I wrote a couple of weeks ago that I had finally finished my teen fantasy novel Jennifer Jones and the Corridors of Time. You can download the first five chapters free at that link.
I have also written a few horror stories based in an imaginary town called Rendlesham. Horror stories I write under the name Alastair Kayle.
There will eventually be ten of these short stories. They are can be read and enjoyed independently, but together they form a definite larger story. The ultimate theme is the triumph of courage and perseverance even in the face of fear, confusion and apparent failure. Essentially the same theme as the Jennifer Jones series – but Rendlesham is definitely not for children!
As an experiment I have self published one of these – Terminus – as a Kindle book on Amazon.
Here’s the product link:
You’ll need a Kindle, or the free Kindle for PC viewer, to read it.
It costs 99c. If you buy it and like it, please write a nice review!
The next story in the series – Evidence of an Unspeakable Act – should be available on Amazon this time next week.
Quite frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn if someone wants to burn a book, any book. If a person’s paid for a book, he can do what he likes with it.
I am not going to join the chorus proclaiming Pastor Terry Jones a try-hard loser. I don’t know anything about the man. I suspect he is more sought by the media than seeking the media.
What I do think is that his burning of the Koran was a reasonable act of protest.
This is a book which inspires murder, torture, the mistreatment of women and minorities.
It is a book which, read through the lens of the example of Muhammed, a serial rapist, torturer, murderer and child molester, means misery for hundreds of millions of human beings.
It is the book of a religious group whose default emotional setting is inflamed.
It is the book of a group of people who thinking burning a book (their book – burning other books is OK) justifies burning and beheading people who look like, or may have once have been in the same country as, the people who burnt the book.
So go ahead and burn it. The trouble is not with the burning, but with the cringing.
He then went on to say that the fury this had aroused was an understandable passion.
No it isn’t.
Burning a nasty, racist, violent book is a legitimate act of protest. Burning and beheading people who had nothing to do with it is murderous brutality.
Jones was right. The reaction to his little protest proves there is something to protest about.
Kow-towing to bullies does not work. They need to be told stop it and grow up.
Forgiving bullies does not work, unless they have first shown that they have changed and will bully no longer.
Otherwise making excuses for inexcusable behaviour merits the warning JP Donleavy gave about forgiveness in general (no link, but from the Unexpurgated Code):
“Forgiveness. Be careful, those getting this then do the unforgivable. Which is frequently a lot worse than the first lousy thing they did to you.”
Ann – I am not a political activist. I am the owner of three small businesses who looked around two and a half years ago and said, “Oh, HELL no.” Politicians make me ill. I can never and will never be a politician. For the last two to three years I have been focusing heavily on explaining and exposing Marxism, Islam and the fraud that is Obama. But that is triple-redundant, isn’t it?
iOTW – What is your take on what is known as the Ground Zero Mosque?
Ann – They can build a mosque at Ground Zero when we can build a Catholic Cathedral Basilica over the top of the Kaaba in Mecca. You know what? Check that. They still couldn’t build a mosque at Ground Zero, because Ground Zero is the sacred burial space of 3000 people that THEY MURDERED. No mosque at Ground Zero E.V.E.R.
iOTW – Islam uses the constitution to their advantage. How do we do battle with Islam without trampling the constitution?
Ann – Declare war against the Caliphate, just like we did against the Third Reich. Same bloody thing. And I’m not kidding.
iOTW- What do you think of General Petraeus and his assertion that inciting Islam puts our soldiers in harm’s way?
Ann – I have an offer for General Petraeus. I’ll GIVE him one of my balls. Then I’d still have two, and he would have one. He is a politicking coward who cares only about his pension and cashing in on his rank after he retires. The suicidal, defeatist Rules of Engagement he oversees are the unequivocal proof of that. He should resign in disgrace – yesterday, and then present himself to each and every family of our war dead and BEG their forgiveness for failing in his duty as their son or daughter’s commanding officer.
Here’s a bit more, complete with Koran with bacon bookmarks:
You may disagree with some of what she says, or the way she says it.
Freedom of speech, and safety to speak what we believe, is a great privilege. To lose it is to lose civilisation.
Given odd exceptions (I wouldn’t want to live in Venezuela at the moment, for example) where would you choose to live?
Where are women treated as equals, and gays and lesbians accepted and safe? Where would you feel safer? Where would your children be safer? Where can people of any race and religion participate in business and politics? In which countries are there schools, universities, hospitals, stable government, a free press?
It seems to me quite clear, at the risk of incurring judicial wrath, that Justice Bromberg would very much like to find against Andrew Bolt and the Herald and Weekly Times.
There have been a few comments and questions from the bench which indicate this. For example, his remark that “It (freedom of speech) is not an unqualified right. Never has been.”
No one had said it was. Certainly Andrew’s team had made no such claim. So why make this comment?
I could be quite wrong. Justice Bromberg may genuinely intend to put aside any feelings or political values he may have or espouse, and make his judgement solely on the basis of relevant legislation and precedent.
But at very least, it is unwise for a justice, during the course of a trial, to make gratuitous remarks which could beconstrued as indicating a bias.
Two:
It is simply nonsense to suggest that public discussion of another person’s ethnicity is out of bounds because it is necessarily racial vilification.
Say I was to discover that my maternal grandmother had been a member of the Ngapuhi tribe. One of my adopted sisters is a Ngapuhi woman, and my family had lived in Northland for a long time before coming to Australia, so this is not beyond the realms of possibility.
Say I then decided on this basis that I was a Maori. I would expect some pretty merciless mocking from my mates.
If I decided to return to NZ and to claim benefits or awards on the basis of being a Ngapuhi man, I would expect that this claim would be scrutinised.
I would also expect to be able to show the basis on which my claim was made. I would not feel insulted by requests to do this.
Even I did feel insulted, that would say more about my own conceit than anything else.
There is no right under law not to be offended.
Three:
Underlying the complaint in the Bolt case, and, it seems to me in some of Justice Bromberg’s remarks, is the assumption that race is less about race than it is about identity, community and culture. Some of the comments from the complainants go as far as suggesting that anyone who does not hold this new view of race is ipso facto a racist or eugenicist.
There may be instances where it is helpful to take culture and identity into account when race is being determined.
But that is different from saying that culture, identity, community are what matter, and that actual racial background and inheritance do not. A person who is ethnically Han Chinese is still ethnically Chinese even if she was born in Australia and knows nothing of Chinese culture or language.
I would be happy to see some public discussion of this. But it would be extraordinary if people who still thought that race was primarily about race found themselves in trouble with the law because they held and expressed that opinion.
