Friday, February 6, 2015

Record Warm Winter

West of the rockies we've been experiencing record high temperatures as well as a record warm winter lately. It has never been this warm in January and February. We didn't even get snow until Christmas Day where I live here in Idaho.
Global warming perhaps?

The Lost World or City of Z

Hey bloggers! Check out my writing blog where I recommend and give a short synopsis of the book The Lost City of Z. I really like this book due to my fascination with anthropology and archaeology.
My writing blog is fantasywriter4.blogspot.com.

Thursday, February 5, 2015

The One Thing I've Learned From the Internet

The one thing I've learned from the internet is how many people believe weird things that they can't prove are true. Everything from the most irrational conspiracy theorists to the craziest cult-like thinkers with their circular logic and lack of rationality. You'll find all the crazies online.
You'll be following some argument on a YouTube comment thread where either one person is crazy and the other person is vainly attempting to reason with the poor deluded nut. Or sometimes both the people arguing are crazy but for different reasons.
Yeah. The internet is full of interesting people like that. Everybody from closeted racists and bigoted folks to people who have just as much blind faith in their conspiracy theories as they would in their religion. They all come out of the woodwork online.
I recently came across a comment from a commenter on YouTube who appeared to be both a Bible basher who believed the King James Translation of the Bible was 100 percent correct even without footnotes and a conspiracy theorist who believed firmly in his conspiracy theorist ideas. Yup, the internet has all kinds.
I kind of think that a lot of people believe things because they want to believe them and not because they have any evidence to back their beliefs. That's why we have an entire circus of these clowns who will take every conspiracy theory they hear as truth. Then they try to warn everybody about the evil illuminati or whatever other boogey man they have chosen to believe in but have no solid proof of. If this was a child and not an adult they'd probably be warning their friends about the evil giant or unicorn that Tommy warned them about.
This is why skepticism is important. Skeptics are less likely to appear crazy to others. In fact, my blog looks kind of like a conspiracy blog but when I made it I was sort of satirizing conspiracy blogs. Kind of silly of me.
Just my 2 cents for today.
You can follow my author blog which is dedicated only to writing and not just to my thoughts, ideas, and opinions. Go to FantasyWriter4.blogspot.com.

Book Review of The Dansing Star by Kirby Jonas

This my review of the only book I own which is signed by the author himself. This book is a Western novel entitled The Dansing Star by Kirby Jonas.
The novel starts out with a short Prologue--taking place in the autumn of 1879--in which Odio de Caballos' feelings of inner anger toward the white man and the Mexicans who had both lied to him is expressed. He is known by the white man as Horse Hate and we get to learn a little more about him later. Chapter 1 starts out with our main character Mort Dansing being awoken by the local Puma County, Arizona sheriff with the exclamation of: "We've been robbed! Get out of bed! They robbed the bank!" After which the rugged main character Mort Dansing gruffy and groggily responds to the Sheriff who needs him to gather a posse to try to catch the robbers. It begins to become apparent that Dansing and the sheriff don't get along too well and the sheriff is not the most sympathetic or likeable human being. He doesn't care much for the fact that Dansing was raised by Apaches.
It turns out the only reason the sheriff needs Dansing's help is due to the fact that he was trained by the Apaches to be an excellent tracker. So, our main character sets out with his horse Gent and a posse of men to track to the thieves.
After returning with little success, Dansing later goes out to lunch with Janice Hart and it seems the two have a pretty good friendship going. But when Janice is murdered it's but to Mort Dansing to seek retribution. Along the way many revelations begin to unravel and Mort begins to understand more concerning his friend's death among other things. There's also a showdown between Mort Dansing and a seemingly invincible, but cruel, Apache medicine man. Who is this man? Well, you'll have to buy the book to find out. It's a Western full of twists and turns. Whether you're a huge fan of Westerns or not, I recommend it as a good read.
For more book reviews and other content visit my blog at fantasywriter4.blogspot.com.

Monday, February 2, 2015

Published and Self Published Book Recommendations

I've started reading a book entitled The Code Book by Simon Singh. It's a national bestseller on cracking codes. It has a lot of interesting history in it. The first part of the book talks about the Cipher of Mary Queen of Scots and gives the history of the codes used by the ancient Greeks such as the sender's scytale which was used by the Greeks as code to defeat the Persians. The ancient Greeks were geniuses.
We also learn a little about the Navajo Code Talkers toward the end of the book.
Another book I'd like to recommend is a self published fantasy novel called Soul Hosts by Joseph Isaacs. It's a teen and young adult fantasy novel about a fifteen-year-old boy named Wayden who lives in a world where one can be arrested for being a wizard. It has a voice in Wayden's head which is supposedly a sorcerer and starts out with Wayden feeling as if he is being followed by someone. We have surreal narcotic type magic scenes and meet various strange, churlish, and mysterious characters along the way.
It leaves the reader in suspense and hooks you from the every beginning. I highly recommend it to fans of fantasy fiction.
Keep reading my blog. More to come!

Stagnant Wages + Inflation = A Stagnant Economy

I'd like to blog about a topic I've been thinking about for some time now. There's a problem in this country with stagnant wages for the working class even in the midst of rising cost of living and inflation. We have record poverty, especially among people under the age of 35 in this country--the highest poverty rate since the Great Depression. This is a topic that can't keep being swept under the rug as if it isn't happening. It must be addressed. It's important.
With rising rate of poverty, not only do we have more economic woes but more socioeconomic problems as well such as the rise of theft, robbery, and crime in general. If you're a person who believes that the minimum wage and other wages should remain stagnant on a federal level as they have for almost a decade now, you support the rise of crime caused by such socioeconomic problems.
It's time for folks to pull their heads out of the sand and realize that this is a problem in America. It's time to write our lawmakers and tell them to raise the minimum wage to at least $10.00 an hour. This will stimulate spending and spur competition among employers to pay their workers a living wage. The notion that this will somehow hurt the economy is a myth perpetrated by the large corporation and their greedy heads.
According to the Department of Labor, if we adjust minimum wage for inflation when it was at its highest during 1968 it would be $11.91 today.
If you don't believe poverty leads to crime, take a good look at the high crime rates of third world countries and the drug cartels that run Mexico and many other Latin American countries. Take a look at the gangs and drug wars in the impoverished ghettos of the inner cities in this country.
Low wage workers can no longer sustain themselves in this economy. A $12.00 an hour factory job is no longer a living wage. It's time to stop ignoring this problem or believing that it is not a legitimate problem. It's time to stop worrying about unfounded consequences of raising the minimum wage. Write your state governors and legislators and let them know that this has become a problem that needs to be resolved.
So, do what Jesus Christ would do and help solve this problem. Write to our U.S. Senators and state leaders and tell them to raise the minimum wage. Or we could just allow wages to remain stagnant, so that we poverty, crime, and rate of homelessness go up. It's our call.
Source: www.doi.gov

Saturday, January 31, 2015

Good news! New book on Amazon!

Good news! My full length novel The Jewels of the Ishamah is now available for the low price of $2.99 on Amazon.com. Hope you find it entertaining. For anybody interested I hope you enjoy reading it even more than I enjoyed writing it. And I did enjoy writing it.
Peace to all. PEACE OUT! I'll write on the progress of my book later. Catch you next time, blog people.