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Respectful Apologies to my Blog Readers

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In the wake of recent cyber-harassment and the unlawful impersonation of me by an unauthorized person–who also impersonated an officer of the court to me–I have banned large swathes of IP addresses from my websites.

If you find yourself blocked from access to my websites, and you are an individual with only benign intentions, then please accept my apologies.

The internet, and email, and technology itself is an extraordinary gift. It can also be used to harm people. I am taking steps to protect myself.

If you are someone who enjoys reading my blog from time to time or who has stumbled upon it accidentally, then Welcome! And a lovely day to you.

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Identity Theft

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A blog post on Identity Theft.

Someone I know used my name to send a gift to a third party. Then my private email was posted to that transaction. All of this without my foreknowledge.

This person who committed this act is generally a good person–intelligent, well-meaning, generous, well educated.  Deleted: Subsequent actions by this person showed that this person is bat-crap psycho crazy.

But this breaching-of-my-privacy shocked the hell out of me. Not even my husband would sign my name and private email without asking my permission first. He certainly would never impersonate me.

Almost certainly, the person who did this does not know how much I am invested in privacy. That’s one of the reasons I stopped supporting Obama: his big brother NSA scanning my emails just didn’t work for me.

I’m actually shocked that so few people are complaining about Obama’s NSA tactics. HAS NO ONE READ 1984 by George Orwell?????? Here’s what Wikipedia says about that novel:

“Nineteen Eighty-Four, sometimes published as 1984, is a dystopian novel by George Orwell published in 1949.[1][2] The novel is set in Airstrip One (formerly known as Great Britain), a province of the superstate Oceania in a world of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance, and public manipulation, dictated by a political system euphemistically named English Socialism (or Ingsoc in the government’s invented language, Newspeak) under the control of a privileged Inner Party elite that persecutes all individualism and independent thinking as “thoughtcrimes“.[3] “

Substitute “USA” for “Airstrip One” and “racism” for “thoughtcrimes” and you’ve got a near perfect picture of the dystopia we are currently experiencing under the far left.

It is clear to me that the far left and the far right meet in one place: Totalitarianism.

It’s also clear to me that the far left has created the deadlock in our political system. By insisting that anyone who disagrees with Obama’s far left agenda is racist, they’ve given the right no where to go and nothing to lose. It’s so terrible and horrific to be racist that the right is left with no options except to dig in their heels and refuse to negotiate.

I saw “All the way” on Broadway this week, and I was left in awe of LBJ’s effective use of the fine, calculated art of horse trading. He got things done, important things, because he was willing to negotiate.

I won’t talk about his coarseness and vulgarity as a human being because I have a soft spot for those sorts, anyway.

Unfortunately, the far left has prevented negotiation in our political system by insisting that anyone who does not believe as they do is a bad person (racist).

Even as recently as this week, someone asked me what I would have preferred Obama do while in office. I gave a well-thought-out and coherent answer, which included: 1, going after the Health Insurance companies instead of the states; 2, reining in the NSA and ensuring citizen privacy; 3, supporting the growth and wellbeing of American small businesses instead of foisting wealth redistribution on the struggling middle class; 4, regulating and TAXING large, multi-national corporations that function as sovereign nation-states without accountability or oversight; and 5, not bailing out Wall Street, or if he had to because he is a liar and a corporate pimp of the sleaziest variety, then sending the CEO’s of Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs TO JAIL.

Naturally, the specter of racism came up. The far left simply can not grasp the concept that people who are NOT racists would want different policies than the appalling socialist ones Obama has instituted. And in that failure, they, the far left, have created the current deadlock.

Nothing is getting done, no horse trading is accomplishing anything, because the far left has given themselves a monopoly on the high ground. It’s a big political mistake.

Back to my personal issue. The company from whom the gift was ordered did not know, and could not know, that I was not the person ordering the gift. It’s hard to know who is who on the internet. Anyone could pretend to be me.

But to have someone I know pretend to be me? Shocking. Horrifying.

And it led me to think about people who experience far more than I do–people who are the victims of the kind of identity theft that costs them cold, hard cash and then time and energy to straighten out. My heart goes out to those people. I had a small taste of what they feel, and it’s not good.

TicToc: Far Shore, Book Three of the After Series by Traci Slatton
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TicToc: Far Shore, Book Three of the After Series by Traci Slatton

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TicToc: Far Shore, Book Three of the After Series by Traci…: Posted First on Blog Critics as Book Review: ‘Far Shore’ by Traci L. Slatton.

 ‘The heart wants what the heart wants’ seems like such a redundancy. Yet there is that simple truth to the adage where there often seems to be no real choice in the matter….

READ the rest of Leslie Ann Wright’s delicious review at TicToc Book Reviews and General Observations or at Blogcritics.org…

 

Latest HuffPo Blog Post: THE PROBLEM WITH THE FRANK GEHRY MEMORIAL
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Latest HuffPo Blog Post: THE PROBLEM WITH THE FRANK GEHRY MEMORIAL

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Wednesday it was announced that a federal commission charged with building a national monument honoring President Eisenhower voted unanimously to approve elderly architect Frank Gehry’s latest design for the monument.
I wrote, in part:

Notice, also, that this post is entitled, “The Problem with the Frank Gehry Memorial.” Because to examine the plans for the memorial is to see a monument to a prominent architect’s particular vision, not a memorial to a revered statesman, general, and President. While taste is personal and Americans love hubris, Gehry’s imposition of his personal style does seem to fly in the face of President Eisenhower’s modest origins, personal humility, and appeal to all sectors of society.

Gehry’s is not the only hubris in evidence regarding this “unanimous decision.” In reading the announcement, it is striking that Commission Chairman Rocco Siciliano speaks disparagingly of the Eisenhower family’s objections: “The family deserves to be heard, not obeyed,” he is alleged to have said.

It’s a rhetorical masterpiece to spin the family’s concerns as autocratic. But the rhetoric only thinly veils condescension, which reflects poorly on Siciliano in particular but also on the committee as a whole. For shame: surely this esteemed family deserves better than to be sneered at!

The Eisenhowers deserve better because their objections are thoughtful, persistent, echoed by many others, and valid. In fact, the Eisenhowers have courageously given voice to the concerns and objections of a great many people. But the announcement wasn’t written to express that fact.

It’s an ongoing shame that the Eisenhower family has been contemptuously dismissed by Siciliano and Gehry, those thick-as-thieves buddies from California; Eisenhower himself has been dismissed from this memorial. Not only that, but this ugly monument to folly is outrageously expensive, as well. See the report on the Eisenhower Memorial for the figures, which exceed $40,000,000.
Thanks!
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Revelations

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I love conspiracy theorists. They tell the best stories. Think about it. Here are my rules for writing novels:
1. Story is how your protagonist does NOT get what he or she wants.
2. Every story is an argument for a specific value.
3. Know the stakes.

Actually, I have a few other rules, too, but those are harder to explain.

So, conspiracy theorists. Why are they telling the best stories? Partly because “enlightened liberalism” has made people afraid to have any values at all. “Everything is ok and everyone is ok” is the hogwash they’re selling–and so many people have unabashedly drunk that kool-aid. “Enlightened liberalism,” egged on by the sanctimonious liberal media, has confused discernment with discrimination and the baby has been thrown out with the scummy bath water.

However, conspiracy theorists have values. One of them is: we have the right to know. Another value: we have the right to independent agency, to freely determine our own lives.

These are good values. These are juicy values.

So the stories conspiracy theorists tell are arguments for those values, and arguments against the secret government-within-a-government who high-handedly decide our lives for us.

We the people are the protagonists and we aren’t getting the freedom we want, to which we are entitled, because of the secret government-within-a-government, the hidden ultra-elite puppet-masters.

The stakes are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These are high stakes, indeed.

One of the most fascinating and tenacious theories has to do with UFO’s. With ET’s.

I am conflicted about this theory. In my mind, UFO’s and ET’s exist in the astral plane–which is real. It’s just a different layer of reality than ordinary physical reality.

But do UFO’s exist in the concrete physical world? I’m unsure. I was acquainted with the late, rather wonderful Budd Hopkins and I posed this very question to him.

“They’re real. They’re here,” he assured me, grimly.

Some part of me still needs a UFO to land in Central Park so I can kick a tire.

Another part of me knows they’re real and they’re here–in the astral plane, if no where else.

And here we have former Canadian Minister Paul Hellyer openly affirming extraterrestrial beings and their contact with human governments. He’s also openly discussing the government-within-a-government.

Worth thinking about.

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SUPPORT INTERNET FREEDOM: PROTEST SOPA AND PIPA

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Support Internet Freedom

It’s bad enough, here in the waning years of the American Empire, that so few Americans even notice the travesty that our political system has become.

In our sponsorship duopoly (formerly a democracy but no longer), both parties have the agenda of impoverishing the poor and enriching the rich, while squeezing the middle class.

The Democrats and Republicans both accomplish this aim by 1, making it impossible for small American businesses to thrive; 2, fawning over large multinational corporations that function as sovereign nation-states without oversight or accountability, and 3, refusing to protect Americans from the sometimes poisonous goods China–and said multinational corporations–sells us. Our sponsorship duopoly has to curry favor with China because we owe China so much money.

The Democrats have become a party of the lowest common denominator, of the debasement of culture and opportunity, eroding at human ingenuity and ambition by giving hand-outs and teaching people that they are entitled to be taken care of. The Democrats have entirely lost the concept of “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” They have lost the notion of inspiring people to grow and take care of themselves, and of making it possible for people to create and take advantage of their own opportunities.

Rather, Obama is creating a welfare state that ultimately disempowers Americans and serves no one except the elite in power, who have more and more control over a weaker and weaker constituency.

The Republicans are busy figuring out how to protect and engorge the large multinational corporations, safeguard their inheritances, and install loopholes to avoid their own tax obligations. The Republicans have also become the party associated with the nutso-cuckoo fascist types who oppose freedom of procreational choice, freedom of marriage regardless of gender, and ultimately freedom of thought.

Neither party wants a thinking citizenry. That’s why the American congress has put together SOPA and PIPA: both parties are deeply vested in controlling American citizens by slowly dissolving the power of the Constitution. By slowly eradicating our ability to express our opinions and to post and research facts and trends of thought.

Nothing is more powerful than an idea, and the internet grows ideas like hardy weeds. Who knows what American will be exposed to if the internet is free?

We might realize how little freedom we as Americans actually have left.

PROTEST SOPA AND PIPA