card-box-shadow: 0 12px 28px 0 var(--shadow-2), 0 2px 4px 0 var(--shadow-1); --card-corner-radius: 8px; --card-padding-horizontal: 10px; --card-padding-vertical: 20px; --chat-bubble-border-radius: 18px; --chat-bubble-padding-horizontal: 12px; --chat-bubble-padding-vertical: 8px; --chat-incoming-message-bubble-background-color: #303030; --chat-replied-message-background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.12); --chat-text-blockquote-color-background-line: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.19); --chat-text-blockquote-color-text-primary-media: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.7); --chip-corner-radius: 6px; --comment-background: #3A3B3C; --comment-footer-background: #4E4F50; --dataviz-primary-1: rgb(48,200,180); --dataviz-primary-2: rgb(134,218,255); --dataviz-primary-3: rgb(95,170,255); --dataviz-secondary-1: rgb(129,77,231); --dataviz-secondary-2: rgb(168,124,255); --dataviz-secondary-3: rgb(219,26,139); --dataviz-supplementary-1: rgb(255,122,105); --dataviz-supplementary-2: rgb(241,168,23); --dataviz-supplementary-3: rgb(49,162,76); --dataviz-supplementary-4: rgb(228,230,235); --dialog-anchor-vertical-padding: 56px; --dialog-corner-radius: 8px; --dialog-size-medium-max-width: 700px; --dialog-size-medium-width: 100%; --dialog-size-small-max-width: 548px; --dialog-size-small-width: 100%; --disabled-button-background: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.2); --disabled-button-text: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.3); --disabled-icon: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.3); --disabled-text: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.3); --divider: #3E4042; --event-date: #F3425F; --fb-logo-color: #2D88FF; --fb-logo: #0866FF; --fb-wordmark: #FFFFFF; --fds-animation-enter-exit-in: cubic-bezier(0.14, 1, 0.34, 1); --fds-animation-enter-exit-out: cubic-bezier(0.45, 0.1, 0.2, 1); --fds-animation-expand-collapse-in: cubic-bezier(0.17, 0.17, 0, 1); --fds-animation-expand-collapse-out: cubic-bezier(0.17, 0.17, 0, 1); --fds-animation-fade-in: cubic-bezier(0, 0, 1, 1); --fds-animation-fade-out: cubic-bezier(0, 0, 1, 1); --fds-animation-move-in: cubic-bezier(0.17, 0.17, 0, 1); --fds-animation-move-out: cubic-bezier(0.17, 0.17, 0, 1); --fds-animation-passive-move-in: cubic-bezier(0.5, 0, 0.1, 1); --fds-animation-passive-move-out: cubic-bezier(0.5, 0, 0.1, 1); --fds-animation-quick-move-in: cubic-bezier(0.1, 0.9, 0.2, 1); --fds-animation-quick-move-out: cubic-bezier(0.1, 0.9, 0.2, 1); --fds-animation-swap-shuffle-in: cubic-bezier(0.14, 1, 0.34, 1); --fds-animation-swap-shuffle-out: cubic-bezier(0.45, 0.1, 0.2, 1); --fds-black-alpha-05: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.05); --fds-black-alpha-10: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); --fds-black-alpha-15: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.15); --fds-black-alpha-20: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); --fds-black-alpha-30: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); --fds-black-alpha-40: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.4); --fds-black-alpha-50: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5); --fds-black-alpha-60: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6); --fds-black-alpha-80: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); --fds-black: black; --fds-blue-05: black; --fds-blue-30: black; --fds-blue-40: black; --fds-blue-60: black; --fds-blue-70: black; --fds-blue-80: black; --fds-button-text: black; --fds-comment-background: black; --fds-dark-mode-gray-100: black; --fds-dark-mode-gray-35: black; --fds-dark-mode-gray-50: black; --fds-dark-mode-gray-70: black; --fds-dark-mode-gray-80: black; --fds-dark-mode-gray-90: black; --fds-duration-extra-extra-short-in: 100ms; --fds-duration-extra-extra-short-out: 100ms; --fds-duration-extra-long-in: 1000ms; --fds-duration-extra-long-out: 1000ms; --fds-duration-extra-short-in: 200ms; --fds-duration-extra-short-out: 150ms; --fds-duration-long-in: 500ms; --fds-duration-long-out: 350ms; --fds-duration-medium-in: 400ms; --fds-duration-medium-out: 350ms; --fds-duration-none: 0ms; --fds-duration-short-in: 280ms; --fds-duration-short-out: 200ms; --fds-fast: 200ms; --fds-gray-00: black; --fds-gray-05: black; --fds-gray-100: black; --fds-gray-10: black; --fds-gray-20: black; --fds-gray-25: black; --fds-gray-30: black; --fds-gray-45: black; --fds-gray-70: black; --fds-gray-80: black; --fds-gray-90: black; --fds-green-55: black; --fds-highlight-cell-background: black; --fds-highlight: black; --fds-primary-icon: white; --fds-primary-text: white; --fds-red-55: black; --fds-slow: 400ms; --fds-soft: cubic-bezier(.08,.52,.52,1); --fds-spectrum-aluminum-tint-70: black; --fds-spectrum-blue-gray-tint-70: black; --fds-spectrum-cherry-tint-70: black; --fds-spectrum-cherry: black; --fds-spectrum-grape-tint-70: black; --fds-spectrum-grape-tint-90: black; --fds-spectrum-lemon-dark-1: black; --fds-spectrum-lemon-tint-70: black; --fds-spectrum-lime-tint-70: black; --fds-spectrum-lime: black; --fds-spectrum-orange-tint-70: black; --fds-spectrum-orange-tint-90: black; --fds-spectrum-seafoam-tint-70: black; --fds-spectrum-slate-dark-2: black; --fds-spectrum-slate-tint-70: black; --fds-spectrum-teal-dark-1: black; --fds-spectrum-teal-dark-2: black; --fds-spectrum-teal-tint-70: black; --fds-spectrum-teal-tint-90: black; --fds-spectrum-teal: black; --fds-spectrum-tomato-tint-30: black; --fds-spectrum-tomato-tint-90: black; --fds-spectrum-tomato: black; --fds-strong: cubic-bezier(.12,.8,.32,1); --fds-white-alpha-05: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.05); --fds-white-alpha-10: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.1); --fds-white-alpha-20: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.2); --fds-white-alpha-30: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.3); --fds-white-alpha-40: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.4); --fds-white-alpha-50: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5); --fds-white-alpha-60: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.6); --fds-white-alpha-80: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.8); --fds-white: black; --fds-yellow-20: black; --filter-accent: invert(74%) sepia(14%) saturate(7129%) hue-rotate(185deg) brightness(102%) contrast(101%); --filter-always-white: invert(100%); --filter-blue-link-icon: invert(73%) sepia(29%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(103.25%) hue-rotate(189deg) brightness(101%) contrast(101%); --filter-disabled-icon: invert(100%) opacity(30%); --filter-negative: invert(25%) sepia(33%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(110%) hue-rotate(345deg) brightness(132%) contrast(96%); --filter-placeholder-icon: invert(59%) sepia(11%) saturate(200%) saturate(135%) hue-rotate(176deg) brightness(96%) contrast(94%); --filter-positive: invert(37%) sepia(61%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(115%) hue-rotate(91deg) brightness(97%) contrast(105%); --filter-primary-accent: invert(27%) sepia(95%) saturate(3116%) hue-rotate(212deg) brightness(99%) contrast(105%); --filter-primary-icon: invert(89%) sepia(6%) hue-rotate(185deg); --filter-secondary-icon: invert(62%) sepia(98%) saturate(12%) hue-rotate(175deg) brightness(90%) contrast(96%); --filter-warning-icon: invert(77%) sepia(29%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(128%) hue-rotate(359deg) brightness(102%) contrast(107%); --focus-ring-blue: #1D85FC; --focus-ring-outline-forced-colors: 2px auto transparent !important; --focus-ring-outline-link: 2px auto var(--focus-ring-blue); --focus-ring-shadow-default: 0 0 0 2px var(--always-white), 0 0 0 4px var(--focus-ring-blue); --focus-ring-shadow-inset: 0 0 0 2px var(--focus-ring-blue) inset, 0 0 0 4px var(--always-white) inset; --font-family-apple: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, '.SFNSText-Regular', sans-serif; --font-family-code: ui-monospace, Menlo, Consolas, Monaco, monospace; --font-family-default: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; --font-family-segoe: Segoe UI Historic, Segoe UI, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; --glimmer-animation-direction: alternate; --glimmer-animation-duration: 1000ms; --glimmer-animation-timing-function: steps(10, end); --glimmer-corner-radius: 8px; --glimmer-opacity-max: 1; --glimmer-opacity-min: 0.25; --glimmer-spinner-icon: white; --global-panel-width-expanded: 0px; --global-panel-width: 0px; --header-height: 56px; --headline1-font-family: Optimistic Display Bold, system-ui, sans-serif; --headline1-font-size: 1.75rem; --headline1-font-weight: 700; --headline1-line-height: 1.2143; --headline2-font-family: Optimistic Display Bold, system-ui, sans-serif; --headline2-font-size: 1.5rem; --headline2-font-weight: 700; --headline2-line-height: 1.25; --headline3-font-family: Optimistic Display Bold, system-ui, sans-serif; --headline3-font-size: 1.0625rem; --headline3-font-weight: 700; --headline3-line-height: 1.2941; --hero-banner-background: #E85D07; --highlight-bg: rgba(24, 119, 242, .31); --hosted-view-selected-state: #1D85FC19; --hover-overlay: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.1); --image-corner-radius: 4px; --input-background-disabled: #18191A; --input-background: #242526; --input-border-color-hover: var(--placeholder-text); --input-border-color: #3E4042; --input-border-width: 1px; --input-corner-radius: 6px; --input-label-color-highlighted: #3E93F8; --list-cell-chevron: #B0B3B8; --list-cell-corner-radius: 8px; --list-cell-min-height: 52px; --list-cell-padding-vertical-with-addon: 14px; --list-cell-padding-vertical: 20px; --media-hover: rgba(68, 73, 80, 0.15); --media-inner-border: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.05); --media-outer-border: #33363A; --media-pressed: rgba(68, 73, 80, 0.35); --menu-item-base-margin-horizontal: 8px; --menu-item-base-padding-horizontal: 8px; --messenger-card-background: #242526; --messenger-reply-background: #18191A; --meta-emphasized-font-family: Placeholder Font; --meta-emphasized-font-size: 0.8125rem; --meta-emphasized-font-weight: 600; --meta-emphasized-line-height: 1.3846; --meta-font-family: Placeholder Font; --meta-font-size: 0.8125rem; --meta-font-weight: 400; --meta-line-height: 1.3846; --nav-bar-background-gradient-wash: linear-gradient(to top, #18191A, rgba(24,25,26,.9), rgba(24,25,26,.7), rgba(24,25,26,.4), rgba(24,25,26,0)); --nav-bar-background-gradient: linear-gradient(to top, #242526, rgba(36,37,38,.9), rgba(36,37,38,.7), rgba(36,37,38,.4), rgba(36,37,38,0)); --nav-bar-background: #242526; --nav-list-cell-corner-radius: 8px; --nav-list-cell-min-height: 0px; --nav-list-cell-padding-vertical-with-addon: 16px; --nav-list-cell-padding-vertical: 16px; --negative-background: hsl(350, 87%, 55%, 20%); --negative: hsl(350, 87%, 55%); --new-notification-background: #E7F3FF; --non-media-pressed-on-dark: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.3); --non-media-pressed: rgba(68, 73, 80, 0.15); --notification-badge: #e41e3f; --overlay-alpha-80: rgba(11, 11, 11, 0.8); --overlay-on-media: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6); --page-footer-padding-vertical: 16px; --placeholder-icon: #8A8D91; --placeholder-image: rgb(164, 167, 171); --placeholder-text-on-media: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5); --placeholder-text: #8A8D91; --popover-background: #3E4042; --positive-background: #1F3520; --positive: #31A24C; --press-overlay: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.1); --primary-button-background: #0866FF; --primary-button-icon: #FFFFFF; --primary-button-pressed: #77A7FF; --primary-button-text: #FFFFFF; --primary-deemphasized-button-background: #1D85FC33; --primary-deemphasized-button-pressed-overlay: rgba(25, 110, 255, 0.15); --primary-deemphasized-button-pressed: rgba(24, 119, 242, 0.2); --primary-deemphasized-button-text: #75B6FF; --primary-icon: #E4E6EB; --primary-label-font-family: Optimistic Display Medium, system-ui, sans-serif; --primary-label-font-size: 1.0625rem; --primary-label-font-weight: 500; --primary-label-line-height: 1.2941; --primary-text-on-media: white; --primary-text: #E4E6EB; --primary-web-focus-indicator: #D24294; --progress-ring-blue-background: #0866FF33; --progress-ring-blue-foreground: #0866FF; --progress-ring-disabled-background: rgba(122,125,130, 0.2); --progress-ring-disabled-foreground: #7A7D82; --progress-ring-neutral-background: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.2); --progress-ring-neutral-foreground: #ffffff; --progress-ring-on-media-background: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.2); --progress-ring-on-media-foreground: #FFFFFF; --radio-border-color-disabled: var(--disabled-button-background); --radio-border-color-selected: var(--accent); --radio-border-color: var(--primary-icon); --radio-border-width: 2px; --radio-checked-icon-color-disabled: var(--disabled-button-background); --radio-checked-icon-color: var(--accent); --radio-checked-icon-size-large: 12px; --radio-checked-icon-size-medium: 12px; --radio-size-large: 24px; --radio-size-medium: 20px; --rating-star-active: #FF9831; --scroll-shadow: 0 1px 2px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1), 0 -1px rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.05) inset; --scroll-thumb: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.3); --secondary-button-background-floating: #4B4C4F; --secondary-button-background-on-dark: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.4); --secondary-button-background: rgba(255,255,255,.1); --secondary-button-pressed: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.05); --secondary-button-stroke: transparent; --secondary-button-text: #E4E6EB; --secondary-icon: #B0B3B8; --secondary-label-font-family: Placeholder Font; --secondary-label-font-size: 0.9375rem; --secondary-label-font-weight: 500; --secondary-label-line-height: 1.3333; --secondary-text-on-media: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); --secondary-text: #B0B3B8; --section-header-addonend-button-padding-horizontal: 0px; --section-header-addonend-button-padding-vertical: 0px; --section-header-addonend-margin-horizontal: 8px; --section-header-addonstart-margin-horizontal: 12px; --section-header-padding-vertical: 16px; --section-header-subtitle-margin-vertical: 14px; --section-header-subtitle-with-addonend-margin-vertical: 6px; --section-header-text: #BCC0C4; --shadow-1: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); --shadow-2: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); --shadow-5: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5); --shadow-8: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); --shadow-elevated: 0 8px 20px 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2), 0 2px 4px 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); --shadow-inset: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.05); --shadow-persistent: 0px 0px 12px rgba(28, 43, 51, 0.6); --shadow-primary: 0px 0px 12px rgba(28, 43, 51, 0.1); --surface-background: #242526; --switch-active: hsl(214, 100%, 59%); --tertiary-label-font-family: Placeholder Font; --tertiary-label-font-size: 0.6875rem; --tertiary-label-font-weight: 500; --tertiary-label-line-height: 1.4545; --text-badge-attention-background: hsl(40, 89%, 52%); --text-badge-corner-radius: 4px; --text-badge-critical-background: #e41e3f; --text-badge-info-background: hsl(214, 100%, 59%); --text-badge-padding-horizontal: 6px; --text-badge-padding-vertical: 6px; --text-badge-success-background: #31A24C; --text-highlight: #1D85FC72; --text-input-caption-margin-top: 10px; --text-input-field-font-family: Placeholder Font; --text-input-field-font-size: 1rem; --text-input-field-font-weight: 500; --text-input-field-line-height: 1.2941; --text-input-label-font-family: Placeholder Font; --text-input-label-font-size-scale-multiplier: 0.75; --text-input-label-font-size: 17px; --text-input-label-font-weight: 400; --text-input-label-line-height: 1.2941; --text-input-label-top: 22px; --text-input-min-height: 64px; --text-input-multi-padding-between-text-scrollbar: 20px; --text-input-multi-padding-scrollbar: 16px; --text-input-outside-label: #FFFFFF; --text-input-padding-vertical: 12px; --toast-addon-padding-horizontal: 6px; --toast-addon-padding-vertical: 6px; --toast-background: #242526; --toast-container-max-width: 100%; --toast-container-min-width: 288px; --toast-container-padding-horizontal: 10px; --toast-container-padding-vertical: 16px; --toast-corner-radius: 8px; --toast-text-link: #4599FF; --toast-text: #FFFFFF; --toggle-active-background: #1D85FC; --toggle-active-icon: #FFFFFF; --toggle-active-text: #FFFFFF; --toggle-button-active-background: #E6F2FF; --tooltip-background: rgba(11, 11, 11, 0.8); --tooltip-box-shadow: 0 2px 4px 0 var(--shadow-5); --tooltip-corner-radius: 8px; --typeahead-list-outer-padding-vertical: 2px; --warning: hsl(40, 89%, 52%); --wash: #3E4042; --web-wash: #18191A; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; align-items: stretch; border-bottom-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-left-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-radius: 8px; border-right-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-style: solid; border-top-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-width: 0px; box-shadow: 0 2px 4px 0 var(--shadow-5); box-sizing: border-box; clip-path: inset(50%); clip: rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px); cursor: pointer; display: inline-flex; flex-basis: auto; flex-direction: row; flex-shrink: 0; height: 1px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; outline: none; overflow: hidden; padding: 12px; position: absolute; right: 4px; text-align: inherit; top: -2px; touch-action: manipulation; transform: translateY(-100%); user-select: none; width: 1px; z-index: 1;" tabindex="-1"><div class="x1o1ewxj x3x9cwd x1e5q0jg x13rtm0m x1ey2m1c xds687c xg01cxk x47corl x10l6tqk x17qophe x13vifvy x1ebt8du x19991ni x1dhq9h" data-visualcompletion="ignore" role="none" style="border-radius: inherit; inset: 0px; opacity: 0; pointer-events: none; position: absolute; transition-duration: var(--fds-duration-extra-extra-short-out); transition-property: opacity; transition-timing-function: var(--fds-animation-fade-out);"></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I was just wondering how things would be all around, for everyone, if more time was devoted to self-examination, a moral inventory so to speak. To find where the humanity within is, measured against decency, respect, patience and love. What's inherent in human beings, but has eroded over generations. I fall short on a lot of things, but I try to change the unproductive, unhealthy, unspiritual things within me. Day by day. Growth is like a seed I planted and watered. Change is never easy, it doesn't happen overnight. For me it's been painful at times. I was afraid of the unknown. I took the challenge and it was worth it. Because now I have more respect for myself and life. And am more careful about how I walk in this world. A common man. Just my thoughts.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="363" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mSqB1Hse-qU" width="462" youtube-src-id="mSqB1Hse-qU"></iframe></b></span></div></div><div class="__fb-light-mode x1n2onr6" role="row" style="--accent: #0866FF; --alert-banner-corner-radius: 8px; --always-black: black; --always-dark-gradient: linear-gradient(rgba(0,0,0,0), rgba(0,0,0,0.6)); --always-dark-overlay: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.4); --always-gray-40: #65676B; --always-gray-75: #BCC0C4; --always-gray-95: #F0F2F5; --always-light-overlay: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.4); --always-white: #FFFFFF; --attachment-footer-background: #F0F2F5; --background-deemphasized: #F0F2F5; --badge-background-color-blue: var(--accent); --badge-background-color-dark-gray: var(--secondary-icon); --badge-background-color-gray: var(--disabled-icon); --badge-background-color-green: var(--positive); --badge-background-color-light-blue: var(--highlight-bg); --badge-background-color-red: var(--notification-badge); --badge-background-color-yellow: var(--base-lemon); --base-blue: #1877F2; --base-cherry: #F3425F; --base-grape: #9360F7; --base-lemon: #F7B928; --base-lime: #45BD62; --base-pink: #FF66BF; --base-seafoam: #54C7EC; --base-teal: #2ABBA7; --base-tomato: #FB724B; --blue-link: #0064D1; --blueprint-button-height-large: 48px; --blueprint-button-height-medium: 40px; --body-emphasized-font-family: Placeholder Font; --body-emphasized-font-size: 0.9375rem; --body-emphasized-font-weight: 600; --body-emphasized-line-height: 1.3333; --body-font-family: Placeholder Font; --body-font-size: 0.9375rem; --body-font-weight: 400; --body-line-height: 1.3333; --border-focused: #65676B; --button-corner-radius-large: 12px; --button-corner-radius-medium: 10px; --button-corner-radius: 6px; --button-height-large: 40px; --button-height-medium: 36px; --button-icon-padding-large: 16px; --button-icon-padding-medium: 16px; --button-inner-icon-spacing-large: 3px; --button-inner-icon-spacing-medium: 3px; --button-padding-horizontal-large: 16px; --button-padding-horizontal-medium: 16px; --card-background-flat: #F7F8FA; --card-background: #FFFFFF; --card-box-shadow: 0 12px 28px 0 var(--shadow-2), 0 2px 4px 0 var(--shadow-1); --card-corner-radius: 8px; --card-padding-horizontal: 10px; --card-padding-vertical: 20px; --chat-bubble-border-radius: 18px; --chat-bubble-padding-horizontal: 12px; --chat-bubble-padding-vertical: 8px; --chat-incoming-message-bubble-background-color: #F0F0F0; --chat-replied-message-background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); --chat-text-blockquote-color-background-line: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.12); --chat-text-blockquote-color-text-primary-media: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.7); --chip-corner-radius: 6px; --comment-background: #F0F2F5; --comment-footer-background: #F6F9FA; --dataviz-primary-1: rgb(48,200,180); --dataviz-primary-2: rgb(134,218,255); --dataviz-primary-3: rgb(95,170,255); --dataviz-secondary-1: rgb(118,62,230); --dataviz-secondary-2: rgb(147,96,247); --dataviz-secondary-3: rgb(219,26,139); --dataviz-supplementary-1: rgb(255,122,105); --dataviz-supplementary-2: rgb(241,168,23); --dataviz-supplementary-3: rgb(49,162,76); --dataviz-supplementary-4: rgb(50,52,54); --dialog-anchor-vertical-padding: 56px; --dialog-corner-radius: 8px; --dialog-size-medium-max-width: 700px; --dialog-size-medium-width: 100%; --dialog-size-small-max-width: 548px; --dialog-size-small-width: 100%; --disabled-button-background: #E4E6EB; --disabled-button-text: #BCC0C4; --disabled-icon: #BCC0C4; --disabled-text: #BCC0C4; --divider: #CED0D4; --event-date: #F3425F; --fb-logo-color: #2D88FF; --fb-logo: #0866FF; --fb-wordmark: #0866FF; --fds-animation-enter-exit-in: cubic-bezier(0.14, 1, 0.34, 1); --fds-animation-enter-exit-out: cubic-bezier(0.45, 0.1, 0.2, 1); --fds-animation-expand-collapse-in: cubic-bezier(0.17, 0.17, 0, 1); --fds-animation-expand-collapse-out: cubic-bezier(0.17, 0.17, 0, 1); --fds-animation-fade-in: cubic-bezier(0, 0, 1, 1); --fds-animation-fade-out: cubic-bezier(0, 0, 1, 1); --fds-animation-move-in: cubic-bezier(0.17, 0.17, 0, 1); --fds-animation-move-out: cubic-bezier(0.17, 0.17, 0, 1); --fds-animation-passive-move-in: cubic-bezier(0.5, 0, 0.1, 1); --fds-animation-passive-move-out: cubic-bezier(0.5, 0, 0.1, 1); --fds-animation-quick-move-in: cubic-bezier(0.1, 0.9, 0.2, 1); --fds-animation-quick-move-out: cubic-bezier(0.1, 0.9, 0.2, 1); --fds-animation-swap-shuffle-in: cubic-bezier(0.14, 1, 0.34, 1); --fds-animation-swap-shuffle-out: cubic-bezier(0.45, 0.1, 0.2, 1); --fds-black-alpha-05: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.05); --fds-black-alpha-10: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); --fds-black-alpha-15: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.15); --fds-black-alpha-20: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); --fds-black-alpha-30: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); --fds-black-alpha-40: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.4); --fds-black-alpha-50: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5); --fds-black-alpha-60: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6); --fds-black-alpha-80: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); --fds-black: #000000; --fds-blue-05: #ECF3FF; --fds-blue-30: #AAC9FF; --fds-blue-40: #77A7FF; --fds-blue-60: #1877F2; --fds-blue-70: #2851A3; --fds-blue-80: #1D3C78; --fds-button-text: #444950; --fds-comment-background: #F2F3F5; --fds-dark-mode-gray-100: #1C1C1C; --fds-dark-mode-gray-35: #CCCCCC; --fds-dark-mode-gray-50: #828282; --fds-dark-mode-gray-70: #4A4A4A; --fds-dark-mode-gray-80: #373737; --fds-dark-mode-gray-90: #282828; --fds-duration-extra-extra-short-in: 100ms; --fds-duration-extra-extra-short-out: 100ms; --fds-duration-extra-long-in: 1000ms; --fds-duration-extra-long-out: 1000ms; --fds-duration-extra-short-in: 200ms; --fds-duration-extra-short-out: 150ms; --fds-duration-long-in: 500ms; --fds-duration-long-out: 350ms; --fds-duration-medium-in: 400ms; --fds-duration-medium-out: 350ms; --fds-duration-none: 0ms; --fds-duration-short-in: 280ms; --fds-duration-short-out: 200ms; --fds-fast: 200ms; --fds-gray-00: #F5F6F7; --fds-gray-05: #F2F3F5; --fds-gray-100: #1C1E21; --fds-gray-10: #EBEDF0; --fds-gray-20: #DADDE1; --fds-gray-25: #CCD0D5; --fds-gray-30: #BEC3C9; --fds-gray-45: #8D949E; --fds-gray-70: #606770; --fds-gray-80: #444950; --fds-gray-90: #303338; --fds-green-55: #00A400; --fds-highlight-cell-background: #ECF3FF; --fds-highlight: #3578E5; --fds-primary-icon: #1C1E21; --fds-primary-text: #1C1E21; --fds-red-55: #FA383E; --fds-slow: 400ms; --fds-soft: cubic-bezier(.08,.52,.52,1); --fds-spectrum-aluminum-tint-70: #E4F0F6; --fds-spectrum-blue-gray-tint-70: #CFD1D5; --fds-spectrum-cherry-tint-70: #FBCCD2; --fds-spectrum-cherry: #F35369; --fds-spectrum-grape-tint-70: #DDD5F0; --fds-spectrum-grape-tint-90: #F4F1FA; --fds-spectrum-lemon-dark-1: #F5C33B; --fds-spectrum-lemon-tint-70: #FEF2D1; --fds-spectrum-lime-tint-70: #E4F0D5; --fds-spectrum-lime: #A3CE71; --fds-spectrum-orange-tint-70: #FCDEC5; --fds-spectrum-orange-tint-90: #FEF4EC; --fds-spectrum-seafoam-tint-70: #CAEEF9; --fds-spectrum-slate-dark-2: #89A1AC; --fds-spectrum-slate-tint-70: #EAEFF2; --fds-spectrum-teal-dark-1: #4DBBA6; --fds-spectrum-teal-dark-2: #31A38D; --fds-spectrum-teal-tint-70: #D2F0EA; --fds-spectrum-teal-tint-90: #F0FAF8; --fds-spectrum-teal: #6BCEBB; --fds-spectrum-tomato-tint-30: #F38E7B; --fds-spectrum-tomato-tint-90: #FDEFED; --fds-spectrum-tomato: #FB724B; --fds-strong: cubic-bezier(.12,.8,.32,1); --fds-white-alpha-05: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.05); --fds-white-alpha-10: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.1); --fds-white-alpha-20: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.2); --fds-white-alpha-30: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.3); --fds-white-alpha-40: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.4); --fds-white-alpha-50: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5); --fds-white-alpha-60: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.6); --fds-white-alpha-80: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.8); --fds-white: #FFFFFF; --fds-yellow-20: #FFBA00; --filter-accent: invert(19%) sepia(70%) saturate(5671%) hue-rotate(203deg) brightness(96%) contrast(101%); --filter-always-white: invert(100%); --filter-blue-link-icon: invert(30%) sepia(98%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(166.5%) hue-rotate(192deg) brightness(91%) contrast(101%); --filter-disabled-icon: invert(80%) sepia(6%) saturate(200%) saturate(120%) hue-rotate(173deg) brightness(98%) contrast(89%); --filter-negative: invert(25%) sepia(33%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(110%) hue-rotate(345deg) brightness(132%) contrast(96%); --filter-placeholder-icon: invert(59%) sepia(11%) saturate(200%) saturate(135%) hue-rotate(176deg) brightness(96%) contrast(94%); --filter-positive: invert(37%) sepia(61%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(115%) hue-rotate(91deg) brightness(97%) contrast(105%); --filter-primary-accent: invert(27%) sepia(95%) saturate(3116%) hue-rotate(212deg) brightness(99%) contrast(105%); --filter-primary-icon: invert(8%) sepia(10%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(166%) hue-rotate(177deg) brightness(104%) contrast(91%); --filter-secondary-icon: invert(39%) sepia(21%) saturate(200%) saturate(109.5%) hue-rotate(174deg) brightness(94%) contrast(86%); --filter-warning-icon: invert(77%) sepia(29%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(128%) hue-rotate(359deg) brightness(102%) contrast(107%); --focus-ring-blue: #0866FF; --focus-ring-outline-forced-colors: 2px auto transparent !important; --focus-ring-outline-link: 2px auto var(--focus-ring-blue); --focus-ring-shadow-default: 0 0 0 2px var(--always-white), 0 0 0 4px var(--focus-ring-blue); --focus-ring-shadow-inset: 0 0 0 2px var(--focus-ring-blue) inset, 0 0 0 4px var(--always-white) inset; --font-family-apple: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, '.SFNSText-Regular', sans-serif; --font-family-code: ui-monospace, Menlo, Consolas, Monaco, monospace; --font-family-default: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; --font-family-segoe: Segoe UI Historic, Segoe UI, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; --glimmer-animation-direction: alternate; --glimmer-animation-duration: 1000ms; --glimmer-animation-timing-function: steps(10, end); --glimmer-corner-radius: 8px; --glimmer-opacity-max: 1; --glimmer-opacity-min: 0.25; --glimmer-spinner-icon: #65676B; --global-panel-width-expanded: 0px; --global-panel-width: 0px; --header-height: 56px; --headline1-font-family: Optimistic Display Bold, system-ui, sans-serif; --headline1-font-size: 1.75rem; --headline1-font-weight: 700; --headline1-line-height: 1.2143; --headline2-font-family: Optimistic Display Bold, system-ui, sans-serif; --headline2-font-size: 1.5rem; --headline2-font-weight: 700; --headline2-line-height: 1.25; --headline3-font-family: Optimistic Display Bold, system-ui, sans-serif; --headline3-font-size: 1.0625rem; --headline3-font-weight: 700; --headline3-line-height: 1.2941; --hero-banner-background: #FFFFFF; --highlight-bg: #E7F3FF; --hosted-view-selected-state: #EBF5FF; --hover-overlay: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.05); --image-corner-radius: 4px; --input-background-disabled: #F0F2F5; --input-background: #FFFFFF; --input-border-color-hover: var(--placeholder-text); --input-border-color: #CED0D4; --input-border-width: 1px; --input-corner-radius: 6px; --input-label-color-highlighted: #0064D1; --list-cell-chevron: #65676B; --list-cell-corner-radius: 8px; --list-cell-min-height: 52px; --list-cell-padding-vertical-with-addon: 14px; --list-cell-padding-vertical: 20px; --media-hover: rgba(68, 73, 80, 0.15); --media-inner-border: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); --media-outer-border: #FFFFFF; --media-pressed: rgba(68, 73, 80, 0.35); --menu-item-base-margin-horizontal: 8px; --menu-item-base-padding-horizontal: 8px; --messenger-card-background: #FFFFFF; --messenger-header-background: var(--messenger-card-background); --messenger-reply-background: #F0F2F5; --meta-emphasized-font-family: Placeholder Font; --meta-emphasized-font-size: 0.8125rem; --meta-emphasized-font-weight: 600; --meta-emphasized-line-height: 1.3846; --meta-font-family: Placeholder Font; --meta-font-size: 0.8125rem; --meta-font-weight: 400; --meta-line-height: 1.3846; --mwp-message-list-profile-start-padding: 8px; --mwp-reply-background-color: var(--comment-footer-background); --nav-bar-background-gradient-wash: linear-gradient(to top, #F0F2F5, rgba(240,242,245.9), rgba(240,242,245,.7), rgba(240,242,245,.4), rgba(240,242,245,0)); --nav-bar-background-gradient: linear-gradient(to top, #FFFFFF, rgba(255,255,255.9), rgba(255,255,255,.7), rgba(255,255,255,.4), rgba(255,255,255,0)); --nav-bar-background: #FFFFFF; --nav-list-cell-corner-radius: 8px; --nav-list-cell-min-height: 0px; --nav-list-cell-padding-vertical-with-addon: 16px; --nav-list-cell-padding-vertical: 16px; --negative-background: hsl(350, 87%, 55%, 20%); --negative: hsl(350, 87%, 55%); --new-notification-background: #E7F3FF; --non-media-pressed-on-dark: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.3); --non-media-pressed: rgba(68, 73, 80, 0.15); --notification-badge: #e41e3f; --overlay-alpha-80: rgba(244, 244, 244, 0.8); --overlay-on-media: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6); --page-footer-padding-vertical: 16px; --placeholder-icon: #65676B; --placeholder-image: rgb(164, 167, 171); --placeholder-text-on-media: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5); --placeholder-text: #65676B; --popover-background: #FFFFFF; --positive-background: #DEEFE1; --positive: #31A24C; --press-overlay: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.10); --primary-button-background: #0866FF; --primary-button-icon: #FFFFFF; --primary-button-pressed: #77A7FF; --primary-button-text: #FFFFFF; --primary-deemphasized-button-background: #EBF5FF; --primary-deemphasized-button-pressed-overlay: rgba(25, 110, 255, 0.15); --primary-deemphasized-button-pressed: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.05); --primary-deemphasized-button-text: #0064D1; --primary-icon: #050505; --primary-label-font-family: Optimistic Display Medium, system-ui, sans-serif; --primary-label-font-size: 1.0625rem; --primary-label-font-weight: 500; --primary-label-line-height: 1.2941; --primary-text-on-media: #FFFFFF; --primary-text: #050505; --primary-web-focus-indicator: #D24294; --progress-ring-blue-background: #0866FF33; --progress-ring-blue-foreground: #0866FF; --progress-ring-disabled-background: rgba(190,195,201, 0.2); --progress-ring-disabled-foreground: #BEC3C9; --progress-ring-neutral-background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); --progress-ring-neutral-foreground: #000000; --progress-ring-on-media-background: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.2); --progress-ring-on-media-foreground: #FFFFFF; --radio-border-color-disabled: var(--disabled-button-background); --radio-border-color-selected: var(--accent); --radio-border-color: var(--primary-icon); --radio-border-width: 2px; --radio-checked-icon-color-disabled: var(--disabled-button-background); --radio-checked-icon-color: var(--accent); --radio-checked-icon-size-large: 12px; --radio-checked-icon-size-medium: 12px; --radio-size-large: 24px; --radio-size-medium: 20px; --rating-star-active: #EB660D; --scroll-shadow: 0 1px 2px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1), 0 -1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) inset; --scroll-thumb: #BCC0C4; --secondary-button-background-floating: #ffffff; --secondary-button-background-on-dark: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.4); --secondary-button-background: #E4E6EB; --secondary-button-pressed: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.05); --secondary-button-stroke: transparent; --secondary-button-text: #050505; --secondary-icon: #65676B; --secondary-label-font-family: Placeholder Font; --secondary-label-font-size: 0.9375rem; --secondary-label-font-weight: 500; --secondary-label-line-height: 1.3333; --secondary-text-on-media: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); --secondary-text: #65676B; --section-header-addonend-button-padding-horizontal: 0px; --section-header-addonend-button-padding-vertical: 0px; --section-header-addonend-margin-horizontal: 8px; --section-header-addonstart-margin-horizontal: 12px; --section-header-padding-vertical: 16px; --section-header-subtitle-margin-vertical: 14px; --section-header-subtitle-with-addonend-margin-vertical: 6px; --section-header-text: #4B4C4F; --shadow-1: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); --shadow-2: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); --shadow-5: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5); --shadow-8: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); --shadow-elevated: 0 8px 20px 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2), 0 2px 4px 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); --shadow-inset: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5); --shadow-persistent: 0px 0px 12px rgba(52, 72, 84, 0.05); --shadow-primary: 0px 5px 12px rgba(52, 72, 84, 0.2); --surface-background: #FFFFFF; --switch-active: hsl(214, 89%, 52%); --tertiary-label-font-family: Placeholder Font; --tertiary-label-font-size: 0.6875rem; --tertiary-label-font-weight: 500; --tertiary-label-line-height: 1.4545; --text-badge-attention-background: hsl(40, 89%, 52%); --text-badge-corner-radius: 4px; --text-badge-critical-background: #e41e3f; --text-badge-info-background: hsl(214, 89%, 52%); --text-badge-padding-horizontal: 6px; --text-badge-padding-vertical: 6px; --text-badge-success-background: #31A24C; --text-highlight: #0866FF33; --text-input-caption-margin-top: 10px; --text-input-field-font-family: Placeholder Font; --text-input-field-font-size: 1rem; --text-input-field-font-weight: 500; --text-input-field-line-height: 1.2941; --text-input-label-font-family: Placeholder Font; --text-input-label-font-size-scale-multiplier: 0.75; --text-input-label-font-size: 17px; --text-input-label-font-weight: 400; --text-input-label-line-height: 1.2941; --text-input-label-top: 22px; --text-input-min-height: 64px; --text-input-multi-padding-between-text-scrollbar: 20px; --text-input-multi-padding-scrollbar: 16px; --text-input-outside-label: #000000; --text-input-padding-vertical: 12px; --toast-addon-padding-horizontal: 6px; --toast-addon-padding-vertical: 6px; --toast-background: #FFFFFF; --toast-container-max-width: 100%; --toast-container-min-width: 288px; --toast-container-padding-horizontal: 10px; --toast-container-padding-vertical: 16px; --toast-corner-radius: 8px; --toast-text-link: #216FDB; --toast-text: #1C2B33; --toggle-active-background: #EBF5FF; --toggle-active-icon: #0064D1; --toggle-active-text: #0064D1; --toggle-button-active-background: #E7F3FF; --tooltip-background: rgba(244, 244, 244, 0.8); --tooltip-box-shadow: 0 2px 4px 0 var(--shadow-5); --tooltip-corner-radius: 8px; --typeahead-list-outer-padding-vertical: 2px; --warning: hsl(40, 89%, 52%); --wash: #E4E6EB; --web-wash: #F0F2F5; position: relative;"><div role="gridcell"><div aria-label="Details and actions" class="x1i10hfl x1qjc9v5 xjqpnuy xa49m3k xqeqjp1 x2hbi6w x13fuv20 xu3j5b3 x1q0q8m5 x26u7qi x972fbf xcfux6l x1qhh985 xm0m39n x9f619 x1ypdohk xdl72j9 x2lah0s xe8uvvx xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x2lwn1j xeuugli x16tdsg8 x1hl2dhg xggy1nq x1t137rt x3nfvp2 x1q0g3np x87ps6o x1lku1pv x1a2a7pz __fb-dark-mode x1h0vfkc x1lq5wgf xgqcy7u x30kzoy x9jhf4c x152obne xlr8s2x xz9dl7a xn6708d xsag5q8 x1ye3gou x1qiirwl x105ttfm x1vjfegm xzpqnlu x1hyvwdk xjm9jq1 x6ikm8r x10wlt62 x10l6tqk x1i1rx1s" role="button" style="--accent: #0866FF; --alert-banner-corner-radius: 8px; --always-black: black; --always-dark-gradient: linear-gradient(rgba(0,0,0,0), rgba(0,0,0,0.6)); --always-dark-overlay: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.4); --always-gray-40: #65676B; --always-gray-75: #BCC0C4; --always-gray-95: #F0F2F5; --always-light-overlay: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.4); --always-white: white; --attachment-footer-background: rgba(255,255,255,0.1); --background-deemphasized: rgba(255,255,255,0.1); --badge-background-color-blue: var(--accent); --badge-background-color-dark-gray: var(--secondary-icon); --badge-background-color-gray: var(--disabled-icon); --badge-background-color-green: var(--positive); --badge-background-color-light-blue: var(--highlight-bg); --badge-background-color-red: var(--notification-badge); --badge-background-color-yellow: var(--base-lemon); --base-blue: #1877F2; --base-cherry: #F3425F; --base-grape: #9360F7; --base-lemon: #F7B928; --base-lime: #45BD62; --base-pink: #FF66BF; --base-seafoam: #54C7EC; --base-teal: #2ABBA7; --base-tomato: #FB724B; --blue-link: #5AA7FF; --blueprint-button-height-large: 48px; --blueprint-button-height-medium: 40px; --body-emphasized-font-family: Placeholder Font; --body-emphasized-font-size: 0.9375rem; --body-emphasized-font-weight: 600; --body-emphasized-line-height: 1.3333; --body-font-family: Placeholder Font; --body-font-size: 0.9375rem; --body-font-weight: 400; --body-line-height: 1.3333; --border-focused: #8A8D91; --button-corner-radius-large: 12px; --button-corner-radius-medium: 10px; --button-corner-radius: 6px; --button-height-large: 40px; --button-height-medium: 36px; --button-icon-padding-large: 16px; --button-icon-padding-medium: 16px; --button-inner-icon-spacing-large: 3px; --button-inner-icon-spacing-medium: 3px; --button-padding-horizontal-large: 16px; --button-padding-horizontal-medium: 16px; --card-background-flat: #323436; --card-background: #242526; --card-box-shadow: 0 12px 28px 0 var(--shadow-2), 0 2px 4px 0 var(--shadow-1); --card-corner-radius: 8px; --card-padding-horizontal: 10px; --card-padding-vertical: 20px; --chat-bubble-border-radius: 18px; --chat-bubble-padding-horizontal: 12px; --chat-bubble-padding-vertical: 8px; --chat-incoming-message-bubble-background-color: #303030; --chat-replied-message-background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.12); --chat-text-blockquote-color-background-line: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.19); --chat-text-blockquote-color-text-primary-media: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.7); --chip-corner-radius: 6px; --comment-background: #3A3B3C; --comment-footer-background: #4E4F50; --dataviz-primary-1: rgb(48,200,180); --dataviz-primary-2: rgb(134,218,255); --dataviz-primary-3: rgb(95,170,255); --dataviz-secondary-1: rgb(129,77,231); --dataviz-secondary-2: rgb(168,124,255); --dataviz-secondary-3: rgb(219,26,139); --dataviz-supplementary-1: rgb(255,122,105); --dataviz-supplementary-2: rgb(241,168,23); --dataviz-supplementary-3: rgb(49,162,76); --dataviz-supplementary-4: rgb(228,230,235); --dialog-anchor-vertical-padding: 56px; --dialog-corner-radius: 8px; --dialog-size-medium-max-width: 700px; --dialog-size-medium-width: 100%; --dialog-size-small-max-width: 548px; --dialog-size-small-width: 100%; --disabled-button-background: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.2); --disabled-button-text: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.3); --disabled-icon: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.3); --disabled-text: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.3); --divider: #3E4042; --event-date: #F3425F; --fb-logo-color: #2D88FF; --fb-logo: #0866FF; --fb-wordmark: #FFFFFF; --fds-animation-enter-exit-in: cubic-bezier(0.14, 1, 0.34, 1); --fds-animation-enter-exit-out: cubic-bezier(0.45, 0.1, 0.2, 1); --fds-animation-expand-collapse-in: cubic-bezier(0.17, 0.17, 0, 1); --fds-animation-expand-collapse-out: cubic-bezier(0.17, 0.17, 0, 1); --fds-animation-fade-in: cubic-bezier(0, 0, 1, 1); --fds-animation-fade-out: cubic-bezier(0, 0, 1, 1); --fds-animation-move-in: cubic-bezier(0.17, 0.17, 0, 1); --fds-animation-move-out: cubic-bezier(0.17, 0.17, 0, 1); --fds-animation-passive-move-in: cubic-bezier(0.5, 0, 0.1, 1); --fds-animation-passive-move-out: cubic-bezier(0.5, 0, 0.1, 1); --fds-animation-quick-move-in: cubic-bezier(0.1, 0.9, 0.2, 1); --fds-animation-quick-move-out: cubic-bezier(0.1, 0.9, 0.2, 1); --fds-animation-swap-shuffle-in: cubic-bezier(0.14, 1, 0.34, 1); --fds-animation-swap-shuffle-out: cubic-bezier(0.45, 0.1, 0.2, 1); --fds-black-alpha-05: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.05); --fds-black-alpha-10: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); --fds-black-alpha-15: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.15); --fds-black-alpha-20: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); --fds-black-alpha-30: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); --fds-black-alpha-40: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.4); --fds-black-alpha-50: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5); --fds-black-alpha-60: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6); --fds-black-alpha-80: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); --fds-black: black; --fds-blue-05: black; --fds-blue-30: black; --fds-blue-40: black; --fds-blue-60: black; --fds-blue-70: black; --fds-blue-80: black; --fds-button-text: black; --fds-comment-background: black; --fds-dark-mode-gray-100: black; --fds-dark-mode-gray-35: black; --fds-dark-mode-gray-50: black; --fds-dark-mode-gray-70: black; --fds-dark-mode-gray-80: black; --fds-dark-mode-gray-90: black; --fds-duration-extra-extra-short-in: 100ms; --fds-duration-extra-extra-short-out: 100ms; --fds-duration-extra-long-in: 1000ms; --fds-duration-extra-long-out: 1000ms; --fds-duration-extra-short-in: 200ms; --fds-duration-extra-short-out: 150ms; --fds-duration-long-in: 500ms; --fds-duration-long-out: 350ms; --fds-duration-medium-in: 400ms; --fds-duration-medium-out: 350ms; --fds-duration-none: 0ms; --fds-duration-short-in: 280ms; --fds-duration-short-out: 200ms; --fds-fast: 200ms; --fds-gray-00: black; --fds-gray-05: black; --fds-gray-100: black; --fds-gray-10: black; --fds-gray-20: black; --fds-gray-25: black; --fds-gray-30: black; --fds-gray-45: black; --fds-gray-70: black; --fds-gray-80: black; --fds-gray-90: black; --fds-green-55: black; --fds-highlight-cell-background: black; --fds-highlight: black; --fds-primary-icon: white; --fds-primary-text: white; --fds-red-55: black; --fds-slow: 400ms; --fds-soft: cubic-bezier(.08,.52,.52,1); --fds-spectrum-aluminum-tint-70: black; --fds-spectrum-blue-gray-tint-70: black; --fds-spectrum-cherry-tint-70: black; --fds-spectrum-cherry: black; --fds-spectrum-grape-tint-70: black; --fds-spectrum-grape-tint-90: black; --fds-spectrum-lemon-dark-1: black; --fds-spectrum-lemon-tint-70: black; --fds-spectrum-lime-tint-70: black; --fds-spectrum-lime: black; --fds-spectrum-orange-tint-70: black; --fds-spectrum-orange-tint-90: black; --fds-spectrum-seafoam-tint-70: black; --fds-spectrum-slate-dark-2: black; --fds-spectrum-slate-tint-70: black; --fds-spectrum-teal-dark-1: black; --fds-spectrum-teal-dark-2: black; --fds-spectrum-teal-tint-70: black; --fds-spectrum-teal-tint-90: black; --fds-spectrum-teal: black; --fds-spectrum-tomato-tint-30: black; --fds-spectrum-tomato-tint-90: black; --fds-spectrum-tomato: black; --fds-strong: cubic-bezier(.12,.8,.32,1); --fds-white-alpha-05: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.05); --fds-white-alpha-10: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.1); --fds-white-alpha-20: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.2); --fds-white-alpha-30: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.3); --fds-white-alpha-40: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.4); --fds-white-alpha-50: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5); --fds-white-alpha-60: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.6); --fds-white-alpha-80: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.8); --fds-white: black; --fds-yellow-20: black; --filter-accent: invert(74%) sepia(14%) saturate(7129%) hue-rotate(185deg) brightness(102%) contrast(101%); --filter-always-white: invert(100%); --filter-blue-link-icon: invert(73%) sepia(29%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(103.25%) hue-rotate(189deg) brightness(101%) contrast(101%); --filter-disabled-icon: invert(100%) opacity(30%); --filter-negative: invert(25%) sepia(33%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(110%) hue-rotate(345deg) brightness(132%) contrast(96%); --filter-placeholder-icon: invert(59%) sepia(11%) saturate(200%) saturate(135%) hue-rotate(176deg) brightness(96%) contrast(94%); --filter-positive: invert(37%) sepia(61%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(115%) hue-rotate(91deg) brightness(97%) contrast(105%); --filter-primary-accent: invert(27%) sepia(95%) saturate(3116%) hue-rotate(212deg) brightness(99%) contrast(105%); --filter-primary-icon: invert(89%) sepia(6%) hue-rotate(185deg); --filter-secondary-icon: invert(62%) sepia(98%) saturate(12%) hue-rotate(175deg) brightness(90%) contrast(96%); --filter-warning-icon: invert(77%) sepia(29%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(200%) saturate(128%) hue-rotate(359deg) brightness(102%) contrast(107%); --focus-ring-blue: #1D85FC; --focus-ring-outline-forced-colors: 2px auto transparent !important; --focus-ring-outline-link: 2px auto var(--focus-ring-blue); --focus-ring-shadow-default: 0 0 0 2px var(--always-white), 0 0 0 4px var(--focus-ring-blue); --focus-ring-shadow-inset: 0 0 0 2px var(--focus-ring-blue) inset, 0 0 0 4px var(--always-white) inset; --font-family-apple: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, '.SFNSText-Regular', sans-serif; --font-family-code: ui-monospace, Menlo, Consolas, Monaco, monospace; --font-family-default: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; --font-family-segoe: Segoe UI Historic, Segoe UI, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; --glimmer-animation-direction: alternate; --glimmer-animation-duration: 1000ms; --glimmer-animation-timing-function: steps(10, end); --glimmer-corner-radius: 8px; --glimmer-opacity-max: 1; --glimmer-opacity-min: 0.25; --glimmer-spinner-icon: white; --global-panel-width-expanded: 0px; --global-panel-width: 0px; --header-height: 56px; --headline1-font-family: Optimistic Display Bold, system-ui, sans-serif; --headline1-font-size: 1.75rem; --headline1-font-weight: 700; --headline1-line-height: 1.2143; --headline2-font-family: Optimistic Display Bold, system-ui, sans-serif; --headline2-font-size: 1.5rem; --headline2-font-weight: 700; --headline2-line-height: 1.25; --headline3-font-family: Optimistic Display Bold, system-ui, sans-serif; --headline3-font-size: 1.0625rem; --headline3-font-weight: 700; --headline3-line-height: 1.2941; --hero-banner-background: #E85D07; --highlight-bg: rgba(24, 119, 242, .31); --hosted-view-selected-state: #1D85FC19; --hover-overlay: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.1); --image-corner-radius: 4px; --input-background-disabled: #18191A; --input-background: #242526; --input-border-color-hover: var(--placeholder-text); --input-border-color: #3E4042; --input-border-width: 1px; --input-corner-radius: 6px; --input-label-color-highlighted: #3E93F8; --list-cell-chevron: #B0B3B8; --list-cell-corner-radius: 8px; --list-cell-min-height: 52px; --list-cell-padding-vertical-with-addon: 14px; --list-cell-padding-vertical: 20px; --media-hover: rgba(68, 73, 80, 0.15); --media-inner-border: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.05); --media-outer-border: #33363A; --media-pressed: rgba(68, 73, 80, 0.35); --menu-item-base-margin-horizontal: 8px; --menu-item-base-padding-horizontal: 8px; --messenger-card-background: #242526; --messenger-reply-background: #18191A; --meta-emphasized-font-family: Placeholder Font; --meta-emphasized-font-size: 0.8125rem; --meta-emphasized-font-weight: 600; --meta-emphasized-line-height: 1.3846; --meta-font-family: Placeholder Font; --meta-font-size: 0.8125rem; --meta-font-weight: 400; --meta-line-height: 1.3846; --nav-bar-background-gradient-wash: linear-gradient(to top, #18191A, rgba(24,25,26,.9), rgba(24,25,26,.7), rgba(24,25,26,.4), rgba(24,25,26,0)); --nav-bar-background-gradient: linear-gradient(to top, #242526, rgba(36,37,38,.9), rgba(36,37,38,.7), rgba(36,37,38,.4), rgba(36,37,38,0)); --nav-bar-background: #242526; --nav-list-cell-corner-radius: 8px; --nav-list-cell-min-height: 0px; --nav-list-cell-padding-vertical-with-addon: 16px; --nav-list-cell-padding-vertical: 16px; --negative-background: hsl(350, 87%, 55%, 20%); --negative: hsl(350, 87%, 55%); --new-notification-background: #E7F3FF; --non-media-pressed-on-dark: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.3); --non-media-pressed: rgba(68, 73, 80, 0.15); --notification-badge: #e41e3f; --overlay-alpha-80: rgba(11, 11, 11, 0.8); --overlay-on-media: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6); --page-footer-padding-vertical: 16px; --placeholder-icon: #8A8D91; --placeholder-image: rgb(164, 167, 171); --placeholder-text-on-media: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5); --placeholder-text: #8A8D91; --popover-background: #3E4042; --positive-background: #1F3520; --positive: #31A24C; --press-overlay: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.1); --primary-button-background: #0866FF; --primary-button-icon: #FFFFFF; --primary-button-pressed: #77A7FF; --primary-button-text: #FFFFFF; --primary-deemphasized-button-background: #1D85FC33; --primary-deemphasized-button-pressed-overlay: rgba(25, 110, 255, 0.15); --primary-deemphasized-button-pressed: rgba(24, 119, 242, 0.2); --primary-deemphasized-button-text: #75B6FF; --primary-icon: #E4E6EB; --primary-label-font-family: Optimistic Display Medium, system-ui, sans-serif; --primary-label-font-size: 1.0625rem; --primary-label-font-weight: 500; --primary-label-line-height: 1.2941; --primary-text-on-media: white; --primary-text: #E4E6EB; --primary-web-focus-indicator: #D24294; --progress-ring-blue-background: #0866FF33; --progress-ring-blue-foreground: #0866FF; --progress-ring-disabled-background: rgba(122,125,130, 0.2); --progress-ring-disabled-foreground: #7A7D82; --progress-ring-neutral-background: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.2); --progress-ring-neutral-foreground: #ffffff; --progress-ring-on-media-background: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.2); --progress-ring-on-media-foreground: #FFFFFF; --radio-border-color-disabled: var(--disabled-button-background); --radio-border-color-selected: var(--accent); --radio-border-color: var(--primary-icon); --radio-border-width: 2px; --radio-checked-icon-color-disabled: var(--disabled-button-background); --radio-checked-icon-color: var(--accent); --radio-checked-icon-size-large: 12px; --radio-checked-icon-size-medium: 12px; --radio-size-large: 24px; --radio-size-medium: 20px; --rating-star-active: #FF9831; --scroll-shadow: 0 1px 2px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1), 0 -1px rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.05) inset; --scroll-thumb: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.3); --secondary-button-background-floating: #4B4C4F; --secondary-button-background-on-dark: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.4); --secondary-button-background: rgba(255,255,255,.1); --secondary-button-pressed: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.05); --secondary-button-stroke: transparent; --secondary-button-text: #E4E6EB; --secondary-icon: #B0B3B8; --secondary-label-font-family: Placeholder Font; --secondary-label-font-size: 0.9375rem; --secondary-label-font-weight: 500; --secondary-label-line-height: 1.3333; --secondary-text-on-media: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); --secondary-text: #B0B3B8; --section-header-addonend-button-padding-horizontal: 0px; --section-header-addonend-button-padding-vertical: 0px; --section-header-addonend-margin-horizontal: 8px; --section-header-addonstart-margin-horizontal: 12px; --section-header-padding-vertical: 16px; --section-header-subtitle-margin-vertical: 14px; --section-header-subtitle-with-addonend-margin-vertical: 6px; --section-header-text: #BCC0C4; --shadow-1: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); --shadow-2: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); --shadow-5: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5); --shadow-8: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); --shadow-elevated: 0 8px 20px 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2), 0 2px 4px 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); --shadow-inset: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.05); --shadow-persistent: 0px 0px 12px rgba(28, 43, 51, 0.6); --shadow-primary: 0px 0px 12px rgba(28, 43, 51, 0.1); --surface-background: #242526; --switch-active: hsl(214, 100%, 59%); --tertiary-label-font-family: Placeholder Font; --tertiary-label-font-size: 0.6875rem; --tertiary-label-font-weight: 500; --tertiary-label-line-height: 1.4545; --text-badge-attention-background: hsl(40, 89%, 52%); --text-badge-corner-radius: 4px; --text-badge-critical-background: #e41e3f; --text-badge-info-background: hsl(214, 100%, 59%); --text-badge-padding-horizontal: 6px; --text-badge-padding-vertical: 6px; --text-badge-success-background: #31A24C; --text-highlight: #1D85FC72; --text-input-caption-margin-top: 10px; --text-input-field-font-family: Placeholder Font; --text-input-field-font-size: 1rem; --text-input-field-font-weight: 500; --text-input-field-line-height: 1.2941; --text-input-label-font-family: Placeholder Font; --text-input-label-font-size-scale-multiplier: 0.75; --text-input-label-font-size: 17px; --text-input-label-font-weight: 400; --text-input-label-line-height: 1.2941; --text-input-label-top: 22px; --text-input-min-height: 64px; --text-input-multi-padding-between-text-scrollbar: 20px; --text-input-multi-padding-scrollbar: 16px; --text-input-outside-label: #FFFFFF; --text-input-padding-vertical: 12px; --toast-addon-padding-horizontal: 6px; --toast-addon-padding-vertical: 6px; --toast-background: #242526; --toast-container-max-width: 100%; --toast-container-min-width: 288px; --toast-container-padding-horizontal: 10px; --toast-container-padding-vertical: 16px; --toast-corner-radius: 8px; --toast-text-link: #4599FF; --toast-text: #FFFFFF; --toggle-active-background: #1D85FC; --toggle-active-icon: #FFFFFF; --toggle-active-text: #FFFFFF; --toggle-button-active-background: #E6F2FF; --tooltip-background: rgba(11, 11, 11, 0.8); --tooltip-box-shadow: 0 2px 4px 0 var(--shadow-5); --tooltip-corner-radius: 8px; --typeahead-list-outer-padding-vertical: 2px; --warning: hsl(40, 89%, 52%); --wash: #3E4042; --web-wash: #18191A; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; align-items: stretch; border-bottom-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-left-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-radius: 8px; border-right-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-style: solid; border-top-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-width: 0px; box-shadow: 0 2px 4px 0 var(--shadow-5); box-sizing: border-box; clip-path: inset(50%); clip: rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px); cursor: pointer; display: inline-flex; flex-basis: auto; flex-direction: row; flex-shrink: 0; height: 1px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; outline: none; overflow: hidden; padding: 12px; position: absolute; right: 4px; text-align: inherit; top: -2px; touch-action: manipulation; transform: translateY(-100%); user-select: none; width: 1px; z-index: 1;" tabindex="-1"><div class="x1qjc9v5 x9f619 xdl72j9 x2lwn1j xeuugli x1n2onr6 x1ja2u2z x78zum5 xdt5ytf xs83m0k xz62fqu x16ldp7u" style="align-items: stretch; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-basis: auto; flex-direction: column; flex-shrink: 1; margin-bottom: -5px; margin-top: -5px; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; position: relative; z-index: 0;"><div class="x1qjc9v5 x9f619 x78zum5 xdl72j9 xdt5ytf x2lah0s x2lwn1j xeuugli x1n2onr6 x1ja2u2z xu06os2 x1ok221b" style="align-items: stretch; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-basis: auto; flex-direction: column; flex-shrink: 0; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; position: relative; z-index: 0;"><span class="x1lliihq x1plvlek xryxfnj x1n2onr6 x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs x1s928wv xhkezso x1gmr53x x1cpjm7i x1fgarty x1943h6x x1xmvt09 x1nxh6w3 x1fcty0u xzsf02u x1yc453h x4zkp8e x676frb xq9mrsl" color="var(--primary-text)" dir="auto" style="--base-line-clamp-line-height: 16px; display: block; line-height: var(--base-line-clamp-line-height); max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: visible; position: relative; text-align: center; white-space: inherit; word-break: break-word;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>nter</b></span></span></div></div><div class="x1o1ewxj x3x9cwd x1e5q0jg x13rtm0m x1ey2m1c xds687c xg01cxk x47corl x10l6tqk x17qophe x13vifvy x1ebt8du x19991ni x1dhq9h" data-visualcompletion="ignore" role="none" style="border-radius: inherit; inset: 0px; opacity: 0; pointer-events: none; position: absolute; transition-duration: var(--fds-duration-extra-extra-short-out); transition-property: opacity; transition-timing-function: var(--fds-animation-fade-out);"></div></div></div></div><div role="row"><div class="x1n2onr6" data-release-focus-from="CLICK" data-scope="messages_table" role="gridcell" style="position: relative;" tabindex="-1"><div class="x1h91t0o xkh2ocl x78zum5 xdt5ytf x13a6bvl x193iq5w x1c4vz4f xcrg951" role="none" style="align-items: inherit; align-self: stretch; display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 0; justify-content: flex-end; max-width: 100%;"><div class="x5ib6vp xc73u3c xyamay9 x1l90r2v" style="padding: 16px 20px;"><div class="xr1yuqi xkrivgy x4ii5y1 x1gryazu x1ekjcvx x2b8uid x13faqbe" style="margin: auto; max-width: 457px; text-align: center; word-break: break-word;"><h2 class="x1heor9g x1qlqyl8 x1pd3egz x1a2a7pz" dir="auto" style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><div class="xzpqnlu x1hyvwdk xqtp20y x6ikm8r x10wlt62 xnalus7" style="clip-path: inset(50%); clip: rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px); color: inherit; height: 0px; overflow: hidden; width: 0px;"></div><div aria-hidden="true" class="xjpr12u xr9ek0c x2b8uid" data-scope="date_break" style="margin-bottom: 2px; margin-top: 2px;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Tu'i yokoria</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Buenos dias</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Good morning</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Thank you Grandfather.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Brrrr Went out earlier and the clouds are forming for the rain to come. I grubbed down and I'll wait a while before I head out again.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><i>A reminder to self : It is important to know WHO you are. It is also important to know WHO you are not.</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Have a blessed day with much healing.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">A'ho</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghaVsC9AdYPn3luVYFR7F_XdE8O25uTybuyq2hplQnaQ7kS_NKjemYh6aNcCD4CByb1Koh5USV0bEwE7gUV9OXFJ6hjjxtYngZTWULwVyswOyjOIt-sD-JAezfh_kmxRO6PcHyF6oxfhIPl_-eRpKUSbyB47CBDkzMyTYTtLzYfPcZbmNgEiqZSy1D7e0/s636/425318629_304212979313587_445061777492180505_n.jpg"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghaVsC9AdYPn3luVYFR7F_XdE8O25uTybuyq2hplQnaQ7kS_NKjemYh6aNcCD4CByb1Koh5USV0bEwE7gUV9OXFJ6hjjxtYngZTWULwVyswOyjOIt-sD-JAezfh_kmxRO6PcHyF6oxfhIPl_-eRpKUSbyB47CBDkzMyTYTtLzYfPcZbmNgEiqZSy1D7e0/w352-h400/425318629_304212979313587_445061777492180505_n.jpg" width="352" /></span></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: inherit; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs x1xmvt09 x1lliihq x1s928wv xhkezso x1gmr53x x1cpjm7i x1fgarty x1943h6x x4zkp8e x676frb x1pg5gke xvq8zen xo1l8bm x12scifz" color="var(--placeholder-text)" dir="auto" style="display: block; line-height: 1.3333; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; word-break: break-word;"><div class="xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I was just thinking, that next month twenty-eight years will be at my back, free of firewater. An impossibility it seemed at first.</span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I chose to break from a curse. Generations in the destruction of family members.</span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><i>It doesn't mean anything to someone else. But it means to me, all things are possible.</i></span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Hope <span><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer;" tabindex="-1"></a></span>all is ok with you. If not, keep hope alive.</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Manny Manolin Moreno</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="378" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9-Nmvpeadk4" width="492" youtube-src-id="9-Nmvpeadk4"></iframe></span></div></div></div></span></div></h2></div></div></div></div></div></div>Glenda A Bixler Reviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15829561936090262198noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6957929086575807165.post-76524596889100365072024-02-14T12:28:00.000-05:002024-02-14T12:28:25.990-05:00Joy-Ann Reid Presents Historical Novel Medgar & Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story That Awakened America! Part 3<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="334" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6dYWe1c3OyU" width="444" youtube-src-id="6dYWe1c3OyU"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl3fR7IPyyI8HEABc20D1SHK6UcSiJmpkS1rGwWHJz15SnSSV6a-kSoQhvaERf-aYXGghuaFNjjAUzhatcX61Bmkhj5RjN5OGkl2G7dDq71PkOmnSbgbWEz4VQcD33lLKmDsetVcFhEO-RU_pmLR09x1O5tkCGRkhrLGJUuJqENzH818mqR0I16vu7kYg/s521/9780063068797.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="521" data-original-width="350" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl3fR7IPyyI8HEABc20D1SHK6UcSiJmpkS1rGwWHJz15SnSSV6a-kSoQhvaERf-aYXGghuaFNjjAUzhatcX61Bmkhj5RjN5OGkl2G7dDq71PkOmnSbgbWEz4VQcD33lLKmDsetVcFhEO-RU_pmLR09x1O5tkCGRkhrLGJUuJqENzH818mqR0I16vu7kYg/w430-h640/9780063068797.webp" width="430" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Myrlie had many times weighed whether she could stay at home with Medgar. She was often afraid--but it wasn't from her wonderful, loving husband, it was from those who hated her and all Black people there in Mississippi, where Medgar had brought her after they were married. He wanted to be in Mississippi and hopefully help ALL people in the State. He knew that it was those even in the state congress, the governor's office, the mayor's office, the police that instigated all of the efforts to prevent integration...</b></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Medgar had wanted to continue on in the University of Mississippi. But they, too, were prepared and sent his application back that he needed a "white" man's recommendation... Medgar had known many white men as he served our country and, perhaps, could have used one or two of them. But he knew that it wasn't a need for another reference. It was because he was Black. In fact, he and Myrlie had lived in the only Black neighborhood around. He had to stop thinking about a higher education. He needed to work and provide for his family. He took the job with the NAACP when it was offered. The primary function was to travel around the state and work with the Black people in the state to enroll them to vote... All was to be nonviolent...until Medgar and students in the state grew antsy... Do you know that word, it is informal for agitated, anxious, jumpy. I like this little word... I would be antsy if I couldn't go to my local movie theatre to see a movie I had heard about. I'd get antsy if I didn't feel like cooking and wanted to take my children to a local restaurant to get a quick meal.</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>You know the feeling, don't you? Imagine now, that your children were sent to a substandard school where they used second-hand textbooks...that didn't even talk about the history of your ancestors... slavery... Yeah, just like politicians are trying to do right now...</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="318" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/n4guzMmLK7o" width="464" youtube-src-id="n4guzMmLK7o"></iframe></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /><div style="color: #cc0000; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6D9HuaWL_Go" width="477" youtube-src-id="6D9HuaWL_Go"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="332" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Jt7IETJvFuU" width="481" youtube-src-id="Jt7IETJvFuU"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="327" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aXhRU2VmLj8" width="483" youtube-src-id="aXhRU2VmLj8"></iframe></div><br /></div><div style="color: #cc0000; text-align: center;"><b>On the other hand, the republicans who <i>are</i> trying to work for America are frustrated because of those who Hate Only for Political Power. And, of course, it is not fun to be threatened just because you wanted to do your job...</b></div><blockquote style="color: #cc0000;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="303" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jbmZakY_JfQ" width="478" youtube-src-id="jbmZakY_JfQ"></iframe></div></blockquote><div style="color: #cc0000; text-align: left;"><b>Now, let's go back to the south where Mississippi held court with 12 white men on anything. Black people were not allowed to be represented... Indeed, they were facing threats from not only the government but their lynch crew. the KKK. ALL Black people knew exactly what was going on--just like all of America who cares knows what is going on right now. And, if they didn't know before, than January 6th was the turning point for many...</b></div><div style="color: #cc0000; text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="color: #cc0000; text-align: left;"><b>Medgar had often told Myrlie that she was stronger than she realized. She didn't understand how that could be until Medgar was murdered, and she had seen him try to crawl toward her as he died in front of her and two of her children. You might say Myrlie grew up that day. But it was through shedding the millions of tears that she had within her... Anybody can imagine that she was screaming inside, yet trying to keep her children from the scene--from their realizing what had just been done by one man... with a gun... By the way, Mrylie kept pressing and, finally, after two acquittals, the man was convicted for her husband's murder...</b></div><div style="color: #cc0000; text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="color: #cc0000; text-align: left;"><b>Mrylie began to receive requests for speaking all over the nation. After all...She was the first widow of a civil rights leader who had been assassinated! As she began sharing, her confidence grew, her words grew stronger, more direct, and more powerful. She was speaking the truth to hundreds of thousands across the nation who listened...</b></div><div style="color: #cc0000; text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="color: #cc0000; text-align: left;"><b>And when she was joined by the wife of Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, she welcomed the comfort that these two women could bring to her, knowing that they knew exactly what pain and distress they were all facing. Each would share memories from when they were living as a wife of such a significant leader who faced danger every day... For instance, Myrlie remembered and shared about Medgar talking about when he was very young and all of the children would play together, not thinking about their differences... and then, suddenly, Medgar told her of a day when one of his white friends was standing with a group of young white men...</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote><blockquote><b>“He called me ‘nigger,’” Medgar said. “The split had come. The lines were drawn, Blacks on one side, white on the other. I guess at that moment, I realized my status in Mississippi.”14</b></blockquote></blockquote><p><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">And the three women all cried together, feeling that same pain... Marian Davis, the first Black person I had ever met and who became my best friend through junior and senior high school, once gave me my first lesson as well... The three of us--Carolyn, Marian and I had gone over to a spudnut show before school. We had all selected our treat and went outside to stand and eat. I had gotten a sputnut with white icing I remember. I can't remember what Carolyn got. But I remember that Marian had gotten a brownie with chocolate icing. Then Marian turned to me and asked if I wanted a bite... I laughed and said "no that's ok..." Then she said what I will never forget... "It's ok, you can take the first bite..." Even today, as I write, my heart melts and tears come to my eyes. She had taught me my first lesson about the races. She knew her status even when I didn't know mine... My respect for Black people began that day when Marian Davis taught me of loving her neighbor as her self...with a twist of irony that I knew she never intended--it was how she had been taught...</span></b></p><p><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">How I wish that the twisted minds within our nation had not been incited... again...</span></b></p><p><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="309" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RRkdV_xmYOI" width="459" youtube-src-id="RRkdV_xmYOI"></iframe></b></div><b><br /><span style="color: #cc0000;">Ok, I wanted to end today's post of a high note. Myrlie did discover that Medgar was right... She became a very successful woman, she married again to a man who knew that her first husband was the love of her life, but he loved her enough to want to work to provide her and the children a new home and life... Continuing to Medgar's work in civil rights, and seeing how President Kennedy did finally take action... (Was he murdered also for that act? Makes you wonder about the timing doesn't it...)</span></b><p></p><p><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">Later, we see Myrlie achieving her one dream from her life... She loved the piano classical music as I do...and, that dream had been filled. Participating in a concert at Carnegie Hall! I couldn't find videos back that far, but did find Alicia Keys who would be proud to represent Myrlie and her audience... don't you think?</span></b></p><p><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="328" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bT6WmWVYPhI" width="468" youtube-src-id="bT6WmWVYPhI"></iframe></b></div><b><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="331" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-UxDGQ5BaFw" width="490" youtube-src-id="-UxDGQ5BaFw"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="329" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_A44PQGVYvU" width="509" youtube-src-id="_A44PQGVYvU"></iframe></div><p><span style="color: #cc0000;">But Myrlie loved all music so I hope you enjoy these:</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="343" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Oy52AQOlomw" width="474" youtube-src-id="Oy52AQOlomw"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="313" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JrTbf_ws9Is" width="466" youtube-src-id="JrTbf_ws9Is"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">The title of a song came to me as I was writing... Then as I listened to it, I remembered one time when I heard Joy sharing that she was a Christian...she fumbled to answer whatever was being discussed. I found it ironic, perhaps even a God Incident, that this song came to mind... For surely I believe that Joy-Ann Reid was led to write this book at this particular time... God works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform. Folks, this book needs to be talked about, shared, and praised... Even in tragedies--even with all the lies, God's Love, His Truth will come through... I believe this book is just one way He's working to win over hate and violence in the world... Support those who speak Truth, Speak Love, Speak Jesus...</span></div><span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="301" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/t7UrjZaoUSY" width="505" youtube-src-id="t7UrjZaoUSY"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="332" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1228OGiK1dM" width="492" youtube-src-id="1228OGiK1dM"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><span style="color: #cc0000;">God Bless Us All</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">Gabby</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="347" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1RtDfSqsyb0" width="482" youtube-src-id="1RtDfSqsyb0"></iframe></div><span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span></b></div></span><p></p>Glenda A Bixler Reviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15829561936090262198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6957929086575807165.post-6040780833053786752024-02-13T15:37:00.007-05:002024-02-14T13:04:55.357-05:00Part 2 - Medgar & Myrlie by Joy-Ann Reid Black Historical Novel<p style="text-align: center;"> <span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Medgar was twenty-five years old—a tall, dark, handsome football player and World War II veteran. He and his elder brother, Charles, had what you might call “attitude,” which back then was risky for Black men in the South. Medgar had taken risks to register to vote, and he carried himself with a confidence and keen sense of the dignity he knew he was owed by the country he had defended against the Nazis in Europe.</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>~~~</b></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="326" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/L_ZfAODgAKM" width="482" youtube-src-id="L_ZfAODgAKM"></iframe></span></div><p><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Reverend Al comes right out where I wanted to be in his interview with Joy-Ann Reid on her heart-stopping book, <i>Medgar & Myrlie...</i></span></b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="329" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/79JRppUgEss" width="452" youtube-src-id="79JRppUgEss"></iframe></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="309" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/P_cVYxFBpyk" width="470" youtube-src-id="P_cVYxFBpyk"></iframe></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8xgTs_JxH6hTKVDuNw-WshAM_v2V0C1jhKGZL63DnQAYuKB0hTouNwmPmMDb2XFg_VdE60HdW7XoBRlDWixLsUrZpn1EeamllGq5eWzlDk1nfT9c6T-cwtRI5JeJOG2ag_gDhHes6pZ4vdHdNVq8oBjO0owWdjRRICuYQcytRQc42YqLMjQh8__jVuPQ/s521/9780063068797.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="521" data-original-width="350" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8xgTs_JxH6hTKVDuNw-WshAM_v2V0C1jhKGZL63DnQAYuKB0hTouNwmPmMDb2XFg_VdE60HdW7XoBRlDWixLsUrZpn1EeamllGq5eWzlDk1nfT9c6T-cwtRI5JeJOG2ag_gDhHes6pZ4vdHdNVq8oBjO0owWdjRRICuYQcytRQc42YqLMjQh8__jVuPQ/w430-h640/9780063068797.webp" width="430" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>NAACP had officially appealed to the Justice Department, asking for federal protection for Medgar and Henry, but according to Charles Evers, “the Justice Department hardly lifted a finger.”12 Myrlie watched as Medgar’s impatience, frustration, and exhaustion grew and his talk became more fatalistic. He told her one morning, after she’d spent the previous afternoon washing and ironing a full load of fresh shirts for him, that while he appreciated her efforts, he probably wasn’t going to need them. Other times, he came home and collapsed on the living room sofa, and she had to shake him and get him to move to the bedroom for a proper sleep. On the nights she couldn’t get him off the couch, she sat down beside him and eased his head into her lap. “I could feel the tension and bruises of the day slip away from him as I stroked his hair and rubbed his temples,” she recalled. “In a few minutes he would drop off to sleep, and I would sit there looking down at him, so tired, so much like a little boy who had pushed himself beyond all endurance.”13 His six-day workweeks were stretching to seven days—with no time for the fishing and hunting trips that had provided such a pleasing distraction for him. He had less time to toss the football with Darrell and the other boys on the block or to balance Reena on his knees while he did his Jack LaLanne morning workouts. Their family time together was at breakfast when Medgar talked to the children about his work. Once, Myrlie recalled, Darrell declared, “I hate white people,” and Medgar told him, “You’re wrong. You’re only hurting yourself . . . hating people is no way to live.” Another time, three-year-old Van made the whole table laugh, when he broke into a civil rights anthem, belting: “Let nobody turn you around!” </b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="338" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kXpWS5KUE0Y" width="406" youtube-src-id="kXpWS5KUE0Y"></iframe></div></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Invariably Reena, whom Myrlie called the house’s mini-mom, told her father he worked too much and needed to take some time off.14 Those moments of joy were far too fleeting.15 </b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>THOMPSON AND THE CITY OF JACKSON, ALONG WITH THE WHITE Citizens’ Councils, weren’t prepared to back down. After the Woolworth’s incident, the mayor obtained an injunction, naming Medgar, Salter, Ed King, the president and trustees of Tougaloo College, Dick Gregory, Gloster Current, the NAACP, CORE, and about a dozen others, enjoining them from “engaging in, sponsoring, inciting or encouraging mass street parades or mass processions or like demonstrations without a permit.” The activists were barred from “unlawful blocking of the streets or sidewalks, trespassing on private property after being warned to leave the premises or . . . congregating on the streets or public places as mobs, and unlawfully picketing business establishments or public buildings in the City of Jackson.”16 Thompson made it clear he intended to enforce the injunction. “They wanted things stopped and controlled,” Ed King said. “The injunction told us to stop lunch counter sit-ins, marches, demonstrations. . . . We appealed . . . and we got to the federal judge in Jackson for this district in Mississippi, who said that it was a very serious issue of the right to demonstrate and march. . . . You couldn’t even hand out literature. . . . We appealed to the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, which upheld the local federal judge, as did the Supreme Court. [But] Medgar said, ‘You have to defy the court system, even if it’s been upheld by federal courts, even if we might win in the Supreme Court a year from now, the movement is destroyed.’” Medgar believed the boycotts and demonstrations needed to continue until Thompson backed down. And they did. While the NAACP general counsel Robert Carter added to the flurry of lawsuits by filing yet another—seeking to end segregation in all public accommodations in the state, activists held a sit-in at Primo’s Restaurant downtown, while a separate group successfully, if briefly, integrated the city golf course. Another group of more than two dozen knelt in prayer in front of the downtown Post Office and were hauled away by police.17 With city jails full to bursting, the stockading of activists in the fairground detention camp continued, too. On June 1, with more than 550 protesters—many of them children—packed into the prison camp, Medgar sent an urgent telegram to President Kennedy: “Please, mistreatment of Negro children and their parents reported behind hog wire confines of Jackson Concentration Camp. City, county, and State Law officers involved. Medical attention being denied. Injured in some cases. Urge immediate investigation by Department of Justice agents of these denials of constitutional rights to peaceful demonstrators and protests.”18 Roy Wilkins arrived in Jackson that same day and joined Medgar on the picket line in front of the downtown Woolworth’s—the same one where, less than a week before, violence and mayhem had met the small group of Tougaloo sit-in protesters. Medgar wore a handmade sign over his suit jacket and tie that read “End Brutality in Jackson.” He and Wilkins were quickly arrested by helmeted police brandishing cattle prods as press photographers captured images that would rocket around national newsrooms. Also arrested was Thelton Henderson, the first Black lawyer to serve in the U.S. Justice Department, who had merely been observing the demonstration, and Helen Wilcher, who had succeeded Aaron Henry as state NAACP president at Medgar’s urging when Henry stepped down. Henderson was quickly released. Wilkins, Wilcher, and Medgar were booked on charges of restraint of trade and released on $1,000 bonds. Hours later, young activists staged a march downtown that attracted the now-standard response from police and led to the arrest and detention of forty additional activists.19 Even with this dismal conclusion of the march, Thompson finally relented, agreeing to hire Black police officers and crossing guards and to “upgrade Negro city employees.” He said the negotiations for other demands, including school and public facilities desegregation, were “ongoing.” <i>He also announced that Jackson voters would be asked to approve a $500,000 to $1 million bond to add more stockades to the detention camp.20</i> At the mass meeting that night, Wilkins took to the stage and spoke passionately, in terms Medgar had used before. “In Birmingham,” he said, “the authorities turned the dogs and fire hoses loose on peaceable demonstrators. Jackson has added another touch to this expression of the Nazi spirit with the setting up of hog-wired concentration camps. This is pure Nazism and Hitlerism. The only thing missing is an oven.”21 Outwardly, Wilkins’s presence at the protest and his fiery speech at the Masonic Temple were a show of national NAACP support for Medgar’s headlong dive into grassroots protest. But behind the scenes, tensions were rising to a boil. Medgar had deliberately taken Wilkins to that Woolworth’s because with the injunction in place, he knew what would happen, and he hoped the high-profile arrests of himself and the national leader of the NAACP would get Washington’s attention and force the mayor’s hand. King said he was told that Wilkins believed otherwise: that despite the injunction they wouldn’t be arrested “just for picketing.” Still, Ed King had come away from Wilkins’s willingness to march with Medgar and particularly his speech at the mass meeting impressed and hopeful that perhaps the NAACP’s attitude toward Medgar’s activism was changing. King said he was quickly disabused of that hope during the NAACP strategy meeting upstairs at the Masonic Temple the very next night. Medgar’s allies at the meeting, including Houston Wells and his brother James, known as “J.G.,” reiterated their appeal for the national office to pay for full-time security for Medgar and for the Evers home, citing the firebombing attempt just days before, which could have injured or killed Myrlie and the children. <i>But Gloster Current, who was in Jackson at New York’s behest, and who considered Medgar a friend, told the men the national organization had “more important things to do with its money” than to look after Medgar.22</i> King was stunned. But there was more to come. After the meeting, during which <i>the national office’s priorities—voter registration and NAACP membership sign-ups—were reiterated yet again, Wilkins asked to speak with Medgar alone.</i> Medgar motioned to Ed King to come with him anyway, and King said he felt that Medgar wanted someone to stand witness. Wilkins consented to King coming along. The Tougaloo chaplain had become one of Medgar’s closest aides and confidants. He said Wilkins must have presumed that, as a white Southerner and a college chaplain, King understood that this student militancy and insistence on continuing the cycle of protests and arrests, and drawing violent responses from authorities, was the wrong approach. The three men went into Medgar’s office and closed the door, at which point Wilkins unloaded on Medgar for getting himself and Wilkins arrested. As King described it, an angry Wilkins practically yelled at Medgar: <i>“Who do you think you are? Another Martin Luther King? There’s too much Martin Luther King in this country now.’” The Kennedy administration, which had been a reluctant player in the desegregation events unfolding across the South, didn’t want “a second Birmingham anywhere in America.” “And Wilkins told Medgar, ‘If you work with Dr. King, and if you do not stop these demonstrations, you will be fired,’”</i> King recalled. Medgar was diplomatic in the moment, and according to King, he told Wilkins he understood. After Wilkins left, Reverend King said Medgar told him that this was not the first time Wilkins had threatened to fire him. He said Roy Wilkins made the same threat a year before, over his support for James Meredith’s bid to enter Ole Miss. According to King, the administration wanted to quiet the violent opposition to integration until after Kennedy was reelected in 1964, and to keep the peace with the Southern, overwhelmingly Democratic, states. With the Birmingham upheavals finally cooled on May 10, Kennedy wanted a respite from the image of continual uprising in the American South. For that to happen, the civil rights movement needed to “get off the newspapers, get out of the streets,” as Ed King put it. The violent Woolworth’s sit-in had achieved the opposite result, and Wilkins was just as frustrated by Medgar’s insistence on backing the militancy of Mississippi youth as Kennedy was. <i>Ed King, for whom militancy was the only course, even accused Wilkins of “carrying out the orders of Washington” in seeking to slow Medgar down.</i> Thurgood Marshall and the other lawyers at the national NAACP had nonetheless backed Meredith’s bid; a sign that Wilkins’s opinions weren’t universally shared in the national office. But national had pointedly dissuaded Medgar from applying to Ole Miss Law School himself. Whatever Medgar and Wilkins’s past exchanges had been, this new rebuke stung Medgar, King said. <i>He knew the NAACP was tired of bailing out protesters, whose tactics they opposed. He knew they opposed the sit-ins and marches, and that NAACP headquarters in New York had lost patience with him. The actions taken by Medgar’s Youth Councils and high school and college activists clearly defied New York and their mandate to concentrate on voter registration.</i> But he also deeply believed that only direct action, from and by Black Mississippians, would turn the segregationist tide in the state. Medgar left the meeting feeling defeated. Myrlie wrote that “Medgar was more despondent that night than I had ever seen him. He had aged ten years in the preceding months. As he related what happened at the meeting, tears trickled down his cheeks.”23 And then there were the ongoing security concerns. <i>Houston Wells and other friends of Medgar had begun pressing the national office to provide Medgar with security protection, in the form of bodyguards or, at least, armed patrols at the Evers home. The requests were repeatedly declined.</i> <i>“I was livid that the NAACP put so little value on Medgar’s life,” Myrlie wrote. When she told Medgar as much, he replied: “It’s okay. When my time comes, I’m going to go regardless of the protections I have. Besides, I don’t want anyone to get hurt trying to save me.”24 </i>No one who knew Medgar believed he had a martyr complex. Far from it. His friends insisted vigorously that he wanted to live, for Myrlie and for their children. Since Van was born, they had even talked about having another child, as he had always wanted four. Myrlie had recently given Medgar the blessed news that she was pregnant again, which she’d discovered not long before the firebombing. They’d barely had time or space to absorb, let alone make plans, as they each felt their daily mission was to fight for their lives.25 On the night of Wilkins’s rebuke, as they lay holding each other after much tossing and turning, Medgar for the first time expressed doubts about bringing another child into the world,26 particularly in the state considered the most violent and segregated in the nation.27 Ed King said, “Medgar went through hell the next week or so. The National Office sent people down here to really control him.” NAACP headquarters was straining under the weight of $64,000 in bond debts,28 and Medgar, Salter, King, and others were in open defiance of New York.</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="316" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GWtlopEBr7c" width="462" youtube-src-id="GWtlopEBr7c"></iframe></div><span style="color: #cc0000;">(Lena Horne visited Mississippi with Medgar and his family a number of times, as included in the book, but never mentions that she sang there... I tend to think she did and when I found this song, I had to include it!)</span><br /> </b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">ON JUNE 7, LENA HORNE ARRIVED TO SUPPORT THE JACKSON Movement by appearing at an NAACP rally at the Masonic Temple that night. Medgar picked her up from the airport and brought her to their home for lunch. Myrlie was thrilled to have the actress and singer visiting them. She attended the mass meeting that night, and her heart swelled with pride as Ms. Horne talked about how blessed Mississippians were to have a leader like Medgar, who had allayed her every fear as they sped through the streets of Jackson in his Oldsmobile. The hall, jammed with more than three thousand people to see Horne and Dick Gregory, too, was captivated. </span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="349" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4IKH-YJqybk" width="460" youtube-src-id="4IKH-YJqybk"></iframe></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">(Well, I found this video so I'm now sure that Lena also sang!I was never much for jokes, most kids don't. I hated the first time I watched a new TV program Archie Bunker! It was only later when I realized that the laughter could...help...)</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">“The battle . . . being fought here in Jackson, as elsewhere in the south, is our nation’s primary crisis,” Ms. Horne said. “Let it be understood that the courage and grim determination of the Negro people in these cities of the South have challenged the moral integrity of the entire nation.”29 Myrlie recalled that police “ringed the building and patrolled the halls and doorways inside. The press was out in force, and the words of freedom songs swelled and echoed and burst through the open windows to flood the air for blocks around. <i>It was a night of tears and laughter, of high emotions, of unity and determination and brotherhood.</i> </span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Aor6-DkzBJ0" width="484" youtube-src-id="Aor6-DkzBJ0"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">And all that was sought was to Live Free like the White man...</span></div><br /><span>When the words of ‘We Shall Overcome’ rang from thousands of throats, we were overcome, and elderly Negro men wept along with high school girls.”30 “Freedom has never been free,” Medgar told the crowd that night. “I love my children,” he said to a hushed room. “And I love my wife with all my heart. And I would die and die gladly, if that would make a better life for them.”31 For all the pride and joy she felt in that moment, in her heart, Myrlie knew with an aching certainty that she would lose him. There was not even a question in her mind anymore. She felt incredibly lonely. It was unfair. She felt scandalously robbed before anything had yet been taken from her. At a small, private party after the mass meeting for the out-of-town guests that night, a Friday, Medgar and Myrlie shared a rare evening of much-needed laughs. When a group of friends began debating the wisdom of “young marriages,” Medgar joked that even though he had “robbed the cradle,” it had worked out quite nicely. Then he set Myrlie blushing by declaring to the room, rare for him in public, how much he loved her. They left the party separately: she took some friends home in her station wagon so she could pick up the children from the babysitter, and Medgar went to drop off some NAACP workers at their homes. Myrlie expected to be home first, but she was surprised when Medgar sped into the driveway just behind her. Once the children were in bed, he explained that he and several others had noticed three white men they didn’t recognize in the Masonic Temple that night. One of them was smoking a cigarette. His secretary saw this man had wandered upstairs to the floor where Medgar’s office was; he’d said he was just looking around and then left. One of the NAACP workers Medgar drove home said they thought they’d seen those same three men in a car, possibly following them after the party, meaning that maybe they’d followed them to the party as well.32 This news alarmed him enough that Medgar didn’t want Myrlie going into a dark house that night alone. They already lived with safety plans—never sit or stand by a window; always exit the car on the front passenger side, to be closer to the house’s front door; and avoid the large, wooded lot adjacent to the Youngs’ home. Medgar had walked that lot area during the day and had decided it was not safe. He discouraged the children from exploring and playing there. The woods formed the point of a triangle of streets where Missouri Street, which stretched behind the Youngs’ home, and Guynes Street ran into Delta Drive, where the businesses were white-owned. There was a cleaners, a small nightclub, a small restaurant called Dog and Suds, Joe’s Drive-In Theater, where Medgar had taken the kids to see Psycho, and Pittman’s Handy Andy Grocery. The following day, Saturday, June 8, Medgar spent all day at his office, intermittently driving down to Capitol Street to see that the boycott was holding up and how empty the streets were. He had begun periodically calling home to speak to each of the children, and on one of the calls that day, Medgar seemed shaken. He was being followed every day, <i>by one or two police cars, but that day, he told Myrlie, as he was stepping out of his car</i>, one of them had jammed “into reverse” and tried to back into him. “I jumped away just in time,” he told her. “I have witnesses . . . several other people saw it. It was no mistake.” This incident seemed to genuinely rattle Medgar, who didn’t frighten easily.33 </span></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">THE NEWS FROM THE NAACP NATIONAL OFFICE AT THE STRATEGY meeting that day was not good. New York had begun “to cut off the bail bond money to end all large demonstrations,” Salter later wrote. They also packed the local strategy committee with conservative clergy, he added. Medgar, already under intense pressure from national headquarters, was “functionally immobilized. Knowing Medgar,” Salter added, “we felt his heart and mind were with the struggle in the field. He made no effort to bridge the quickly deepening gap, and his involvement from that point on was minimal. The national office was choking the Jackson Movement to death. It waned into almost nothing [by] the second week in June.”34 Medgar and Myrlie were awakened Sunday morning by the phone, and Myrlie had had enough. She snatched the receiver off the hook and put it right back down, insisting that Medgar get even a bit more rest. When the phone rang again as she was serving him breakfast, Myrlie lost her composure. She grabbed the receiver and told the person on the line, who was calling from the NAACP office and asking where Medgar was, that he would get there when he got there.35 <i>Medgar was leading groups of Black protesters that day to white churches to attempt to enter the sanctuaries. It is an idea that Ed King said had come from Martin Luther King Jr., who favored challenging clergy to live up to their faith when it came to opposing racism and segregation.</i> Unsurprisingly, the activists were all turned away. “Medgar made himself very visible, taking some Black people to First Baptist Church where Gov. Ross Barnett was a Sunday school teacher,” Ed King said. “Medgar could understand and [even] laugh about the media angle,” he added. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Ross Barnett had let some Black people come into his church? Anyway, they were turned away, too.” Medgar was not arrested, as he had expected to be. “Maybe the white powers backed off it for a little,” King said. Medgar returned home before dinnertime and collapsed on the sofa, Myrlie remembered. She asked if she could do anything for him. “‘No,’ he said. ‘Just love me.’” Myrlie laughed and told him that wasn’t a hard thing to do. And then she took the phone off the hook for the rest of the evening.36 He was still asleep on the sofa when Myrlie and the children returned from evening church services, where she often played the piano for the choir. When he finally stirred, after the children had already gone to bed, Myrlie was sitting opposite him, just watching him sleep. It felt like a blessing seeing him rest. She told him that several church members had told her they were praying for him, and with his eyes still closed, he responded that he would surely need it. When he opened them and saw where she was sitting, on a chair facing the sofa and the front window, he gave a hard look. “Girl, if you don’t get up from there. You’re gonna get your head blown off,” he said to her, sitting up. Myrlie, who always had a comeback, quoted one of the things he would say to her. “My philosophy,” she told him, “is that I’m not going until my time comes.” He still insisted that she move out of sight of the window. “There’s no use courting it,” he said.37 She asked him where he expected her to sit, with his big self sprawled across the sofa, then squeezed in beside him, his head in her lap. He seemed relaxed, but he wouldn’t stop talking about their life insurance policy, vowing to find the money to pay the premium. For the first time, he expressed genuine fear that something might happen to him, and he made her promise that if anything did, she would take good care of their children.38 “I told him I couldn’t live without him,” Myrlie said. “Medgar was shedding tears at the same time. And he told me, ‘Myrlie, you are stronger than you think you are. You take care of my children.’ I’ll never forget that, never forget that. He trusted me. He felt that I had a strength that I knew I didn’t have. But he knew that I was a fierce protector, not only of him, but of our children as well. I’ll never forget that.” They lay on the sofa together that night and wept in each other’s arms. The following day, Monday, June 10, the family had breakfast, and Medgar spent much of the morning in the backyard with Van, tossing a tiny football while Myrlie took the older kids to school. When she returned, he asked Myrlie to take Van inside, so he could spend time on his own admiring the plum tree he’d planted there. Myrlie felt that something had shifted in Medgar. He was settled, and no longer afraid, but also palpably despondent. “Myrlie, I think we’re going to have our best year ever for plums,”39 he said, with a kind of empty optimism that made her feel more sad than hopeful. </span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">MEDGAR RELEASED A DEFIANT STATEMENT IN RESPONSE TO THE city’s latest injunction against demonstrations. In it, he slammed Jackson officials’ “unique capacity for speaking from two sides of their mouths . . . why spank a tottering infant? Why enjoin a ‘faltering’ movement, as they describe it? White leaders in Jackson gave the world the answer today. Their injunction proceedings have proven that our movement is sharp, vital, and inclusive. They are hurting inside. This is their outcry.” 40 Despite his bravado, Medgar was discouraged, and with the relentless obstruction of Black conservative clergy, paid operatives of the Sovereign Commission including press outlets like the Jackson Advocate, community resolve was indeed buckling. Medgar got home that night and read to the children before they went to bed. Once they were asleep, he and Myrlie talked in a way that left her more afraid than ever. “If I go tonight, if I go next week, if I go next year, I feel I’m ready to go,” he said, in a voice as calm as could be. Myrlie told him not to talk that way, and he told her she shouldn’t be afraid of death. “I know it’s hard not to be,” he said. “But it’s something that comes to everyone someday.” 41 He hadn’t told Myrlie that earlier that day, he’d been called by Felix Dunn, who headed the NAACP branch in Gulfport, Mississippi. Dunn said a local white attorney who was privately sympathetic to the movement had told him to warn Medgar that he should “be careful to have someone see him home each night and to arrange for guards around the house.” The attorney had it on good authority that “an attempt was going to be made on Medgar’s life.”42 </span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">On Tuesday, June 11, Medgar was up early, and after breakfast, Myrlie noticed he kissed each child on the forehead repeatedly. He held her close and lingered in the hug. He called home several times that afternoon. “What’s the matter, haven’t you got anything to do?” she remembered chiding him after the third call. “I just wanted to hear your voice,” he told her. “My love to you and the kids. I’ll see you tonight.”43 At his office, Medgar met with Aaron Henry to discuss their plan to travel to Washington, D.C., the following day to testify on behalf of the Mississippi NAACP before the House Judiciary Committee in support of civil rights legislation, and to coordinate their testimony.44 Salter recalled that he “saw Medgar late . . . [that] afternoon. He was dead tired and really discouraged—sick at what was happening to the Jackson Movement, but still too much an organizational staff man to openly challenge it. Back in January . . . he had openly pushed the national office, telling New York to speed up the Jackson school desegregation suit—in which two of his own children were plaintiffs—and hinted if they didn’t, he might resign his job. </span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The national office had speeded it up—a little. But in this situation, he didn’t buck the national office. We had a long talk and, despite the internal divisions, an extremely cordial one, much like old times. He was more disheartened than I had ever known him to be.” 45 The situation for the Jackson Movement was bleak indeed. After 650 arrests, and with so many still being held in the hell of the fairground stockades, there was still no biracial commission, and few concrete gains, other than Thompson’s vague promise to add a couple of Negro police officers. Voter registration remained anemic in the Mississippi Delta, and the Voter Education Project had growing doubts about the efficacy of the COFO coalition in the state. There were the persistent threats and police harassment. Medgar mused to a friend, <i>“I’m looking to be shot, any time I step out of a car.” 46</i> In Alabama that afternoon, Gov. George Wallace, channeling Governor Barnett, made himself a hero to white nationalists by defying a federal court order that allowed Vivian Malone and James Hood admittance to the University of Alabama. Wallace made his stand in front of Foster Auditorium before Alabama National Guard troops, federalized by the Kennedy administration, ensured that Malone and Hood would integrate the university as Meredith had done in Mississippi. Medgar and his team watched this unfold on television from the office. It was a welcome uplift. And then at 8:00 P.M. Eastern time, President Kennedy’s television and radio address began. The notes he sounded were not unlike those in Medgar’s televised speech. <i>“Today we are committed to a worldwide struggle to promote and protect the rights of all who wish to be free,” Kennedy said. “And when Americans are sent to Vietnam or West Berlin, we do not ask for whites only. It ought to be possible, therefore, for American students of any color to attend any public institution they select without having to be backed up by troops. It ought to be possible for American consumers of any color to receive equal service in places of public accommodation, such as hotels and restaurants and theaters and retail stores, without being forced to resort to demonstrations in the street, and it ought to be possible for American citizens of any color to register to vote in a free election without interference or fear of reprisal. It ought to be possible, in short, for every American to enjoy the privileges of being American without regard to his race or his color. In short, every American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated, as one would wish his children to be treated. But this is not the case.” 47 No president had ever put into words meant for a national audience such expressions of racial equanimity. Kennedy, who had not begun as a civil rights man, was speaking as much to the humanity of Black lives as Medgar did every day. He spoke from the same source of moral authority—the role of international moral warrior America had inherited in World War II. He presented to Americans the fundamental moral crisis that had plagued the nation from its very founding. And he was making an announcement. “Next week,” he said. “I shall ask the Congress of the United States to act, to make a commitment it has not fully made in this century to the proposition that race has no place in American life or law.” Kennedy touted the forward advances the Supreme Court had authorized and the executive branch’s modern commitments to hiring without regard to race. He also said there were things only the legislative branch could do. “I am, therefore, asking the Congress to enact legislation giving all Americans the right to be served in facilities which are open to the public—hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and similar establishments.” Kennedy went on to announce that with the pace of integration moving anemically, despite progress in “seventy-five cities” over the prior two weeks, the legislation he planned to send to Congress would “authorize the Federal Government to participate more fully in lawsuits designed to end segregation in public education,” and seek greater protection for the right to vote. It was a full-scale war on the Southern way of life, and an embrace, from the White House, of the “first-class citizenship” Medgar had been touting. “This is one country,” Kennedy said. “It has become one country because all of us and all the people who came here had an equal chance to develop their talents. We cannot say to 10 percent of the population that you can’t have that right; that your children cannot have the chance to develop whatever talents they have; that the only way that they are going to get their rights is to go into the streets and demonstrate. I think we owe them and we owe ourselves a better country than that.” Kennedy spoke for just fourteen minutes, but his words echoed into history. The speech was thrilling for Medgar and his fellow activists. It was the culmination of all their cajoling and demands of the White House. It was also a triumph for the NAACP, which the summer before had gathered at the White House to meet with Kennedy. For white Southerners, including the Klan and White Citizens’ Councils in Mississippi, it was a declaration of war. Kennedy’s bill called for the federally sanctioned desegregation not just of schools and colleges, but hotels, restaurants, shops, beaches, and other public accommodations—the very things activists were conducting sit-ins and marches to achieve. </i></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>MYRLIE HAD ALLOWED THE</i> </span></b><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">KIDS TO STAY UP AND WATCH KENNEDY’S speech. She and Van had curled up on the bed in her and Medgar’s room, while Darrell and Reena sat on the floor to watch. It felt like a singular triumph: the president of the United States echoing Medgar’s call for dignity, decency, and first-class citizenship for the millions of Black Americans whose grandfathers’ and grandmothers’ hands built this country and more than one million of whom had, like Medgar, gone to war for its ideals. Kennedy was a fellow World War II veteran, and it was striking that it fell to these veterans to take up the fight against racial tyranny at home that they had abroad. Myrlie felt prouder than ever that her husband had played a part in Kennedy’s transformation from reluctance to eloquence and action on the matter of segregation. She thought of her own father, whose bitter disappointment after serving his country had been so unshakable. Perhaps other Black men, sometime soon, would not have to carry that burden around. She drifted off, thinking how thrilled she would be to congratulate Medgar when he got home, and how she and the children would pepper him with questions until he begged them to let him get some sleep. After all, tomorrow was a workday. </span></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">A MASS MEETING WAS HELD AFTER KENNEDY’S ADDRESS, AT NEW Jerusalem church—a venue the Jackson Movement hadn’t used before. It was quite a comedown from the inspiration of the president’s speech, and a far cry from the packed auditorium that had gathered at the Masonic Temple for Lena Horne and Dick Gregory less than a week before. “The mass meetings had [quickly] collapsed to just token petty participation,” Ed King said. The Jackson Movement, King said, “had been destroyed because of the interventions of Washington putting pressure on the National NAACP.” The meeting lacked some of the basics of logistics and security that had become standard at the Masonic Temple. Instead, organizers tapped a group of teenagers, including then fifteen-year-old Hezekiah Watkins, whom they’d used in the past to pass out literature and leaflets outside prior mass meetings, to patrol the church grounds and watch for anyone who seemed out of place. After his nightmarish stint in Parchman, Watkins been drawn into the movement by Medgar and participated in the Jackson protests. He had gone from being an angry teenager whose little gang was spoiling for a fight with white Mississippi, to an activist who had spent time in the fairgrounds gulag the governor had built. He was enthusiastic about his assignment that night. “We were given guns because it had been stated that there was a plot . . . on [Medgar Evers’s] life.” The teens rode up and down the block on their bicycles before and during the meeting. “We were told if you see anything suspicious to come back and let us know, but if anybody tries to jump on you, you defend yourself. And we were all for it, to be honest with you,” he said. His only regret was that he wouldn’t be able to hear Medgar’s speech. He wouldn’t have missed much if he had been searching for inspiration. Salter recalled the meeting as tense. <i>National NAACP staffers used the event to formally announce that the focus of the Jackson Movement would now officially be voter registration and that while the boycott could continue, there would be no more demonstrations of any kind. </i>“NAACP T-Shirts were being sold by Medgar who had no enthusiasm at all,” Salter said. “He said virtually nothing at the meeting [and] looked, indeed, as though he was ready to die.” 48 Ed King recalled a time when James Meredith and Medgar had tried to explain to him the constant tension between activists on the ground and the national NAACP. Medgar, he said, asked: “Ed, do you think the NAACP exists by having fish fries and donations out of the poverty of Black people in America?” He reminded King that “there’s no Black middle class big enough” to fund a massive national organization. “The NAACP exists because of foundation money and rich whites and money from Wall Street. And the NAACP is controlled by the White House, the Justice Department, and no donations will go, that Washington does not approve of. And Washington does not want Dr. King and Medgar Evers working together.” Ed King had been schooled in the multiracial collaborative haven at Tougaloo, and it didn’t make sense to him that factionalism could exist in a movement that supposedly shared a single goal. Besides, he said, it was already too late. King believed that by June 11, 1963, Medgar had decided to shake off that sense of defeat and to trust his own instincts about how best to force a change in Mississippi. “Medgar called me aside and to a small room right at the entrance to the church,” King said, “and we talked. And it was like a religious experience. He had made up his mind. He was a liberated person. He said, ‘I am going to invite Martin Luther King to come to Jackson, to work with SNCC and CORE.’ And I said, ‘There have been these threats.’ And he said, ‘Yes, I will be fired from my job with the NAACP tomorrow or Thursday.’” Medgar said he expected his firing to make the news, maybe even nationally, not that it mattered. “I’ve made up my mind. And I think I’m doing what I have to do.” King said the conversation lasted ten or fifteen minutes, “and in a religious context that I don’t talk to many people about. . . . “I wasn’t his pastor, but I was close to him,” King said. “He knew I would understand everything he was talking about.... He was no longer the indecisive person who might be crying at his desk. He had mentioned to me at one point that he had trouble paying his life insurance and did not have enough... that was very heavy” on his mind. He knew what he wanted to do, and he intended to see it done. Charles Evers later recalled that “until ’63, Medgar mostly did what Roy Wilkins asked, but in ’63 Medgar began stepping out on his own. If Wilkins had fired Medgar that year, I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised.” 49 </span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">AFTER THE MEETING, FOLLOWED BY DINNER AT A FRIEND’S HOME, Medgar dropped Gloster Current off at attorney Jack Young’s home, where he was staying in Jackson. It was nearly midnight, and Medgar seemed weary. <i>He told Current, “Everywhere I go lately, somebody has been following me,” and so Current invited him to come inside. He felt certain Young would let Medgar stay until morning, so he could drive home at sunup. Medgar declined. “I’m tired,” he said. “I want to go home to my family.” They briefly revisited Medgar getting a bodyguard, which Current had rejected days before on the organization’s behalf. Medgar could never have afforded protection without the NAACP’s help, but regardless, he was too exhausted to discuss it further. Current recalled that as they parted, Medgar “just held my hand and held it and held it.”50 He got into his car, backed out of the driveway, and started for home. It was now just after midnight, June 12. </i>Darrell and Reena had begged to stay up after the president’s speech and the news to watch The Untouchables, and Myrlie consented. It was summertime, so there was no school the following day, a Wednesday. She cuddled a sleeping Van on the bed and drifted off herself as Reena and Darrell sprawled out on the floor, elbows down, heads in hands, staring into the TV screen. They were lost in their escape to 1930s Chicago, where Elliot Ness and his band of FBI do-gooders battled organized crime, when they heard their father’s car pull into the driveway, at nearly half past midnight. For the two elder Evers children, that sound meant precious “dad time” and little gifts or sweets and time to play or cuddle before finally giving in and going to sleep. They sat up with a bolt of excitement. “Daddy’s home!” </span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><i>However, their joy quickly turned to shock, as the low hum of Robert Stack and Walter Winchell was shattered by a single loud bang. It sounded almost like an explosion. The sound startled Myrlie and Van out of their sleep and she sat straight up on the bed, knowing instinctively what that awful sound was. The children reacted quickly, too, out of instinct and the instruction that Medgar had provided. Darrell grabbed little Van in his arms and cradled him. They went flat on the floor. Everyone was terrified. The bang was followed by a crash that made it clear something had come through the living room window. Myrlie told the children to stay down as she walked gingerly down the hallway toward the front door. Standing in the dark, she pulled the door open, to find her worst nightmare had finally become real. She screamed. It was loud and guttural and deep. She screamed and screamed, and she dropped to her knees. Medgar was lying facedown in a pool of blood, his torso on the low steps just outside the door. There was a long, semicircular pool of gore stretching from the porch, around the front of Myrlie’s station wagon, and toward the carpark where Medgar had parked behind Myrlie’s car. He was moving just a little, and his hand was outstretched, clutching his keys in his right hand. Myrlie was screaming so loudly and with so much shock and agony that Darrell and Reena forgot their training. They leapt up from the bedroom floor and sprinted down the hallway, Van tottering behind them. Soon, all three were beside their mother on the stoop, and everyone was crying. “Daddy, get up. Get up, Daddy. Get up!” Now the children were screaming, too. Myrlie was clutching at Medgar and trying to somehow pull him inside. She was yelling his name, and desperately praying. Scattered on the ground in front of him were the T-shirts and posters he was carrying from the meeting earlier that night. They read “Jim Crow Must Go.” Medgar had been shot in the back, with the bullet exploding out of his chest and crashing through the living room window. The bullet had knocked Medgar down, but he had used all his strength to drag himself halfway up the driveway and around the front of Myrlie’s station wagon toward the door. He clearly tried desperately to drag himself into the house, where his family, but also his guns, were. He seemed to be trying to talk, but no sound was coming out. A second shot rang out. This one was even closer. Myrlie thought for certain the whole house was about to be under siege. The children were in a complete panic, begging their father to please get up. This was the strong man who could do anything. He had to be able to do this, too</i>. Across the street, Johnnie Pearl Young, who had been up, unable to sleep, heard the gunshots clear as day. “I was sitting up in my kitchen, sewing,” she said. “And all of a sudden, I heard those shots: boom, boom.” The second shot had been fired by Houston Wells, Jean’s husband, who when he heard the gunfire ran out from next door and fired into the air to try to frighten the assassin (or assassins) away. He was still in his underwear and T-shirt; after firing, he ran back inside to get dressed. He quickly ran back outside and across the gory carpark while Jean stood on her front porch in shock and tears, aching for her friend. <i>“All of us were on the patio then,” Myrlie said. “Too late. That was it. My life, my love, was gone. There were three little children standing there.” “He must have been awfully tired,” Myrlie later recalled. “Because he got out on the driver’s side, and we had determined that that was not the thing to do. You get out on the other side, which was closest to the door, and there was less of a chance of being a target. But he got out on the driver’s side that night, and he was the perfect target.”</i>51 </span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">FOR MRS. YOUNG, THE NIGHT WAS FULL OF SHOCKS. HEARING Myrlie’s screams was just so unusual—not something you’d expect from the couple—and her first thought was to walk over and admonish Myrlie for hollering so loudly. “I got across the street,” she said, “And there was Medgar down on the [ground] just pumping blood like water. It scared me so bad I forgot what I even went over there to tell her. I turned around and ran straight back to my house.” Young’s husband had managed to remain asleep through the gunshots and screams, but she shook him awake, yelling, “Get up, get up. Something has happened to Medgar! When I said that, he [pulled] a pair of pants on and forgot his shirt, and he passed me and ran back over there across to Myrlie’s house.” <i>By the time the Youngs got to the Evers house, Houston Wells and another neighbor had already pulled the twin mattress off Reena’s bed and carried it outside to use as a gurney. Two police officers had arrived, responding to multiple calls. One of them later said there was so much blood, it looked like someone had butchered a hog.52 </i>It was the summer before her tenth-grade year, and Carolyn Wells (later Carolyn Wells Gee) was taking advantage of the chance to stay up late. Her younger sister was close friends with Reena, and Carolyn had once spent a nervous night in the Evers home babysitting the Evers kids. Her parents didn’t allow their children—including Carolyn’s younger brother Terry, who was best friends with Frank Figgers—to participate in marches or protests, but the children knew that their parents were NAACP members, and their phone sometimes rang with death threats from white racists. When she heard the gunshot and screams, Carolyn and her younger sister peered out their bedroom window, which was standing height and directly faced the Evers carport. “I went to my window because I heard crying and screaming,” she said. “I saw [Mr. Evers]. He was laying halfway across the steps on the porch, and Myrlie and the children were standing over him crying and screaming. Police came out but the ambulance never came.53 Mrs. Young and Jean Wells were soon guiding Myrlie and her sobbing children back inside the house. Mrs. Young recalled saying, “Let the men take care of it, Myrlie. I don’t want you out there listening. And I don’t want you looking at your husband. You know he’s been shot. . . . And I don’t want you to keep on hollering and screaming. You are going to upset these children [even more].” Medgar’s friends rolled him onto his back and placed him on the mattress. With the officers’ help, they placed the makeshift gurney into the back of Wells’s station wagon. Medgar had been shot through his back. The bullet had cracked his ribs and tore through a lung.54 His eyes were open, and he was breathing rapidly. The men covered him with a blanket, and as Jean and Johnnie Pearl kept Myrlie from going back outside and climbing into that station wagon with Medgar, the car sped off to University Hospital. Medgar was still trying to speak but managed to get out just two short sentences that he half whispered as the car barreled down the road and blood gurgled from his lips: “Sit me up,” he said, and then, “Turn me loose.”55 Two doors down from the Everses, Dr. Britton took a frantic call from Myrlie and dashed out his front door. He hopped into his car and followed Wells’s car to the hospital. Britton was the Everses’ personal physician, and he had delivered Van and often treated the family free of charge. He hoped that as a member of the Federal Civil Rights Commission, he could get the segregated hospital to take urgent action to save Medgar’s life. When they arrived there, Medgar had been wheeled into the Negro wing. Britton yelled to the all-too-passive white physicians, “Do you know who this man is? This is Medgar Evers, field secretary of the NAACP.” That caused them to take action,56 but there was no saving him. </span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">BACK INSIDE HER HOME WITH HER CHILDREN, MYRLIE COLLAPSED in prayer and tears. She sobbed and sobbed that she could accept God’s will. She knew in her heart that Medgar was gone. She snatched up the telephone again and called Jack Young’s home, and he handed Gloster Current the phone in time to hear Myrlie scream: <i>“They’ve killed my husband! They’ve killed my husband!”57</i></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><i>Italic Emphasis Mine</i></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><i>~~~</i></span></b></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="311" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/msFsn09Jps4" width="419" youtube-src-id="msFsn09Jps4"></iframe></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>I mentioned in Part 1 that there is extensive history leading up to the life of this couple, as well as the background on what was happening in Mississippi. I was glad that Joy quickly covered the important highlights in the video above, because I wanted to highlight, sadly, his death... Why? Because I want my readers to know exactly what I feel and think about this book. There have been many others I called most important... They were about the reality of the man who was our past president. They talked about those who use religion in their political acceptance of that man. A man we all know to be a liar, a rapist, a criminal, and an egotistical sociopath who has incited all of the worst hatred that America has known since the last decade...</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>This book covers the lives of our Black neighbors in America... MY friends who I have gone to school with, with whom I worked, and with whom I got to know through their writing... I have shared my own experience of living with two autistic children in my family while one black writer was stationed in Germany with only a few friends he felt comfortable enough to talk with. I've talked and shared with a friend who shared her personal experience within the church about sexual abuse... I have, however, read many more books that were wonderful to read, and confirming my long-held belief that the only difference between us was a color... </b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Later in the book, Myrlie talks about why Medgar loved the State--its beauty and his early life. When he first saw Myrlie, she was very young, years younger then the man who would be her husband. It was obvious from Joy's writing that she could see the love that they shared for each other... I saw it, too, as I read her book...</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">You will note that within the excerpt, there are many footnotes provided. Joy-Ann has done an outstanding job of research, then putting it together into a cohesive chronology of events, mostly from Myrlei's perspective. A tale that covered events that never should have happened! And then it continued--the assassination of important leaders: Malcolm X, Dr. King, President Kennedy... Lawlessness reined supreme among those white haters of the time...</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">It often comes to me that laws are created because of what lies are said, and what hateful acts are done in response to those lies... I'll be providing Part 3 as Medgar's family begins to live again...without him... One of the first things covered is that Myrlie chooses to relocate out of Mississippi...</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b>In February 1957, Medgar drove to New Orleans for King’s inaugural Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which sought to coordinate the various Southern protest movements and draw on the reach and influence of Black clergy to form a broad movement around the principles of nonviolence, to “redeem the soul of America.” Medgar was excited to finally meet with King, as well as other ministers like Fred Shuttlesworth and C. K. Steele plus strategists like Bayard Rustin, who were moving toward a strategy of direct action in the mode of the Montgomery bus boycott. At the conference, Medgar was elected assistant secretary, with the responsibility of assisting the Baton Rouge SCLC secretary, Rev. T. J. Jemison. That drew a rebuke from Wilkins, prompting Medgar to write an apologetic letter to Wilkins the following month, saying he was unaware that joining the SCLC was against the “policy of the NAACP” and insisting he was solely “trying to do what I possibly could to bring first-class citizenship to our section of the country as hurriedly as possible.”18 Medgar’s tenure in the SCLC ended quickly. That August, Medgar spoke at Mount Heron Baptist Church in Vicksburg, where Myrlie grew up and where they were married. His theme: “man’s obligation to God and to man.” 19 He spoke of the “righteous struggle” he had committed his life to, saying, “let it not be said in the final analysis when history will only record these glorious moments and when your grandchildren will invariably ask: granddaddy what role did you play in helping to make us free men and free women? Did you actively participate in the struggle or was your support only a moral one?” Medgar praised the Montgomery bus boycotts and King as examples of men putting their preaching into practice. Montgomery had sparked similar boycott movements in Florida and other states. He desperately wanted to bring that energy to Mississippi. </b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b>IN NOVEMBER 1958, EBONY MAGAZINE RAN A SPLASHY, SIX-PAGE profile of Medgar titled “Why I Live in Mississippi” by Francis H. Mitchell. Beside a full-page photograph of Medgar, wearing a casual striped shirt and leaning, half smiling, against a wall, Mitchell wrote that “Evers had not always planned to be a productive member of Mississippi society. In fact, during his Army days, he read extensively of Jomo Kenyatta’s Mau Mau reign of terror in Africa and dreamed of arming his own band of blackshirts and extracting ‘an eye for an eye’ from whites who mistreated their black brothers.” Mitchell quoted Medgar’s change of heart. “It didn’t take much reading of the Bible though, to convince me that two wrongs would not make the situation any different, and that I couldn’t hate the white man, and at the same time hope to convert him.”</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b>~~~</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="335" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NA3Outfs7K8" width="476" youtube-src-id="NA3Outfs7K8"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">WE The People are called to much these days, I believe. We The People who lived, learned of, or have studied the history of our nation, including Black History, knows just how fragile democracy - freedom - is! And never more so. President Kennedy, according to this book, was slow to come to the realization that he would have to become involved--even though an election was coming up! He did finally act... He was murdered...</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">Are we to believe that there is so much hate in America that we cannot withstand what is now occurring? Are we to accept that one man who made a deal with a group of evangelical christian leaders and chose to back him, and then continues to lie to their followers on just one or two single issues that fall short of what the majority of Americans want? Joy's book reminds us just how recently we had gone through, in some ways, far worse than we are going through now... It was in my lifetime! My LIFETIME that men and women who were trying to live free was stopped for one reason only: HATE For me, after reading this fantastic commentary of early life tragedies that many had no real idea of--we lived in the north--or there wasn't the Internet to learn daily of exactly how hate was ruining the democracy for which our ancestors fought...</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">When a child begins to learn--to watch what is happening in their lives, we also begin to question, even what those who may hold a prominent place in our lives... My sister once asked me if I thought she was a racist... I told her I didn't know... She looked at me and immediately pointed out the one black woman who headed up a foodbank operation where our church shared in... One black woman...</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">I think of my first black girlfriend many times, so that when I started working on a university campus, I was seeing and interacting and working with black men and women daily as well as other races... I remember one family situation that comes to mind often. I had gone to a basketball game with my new sister-in-law at which I spoke to many including one black man in particular. I knew him, a professor, with whom I had interacted during my job... I remember she asked something about him and as we talked I said something like, yes, I had thought about intermarriage but my main concern, always, was about the children of that marriage because of the times we lived in...60s... Then, one day, my aunt who had often been my babysitter while my widowed mom worked, asked me about dating black men? I looked at her, "What?!" I don't even date! What are you talking about? She then told me that my new sister-in-law told her that I would consider dating black men...She then went on to share that she had hinted around long enough about needing a new coat that finally my aunt gave her money, probably hoping she would leave... That was my first experience with a hidden hater and liar... Although we were about the same age, I knew I would never dare become friends with someone I could trust...</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">Talking behind somebody else's back is often done, I know... Even "soap operas" became a fad when talking about personal lives became so open... and... broadly shared. It is wrong in my opinion... But it occurs even more often now, with the internet... People think nothing about bad-mouthing someone they don't even know, purely because of what they think they know--or have been told...</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">And our past president is the most guilty of this sin! While demanding total loyalty, he cuts people to pieces. Now, he is even doing more so these days. Surely, he has reached a psychotic break wherein he lies outwardly to his cult of sycophants, spewing hate, violence, lies and more against anybody and everybody... yet continues to garner favor... He did it slowly many years ago, forming the personality of a man who totally lacks empathy or sympathy...</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">Just like, I quickly say, that those in the South were doing back in history! They pretended to their citizens that both blacks and whites were quite happy being separate in their lives... Of course, the fact that their housing was substandard, that they could not grab a meal at a local restaurant, or go to a movie showing in the local theatre was "not seen" by those whose hate had overcome any other emotion of a normal human.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">I have come to respect--and greatly admire--those who have been downtrodden. The indigenous people who lived on our nation's lands and suddenly invaded and murdered... The Black slaves who were bought and paid for by rich white men, working as slaves thereafter, never to know a day of freedom... and if they tried to escape, they were brought back by the law because they were OWNED!!! HOW can we call ourselves a christian nation and show such hate, I have to ask... The answer is that we are NOT. </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>Many left other lands to come to America to find freedom, and, many times, seeking religious freedom. Now, those same people who I have to assume were those who hated and murdered the indigenous tribes and terrorized slaves, to gain </b><i style="font-weight: bold;">their</i><b> freedom... are NOW seeking to Make America Great Again (MAGA) by going backward in time, to when the white man ruled supreme in all things...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="351" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yVbVrZCjfew" width="486" youtube-src-id="yVbVrZCjfew"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="334" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wzcYzEbygF8" width="478" youtube-src-id="wzcYzEbygF8"></iframe></div><br /></div><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">This is the first time I've watched a Fox video or the Station... Let's put it very carefully and truthfully. Trump wants an All-White America, just like the haters who have lived in the underbelly of the world because they are afraid of the light...</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">Can you pick up all the lies this man is telling to those who WANT to believe him because of their own hate...</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">Remember, Biden had provided a program on the first year in office on border security. NO republicans have been willing to support his program proposals... then a few republicans got tired of the unwillingness to help and they put a bill forward... Only to have Trump cry foul he wanted to use the border as his campaign! The majority of republicans stopped everything, caring not, really, about the border, because they continue to be those...who...hate...</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;"> I strive to speak Jesus most of all... </span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="342" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FpGYImM_VeM" width="469" youtube-src-id="FpGYImM_VeM"></iframe></div><span style="color: #ff00fe;">Hate can be an Addiction!</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">Let's Do An Intervention for All Who Hate</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">VOTE blue all the way on each and every ballot!</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">Until ALL Americans ARE FREE</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div></b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="306" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NfVEQJjbNXQ" width="484" youtube-src-id="NfVEQJjbNXQ"></iframe></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="332" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oXGlCs0byzs" width="489" youtube-src-id="oXGlCs0byzs"></iframe></div></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">God Bless</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">Gabby</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">And my own testimonial Songs...</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="323" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Xr9y5iXUVGc" width="486" youtube-src-id="Xr9y5iXUVGc"></iframe></div><br /><span style="color: #ff00fe;">God is Watching...</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">God is a God of Love</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">God is a God of Truth</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">Speak Truth to the World</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">We All Know Hate and Violence is NOT of God</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">Hold our heads up...</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">And Don't Be Afraid of the Republican Dark...</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">Follow the Light of God!</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">Walk On, Speak Out, We Are Never Alone!</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">Jesus Died For Us</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">Why didn't millions follow His Words</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">Love Our Neighbors As Ourselves...</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">!!!</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8Q4PzIPi16w" width="526" youtube-src-id="8Q4PzIPi16w"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="340" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YrLk4vdY28Q" width="484" youtube-src-id="YrLk4vdY28Q"></iframe></div></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="335" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MgwG802rHng" width="473" youtube-src-id="MgwG802rHng"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b>This Book Resulted in This Post</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b>Words Need to Be Read, Absorbed</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b>And His Spirit Will Be Upon Us!</b></span></div></span></span></div>Glenda A Bixler Reviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15829561936090262198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6957929086575807165.post-64977415214558555292024-02-12T12:02:00.001-05:002024-02-12T12:02:47.319-05:00Three Books, Jet the Kitty Series, Added to Avi's Personal Library! By Nathan James and Illustrated by Anadiny Mogno<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1q-S16CrApULCgAUHUWsmh6ccUAnmYH71CvuWXO55pr-utOwnsLoneJWo_tcm_8gKR-RMKkiZRfqC-tVrZyDHY1cu9IWP6gRuYXIGzwuNuNos5ukiWI53VjicCv3qNjEOQLLRBYg7lU_L7vL4w42al1Zz9kkXaBifvRZvFd-b6ouwN30OrzoZCk316pU/s4160/0320221219_Film1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4160" data-original-width="3120" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1q-S16CrApULCgAUHUWsmh6ccUAnmYH71CvuWXO55pr-utOwnsLoneJWo_tcm_8gKR-RMKkiZRfqC-tVrZyDHY1cu9IWP6gRuYXIGzwuNuNos5ukiWI53VjicCv3qNjEOQLLRBYg7lU_L7vL4w42al1Zz9kkXaBifvRZvFd-b6ouwN30OrzoZCk316pU/w240-h320/0320221219_Film1.jpg" width="240" /></a><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></b></span></p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Hey Avi! Yes, Gabby has some books for you... They are from what you call a series of Jet the Kitty!</b></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>The first one is <i>Turn Her Frown Upside Down! </i>Come over and let me read the first page...</b></span></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHERO3Flu7PRHtwI8Gj4m2M9CcI3GnlBmwT11L260Laz4NgUzFGmcmejsrRYk3G9RShfcIfRpzJX2FXfaDBYbIjiVkNwSklBlNUfEffquUCefu3iWXiE5i0PNC8GrPUuRCGh9ULFsZ7hpGV3j4QrrHPrmsvlfRPIT-jNZdnzGQc3mbSxQ7qVFsgE3_xik/s347/51L15eZpyyL._SX342_SY445_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><img border="0" data-original-height="347" data-original-width="342" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHERO3Flu7PRHtwI8Gj4m2M9CcI3GnlBmwT11L260Laz4NgUzFGmcmejsrRYk3G9RShfcIfRpzJX2FXfaDBYbIjiVkNwSklBlNUfEffquUCefu3iWXiE5i0PNC8GrPUuRCGh9ULFsZ7hpGV3j4QrrHPrmsvlfRPIT-jNZdnzGQc3mbSxQ7qVFsgE3_xik/w394-h400/51L15eZpyyL._SX342_SY445_.jpg" width="394" /></b></span></a></div><br /><p class="a-text-bold" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px 0px 14px; padding: 0px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="a-text-bold" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">It was one of those days where everything goes wrong.</span></p><p class="a-text-bold" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; margin: -4px 0px 14px; padding: 0px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="a-text-bold" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Jet the kitty was sad and grumpy all day long.</span></p><p class="a-text-bold" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; margin: -4px 0px 14px; padding: 0px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="a-text-bold" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">First, Jet fell over as she crossed the street - Ahhh!</span></p><p class="a-text-bold" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; margin: -4px 0px 14px; padding: 0px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="a-text-bold" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">She found chewing gum stuck to her feet.</span></p><p class="a-text-bold" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; margin: -4px 0px 14px; padding: 0px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="a-text-bold" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="a-text-bold" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; margin: -4px 0px 14px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">~~~</span></p><p class="a-text-bold" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #595959; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Ember, amazon_ember, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 700; margin: -4px 0px 14px; padding: 0px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="a-text-bold" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br /></span></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzU7LZg-yGnG1At3-JuBf_uII8GtS9TCsQ-1BSxgcWtWWZI6DzOz8KzF9xg5RzxBjb4urzFoTVPT8I48Eg4tM6tKKWhEeLaENxwRSjBjsKJndZCDeN_S7Ed6VW5qzLPNvn1T_GDxpdrlnvMJ3pTKOL1VMJMhqzvZWFim_RJo4Icr1cLy81m5W2BWyV7ms/s4160/0320221218_Film1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4160" data-original-width="3120" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzU7LZg-yGnG1At3-JuBf_uII8GtS9TCsQ-1BSxgcWtWWZI6DzOz8KzF9xg5RzxBjb4urzFoTVPT8I48Eg4tM6tKKWhEeLaENxwRSjBjsKJndZCDeN_S7Ed6VW5qzLPNvn1T_GDxpdrlnvMJ3pTKOL1VMJMhqzvZWFim_RJo4Icr1cLy81m5W2BWyV7ms/s320/0320221218_Film1.jpg" width="240" /></a></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Want to read another one Avi? Let's see what Jet the Kitty discovers in</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><i>Mayhem at the Market!</i></b></span></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>When Jet the Kitty woke up early she meowed "Hurray!"</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>She's going to the supermarket with her dad today.</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>"Don't forget to buy healthy food," Mom said.</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>"Yes ma'am," Dad winked, and mom shook her head.</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #2b00fe; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdBJ3qqKeOGYzfIgajgwHhfTmUE6AL3QnPmNDqV14eG48f2vjgPnJj-Fhes9R-nEKZKB5huMuBhpewrzf7dQZMBZYgUSKfZjDc0BXxvGhmyW3AH40dk8kTmUw7nkq5uBzid5CKOy-uIhJLEfpAy7KimFkg-DpSXr9AI58rM-L-6TlZxZTxfPBkxbnNt-I/s1000/61-vt5C1w-L._SL1000_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdBJ3qqKeOGYzfIgajgwHhfTmUE6AL3QnPmNDqV14eG48f2vjgPnJj-Fhes9R-nEKZKB5huMuBhpewrzf7dQZMBZYgUSKfZjDc0BXxvGhmyW3AH40dk8kTmUw7nkq5uBzid5CKOy-uIhJLEfpAy7KimFkg-DpSXr9AI58rM-L-6TlZxZTxfPBkxbnNt-I/w640-h640/61-vt5C1w-L._SL1000_.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">I laughed when I continued to read, because when Jet and her Dad got to the market, her Dad quickly started talking about buying steaks and burgers. And it was Jet that pointed out that they were not healthy and suggested chicken instead...</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">And then they "smelled" their way to the bakery and Dad said that they needed white bread, muffins and croissants... Sounded good to me, but it was again Jet who said...that's not healthy." We'll buy whole grain bread instead." What do you think, Avi, will Dad get anything that he wants to buy? Well, they then moved on to the fruit aisle and Jet started to juggle apples, starting with three and continued adding up to nine! Now it was Jet that wasn't doing what was right, as one of her friends came by and pointed to a sign that said no juggling! Of course, by then all the apples were falling on Jet's head and the floor! And that wasn't all the trouble Jet got into! Don't you wonder exactly what they did take home for Mom's inspection?</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">~~~</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglxYnyQwWkaWEhmyUwemhW4zeujAA4UYRAYBDbqdXeh40I6Go1NHorPtT1YiAmC-PvfJxR5t4VHRfUBVu5I_p_tRRLbqGMg5rz4cwCW8kAmsVjh-HQTsuiFBXPzFtEA62ppgQ16Im-RFRZZ6ln8uu-8KxWbnAlBTaPqk9taBsj_ecga9mAxkEbiu7Sd2M/s4160/0320221216a_Film1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4160" data-original-width="3120" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglxYnyQwWkaWEhmyUwemhW4zeujAA4UYRAYBDbqdXeh40I6Go1NHorPtT1YiAmC-PvfJxR5t4VHRfUBVu5I_p_tRRLbqGMg5rz4cwCW8kAmsVjh-HQTsuiFBXPzFtEA62ppgQ16Im-RFRZZ6ln8uu-8KxWbnAlBTaPqk9taBsj_ecga9mAxkEbiu7Sd2M/w300-h400/0320221216a_Film1.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><span style="font-weight: 700;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Ahhh, I see I now have your full attention! Do you want to read another story? Yes? Well the last one is also about Jet the Kitty and this time she's going to space! Let's read <i>Explores the Solar System: </i></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000;"><b>A Rhyming Space Adventure About Planets & The Galaxy. </b></span><span style="color: #cc0000; font-weight: 700;">Sound good Avi?</span></div></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Mf9VF3jrZMABCNwR5SZllri3OeIozs9RPuiyJiTCm04tjcdLaILlmMJ_SDs6zQ_bHfXNcwYfjAz2VmkqrjiVRBU7sEqLZDuKBLI9AkDOwYP0A-mQAJoUE1tC_OzMIVzsbv43BJflRzuB9fOcDccUC6ysCmTlvtIA0HI1ktplTF6gFiUOCd4dZ92lknI/s342/51BNpcrElgL._SX342_SY445_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="342" data-original-width="342" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Mf9VF3jrZMABCNwR5SZllri3OeIozs9RPuiyJiTCm04tjcdLaILlmMJ_SDs6zQ_bHfXNcwYfjAz2VmkqrjiVRBU7sEqLZDuKBLI9AkDOwYP0A-mQAJoUE1tC_OzMIVzsbv43BJflRzuB9fOcDccUC6ysCmTlvtIA0HI1ktplTF6gFiUOCd4dZ92lknI/w400-h400/51BNpcrElgL._SX342_SY445_.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Tonight my pal Twinky and I shall Fly...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Through space, for our great gig beyond the sky!</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Together we put on our astronaut suits</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Let's find space for our tails, and try walking in...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Big shiny boots!</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>The first stop was the Sun, but they couldn't stay because it was too hot, realizing that the sun could melt their space rocket! Really, believe it or not... </b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Jet decided to fly outside in her space suit while Twinky is the pilot as they head to the first planet, small and dark gray... Actually, this is a guessing game for Jet and Twinky and the first question is to identify the first planet nearest the sun? Avi, can you guess?</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>But on to the next planet from the sun, known to be the brightest spot in the earth's sky (also hot). Well, I'm learning along with you, Avi, and the next planet is <i>Venus!</i> And then we're traveling back home, because the next planet from the sun is <i>Earth</i>! Before they flew on, they watched the stars in our sky and wondered just how much there is to know!</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>And would you believe they meet another friend, flying a strange looking vehicle with just a head mask, and also a clue! He offers Jet a treat! Desserts are what this place knows and the chocolates here are something else, then he adds but don't try the rocky road! Funny...but did you guess that it was <i>Mars</i> chocolates...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4Mdx5HFCOloB9VwraSpSDaoD0gl4-7ImKOjc5kImmmiGfl3gZi57d1YnjAR_uS5QSWrKh39TM_fwFg1U5KUJsQNEfTPGWlYB1Hqvy48c5Tdiwwj0d4Sf9lSUjdwrJfBwDQOl03v8nvBmH7jFmE67-9VL1yH54r2qJJcN3JdbLMwudT7qlTtWaTqKFLpc/s4160/0320221216_Film1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4160" data-original-width="3120" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4Mdx5HFCOloB9VwraSpSDaoD0gl4-7ImKOjc5kImmmiGfl3gZi57d1YnjAR_uS5QSWrKh39TM_fwFg1U5KUJsQNEfTPGWlYB1Hqvy48c5Tdiwwj0d4Sf9lSUjdwrJfBwDQOl03v8nvBmH7jFmE67-9VL1yH54r2qJJcN3JdbLMwudT7qlTtWaTqKFLpc/s320/0320221216_Film1.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>This last book is quite instructional as well as fun like the other two... While the age is from 3-7, I'll be sharing the books right now... He looks at the pages. The main thing is that I want him to have the experience of holding books in his hands...and, maybe, we can start helping to learn words as he grows...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>By the way, these pics are of Avi at an earlier age, suddenly Google picked up my pictures from my phone and brought them here online... (I had been trying to get them through Windows and failed...) But, of course, pictures of somebody you love never lose their value in sharing, don't you think?</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>This concludes the series, as of now (I had already reviewed another)... The books are bright and colorful, drawing attention first, and then the characters are creatively presented based upon the theme of the story... I can assure you that they are perfect for your children...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>God Bless</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Gabby</b></span></div><p></p>Glenda A Bixler Reviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15829561936090262198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6957929086575807165.post-19993426626505448962024-02-11T16:40:00.000-05:002024-02-11T16:40:15.488-05:00What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal By Elle Magazine's Advice Columnist, E. Jean Carroll<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="345" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sYq2LZV9uGM" width="477" youtube-src-id="sYq2LZV9uGM"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJUQhf6ZJ68YEeuqqvDiiKnEWYZOweM548vpQcYYwuiT0OcGHspl6HPP8iqo7Dh9T-zkiRxbaNYq04zaOf0WRrMtShPjztx6mK8TuW1mE_wTcXPex2klsl7aD6EEu5W-4FGppQIAptcj_Bl1Mmx4dPmrXYYqwqazwVjDb7oaw6MmaTtuiuT8Q86VL4FpI/s445/41rttKegOAL._SY445_SX342_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="288" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJUQhf6ZJ68YEeuqqvDiiKnEWYZOweM548vpQcYYwuiT0OcGHspl6HPP8iqo7Dh9T-zkiRxbaNYq04zaOf0WRrMtShPjztx6mK8TuW1mE_wTcXPex2klsl7aD6EEu5W-4FGppQIAptcj_Bl1Mmx4dPmrXYYqwqazwVjDb7oaw6MmaTtuiuT8Q86VL4FpI/w414-h640/41rttKegOAL._SY445_SX342_.jpg" width="414" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Here is my theory as to why it’s difficult for many women to think of female leaders. I have made it into a poem: </b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Women did not create America’s political system. </b></span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Men did. </b></span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>If women get a chance to invent a new way of governing— </b></span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>which, of course, we will, and it will be infinitely superior— </b></span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span>we won’t have to rack our brains</span> </b></span></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b> envisioning </b></span></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>women leaders. </b></span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Because our leaders will be women. </b></span></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b> </b></span></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>What women <i>can</i> envision right now—</b></span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>without the slightest hesitation—<span style="text-align: left;"> </span></b></span></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>is getting rid of men.</b></span></div></div></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">~~~ </span></b></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">For instance, at the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York, just to jump ahead in our story, Jennifer and Irene, who both work at the Hall of Fame, suggest that “the men” could be “put out on the golf course,” where they can “hit their balls.” </span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>The National Women’s Hall of Fame, by the by, is hung with photos, bios, and plaques of famous women. </b><b>“While I’m here,” I say, “I would like to nominate Melania Trump and put her up there on your wall of fame with Harriet Tubman, Louisa May Alcott, Susan B. Anthony, Maya Angelou, Lucille Ball, Margaret Bourke-White, and Julia Child.” </b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>“Go ahead!” says Irene. </b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>“If any woman deserves a plaque on your wall,” I say, “it’s Melanija Knavs Trump!” </b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>“It’s a hundred dollars for the plaque,” says Irene, “which we will send to Mrs. Trump. Plus five dollars for the shipping and handling. And then we will display a copy of her plaque on the wall forever.” </b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>I pay without trifling and send the plaque to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. </b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>I want it engraved with the following, if possible: FOR IDIOCIES SUFFERED AS A RESULT OF BEING DONALD TRUMP’S FIRST LADY </b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>I haven’t checked, but I believe the permanent copy of the plaque now resides on the wall of the National Women’s Hall of Fame. </b><b>Congratulations, Melania!</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">~~~</span></b></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.elle.com/life-love/ask-e-jean/a29862545/best-e-jean-love-advice-2019/"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>https://www.elle.com/life-love/ask-e-jean/a29862545/best-e-jean-love-advice-2019/</b></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9kqzeCqcryYxrgkxDv5rrrmb7Kcq2Iod8Bxyocj7Z2Vnsx_9fT5Wr8rA8mumuj1-VYSfxeB0Q07PrWgUEnenXXdbCIz26wNDFUB4Apve1yB9CFywdxJQaZUL5VSy2xVUr2eaG8qJAapQMqixj2w8LnCpIxdbc9JTyKwryayTw7C_U0dZcR82kUrIhyphenhyphenms/s200/7e3d6d81-eee7-42ef-a270-b44007866e3d_1503951584.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9kqzeCqcryYxrgkxDv5rrrmb7Kcq2Iod8Bxyocj7Z2Vnsx_9fT5Wr8rA8mumuj1-VYSfxeB0Q07PrWgUEnenXXdbCIz26wNDFUB4Apve1yB9CFywdxJQaZUL5VSy2xVUr2eaG8qJAapQMqixj2w8LnCpIxdbc9JTyKwryayTw7C_U0dZcR82kUrIhyphenhyphenms/s1600/7e3d6d81-eee7-42ef-a270-b44007866e3d_1503951584.jpg" width="200" /></b></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">On What to Say When a Partner Asks, </span></b></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">"Why Are We Even Together?"</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht-Kf7Ab78ZW-Arxl7_kD4Vvu7q7-HoNTzBedrgmOIdNYU8A0ZWpAghX5F2aLR6Gc4tEN9trkx4uyT-C9wifnX7OxFKkybpGlWTaXU99TzqF-SBx0mRllv9RGTX8EYKyxAHfGM_gA-KieCdPkFbkPPqpbvH75ueeWN7e845ilQrx8NG_LVU03vYKvZCqI/s980/landscape-1498740766-ejean-0001-shake-fear-of-failure-1526084337.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><img border="0" data-original-height="490" data-original-width="980" height="104" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht-Kf7Ab78ZW-Arxl7_kD4Vvu7q7-HoNTzBedrgmOIdNYU8A0ZWpAghX5F2aLR6Gc4tEN9trkx4uyT-C9wifnX7OxFKkybpGlWTaXU99TzqF-SBx0mRllv9RGTX8EYKyxAHfGM_gA-KieCdPkFbkPPqpbvH75ueeWN7e845ilQrx8NG_LVU03vYKvZCqI/w200-h104/landscape-1498740766-ejean-0001-shake-fear-of-failure-1526084337.jpg" width="200" /></b></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><div><div class="align-center size-medium embed css-1736von e1xqj1sx4" data-embed="body-image" data-node-id="13" size="medium" style="--data-embed-display: flex; -webkit-box-align: center; align-items: center; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; display: var(--data-embed-display, block); margin: 0px auto 0.9375rem; width: 765.018px;"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3" style="-webkit-box-pack: center; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-flex; flex-direction: column; justify-content: center; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 765.018px;"><div class="css-swqnqv e1xqj1sx2" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-left: 0rem;"><figcaption class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; padding-left: 0rem;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span>"He wants you to answer, 'We're together because I </span></b></span></figcaption><figcaption class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; padding-left: 0rem;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span>can’t go on living without you, and because you are a </span></b></span></figcaption><figcaption class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; padding-left: 0rem;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span>god among men.' When you get </span>bored of saying that, </b></span></figcaption><figcaption class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; padding-left: 0rem;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>and if he can’t make an effort to hold a real conversation,</b></span></figcaption><figcaption class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; padding-left: 0rem;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>you should respond, 'We’re not.' And accept his </b></span></figcaption><figcaption class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; padding-left: 0rem;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>invitation to go." (May 2019 issue of <a class="body-link css-d2yypp et3p2gv0" data-vars-ga-call-to-action="ELLE" data-vars-ga-outbound-link="https://www.elle.com/life-love/ask-e-jean/a27170897/ask-e-jean-unhealthy-relationship/" data-vars-ga-ux-element="Hyperlink" href="https://www.elle.com/life-love/ask-e-jean/a27170897/ask-e-jean-unhealthy-relationship/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-color: inherit; text-decoration-thickness: 0.0625rem; text-underline-offset: 0.25rem; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s; word-break: break-word;" target="_blank">ELLE</a>)</b></span></figcaption></div></div></div><h2 class="body-h3 css-k16obj et3p2gv0" data-node-id="21" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0.625rem; margin-top: 0.625rem; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">On Navigating Male Attention Post #MeToo</span></h2></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKjEyWMETvfY8Ucx0bLnKa7HOZrIJo5vwST1WEHNj5tP0Nw8KQhk7Ng76A1k0nR86i80goTQKv9318bovFK6484ZoafY2VGYOfPWM8VBDmD3NApUHQ_boyCCdmqgJOkEHc2dT1BowaAFXjlZMWhiMa5iuLB1qGnfpM8oQI_AFyLVr9h52jjjdYBWXBDdQ/s640/ejean-091317fake-orgasm-1505482962.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="640" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKjEyWMETvfY8Ucx0bLnKa7HOZrIJo5vwST1WEHNj5tP0Nw8KQhk7Ng76A1k0nR86i80goTQKv9318bovFK6484ZoafY2VGYOfPWM8VBDmD3NApUHQ_boyCCdmqgJOkEHc2dT1BowaAFXjlZMWhiMa5iuLB1qGnfpM8oQI_AFyLVr9h52jjjdYBWXBDdQ/w320-h210/ejean-091317fake-orgasm-1505482962.jpg" width="320" /></b></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>"The only 100 percent guaranteed way to stop men from 'crossing the line' is using a tranquilizer gun. In the #MeToo era, each woman has to decide where her own line is and how firmly she will prevent each boss, preacher, teacher, coworker, old friend, and stranger from crossing it. She alone determines which reaction is 'right' for her. And by each of us choosing for ourselves, we empower all womankind." (September 2019 issue of ELLE)</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>!!!</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>When an Advice Columnist (longest running yet) reads all the letters that are sent, finds that most, or all of them, are from women and decides she needs to write a book, how does she go about doing it? I wondered... but then as I started thinking about how to talk about the book, I realized that it was quite simple... Or at least it seemed so, AFTER she had written it...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Then, I was fairly certain about her tone in asking the question, but I went out on Elle's online site and selected just two of those "Asks" that are available there... Yes, they were funny, perhaps a little sarcastic sometimes, but, then, straight to the point! I was smiling even before I started to write...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>First, she knew she needed to do research, asking just one question. But where would we begin asking. Well, the author chose to go traveling to every town that had a woman's name as part of the location; for example, Marysville, Ohio... So she planned her itinerary based upon that one assumption... Got in her car, got everything ready to travel for herself and her traveling companion, Lewis Carroll... And she sets off! </b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Then when she gets there, she might put up her sign on the top of her car, "Free Advice" or she's stopped for a meal and start talking to the women, and sometimes men, who she meets! Cool, Right?! BTW, I've seen some critical comments from men who reviewed the book. I think this is definitely Chic Lit"; but if you're a man who, when his woman asks you to go talk to a woman with a kilt on and a dog with aquamarine hair, and you go...then you are probably the men who will be allowed to stay when we women take over...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Ironically, my caretaker who drives for me, takes me to the doctor, etc., and I had just been discussing that we both felt that women needed to take over businesses, for a start... I, for one, had already determined that men who are involved with service companies, such as Home Depot, or even KFC, have NO empathy (and few skills or ability to learn) with which they interact with their customers! Else we women wouldn't be ranting as much as we do...daily...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>So I was prepared to sit back and enjoy the trip...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>And, it began with a superb but quite descriptive Prologue for us:</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="327" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fKZRp515SmY" width="467" youtube-src-id="fKZRp515SmY"></iframe></b></div></span></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Women! You are fabulous! But for twenty-five years, you have been writing to me at the Ask E. Jean column in Elle seeking advice, and for twenty-five years, no matter what problems are driving you crazy—your careers, your wardrobes, your love affairs, your religion, your children, your orgasms, your finances—there comes a line in almost every letter when the cause of your quagmires is revealed. And that cause is men.</b></span></p></div></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="316" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/y3KEhWTnWvE" width="483" youtube-src-id="y3KEhWTnWvE"></iframe></b></span></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Ladies, I have been thinking about this dilemma. It occurs to me that when men are not passing the Ask E. Jean correspondents over for promotion, they are pestering, groping, pawing, pinching, mauling, and underpaying the Ask E. Jean correspondents. But my concern is not confined to Ask E. Jean letter-writers only. The whole female sex seems to agree that men are becoming a nuisance with their lying, cheating, robbing, perjuring, assaulting, murdering, voting debauchers onto the Supreme Court, threatening one another with intercontinental ballistic nuclear warheads, and so on. <br /></b></span></p></div></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="318" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UbxUSsFXYo4" width="397" youtube-src-id="UbxUSsFXYo4"></iframe></b></span></div><p></p><blockquote><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Now, I have weighed the two schemes put forth to solve this problem: arresting the chaps and/or impeaching them. Bah! These measures will accomplish nothing! My scheme does away with the lads entirely. I do, therefore, humbly offer for your consideration the following Modest Proposal: The average American man is five foot nine and weighs 195.5 pounds. I have been assured by female scientists that the male body is roughly composed of 0.00004 percent iodine, 0.00004 percent iron, 0.05 percent magnesium, 0.15 percent chlorine, 0.15 percent sodium, 0.25 percent sulfur, 0.35 percent potassium, 1 percent phosphorus, 1.5 percent calcium, 3.2 percent nitrogen, 10 percent hydrogen, 18 percent carbon, and 65 percent oxygen, and these elements would, on the open market, fetch around $1 per bloke. If we plump the lads up, we could be looking at $1.02 or $1.03! The number of males in America is generally reckoned at 164,628,232. Ladies, I propose that we dispose of our chaps at the $1.03 price and put their elements to better use. Not only would this solve all the problems of the Ask E. Jean correspondents, but since ninety-nine out of a hundred calamities throughout history have been caused by men, and since we will be eliminating a prodigious number of idiots, dickweeds, numbskulls, brutes, weaklings, and dingbats (and that’s just from the US Congress), the benefit to the nation would be infinite. Plus, with the $170 or $180 million we receive, we will be able to purchase, in return, eleven or twelve genuine Birkin bags. But before I feel completely satisfied with offering this plan for your consideration, Ladies, and to make absolutely certain that before we sell their elements on the open market, the chaps aren’t actually needed for anything, I will leave my little cabin in the woods and travel to towns named after women. And when I arrive in each town named after a woman, I will get out of the car and ask people, “What Do We Need Men For?”</span></b></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="313" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TOSZwEwl_1Q" width="444" youtube-src-id="TOSZwEwl_1Q"></iframe></b></span></div><p></p><div><div style="text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></b></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Indeed, I plan to leave my little home, which is on an island the size of a mattress eight miles south of Mount Eve in New York, and hit every town named after a woman between Tallulah, Louisiana, and Eden, Vermont (Eden is the #131 most popular name for girls in America so far this year, according to BabyCenter.com. Tallulah, alas, has recently plunged 581 points in popularity to #2,245).* I will be driving the spiteful Miss Bingley, my nine-year-old Prius, named after Jane Austen’s mean girl in Pride and Prejudice; and to keep myself sharp, I will only eat in cafés named after women, listen to music sung by women, drink wines named for-women, read books written by women, and wear clothes designed by women. If I eat a burrito in my motel room, it will be an Amy’s organic hand-wrapped, cheddar cheese-, bean-, and rice-with-Mexican-sauce bitchin’ burrito. Ladies, the time has come.<br /></b></span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="339" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Wv5nd-3BRr4" width="431" youtube-src-id="Wv5nd-3BRr4"></iframe></b></span></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The date is October 6, 2017. Prepare for immortality! The maps, the wine, the books, the clothes, the Baby Ruths, the Girl Scout cookies are packed. I have said farewell to the cat, Vagina T. Fireball. The dog, Lewis Carroll, has taken up his position in the back seat with his head out the window. I have donned my Korean driving cap, which, to look fashionable, must be worn pulled down over one eyebrow. To look fabulous, it must cover the entire eye, socket and all, plus half the other eye. It was designed by a woman who must have had a chauffeur. I have returned to the cabin to say farewell again, to the cat. Oh, and one more thing.</span></b></div></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="308" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/M_JiMkVx0FU" width="417" youtube-src-id="M_JiMkVx0FU"></iframe></div> </b></span></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><blockquote>No one need be carried from the room. For instance, when we get to the section of the book about the president and how he throws me against a wall and yanks down my tights in Bergdorf’s—do not be alarmed, Ladies. As I write, he is still married to the First Lady. Anyway, I assure you that I have been attacked by far, far better men than the president. One of my husbands, the glamorous ABC anchorman, for instance, was a famous choker whom I wore for three seasons. Here we all are in a photo taken at a party. But, happily, not every man we meet will try to yank down my tights—though, in the very first chapter, there is a boy who knocks me to the ground and, well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves—it takes more than a bunch of dolts to stop your advice columnist!</blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="309" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/U0dPwdyiZKE" width="436" youtube-src-id="U0dPwdyiZKE"></iframe></div><blockquote>So, Ladies, honk your horns! We’ve got a big, big road trip ahead of us! LET’S GO! P.S. Let me assure you that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote this Modest Proposal. I have no men by which I can get a single penny when we sell their elements—no current husbands, bosses, etc., etc.—even if the chaps turn out to fetch prices as high as $1.05 or $1.06! I have no other motive than the public good of the nation.</blockquote><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="337" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TDmidrIDB4o" width="455" youtube-src-id="TDmidrIDB4o"></iframe></div><p></p><blockquote><div style="text-align: center;">~~~</div></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="325" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ldP8YNAPlTw" width="475" youtube-src-id="ldP8YNAPlTw"></iframe></div><br /><p> <span style="color: #cc0000;">What I wasn't prepared for was the author's own "list" as part of her book--think personal tell-all memoir... </span><span style="color: #cc0000;">And my tears of sorrow as I read... You see, the author and I are about the same age... We have both experienced sexual abuse as a young child... We are both members of the #MeToo Movement... And have survived quite well!</span></p></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>The Most Hideous Men in My Life...Carroll starts numbering these molestors or otherwise abusive actors as she goes... Personally, I found the break of this sharing about those men who had treated E. Jean horribly needed... The book goes back and forth between her trips and stops, until, perhaps, something sets the author back to a terrible time in her life, when a man was involved. Each time, there is a familiar ring to the words...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="328" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/A134hShx_gw" width="452" youtube-src-id="A134hShx_gw"></iframe></b></div></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Heading to Elyria, Ohio. with Aretha blaring, the author stops at Oberlin College to meet up with some college girls! She puts out her sign, but this time she turns the tables on two students... I Need Advice! And another interview begins... She explains that none of the problems she's been receiving on Ask E. Jean are from men. One student quickly responds that is because all problems are caused by men... Good start, right?! </b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>In fact, except for providing sperm for children, most of the responses were, honestly, that they could get along without men... Some even bragged that they could do anything better than men--this from a proud woman who worked a farm and had discovered that there weren't too many men willing to put in the work! Single, farming and doing fine!</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Now this didn't surprise me, nor will it surprise readers, will it? Except reading this part of the book is indeed funny and, she finds one thing that men are good for--fixing cars because hers starts giving her problems and is forced to stay overnight... frustrated... But she finds women to talk to everywhere she goes!</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="328" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zi4DSmdUdng" width="438" youtube-src-id="zi4DSmdUdng"></iframe></div><br />If you can't answer the question, What Do We Need Men For?, I highly recommend you read the book... While it is definitely written to share and have fun between and among women, some men might also enjoy it, although my recommendation is to women! LOL</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>A few personal comments. The type of events when the author was very young should be read carefully. You might want to consider who your babysitters are after learning what happened--individually or in group settings...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>I found the scene where the author was raped by our past president very credible... The interaction was casually flirty, at first... each identifying the other that they knew who they were... And then...the shock of violence mixed with sexual abuse. Given all that I'd heard, including the famous boast that he could grab women by the pussy was totally in line with what happened... Except that this woman didn't accept the grabbing... Nor did we want it...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>The other thing I realized that I would be rethinking whether or not I will be writing my own memoir in relation to this aspect of my life. I can probably just say, Read E. Jean Carroll's book and you'll get the idea... Sexual Assault has been going on since Bible times... Sometimes I wonder if, because it is in the Bible, that men feel they have a right to rape a young girl... or any woman... I tried to tell myself No, that probably most men don't even read the Bible... But the thought still lingers...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>This book deserves your attention... Read it to reinforce your own opinions or laugh if some story hits a little too close to home, even if you decide to keep the man in your life, rather than sell him... Or put him in one of the camps that will be another option... Or, read it together and be thankful that you are not the type of man that many women...can...do ...without...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>GABixlerReviews</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><p></p></div>Glenda A Bixler Reviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15829561936090262198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6957929086575807165.post-16420519605289545672024-02-09T13:39:00.002-05:002024-02-09T13:39:57.061-05:00Chase's Return: The Clear Creek Series Presented by T. E. Killian <p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>When I need a break from everything, I turn to a cozy mystery, preferably with a cat character... And I found just what I needed with <i>Chase's Return</i> by T. E. Killian, with a wonderful cat named Garfield!</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="331" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/H75d66TiE6c" width="474" youtube-src-id="H75d66TiE6c"></iframe></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiny2NLdgVIVKlRIwG2mEZ5wqcLCAw-EZyeQmkO0_MsWyMQ_bPazIkooqOQF6txGljaLlsIdR4J4q0YH3s-RA0mxz6c50P17fFdyCsz9_JBRFRnGxqd7MX7TxnoAUOT8l_ZU8eIw3OvpQ-_QoXqllFXyBpfVQicV_Wa2aUha6xQ6zhP3hYixe03W2LS6Vw/s443/51PoE+RwkBL._SX342_SY445_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="443" data-original-width="342" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiny2NLdgVIVKlRIwG2mEZ5wqcLCAw-EZyeQmkO0_MsWyMQ_bPazIkooqOQF6txGljaLlsIdR4J4q0YH3s-RA0mxz6c50P17fFdyCsz9_JBRFRnGxqd7MX7TxnoAUOT8l_ZU8eIw3OvpQ-_QoXqllFXyBpfVQicV_Wa2aUha6xQ6zhP3hYixe03W2LS6Vw/w494-h640/51PoE+RwkBL._SX342_SY445_.jpg" width="494" /></a></div><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div style="color: #ff00fe;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">She’d thought she had loved Bobby, and she’d thought he’d loved her too. But boy was she ever wrong. At least she’d been wrong about Bobby. He couldn’t have loved her, not after the way he’d put off starting a family and then finally how he’d literally run off with another woman. She had to be honest, though. She had loved Bobby. So how could she know if hr love for Chase was strong enough? The words to a song were trying to invade her mind just then. It was an old song, and she was pretty sure that Frank Sinatra had sung it. What was it? She searched her mind and came up with part of the lyrics. ‘Love is lovelier, the second time around.’ That was it. Then she remembered that the title was ‘The Second Time Around.’ After some more thinking, she remembered a little more. ‘With your feet firmly planted on the ground.’ She laughed so loud that Garfield, who was taking a nap on her bed, raised his head to give her one of his looks. Well, she knew she didn’t have her feet firmly planted on the ground this time, either. But she was thinking that this time her love might just be enough to keep the man. Or was it just that Chase was a totally different kind of man than Bobby had been? She hoped and prayed that was the case. </span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">She started getting ready for her date then. She wanted to look nice for Chase, but couldn’t decide what she should wear. She finally settled on one of her favorites, a dark blue summer dress she knew highlighted her long blond hair perfectly. So, what if it was February? Her coat would keep her warm on the way and the restaurant would be warm once they made it there. She had barely finished and was leaving the bedroom to wait in the living room when the doorbell rang. Once she opened the door, she couldn’t help but notice the look that Chase gave her. That appreciative look made her feel special, even cherished. They both just stood there, staring at each other. He was wearing a dark green long sleeve sweater with tan corduroy slacks. He didn’t look so bad himself. </span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">Finally, he asked to come in, saying he had something Hunter wanted him to ask her. But as he was going through the open door, he stopped to look at the door facing. His whole body seemed to tense up. “Let’s go sit down for a minute. I have to call Hunter right away.” They both sat on the sofa as he made the call. Tiffany couldn’t tell anything from what Chase said to Hunter on the phone. All she knew was that he was somewhat agitated, and that Hunter was coming right over. </span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">When he disconnected the phone, Chase looked into her eyes. “As soon as Hunter gets over here, he’ll explain everything to you. Okay?” She only had time to nod her head before Garfield came flying through the air and landed on the sofa cushion between her and Chase. She had totally forgotten about the big cat. She wrapped her arms around his neck just to make sure he didn’t attack Chase. But no, she was almost shocked when all Garfield did was to sit there rather calmly, for him at least, and stare at Chase. She had to smile at the expression on Chase’s face as he stared back at the huge cat. After a long moment like that, Garfield made a strange sound between a growl and a hiccup, curled up on the cushion between them, and purred loudly immediately. In fact, Chase had to move a little to give the ornery cat room to do so. Even so, Garfield seemed to be keeping one eye on Chase. They just made nervous small talk until they heard a car pull up out front. Chase went to the door to let Hunter in. Tiffany wasn’t surprised to see that Frank Slaughter came in behind Hunter. But she was surprised when she realized that Denise Boone wasn’t with them. Frank saw her surprise. “Denise had to go back to Jeff City tonight on some personal business, but she’ll be back in the morning.” </span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">Chase showed the other two men the door facing that for some reason had caught his eye earlier. After they all examined it, Frank came over to where she sat. “Tiffany, did you know someone has broken into your apartment recently?” She was really shocked then. Her face had to have lost all color. Her apartment? No! “Are you sure?” </span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">“Yes, I’m afraid so, and I’d say it was done within the last week or so. Have you noticed anything missing or disrupted in any way?” She was shaking her head before he even finished. But then she remembered something. “Oh dear! Yes, come to think of it. When I came home Saturday night, I went into the kitchen to get a drink of water and my knife drawer was halfway open. And I’m sure I didn’t leave it that way.” </span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">Frank jumped back up out of the chair he’d just sat in. “Would you show me that drawer right now, please?”</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">~~~</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #b45f06;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>I found this book at Author's Den where I am once again reviewing books for their members... At some point a mention was made of an earlier book, and I knew right away I wanted to read the series--3 book series now in place on my Kindle... This is a book where the characters often pray for each other... Nothing deep or religious in the story--just friends and family caring for each other and acting in faith to support their neighbors... Jesus was indeed welcome in Clear Creek Baptist...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>The two main characters are the principal and English teacher, respectively. Chase lost his wife to cancer two years ago, while Tiffany Cameron was divorced, having been devastated when her husband ran off with another teacher... Needless to say that neither had been interested in looking for another mate... It took one hateful person to bring strong feelings from both of them where they began to worry and be concerned about the other. In the end, both realizing just how much they had started to care...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>What a lovely romantic story... What horrible villains...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>Tiffany was short... That wasn't the problem, however, it was the fact that several larger children were bullies and had chosen Tiffany as one they could easily intimidate... Two women who had tortured Tiffany throughout her school years was now also teachers at the same school... One of them had also recently filed a complaint against Chase, in his role as principal. It was later when she even added that Chase had touched her inappropriately.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>Chase had an excellent reputation with most of the town, so that, when she filed the additional charges, Hunter, the local police officer arranged to make the arrest, but he'd also contacted the judge for being freed on his own recognizance. At the same time, Tiffany had her own problem of dealing with her mother having been diagnosed with cancer. Both of these issues began the closer connection between the two as they, separately, tried to deal with their own life situations.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>And then, one night, when Tiffany decided to go and visit with her parents, she was rammed by someone driving an old truck. Tiffany was forced off the road and taken to the hospital for a checkup, having a large bump on her head... It was later that the driver of that truck was discovered, murdered... And because of who it was Tiffany had become a prime suspect! But, so was Chase--the woman murdered was the same one who had filed a complaint against the principal!</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>This is such a heartwarming story. Both Chase and Tiffany were insecure in their respective lives. Chase's wife had died of cancer two years ago, while Tiffany had been jilted by her husband when had had left town with another woman... But they differed in one major way. </b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>Chase had stopped attending church; he felt that God had not helped when his wife had cancer and died, leaving him and two sons... Tiffany stood firm in her faith, even while her husband deserted her...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>And, with the help and support of friends and families on both sides, they moved quickly when they realized just how much they cared for each other... The wedding was set for a month away! But, of course, they'd known each other for ten years... getting to know each other professionally and to some extent personally as situations brought them together.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>But would one of them be charged with murder? Soon outside police were called in since the local officers were close to the possible suspects. And they were quite demanding in following the trail to the truth...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>Personal events kept occurring for the happy company, as they moved closer together... Until suddenly, there was another murder! And it seemed certain that Tiffany was the next target!</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b><br /></b></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBVctM0Cih7kb0TZlLD2EnSQ4UPK_NzRV7X6nsH1bec4k7yFc8WMJ-I2zsuhV4THT8bEtgJrVDX4af13AMx5KD5pmFjV7aYZDy1AiY1LDG36UFKvhiabIzR5BFhq64VGpD_RTyQG9SAiwn7tyB7uM5Jjgrt51FMgF4rf98ySefkY2rtNy4NWpU-HhgLOY/s204/images%20(10).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="204" data-original-width="204" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBVctM0Cih7kb0TZlLD2EnSQ4UPK_NzRV7X6nsH1bec4k7yFc8WMJ-I2zsuhV4THT8bEtgJrVDX4af13AMx5KD5pmFjV7aYZDy1AiY1LDG36UFKvhiabIzR5BFhq64VGpD_RTyQG9SAiwn7tyB7uM5Jjgrt51FMgF4rf98ySefkY2rtNy4NWpU-HhgLOY/s1600/images%20(10).jpg" width="204" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">But Garfield Was There to Protect Her!</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="color: #cc0000;">Cozy and Cat fans are bound to consider this a must-read! It's a cat-as-tro-phe if you miss it! LOL</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="color: #cc0000;">GABixlerReviews</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></span>Glenda A Bixler Reviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15829561936090262198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6957929086575807165.post-29352497378298136402024-02-08T09:22:00.002-05:002024-02-13T05:29:36.013-05:00Sharing an Important Excerpt From New Book, Medgar & Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story That Awakened America By Joy-Ann Reid Part 1<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="344" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gms2b7PaGsE" width="482" youtube-src-id="gms2b7PaGsE"></iframe></div><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF1evUazCPtl37v6jh05pZ2uz5reDLwn2-znKjfzjt_CzoX65jn2MfN9KVR_d4TwyzGUnK16JLOybI9fH_Z_XAK7WQ_4Wc3ityGzKpMva-IlsN3_tDBiCAIC5mPUgwqMQGO6ci8G4Vw6orpLZ7ZUL_rwnELSa4CTizAQFf2lDusqdM3wAeVBuCLSn3l0Y/s521/cover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="521" data-original-width="350" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF1evUazCPtl37v6jh05pZ2uz5reDLwn2-znKjfzjt_CzoX65jn2MfN9KVR_d4TwyzGUnK16JLOybI9fH_Z_XAK7WQ_4Wc3ityGzKpMva-IlsN3_tDBiCAIC5mPUgwqMQGO6ci8G4Vw6orpLZ7ZUL_rwnELSa4CTizAQFf2lDusqdM3wAeVBuCLSn3l0Y/w430-h640/cover.jpg" width="430" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="330" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nipBqVJYUc8" width="481" youtube-src-id="nipBqVJYUc8"></iframe></div><br /><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>On May 17, 1954, Earl Warren, the new Chief Justice, appointed by President Eisenhower after Vinson’s sudden death from a heart attack, delivered the unanimous ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, declaring that “separate but equal” was dead. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>White Southerners erupted. The Clarion-Ledger in an editorial declared May 17 “a black day of tragedy for the South, and for both races.” The Jackson Daily News said that “human blood may stain Southern soil in many places because of this decision, but the dark red stains of that blood will be on the marble steps of the United States Supreme Court building.”</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b> Congressman John Bell Williams, a future governor of the state, called May 18, 1954, “Black Monday,” and Sen. James O. Eastland proclaimed that Mississippi would never abide by the ruling and submit to the mixing of the races in its schools. Gov. Hugh Lawson White formed a Legal Education Advisory Committee to find ways to, in the words of the Ledger, “dodge the ruling,” even inviting some ninety Black leaders, whom he deemed to be “good Negroes,” to meet with him and the board to seek their cooperation in maintaining separate schools, which the governor and other white elites insisted was a majority view among Black Mississippians. The governor even offered to improve Negro schools to make them “truly equal,” in return for Black leaders pledging to oppose integration. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>The group, including NAACP head Dr. E. J. Stringer, summarily declined the governor’s offer and fully supported the Brown ruling and integration. On July 18, the Ledger reported that “segregation problems on the university level [had] skipped Mississippi so far, with one exception: Medgar Evers of Mound Bayou, an NAACP director, has applied for entrance to the University of Mississippi.” Medgar was now officially a public name, with all the risks that entailed. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Within months, Governor White and the Democratic state legislature called a special session to pass a state constitutional amendment that white voters ratified later that year, allowing the state government to dissolve any school district that accepted integration. The amendment also added teeth to Mississippi’s already monstrous voter suppression laws, requiring that voters show “good moral character” as well as interpret arcane passages from the state’s 1890 constitution, subjectively decided by each county registrar, all of whom were white. Several counties required voters to re-register, forcing many of the few already-registered Black voters off the rolls. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>In Sunflower County, Robert Boyd “Tut” Patterson gathered a group of fellow white bankers, business owners, and planters to create the first Association of Citizens Councils of Mississippi (ACCM), which used its collective economic power to keep segregation in place by punishing Blacks who stepped outside the Mississippi social code by registering to vote, joining the NAACP, or attending meetings about changing the status quo. The Citizens’ Councils attempted to distance themselves from the “rednecks” in the Klan, but their hostility to change, and tendency to keep a minute account of the activities of Blacks who “stepped out of line,” had its own brutal calculation. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Medgar’s determination to enter Ole Miss Law School stalled amid that rancor. By fall, Attorney General Coleman recommended that the Mississippi State Board of Education reject Medgar’s law school application. Instead, they returned it, saying it lacked a second reference from a white citizen who’d known Medgar for ten years. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Medgar’s instinct was to sue, especially with the Brown victories in hand. Dr. Howard and Thurgood Marshall had other plans. Soon, on Marshall’s recommendation, Medgar was offered the job of statewide field secretary for the NAACP, a new position the organization created for him. Medgar accepted, letting his law school dream go for the time being. Myrlie was thrilled—and horrified. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>The job offer meant leaving Mound Bayou, and the bugs and the heat of the Delta, and moving to the state capital of Jackson. It also meant ratcheting up Medgar’s visibility and the risks to his life. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>At their dinner table, after the babies were put to bed, Myrlie protested. “I told him about my fear for his life, for the lives of our children and myself. He shared just a little about his fear, but I remember Medgar telling me, ‘I’ll always be there for you.’ And I said to him, ‘What about your body if it’s not?’” Her question was met with silence. “He got up and walked away from the table . . . walked out of the room. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>And when he came back in, he was different. I didn’t understand what had happened. And he told me, ‘Myrlie . . . this is something I have to do.’ I said, ‘What about me? What about our children?’ And he said, ‘This is why I have to do it.’ It took me a long time to understand that. I gave in, of course, because I wanted our marriage to last. I wanted it to be a comfortable marriage, as comfortable as marriages can be.”</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>~~~</b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>I was <i>nudged </i>into getting this book. I've just started reading, so it will be a while before my review is posted... But I came to this excerpt and I knew this needed to be brought forward to all of my readers...</b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Perhaps it will reach the ears of two Black men who recently delivered my new washer... It was another fiasco dealing with, still, another large corporation who has NO idea how to communicate! Maybe I'll talk about that at another time. In any event, I was upset. The young man who, I learned, had started a new business, was very courteous and calm while I ranted. Finally, he asked whether I wanted the washer and I had calmed down and told them to bring it in, while I continued to rant about companies that don't have to pay taxes because of the government's action. And that they were the people who got the complaints from us. They agreed. I asked how many they would receive and they said 2 or 3 a day... In my frustration, I don't remember how, but all of a sudden I was talking about Trump and voting... The talkative guy looked at me, and seemed surprised, asking "Don't you like him?" I immediately said "No, He's dangerous!" He then told me about a tax arrangement attributed to Trump for start-up businesses. I admitted I didn't know about that, and then later realized that Trump probably was once again taking credit for something congress did or even under Obama... In any event, I <i>really</i> wanted to shout, He supports White Supremacy... Instead, I fumbled and told them to ask their women... Yelling Do your research as they left... It was not my finest hour, as they say... But, how can you say that there is danger for, in my opinion, the Black citizens of our country, just like in the past... After all, Trump has been elected to go back to the way it was... Right?!</b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Then somebody sent me a notice about a group on Facebook with info about this book. I went out and bought it. I watch The Reidout often, but since I've been reading and writing more these days, I've tried not to watch MSNBC all day like I did during Trump's presidency. LOL although I keep my ears open for what books might be announced... to check out...</b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>The book begins with a lot of historical background, of which this excerpt is a part... Medgar is still alive and standing tall as his father was known to do, walking down the streets of Mississippi without looking down or away as they passed white people... Of course, I had already read enough books to know that Black mothers, in worrying about their children, would tell them about us, we white folk who hated them, so they had to be careful how they acted... And Joy's book repeated the same for generation after another... until Myrlie met Medgar... </b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Like Joy, I don't support war, so I had no problem in her concern about what was happening... I felt it too and even have had discussions because there is talk all over the internet about another civil war... I was told this by a young, white, woman who is also afraid for her child. I would be too... How in the world have we gone backward in time? The Republican Party is so corrupted that those in office now are actually going against our citizens in ensuring the present administration does not succeed any further... Check out the Border fiasco where Trump has told the House leader to NOT solve the border problem--that he wanted to run for office on the problem! WE HAVE GOT TO GET THEM OUT OF OFFICE!</b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="328" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FpEsVoB2I50" width="453" youtube-src-id="FpEsVoB2I50"></iframe></span></div><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="330" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bOV2iCGp7Ss" width="490" youtube-src-id="bOV2iCGp7Ss"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="339" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fy0_kyBB6FE" width="484" youtube-src-id="fy0_kyBB6FE"></iframe></div><br /><b>Folks, we need to do more for our country. It is quite clear what is happening..."MAGA" and all it stands for is working to move back to the 40s when white men had total control of all things, including the government. President Biden defines it as the soul of our country. I am more and more convinced that he is even more correct than we could ever have imagined... I, for one, refuse to go backward to a place where we lose all of the advances that have occurred since that time.</b></span><div><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Remember an election is coming... We need to ensure that fraud and violence are not part of this like it was and result in another January 6th... Vote out those republicans in Congress who refuse to work for the good of ALL Americans!</b></span></div><div><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>God Bless</b></span></div><div><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Gabby<br /></b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p><br /></p></div>Glenda A Bixler Reviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15829561936090262198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6957929086575807165.post-79380348876061888552024-02-07T16:01:00.002-05:002024-02-07T16:01:51.335-05:00The Hayloft: A 1950s Mystery (and Music!) by Alan Cook - Young Adult On... Another Personal Favorite!<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #7f6000; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">I have great faith in the people of the United States</b></div><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b>to do the right thing in the long run.”</b></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><b>“I hope you’re right.”</b></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><b>“It’s what keeps me going.”</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div></span><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="309" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PRpiBpDy7MQ" width="448" youtube-src-id="PRpiBpDy7MQ"></iframe></div><p></p><p><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Apparently Ralph stayed behind and was there all alone.” None of this made any sense. “Does Dad know?” I asked. “I just called him,” Mother said. “He’s on his way home.” My father was the brother of Aunt Dorothy and the uncle of Ralph. I asked more questions, but my mother had given me all the information she had. If it were anybody else, I might have almost believed it—but Ralph. Ralph was indestructible. He climbed the highest trees, dove off the biggest rocks. We were the same age, but he did everything a little bit better than I did—and a lot more flamboyantly.</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>I heard our car pull into the driveway and turned off the radio. I was tired of hearing about communist-hunting by the House Un-American Activities Committee, anyway. And tired of listening to pop songs that had lost their music and meaning since Ralph died.</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b><br />(My song selection based upon words; all others in book)</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh23GovrnexzoOb6kkTcie6Av_uSH8CuppD3ndbRX_7rBuf6jWYGSTtKVSoTfQLemgYWGKT3rpIO47TiwE3BkQVpfkLQSfWLV2hU7pVc0s6n5g3I8s5pUqIcfNPa3JDRmGsJU66SYyzE0Q5nN_nn0BS-c01eljBRjyl9Zm7Gz08IDkjpWlJ0vPFM5y_EMo/s445/41D+rzCsfXL._SY445_SX342_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="296" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh23GovrnexzoOb6kkTcie6Av_uSH8CuppD3ndbRX_7rBuf6jWYGSTtKVSoTfQLemgYWGKT3rpIO47TiwE3BkQVpfkLQSfWLV2hU7pVc0s6n5g3I8s5pUqIcfNPa3JDRmGsJU66SYyzE0Q5nN_nn0BS-c01eljBRjyl9Zm7Gz08IDkjpWlJ0vPFM5y_EMo/w426-h640/41D+rzCsfXL._SY445_SX342_.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">I admit, when I saw the 1950s mystery designation, I immediately bought it--for less than a dollar I surely got my money's worth...and more! By now you all know that I love books with music as part of the background story...So prepare to spend time with me as you read this review...</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="355" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XxzsfskbnGw" width="474" youtube-src-id="XxzsfskbnGw"></iframe></div></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The book opens as Gary is isolated with measles and his family are coming back from the funeral for his first cousin, Ralph. Gary is confronted with his not being able to be there, but also with the confusion as to how he could possibly have died the way that he did. He fell off a balcony at his school... Gary didn't believe it and so, this quickly turned into somewhat of a cozy mystery as Gary was determined to find out exactly what happened--he wondered who else had been with Ralph that night and whether he was pushed!</b></div><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="341" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZgdufzXvjqw" width="500" youtube-src-id="ZgdufzXvjqw"></iframe></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #783f04; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>A jukebox in the corner blasted out the Bill Haley and the Comets version of “Rock Around the Clock.” Rock and roll was still new, and some adults saw it as the latest form of teenage depravity. There had been a jukebox in the Atherton cafeteria that took nickels. Sylvia told me this one was free. Ralph had listened to this jukebox...</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #783f04; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="297" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/psch9N4PmO4" width="500" youtube-src-id="psch9N4PmO4"></iframe></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #783f04; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #990000;">Gary's home room was in the cafeteria so music was playing quite often and some of the girls even did the Charleston. He laughed wondering how they'd learned those steps!</span></b></span><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #990000;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #990000;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="361" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wZ7BKhVwbtw" width="457" youtube-src-id="wZ7BKhVwbtw"></iframe></span></span></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Gary met Sylvia on his first day at Carter. She was the class president and assigned to show him around the school. But before she came, Gary had been greeted by his new principal, Dr. Graves...</b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="341" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ESLa421KQaM" width="440" youtube-src-id="ESLa421KQaM"></iframe></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>But Dr. Graves, first, spent time talking about Gary's being transferred to Carter, noting that it was at his discretion that he be accepted... And, he then mentioned that Sylvia would be coming in soon and that he needed Gary to work with him secretly. He noted that Sylvia's father had undergone a congressional investigation related to whether he was a communist... Dr. Graves wanted him to watch Sylvia and report back on anything that seemed suspicious...</b></span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="354" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_Pct26fL-KQ" width="452" youtube-src-id="_Pct26fL-KQ"></iframe></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b style="color: #990000;"><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b style="color: #990000;"><br /></b></span></div>Now that Ralph was gone, there was only one reason Gary was happy to be at Carter... He had fallen "in love" with the head cheerleader when they played at his old school... Even though she was, of course, dating the football hero here, he couldn't forget about her great beauty... But he got to know her through Sylvia while keeping one of those secrets... In the meantime, Gary began asking questions, and even risked going to a dance, alone, hoping to learn more...<br /><br /></b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #990000; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="314" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Rf55gHK48VQ" width="481" youtube-src-id="Rf55gHK48VQ"></iframe></div><br /><div><b><span style="color: #783f04;">I didn’t think anybody would hear me if I rang the doorbell, and the door was unlocked, so I walked in. The music instantly became much louder. I followed the sound to the living room where cigarette smoke curled lazily toward the ceiling. A fire in an old brick fireplace produced more smoke, most of which went up the chimney. Several couples were dancing on a hardwood floor, darkened with age, doing some version of the swing or dirty bop. The music was coming from a phonograph playing 45 RPM records. The girls who were dancing wore skirts with several crinolines underneath, which flashed when they spun. I saw a couple of poodle skirts. </span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #783f04;">The boys, who outnumbered the girls, were dressed as their version of juvenile delinquents: blue jeans, T-shirts with rolled-up sleeves and a cigarette pack on one shoulder. A couple of them wore black leather jackets. Most wore their hair long. </span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #783f04;">I immediately felt out of place with my short hair and neat clothes,</span></b><span style="color: #783f04;"><b>especially because I didn’t recognize anybody. Then Willie materialized from someplace near the table that had been set up as a bar and grabbed me by the arm. He had a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth and had obviously been drinking. He pulled me over to the table where I recognized his brother, Dennis, larger and stockier than Willie, but with the same hair. When Dennis spotted me in tow of his brother, I stuck out my hand and said, “Gary Blanchard.” He shook my hand and said, “You’re the new kid. Have a beer.” He pulled a bottle out of a tub filled with ice, opened it deftly, and handed it to me. I took a sip. It was cold and slid down easily. One beer wouldn’t impair my driving ability. Although there were a few older boys and girls there, including Dennis, who had probably flunked a grade or two, I was willing to bet that most of the partygoers were under eighteen. And that included me. There wasn’t a parent in sight. No adults—just booze and broads. It reminded me of a definition I had heard of the difference between a good girl and a nice girl. A good girl goes on a date, goes home, goes to bed. A nice girl goes on a date, goes to bed, goes home. Although the saying was mostly wishful thinking, as was most sex talk at the high school level, it was tempting, if perhaps unfair, to imagine which kind these girls were. </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #783f04;"><b>I had briefly thought about asking Sylvia if she would like to come, thinking that she needed to get out, just as I did. Now I was glad I hadn’t. And what was I doing here? I obviously didn’t fit in. I wouldn’t stay long. Willie was probably the youngest one at the party, and he was sitting by himself. I went over and sat down beside him on a folding chair. “Nice party,” I said. He smiled at me, a little bleary-eyed. “I have a question for you,” I said. Might as well take the opportunity to try and get some information. I continued, speaking loud enough to be heard over the pounding beat of the music, “I…I’m interested in Ralph Harrison. You said there was something funny about the way he died.” Willie took a drag on his cigarette and said, “Did I say that?” Of course, he had been in a drunken stupor at the time, just as he was now. I tried a different tack. “You said he taught you to walk on your hands.” Willie’s face brightened. “Ya wanna see me walk on my hands?” “No thanks.” Even if he succeeded, I was afraid he’d leave a trail of destruction in his path. “You must have known Ralph very well. How did you meet him?” Since they were two years apart in school. “He was on the varsity baseball team when I went out for JV. We both played catcher.” “Who’s the coach?” “Mr. Jarvis.” One of the gym teachers. </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #783f04;"><b>“Dr. Graves sometimes comes to our practices.” “Oh.” I recalled Dr. Graves had said he watched swimming classes too. “Yeah, he knows a lot about baseball. He used to play semi-pro. He would give us tips.” “It sounds like Dr. Graves takes an interest in sports.” “That and he has favorites among the guys. Ralph was one of them. I’m another.” “What, do you brown-nose him?” “Naw, don’t have to.” “So what does he do?” Willie stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray sitting on an end table. He picked up a pack of Camels from the table, offered me one, which I refused, then took one for himself. He lit it with a lighter, also from the table. He inhaled deeply and blew smoke out through his nostrils. He looked at me and said, “Promise you won’t tell anyone?”</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #783f04;"><b>~~~ </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #783f04;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #783f04; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ISIyJorfLfc" width="472" youtube-src-id="ISIyJorfLfc"></iframe></div><div style="color: #783f04;"><span style="color: #783f04;"><br /></span></div><b><span style="color: #990000;">And then the unthinkable happened. Sylvia's father was fired from his job. He had admitted that he had once joined the Communist party, but once he realized what it was all about, he left. That didn't matter to anybody in the surrounding area of Carter. Both the father...and Sylvia...were ostracized!</span></b></span></div><div><span><b><span style="color: #990000;"><br /></span></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="332" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3fBH7Pup_cE" width="480" youtube-src-id="3fBH7Pup_cE"></iframe></div><br /><div><b><span style="color: #990000;">Gary and Sylvia had become closer, as friends, and moving toward more... But all of a sudden both Dr. Graves, Gary's father...and the Communist Craze was coming between them. At first he would sit with her at lunch and had been driving her to school... Then that was forbidden...</span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #990000;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="346" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pJ-7t1N4XVo" width="489" youtube-src-id="pJ-7t1N4XVo"></iframe></div><br /><span style="color: #990000;">And somewhere along the way, a family heirloom, a necklace, was discussed, which immediately led to the young teens of the family on treasure hunts... And they began in The Hayloft!</span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #990000;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="327" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WFrUsa5SUv0" width="453" youtube-src-id="WFrUsa5SUv0"></iframe></div><br /><span style="color: #990000;">And then as school was nearing the last day, a special program was held on the estate of one of the students. Gary was putting his clues together, but was it too late for him to find the murder of his cousin because, suddenly, he was caught in a trap from which he may never be able to escape!</span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #990000;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="334" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vlUMRHrVXrg" width="495" youtube-src-id="vlUMRHrVXrg"></iframe></div><br /><span style="color: #990000;">The climatic ending is exciting, nail-biting, and certainly unexpected! As Gary turns into a school hero as the final dance occurs... And, in appreciation of this writer's fantastic storytelling, I want to close with a scene I had highlighted early in the book...the writing drew me in for a short escape before tragedy started... song by one of the most famous singers of the time ... Nat King Cole...</span></b></div><div><blockquote><span><b><blockquote><span style="color: #783f04;">On Saturday afternoon, Carter played Atherton in football. At Carter. I knew I should be rooting for Carter, but my heart was still with Atherton. However, I decided that I had better sit on the Carter side of the field, since I attended Carter High now. Besides, the visitors’ bleachers faced west, and the spectators had the afternoon sun in their eyes. I was sure the field had been designed that away on purpose. </span></blockquote></b></span></blockquote><blockquote><span><b><blockquote><span style="color: #783f04;"><i>It was unseasonably warm—shirtsleeve weather. Perhaps too early to be called Indian summer, since it was officially just barely autumn, but the leaves were starting to turn to their autumn colors. The reds and golds made it the most beautiful season of the year—except for winter when a blanket of white covered the ground. And spring, when new green life appeared. And summer, when yellow grain filled the fields scraped flat by an ancient glacier. It was the kind of day that made me almost forget about my problems and just be happy I was alive.</i> </span></blockquote></b></span></blockquote><blockquote><span><b><blockquote><span style="color: #783f04;">Until I saw some Atherton people I knew across the gridiron. That brought a pang in my heart that I had been trying to quell. I arrived just before the game started, by design. The Carter stands were pretty much filled. The Carter band played the school fight song in the middle of the field with more enthusiasm than skill. The band members stood in the shape of a large C. I walked along in front of the bleachers, looking for a friendly face. The first one I saw was Sylvia’s. I turned away, feeling like a traitor. The band stopped playing, and I heard my name called. It was Sylvia...</span></blockquote></b></span></blockquote><p><b><span style="color: #990000;">And it was with Sylvia that he now had his last school dance... </span></b></p><blockquote><b><span style="color: #783f04;">I was glad when the dance was over, but for different reasons. I finally got to dance with Sylvia again, to the band’s version of “Autumn Leaves.” Appropriate.</span></b></blockquote><p><br /></p><p><b>GABixlerReviews</b></p></div></span><p></p>Glenda A Bixler Reviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15829561936090262198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6957929086575807165.post-89510012155490560912024-02-04T12:15:00.003-05:002024-02-04T12:21:43.436-05:00Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware Presents God, Guns, and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in America - Part 2<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1kLM168asdbNMLL-2tAIFVcxcUzlxQqsj1NV712vTnn_lDDSIf31M_nmrquqFoxsxRtvAo8Mrfz7KPjchkyWrv3n_4Pi772G3U1ix24qZs_nGt1kfRfsqDwq9b3D816-aDiV-gATJcvnZU7g3gWyK2YvAaBJlJE8vTjSMmRQpl5yuSNspvTS3do9auJ0/s445/gpdgims.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="296" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1kLM168asdbNMLL-2tAIFVcxcUzlxQqsj1NV712vTnn_lDDSIf31M_nmrquqFoxsxRtvAo8Mrfz7KPjchkyWrv3n_4Pi772G3U1ix24qZs_nGt1kfRfsqDwq9b3D816-aDiV-gATJcvnZU7g3gWyK2YvAaBJlJE8vTjSMmRQpl5yuSNspvTS3do9auJ0/s320/gpdgims.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>I highlighted quite a bit of the preface by the two authors about writing this book... I want to start by sharing those highlights:</b></span><p></p><p><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">We began work on this book a month into the global COVID lockdown in April 2020. It was a dark, dangerous, and uncertain time. Conspiracy theories that had already gained widespread currency throughout the preceding years were now rampant across the internet and social media. The vilification of Jews, Asians, persons of color, and immigrants, among others, was reaching unprecedented levels. And I (Bruce Hoffman) had recently been the target of a serious hate crime. It was time to return to my analytical roots. Violent, far-right extremism was the first “account” I worked on as a young terrorism and counterterrorism analyst when I joined the RAND Corporation’s Security and Subnational Conflict Research Program in 1981. Everyone else in the program had already taken one of the more prominent left-wing and ethnonationalist and separatist terrorists active at the time, so I decided to focus on a threat that was receiving less attention. This resulted in my first professional publication and a series of additional reports and scholarly articles on the threat posed by neo-Nazi and neofascist groups in Europe.1 Shortly afterward, however, my research shifted to focus on a similar trend then unfolding in the United States. By the middle of the 1980s, the U.S. Department of Energy had become increasingly concerned about the rise of violent, far-right extremism and violence in this country. Because many of its nuclear-weapon research, production, and storage facilities were located in states where this activity was increasing, the department asked RAND to conduct a detailed threat assessment. Between 1986 and 1995 I led a number of research projects and was the author or coauthor of several reports and articles addressing the danger of far-right terrorism in the United States. One of these reports, published in 1988 and cited in this book, identified these terrorists as the most likely to perpetrate a major, future mass-casualty attack in the United States. And another, published just weeks before the 1995 bombing of a federal office building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people, again underscored the continuing threat from violent, far-right extremists in this country and offered policy recommendations on how to address it. The historical pattern and potential for future violence from far-right terrorism in the United States also featured prominently in the first edition of my book <i>Inside Terrorism</i>, published in 1998. But then the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks occurred. And, like most other terrorism analysts, my attention was diverted to al-Qaeda and then ISIS as well as their various affiliates and branches. Meanwhile, a succession of terrorist incidents in Oslo and Utøya, Norway, in 2011; in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015; in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 2018; and in Christchurch, New Zealand, Poway, California, and El Paso, Texas in 2019 clearly showed that the same sanguinary ideology and hateful mindset that had fueled far-right violence during the closing decades of the twentieth century had neither disappeared nor abated. I thus approached my friend and colleague at the Council on Foreign Relations, Jacob Ware, and proposed that we together write this book. The plot by a Michigan militia cell to kidnap and execute Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer uncovered in October 2020 and the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol infused our work with greater urgency. I was sixteen years old on the day a bloodthirsty white supremacist murdered dozens of children at an island summer camp near Oslo in Norway—an incident covered in these pages.--Hoffman</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span><b>I was sixteen years old on the day a bloodthirsty white supremacist murdered dozens of children at an island summer camp near Oslo in Norway—an incident covered in these pages.</b></span><span><b> </b></span><b>As a citizen of a neighboring country who shared both an age and idealism with those murdered, the shooting shook me to the very core. This incident—coupled with my younger sister’s brush with jihadist terrorism during a school trip to Toulouse in France and my own experiences as one of the school-shooting generation’s earliest graduates—drove my desire to join the fight to make the world a safer and happier place and to rid our nation of the cancerous hate by which it has too often been defined. My early counterterrorism research, in graduate school at Georgetown University, focused on more youthful networks, often composed of men and boys who had grown up in the same era I had. Like Bruce, my first report, published some thirty-seven years later with the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism in The Hague, studied the far right, providing a threat assessment of the Atomwaffen Division, a neo-Nazi group whose members were responsible for several murders in the United States. By the time 2019 arrived and the trajectory of the violent far right covered in this book reached an urgent stage with outbursts of violence at Christchurch, Poway, El Paso, and beyond, I was offered the opportunity to work under the legendary Bruce Hoffman—with this book project beginning shortly thereafter. --Ware</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">~~~</span></b></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I had several false starts in writing this review... Like one of the video leaders for the Council, I found it both elucidating...and terrifying... Even more terrifying since I knew that the book was written by two researchers who were working with a think-tank type of organization (See Part 1 for full information). To me that meant that they were probably both totally dedicated as well as brilliant. Indeed the overall work on this book is outstanding and, in this way, even further reinforces the great concern for our nation!</span></b></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">President Biden first started talking about fighting for the soul of the nation. Indeed, he has stated that he chose to run for the presidency because of what he was seeing about those who are working against our democracy... Although I have read and already reviewed a number of nonfiction books which supported this belief, I found this book the most comprehensive, primarily because statistics and results of significant research has been included. Let's start with what I found to be the most terrifying:</span></b></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>In July 1983 the thirty-year-old Mathews was a rising star in the white power movement. He had both impressed Butler and was sufficiently integrated into the Aryan Nations family to have had the Christian Identity pastor baptize his adopted son. Mathews had also distinguished himself as the most proactive member of Butler’s personal security detail at an Aryan Nations rally held in Spokane, Washington, a month earlier. The muscular, boyish-looking Mathews was not tall, but he had a commanding presence and magnetic personality. He was “enormously charismatic,” one contemporary observer noted, and thus was well situated in the wake of Kahl’s killing to translate the movement’s hate-filled and seditious rhetoric into concrete action. Mathews was particularly moved by the exhortations of one speaker at the 1983 gathering—Louis Beam, the Aryan Nations’ “ambassador at large” and a former Grand Dragon of the Texas Ku Klux Klan. With the exception of Pierce, perhaps no one has had as great an influence on the modern white power movement as Beam. A decorated U.S. Army veteran who had served an extended eighteen-month tour as a helicopter door gunner in Vietnam, Beam had grown up in a segregated company town on Texas’s gulf coast. He was apparently already a committed racist while still in elementary school. Classmates recall Beam boasting in the fourth grade about being a member of the Ku Klux Klan and attempting to recruit them. Beam returned from Vietnam in 1968 disgruntled and disillusioned. He railed against flag-burning antiwar protestors and blamed the “communists” in the U.S. government for restraining the military in Vietnam and thus selling out him and his fellow warriors in an unwinnable war. He promptly joined the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. Years later, Beam would blame “Post Viet Nam Stress Syndrome” for his anger toward the government. “There is no relief, and can be none,” he ranted in one treatise. We are forever trapped in the rice paddies and skies of Vietnam. We can neither go back or go forward, but are suspended for eternity in the place that they put us.… I wonder if stress can be defined as wanting to machine gun all the people who sent us over there, along with the ones who spit on us when we returned. Or, is perhaps stress something more simple like crying out for justice in the name of the mangled dead, and not being heard? Or is stress more of a mathematical function, like trying to figure out how much blood 57,673 bodies can hold? In 1971 Beam was charged with the bombings of a progressive radio station and the Houston office of the Socialist Workers Party but escaped imprisonment. Thereafter, he organized a series of paramilitary training courses in Texas designed “to turn Klansmen into soldiers.” Beam ran at least four such facilities. At “Camp Puller,” a fifty-acre tract of swampland reminiscent of Vietnam’s rice paddies, both teenagers and children—some reportedly as young as eight years old—received instruction in “strangulation, decapitation using a machete, hijacking airplanes, and firing</b></span></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="314" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ugpFghSNcEM" width="452" youtube-src-id="ugpFghSNcEM"></iframe><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></span></div><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b> automatic weapons.” As Beam ascended through the Klan ranks from Grand Titan to Grand Dragon, he also created two elite, special operations–type units for his fellow Klansmen—the Texas Emergency Reserve and anti-immigrant Klan Border Watch. Beam also organized Klan recruitment drives at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, and rallies featuring David Duke, the smooth-talking Louisiana-based founder and leader of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Duke represented a new kind of hatemonger. He wore a suit and tie, came across as educated and articulate, and claimed that he was not against blacks as much as he was an advocate for the rights of white Christians. This would prove to be a harbinger of a wider trend reflected in today’s alt-right, for example, the polo shirts and chinos worn by neo-Nazis at the 2017 Charlottesville demonstrations and other protests. Beam was again arrested in 1979 after trying to gain entrance to the Houston hotel where Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping of China was staying. He hoped to murder Deng and thereby avenge “the 100,000 GI’s” who perished because of the support China had provided to North Vietnam during the war. As the state’s preeminent Klan leader, Beam attracted widespread attention in February 1981 for his role in the Texas chapter’s sustained harassment of Vietnamese fishermen working the gulf waters off Galveston. Within months, however, a combination of a federal court ruling specifically prohibiting such activities along with Beam’s conviction on misdemeanor charges of conducting paramilitary exercises on federal land without a permit prompted him to resign as Grand Dragon and head to Idaho—supposedly on vacation. Two months later, Beam and his family were still there—living at the Aryan Nations’ Hayden Lake compound. His arrival had attracted the attention of the local FBI office in Coeur d’Alene, who would soon have him under surveillance. In 1982, Butler appointed Beam the Aryan Nations’ “ambassador at large.” This new role suited the energetic former Klansman well, and soon Aryan Nations chapters had been established in Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas. Beam claims to have opened a business in Hayden Lake selling survival and camping gear and spent most of his time drinking coffee and changing his infant daughter’s diapers. In fact, his time spent in Idaho would have a lasting effect not only on future white power violence but on the trajectory of modern terrorism. Beam’s lasting contribution was to rescue from obscurity the concept of clandestine, underground warfare known as “leaderless resistance.” Writing in a 1983 issue of the Inter-Klan Newsletter and Survival Alert, which he coedited, Beam explained the principles of an approach to warfare that a World War II veteran of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS)—a forerunner of the CIA—named Colonel Ulius Louis “Pete” Amoss had developed. Exasperated by the Soviet bloc’s ability to penetrate and neutralize traditional, hierarchically organized partisan units and other resistance forces, the wartime spy and inveterate cold warrior concluded that “we do not need ‘leaders’; we need leading ideas. These ideas would produce leaders. The masses would produce them and the ideas would be their inspiration. Therefore, we must create these ideas and convey them to the restless people concerned with them.” This was music to Beam’s ears. He and his fellow white power leaders were continually frustrated by the ability of government informants and undercover agents to penetrate their movement. This concept, the Aryan Nations’ newly appointed ambassador-at-large now enthused, “is that any one cell can be infiltrated, exposed and destroyed, but this will have no effect on the others.… The efficient and effective operation of a cell system … of course, is dependent upon central direction which means impressive organization, [and] funding from the top.” Beam identified only one significant hurdle. “At first glance, such a type of organization seems unrealistic, because the natural question is, how are the cells to cooperate with each other, when there is not intercommunication or central direction?” By the time of the Aryan Nations Congress just weeks later, he would have a solution to that challenge, too. Gordon Kahl’s fate loomed large as the attendees gathered in Hayden Lake. In a stirring panegyric by Beam, the North Dakota farmer was hailed as a modern-day William Travis and Davy Crockett—akin to these brave warriors who had made the ultimate sacrifice in the fight against tyranny at the Alamo. Beam also glowingly described Kahl’s imagined ascent to heaven, complete with a Viking honor guard “standing at the gate to Valhalla—arms outstretched in salute.” Addressing the congress, Beam was just as blunt and unequivocal. “WE ARE AT WAR,” he declared. An attendee would later recall that Beam’s words brought tears to Mathews’s eyes. “I’m here to tell you that if we can’t have this country,” Beam continued, “as far as I’m concerned no one gets it. The guns are cocked, the bullets are in the chamber.… We’re going to fight and live or we’re going to die soon. If you don’t help me kill the bastards, you’re going to be required to beg for your child’s life, and the answer will be no.” In addition to the workshops, seminars, and plenary events, a small group of thirteen white power leaders and movement elders, along with their impatient youthful counterparts, met privately in Butler’s living room—surrounded by heavily armed guards. As Ellison later told Noble, the gathering agreed that it was “time for action.” The battle plan that emerged reflected both Beam’s leaderless resistance strategy and his proposal to utilize emerging computer networking technology to ensure the security of the movement’s internal communications and support the revolution that they had agreed to commence. Leaderless resistance fused with computerized bulletin board systems (BBSes) brought the movement unparalleled advantages of both real-time and clandestine connectivity—effectively concealing it from the prying eyes and attentive ears of federal authorities. It is difficult to appreciate just how singularly profound this development was. Typewriters were still a ubiquitous feature of offices everywhere, and facsimile transmission (fax) machines had only recently entered the workplace. Desktop computers were both mostly unknown and expensive to acquire. At the time, these primitive machines, with their limited memory and slow processing capabilities, were far from the must-have household item they would eventually become. An Apple IIe starter system with 64k memory, for instance, cost $1,260 in 1983—about $3,315 today. And modems (modulator-demodulators) to transmit BBS data over conventional telephone lines had only become affordable and hence somewhat accessible some two years earlier. The “Aryan Nations Liberty Net” that Beam created was therefore truly revolutionary and arguably marked the beginning of terrorist exploitation of digital communications for radicalization, recruitment, fundraising, the exchange of best practices, and the planning and execution of operations. In an era before the World Wide Web, much less the internet, and with primitive dial-up rather than wi-fi and broadband, Beam’s system ran on Apple network software, was text only, and used 300 baud dial-up modems over ordinary telephone lines to transmit information. The rate of transmission of data was described as “well below reading speed.” It took Beam nearly a year of work before his Aryan Nations Liberty Net was finally up and running. As he had intimated in his article on leaderless resistance, Beam announced this new development in the spring 1984 issue of the Inter-Klan Newsletter & Survival Alert. “It may very well be that American know-how has provided the technology which will allow those who love this country to save it from an ill deserved fate,” he gushed. Computers, once solely the domain and possession of governments and large corporations, are now bringing their power and capabilities to the average American.… It has been said that knowledge is power, which it most assuredly is. The computer offers, to those who become proficient in its use, power undreamed of by the rulers of the past.… Imagine, if you can, a single computer to which all leaders and strategists of the patriotic movement are connected. Imagine further that any patriot in the country is able to tap into this computer at will in order to reap the benefit of all accumulative knowledge and wisdom of the leaders. “Someday,” you may say? How about today? Such a computer is already in existence and operation. We hereby announce Aryan Nation Liberty Net. Dial 208-772-6134, listen to the computer talk. The article, titled “COMPUTERS AND THE AMERICAN PATRIOT,” also imparted helpful buyers’ advice and detailed log-on instructions. Beam provided a phone number and post office box for those who had additional questions. “At last, those who love God and their Race and strive to serve their Nation will be utilizing some of the advanced technology available heretofore only to those in the ZOG (Zionist Occupation Government) government [sic] and others who have sought the destruction of the Aryan people,” he promised. Sponsored by the Aryan Nations, the Aryan Nations Liberty Net served five key purposes. First, it sought to tap into a new demographic and build a broader white supremacist constituency by appealing to young computer “hackers”—a newly popularized term at the time. Second, it sought to obviate restrictions on the mailing of hate literature to Canada and European countries like West Germany. Third, it identified like-minded “patriotic groups” across the country to encourage and facilitate greater networking. Fourth, it was an innovative fundraising mechanism. “The Aryan Nations computer network is designed to bring truth and knowledge to our people on the North-American continent,” Butler explained in one such appeal for donations. “You may ask ‘why the computer . . technology?’ The answer is simple, because it is our Aryan technology just as is the printing press, radio, airplane, auto, etc., etc. We must use our own God-given technology in calling our race back to our Father’s Organic Law.” Finally, it was an inexpensive, quick, and easy way to spread the movement’s propaganda unhindered by government interference, intrusion, or monitoring. The site contained some repackaged material that had originally appeared in print along with files with titles like “Know Your Enemy,” which contained the addresses and telephone numbers of all the ADL offices in the United States, as well as those of the branches of the U.S. Communist Party and, even more menacingly, lists of the names of “race traitors” and “ZOG informers.” In perhaps the first warning about far-right exploitation of new online technologies, the ADL in 1985 cautioned that the networks were “[seeking] to spread their hate propaganda among young people, surely the most vulnerable to its influence.” The report also drew a direct link to violence. <span style="color: red;">“More troubling,” the report noted, “the use of new technology to link together hate group activists coincides with an escalation of serious talk among some of them about the necessity of committing acts of terror.”</span> As previously recounted, Beam’s call to battle at the 1983 congress had deeply resonated with Mathews. The former Klansman had been unequivocal. Violence was imperative if the white race was to save itself. Mathews departed Hayden Lake infused with a newfound sense of mission and purpose. Beam’s powerful words in addition to everything else Mathews had heard at the gathering and likely at the private meeting in Butler’s living room had convinced him, according to the journalist Stephen Singular,</b></span></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="301" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PJ_lecUWzsw" width="460" youtube-src-id="PJ_lecUWzsw"></iframe></span></div><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>that <span style="color: red;">“it would be the young men who commenced the battle and won the war.” Mathews had in fact already reached this conclusion.</span> Everything that he heard and saw during that visit to the Aryan Nations compound had only hardened his resolve. Earlier that year, for instance, Mathews had formed a new organization that he called the White American Bastion. Mathews recruited friends and acquaintances from the northern Idaho white supremacist milieu and with two companions had spent the summer building the group’s headquarters and a living quarters on his farm. In Mathews’s “Last Letter,” written over a year later, <span style="color: red;">he explained the logic animating his decision to wage a terrorist campaign to overthrow the U.S. government. “I have no choice,”</span> Mathews had declared. “I must stand up like a White man and do battle. A secret war has been developing for the last year between the regime in Washington and an ever growing number of White people who are determined to regain what our forefathers discovered, explored, conquered, settled, built and died for.” In September 1983, Mathews addressed the National Alliance’s annual conference in Washington, DC. His membership in and recruitment efforts on behalf of multiple white supremacist organizations was hardly atypical of the movement either then or now. As the journalist Peter Lake, who successfully infiltrated these groups, later explained, “It’s like the difference between the Army, Navy, and Marines—they all salute the same flag.” Indeed, unbeknownst to the conferees listening, Mathews’s message presaged the violent trajectory he was about to embark upon. “My brothers and sisters,” he began, from the mist-shrouded forested valleys and mountains of the Pacific Northwest I bring you a message of solidarity, a call to action, and a demand for adherence to duty as members of a vanguard of an Aryan resurgence and ultimately total Aryan victory. The signs of awakening are sprouting up across the Northwest, and no more than among the two-fisted farmers and ranchers.… The task is not going to be easy. TV satellite dishes are springing up like poisonous mushrooms across</b></span></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="307" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vW5lp4lnw6w" width="482" youtube-src-id="vW5lp4lnw6w"></iframe></span></div><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>the domain of the tillers of the soil. The electronic Jew is slithering into the living rooms of even the most remote farms and ranches. The race-destroying dogs are everywhere. In Metaline Falls, we have broken the chains of Jewish thought.… The future is now! So stand up like men and drive the enemy to the sea! Stand up like men and swear a sacred oath upon the green graves of our sires that you will reclaim what our forefathers discovered, explored, conquered, settled, built, and died for! Stand up like men and reclaim our soil! Look toward the stars and proclaim our destiny! In Metaline Falls we have a saying: Defeat, never! Victory forever! Three weeks later, nine men styling themselves as “Aryan Warriors” joined hands in a circle around a white baby girl meant to symbolize the Aryan race and its future. In appropriately reverential voices they pledged fealty to the white supremacist revolution proclaimed by Mathews. “I, as a free Aryan man, hereby swear an unrelenting oath,” they affirmed, upon the green graves of our sires, upon the children in the wombs of our wives, upon the throne of God almighty, sacred is his name, to join together in holy union with those brothers in this circle and to declare forthright that from this moment on, I have no fear of death, no fear of foe; that I have a sacred duty to do whatever is necessary to deliver our people from the Jew and to bring total victory to the Aryan race.</b></span></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="349" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fk3w_5rKOFY" width="440" youtube-src-id="fk3w_5rKOFY"></iframe></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b> The FBI agent in charge of the Coeur d’Alene office, whose attention they soon attracted, found nothing particularly noteworthy about the group. They were people “much like your next door neighbor,” Wayne F. Manis observed. Indeed, the youngest person around the circle, Richard Kemp, age twenty, had been a star player on his Salinas, California, high school basketball team. Andrew Barnhill was a twenty-seven-year-old former seminarian who had joined and then left the CSA before ending up dealing poker in a Montana casino. Bruce Pierce (no relation to William), at age twenty-nine, was an impetuous drifter from Kentucky who had settled in Montana and discovered Identity theology only the previous year. An invitation to visit the Aryan Nations compound in March 1983 had sufficiently impressed him that he moved his family to Hayden Lake. Two months later, Pierce was among the bodyguards surrounding Butler at the same Spokane rally where Mathews had distinguished himself. Pierce decided then and there that Mathews was the leader that the white power movement had always been waiting for. Although the prematurely balding thirty-two-year-old Randy Duey looked like a “meek accountant,” he was a U.S. Air Force veteran who had studied history at Eastern Washington University, just across the Idaho state border. Duey had befriended Denver Parmenter, another mature student and a fellow veteran. Age thirty-one, Parmenter had served three years in the U.S. Army and was washing dishes and mopping floors to make ends meet when Duey introduced him to Mathews. Richard Scutari arguably had the most diverse career of the men who gathered that day at Mathews’s farm. In his mid-thirties, Scutari had been a U.S. Navy diver where he supposedly gained experience “with explosives training and [became an] instructor in hand-to-hand combat as well as assault rifle and combat pistol shooting.” Scutari then worked as a deep-sea diver in the North Sea oil fields, owned a construction company for a time, and became expert in several different martial arts. Through his friendship with Barnhill, Scutari had done some work for the CSA’s Jim Ellison and then had flown to Spokane from his home in Florida to meet Mathews and check out this new group. David Lane, age forty-three, was the eldest. An amateur golf champion who hailed from Aurora, Colorado, Lane had made a name for himself in white power circles as the state organizer for David Duke’s Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and later for the Aryan Nations. He was also an accomplished propagandist, having helped turn the innocuously titled Primrose and Cattlemen’s Gazette into a platform for his violently anti-semitic rants. Lane is also renowned as the author of the popular white supremacist credo known as the “14 Words,” which proclaims the following mission for white supremacists everywhere: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children.” It is frequently cited in contemporary white power memes, publications, and communications simply as “14.” The only person in the circle who had done time was a twenty-seven-year old from Arizona named Gary Lee Yarbrough. While AWOL from the U.S. Marines, Yarbrough was arrested for burglary and sentenced to a five-to-eight-year prison term at the Arizona State Penitentiary in Florence. It was there that he first read about the Aryan Nations and imbibed its literature. Yarbrough headed for Idaho upon his release and found work on Butler’s personal security detail and in the print shop producing hate literature. Although their ages and backgrounds varied, these men were united by the belief of an America gone wrong. Although, unlike Beam, they had not fought in Vietnam, they were patriots who were profoundly disillusioned with a government that had sent its young citizens overseas to fight a needlessly prolonged and increasingly pointless war. Their view, like Beam’s, was that spineless politicians had restrained the military and squandered an opportunity to stop the spread of communism. As white men in a demographically changing United States, they also felt alienated by a population that was becoming increasingly more diverse. They were especially opposed to affirmative action efforts and other such compensatory programs and themselves felt economically ignored or disadvantaged. “As adults, they came to view America as a land beset with dark forces of chaos in the forms of immigration, drugs, crime, and Ronald Reagan’s ‘trickle down’ economy,” the criminologist Mark Hamm explains. The Equal Rights Amendment, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1972, which would have constitutionally guaranteed legal gender equality for women and men had it been ratified by the requisite number of states, was also vehemently opposed by this movement. Feminism was regarded as emasculation and thus became a key dimension of white supremacism’s simultaneous advocacy that relegated women back to narrow, historically gendered roles as cook, cleaner, and mother. Accordingly, Hamm notes, “Masculinity and whiteness became entwined as never before—to be a ‘real’ white man was to be hyper-masculine. In this way, paramilitary mythology became the path to redemption.” Having sworn unremitting allegiance to the “sacred duty to do whatever is necessary” to ensure the triumph of the Aryan race, the eight men listened as Mathews outlined his plan. It was drawn entirely from The Turner Diaries. Although at that moment these men referred to themselves simply as “the Group” or “the Company,” they would soon adopt the name “the Order”—in homage to Pierce’s fictional creation. They also sometimes called themselves the Brüder Schweigen (German for the “Silent Brotherhood”). The book had in fact become Mathews’s “bible,” according to both Thomas Martinez, a later recruit and subsequent FBI informant, and Wayne Manis, the veteran FBI agent who had arrived in Coeur d’Alene that November to oversee the bureau’s investigation of this regional hub of white supremacist activism. That a novel should provide the “blueprint” for the real-life Order’s terrorist campaign underscores how unprepared the group was for so monumental a task as triggering an uprising that would overthrow</b></span></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="319" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wt_dYiOmwUw" width="484" youtube-src-id="wt_dYiOmwUw"></iframe><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></span></div><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b> the U.S. government. “Many of Bob’s followers were in a state of shock to suddenly come to grips with the fact that they were about to leave their mundane day-to-day existence as law-abiding citizens and embark on a career of crime with the goal of overthrowing the United States government,” Manis marveled. “Clearly, this would entail taking up arms and killing people who were the object of their aggression and hatred.” But however fantastical the Order’s grandiose ambitions may have been, their fervent belief in the efficacy of violence to achieve them was completely serious. This would not be the last time that The Turner Diaries would fulfill the dual role of template and inspiration for violent insurrection. Accordingly, what the Order lacked in operational skills and experience was simply to be adopted from The Turner Diaries and grafted onto their six-step strategy. First was organizing themselves to prosecute this revolution. The next steps of amassing a “war chest”—and then resorting to armed robbery, if necessary—had been identified two months earlier in Butler’s living room. Robert Miles had persuasively argued that to have any chance of success, such a venture would require ample funds. A Grand Dragon of a Michigan KKK chapter, “Pastor Bob” was a well-respected elder statesman of the white supremacist movement. He had the bona fides and gravitas that a six-year prison stint for conspiring to bomb school buses in defiance of court-ordered school desegregation efforts inevitably bestows on the self-styled community of “Aryan Warriors” in which racists like Miles circulated. Like many of its other leading figures, Miles cloaked himself in clerical authority—presiding over the Mountain Church of Jesus Christ the Savior that he founded on his seventy-acre farm in rural Cohoctah, Michigan. It was in essence a Midwestern version of Butler’s Church of Jesus Christ Christian, performing a similar convening and coordinating function. The ADL described the church’s ethos as “violence, white supremacy, antisemitism, and racism, as</b></span></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="309" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GE4XSS8szwM" width="484" youtube-src-id="GE4XSS8szwM"></iframe><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></span></div><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b> well as hostility to the federal government.” At Butler’s house that July, Miles had cited the success that left-wing terrorists in the Black Liberation Army along with remnants of the rebranded Weather Underground, now calling themselves the May 19th Communist Organization, had two years before in robbing a Brinks armored car of $1.6 million in Nyack, New York. “If we were half the men the leftists were,” the fifty-eight-year-old cleric had observed, “we’d be hitting armored cars, too.” Hence, Mathews and his band concluded the best way to build the “war chest” they required was through armed robbery. The fourth step was to recruit more members; fifth was to commence operations with the assassination of the movement’s most insidious enemies; and the sixth step would culminate in the “armed guerrilla operations” by a dedicated band of clandestine warriors depicted in The Turner Diaries. Less than fifteen months later, however, Mathews was dead. Twenty-four of his followers would soon be arrested. They were indicted on sixty-seven racketeering and conspiracy counts, and all but one was convicted. Of these, ten received prison sentences of between twenty years and life. None of the Order’s grand schemes to jumpstart their terrorist campaign with the assassinations of well-known Jewish persons such as former secretary of state Henry Kissinger; Elie de Rothschild, scion of the famous international banking family; and the renowned television producer Norman Lear; or gentiles like the prominent New York banker David Rockefeller or the civil rights advocate Morris Dees, the cofounder and chief trial counsel of the Southern Poverty Law Center, ever came to fruition. Instead, on June 18, 1984, the Order’s gunmen murdered Alan Berg, a controversial Denver radio talk show host, who was Jewish and had incurred the group’s wrath because of his combative on-air interviews of various white power advocates. Although no one was ever specifically convicted of Berg’s murder, David Lane and Bruce Pierce initially received prison sentences of forty and one hundred years, respectively, in one trial and an additional 150 years on other charges. Lane had been one of the enraged persons who would call in during Berg’s broadcasts. Even the group’s initial effort to acquire operational funds fell flat. The robbery of a Spokane video and pornography store netted only $369,177 and an exploding dye pack concealed in a bundle of cash Mathews had just stolen from a Seattle bank had blown up in his face and either ruined or permanently stained the bank notes. But by heeding Miles’s advice and focusing their attention on armored cars, the Order’s fundraising efforts grew more successful. Three such heists enabled Mathews and his band to accumulate over $4 million in cash.179 The single largest haul of $3.6 million came from the combined ambush and armed robbery of a Brinks armored car near Ukiah, California, in July 1984.180 After the seven gunmen each pocketed $40,000 themselves as combined salary and bonus,181 Mathews proceeded to distribute a portion of the loot to some of the white power movement’s leading personages. Dan Gayman, the pastor of the Church of Israel, outside Schell City, Missouri, and an exponent of the “two seed” theory, was given $10,000; Butler and the Aryan Nations received at least $40,000; William Pierce was reportedly gifted $50,000; Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., the founder and leader of the North Carolina–based White Patriot Party, got $200,000; and $300,000 was reputedly channeled to Californian Tom Metzger for his White Aryan Resistance group, with the same amount going to Miles for his Michigan parish. Even so, the bulk of the stolen cash was neither ever recovered nor fully accounted for. As much as two-thirds of it seems to have disappeared. As of 1997, for instance, the FBI had traced only $600,000 of the Ukiah haul. Mathews and other Order members appear to have variously spent, doled out, stashed, or laundered the rest of their haul into legitimate business ventures. Two government informants, for instance, maintain that Mathews gave a Denver lawyer at least $1 million and perhaps as much as $2 million to invest on behalf of the movement. An additional 10 percent of the stolen cash was supposedly donated to the Aryan Nations—in addition to the sum given to Butler after the Ukiah robbery. One of Mathews’s other followers claimed to have dug up $100,000 that had been secretly buried on a farm in the Pacific Northwest and to have handed it to Beam. And Mathews reputedly opened a surrogate mother program and sperm bank in Portland, Oregon, to promote the propagation of the Aryan race. It was the group’s counterfeiting scheme, however, that arguably led to its demise. Less than two months after the oath-taking ceremony, Bruce Pierce was arrested in Union Gap, Washington, trying to pass the group’s amateurishly produced initial run of $50 banknotes. Although he jumped bail and disappeared, the FBI now had Pierce firmly in their sights. A weapon inadvertently left behind by Mathews during the Ukiah armored car robbery that had been legally purchased by Andrew Barnhill in Montana provided another key lead. By September, more than a hundred FBI agents were deployed against the Order. Nearly half that number was assigned to the hitherto tiny Coeur d’Alene office, with some forty agents actively watching the last known residences of Mathews, Parmenter, and Yarbrough, among others. The following month, Yarbrough spotted a U.S. Forest Service vehicle on the backwoods dirt road leading to his house. Guessing correctly that it was the FBI in disguise, he opened fire on the truck, stopping the agents in their tracks. Although Yarbrough managed to flee, the search of his house netted important evidence. By this point, all the Order’s key personnel were on the run. In hopes of escaping the FBI dragnet closing in on them, Mathews, Yarbrough, Scutari, and Frank DeSilva, a recent recruit, fled to Oregon.190 Then, in November 1984, Thomas Martinez, whom Mathews had recruited to the group, was arrested in Philadelphia passing a phony banknote. He agreed to become an FBI informant and soon after flew west to meet with Mathews in Portland.191 The FBI raided the motel they were staying in on November 24, 1984. Mathews and Yarbrough tried to shoot their way out. Although Mathews escaped, Yarbrough was arrested. But the net around Mathews was tightening. In a desperate act of defiance, Mathews fired one last rhetorical salvo at the government that was relentlessly closing in. As Alan Berg’s biographer Stephen Singular observed of the document, “Earl Turner would have been proud.” The Order’s formal “Declaration of War,” dated November 25, 1984, attacked immigration from the Southern Hemisphere as well as legalized abortion. It decried capitalists and communists as well as bankers and Jews. Kahl’s heroism was lauded and the “Government agents” that “shot him in the back” decried. In words reminiscent of much contemporary discourse, Mathews proclaimed: We will resign ourselves no more to be ruled by a government based on mobocracy. We, from this day forward declare that we no longer consider the regime in Washington to be a valid and lawful representative of all Aryans who refuse to submit to the coercion and subtle tyranny placed upon us by Tel Aviv and their lackeys in Washington. We recognize that the mass of our people have been put into a lobotomized, lethargic state of blind obedience and we will not take party anymore in collective racial suicide! A similarly verbose “Open Letter to the U.S. Congress” was appended. It blamed the country’s elected representatives “for what has happened to America” and vowed ominously to hold each one responsible. Although neither Mathews nor Pierce nor Scutari nor Duey nor any of the three other signatories had ever served in Vietnam, they still pledged that they would exact revenge for the “betrayal of the 55,000 Americans who were sacrificed.” The “anti-American ‘Israel Lobby’ ” was castigated for its steady erosion of the Second Amendment. Fascinatingly, common cause was made with “our Arab friends,” whom the U.S. government was blamed for having turned “into enemies.” After citing the Vietnam War again, the letter concluded with an ominous warning. “When the Day comes, we will not ask whether you swung to the right or whether you swung to the left; we will simply swing you by the neck.… With these things said, let the battle begin.” It was over less than two weeks later. At 4:00 AM on December 7, about a hundred FBI agents converged on a two-story wood chalet on Whidbey Island—a vacation area at the mouth of Puget Sound in Washington State. The Seattle field office had received a tip that Mathews was hiding there. He had a 9mm Uzi submachine gun, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and a gas mask. An FBI negotiator tried to talk Mathews into surrendering. “I have been a good soldier, a fearless warrior,” the Order leader responded. “I will die with honor and join my brothers in Valhalla.” As the siege dragged on, the following afternoon the FBI resorted to tear gas, hoping to force Mathews out of the dwelling. More than 250 canisters were fired into its upper floor, where Mathews had taken refuge, with no result. An FBI SWAT team preceded by blindingly loud flash-bang grenades gained access to the ground floor but was met with a hail of machine-gun fire and forced to retreat. As darkness fell, the FBI summoned a helicopter to illuminate the scene—which attracted more gunfire from Mathews as he attempted to shoot it down. An illumination flare was then fired into the chalet’s ground floor in hopes of lighting the way for a more successful SWAT assault. The wood-frame house caught fire and was rapidly engulfed in flames. Mathews refused to leave and perished—just as he had promised. As Noble observed, “The right-wing now had its second significant martyr.”</b></span></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>~~~</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="336" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ibWJO02nNsY" width="482" youtube-src-id="ibWJO02nNsY"></iframe></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="309" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/90O-q7dgS-I" width="486" youtube-src-id="90O-q7dgS-I"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>I've told this short story before, but I want to share it again, today. I was born in 1945. When I was old enough to begin asking questions, I asked my widowed mother my nationality. She quickly said American and I could tell that was the end of the conversation. Both of my parents were of German descent. Perhaps it was too close to the past war that my mother chose not to tell me I was of German descent. After reading this book, I can honestly say that I have never before felt so much an American, a believer in our Constitution, and its being a melting pot for those who value freedom... Further, I believe in Jesus as my Savior and do not support the present use by some who claim their hate and violence are guided by their beliefs... as Christians...</b></span></div></span><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>We’re storming the Capitol, it’s a revolution! —Elizabeth from Knoxville, Tennessee </b></span></blockquote><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>In the summer of 2020, the messaging across far-right American internet forums was jubilant. The one-two punch of the novel coronavirus pandemic, coupled with widespread protests and nationwide unrest triggered by the murder of another unarmed African American by police, had laid the country low. Yet in this moment of collective despair, America’s racists, bigots, antisemites, white supremacists, and anti-government extremists reveled in the newfound opportunities that had emerged throughout that year. Now was the time, their hateful posts on Telegram channels and seditious summons on Facebook proclaimed, to act decisively and bring the United States to its knees. On Facebook that April, President Donald Trump’s tweets to “liberate” various states from their governors’ COVID stay-at-home orders and defend Second Amendment rights had galvanized exponents of the “boogaloo”—the mass insurrection-initiated civil war meant to overthrow the U.S. government. “Yo the president is boog posting,” exclaimed one typical message. Until Facebook removed these friend groups and their posts from the platform at the end of June 2020, its author was among over 72,000 members of such Facebook groups devoted to “boogaloo.” Using other colloquialisms, such as “big igloo” and “big luau,” or referring to themselves as “boojahideen,” they explained how “We the people need to stand up to what’s right and revolt. We CAN NOT allow our freedoms to be stopped or silenced. Organize and get off our ASSES and let’s take back AMERICA!!” Another announced, “This Has Been A Long Time Coming: Stand-By For Instruction,” while a third showed a photograph of a loaded assault rifle with the message “I heard there was </b><b>gonna be a Big Luau. Thought I’d dress appropriately.”</b></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>The book begins, rightly so, in my opinion, with the call for coming to the Capitol on January 6th. It is clear to most Americans who saw the devastation that it undoubtedly had been planned ahead and was incited by the past president of the United States. Many of those insurrectionists have already been placed in jail. The search continues for all of those involved. The authors then move backward, stopping to point out the attempt to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan. Following with historical references on those who support White Supremacy going back to 1980. At that time, a call for acceleration of their goals was made!</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>It clearly stated that only the overthrow of the government (and its people) could allow for a new white-dominated country--and a new order...</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>And that would require, of course, GUNS. Preferably those assault guns that could kill many at one time. Thus, America watched as more and more guns were sold. Watched while the republican representatives would never vote for some type of pull-back on guns. In fact, those who were/are involved indicated that when they started seriously talking about taking away guns, that was the time to act... We have seen attacks on Black and Jewish house of worship, the murder of Black men, in particular, through questionable actions by law officers, and, heightened with the death of George Floyd. The move by the past president to ban Muslims as soon as he took office...and more...</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="307" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Pzjln_SCxY8" width="474" youtube-src-id="Pzjln_SCxY8"></iframe></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">The movement into local church resulted in local community havens turning </span>“into a violent, paramilitary, right-wing, white supremacist group.”<span style="color: #cc0000;"> The change was prompted by a self-proclaimed divine vision Ellison had of the Lord visiting retribution upon America’s cities because of the depravity and licentiousness that had “reached heights beyond that of the Tower of Babel.” In his retelling of the vision, Ellison claimed that “the only hope for America … is for Christians to leave the cities and organized churches..." Was that the beginning when the Evangelical Church hierarchy also began supporting Trump?</span></b></span></div><p></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="331" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_p5jNj8olWQ" width="475" youtube-src-id="_p5jNj8olWQ"></iframe></span></div><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Did you know that there had been a law against military-type guns in 1994? We have learned that both Trump and Pence spoke at NRA conventions... And, certainly, we've known that the republicans have continued to prevent any gun laws reducing the numbers of guns... Slogans have been created to reinforce the ownership of guns: "Fear the Government That Fears Your Gun." Or, “A Man with a Gun Is a citizen, A Man Without a Gun Is a Subject.” Surely, we now know that the republican party in office right now are supporters of those who care nothing about murdering Americans... And, that the initiation of this need for guns is through those who look toward the overthrow of our government...</b></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>The thing is that even while all of this is happening, these individuals continue to lie about January 6th being a "peaceful protest." While vowing that "next time... </b></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Unfortunately, only one option remains when we return. We bring guns and take the Capitol building without intention of being peaceful. This ends with the government bombing their own people. I had hopes it wouldn’t. But here we are.”</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Have you learned enough yet? Do you now understand why our President worries about Losing the Soul of the Nation?" If you haven't read enough from Part 1 and 2, I highly recommend you get this book and, hopefully, finally realize that there is a major divide within our country... And the other side from those who respect our Constitution and all of our citizens... are those White Supremacists who claim that God gave them America and they want to kill all of us who disagree and start over...</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>God Help Us Be Strong To Fight For America, Land of the Free... Land Where Democracy Survives Only By All Americans Working With And Not Against The Constitutional Laws Of The United States! The following conclusions are:</b></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>The United States today thus requires a comprehensive, wide-ranging, institutionalized strategy to effectively counter these threats—including measures to strengthen American civil society as well as those that specifically target violent extremist groups, their activists and supporters, their propagandists and sympathizers, and their recruiters and financiers. The policy recommendations that emerge from this examination and exegesis of the far-right terrorist threat in the United States fit into three categories: short-term measures to create a stronger regulatory framework, with relatively immediate effects; medium-term measures to strengthen civil society, with impacts over the next five to ten years; and, long-term measures to build national unity, which will break the cycle of recruitment and regeneration that has sustained this movement across multiple decades and therefore build resilience that will benefit future generations and inoculate them against the allure of extremist ideologies. All these efforts need to commence immediately and not unfold sequentially. They should be undertaken without delay but with the expectation that, while some can have more immediate effects, others will take years, if not decades, to achieve the desired impact. This range of measures, it should be emphasized, is applicable to both extremes of the political spectrum—left as well as right—and include, as the preeminent goal, restoring the integrity of and respect for the American political system. To implement this admittedly optimistic but nonetheless crucial goal, a series of equally critical additional steps is required, such as enacting legislation designed to address all manifestations of extremist violence, whether from the right or the left or any other section, and effectively counter the ideological and social appeal of extremism and conspiracy theories more generally. </b></span></blockquote><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>By taking decisive action today, the United States can begin to make meaningful inroads against these highly corrosive and insidious threats to our democratic values and ensure the safety and security of our fellow citizens in a more secure and inclusive environment than currently exists.</b></span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><blockquote><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="319" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GN1iI-DaJNw" width="441" youtube-src-id="GN1iI-DaJNw"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="316" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VyH3NBrqNu0" width="437" youtube-src-id="VyH3NBrqNu0"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="333" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yH61hFsma24" width="483" youtube-src-id="yH61hFsma24"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="311" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1f5cdyU2NEk" width="494" youtube-src-id="1f5cdyU2NEk"></iframe></div></span></blockquote><blockquote><b style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Note: Selection of Relevant Videos by GABixler </b></blockquote></blockquote>Glenda A Bixler Reviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15829561936090262198noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6957929086575807165.post-43910433463119004772024-02-03T14:47:00.001-05:002024-02-04T06:22:41.625-05:00Talking with Robert Sells About Politics - The Border, Trump Convicted for Crimes, What's Happened With Christianity? With a Few Smiles<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="308" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PZYH5XENcwg" width="480" youtube-src-id="PZYH5XENcwg"></iframe></div><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnbmCCOgjiOJLVj1Vd7_Z8BjaRx3vWVECMY9w9iG9mYjzBo48Ij4zAHLaq1gm9LOv1YlKvRh8aIdNWMUPQjoASavyLtYW5kyMWi8a1_vDt1-fgd-Oq8kbrq8fel0lNfLocaEXqIz_7W2kqhIjwmabZ0ifPTnbj7Bm-qniYqeIHEiF3DNz41UxdAZaKdy0/s960/48329424_10101303985454656_4222724846569652224_n.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnbmCCOgjiOJLVj1Vd7_Z8BjaRx3vWVECMY9w9iG9mYjzBo48Ij4zAHLaq1gm9LOv1YlKvRh8aIdNWMUPQjoASavyLtYW5kyMWi8a1_vDt1-fgd-Oq8kbrq8fel0lNfLocaEXqIz_7W2kqhIjwmabZ0ifPTnbj7Bm-qniYqeIHEiF3DNz41UxdAZaKdy0/w300-h400/48329424_10101303985454656_4222724846569652224_n.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Well, folks, it's been a while since I was able to get back to normal from the stress. Dealing with large corporations is often difficult for we customers... Just this week, I have been able to wash clothes! Really! Something so routine had become a nightmare for me... And, I've been able to do my first loads of clothes since October 9th! As each load was finished, I could feel the tension lifting from me... So, I've picked out three of the issues about which Robert and I have similar concerns... Join the conversation in the comments section below, or on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/247751962008885" target="_blank">Words Matter</a>! at Facebook...</b></span><div><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="335" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NHCc2Pc2T9A" width="479" youtube-src-id="NHCc2Pc2T9A"></iframe></div></span><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Republicans have been calling for an improved border security. Finally there is a bill that promises better border security, significantly better border security. It is a bipartisan bill and that is the way our government works, compromise for what's best for our country. However, Donald, who only thinks about himself, is calling upon Congress to <i>not </i>vote for the bill. Donald even admitted that it would be a temporary fix. So why does he not want this bill to be passed? </span><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer;" tabindex="-1"></a></span><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Because he wants border security as a campaign issue and he wants to have full credit when another bill is put forth during a time when he might be president. A selfish and unworthy leader, he wants his Republican followers to do what's best for Donald and not what's best for our country.</span></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #ff00fe; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Exactly, Robert. I would add, for the record, that President Biden had a written proposal related to Border Security as he came into office and submitted it to Congress for action. <i>That never occurred. </i>In fact, all should remember that just getting up and running in that first year for the republicans who gained a small majority margin to even name a final leader... And, sadly, we now see that leader constantly talks about having discussed the issue with Donald Trump and publicly refusing to act based upon his orders!</span></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #ff00fe; font-size: large;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>So, once again, the republican party has stopped action on a supposedly crisis situation for three years! And, wants all Americans to wait another year before they will even consider the subject! Vote all republicans now in congress OUT! We need to work in a bipartisan fashion to solve this problem. Game-Playing by the republicans has to stop!</b></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #ff00fe; font-size: large;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b>~~~</b></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #ff00fe; font-size: large;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #ff00fe; font-size: large;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="309" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/E-WKwhMeGFs" width="483" youtube-src-id="E-WKwhMeGFs"></iframe></span></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #ff00fe; font-size: large;"><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="color: #050505; font-size: large; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Fact: Donald has been found guilty of fraud. Fact: some of his vast wealth was acquired through fraud. </b></div></span></span><p></p><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span style="color: #050505; font-size: medium;">Of course, he has hired dozens of attorneys to defend him in his many court cases. No big deal, he is, after all, a billionaire and can afford them. Donald even hired an “expert witness”, Bartov, to testify that his many properties weren’t inflated in price just to get needed business loans. Guess what? The testimony didn’t help and might have left Donald exposed to even </span><span style="color: #050505; font-size: large;"><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer;" tabindex="-1"></a></span><span style="color: #050505; font-size: medium;">more penury payments. And, what was the cost of this “expert testimony”? Just shy of a MILLION DOLLARS! What is most interesting, however, is that Donald (a billionaire!) didn’t have to pay this guy. Nope. </span><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">The money came out of his political action committee, comically called “Save America”. </span><span style="color: #050505; font-size: medium;">Hmm. Sounds like this action committee would have been better named “Save Trump”. In fact, this con-man billionaire has spent campaign funds to a total of $55.6 million on legal costs in 2023! Over the last two years, campaign fundraising organizations have devoted $76.7 million to legal fees for republican defendants, mostly the past president! </span></b></span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #050505;">Now, this isn’t illegal. Sad, yes. But, also comical. </span><span style="color: red;">Think about it. MAGA followers contribute their hard-earned money for Donald to be RE-ELECTED. Yet, much of their contributions goes toward helping a billionaire who has already bragged he has over 400 million dollar in cash, but doesn’t touch a penny of it!</span><span style="color: #050505;"> Yes, Donald loves the uneducated. And, for good reasons. They lack the intelligence to know that they are being tricked by an expert con-man and thus freely give up their money to support his unethical and criminal behavior. </span></b></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #050505;"><br /></span></b></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/plaAkXDAfCg" width="459" youtube-src-id="plaAkXDAfCg"></iframe></div><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">Well, I think many are being confused by the willing news agencies, such as Fox, who repeat Trump's lies and disinformation... On purpose or not, they are not getting the Truth...</span></b></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><br /></span></b></span></div>And, Robert, let's not forget that he has also been judged guilty of rape and defamation, during which he continued his defamation until a second trial was held and the jury awarded for a total of $83M! I wonder if our donors will stand for paying millions for rape and defamation...</span></b></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><br /></span></b></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">Frankly, it's my opinion that if we had a less biased Supreme Court, we would have been able to conduct additional civil cases against Trump. Given the very clear <i>planned</i> procrastination by the Judge of the Records Theft/Espionage Case, which would have already occurred and, in my opinion, definitely found him guilty as charged... This case is a slam-dunk, held up by the Trump-appointed judge and the republicans...</span></b></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><br /></span></b></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="343" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/djPCjOObq64" width="480" youtube-src-id="djPCjOObq64"></iframe></div></b></span></div><div dir="auto"><br /></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto"><div class="xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs x126k92a" style="margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #050505;">My stomach has successfully withstood "super" hot buffalo wings, cottage cheese, and lima beans… but it has not been able to withstand the posts suggesting that Donald is sent by God. I literally gag when I read such ridiculous crap. </span><span style="color: #ff00fe;">Or see the new ads!!!</span></b></span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="color: #050505;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>To all Christians, "let us reason together." God didn’t smile upon a pathological liar who was so narcissistic that he puts himself before family, friends, and country. Nor would God choose as a messenger a twice-divorced man who walks into the <span><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer;" tabindex="-1"></a></span>dressing rooms of girls and women and believes he can just “grab’em by the pussy.” God would not want to have as his emissary a leader who resorts to childish name-calling and “bears false witness” (nearly every day!) to those who disagree with him. </b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #050505;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Donald is nothing like the imperfect but still great King David. Rather than being chosen by Jesus, he is the anthesis of Jesus. So, for Heaven’s sake, give God more credit… he would never choose such a dishonest and disgraceful man to lead our country.</b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #050505;"><br /></div><div dir="auto"><div class="xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs x126k92a" style="color: #050505; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Yes, Donald is the most immoral character to ever reside in the White House. Yes, he has polarized our country with his Big Lie. Yes, his sloppy and self-centered behavior has landed him in over four different criminal court cases. But his greatest threat to our nation and the world remains his distorted view of NATO. This is a defense pact that for over sixty years has held the Russian Bear in check. </b></span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Donald decidedly doesn’t like NATO. "You need to understand that if Europe is under <span><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer;" tabindex="-1"></a></span>attack, we will never come to help you and to support you," Trump told European Commission President. "By the way, NATO is dead, and we will leave, we will quit NATO," Donald also said, according to French commissioner Breton. As president in July 2018, Mr. Trump not only nearly withdrew from NATO at an alliance summit but denounced the European Union as a “foe” because of “what they do to us in trade.” He then attended a summit with Mr. Putin, after which he expressed skepticism about the idea that the United States should go to war to defend a tiny NATO ally, Montenegro. Donald’s dispute with the alliance harks back to his 2000 book, “The America We Deserve. Trump wrote that “their conflicts are not worth American lives. Pulling back from Europe would save this country millions of dollars annually.”</b></span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Donald wants out of NATO. And as more and more MAGA cult followers infiltrate the legislative branch, he might have the votes to do it. Even if he can’t dissolve NATO, he can wreak havoc. While Congress controls the purse strings, the president executes the laws. So, even if Congress appropriates further aid to NATO countries, Mr. Trump could withhold delivery of it — as he did in 2019 when trying to coerce Mr. Zelensky into announcing a criminal investigation into Mr. Biden, the abuse-of-power scandal that led to Mr. Trump’s first impeachment.</b></span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Presently Russia’s battlefield strategy has been blunted and they are now carrying out attacks to just to keep the war going. Even though Russia has fared poorly in the war with hundreds of thousands killed or wounded and their economy severely weakened depleted, Putin refuses to consider a peace settlement. Why? Because Putin has calculated he could be in a much better position after the 2024 election when he will once again try to tip the scales in favor of his buddy, Donald. </b></span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="color: #050505;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Yes, our democracy is threatened by Donald. But the world is threatened even more by Donald’s attacks on NATO. There is no new history, folks. There is just history that repeats itself, sometimes in ugly ways. Donald often invokes the slogan “America First.” He did not originate this phrase. It was first popularized by American isolationists opposed to getting involved in World War II. Most people (but perhaps not Donald) recognize that our financial and later military helped in that war as a pivoting force saving the world from fascism. If Donald gets into office, it will be good for Putin and good for fascism around</b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #050505;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b> the world.</b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #050505;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Well, I tend to put having Trump as a Dictator over my concern for NATO. After all, if Trump is elected, he has already declared what would happen. My concern is for all those non-white men and women, also God's children...and even, myself and other white women since he obviously is a (old-term) sexist pig!</b></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Yes, Indeed, Robert! My only additional comment is that, in my opinion, the Prime Minister who was already under scrutiny before Hamas attacked, may also be waiting for Trump's return--dictators love dictators...including from Iran... I've thought this could very well be a planned effort as Putin started, then each of the other primary dictators followed... What do you think?</b></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>By the way, my stomach also flips whenever I hear what the political-thirst for power has done to some leaders in Christianity! I speak out often on this issue and will continue to do so. Given the split of news agencies who cater to disinformation and sensationalism rather than truth, we must continue to shed God's Truth across the World in any way we can. </b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #050505;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #050505; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="326" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0lQFLBhRwds" width="450" youtube-src-id="0lQFLBhRwds"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #050505; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;">Carly for the first time allowed her song to be used for politics. Thank you and others such as today's top artists who speak out...related to voting...</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="350" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EqOphzemOyY" width="480" youtube-src-id="EqOphzemOyY"></iframe></div><br /><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><br /></span></b></div><b><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><br /></span><span style="color: #050505;"><br /></span></b></span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Glenda A Bixler Reviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15829561936090262198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6957929086575807165.post-7321288157602501102024-02-03T10:34:00.000-05:002024-02-03T10:34:35.273-05:00God, Guns, And Sedition: FAR-RIGHT TERRORISM IN AMERICA By Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware - Part 1<p style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">We are no longer trying to destroy the System directly, but are now concentrating on undermining the general public’s support for the System. —Earl Turner, in The Turner Diaries</b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>By the end of Obama’s first term in office, for example, the number of anti-government militias and other so-called Patriot groups active in the United States surpassed the previous peak of 858 in 1996 to reach a new high of 1,360. Most notably, 2009 saw the formation of the Oath Keepers, a nationwide militia dedicated to defending its own distorted interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, as well as the Three Percenters...</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>...the Oath Keepers pledge to fulfill the oath all military and police take to “defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” That oath, mandated by Article VI of the Constitution itself, is to the Constitution, not to the politicians, and Oath Keepers declare that they will not obey unconstitutional orders, such as orders to disarm the American people, to conduct warrantless searches, or to detain Americans as “enemy combatants” in violation of their ancient right to jury trial. By prioritizing the recruitment of active duty, reservist, and National Guard personnel and others with prior military service, the Oath Keepers sought to position themselves as the “tip of the spear” should the U.S. government ever deploy the country’s bona fide military to curtail individual civil liberties in violation of the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act. Reminiscent of many of the anti-government movements that emerged in the decades following America’s withdrawal from Vietnam, these new militia organizations grew both in number and threat as a result of the influx of individuals with recent combat and relevant communications and logistical experience acquired in Afghanistan and Iraq. As the journalist and activist David Neiwert observed about the newly formed Oath Keepers, “suddenly, as more veterans and people with serious training in the handling of arms came on board, these militia training exercises transformed from the often-bumbling comedies of errors that typified pre–Tea Party militia activities to serious training sessions with deadly intent.” <i>The Oath Keepers’ efforts to establish themselves as a protective force against perceived tyranny were reminiscent of al-Qaeda’s own attempts to create an elite vanguard of Muslims to defend the global ummah against the West.</i></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><i><a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/four-additional-oath-keepers-sentenced-seditious-conspiracy-related-us-capitol-breach">https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/four-additional-oath-keepers-sentenced-seditious-conspiracy-related-us-capitol-breach</a></i></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/four-members-oath-keepers-sentenced-roles-jan-6-capitol-breach">https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/four-members-oath-keepers-sentenced-roles-jan-6-capitol-breach</a></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="339" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4J2vZcZuKYA" width="480" youtube-src-id="4J2vZcZuKYA"></iframe></b></span></div><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="340" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/P1lAxwXsFGs" width="490" youtube-src-id="P1lAxwXsFGs"></iframe></span></b></span></div><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="323" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ddRmu0kIVRg" width="499" youtube-src-id="ddRmu0kIVRg"></iframe></span></b></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /><span style="color: #ff00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Now Reading Book by E. Jean Carroll</span><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>~~~</b></p></span><p></p></b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="280" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aLhrlJ221IQ" width="426" youtube-src-id="aLhrlJ221IQ"></iframe></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOLCzweLVxpjTm5xXUTNw7NW3QrPRCFDdjqbYvC7ThTIt0mAa27kZm12szzXTmSN0jR2SuD5HH7jMJbbI54JbuBLgt6R_CO9Jp1M2_BOl9tVM05sbUrZlu11zDLJ1lTruIrU6jD9TF16jfYVtpo4F0rscvmeldIuxUOLBkjTMVb4OeQZkxYbuXZBzHqu4/s445/gpdgims.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="296" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOLCzweLVxpjTm5xXUTNw7NW3QrPRCFDdjqbYvC7ThTIt0mAa27kZm12szzXTmSN0jR2SuD5HH7jMJbbI54JbuBLgt6R_CO9Jp1M2_BOl9tVM05sbUrZlu11zDLJ1lTruIrU6jD9TF16jfYVtpo4F0rscvmeldIuxUOLBkjTMVb4OeQZkxYbuXZBzHqu4/w426-h640/gpdgims.jpg" width="426" /></a></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>September 16, 1991. Today it finally began! After all these years of talking—and nothing but talking—we have finally taken our first action. We are at war with the System, and it is no longer a war of words. —Earl Turner, in The Turner Diaries Over the past four decades, advertisements for The Turner Diaries have repeatedly asked an apocalyptic question: “What will you do when they come to take your guns?” Its author, however, was not simply a zealous exponent of Second Amendment rights. Rather, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the hate-monitoring organization based in Montgomery, Alabama, as founder and leader of the National Alliance—“a group whose members included terrorists, bank robbers and would-be bombers”—William Luther Pierce was “America’s most important neo-Nazi for some three decades until his death in 2002” and “the movement’s fiercest anti-semitic ideologue.” Defying the prevailing stereotype of American white supremacists as crude country bumpkins or uneducated “rednecks,” Pierce graduated from Houston’s prestigious Rice University in 1955 and subsequently worked at New Mexico’s Los Alamos National Laboratory before studying at Caltech and obtaining his doctorate in physics from the University of Colorado. He taught at Oregon State University for a time. But Pierce’s strident anti-communism and racist and anti-semitic beliefs increasingly pulled him toward a career of full-time advocacy and hate-mongering. </b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>In 1974, Pierce founded the National Alliance. Its goal continues to find supporters today: “We must have no non-Whites in our space and we must have open space around us for expansion.… We will do whatever is necessary to achieve this White living space and to keep it White. We will not be deterred by the difficulty or temporary unpleasantness involved, because we realize that it is absolutely necessary for our racial survival.” The Anti-Defamation League (or ADL, formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith), the organization founded over a century ago to “stop the defamation of the Jewish people and … secure justice and fair treatment to all,” described the National Alliance in 1998 and again in 2000 as “the single most dangerous organized hate group in the United States today.” The National Alliance earned this distinction largely as a result of Pierce’s pseudonymous authorship of The Turner Diaries as Andrew Macdonald. No other book has had so pervasive or sustained an influence over violent far-right extremism in the United States as The Turner Diaries. Within five years of its publication, the New York Times would report that Pierce’s dystopian treatise of race war and revolution had become “the bible of an anti-Semitic movement” that in 1984, as we shall see, actually declared war on the U.S. government. An apocryphal claim appeared on the back of the 1985 edition that similarly noted how the FBI “has labeled The Turner Diaries ‘the bible of the racist right.’ ” Often repeated, it was most likely penned by Pierce for publicity purposes. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Nonetheless, a prescient 1991 FBI memorandum described The Turner Diaries as “a significant work and foundation document closely embraced by the leadership as well as rank and file members of the Right-wing, White Supremist [sic] Movement, also known as the ‘Christian Identity Movement.’ ”</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="307" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3F76mL4dNtw" width="436" youtube-src-id="3F76mL4dNtw"></iframe></span></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>By the time of the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which The Turner Diaries inspired, at least two hundred thousand and perhaps as many as five hundred thousand copies of the paperback had been sold. Distributed by National Vanguard Books, the National Alliance’s publishing arm, it could occasionally be found at book shops, but more often The Turner Diaries was hawked by individual sellers at gun shows and venues such as the annual Soldier of Fortune Convention in Las Vegas as well as by mail order through advertisements placed in Shotgun News and other gun magazines as well as the now defunct Soldier of Fortune magazine. The book recounts the eponymous hero’s two-year struggle after he and his “fellow patriots” are forced to go underground to defend themselves when a predatory government imposes the “Cohen Act” to seize all legally held firearms. After more than eight hundred thousand of his fellow citizens are arrested, a thirty-five-year-old electrical engineer named Earl Turner joins “The Organization,” the movement spearheading this revolution-cum–race war, and embarks on a concerted terrorist campaign that includes the assassination of public officials, journalists, and prominent Jews; the wholesale murder of African Americans, Latinos, and other minorities; shooting down commercial airliners; poisoning municipal water supplies; and bombing public utilities. Among the more noteworthy incidents is the “Day of the Rope,” when the Organization carries out a public mass execution by hanging an expansive category of alleged 'race traitors,' including “the politicians, the lawyers, the businessmen, the TV newscasters, the newspaper reporters and editors, the judges, the teachers, the school officials, the ‘civic leaders,’ the bureaucrats, the preachers,” and others. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>In addition, chapter 6 recounts a truck bombing of the FBI’s downtown Washington, DC, headquarters. “All day yesterday and most of today we watched the TV coverage of rescue crews bringing the dead and injured out of the building”—a particularly important passage in the book given its chilling similarity to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>“It is a heavy burden of responsibility for us to bear,” it continues, since most of the victims of our bomb were only pawns who were no more committed to the sick philosophy or the racially destructive goals of the System than we are. But there is no way we can destroy the System without hurting many thousands of innocent people—no way. It is a cancer too deeply rooted in our flesh. And if we don’t destroy the System before it destroys us—if we don’t cut this cancer from our living flesh—our whole race will die. Turner is later inducted into a more elite unit within the Organization known as “The Order.” That unit has seized control of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and launches missile attacks that obliterate New York City and Tel Aviv but fails to destroy the former Soviet Union. The Soviets then launch a retaliatory strike against the United States that Turner describes as “horrendous, but spotty. They fired everything they had left at us, but it simply wasn’t enough. Several of the largest American cities, including Washington and Chicago, were spared.” Turner, accordingly, is ordered to carry out a kamikaze attack on the Pentagon in a small airplane containing a nuclear weapon. An “epilog” records the consequences of Turner’s martyrdom: the final defeat and collapse of the United States. The Organization eventually conquers Europe and, unleashing an array of chemical, biological, and radiological weapons, defeats China and “effectively sterilize[s] … some million square miles of the earth’s surface, from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific and from the Arctic Ocean to the Indian Ocean.” </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>The “dream of a White world finally became a certainty,” the book concludes—with Turner having “helped greatly to assure that his race would survive and prosper … and that The Order would spread its wise and benevolent rule over the earth for all time to come.” Pierce denies that his intention in writing The Turner Diaries was to provide any kind of a blueprint or model for the violent race revolution it recounts. But on numerous occasions the novel has done exactly that: inspiring emulation and imitation—with often tragic results. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Among those who adopted the battle plan delineated in The Turner Diaries was a lifelong militant anti-communist and anti-government firebrand named Robert Mathews. Mathews was just one rising star in a white supremacist universe that embraced The Turner Diaries’ core tenets of racism, anti-semitism, xenophobia, and sedition; it also included such prominent figures as William Potter Gale, Richard Girnt Butler, Gordon Kahl, James Ellison, Kerry Noble, and Louis Beam, who all played key roles in the emergence of this movement during the 1980s.</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>!!!</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher dedicated to being a resource for its members, government officials, business executives, journalists, educators and students, civic and religious leaders, and other interested citizens in order to help them better understand the world and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries. Founded in 1921, CFR carries out its mission by maintaining a diverse membership, with special programs to promote interest and develop expertise in the next generation of foreign policy leaders; convening meetings at its headquarters in New York and in Washington, DC, and other cities where senior government officials, members of Congress, global leaders, and prominent thinkers come together with CFR members to discuss and debate major international issues; supporting a Studies Program that fosters independent research, enabling CFR scholars to produce articles, reports, and books and hold roundtables that analyze foreign policy issues and make concrete policy recommendations; publishing Foreign Affairs, the preeminent journal on international affairs and U.S. foreign policy; sponsoring Independent Task Forces that produce reports with both findings and policy prescriptions on the most important foreign policy topics; and providing up-to-date information and analysis about world events and American foreign policy on its website, https://www.cfr.org. The Council on Foreign Relations takes no institutional positions on policy issues and has no affiliation with the U.S. government. All views expressed in its publications and on its website are the sole responsibility of the author or authors.</b></span></p><p><br /></p>Glenda A Bixler Reviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15829561936090262198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6957929086575807165.post-39935292291692391222024-01-30T12:53:00.002-05:002024-02-03T09:52:22.262-05:00False Awakening by Arianna Fox - Young Adult Novel Becomes Personal Favorite For This Adult!<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>“To the world it will be a surprise How a smart man will succeed and rise And you must stop him at all cost Or hope will eternally be lost He wants a new world – his very own When his company has fully grown.”</b></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="342" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XNUOlsPEU6w" width="458" youtube-src-id="XNUOlsPEU6w"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CW40xqYLPLU" width="464" youtube-src-id="CW40xqYLPLU"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn1g2BPb_9-lLKK_r5t9zI6epFpSafQc7VnwzIpAibxx2g_bUc-Y6P_1Pi3Elp3RxrkwmxnejN8IKXLiM0rheyLqdSOKf_ZyI8R-IsZBY1t-k9g_RLGenornDLjNxoLd0i2w1MAU1xD9lHoJtBlErUV7TBqlS80Wl5xVvbe2chW5bmevqal-f0wAH3T38/s342/FALSE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="342" data-original-width="228" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn1g2BPb_9-lLKK_r5t9zI6epFpSafQc7VnwzIpAibxx2g_bUc-Y6P_1Pi3Elp3RxrkwmxnejN8IKXLiM0rheyLqdSOKf_ZyI8R-IsZBY1t-k9g_RLGenornDLjNxoLd0i2w1MAU1xD9lHoJtBlErUV7TBqlS80Wl5xVvbe2chW5bmevqal-f0wAH3T38/w426-h640/FALSE.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Taryn Johnson was completely in shock. She kept opening her mouth to say something, but the truth is, she had no idea what to say. So, she just stared blankly at Chris. Chris exhaled slowly. “I’m sorry. I can’t help you. If you’re here to recruit me because of some secret that I have or know or something, you’re out of luck. I don’t even have this secret. And I’m not a good asset for you, Taryn. Certainly not because of some poem that my dad read to me when I was, like, 9 years old.”</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b> To say Taryn was disappointed would be an understatement. She looked around the room hastily, clearing her scratchy throat and trying to smile, although it didn’t turn out anything like a smile. “Is there anything I can get you?” Taryn asked. “Tickets back to the States? Coffee? Everyone loves coffee, right?” Taryn snorted a little. Chris just stared downward. “Nothing? Okay.” Taryn frowned as she sat back on her chair and looked at some papers on her desk. “Wait!” Chris finally raised his head and met her gaze. “What do you mean by ‘tickets back to the States’? Are we not in the U.S.?” Taryn smirked a little, swiveling in her chair to face the old, green wooden door. “Go outside and take a peek.” Chris’s gaze followed hers. He quickly stood up and opened the door. His pupils dilated; his heart rate and pulse quickened; his face paled. What he saw was something very few have seen in person before, except as photos in coffee table books or postcards. What he saw was completely breathtaking and almost … otherworldly. He’d seen those pictures and recognized the scene before him. Suddenly he became aware of how he’d been laboring to breathe in the thin air. “I’m in the Himalayas,” Chris whispered, his eyes widening at the familiar mountain peaks, snow-capped, graceful, and majestic. “I’m in the Himalayas!” he shouted as he turned toward Taryn. Taryn joined him on the front porch of the creaky old house. “We’re in the Himalayas,” she confirmed. “It’s where our base is. But there’s no way I’m telling you which mountain it’s on,” she laughed. “Unless you join us, of course. Which, apparently you won’t.” </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>“I won’t because I can’t, Taryn,” Chris repeated, annoyed that he cared how she, a stranger, felt. “I don’t know any secret that you’re talking about. Okay?” Taryn looked down thoughtfully, thinking whether she really did believe him. After a few seconds, she slowly looked back up at him and nodded. “Okay, Chris. Okay.” Chris looked at Taryn, his eyebrows scrunched in confusion. He saw a fresh scar on the right side of her neck that he hadn’t seen before in his vision or any of the other times he saw her. He swallowed unsurely as his mind drifted to the fact that she was able to track him down and spy on him in all those dreams of his. He swallowed, ready to ask the question yet dreading the answer that would follow. “Taryn,” Chris asked. “How did you find me in all those dreams? I just don’t understand.” </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>“What I am about to tell you is considered ‘CLASSIFIED’ in our logbooks,” Taryn explained, “but I don’t consider it exactly ‘classified’ anyway.” Taryn sighed. “We use our computers. We know what’s been happening to you. We know about the dreams. Your dream-inside-of-a-dream predicament is caused by Erik Kane and his subordinates. Every time I try as hard as I can to reach you, they try as hard as they can to stop me from reaching you and they ‘pull the plug’ in your brain, so to speak. The problem is, though, with every ounce of battery power we use to find you, the more they can track us down and find our base.” She shook her head as if denying the possibility. “I barely understand how they do it, so don’t ask for details. It’s sort of like if you get a phone call from the FBI or CIA or any police, and they’re able to track your call and location as long as you’re on the line. So, yeah, they’re basically everywhere.” She gave him a hard stare. “Those dreams are the key, but I can’t explain. You’ll have to figure it out.”</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>~~~</b></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="340" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vHLzS3vSBT0" width="428" youtube-src-id="vHLzS3vSBT0"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>“Dreams feel real while we’re in them. It’s only when we wake up that we realize Something was actually strange.” - Dom Cobb, Inception</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Ok, Ok, it had to happen sooner or later, but I was very impressed when a writer who was 11 when she first published the book, created a character who most of us will recognize! You know, a man who is running for president of the United States and actually has the goal of taking over the entire world... Yeah that one! The characteristics of Eric Kane were so noticeable for me that I was all in on moving forward to the ending...which turned out to be an interesting twist... And an ending statement, "We will be the Coalition of Guardians" which I hope means that there will be at least one, or more, books following!</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>I'm giving a special shoutout of Kudos to this amazing young writer and highly recommend her book for those between the ages of 9 and 18...or, any book addict you know who reads anything and everything... Seriously any scifi or fantasy reader will enjoy the plot and characters...</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Most of the main characters appear to be teens, but could clearly be intellectually and physically prepared for super-hero status, while others are older but as members of the group who had earlier been formed, again with special skills--each one slightly different.</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Chris Coleman is the main character and by profession an engineer who enjoys participating in creating gadgets of all kinds such as a thermal jacket that could be regulated hot or cold... Chris was actually on his way to work when he suddenly braked, knowing that something physically was happening to him--everything was spinning. But, as he sat in he middle of the road he realized that his head wasn't spinning--the world was spinning around him! Actually, my first thought was Vertigo! But, it proved to be something much more complicated! </b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>He had been dreaming. a dream so real that he could hear the horns blaring and people screaming for him to get out of the way! But in that dream, there was a woman with piercing eyes watching him, seriously, but he just thought she was frustrated with the delay...</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Shall we say that was his first encounter, of a different kind?</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Because even while he got dressed and went outside, he was still groggy as he began to drive. Chris was fearful that he would be ok. And, almost immediately he remembered what his father would always tell him when he was afraid:</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><blockquote><i><span style="color: #0b5394;">Do you remember what you do when you’re scared, or worried, or sad? You close your eyes, take a deep breath, and think to yourself, “I got this.” I believe in you, son.</span></i></blockquote></b></span></blockquote><p><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>But when he got to work and was interacting with his co-workers, he noticed a woman watching him--who later was gone. His friends teased him about his new imaginary friend... But he could see her in his mind, almost like a dream and she was telling him that she needed his help!</b></span></p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>And, then, readers, you will be taken completely out of the plot as a journalist log book is thrown into the mix, as if, like we see on television, the journalist is attempting to record what is happening, but sometimes hasn't even a clue of what is going on... Then at other times, he will be providing new info to we readers... And, really, folks, isn't that the way we get our world news? This one concept, thrown in by the writer, reveals a level of creativity that is simply fascinating...</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Readers will begin to be on edge as dreams are described and cries for help are heard, one of which seemed to be coming from a little baby in a crib! What is going on? And, soon, Chris was astounded when he woke up, looking around and could see mountains! Where was he? Later, he would remember that Eva, one of the other engineers with whom he's been friendly, had surprised him by giving him a shot. But he had been feeling woozy, blacking out, and waking up, not sure whether he was dreaming...or not...</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>But, at least, this time, there was somebody there to talk to. Taryn Johnson, a member of a group calling themselves The Rebellion... She then went on to tell him about the danger presented by Erik Kane who was head of a large corporation and who was now running to be president of the United States...</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><blockquote><blockquote style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Chris nodded after a few moments of thinking. “Okay, fine! I’ll wait, but not for long.” He paused and sighed. “Erik Kane,” he murmured, “the billionaire businessman?” At her nod, he shook his head as if to clear it. This was getting weirder by the minute. Chris looked up at Taryn. “Now, why in the world do I need to stop Erik Kane of all people?” Taryn gave him a cold and serious stare. “Erik Kane is not just some hotshot businessman. His father … how do I put this? His father, Dominic Kane, is a murderer and a liar. He tricked us all into electing him President of the United States, but he really used that position to help him elevate himself. He wanted world dominance, but two terms in the White House wasn’t quite long enough to achieve it. He even started the process—don’t you remember that big nuclear scare? Yeah, that was Kane. So now that his son Erik is running for President, we need to make sure we defeat him before he begins Phase Two of his plan for ruling the world just like his father did.” “Consider your words marked, Taryn, but I’m still confused as to what he does, or did, that’s so evil that we have to stop him—him, the son of the former President, for crying out loud. And why me?” Chris tried at his old point again. “Didn’t his father do the evil things, not Erik himself?” “It’s not what he did, Chris,” Taryn said. “It’s what he wants.</span></blockquote><blockquote><span style="color: #0b5394;"><b>I know this sounds corny or cheesy, like one of your favorite action movies, but Chris, please just listen to me. The rules he’ll put into play are wicked and cruel. And he’s a smart man, too smart for any of us to try to defeat him individually. Somehow he seems to know our every move; whenever we go on a special mission to try to track him and his base down, we lose several men. Good soldiers, too. Those that are gone are gone because of Erik Levi Kane.”</b></span></blockquote></blockquote><p><b><span style="color: #741b47;">Sorry, folks, but that's about all I dare to share...You really have got to read the book to move into and out of the dreams, always wondering is this a False Awakening...or am I really in a lot of trouble?! The scenes are both intriguing and fun to consider as Chris little by little learns...the...secret...he...has!</span></b></p><p><b><span style="color: #741b47;">GABixlerReviews</span></b></p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><br />Glenda A Bixler Reviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15829561936090262198noreply@blogger.com0