Karl Patterson, sometime baseball card dealer without visible means of support, doesn't get along all that well with his father, even though he lives in the guest house of his dad's estate on the Palos Verdes Peninsula near Los Angeles rent free. So he is surprised when Richard Patterson, who is founder and CEO of a successful software company called Dionysus, asks for his help to determine whether the number 2 man of Dionysus, Ned Mackay, has a gambling problem. Perhaps it's because Karl ...

Translated from the Swedish by Emmanuelle Sylvain and Matilde AnxoPsychiatrist and anti-colonial activist, Frantz Fanon was long censured in France for his fight against racism, xenophobia, indignity and alienation, at a time when these subjects were taboo.More than fifty years after his death, his thought still resonates at the heart of our political and societal issues. But who was this man? This essay proposes a new reading of his life, articulating the right to rebellion in the face of...

FREEDOM'S LIGHT contains quotations from 38 of history's champions of freedom, from Aristotle to Zlata Filipovic, from George Washington to Martin Luther King, Jr. Included are Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Anne Frank and many more. In today's world where governments and organizations are constantly monitoring our behavior, it is important to know what personal freedom is and why we should strive for it, despite the forces that are constantly trying to deprive us of that freedom.

Tony Schmidt joins the Central Hotline in sunny Bonita Beach, California to improve his listening skills. Shahla Lawton joins the Hotline to fulfill a volunteering requirement for her high school. Neither one expects to get mixed up in a murder investigation.But that is before Shahla's best friend, Joy, also a listener, is murdered. Tony and Shahla discover that they are able to uncover information that the police can't. Information about the "inappropriate" callers who haunt the H...

The Hayloft: a 1950s mystery features bobby sox, slow dancing, the communist conspiracy, bomb shelters—and murder. Within two weeks after starting his senior year of high school, Gary Blanchard finds himself kicked out of one school and attending another—the school where his cousin, Ralph, mysteriously died six months before. Ralph's death was labeled an accident, but when Gary talks to people about it, he gets suspicious.Did Ralph fall from the auditorium balcony, or was he pushed...

Roger McAllister has always been a sensible person living a sensible life, but after his globe-trotting wife is killed in a plane crash in 1984, he wants to get away from his job as an accountant for a while, and agrees to participate in a walk from Los Angeles to Denver as a marketing gimmick for Zeus Shoes.Roger doesn't realize that the other participants and the walking conditions (from beach to desert to mountains) will take him out of his comfort zone, and that the walk will p...

“We’ve spent nine trillion dollars bombing the Middle East like mad. We’ve sown death there, including our own. And what has it gotten us? Nothing.” Donald Trump, November 1, 2024. The figure of the devil has haunted our collective consciousness since the dawn of time. He structures our societies, whether religious or secular. Sometimes, the devil has been a friend before being “demonized”. Sometimes, by force of circumstance, he has become an ally. And sometimes, the devil must be elimina...

"I'm here to put the internationals in order. I'm in charge here. Too many people showed up at the center and they had no business being there.” These are the words of an American instructor, met by Régis Le Sommier at the beginning of the war when all the media was minimizing the role of the United States in Ukraine. Régis Le Sommier is the only war reporter to have gone to both sides of the front line with the Ukrainian and Russian armies for a year. He worked for Paris-Match for 30 year...

"As Tolkien said, not all who wander are lost. Alan Cook is a walker who is always on the Road to Somewhere. (He) inspires us walkers to get moving on our own adventures. My chief reaction to the book is jealousy. I want to lace up my walking shoes and go exploring."—Wendy BumgardnerWalking the World: Memories and Adventures elevates the act of walking from something we do every day without thinking about it to a means for putting more fun and excitement into our lives. And ...

The perfect green lawn has long been a symbol of suburban success, but maintaining it requires an exhausting battle against nature. Enter artificial turf, a seemingly miraculous alternative that promises perpetual spring without the water, chemicals, or labor. Yet, beneath the vibrant polyethylene blades lies a complex and fiercely contested global industry. This synthetic solution has quietly grown into a multi-billion dollar economic juggernaut, infiltrating everything from professional ...

Carol Golden has recovered her identity if not her memory (lost in Forget to Remember) and she would like to find more relatives. She discovers cousins with the last name of Boyd and finds they are apparently being targeted for murder. In addition, her grandmother is developing Alzheimer's Disease and has been a victim of the "Grandparent Scam," losing a lot of money to someone in Los Angeles who is impersonating Carol's dead brother.Carol travels to Los Angeles from her home in Nor...

Carol Golden isn't her real name. She doesn't remember her real name or anything that happened before she was found in a Dumpster, naked and unconscious, on the beautiful Palos Verdes Peninsula in Southern California.After helping her get some initial medical treatment, government at all levels officially declares her a non-person and doesn't want anything more to do with her. She can't work because she doesn't have a Social Security number, which she can't get because she doesn't ...