Mark Biskeborn is a writer.
His most recent novel: Mojave Winds
To learn more: www.markbiskeborn.com
Fighting Guerrilla Warriors with Conventional Tactics All for the Sake of Godly Profits
“War on terror” coins a sacred phrase in the Iraq crusade. Karl Rove, high priest of spin, led the neocons’ faithful choir through the doctrinal hymns, especially regarding Bush’s military mission.
Now the Sanctified Church of Later Day Neocons has anointed John McCain to take the pulpit for the steadfast congregation, a political party on a mission from God, bowing down to corporate avarice at the detriment of public interests.
[Read more →]
Tags: Editorials · General
The media, TV journalists in particular, continue to leave some important questions lying dormant beneath the dusty cover of “conspiracy theory.” Why did W decide to invade Iraq while 15 of the 19 terrorists of 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia? Why is Saudi Arabia a cradle for such terrorists?
Years ago, when W still had some credibility, he and his Roving gang could ridicule anyone who spoke against his actions. Whenever brave souls dared to question the Divine Decider, he and his cronies dismissed the dissenters as nutcase conspiracy theorists. And they continue to do so even after the Iraq War has officially run its miserable course to disastrous guerrilla warfare and our economy whimpers.
[Read more →]
Tags: Editorials · World News
Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America and the New Face of American War By Evan Wright
As a journalist for Rolling Stone, Wright asked to join a front-line, first-in unit of the Operation Iraqi Freedom during the initial invasion of 2003. He embedded with the Second Platoon of Bravo Company, commanded by Lt. Nathaniel Fick, a 25-year-old Dartmouth graduate. Fick originally joined the Marines in a fit of enthusiastic patriotism. By the end of the invasion, his views change drastically:
“[The Marines] reminded me of gladiators. They had the mysterious quality that allows some men to strap on greaves and a breastplate and wade into the gore. I respected, admired, and emulated them, but I could never be like them. I could kill when killing was called for, and I got hooked on the rush of combat as much as any man did. But I couldn’t make the conscious choice to put myself in that position again and again throughout my professional life.”
Riding with Fick’s platoon, Wright gained the hard earned trust of the Marines and this key opened doors for him to learn firsthand their daily reality in combat.
[Read more →]
Tags: Literature · Reviews
Ancient Highway
By Bret Lott
Random House, New York, NY; 241 pp., 2008
He’d heard it already, the cold and steady promise way off, building after building but still way off, not yet even to the trestle over Rogers Creek. But coming.
In these opening lines, the narrator sets the stage for a story that takes on the road, the ancient highway toward self-realization. Earl is the first character the reader meets. At the age of barely fourteen, Earl runs away from his home in a dusty Texas town. He’s pursuing his happiness. He’s broken away from his family and has already seen several “flickers,” movies in our modern parlance.
[Read more →]
Tags: Literature · Reviews
A Novel
By Michael Connelly
Little Brown and Company, New York, NY; 405 pp., 2008
Everybody lies. Cops lie. Lawyers lie. Witnesses lie. The victims lie. A trial is a contest of lies. Everyone in the courtroom knows this. The judge knows this. …That’s my job, to forge the blade. To sharpen it. To use it without mercy or conscience. To be the truth in a place where everybody lies.
These first lines of Michael Connelly’s newest novel, entitled Brass Verdict state the high concept of the story. Most of us probably want to believe that our legal system is based on some concrete logic or steadfast process where only the bad guys go to jail and a higher cause is served.
[Read more →]
Tags: Literature · Reviews
There is a drug in America that is legal, one that can both jack up your persuasive spirits and protect you against any doubts.
Laguna Beach, CA — I admit my thinking becomes intense at times. It’s not my fault. The coffee they serve here at Laguna Beach works wonders. Just the right formula…transforms a regular, stable guy like me into a psychic mess.
I come here to write my next novel. The café’s patrons are an eclectic community. Surfers hardly dressed, listening to iPod songs. Bikers stop here on their hog rides from beach to beach. College co-eds hang out here, wearing their pants below the top of their beautifully tanned bottoms clad in colorful thongs. Even the eternal mermaids come to sip the Nicaraguan Nectar, singing each to each.
[Read more →]
Tags: Editorials · Local Politics
Although The New American Militarism arrived on the market over a year ago, surprisingly few reviews appeared and they do so more as opinion essays based on Bacevich’s work, which only testifies to its influence. His book traces the last few decades of American history focusing on changes in public attitudes and government doctrines regarding the use of military might. Bacevich states his position clearly in the introduction of this seminal work.
“To state the matter bluntly, Americans in our own time have fallen prey to militarism, manifesting itself in a romanticized view of soldiers, a tendency to see military power as the truest measure of national greatness, and outsized expectations regarding the efficacy of force. To a degree without precedent in U.S. history, Americans have come to define the nation’s strength and well-being in terms of military preparedness, military actions, and the fostering of, or nostalgia for, military ideals.”
[Read more →]
Tags: Literature · Reviews
Sunday was more like Memorial Day. Father’s Day calls my father to mind, but WWII was one of the most defining events in his life.
Just a farm boy from Nebraska, hardly 18-years-old, he served in the Army’s 89th Division and shipped out for the third wave of landings onto the shores of Normandy.
He saw a lot of action. Carrying a high quality German camera, he took a lot of pictures of the war. None of them pretty.
When he returned home, he had a lot of shrapnel embedded in his flesh. Many years later, when he’d started a family, contributing to the baby boom, he had to go to the VA hospital several times to take some of those pieces of metal out from under his skin as they began to resurface.
[Read more →]
Tags: Editorials · Local Politics
“Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” means a lot of things to a lot of people. Literally it means that the Al-Saud family owns the country and its residents are their vassals. The Royal Saud family rules “Saudi Arabia” mostly by force. Nevertheless its ministry of communications attempts to present the kingdom as a country of peace and harmony. If this were true, how could 15 of the 19 terrorists of the 9/11 attack come from the kingdom?
After World War I, at the Cairo Conference of 1921, the British rewarded Sherif Hussein, naming one of his sons, Faisal, king of Iraq, and another, Abdullah, ruler of modern-day Jordan—both countries, like most in the Middle East, were imperial inventions whose borders were sketched in the sand. The winners of WWI carved up the Ottoman Empire into the modern Middle Eastern countries we know today and they assigned rulers who seemed cooperative.
The British also backed Ibn Saud and his Wahhabi followers because he seemed most capable to pacify rival tribes in the Arabian Peninsula, especially since he had already regained control of Riyadh after a final power struggle against Al Rashid in 1902. Thus the Saud family gained royal power to rule what became the Saudi Arabia we know today.
In 1945, US President Franklin Roosevelt met with Ibn Saud (featured above) to negotiate an important oil deal in which the US would back the Saud dynasty by providing military support in exchange for a reliable supply of crude. It seemed like a good deal at the time.
[Read more →]
Tags: News · World News
A man parks his car in the wrong spot, he pays a fine.
The Supreme Court appoints a privileged family’s son who manipulates an entire nation to wage a major war, and this in order to raise his failing first term ratings and to stay in office another term. Indulging his delusional, ideological ambitions, he causes disaster, the maiming and death of hundreds of thousands, and economic breakdown…
He walks away without even a tap on the wrist, without the slightest judicial review?
Is this the American way? Is our justice system functional?
Why the absence of any impeachment proceedings against Cheney and G. W. Bush? Not enough proof of misleading the public? Not enough proof of treason at a national scale? So many books published by insiders of the Bush administration now line bookstore shelves. A library full of books now details the misconduct, the intentional lies, and devious, criminal acts. Ample eye-witness testimonies from prominent public officials fill the bookstores. I need not include the long list of names already so well known.
[Read more →]
Tags: Editorials · Local Politics
How often do you talk with a porn-star? Until we experience something first hand, we easily form preconceived ideas about it. Fantasy can jumble up reality.
What benefit do you provide society?
I show people how to enjoy their sexuality, Belladonna responded without pause. I’m an educator. I teach people how to loosen up and live a little, how to feel good about sex. That’s especially important for women. We’re often taught to hold back and suppress our pleasures. That’s not so healthy.
Before talking with Belladonna, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had many questions and maybe more prejudices. A prima donna? A wild, imbalanced, nutcase? An immoral degenerate?
We entered into a conversation that was supposed to last maybe 20 minutes. So engaging was our chat, we went on for over an hour. We covered many a philosophical and theological nuance and concluded by solving the world’s problems.
[Read more →]
Tags: Interviews · Visual Arts
Most publishing professionals consider Book Expo of America the industry’s compass in trends and innovative thinking. This weekend, the spirits of Magic Johnson, Ted Turner, Thomas Friedman, Michael Moore, and others drifted through the convention center’s halls, as the Zeitgeist of our times flashed glimpses of its elusive light.
Agents, writers, and editors roam through the aisles and rows of new books. As the publishing industry’s annual showcase, it’s one of the world’s largest flea-markets of books and thought trends. The event focuses on business to business relations, not intended for general public.
Coolest of all people I met at the event was by far James Rollins, my favorite writer buddy. He told me about how he wrote the novel entitled “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” based on the latest movie.
As a journalist I meandered around hoping to shake hands with the Zeitgeist, peer into its eyes, and listen as it whispered secrets to me. Things didn’t turn out quite like that though.
[Read more →]
Tags: Literature · Local LA · Reviews
Loading ...