Saturday, August 30, 2014

They Said WHAT????

Greetings, fellow Castaways.

Yes, it's been a while since you've seen anything new here on the Distant Shores. I can only apologize. There has been a bit of a maelstrom going on in the Keith Household lately, but to put it blunt, I simply missed some opportunities to post.

This week, I want to highlight some of the frustration I'm feeling with the general media. Call it liberal, call it conservative, call it an ostrich egg, labels no longer matter. Journalism is dead.

One case in particular highlights it: Ferguson, Missouri.

You notice it's always referred to as "The police shooting of an unarmed black teen?" You never see it as anything else. The newspapers, radio, television, nothing says anything different.

Now, I'm not making any judgement here. I'm not indicting Michael Brown, nor am I leveling accusation against the man who shot him. My job at this point is simply to highlight what the press has been doing that should enrage any reasonable person reading this. It has very little to do with the actual facts of the incident, and a whole lot with how it's being reported to us, who also were NOT there when it all came down.

First off, look at the entire scope of the incident. The news outlets rushed so fast to be the first to report the story, they never even stopped to ask what really happened. And why should they? "The police shooting of an unarmed black teen" fits right into the sensational, ratings-getting scandal-rag reporting that's become such a habit in the last fifty years. It also fits into the race-baiting agenda the press feeds on. So once again, the press never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

First off, "witnesses" at the scene, and media reports, said Michael was shot in the back. The coroner's report said he was shot all in the front.

Yes, Michael was unarmed But that doesn't make him harmless. What makes anyone think an unarmed man is somehow less dangerous than an armed one? Look at this video of what happened when a armed police officer pulled over an unarmed man for a traffic violation:



 "Unarmed" doesn't mean harmless, by any stretch. But of course, that's not what the press wants you to hear, so that fact slips through the cracks and falls to the editor's floor. The policeman who shot Michael was treated for injuries to his face and head, inflicted (possibly) by Michael Brown.

Someone has been lying to us. Who, is the question.

To look at a case of contrasts. How many of you have heard of Dillon Taylor? In case you haven't, here he is:

 


 Dillon was shot to death by a black police officer on August 28th, 2014. Micheal Brown was shot on August 9th, which should have made Dillon's story even more relevant. But for some reason, most press outlets chose to ignore Dillon and concentrate on Michael. So was Dillon's life less important because he wasn't black?

I don't care if you're black, white, or purple. A death is a death, and it's a crappy shame anyone has to die. But police officers are armed for a reason. One prime example is the North Hollywood Shootout:



As long as bad guys like this get hold of heavy weapons to rob, kill, and destroy, then our cops need to be able to handle them.

A cop has a split-second to make a critical decision when the situations goes fluid. He doesn't always make the right one, and that's a shame. But instead of questioning a cop's judgement, the press seems to have painted him as a cold-blooded murderer, and a bigot to boot.

So thanks to shoddy, irresponsible reporting, we've had several nights of rioting and looting, more people injured, businesses destroyed (not huge box stores with insurance like Walmart, but "mom-and-pop" stores which may never recover). We have race-baiters making this all about a white man killing a black man, supposedly because he's black. And we have a nation polarized even more because some people just can't stand the thought of Martin Luther King's dream coming true, that a man would be judged not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character. And it seems to me, the ones screaming the loudest about racism in this country are themselves the most guilty by the the way they tell us their slanted little fairy tales.

So rather than joining in on the dogpile on a cop who may or may not have made the correct decision, Can we stand back from the conflict a little bit, long enough to sort through the actual facts, and not someone's snap judgement for the sake of sensational ratings?

Let's face it, ABC and CBS are too busy trying to beat NBC and Fox to care that what they report may in fact inflame the situation and cause more damage than would otherwise be caused if they would only back off on the rhetoric. And the talking heads get to sit back in their swivel chairs in front of the cameras and affect their self-righteous little scowls as all hell breaks out at their beck and call. And then they have the gall to play dumb and act like they're all so innocent, like there is no blood at all on their hands.




But we feed them, don't we? They poke our sensibilities, and we jump. It's a reflexive nerve they have found through  diligent practice, and they won't be letting it go any time soon, as long as they can exercise influence over their audiences through their propaganda. They specialize in character assassination and influence peddling.

But if we start questioning them, do you think we can start holding them accountable? The John Bowmans of the world?

It might be a good idea if we did.

Sunday, August 3, 2014

Coming Soon to Print: Critical Mass!

Good day, fellow castaways.

It is with immense pleasure I announce to you that I've confirmed with  MuseItUp Publishing's rockin' editor-in-chief Lea Schizas, the coming print release of my third novel Critical Mass.

Now, I do appreciate everyone's patience in waiting, as the delay has been longer than what everyone involved was anticipating. But believe me, Lea has been working her little Greek tuchus off keeping up with a hundred different things, and she also was working hard getting our print books to compare in appearance and quality with the top-line editions on bookshelves (cause that's where we all dream of ending up, you know...well, not just on the store's bookshelves, but on readers' bookshelves, where they can be read over and over by awesome fans).

So, to celebrate the upcoming release (sorry, no firm date yet, but it's COMING, I promise!), I'm posting this, from Critical Mass (if ya wanna see more, click the book cover!):

https://museituppublishing.com/bookstore/index.php/museitup/mainstream/critical-mass-detail


BLURB:
Jenna Paine is a super spy, genetically enhanced to be more than human. Nadia Velasquez is a living weapon of mass destruction. When the secret organization who built them both decides they are no longer useful, two enemies are thrown together for the only purposes they could have in common: survival and revenge.

There's only one way out of The Pinnacle, and that's on a coroner's slab. Jenna lives through a treacherous attack vowing to exact her vengeance on the people who trained her to be the most deadly agent on the planet. 

Wounded and on the run, she turns to the man who's sworn to make her face charges for her involvement in The Pinnacle's nefarious schemes.

After years spent hiding from The Pinnacle, Nadia runs into the one thing she never counted on: Shelf life. As her body breaks down, she realizes it's only a matter of the short time she has left to redeem her existence and give her daughter a chance to live free.
In the final showdown, the two transhumans join forces against a common enemy, and The Pinnacle come to know the deadly significance of…

Critical Mass

 EXCERPT:

 It had been dark for some time. The rain had moved on, leaving the pavement
with a sheen that whispered with every passing car. Scud clouds overhead trailed
the thunderstorm like remoras behind their shark. The moon cast its wan light
between them, a pitiful challenger to the flickering neon of the street below.
The city’s diurnal population was at home and in bed. That left the nighthawks,
those who thrived in the hours between sunset and dawn. They worked, played,
lived, and loved in dark hours. And some of them died there.

The crowd at the Tap Tavern began to thin out about one in the morning. By
ones and twos, they filtered through the front door and into the street, fanning out
to home, to work, or to other purposes known only to them. By two o’clock, only
the closing crew remained, a couple of vague shadows moving beyond the frosted
glass of the large windows flanking the door.

A small brown coupe sat parked across from the alley mouth in the dark of the
early morning. Traffic was lighter now than it was at eight o’clock, but was still
busy enough to conceal the lone occupant seated behind the wheel. With stubborn,
unhuman will and deadly purpose, the figure waited for the rest of the lights to go
out in the tavern. At ten minutes after three, patience was rewarded. The glow
behind the picture window extinguished. A side door opened and shut, and a
shadow separated from the building and shambled down the alley.

The coupe’s door opened, and a compact, athletic figure emerged into the
dimly lit street. The young woman glanced both ways and trotted across, following
the figure up the alley. With silent skill enhanced by superhuman agility, she
sidestepped cardboard boxes and cats alike. Despite the deeper darkness, she could
see as if the way was lit by a full moon. Her hearing, finely tuned on top of her
superior talent, picked up every whisper of paper, every scuttle of tiny feet, every
rustle of a wing. She didn’t have to see her quarry; she should be able to hear him,
as long as he didn’t suspect—

Halfway down, she stopped. Something wasn’t right. She turned her head,
tuning, homing—there it was! Someone breathing—

He broke from behind a dumpster and took off at a dead run, scattering rats and
garbage across the wet pavement. Even with Jenna’s enhanced reflexes, he had a
modest lead before she could take up the pursuit.

Block after block he led, dodging and darting to avoid her grasp. But she
wasn’t that eager for a fight. Not yet. She would wear him down a bit first. She
changed her breathing to maximize endurance and followed for a while, not
catching up but not falling back, either.

He showed some gumption, that was for sure. That, and training. She gave him
a little more room to test his evasion technique, and no surprise, he showed her
some tricks that she already knew, most likely picked up from the same instructor.
She lost view briefly, twice, but picked him up again just as she had the first time,
flushing him like quail from a thicket. No human could have picked him up, but
Jenna was no human; she was better. The deadly chase went on, block after block.
The man breathed in ragged gasps as desperation overtook him. A hand clutched at
his side. There was no way he was getting away again.

An angry flash came over her at the thought of the betrayal that put them both
in this situation, and Jenna put on a burst of speed. After three years, every
suspicion was confirmed. This was the man who’d tried to kill them. Time to play.
Drawing a telescoping baton from her pocket, she caught up to him as he tried
to duck down another alley. He spun with a snarl, a hand darting for his pocket.
She closed in before he could draw his pistol, and went to work with the baton.
Jenna broke his wrist with the first blow, and the second knocked him senseless.
Stabbing out with her free hand, she grabbed his shirt and hauled him down,
dragging him into the shadows.

He lay panting, whimpering in pain and fear as Jenna brought her face down
close to his and hissed, “Let’s talk about Tahiti, Hamet.”

His eyes shot wide, and he began to gibber in a Middle-Eastern tongue. She
placed a knee on his broken wrist. His complexion paled and he fell silent, teeth
clenched in agony. “In English. I know who you work for.”

“I didn’t know it was you,” he blurted, a grimace pasted on his features. “None
of us knew. We just had orders—” He moaned as a spasm gripped his broken arm.
She grabbed it and gave it a light twist. She was rewarded with a howl as the man
bucked off the pavement.

She shoved him back down, brandishing the baton in his face.
“Orders from whom?”

“You know as well as I.” He moaned. “You get orders. You follow them. You
don’t ask questions.”

“Is that right?” She snapped the baton down on his hand. A satisfying crunch
echoed off the wall, accompanied by a shriek which was cut off by her wadded up
bandana.

It got worse before it got better. Jenna didn’t like that part of the job, but two
things drove her on: justice, and vengeance. Jenna had to find out why The
Pinnacle wanted one of their own dead, and Anna Spielberg deserved payback.
Now, after three years, she was damned well going to get it. Occasional shadows
drifted by the end of the alley, but at this hour and in this neighborhood, no one
was going to get involved.

Hamet was tougher than she gave him credit for. By the time she got the
information she wanted, there wasn’t much left of him. But the answers came.
They weren’t what she wanted to hear, but the truth needed to be told. When she
finally snapped his neck with a sharp twist from a rear naked choke, it felt anticlimactic.

The trail she’d followed on her own for the last three years had finally
come to its end. And with that end came the realization that Jenna had been trying
to avoid for longer than that. Not all was well with her employers.

There were divisions among the Council. Not on the surface, for outwardly
they still seemed to operate as united as ever in their cause for world peace. But
underneath the placid veneer were machinations and plots. Whispers of sabotage
and power plays chased each other through Jenna’s mind as she strode from the
alley and back up Seventh Avenue.

Somewhere in the power struggle, someone upline had made a mistake. They
issued a kill order on the wrong person, and not just because of who Anna was. Dr.
Spielberg had dedicated her life to the purpose of world peace. She saw it
happening within just a few more years. It wasn’t even that they tried to wipe out a
seven-year-old girl as well. Sofi was as harmless as they come, a sweet, shy little
thing with as much deadly potential as a pink frosted cupcake. Their worst mistake
was in messing with someone assigned to Jenna Paine’s protection.

As Jenna stalked away from the body, one thing hung in her mind: she would
find out who on the Council issued the kill order on Anna. And when she did, they
would face the full fury of a woman scorned.