Egypt’s persecution of Christians, once controlled by a brutal dictatorship, is now sanctioned by an equally brutal military junta.  ISIS’ persecution, at best forced conversions of Christians to Islam, and at worst their bloody beheadings, are in the news, the stories often accompanied by gruesome YouTube videos.   A recent CBS Sixty Minutes’ segment portrayed the plight of Christians in Iraq, ironically more protected under Saddam Hussein, once persecuted by al Qaeda in Iraq, and now threatened by ISIS.  Iran’s persecution of Christians has only diminished because the Ayatollahs want to remove the West’s sanctions.  Recently, Christians in Kenya (most of the 147 victims) were separated from Muslims and shot exection-style by Somalian al Qaeda members.  Where Christians and Muslims once coexisted, Christians are now in the crosshairs of radical Islam.

Religious intolerance isn’t new, of course.  It’s inherited from the ancients who followed the doctrine “My tribe…good; your tribe…bad!”  It’s inherited from that long evolutionary development of ape men and women mimicking their gorilla and chimp cousins (ever see one group of chimps wage war on another?—geez, they seem almost human!).  In the Age of Enlightenment philosophers tried to argue against ALL discrimination, but religious discrimination was so ingrained that our Founding Fathers made religious freedom #1 in the Bill of Rights.  (Never mind that it’s now being used to discriminate in Indiana and elsewhere—until we modify the Bill of Rights to bring it up to date and prohibit discrimination for sexual orientation, this will continue.  One right being used to attack another is ironic, at best, and dangerous—we consider freedom of speech a right, but you still can’t yell “Fire!” in a theater, because that tramples on other rights.)

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[I apologize for the length of this post.  I wanted to clearly lay out why I cannot support Joe Konrath’s new “Ebooks Are Forever,” or EAF, initiative.  This proposal allows public libraries to peruse and purchase from a list of indie novels, a list controlled by Joe.  Skip to just after the *** if you want just the bottom line, and go back and fill in background material as needed.  This initiative will affect all readers who check out ebooks from public libraries!  It also negatively affects most indie writers.]

In my first sci-fi thriller novel Full Medical, the Guardians enforce the conspiracy by keeping the clone children in their compound and feeding them the lie that they will be a special crew for a non-existent starship.  Controlling readers’ actions and attacking their freedom of choice is like that, only more nefarious.  Traditional or legacy publishers spend oodles of money doing just that.  Enter the indie writers to save the day!  Well, sometimes….  You see, dear reader, control and greed is just as much a part of some indie writers’ genetic makeup as those manipulated, selected, and copycat genes were in the clone children of Full Medical.  A writer, traditional or indie, might start out with noble intentions, but greed and an obsession with control can rear its ugly head.  Some indie writers are very successful, so they want more.  They will cheapen the indie paradigm and try to control what you read.

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Italy is known for its change of governments, corruption, dalliances among public officials, unions abusing public trust, and ties to organized crime.  Is it any wonder the justice system is completely dysfunctional?  It isn’t alone, of course.  France and Spain and many Latin American “democracies” suffer equally from incompetence and corruption.  I’ve written about Argentina in these pages—their President was just exonerated from killing a special prosecutor on the eve of announcing an indictment against her.  Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru have long battled the often lucrative ties between public officials and drug cartels.

The Amanda Knox case in Italy is just the tip of the iceberg.  For those not paying attention, she’s the perfect example of what can happen when double jeopardy is allowed in judicial proceedings.  Italy’s keystone cops and keystone courts dragged this case on for eight years.  First, she was convicted.  Then she was exonerated.  Then they overturned the acquittal.  Finally, that same Supreme Court that overturned the acquittal closed the case.  I don’t have info on the ex-boyfriend, but the guy who committed the murder is already serving time.  That didn’t matter.  Italian prosecutors, pandering to local pressure groups and media attention like leaders of a lynch mob, went after Knox and her ex-boyfriend as willing accomplices.  Never mind that they’ve been tried for the same crime several times!

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How do you detect and thwart a deranged killer?  Except for close family and friends, I have no problem when someone, desperate, anguished, and out of his or her mind, commits suicide.  Yes, it’s sad they couldn’t get some help (maybe they tried).  In the new Chen and Castilblanco mystery, Family Affairs (going well, by the way), Sgt. C takes time from his niece’s case, where he’s moonlighting, to work on the detective duo’s caseload.  He proves a man who was allegedly pushed in front of a subway train actually committed suicide.  Turns out the man had pancreatic cancer.  The big cop comments that he might have done the same.

Solo suicides, while sad and perhaps evidence for negligent care in our medical system, fundamentally affect only one person, by definition.  Sure, family and friends might wonder if they or the system could have done better by that mentally ill person, but the successful suicide in this case isn’t killing other innocent victims.  How that terrible decision morphs into mass murder must be case dependent, but, when it does, thousands can suffer.

Such was the case of the German co-pilot who set the autopilot of that Germanwings commuter jet on a hundred foot altitude.  His suicide, if not motivated by terrorism (there’s no indication it was), has a similar effect on the friends and families of the passengers in that doomed flight.  It’s clear he hid his mental illness from Lufthansa, or so they claim—it’s debatable whether airlines do enough to prevent these six-sigma events (the lawyers are already comforting those friends and families, I bet).  His actions were deliberate too, tearing up notes from doctors and prescriptions.  Did he have paranoid schizophrenia?  Did his depression cause him to see all human beings as his enemy?  Did he hear voices telling him to go out in a blaze of media glory?  We might never know what was going through his mind.

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Item: Two new ebooks worth checking out.  Recently I reviewed Ellie O’Neill’s Reluctantly Charmed on Bookpleasures (my shortened review of the same ebook is on Amazon).  This is from Simon and Schuster’s Touchstone imprint; it’s a delightful mystery, fantasy, and romance that was released on St. Paddy’s day.  For all lovers of Irish folklore, to be sure.  Also, sometime ago I reviewed Jay Kinney’s The Masonic Myth from Harper Collins (yeah, I read non-fiction too).  I’ve recently had opportunity to put some of that knowledge about Free Masonry to use (I also have some personal experience with it) because I’m now reviewing Giacometti and Ravene’s Shadow Ritual, a translation from the French, for Le French Book.  It’s a thriller involving old Nazis and, you guessed it, Free Masons.  Look for that review on Bookpleasures—coming soon!

Item: Speaking of book reviews.  I’m always surprised that authors don’t do more reviewing.  While I’ve seen one- or two-line endorsements by big-time authors (they’re usually a negative for me, by the way—I’ve never read or reviewed a book because Lee Child or Douglas Preston endorses it), I have this perception that authors are reluctant to lower themselves to the level of readers and give something back to the community of readers and writers by reviewing other authors’ books.  There was a time Amazon frowned on this, and maybe still does—an absurd policy, to say the least.

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Focus.  Will Smith and Margot Robbie star in this story about a con-man training a con-woman.  There are some fun moments in New Orleans when the scam-jam takes place, and Smith’s character even surprises the con-woman (and me as well).  The whole thing is a bit unrealistic, though, especially the ending, a twist gone wrong.  Newcomer Robbie, an Aussie, is a good foil for the rapidly aging Smith, but she’s a failure as a con-woman, never graduating beyond stealing watches.  Really a mixed bag, in spite of Smith and Robbie (was Smith brain-damaged by the After Earth fiasco?)  I’d give this one a B-, but you might want to wait for the video.

Chappie.  AI-construct and artificial boy Chappie is annoying [added just before posting: one reviewer said he’s akin to Jar-Jar Binks, the flop-eared jackass character in the worst Star Wars episode ever—I disagree, because nothing could be that annoying!].  Dev Patel is his usual annoying self as the brilliant roboticist.  Hugh Jackman plays a different role but is equally annoying as one of the villain.  Sigourney Weaver continues her love of mediocrity that makes one wonder if Alien was just an accident.  Rappers Ninja as Chappie’s Daddy and Yo-Landi Visser as Chappie’s Mommy were refreshing, adding both comic relief and some seriousness—they might have saved the movie.

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As a writer, I love words.  Sometimes I love a particular word because it’s mysterious.  “Eldritch” is an example.  You can understand its meaning from context when you combine it with “light”—it just looks spooky and sinister.  Because English is spoken in so many places, an author can give local color to his prose by choosing particular words (often not consciously).  I love the sound of “scarpered”—it just sounds like someone in a hurry to leave town.  When my beta-reader knew what it meant but still objected to its use in one of my books, I went on a search to find out how I’d picked it up.  Turns out it’s very UK-ish—sort of like “forthwith” and other words where I love how they trip off the tongue.  I’d picked it up from Ian Rankin (love his Inspector Rebus books), so my beta-reader was right and made a good catch.  Unless it occurs in dialog associated with a character who’s from the UK, or who’s trying to sound like a person from the UK, it isn’t quite appropriate in American prose.  Still love the sound, though.

“Troglodyte” is a word that looks and sounds good too.  It’s a fun word.  If I remember correctly, it originally means “cave dweller.”  (The origins of English are well mapped out in David Crystal’s The Stories of English—a lot of fun if you’re into that kind of thing.)  The word is more conventionally used to mean “deliberately ignorant or old-fashioned.”  Ergo, this long segue is just leading up to my main topic: There are anti-science troglodytes among us who are challenging science with their far-out beliefs and attacking scientific progress at all levels, some even funding campaigns against science.  Ironically, many of these same troglodytes are using science and technology as tools to further their anti-scientific agendas.

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[Note from Steve: Maybe the timing of this seems off…consider it corn beef and cabbage leftovers….]

Item: The new traitors.  I’m not going to pussyfoot around this issue.  While I abhor the general tone of New York’s leading rag, The Daily News, I’ll agree with its recent headline: the forty-seven (47) senators (nearly the entire GOP majority) are the new traitors in America.  Arrogant, egotistical, and uncouth, they have trampled on the U. S. Constitution, period.  I quote Article II, Section 2, Clause 2: “The President…shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur….”

That clause doesn’t say that the Senate has any power at all when it comes to initiating and pursuing treaties, which makes sense because the President and Secretary of State handle foreign policy and the President is Commander-and-Chief, traditionally the one who has to initiate peace in time of war.  These 47 GOP senators are traitors to the Constitution—their only job is to advise (the President doesn’t have to take their damn advice, ever!) and finally approve.  Their horning-in on the peace process with Iran is treason, plain and simple.

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Don’t let any black cats cross your path today…adopt one from a shelter (unless you’re allergic, of course).  Watch for ladders too….

[Note: My apologies to my Facebook friends.  The geniuses running that social media site have made it impossible to share these posts.  I suggest you cancel your accounts and focus on Google+.  You can all follow me there, but your best bet is to RSS this blog.  I do so on Amazon, Goodreads, and LinkedIn…but you can always put this website in your “favorites list.”  Have a great weekend!  Spring is almost here….]

Item. Harper Lee’s “new book”.  It was only a matter of time.  Enough people have raised hell about whether Ms. Lee is competent enough to decide on the release of the sequel to Mockingbird that a court is stepping in to attend to a complaint to that effect.  Money, money, money; greed, greed, greed.  She seemed pretty spry and all there to me.  At her age I expect to be where she’s at too!  If she says she wants to release the book, more power to her.  We know the motivation of the publisher and the lawyer(s) who manage her estate.  What’s the motivation of the naysayers?  Dunno.  Maybe it’s just an expression of a sentiment I have: Mockingbird was almost a perfect book (sounds a wee bit old-fashioned now, but not as much as Jane Austen), so why add a sequel that Ms. Lee never pushed to publish…until now?  That said, it’s her book.  She can damn well do what she wants with it!

Item. Author Scott Dyson.  His recent post on labels in fiction is interesting.  Visit Scott’s website and blog.  Scott has published several short story collections and has one in the anthology Quantum Zoo (not to be confused with my Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape).  Check him out.

Item. My bookshelf.  Speaking of up and coming authors, have you checked out “Steve’s Bookshelf”?  I list some old hound dogs in both fiction and non-fiction (yeah, I read that too) and also some stealth reads, books by authors who haven’t received the attention they deserve (I might be in that category too—one reviewer said as much—but I already pound my chest enough on these website pages).  Note that the old hound dogs’ book might not be their most popular titles (I only list Deaver’s Garden of Beasts and Preston and Child’s The Relic, for example), but the books listed are their best in my opinion.

Item.  Women in my fiction.  Hot-off-the-press Silicon Slummin’…and Just Getting’ By is the second Mary Jo Melendez mystery; Muddlin’ Through is the first.  Starting with Caitlin Murphy, the FBI agent and protagonist in Soldiers of God, continuing with DHS agent Ashley Scott in The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan (she’s also a minor character in the novels in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series”), and now with ex-USN Master-at-Arms Mary Jo, I have a tradition of celebrating smart, intelligent women in my fiction (we shouldn’t forget Dao-Ming Chen and many others either)—women who strive to make their mark in a male-dominated world (thankfully it’s becoming less so).

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[I apologize to my friends on Facebook, where I usually share these posts.  Facebook has made it impossible to share.  You can follow me on Google+.  I recommend cancelling your Facebook accounts and creating Google+ accounts, if you haven’t already.]

While drone surveillance and attacks and Special Ops are a better military solution than “boots on the ground,” there’s no doubt that ISIS, al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other terrorist groups will only be defeated if the countries affected wage effective war against these militant Islamic groups.  The key word is “effective.”  Remember that ISIS received a big boost when poorly trained Iraqi forces ran for their lives, often in their underwear—equipment left behind, much of it American, is now in ISIS’ hands.  That has to stop.  Western presence is justified there for equipping and training local forces so that these fiascos aren’t repeated.

That said, the West isn’t doing nearly enough to hurt these groups where it’s most effective—financially and personnel-wise.  I’m reminded of World War Two where indifference, peaceniks, and anti-Semitic sentiments conspired to give Hitler a free hand in Europe.  We don’t need another Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan, but we shouldn’t bury our heads in the sand either and hope Islamic nations will destroy the extremists in their midst without our help.  The recent Twitter action, for example, while a good start, is a drop in the bucket.  The West needs a concerted effort to stop all finances flowing into the illegal insurgent groups.  Funds must be frozen and their propaganda machine must be dismantled.  We can be good at that, and it’s the least we can do.

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