Live and Let Bite excerpt, Chapter 5: Blue Blood

This excerpt is the entire chapter.

Live and Let Bite will have a heft dose of world building. There will be more backstory built into history, the characters, the world, the relationships, and, more importantly, who knows about the little rabbit hole that our heroes have fallen down. After all, vampires have been around forever, that's why we have Vatican ninjas. Why the hell has it taken Merle Kraft so long to catch on? Why has it taken the government to catch on?

And this one will be a big piece of that.

I keep saying this should be the Dragon Award winner for a reason, people.

For those people who have read Murphy's, you can see where bits and pieces fit together, especially with the creature known only as "Mister Day."

The following sequence brings Merlin "Merle" Kraft back to the investigation that he started in Honor at Stake. But before he can really begin, he has been intercepted by the NYPD, and not because he's being profiled, but because the Police Commissioner has some information for him. 

For the record, if PC Wilson sounds like he could have been played by Tom Selleck ...

Ahem ....

Maybe.

****

Merle Kraft walked into New York City’s One Police Plaza and merely looked around the office building, hoping that he wasn’t about to get mugged by reality - or a bunch of cops with nightsticks.

Despite being a secret agent with connections to the government and the FBI, Merle had no idea what he was doing in the headquarters of the NYPD. All he knew was, after an 11-hour flight from Israel to New York, he had arrived at Kennedy airport, only to find the police waiting for him. They wanted to bring him to the Police Commissioner.

Merle smiled genially, then went along quietly.

On the top floor of 1PP, Police Commissioner Ray Wilson sat behind his desk, and welcomed Merle with a nod, barely looking up from the paperwork on his desk. Wilson was a large fellow, tall, with a full head of dark hair. It was a surprise for someone who was his age - Merle knew it was in the sixties, but he looked more mid-fifties. If the vague hints in the PC’s bio were to be believed, his conditioning probably had something to do with being Naval Intelligence in Vietnam… which, to Merle’s mind meant “I used to be a SEAL.”

Personally, Merle thought he looked more like Teddy Roosevelt.

“Hello sir. You wanted to see me?”

“Yes please, have a seat.” Wilson turned through some more pages. “If you ever wonder why there is a minimal police presence in high-crime areas sometimes, it’s because that every time a police officer even needs to look at a suspect crosseyed, he has to fill out a stack of papers about, oh, yea high.” He held his hand about a foot over the desktop. “I should know, because I’m the one who gets all of the forms in triplicate.”

Merle chuckled as he sat. “Shouldn’t there be a hundred guys between a street incident and your desk?”

“Maybe. But that’s what it feels like.” Wilson looked up from his desk, his black wire-framed glasses making him look like an owl. He set the papers aside, leaned back, and folded his hands across his stomach.

“One of the last times you were in town, you made inquiries with one of my detectives about a Marco Catalano and an Amanda Colt.”

Merle nodded. “Yes sir?”

“This brought you to my attention.”

“Why?”

“Because you are a government employee that no one likes to talk about, asking one of my officers about one of the citizens of my fair city. You had no obvious reason for it, and you had just wrapped up a case here that ended in the decapitation of someone whose body had completely disappeared. I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but that looked fishy as hell.”

Merle chuckled. “Yes, I can believe that. Trust me, I think a great many projects I’m sucked into have the smell of salmon about them.”

“Right. Since then, I thought you had been staying out of my city, so what you were doing has been none of my concern, and none of my business. However, now that your ex-wife and your son are in San Francisco, there is no reason for you to be in my town except on matters that are my business. I think it’s time that you and I have a talk.”

Merle wasn’t about to argue. “Okay. How do you figure?”

“After I made a few inquiries, I realized that there are a great many things than I don’t think you understand about your position.”

“My position? What would you know about my position?”

“To begin with, Mister Kraft, you were a cost-saving measure.”

“A what?” I could understand if I was a minority hire, but a cost-saving hire?

Wilson nodded. “You see, back in the 90s, we already had a team in the government. More than a few teams. The Initiative, as you know it, came later.”

Merle sat, blinked, and tried to do some math. “You had teams, plural? Vampires and ghoulies aren’t new to the government? And somehow, you have known the whole time?”

The Commissioner paused a moment. “You’re aware of my record?”

Merle nodded. “You’ve been a cop since you left Vietnam. You’ve been Commissioner in several cities, mostly setting up methods of patrolling in order to prevent crime.”

“That’s not all I’ve been setting up.” The PC leaned back in his chair, his hands behind his head. “When I was in Nam, I also ran missions into Laos and Cambodia. I won’t say they were all missions. There were a few times where we simply got lost; that isn’t a euphemism, that’s the fact of navigating in the jungle. However, I can tell you that I and my men ran into some strange crap. And by strange, I mean your kind of strange, things with fangs and fur, and occasionally scales. We were soon brought in for special training, because we tended to run into a lot of this stuff. About half the folks who worked the tunnels in Nam had similar run-ins, and we all kept in touch. Because when there’s a network of tunnels running under an entire country, trust me, things that like the dark will start migrating there.

“About the early 90s, most of the guys running ‘special’ missions had been laid off, or cut back, part of the ‘Peace Dividend.’” Wilson scoffed. “Peace Dividend. Right.” He coughed, and cleared his throat.

“Anyway, beastie attacks had been down, the Cold War was over, and the idiot in the Oval Office decided that we weren’t going to be involved in the world as much anymore. If our boys weren’t running into these creatures, we weren’t going to be using special teams, or have special training. And if we stopped hiring and training, well, it’s just less likely for ‘this sort of thing’ to get out into the media, right?”

The Commissioner growled to himself. “We won’t even go into that part of it. Anyway, someone decided that when weird stuff started showing up in America, then it was time to start bringing someone in who could handle it locally. Someone with, well, initiative.”

Merle narrowed his eyes. “Me? Great. Why didn’t they clue me in on some of this? I didn’t even know vampires were real until the past year. Heck, why didn’t they get some of the old band back together and give me someone to work with?”

The PC shook his head. “From what I heard, some of the higher-ups in some fringe eco-groups were put in charge of the EPA in that administration, and so they declared that the dangerous things we knew about were put on a classified endangered species list. Not only were they to be protected, they were to be protected by completely denying their existence on every level of government.”

“That means I’m left to myself.” Merle sighed. “Such mishegas. Is it at all possible to bring in some of these guys from the old days?”

The Commissioner rolled his eyes. “Son, most of these men have been cashiered for more than 20 years. I include the ones who weren’t outright thrown out of the Army, or served in other branches. Now they’ve been hired by private military contractors.”

Merle thought it over a moment. Just because the US had stopped running into vampires and lycanthropes and whatnot, didn’t mean that they had just gone away. Like the “Peace Dividend” bull, just because the White House ignored threats didn’t mean that they had just gone away. In fact, if the US had stopped caring, and assuming that the nations of the world had already done as much as they could, that meant someone had to pick up the slack.

“Don’t tell me that PMCs have their own monster hunting squads?”

The PC waggled his eyebrows. “Okay, then, I won’t.”

Merle processed this a bit more. “We ran into them in the sandbox after 9/11, didn’t we? Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan. That’s one of the reasons that the PMCs were brought in, isn’t it? They had the special hunters, and the regular military hadn’t.”

The PC nodded. “Got it in one. As the Secretary of Defense said, they had to go to war with the military they had, not the one they wanted. It was easier to hire PMCs than to recruit and train soldiers to fight a single type of enemy. The military tried to start building back up, but -”

Merle held up a hand in the “stop” gesture of a cop halting traffic. “But let me guess, the next administration decided that we didn’t need a special monster squad, we just needed Predator drones?”

PC Wilson didn’t even smile. “Precisely. Meaning that if you want a monster squad, you’re going to have to assemble it yourself.”

“There’s a difference between ‘Some Assembly Required’ and just getting an empty box and a diagram without any parts.”

“You’re doing a good job already. In fact, I think you’re already doing better than you think you are.”

“How?”

Wilson smiled tightly. “Back in Nam, we hadn’t said anything after our first encounter, because we didn’t want to be dragged into a rubber room. But we were prepared for our second, and by then, someone had found out what we were doing and why. We had been read in to the situation, and we had the facts of life explained to us by one of the higher-ups.”

“Okay. That’s to be expected, I suppose.”

“Remember how I mentioned you came to my attention?”

“Yes. I had Kristen run a background check on Amanda and Marco. Why?”

PC Wilson reached into his desk, pulled out a sheet of paper, and slid it in front of Merle. It was a New York City ID for Amanda. “She’s why you came to my attention. She was the government agent who briefed my men. The woman known as Amanda Colt used to have your job. She was one of the people fired as a cost-saving measure. You’re her replacement.”

Merle gaped at the photo. “Son of a bitch.”

If you like this, you've got a week before it's released.

The Launch Party starts On January 29th, on the Radio Show

And continues with the FB launch party.

And if you haven't read book 1 and 2, we can fix that. 

If you have, please, review them.

    

Election Day: Who Would Daredevil Vote For?

Between Captain America, Green Arrow / Green Lantern, Spider-Man (Peter Parker), and Batman (Bruce Wayne), and Iron Man it's already been a busy day.

But for those of you just showing up, we're doing an expanded version of the 2012 post where I broke down comic book characters by politics. Because the 2016 election has been a joke since the nomination process.

This will be an all day thing. One post per character ... mostly. The shorter ones will be grouped together. After all, there's no much I can do with Deadpool.

Daredevil, aka Matthew Murdock

A New York trial lawyer, Daredevil is a natural Hillary voter. The ABA backs democrats automatically.

Mathew Murdock is also all about community. I could see him as a supporter of Occupy Wall Street ... assuming that his super sense of smell didn't cripple him every time he found a client who never showered.

Murdock would probably not like Trump, just on attitude alone. He deals with too many loud annoying types as a lawyer.

And he's a bit of a man-whore in the Marvel Universe. He'd be interested in contraceptives, if only to keep potential child support payments to a minimum. He and Bill Clinton would be interesting in the same room.

On the other hand, Matt Murdock has always been Catholic.  He's very Catholic ... his mother left his father and became a nun. The democrats trying to make the Little Sisters of the Poor pay for abortions and contraceptives would seriously piss him off.

Also, Matt Murdock has probably spent far too much time around really stupid political leftists in New York and San Francisco. Half his clients seem to be small businessmen, and he's also a small businessman. He wants lower taxes, if only so his clients can actually have money to pay him.

VOTE GOES TO: Trump

BONUS ROUND

Wilson Fisk aka The Kingpin (Marvel)

By day, he is a businessman.  He is more local in his business interests and his crime. And, in his personal life, he left the crime world and moved to Japan, mostly for his family.  He actually stayed out of the crime business for his wife. Only when his family was threatened, and his wife lost to him, that he reentered the world of crime. Add to that he spent a lot of time in Japan learning philosophy, martial arts, etc.

While you can say many things about the Japanese, their traditional culture is very, very conservative.  And, between that and his [relatively] small business interests, Fisk probably comes out as both an economic, if not a social conservative.

VOTE GOES TO: Trump. Assuming he doesn't have something on Hillary. He'll probably has blackmail on somebody. Whoever he can manipulate more.

See the previous post: Captain America
Green Arrow / Green Lantern.
Spider-Man (Peter Parker)
Batman (Bruce Wayne)
Iron Man (Tony Stark)

Or, while we're all here.... Murphy's Law of Vampires, sequel to the second place Sad Puppies 4 nominee for best novel, and Dragon Award nominated novel Honor at Stake came out yesterday. 

Enjoy.

Election Day: Who Would Spider Man Vote For?

In 2012, I did a post where I broke down comic book characters by  politics and concluded who they voted for.

I think 2016 needs s similar treatment.

In the spirit of going completely and utterly over the top, I figure I would take it one step further. However, I'm going to tell you right now that this is a joke from minute one to minute last.

But then, the 2016 election has been a joke since day one.

One of the differences between this and 2012 will be that this will be an all day thing. One post per character ... mostly. The shorter ones will be grouped together. After all, there's no much I can do with Deadpool.

Spider-Man / Peter Parker (Marvel Comics)

As a New Yorker, Peter Parker would vote Clinton.

No, I'm not being fancy here. There are few other details to effect Peter Parker's vote. Say whatever you like about him, but he is a New Yorker, first and foremost.

It is truth that Peter Parker might be one of those New Yorkers who have decided that 9-11 means "We're going to hunt down every last terrorist son of a bitch AND FLIPPING END THE LITTLE BASTARDS."

So, yes, this is quite possible.

However, Peter Parker is also such a whiny, self-absorbed little douchebag, he sold his marriage to a demon so he could avoid feeling guilty about his aunt being gunned down by a sniper aiming for him at the time.

No. I am not over One More Day. Screw you, Joe Quesada. Screw you.

I mean, this was his wife.

But, no, gave her up for his dying aunt. Because idiot.

Maybe he'd vote for Trump because MJ would be friends with Melina. Heh.

Though I think that, at the end of the day, like Hal Jordan, Peter Parker will vote his paycheck. Unless the lab he works in is now funded by a reclusive billionaire (and if it is, I wouldn't know, I haven't read Spider-Man since the dumpster fire that was One More Day) they get government grants. And since labs can con government out of billions of dollars, they'll need someone who will spend money like a drunken sailor.

So, Hillary.

Also, let's remember that Peter Parker has worked in the journalism business forever, and over 90% of them are publicly backing Hillary. So there's that.

Then again, Peter might vote for Trump just to see JJ Jameson's head explode.

However, let's face it everyone, it wouldn't matter who Peter Parker wants to vote for, because Peter would approach the polls, hear sirens, and webswing away to the rescue. He would then remain busy until the polls closed.  He would then walk home in a slump because he couldn't do what he wanted to.

Peter would then retire from being Spider-man for five minutes, or five issues, whichever came first.

Then he makes a deal with Mephisto so that the last few decades of voting never happened the way everyone remembers.

See the previous posts: Captain America
Green Arrow / Green Lantern.

Or, while we're all here.... Murphy's Law of Vampires, sequel to the second place Sad Puppies 4 nominee for best novel, and Dragon Award nominated novel Honor at Stake came out yesterday. 

Enjoy.

The Anthologies are here

Item the first, I'm still going to be here as time allows, so I may not be on for a while. Though I'm going to try to upload guest posts should I get any. I've got one or two people who have offered posts. We'll see who follows through.

Item the second, all three books are out on Kindle. Pius Origins  and Pius Holidays, both on Kindle. Pius Tales should be out sometime within an hour or so of this post, on Kindle and paperback.

Pius Origins is out, only $.99

Yaaay.

The short stories here include:

One Way to Get out of Jail
Sometimes, a legal defense can be murder.
We Have a Pope!
Spinning a story can go both ways.
Mile High Murder
A killer is roaming an airplane. And no one can stop him. Should anyone try?
Swiss Family Mafia
Being a bill collector can be trying.
Tinker, Tailor, Goyim, Spy
The Bostonian Catholic walks into Mossad. What is this, a joke?

But wait! There's more! Including character interviews and essays on their creation.

Also, ...

Pius Holidays is here, only $.99

Includes some fun stories as

God Hates ... Superman?
Crowd control made easy.
Erin Go Boom
Priest vs. terrorists. Oops.
Boys of the Old Brigade
Beating IRA terrorists 140 characters at a time.
See Something
Say something ... or beat someone's head in.
Let Freedom Ring
Terrorists come to blow up Boston. Nobody can stop them! Thankfully, there's a nobody on call.
Coyote Christmas 
Come for the party, stay for the wild animals.
O Little Town of BethMayhem
Terrorists are going to blow up Bethlehem on Christmas Eve.
Deck the Maul
A mercenary works mall security on Black Friday. Insert your own joke.

And, finally, Pius Tales, for $2.99 in Kindle, and $7.99 in paperback ... link to be posted. Sorry about that, there was a delay. Should be up today. Period.

Includes .... everything from above, plus additional content, essays, commentary, additional stories, story extras -- over ten thousand words of additional content.

Be well, all.

Okay, I'll beg: please buy Honor At Stake

You know? I think everything is going well. Maybe. Probably. Honest.

Okay, I have no clue.

Good news...

So, I've got 22 reviews on Amazon (21 of the same on Goodreads). And, really, everybody loves me.

No, really, everybody loves Honor At Stake.

I've even had people who've bought the book as gifts. I'm shocked.

No, really, I'm shocked.

Remember that meme I've been using since Honor At Stake came out? Where did I put it?

Oh, yeah, this one.

I mean it. I really do.

Apparently, at this minute, Amazon has only ten copies left of Honor At Stake.  So, that has to be great, right?

ON THE OTHER HAND....

New Yorkers for Vampires

New York is more than just the buildings. New York is definitely more than the hundred thousand asshats who are supposedly our representatives to the rest of the country -- yes, I think the hipsters, the Village people, and the "Manhattan is an island off the coast of Europe" crowd may top only 100,000 in a city of 8,000,000.

Okay, a gross exaggeration.  That may come to a million total.  But voter apathy in New York being what it is, it creates for a strange government.

While everyone wants to say that New York is Bloomberg or Al Sharpton, or Tony Danza, every New Yorker I know would rather have Rudy Giuliani back.

My point is that New York is the people.

Granted, half of the pedestrians want a Darwin award (some of whom will practically dare you to hit them), and the other half will time the traffic so they don't have to wait for the light (that's me).

As I've noted before, the motto of New York is somewhere between cherchez le buck (follow the money) or "Leave me alone and I won't hurt you."  Libertarian?  Maybe more moderate than anything else.

So, what happens when the monsters come to town?

The first people who'll notice are doctors.  The victims rolled into the ER. Once the victims start to pile in, the ER will notice that something's off. Then the local high-risk population will start to notice (hookers, runaway, gypsies, tramps and thieves) because they'll be the ones targeted first.  This will in include local street gangs. Then the cops will notice after a while, because that's what criminal informants are for.

When it stops being the high risk population, and starts going into "respectable" homes and neighborhoods, and victims, that's when everyone else starts to notice.

Except that the high-risk population is used to violence.

Criminals have been known to have grown up with police officers on the same block.

Everyone knows everybody else, or can at least find somebody who does.

So when a street cop has to put three into the face of a vampire and the vamp turns to dust when his head comes off, they form a band of brothers who are in the know, and try to stay very, very quiet about it before they end up in the booby hatch.

When the cops and the street gangs start to open carry crucifixes, they notice each other and understand.

When the street gangs gain the attention of a smart mobster, whose own men are starting to buy it, he's going to muscle in.

And then somebody will have to make them all play nice. Probably at gunpoint.

And this doesn't even begin to include what happens when the local Vampire Association starts to notice and decide that this new threat to humans is a threat to their existence -- that's book 2.

That's one of the things about the "big city"  -- I would argue that New York isn't one. It is a collection of towns and areas and shires. Bayside is not Flushing. Howard Beach looks nothing like Breezy Point. Jamaica Estates looks nothing like Jamaica Avenue. The Bronx is not Staten Island. One side of Northern Parkway, Crown Heights looks nothing like the other. Greenwich Village isn't Williamsburg .... though I suppose there is some crossover.

My section of Queens, in less than a square mile, has a Buddhist temple, the Sikhs, two Catholic churches, two black churches (hats and gloves for the women, ties for the men, period).  The synagogue is maybe two miles from the Buddhist temple ... and the Greek Orthodox church.

New York is many, many things. Hipsters, elitists, snobs, Hasids and gangstas, the Irish of Breezy point, the Italians of Howard Beach. and most of us are just regular people who merely want to get through the day.

But if you f*** with us, we will bring some holy hell down on you.

Welcome to New York. Where the vampires will play nice, or the vampires will burn.

Honor At Stake and New York City

I'm really running out of things to say about Honor at Stake aside from "please buy the book," but I don't want to come off as that desperate on the second day it's been released. The begging comes later. Maybe on day three. :)

I would have released this blog post much earlier -- around 10 hours earlier -- but I was busy marketing. All day.  Welcome to social media hell 101.  It almost makes me want to get into another Sad Puppy fight.

But for a moment, let's talk about where I grew up. 

Yes, I'm a New Yorker. I've mentioned it here and there, but I don't think I've ever discussed it in detail.

I live in a corner of they city that in no way resembles a city.  This isn't the wild and winding roads of suburbia, held under the tyranny of homeowners' associations and whatever whim they have this week.  We're under the general tyranny of the New York City government, but the current mayor is such a schlub, he can't even be an effective tyrant. The gun laws are a little insane (Arresting tourists who carry legal weaponry? Really?), but I await New York's version of the Supreme Court decisions Heller or Posner.  Then things will get odd.

Keep in mind, I like the city, not the government.  Also, I like the entire city, which includes five boroughs, including Queens, my little corner of odd.

And Queens, for the record, is not Fran Drescher, the same way that the Bronx is not Tony Danza. It sets my teeth on edge when someone is held up as an example as a New Yorker.

My New York is where everyone in a three block radius can identify each other on sight -- maybe not by name, but at least enough to say hello -- the cops are cautious and vigilant, and generally only give attitude when it's given to them.  (Ed Conlon's book, Blue Blood, read it, learn it, love it).  Everyone is quite content to let everyone else just go about their business and be left alone.

Yes, I'm certain that the majority of New York is libertarian in nature.

New York is NOT Manhattan. In fact, of all five boroughs, large chunks of Manhattan are not New York, but a whole bunch of elitist snobby little bastards who are far more interested in making sure everyone votes the right way than in anything else.

And then there's Greenpoint, Brooklyn.  It's a nice little area that has all the accommodations of a big city (and the traffic patterns), but really does feel like a small town.  And this is where Marco Catalano lives.

See, you had to know it would get there eventually.

Marco is sociable enough.  He's got his issues. To start with, he's smart.  We're talking full-on Sherlock smart. Maybe Mycroft smart. He is living in a world of goldfish. Brooklyn allows him to socialize when he wants to, hunt when he needs to, and be perfectly alone when he wants to get rid of people.

Marco's minions, two street gangs, are in a section off of Manhattan Avenue in Brooklyn, nearer the center. The area is not as nice looking, and I'd consider ripe for demolition, but any place put back would be seriously overpriced.

As for Amanda Colt, she's isolated by numerous factors. To start with, she's far too pretty.  She's also far too smart. This combination results in her being constantly attracting  men who sniff around her while being comparatively too stupid to hold a candle near her. She's not in a world of goldfish, but it does seem like all of the good ones are taken.  Thankfully, the Upper East Side of Manhattan is high priced enough to filter out most of the population, and allows her to move wherever she likes.

So, where do two people like this meet?  Well, in college, of course.

My Hudson University is a mythical place that has a campus in Manhattan. No, there are no campuses in Manhattan.  Even NYU is merely a series of buildings.  To go from one building to another is to empty out to the city streets. 

However, I went to St. John's University, in Queens, which used to be a golf course, so yes, they had a campus. I practically grew up there.

But it's on this mythological spread that our protagonists meet. They don't quite fall in love. It's their last chance to reach out and touch someone.  They don't really any anyone else. Just each other.

Welcome to New York. We're all connected. Usually by the mass transit system.

Making Vampires For the Real World (Honor at Stake)

I've always had a problem with vampire fiction in which the vampires were so secret, nobody knew they existed.  Nobody.  At all.

Seriously, when you're around for hundreds of years, eventually somebody is going to start talking.

Which is why when I started writing Marco and Amanda, their first step was to go to the local Catholic church and start asking questions -- if only so their inquiry can be kicked up the chain of command.  The next step would have been to go to the nearest synagogue. Why? Because where else are you going to go aside from the organizations that have been around for a few thousand years?

And from the church, we will get one very simple concept: Vatican ninjas,

Yes, it feels as though I've promised Vatican ninjas for a while now.  Well, you're gonna get them.

After a while, I started working out the people who should have, reasonably, come across vampires for the last hundred years or so -- and survived the encounter. Soldiers were at the top of that list. Since there are a lot of soldiers who went from the military into the police department, there would be cops all over the country who would at least be concerned about the monsters under the bed.

Yes, I know, if I'm not careful, I'm going to end up recreating the world of Monster Hunter International.

Now, is every  last vampire going to be the loaner sulking out in the middle of nowhere?  Well, that would be hard, considering that Honor At Stake is in New York City. For the record, no, "the city" is not Manhattan.  I live in Queens, so I'm one of those people who remember that New York City has five boroughs.  Yes, I know that New Yorkers refer to Manhattan as "the city," but if a large quantity of vampires lived in Manhattan, it would be way too easy for the neighbors to realize that the creepy guy next store is not right.

.... Okay, for the most part, there are a lot of neighborhoods where you can get away with that because every other person on the block is some variety of "not right," because, well, welcome to New York.  The major philosophy of the city is "cerchez le buck" and "leave me alone, and I won't push you in front of a train, thanks." But you can't stuff all the vampires into one neighborhood.**

That's why there will be a vampire who claims to be a Roman Centurion from the Empire and he owns Little Italy! At which point, someone will smack him down and tell him that, 1) being a Sergeant in Mussolini's army doesn't count, and 2) if he doesn't sit down and shut up, he'll be driven out of "Little Italy" (which, right now, is about one square block in lower Manhattan) and sentenced to his great grandson's home in Howard Beach, enjoy it when it floods.

Yes, welcome to New York.

I created a NYC-VA President Jennifer Bosley off of
Billie Piper from Doctor Who.

And yes, there will be a governing body of vampires. The New York City Vampire Association will have monthly meetings in the far east corner of Queens, in the local VFW hall. But that's for book two.  It's also for vampires of status -- you know, the vampires that invested in the ground floor of Ma Bell (AT&T), IBM and Apple.

There will be vampire bars. There will be a nice little underground network that will guarantee fresh blood, caught that evening. There will be plenty of them that want to be 9-5 vampires (AM, of course), go home, crawl into a room with blackout curtains, and not want to get up until the next morning.

There will also be a history of vampires going back to the 18th century.  Why only that far back? Because I haven't needed a reason to go back farther yet. There will be vampires on both sides of World War II -- because Gulags and Concentration camps are natural places to make certain that the victims of vampires don't end up coming back for any reason (Let's just say that there was one concentration camp where it was replaced with a row of trees. No one really knows what happened to it. I have a nicel little supposition on that one.)

Now, why would vampires be a secret?  Well, that part is simple, and I'll give you an example. I live in New York. Announce that vampires exist. Prove it to one and all.  Watch every goth become a target of people with recently purchased bow and arrow sets, or Molotov cocktails, or try to utilize weaponry they've seen in any random vampire film.

That's why even the most demonic vampire is going to keep a low profile. Because even vampires understand that, if Satan appears in a puff of smoke in front of a live studio audience, people suddenly become very, very religious.  And you'd have every single civilian on the planet carrying enough crosses and rosaries to equip everyone in the Vatican, and still have enough left over to hand out to the tourists.

Short version: mass panic is good for no one.

BUY HONOR AT STAKE HERE

** Yes, I just said that New Yorkers are comprised mostly of capitalist libertarians, but it's true. Trust me, if the totalitarian schmucks who get 90% of the national air time were representative of the city, the city would look much more like Detroit, or Baltimore.

What Happened To A Pius Man?

So, I mentioned the book I'm about to publish, called It Was Only On Stun.  As I said, it's a murder mystery / comedy with bullets thrown in.

After pushing A Pius Man here for years, you would think I would want to publish that first, no?

No.

You see, I'm going to bounce A Pius Man off of one or two more people while I'm at it. There's a small Canadian publishing company with an editor who really wants me to submit it to her.  My first agent (no contract), Joshua Getzler, wanted to use my book to graduate from his apprenticeship (but was too bogged down to follow through) now has his own agency. So I want to see what Josh wants to do, if anything, then try the other publishing company, and then self publish it.  I liked Josh enough back then that I want to see if he's still interested now.

Why self-publish It Was Only On Stun then? Why not wait?  Simple answer: the wait was killing me.

Let me put it this way -- I have been writing since I was 16. I have written, rewritten, spiked, and reconstructed 17 books to the level where I would unleash them on the general public.  Problems include how many are sequels to other books, etc.

In 2007, I started looking for an agent for my best novel -- it was historically accurate, edifying, educational, filled with character and story and explosions and fight scenes .... A Pius Man/ I had Josh by April, 2007; he became "too busy" by that September, and 12 months later, in 2008, told me to move along. 

By March of 2009, I had another agent.. I let him go this month, as I mentioned earlier.

Every book and every author and everyone at every convention I've ever been to have told me that if I have an agent, I have a foot in the door. It's only a matter of time. Be patient. And I did everything that everyone told me to do.

And, following those guidelines, I waited 5 years to publish one book. Playing by the rules, I got absolutely nothing.

I know that other authors have been rejected 27 times by other publishers.  I know that "it's been tough" on publishers. I know that  

Will I try small presses in the future? Certainly. I have other books. I could (self) publish a book a month for the next year and a half before I can slow down. But I'm going to dedicate at least six months per book, possibly more (since IT WAS ONLY ON STUN! is a mystery at a science fiction convention, I'm going to try visiting DragonCon, New York Comic-Con, and I-Con, a major local convention in April).

But, short of someone telling me they want to buy my book with a full publishing contract, I am not going to put my livelihood in the hands of anyone else so I can be whipsawed for another half a decade.

Patience is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. And through the Holy Spirit, patience is probably infinite. But I am 30 years old, unemployed (except for my Ambit Business), and due to some bad educational decisions (degrees in European history when no one is hiring in that field), I am probably unemployable.

Prudence is telling me that patience is going to kill me.

Catholic news roundup, February, 2012: the War on God

Yes, I'm back.  And, yup, I picked an overly inflammatory title in an attempt to pander to my audience and get readers. So sue me.

Let me see.  To start with, I already covered a large part of this in my Catholic news roundup two weeks ago.  However, guess what -- I made a news roundup into a news post.  So, if you've ever heard of this stupid little thing called an HHS Mandate involving Obamacare, you can read all about it here.

If you want to be amused, and slightly terrified, after months and months of Occupy Wall Street people running roughshod over public places, you will be happy to know that there have finally been arrests of a whole protest movement.  However, they were arrested for praying in front of the white house.

Let's see.... you've probably heard of a really stupid phrase going around lately called "The war on women."  I covered it a little here.  However, I have a take on the precipitating incident you may find interesting.

And, finally, I was allowed to step AWAY from politics.  I covered Fat Tuesday, FAQs about Lent (last year's readers may remember how well that went over), and Karina Fabian has a book she wants you to look at for lent this year.

And, and interesting article inspired by recent stupidity -- Do Catholics Believe in Birth Control?  The answer is ... sort of.

I also discussed the Million-dollar ripoff of the New York archdiocese -- and you thought the priests were the problem. I then did a brief examination of Occupy wall street and the revenge of the Vatican ninjas -- just when you thought you were safe, huh? Then Proposition 8 was overturned -- my only note there is that it might be a little soon to pop the champagne.

Be well all.

Looking back on 9/11, ten years later.

[A more clinical and objective view can be found here.]

When I first walked into English class at St. John's University, it was a little before 9am. The professor was one Dr. Robert Forman.  He was always entertaining, and there's something about him that tells you he cares that you learn something in his class.

The first person I saw was my classmate Tony.  I said hello, and he asked, "Did you hear something about a plane running into the World Trade Center?"

And I laughed.  All I could think is what idiot could have missed noticing that there were two rather large buttersticks in the sky right in front of him?

I explained that to Tony.  He agreed, and I gave it no thought at all for the rest of the 90-minute class.

I went from one class to another -- Christian Spirituality and Mysticism, 10:40am, taught by a priest whose name I can't recall right this moment.  He was not only pleasant, but happy.  He was also very Italian, and joked about it often.

When I arrived, the professor wasn't there, and someone came into class saying that classes were canceled.

Huh.  That's odd.

I went to the nearest inter-university phone and called my father -- who was an Assistant Dean at SJU.  I called, told him my class was cancelled, and how are you doing?

"Come to the office."

Ok .... click.

Walking from one building to the other required that I cross from Marillac Hall, past Council and Newman Halls -- a narrow corridor outside that was as well directed as any sidewalk intersection without a traffic stop.

Ironically, it was afforded the best view of the Manhattan skyline that the University had to offer, without going into the university library --- SJU is, for the record, the highest point in Queens.

But, I didn't stop for a second. My pace was quick and even, mainly because there were so few people in my way -- for once.

Though there was one odd bit of business going on at the time, something I found odd even before I made it to my father's office: there were clusters of people with their cell phones out.  After the third such group, I felt like I was in a scene from Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.

I walked into my father's office at the other side of the library, and before I could even open my mouth, my father said, "Planes have crashed into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.  The twin towers are gone, and the Pentagon is burning."

And I remember this quite clearly, because I had a little red notebook with me at the time ... my first thought was "Didn't Tom Clancy already write this novel?"

My father suggested I go to the library, and observe the skyline.  by the time I got there, the library was locked.  So I walked back to the terrace I had just gone over.

Instead of a skyline, there were ground based storm clouds running from south to north.  I stood there for an unknown length of time, completely focused on it.  I didn't even notice my acquaintance Andy walk up next to me.

"I can't wrap my mind around it," he said.  "I can't believe they're gone."

 If I replied to him, I don't remember.

Fighting and Writing 2: Where to find Krav Maga.

Yesterday, I mentioned Krav Maga.

What sort of person would I be if I didn't point out places to go?

In Los Angeles, you have John Whitman, as I mentioned yesterday. He has literally written books on the subject of Krav Maga. Two of them. And his school is where the LAPD learn to defend themselves, so I don't think you can get much better than that.

In New York, there are a whole slew of people popping up who teach Krav Maga, especially in Manhattan. However, since, contrary to popular belief, Manhattan is not the center of the known universe, I should really focus on areas that are not Manhattan. While there are some fine places in the city, dragging gym equipment on the subway is so annoying.

Protection Fitness—open for two years, no accidents or injuries. One of my favorite instructors from my second Krav Maga school, KMLI (see below), owns and runs this particular institution. The first time I went there was the first time I went to a Krav class after a seven-month hiatus. I went into it whole hog … then I fell down. You would have thought that there were EMTs on call, they got to me so fast.

Why did I fall down? Note to self: don't fast during Lent on days you take Krav classes. Just a thought.

Since then, I have learned to defend myself against knives, and handguns, and baseball bats, and shotguns, and chokes on the ground, and knives against a wall and ...

It's fun

Recently, we went through chokes on the ground – when an attacker is both mounted on top of you (pluck the hands, buck, then roll, honest), and when the attacker is on the ground next to you, trying to kill the defender (pry the hands off of you, and unleash kicks to the head as needed).

It's filled with a lot of good stuff, and I'd suggest it highly to anyone who wants to go try Krav Maga, but doesn't want to try Manhattan.

“Top Gun Karate.” This was my first foray into the world of Krav … I'm sorry, no offense I was worried as hell.  Having “five levels” practice in the same space is problematic enough. Not to mention that all of the “lower level” students are managed by an assistant instructor who doesn't even have a teaching certification in Krav Maga. It made me nervous.

However, Dariel Williams (above) praises the owner. And I can say this for it: the week I was there, I did not see one, single injury.

KMLI (Kombat Masters of Long Island)– I went here for two years. I loved this place for quite some time.... then things started going weird. My ankle was severely sprained because of one student who got reckless. Other students started getting injured. Not through any fault of the instructors, but through sheer recklessness. Teeth were lost, corneas were scratched, shoulders dislocated. It started to look more like an ER than a training studio.

One particular moron had taken MMA, and felt compelled to show off; it took months to get rid of him, and even one instructor I respected who didn't know MMA guy by name—just as “Oh, the @$$h01e.”  Guess who helped me sprain my ankle.

I liked four instructors and took them religiously. Dr. Michael Blitz (owner), Bill Primavera, Dariel Williams, and Amy Morgenstern. Kevin Reid I had as instructor once or twice, and while I liked him, my timing sucked.

Then, Dr. Blitz stopped teaching anything below level 3. Dariel Williams now runs Protection Fitness. Bill Primavera, an excellent teacher, was put on the rotational schedule with other instructors who I disliked, which made training like Russian roulette. Or is that more like Israeli roulette?  It's been corrected since then, but I'm wary.

Either way, weird things started happening with the schedule. Unfortunately, now, I can't in good conscience recommend KMLI. I can't tell you to go there without health insurance. Even morning Krav Maga classes were replaced with … yoga?  And then the entire schedule was rewritten twice.

Nothing personal to the folks of KMLI, I like most of you all quite a bit, but you have some instructors who should be fired, and better safety regulations.  Put Amy and Bill, and Dr. Blitz in more places in the schedule, and it would be a good start.

Krav Defense …. “Long Island's Leader in Krav Maga.” Um, ahem …

I did a review for Examiner.com on this fellow. You can read it here.

The short version: This guy is a joke. He is a bad joke. Told by a arthritic mime with Tourettes syndrome.

Have a good day.

Osama Got Me Published ... Sort of

My agent suggested that I start building up name recognition by submitting Letters to the Editor of various and sundry Newspapers.  We have a paper around New York called Newsday.  Apparently, they saw fit to publish my letter today.
I would have posted a link, but Newsday wants to charge me money so I can read my own article online.  I have the original, I can settle for that.

It's not much, but it's a start.

To the editor.


While many have celebrated the death of Osama bin Laden, I am somewhat saddened, and disappointed. In my research into intelligence work, killing terrorists of bin Laden's level is a waste of material. Interrogating him would have led to a deep well of valuable intelligence, which may not be easily discovered by a forensic investigation of the material around him. Whether bin Laden was water boarded, or even if he was sat down for milk and cookies, he was valuable alive. One almost hopes that the conspiracy theories are correct, and bin Laden's death was faked by the US government -- a public capture would encourage his colleagues to change plans, and a death would reassure them that everything bin Laden knew died with him. But this is not a Vince Flynn novel, or even my novel, A Pius Man (under review). One only hopes that all of his secrets did not die with him, but were written down and lying about in plain sight, so our Navy SEALs could collect all of them.

It's not much, but it's a start.

Philosophy, Religion, and Sex.

Dear Pope Benedict, I've been a fan of your career since you worked under John Paul II.  The press hated you because you were hostile to them, and for that I applaud you.  But you have to stop having statements come out so close together, it messes up my schedule.

Last week, I explained why the Catholic Church wanted to hire exorcists.

This week, because no one in the Vatican can shut up, I'm going to try explaining something else that was recently in the news.

The New York Times recently reported that, "Yippie, the Pope is giving in and endorsing condom use."

The old gray hag of The New York Times has, once again, gotten it wrong.  One day, they may actually try to get a theologian to explain theology to them.  Unfortunately, given most theologians, that may not help much.

Let's start at the beginning: Why does the Catholic Church have an issue with condom use?  Or any contraceptives?

It basically involves philosophy ... bare with me a minute, I'll keep it short and comprehensible ... and what is the function of "a thing."  In the case of sex, the mechanism of sex is "insert tab A into slot B."  The "function" of sex is procreation, and a darn good time, if you're doing it correctly.

Contraceptions mess with the natural function of sex by removing elements that are inherent to the act -- procreation comes with sex.  The Vatican position is, that if you mess around with it and start taking out elements, then you are messing around with things that are not yours to mess with.

If you are pondering what the Catholic church's advice is on STD prevention when you have sex with your boy/girlfriend, the Church's position is that you should be having sex with your spouse, only with your spouse, have a nice day, thank you.  Under this rubrick, STDs are not a problem, since if you only ever insert one tab A into one tab B, STDs are not an issue; pregnancy remains in effect, but in the Catholic church, marriage is a contract to have sex, have kids, and spread the spawn around the globe, carrying the faith with it.

You are currently up on previously held positions.


The NY Times said, on November 21st .....

“Pope Benedict XVI has said that condom use can be justified in some cases to help stop the spread of AIDS . . . .”

However, George Wiegel, papal biographer and general Vatican busybody, corrected the Times report.  You can find the full text online, but since that will take forever for you to read, I'm going to translate it for you, gentle reader, into something easily comprehensible.

The pope's actual statement, in context, was during an interview.  The pope mentioned how the Catholic Church runs more AIDS hospitals, and stresses "prevention, education, help, counsel, and accompaniment."  IE: The pope pointed out that, unlike pontificating reporters, the Church actually does something,

The pope even stressed that "we cannot solve the problem [of AIDS] by distributing condoms. Much more needs to be done. We must stand close to the people, we must guide and help them; and we must do this both before and after they contract the disease."

The pope continued:

.... people can get condoms when they want them anyway. But this just goes to show that condoms alone do not resolve the question itself. More needs to happen. Meanwhile, the secular realm itself has developed the so-called ABC Theory: Abstinence–Be Faithful–Condom, where the condom is understood only as a last resort, when the other two points fail to work. This means that the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality .... the attitude of no longer seeing sexuality as the expression of love, but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves. This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also a part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man’s being.

Short version: sex is important, has an effect on a person, and is also for the purpose of expressing love.  Throw in a condom, and you just make it another way to drug yourself into a stupor.

The part where the NYTimes gets confused is probably in the following section:

There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.

When asked if "the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?"  Pope Benedict XVI answered that "She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality."

Short version: If it's someone infected with AIDS, yes, the Church would rather that they NOT KILL PEOPLE by infecting them further.

Basically, it's like robbing a bank -- if you rob a bank, the Church would rather have someone use an empty gun; it'll lessen the risk of someone getting their head blown off.

So, despite news reports, the Catholic Church's position hasn't changed.

With luck, we can all move on to something important now.

Dear Politicians, Please Shut Up Already.

There have been some people who have doubted my political neutrality. When I told people that the view on my politics change depending on where the jury is sitting, I don't think anyone quite believed me.

This is, hopefully, the last political blog I will ever have to do...

I have also made it known in the past that I dislike politicians and politics. When I suggested to a friend that nuking D.C. (Washington DC, not the comic books) wouldn't be a bad idea, she objected, since she knew people in the area.

When I suggested VX nerve gas during a state of the union address, she thought that was more reasonable.

When I said I hate politics, I meant it.

There are a lot of things I didn't like about George W. Bush. Okay, I wanted more of his tax cuts, and the people he invaded were people I wanted invaded under Clinton. And his faith-based stuff was interesting, but lost in the abyss of terrorist white noise. But aside from that, I disliked a lot of what he let happen in the Congress, a lot of the stuff he passed, all of the stuff he let pass unaddressed. It pissed me off.

But there was one thing I liked about “W.” without question.

He stayed off the air. He didn't do press conferences. He rarely did interviews. He rarely stuck his head out of the gopher hole of the oval office and said anything that made the nightly news. It might have been because of his gaffs … As a public speaker, I share his problems—I'm better at off-the-cuff comments; if you give me a prepared speech, I turn into a blithering idiot.

But no matter what the reasons were for W. to shut the hell up, he gave us weeks of blissful silence.

So, had anyone listened to me in Washington, I would have given them one message: SHUT THE HELL UP.

I hear soundbites from President Obama every, damn, day. I don't even object to what he says … do you know why I don't object to what he says? Because I stopped listening over a year ago. In 2009, he was on every day. For all of 2010, he's on the airwaves at least three times a day. I now object to the sound of his voice.

And, Mr. President, the Republicans are now (11/1/10), and have been since January, 2009, politically irrelevant to your agenda. You had a super majority when you came in—you need 51 votes in the Senate. You had 60 upon arrival. It feels like the old joke about the college president who had three envelops on his desk from his predecessor in times of problems: First envelope says “Blame me, I'm not here anymore, I won't object,” Second says “Take the blame, you're entitled to a screwup,” and the Third envelope says “Prepare three envelopes.”

I'm perfectly impartial. It's not just President Obama. It's everybody in Washington. It's candidates I hate and candidates I agree with, and candidates who aren't even in town. I'm tired of listening to Christine O'Donnell telling me she's not a witch. I don't have a vote in the Linda MacMahon vs. Blumenthal race, so why are you people running ads in New York? Mr. Christie, I'm glad you're stopping all spending in New Jersey, I'm happy for you, but I'm sick of looking at you on the news. I'm tired of looking at the Halloween mask of Nancy Pelosi, the Skeletor face of Harry Reid, and the women of The View and their feud with Bill O'Reilly and Sharon Angle (at current rate of speed, I'd rather Joy Behar talk to Kurt Angle).

In my state, it's Andrew “I want to be a kneebreaker” Cuomo vs. Carl “straight-jacket” Pallidino; the latter is a multimillionaire from upstate New York, but apparently blew all of his money on getting the nomination, so I hear nothing but Cuomo's thuggish tones over the airwaves. And my vote won't matter either way, since this is New York, your vote doesn't actually count, because the Cuomo will win, as will Schumer and Hillary redux.

Right now, I'm at the point with politicians that I am with the Church around the “annual appeal.” In the case of the church, I want to say “I'll write you a check if I don't have to listen to you for another year.” In the case of politicians, “I'll vote for you if you keep out of the airways from now until a month before reelection.”

But overall, you politicos should just shut up. This is serious political advice. Why?

Look at it as advice from Machiavelli: in his advice for dictators, he suggested that a brutal dictator should commit all of his atrocities immediately upon taking power. After, this dictator should not perform another harmful thing ever again, not one, single, thing. The principle is that, over time, people will forget why they were ever annoyed with him.

Politicians, take this advice: throw all your BS around at the start of a political season, then shut the hell up and leave us alone. I'm tired of listening to all of you.

Unfortunately, I suspect that this will end with the start of a new political season. That's right, as of 11/03/10, we start the race for the Presidential Election 2012!

Somebody wake me when it's 2013. Or when we muzzle the politicians. All of them.

The "Ground Zero" Mosque. Or: Why I hate Politics.

Thriller writers seem to be dragged into a lot of politics. Vince Flynn, because his protagonist is a government counter terrorist agent; Lee Child, because his protagonist is a former Military Policeman, and deals with a lot of army politics.

I personally hate politics, but, since I've already started by having a discussion on the Church, the Pope, and handling priests, I figured I'm due for another round....

Some may not know, and fewer may care, but there is talk of a mosque going up in downtown Manhattan, on what is currently a vacant lot, or a giant hole in the ground, depending on your point of view. Yes, someone wants to put a mosque at Ground Zero, the site of the New York City 9-11 attack.

There are multiple points of view on the matter, but I would like to address the one that no one else seems to be considering: The Muslim point of view.

Yes, I know I'm Catholic, but I'm turning on my empathy for five minutes. And it's not too hard. For example, we can break down the Islamic world into three camps: those who want to kill us, those who don't care, and those who rather like America and who have either already moved here (or want to).

From the “kill them all” camp (terrorists, supporters, sympathizers, Ron Kuby), I can only imagine a mosque over the scene of the biggest, most successful terrorist attack on American soil would be like planting a flag over captured enemy territory. From their point of view, a mosque would be a great idea, the bigger the better. Party time..

From the “I don't care” camp, I could only imagine a reaction of “What the....?” This mosque is going to be fourteen stories tall in the middle of downtown Manhattan— bigger than St. Patrick's Cathedral. Nearby areas consist of Greenwich Village, Chinatown, Wall Street, and a very Little Italy. Now, unless the Village has undergone a drastic demographic shift, or the official religion of China has become Islam, I can't imagine too many people going to this great big mosque. There's a heavy Muslim population in New York... in Brooklyn, on Atlantic Avenue. I would imagine that someone, somewhere out there, is wondering “Whose bright idea was this? And why couldn't we get them to build this near a major Muslim population center?”

The “moderate Islam” we hear so much about, who like America, hate terrorists, and came to this country to FLEE customs in the homeland, I can imagine being disturbed. I know that if my coreligionists had launched a terrorist attack on my country of residence, I would want as much distance between my faith and the attack site as possible. I could imagine this side of the Islamic spectrum viewing the mosque like the terrorist viewpoint, as a flag of victory, and consider that a very bad, disturbing thing.

Someone is going to try to put any of the above statements into my mouth and proclaim them mine. So I'll make my viewpoint clear...

In the biggest attack on American soil, Pearl Harbor, we have a war memorial. One of the ships that was irrevocable lost is still there, hull partially out of the water, one drop of oil coming up every minute or so. We did not put a Shinto shrine. With another slaughter, Gettysburg, it's also a war memorial, of sorts. We did not put up a Christian church; I believe there are smaller, individual crosses for the deaths of people who all happened to be one variety of Christian or another, but no massive Cathedral (I couldn't find one, feel free to check).

It isn't possible to make a war memorial in lower Manhattan on the scope of either of the above mentioned, since the real estate rates are somewhere in high orbit. If you built another World Trade Center with a war memorial in the lobby, and antiaircraft batteries on the roof, and make the rest of the building dedicated to standard business practices, I think that would cover all bases. The original lobby was huge, and all the things you need for a memorial are already constructed: I recall that we have a Vietnam-style wall with the names of those lost, we have a cross made out of I-beams that was put up by the construction workers (I would put it there less for religious reasons and more for the fact that it was created from pieces of the Twin Towers), and believe we have a statue of the iconic image of the three firemen raising the flag at Ground Zero. You get a memorial to the dead, patriotism, and a physical piece of what was lost.

As for the mosque itself, I'm more curious about other things...

(1) Are there really so many Muslims in lower Manhattan that we need something the size of a small skyscraper? If you take the terrorist attack out of the equation, building the Mosque anywhere in lower Manhattan isn't the brightest move. When the biggest groups are the Chinese, Wall Street, and the people of the Village, it's a bloody stupid idea.

(2) If there aren't “so many Musilms”, whose bright idea what this? I can tell you people who support it, but I can't tell you who's funding it. It's possible it's funded by someone who doesn't know New York City demographics, or someone with cross-cultural public relations problems, or someone who really does want to plant a flag on Ground Zero.

(3) Do American Muslims really want to put a mosque that close to an area of mass slaughter? I would think that would be up there with putting a temple on top of a graveyard.

(4) Before everyone plans for the war memorial, the mosque, or anything else, I would like the politicians to do one thing: BUILD US ANOTHER WTC.... I don't care if it's the 1776-foot tall “Freedom Tower”, or if they just build the originals again.

My position is simple: it's been nine years and three Governors since we lost the World Trade Center, and construction should have been started at least five years ago (count four years of red tape). Someone, get to work....

Oh, and no matter what designs are picked, I want the battery of Surface-to-Air-Missiles... and a giant sign that says “TRY AGAIN. PLEASE.”

Please feel free to comment; I put in as much data as I could find, and everything I can think of without going into a rant. If I have any Muslim fans of the book, I want to hear from you in case I missed something; like I said, I turned my empathy on for five minutes, so the above analysis of opinion is, essentially, a guess.

UPDATE [1-31- 2011]

And, maybe, just maybe, someone should tell this Imam how close he is to the village before he starts talking like this.