First, some long but necessary background. On 9/11/11, I was 13. I was living in Michigan with my grandparents and being incompetently homeschooled (read: not schooled at all). No one in my house cared or talked about politics, and I was pretty sheltered. So when the planes hit, I was sitting on my grandparents’ couch, home alone, eating cereal. It was obvious from the news coverage that this was a Big Deal, but I had no context whatsoever for it. War and terrorism were totally […]
If You Can’t Do Edgy Humor Right Then Don’t Do It at All
I was in the Midwest for 9/11, in my high school chemistry class. The teacher still made up complete our lab work and still expected our lab reports on September 12th. So 9/11 was a sad day, but it wasn’t until I moved to New York State years later that I realized how much that day changed people here. Everyone here has a story of sorrow or almost sorrow. I don’t know if there is acceptable 9/11 humor. But I know it’s not this mess. […]
Tattooed corpses and Muslim fundamentalists prove a heady mix in Thailand
Bangkok detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep of the Royal Thai Police returns in another dramatic, action-packed, and nearly hallucinogenic plot involving tattoo artists, mutilated corpses, golden-hearted whores, hard-bitten police captains, Muslim fundamentalists, and the CIA—all of this against the backdrop of an impoverished nation dependent on drugs and the sex trade for survival and a Buddha-worshipping cop who doesn’t hesitate to bend the rules when necessity and/or his conscience dictates. A strangely brilliant and obsessive CIA operative named Mitch Turner is found murdered in the bed […]
Pros and Cons of Using Killer Drones
A relatively even-handed and close-up look—in fictional form–at the U.S. drone program currently used in the so-called “war on terrorism,” Sting of the Drone provides the reader with an insider’s view of one of the latest and most controversial weapons currently being employed by the Obama administration. Clarke, a 30-year veteran national security advisor to multiple U.S. governments, gives us a fictionalized account of an impending Christmas attack on several U.S. cities by a combined force of al-Qaeda and drug cartel elements from “that side […]