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Posted by Ivan Kocmarek | Dec 18, 2019 | Whites Tsunami, WECA Splashes | 22 |
Christmas is just a week away and the eye-of-the-storm peacefulness and sentiment of the coming Christmas eve and Christmas day, rather than its stressful bustle and rabid commerce, begin to rope me in. This holiday season, I've been wistfully thinking about what sort of volume of WECA reprint material I'd most like to find under the tree on Christmas morning.
You all know that we've had volumes on Nelvana, Johnny Canuck, and Brok Windsor in recent years and many of you have all three of these on your shelves. Each of these bundles up the published Canadian golden age output of stories anchored to a specific character. This week, I'd like to offer up my own take on what vertical script should appear on the next spine to incrementally widen your WECA-related bookshelf. I'd like to do this by submitting what I think is the best candidate from each of the four main Second World War Canadian comic book publishers in the hope that readers will consider challenging my choices and/or suggesting a couple of their own.
In order of preference, my top choice is from the company we've tended to cover least, not because of the unwarranted Toronto-centric orbit of our Canadian cultural consciousness, but because of the dearth of information available on that company and because that company's comics are, in fact, the hardest to find of these scarce Canadian WECA comics—Vancouver's Maple Leaf Publications. Strangely enough, my first choice of featured reprint character has no costume or uncommon ability. In fact, he hasn't even reached puberty!
My leading candidate for a graphic novel resurrection is an eight-year-old French orphan named "Roger," who is forced to navigate the stark necessities of occupied France in the hope that he can eventually make his way to his grandparents in Manitoba. That's his Canadian connection. He was born to a Canadian soldier from WWI who remained in France and married a French woman. In spite of losing his parents and having to travel across occupied France, Roger takes on the nickname "Lucky," and begins a saga that takes him through 32 issues of Lucky Comics. You can read my previous look at Lucky here.
Splash detail from Lucky Comics Vol. 2 No. 5
This feature presents a well-crafted, serialized, almost Dickensian, minor odyssey through occupied France and then to Canada after the war that better fits today's graphic novel template rather than that of a trade reprint. It has quality and allure that Drawn and Quarterly or Conundrum could pick up outright instead of having it piggyback on a Kickstarter.
Lucky Comics Vol. 1 No. 10
Lucky Comics Vol. 4 No. 2
It wouldn't be an easy task collecting it together, but writer Howard Hagar Hall and artist Ernie Walker offer up their best work for Maple Leaf and it needs to be seen as a whole. Lucky, therefore, is my top pick for reprint resurrection.
(As an aside, I must note that another contender from Maple Leaf is Bus Griffith's "Now your Loggin'" run that appeared in early issues of Rocket Comics. You can find the whole first story reproduced in an earlier column of mine here, and more about Bus himself here. In fact, Bus Griffith did a more recent take on this as a successful graphic novel in 1978. Though the original series appeared as only about a dozen installments in Rocket Comics, it still merits consideration as a good reprint candidate.)
Half a continent away in Toronto, the Anglo-American comic factory with its assembly line production values, churned out one of the best-written features in Canadian war time comics. It was about a stateless, blond hero in a red long-sleeved, crew-neck t-shirt, jodhpurs, and riding boots who confounded Nazi efforts and plans throughout the African and European theatres of war. He was named Freelance and he did his good guy work pro bono and anonymously though, in the tradition of The Lone Ranger and Zorro, he often left a calling card. In his case, it was an actual calling card. You can find additional background information on Freelance from one of my past columns here.
From Freelance Vol. 2 No. 3
The Freelance saga runs 35 issues with most containing 3 or 4 stories ensuring that a Freelance reprint project would probably have to span three volumes, but this amount of Ted McCall scripting and Ed Furness artwork would certainly be worth the effort. The stories are mostly sequential, with solid supporting characters such as Big John Collins and Natasha, and better structured and more absorbing than Leo Bachle's one-note efforts with Johnny Canuck.
I don't think that other reprint collections of Anglo-American material would have the same impact, though something like a compendium of Fawcett redraws might sell well to Fawcett aficionados on both sides of the border (more information on Anglo's Fawcett content is here). Anthologies of the Canadian characters from Grand Slam Comics (Commander Steel, Dr. Destine, Red Rover) and Three Aces Comics (The Crusaders, The Purple Rider, Terry Kane) might also generally sell well, but I don't think McCall's Robin Hood or Men of the Mounted/Kip Keene stories have enough umph! What we need to see from Anglo American's published body, therefore, is a quality reprint of its Freelance stories.
Grand Slam Vol. 3 No. 10
Three Aces Vol. 3 No. 9
Shifting east about six blocks from Anglo-American's location on John Street in Toronto to Bell Features on York Street we find a trove of material that has already been mined for the well-known reprints of Nelvana and Johnny Canuck. But there is much more great reprint material here.
Characters that first jump to mind are Thunderfist, created by E. T. Legault and drawn mainly by Murray Karn, and Tedd Steele's Speed Savage. Of this pair, I'd favour the latter. I know that Karn's lines were cleaner and channelled Alex Raymond, but his artwork always seemed a little bit static to me. On the other hand, Tedd Steele's artwork was always raw and dynamic and grew more solid as the series went on.
From Active Comics No. 8
Steele's writing was also more involved and generally better than that offered in the Thunderfist strip. Ironically, Tedd Steele ended up writing and drawing the last four Thunderfist installments in Active Comics but, overall, I'd still take a Speed Savage compendium over a Thunderfist one. Still, either of these superhero collections wouldn't be a real departure from the three collections already assembled.
Two splashes from stories only found in the Speed Savage compendium (1945)
I tend to favour something more coherently serialized and, for this reason, would actually choose René Kulbach's Tang feature which ran in the first 27 issues of Triumph Comics. The feature was created and first written by Frank Brookwood, but Kulbach took the whole thing over when Dingle brought the property over with him to Cy Bell in the spring of 1942. Kulbach's artwork is first-rate, especially his rendering of horses (and Tang is quintessential 'horse opera') his strong story is surprising given English isn't his first language and the culture of the western must have been something foreign to him. Overall, the saga of Buddy Brekenridge and his horse "Tang" has so much going for it, but I wonder if westerns would sell these days?
From Triumph Comics No. 19
In the end, though, I'll probably surprise you by picking something out of left field as the best Bell Features candidate for reprint resurrection. What I'd like to see most as a reprint collection from the York Street company would be Manny Easson's neglected tour de force effort on Dizzy Don in The Funny Comics.
From The Funny Comics No. 15
The last of the big four WECA publishers that we could mine for collected reprint volume material is Educational Projects from Montreal. Its flagship title was Canadian Heroes Comics, another WECA title generally overlooked by collectors. However, the thirty issues of this rough-cut gem were probably the thirty most-Canadian comics ever produced. Its in-house art director was George Menendez Rae, who produced some of the best Canadian wartime comic book art, and it's one of his features that I'd like to single out for reprint resurrection. Surprisingly, it's not Canada Jack, though that feature does merit a future reprint in his own right. Should anyone ever take on a Canada Jack reprint volume, it would probably be most effective complemented with the inclusion of a collection of the Canada Jack Club pages. Those eager and shiny faces of Canadian wartime kids doing their bit for the war effort was what Canada Jack was all about.
What I'd most like to see resurrected from Educational Projects is Rae's magnificent output on his R.C.M.P. stories from Canadian Heroes Comics. These claim to be based on actual R.C.M.P. files and Rae's comic book rendering of them needs to be available to a larger audience. I know that some have been already been collected into the sought-after 1944 Educational Projects compendium Action Stories of the Mounties, but this volume only accounts for a dozen stories from the first half of the Canadian Heroes run (up to the end of Vol. 3 of the title). The remaining 18, which came after this compendium, need to be brought into the fold of a larger collection. A reprint collection of these stories would contain more Canadian maple syrup and maple leaf energy than all of the Johnny Canuck, Captain Canuck, and Alpha Flight stories put together.
From Canadian Heroes Vol 4 No. 3
From Canadian Heroes Vol. 4 No. 5
To sum up, the reprint collections I'd most like to see come out in the next year or two are of Maple Leaf's "Lucky" stories, Anglo-American's "Freelance" stories, Bell Features' "Dizzy Don Detective" stories, and Educational Projects' "R.C.M.P." stories. Roughly in that order, though I'd probably move the "R.C.M.P." stories collection ahead of the Dizzy Don collection. So there you have it, a ranked Canadian WECA personal reprint wish list, and any one of them appearing under the tree at Christmas would widen my eyes in wonder and appreciation as well as swell my sense of Canadian comic pride to bursting.
Yet, as I've said, these are my personal, subjective suggestions. They might even be regarded as personal indulgences arising from a researcher's swelled head. Maybe nobody else would be drawn to cracking open the covers of any of them. For this reason, I'd love to hear readers' gut takes on what Canadian WECA reprint collection they'd love to find under the tree on Christmas morning.
Gerald Lazare has informed me that he sent a copy of my Heroes of the Home Front book to his wife's sister in Japan and that her husband there happens to be a good friend of the director of the Kyoto International Manga Museum. Her husband was able to donate the book to their research library and received a formal letter of gratitude from them. Adrian Dingle, Gerry Lazare, Fred Kelly, Tedd Steele, and the rest are now on a shelf in the KIMM.
Last week, the Canadian War Plane Heritage Museum here in Hamilton purchased a half-dozen copies of my Heroes book for their Bookshop and the Art Gallery of Hamilton Bookshop also has a couple of copies. My remaining copies of the book are dwindling…. which is great!
Looking ahead, 2021 will be the 80th anniversary of the very first Canadian comic book–Better Comics Vol. 1 No. 1 (March 1941) and we should think about using the coming year as thinking out and preparing some significant ways of commemorating this. Let's start preparing for "80 years of Canadian Comics."
Tags: Canadian Comics, Canadian Golden Age Comics, Canadian War-Time Comics, canadian whites, Dizzy Don, Freelance, George Menendez Rae, lucky comics, WECA comics
PreviousCovered 365: Day 351
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Grew up in Hamilton's North End. Comic collector for over 50 yrs. Recent interest in Canadian WECA era comics.
February ComicLINK Auction WECA Comic Results
Thunderfist Three Ways: Karn, Bachle, Steele
Canadian Comics Corner
Tony Cianfaglione	on December 18, 2019 at 9:15 am
Thunderfist by Murray Karn would be my first pick, although the other examples you show are pretty good too. I love the artwotk in the RCMP story. The clesn look of black and white really make the early Csnadian books pop.
Ivan Kocmarek	on December 18, 2019 at 11:06 am
Tony, I think Karn's Thunderfist will be a popular pick and you make a good point about those black-and-white pages popping. The Canadian war time artists had to work a lot harder because they only had the white pages and black ink to create the effects they needed and no colour register overlay to bring out any subtleties.
Tony Cianfaglione	on December 18, 2019 at 12:14 pm
Also, congratulations on getting your book into KIMM and the CWPHM's bookshop. Recognition of your excellent research and work is building and I'm very happy for you. I can only imagine the work and detail that went into Heroes.
tim hammell	on December 18, 2019 at 5:18 pm
Lucky's not a super hero or even has a costume but I'd very much like to read his story, there's something that draws me into this series with your articles on him and the art is terrific. If all the pages can be found he could fit into the Fantagraphics book lineup.
I'd like all the books you've mentioned under my christmas tree, and I'd have to get a tree. My nomination would be be The Penguin, just for odd ball-ness sake. Tang maybe not so much (yes I'd buy it anyway) but the RCMP book would be a top contender. Actual Mountie stories written and drawn by Canadians, yes.
80 years of Canadian comics! Wow! How about resubmitting your stamp idea to the Canada Mint again? I'll sign the petition. Would there be any possibility of an anniversary facsimile reprint of Better Comics #1 possible funded by us?
Congrats on your book in the museums and art gallery shop. Great news and well deserved.
Ivan Kocmarek	on December 19, 2019 at 6:34 am
Thanks for your thoughtful and energized comments, Tim. When I approached any American publishers the prospects of them putting out my Heroes book, they claimed that it was too 'niche' and wouldn't have the base market they needed. I'm sure it would be the same with Fantagraphics and a Lucky reprint.
The Penguin is a good choice but it would be a thin volume since Dingle didn't create him until issue 15 of Wow comics. What might very well be a standout collection would be to gather together all of Dingle's output for Bell Features, minus the Nelvana material already published, and call it something like "The Cartoons of Adrian Dingle". That would be quite a volume since Dingle also did over 80% of the Bell covers.
I think the idea of a facsimile reprint of the first issue of Better Comics is a great idea and I'll add it to the list. We also need to get the ball rolling on the establishment of a Canadian Museum of Cartooning and Animation somewhere in the country. Also, perhaps I should send Canada Post that idea of commemorative stamps, or even coins, again.
Gerald Eddy	on December 19, 2019 at 9:20 pm
Well I have to say I am impressed with the Thunderfist art work… reminds me a bit of Alex Raymonds work
Ivan Kocmarek	on December 21, 2019 at 1:44 pm
Yes, Gerald. Karn always channeled Raymond and like Raymond often used models for his artwork. Gerald Lazare was also influenced greatly by Alex Raymond.
Peter	on December 21, 2019 at 2:01 pm
Some interesting choices. I would like to see a Thunderfist collection, or perhaps a historical/overview collection of each publisher.
mel taylor	on December 22, 2019 at 10:49 am
Well, my favourite of the WECA artists has always been George Rae, so my vote would go for a reprint of his R.C.M.P. stories. They are, in my opinion, the very finest examples of Canadian Golden Age art, and the stories are exciting and well-written. So many things going for that particular work!
As for the 80th anniversary celebration I would definitely like to see a reprint of Better Comics #1, a series of stamps of significant issues, and a five dollar silver coin from the Royal Canadian Mint (is it still "royal?") with the cover of Better Comics #1. I mean, seriously, if they can pump out a five dollar silver Uncle Scrooge, I think they could give our own comics a nod.
cheers, mel
Mel, I very much agree with you about the quality of Rae's artwork and of the R.C.M.P. stories in general. I think that a collection of them would sell well and find a good home in many libraries across the country.
I think that it's worth contacting Canada Post and the Mint early this coming new year and recommending that they consider a commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the first Canadian comic book. Perhaps it would be a good idea to start a petition as a supportive add-on to our request to show that there is a significant interest in the idea.
The RCMP comics are very Canadian content and from the two samples shown here would be a great set of books – or an Omnibus edition which seems to be the new popular publishing format (I have a few myself and like them). Anyway, is this Canada Grant material? Maybe involvement from or with the RCMP? Better Comics is the first Canadian comic not particularly Canadian content (ie stories, characters).
Re Dingle – the gallery owners and manager (my boss) and buyers of Dingle's paintings did not know of his WW2 comic art book until I showed my boss Hope's Nelvana book. He promptly ordered a copy and made a display with copies of some of the news coverage below some Dingle paintings we had in the gallery. The patrons were surprised and intrigued by this. Possibly could have sold some books but he didn't think that part through. So a "The Unknown Art of Adrian Dingle" or something might do well, he is quite renowned for his paintings.
Canadian Museum of Cartooning, Comics & Animation would be a great idea. In the city of museums, Ottawa, I guess is the logical place for it.
How far in advance does the Mint and PO consider their projects?
And a certain cover image book would be nice! How is that proceeding, Ivan?
I guess two questions to ask are: are all the pages for any one of these available and in a state to be published? Do we know any publishers of Canadian material? ; )
Re Thunderfist, yup there's some channeling from Alex Raymond in there but Raymond channeled Gustav Dore for a while, so it goes around.
activejim	on December 24, 2019 at 8:46 pm
I like the idea of Freelance, R.C.M.P. and perhaps Speed Savage.
What would be nice is a sampler stories posted here or in a book of several characters mentioned for readers not familiar to get an idea of what the public would like.
A book like Better 1, Name-it Comics 1, Canadian Heroes 1 (or V1_5) or Triumph 7 would make great sampler books or a custom book could be made all the first stories of these into ne book that could gauge popularity like the publishers used to do for Maple Leaf books where they asked the readers to write in and let them know what characters they wanted to see more of in future issues.
I have lots of story scans when you need them.
I also have at least a half dozen "Now your loggin'" story scans (600DPI or better) from years ago when Brad Mackay was going to publish a collection of the stories.
Bud Plant	on December 25, 2019 at 2:32 am
From my perspective as a retailer…and a fan, too..I like the idea of the facsimile reprint of Better #1. It is the WECA equivalent of Action #1, if I can stretch a bit on the analogy. It should not be terribly hard to break even or perhaps make a profit on such a one-shot. It has far more importance, doesn't it, than the Wow #1 edition? ….while fun, it badly needed color correction and Photoshop clean-up. Maybe even new coloring.
If it worked, this replica idea could develop into a series of the best and most interesting Canadian Whites done as inexpensive editions. And not a years-long project like Ivan's Home Front Heroes or even a collection of all the stories of one character.
Someone with the source material, the scans, might make a presentation to publishers like Chapterhouse or It's Alive, who's currently doing replica editions of Sam Glanzman Charlton and Dell war comics, as Kickstarter projects. They could start as Kickstarter or Fundme, then move to general distribution through Diamond.
It's times like this I wish I had the time and staff to be a publisher.
One of the downfalls of replica editions is they are sometimes already online for free, or were part of a larger Archive volume that potential customers already have. Correct me if I am wrong, but most or nearly all WECA material is NOT sitting online for our viewing. And we certainly know all the archive editions, as Ivan points out, which have scarcely scratched the surface of material.
Could this be a very modest Kickstarter project for someone out there? i would support it with a quantity order. With some greater marketing vision, it might make its way into some Canadian libraries? Could someone get Margaret Atwood to write an intro to the first book? Or better yet, the series, this seems in her sphere of interest? Her name would carry some weight with retailers, even given just a short intro to each book.
My other favorite would be the more ambitious RCMP collection. The artwork is the best of all your presentations. As a non-super hero piece, I think it can gain wider interest. With a basis in Canadian history, it should hold an interest for libraries, if they can be reached. Ivan might help on that.
Maybe for some grant funding, which I know nothing of, but the right person might. As a resident of the US, I nonetheless have always been fascinated by the Mounties…they have some counterpart in the Texas Rangers, though the poor Mounties usually seem to work alone, at least according to the fictional accounts…with only sled dogs or companion dogs for company. But that may show what little I know.
I think this could be a nicely focussed collection, offering some of the best and yet realistic WECA material, expanding the audience for the period.
Regards to Dizzy Don. You don't sound too serious on this one. I am afraid it, to me, is the last possible prospect. The art is not appealing and I have not attempted to get into it for that reason. The character is unknown in the lower 50, if not limited to only the most veteran fans in Canada.
Most important, as a retailer I have rarely found humor material to do very well in the comics market. There are certainly exceptions, like Popeye and Blondie and Calvin and Hobbes, absolutely, but I don't think old Don rises to these. Also, translating humor from one country to another is another strike against it. For example, the more serious TinTin does have a good fanbase outside of Europe, here in the U.S. But while Asterix does very well outside the U.S., perhaps due to its stories taking place in Europe, its humor just does not appeal to many in the U.S., in the English translations. I don't handle any Asterix titles, nor any spin-offs by the same creators, like Lucky Luke, while I can still sell a $200 Complete TinTin set.
Jim, perhaps we should do a couple of reprint books such as the Better Comics No. 1. I know that Studiocomix is eager to be involved. I'd also love to get started on an edition of collected Speed Savage stories and a collection of the comic "Now You're Loggin'" stories from Rocket Comics would be a gem of a collection. The question is which one's would need a Kickstarter and which one's we could pull off ourselves.
Thanks for all the heartfelt comments coming from all those decades of experience in selling comics and comics-related materials. I think, at the very least, we should come up with a facsimile of the first issue of Better Comics. I think there should be some blurb or sticker on the cover that indicates that this is a reprint of the very first Canadian comic for the 80th anniversary. And, yes, the Dizzy Don suggestion I made was done a little tongue-in-cheek because I enjoy what Manny Easson was trying to do with it. Also, Bud, remember that after the WECA period there were a couple of Dizzy Don books published by F. E. Howard that were distributed in the US but they fell flat. At least F. E. thought he could make a go of that particular series when he had the whole Bell Features stable to choose from. One other thing I think we will do Bud is have that small one day conference on the WECA books some time during 2021 for the 80th anniversary. I'm going to do a big push for this personally.
More than a blurb or sticker I'd suggest a new cover design for the facsimile anniversary featuring the original cover art. The DC Millenium issues of Police Comics, Shadow, etc. did a very nice presentation with the original canted at an angle on a new foil stamped design. I'm up for proclaiming rather than indicating. Maybe as a wrap cover over the facsimile cover (more expense, I know) – the back cover could then be used for panel samples and more proclaiming and the inside front and back covers could be used for an historical essay, in b&w.
Would Mr. Steacy be interested in creating an 80th Anniversary brand, badge, logo? I'll be doing one for myself for a shirt.
Until more full series character books come to the fore, I like Bud's idea of a series of notable Canadian Whites issues in facsimile.
Bud Plant	on December 29, 2019 at 12:18 pm
I like Tim's suggestion, to create a new cover incorporating the original cover. That would really help in-store sales, and perhaps even on-line. Facsimile editions suffer when they are forced to stand on their own. The cover is often less than stellar, they can look dated or just badly drawn compared to modern comics.
It's a given you will sell a copy to any WECA fan; the challenge is to break out into the general fan market, to start turning neophytes onto WECA history. That is where you put your marketing foot forward, like those Millenium titles trying to introduce obscure series to the average collector, like Police Comics.
Putting it into a modern cover design like Millenium Issues would put it in the proper context for a buyer to recognize what is going on. And that "first original Canadian comic" tag line, on the cover, that's what is needed. I'm afraid WECA is still a little-known specialty term. It won't sell a comic, and could turn off people. We need to spell out in plain language what this is (the facsimile) and why it's important. Even "Canadian White"
is not a commonly understood term out in the average fan world.
You could run the original cover full-sized inside. I vote to keep most or all ad pages, and absolutely any house ads—these really give it context. I love these. Add a 4-page signature to the page count, where you run the full-size cover, your essay on the importance of the book, your own house ad for other comics in this new series, or other WECA history books. Independent reviews of WECA-related books could be included, such as one for War Bears, or Heroes on the Home Front, for instance.
Will Murray writes a contextual essay in all the Sanctum pulp reprints, it's super informative, and author William B. Jones (Classics Illustrated: A Cultural History) did the same in nearly every Classics Illustrated facsimile reprint from publisher Jack Lake. Invaluable extra material!
I love this added-on, bonus material. It's often what I read first in archives or facsimiles; sometimes it's the only thing I read, if I am familiar with the work collected or I am just am not enthralled enough to read it all the way through.
Also, obviously, the new cover design can be used on subsequent reprints, tying the series together so they help sell each other. Wow #1 suffers from no cover sales pitch. "What is this?" says a buyer and they go right by it.
It took me many years to appreciate the importance and value of lesser Golden Age titles, and creators, because they only became important and interesting to me after I learned more about comics history. For instance, look at the typical Centaur or Comics Magazine Company title, which ran 1936-41.
Most of them are not much different than WECA books, done by youngsters just getting started. But when you understand how this company was a pioneer, much of it pre-Superman, even pre-Timely, then you realize that many of the contributors were getting their start here, crude as the work might be. Many would go on to major work elsewhere. Jack Cole, Fred Guardineer, Paul Gustavson, Bob Lubbers, Charles Biro, Bob Wood, and a favorite of mine, Harold DeLay…
Hey, Ivan, that one-day conference sounds very cool. I would love to attend just as long as it doesn't conflict with any major shows I am committed to. Finally a chance to meet some of you characters!
Hey Bud, thanks for liking our old Canadian comics! Appreciate it. Good comments on the potential for the reprint, I like to see the house ads too as some historic context. I have Hope's WOW #1 facsimile (ordered online) and would have picked it up at a store knowing what it was but think most comic readers would have passed on it. It definitely could've used some upgrade on the cover.
Just finished reading WAR BEARS, great comic story with terrific art and some words from Ivan. Very glad I bought it
Tim, on the subject of War Bears, it literally brought Ken Steacy back into drawing comics. He's been busy teaching for a decade or so, this was his first new project. And it got us back in touch, too, which was great. He and Paul Chadwick both drew special covers for my catalog, voluntarily as I remember. Good friends and part of a very small club. Ken also was first to reprint As I See by Boris Artzybasheff, a wonderful 1952 art book that became tough and expensive and much in demand especially by artists.
Of all people, underground comics artist S. Clay Wilson used to accost me at shows about finding him a copy in trade, which I finally did.
Ken Steacy is as passionate an art history and comic art appreciator as any of us. He's been to the Alphonse Mucha museum outside Prague, and that takes dedication. I haven't made it there yet, but its on my bucket list.
tim hammell	on January 3, 2020 at 5:35 pm
Thanks, Bud, good news about Mr. Steacy, I don't think I appreciated him as much as I should have back when. War Bears has changed that so I'll be seeking out more of his work like Tempus Fugit (?), Airboy covers.
Re Better Comics 1+, anyone holding the rights to this currently or is it PD?
Ivan Kocmarek	on January 10, 2020 at 7:08 am
Tim, I'm not aware of anybody holding the rights to Better 1 and, as far as I know, it is in the public domain, but the Miller family should be informed about the reprint possibility to see if they have any input.
Also, a couple of years ago, I started up a forum to discuss Canadian Golden Age Comics, though it hasn't been used much. Perhaps we need to get it charged up again to discuss what can be done to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the first Canadian comic book. For those of you who would like to join and start conversations about this and other topics the link is: https://groups.io/g/canadiangoldenagecomics .
tim hammell	on January 17, 2020 at 6:12 pm
Involving the family in some manner would be a plus. Also, who's got a copy in their collection and does it need restoration? I'll head over to the link and participate there. Incidentally, Canadian Golden Age Comics is a banner title I was toying with in my head as appropriate for this hopefully series of reprints as not all would be 80th anniversaries. Succinct and descriptive, perhaps with a WW2 identifier tag or "brand".
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Charles Gonzalez on Foreign Policy
Voted YES on supporting democratic institutions in Pakistan.
Gonzalez co-sponsored keeping sanctions against Syria until WMDs are dismantled
Rated +2 by AAI, indicating pro-Arab pro-Palestine voting record.
Gonzalez scores +2 by AAI on Arab-Israeli issues
Acknowledge the Armenian Genocide of the early 1900s.
Gonzalez co-sponsored acknowledging the Armenian Genocide of the early 1900s
WHEREAS the Armenian Genocide was conceived and carried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923, resulting in the deportation of nearly 2,000,000 Armenians, of whom 1,500,000 men, women, and children were killed, and which succeeded in the elimination of more than 2,500-year presence of Armenians in their historic homeland;
WHEREAS, on May 24, 1915, the Allied Powers issued the joint statement of England, France, and Russia that explicitly charged, for the first time ever, another government of committing "a crime against humanity";
WHEREAS, despite the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide, the failure of the domestic and international authorities to punish those responsible for the Armenian Genocide is a reason why similar genocides have recurred and may recur in the future, and that a just resolution will help prevent future genocides:
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Senate calls on the President, in the President's annual message commemorating the Armenian Genocide, to accurately characterize the systematic annihilation of 1,500,000 Armenians as genocide and to recall the proud history of US intervention in opposition to the Armenian Genocide.
Sen. DURBIN: The definition of "genocide" is "the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group." Scholars agree that what the Armenian people suffered in 1915 to 1917 fits the definition of genocide. To date, 19 countries and 37 US states recognize the Armenian Genocide. Genocide is wrong. It is evil. It is evil whether its victims are Armenians, Sudanese, Rwandan Tutsis, Cambodians or European Jews. Not to acknowledge genocide for what it is denigrates the memory of its victims. Recognition of genocide is part of the healing process. Official recognition will reaffirm our tradition of protecting the vulnerable and inspire us to not stand by and watch as genocide occurs in our time. Source: Armenian Genocide Resolution (S.RES.106/H.RES.106) 2007-SR106 on Mar 14, 2007
Acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, as official US policy.
Gonzalez signed Affirmation of US Record on Armenian Genocide
The House of Representatives finds the following:
The Armenian Genocide was conceived and carried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923, resulting in the deportation of nearly 2,000,000 Armenians, of whom 1,500,000 men, women, and children w President Woodrow Wilson concurred and chartered some $116,000,000 from 1915 to 1930 to aid Armenian Genocide survivors, including 132,000 orphans who became foster children of the American people.
[Presidential concurrence has been echoed through Presidents Reagan, Clinton, and Bush].
DECLARATION OF POLICY: Congress calls upon the President:
to ensure that U.S. foreign policy reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented in the U.S. record relating to the Armenian Genocide and the consequences of the failure to realize a just resolution; and
in the President's annual message commemorating the Armenian Genocide to accurately characterize the systematic and deliberate annihilation of 1.5 million Armenians as genocide, and to recall the proud history of U.S. intervention in opposition to the Armenian Genocide.
Source: H.RES.252 2009-HR252 on Mar 17, 2009
Allow travel between the United States and Cuba.
Gonzalez signed Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act
Prohibits the President from regulating or prohibiting travel to or from Cuba by U.S. citizens or legal residents or any of the transactions ordinarily incident to such travel, except in time of war or armed hostilities between the United States and Cuba, or of imminent danger to the public health or the physical safety of U.S. travelers. Source: S.428&HR.874 2009-S428 on Feb 12, 2009
Click here for a profile of Charles Gonzalez.
Click here for HouseMatch answers by Charles Gonzalez.
Click here for a summary of Charles Gonzalez's positions on all issues.
Click here for a summary of Charles Gonzalez's positions on the AmericansElect.org quiz.
Click here for issue positions of other TX politicians.
2012 Governor, House and Senate candidates on Foreign Policy: Charles Gonzalez on other issues:
TX Gubernatorial:
Annise Parker
Julian Castro
Mike Rawlings
TX Senatorial:
David Dewhurst
John Cornyn
Jon Roland
Kay Bailey Hutchison
Paul Sadler
TX politicians
Cannon HOB 303, Washington, DC 20515

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Andrew Crowe is a media artist, photographer and coder based in London, UK. His work applies photographic techniques to video experiments that explore emergent behaviors and patterns in chaotic systems. Crowe's background in software engineering and electronics has helped shape his interest in algorithmic patterns found in naturally occurring visual forms found in his environment. As a self-taught photographer, Crowe takes influence from the experimental video practices of Pipilotti Rist and Bill Viola, yet challenges conventions through an outsider approach to the medium.


AOB is used in this script,so it can take a while to load.
After downloading the table, rename it to Shadowrun.CT and copy it to the "My Cheat Table" folder.
Special thanks to Group Fairlight for releasing this game (their 1106th release). Respect!


Many people who build websites (not necessarily "web professionals") quickly jumped on the bandwagon to tell businesses that the sky is falling and it's time to redesign their websites to be mobile-friendly. Some are preaching responsive web design, while others will sell you a second, mobile version of your website. Regardless, they're happy to sell you a quick fix to your mobile problem. But just how serious is all this?
Okay, now let's get down to the facts.
Google has always had the mission to provide quality, relevant search results. If you're searching for a local plumber, Google wants to give you a list of local plumbers. Starting April 21, if you're searching for a local plumber on your mobile phone, Google wants to make your life a bit easier by showing you search results that are optimized for your phone. Google has hundreds of "signals" used to weed out garbage websites from the quality, legitimate ones. Mobile-friendliness has been one of those signals for a long time, but now Google is expanding the use of that signal for searches that take place on mobile devices.
Nowhere does Google say they'll be penalizing websites that are not mobile-friendly. And nowhere does Google say your mobile-friendly website will rank higher–they don't make those promises. Google makes it very clear what they're doing: "…users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices." They even provide links to tools that help website owners get their websites mobile-friendly.
So this announcement isn't really a big deal?
Well, it's extremely rare for Google to announce changes to their algorithm in advance, and their announcement is telling us it will have "a significant impact" for search results on mobile devices. With many websites seeing over 30% of their visitors arriving on mobile devices, it just makes sense to have a site that works well for mobile devices. But remember, a mobile-friendly website does not guarantee good ranking on Google or any other search engine. Understand what's really happening and make smart, strategic decisions about how to improve your website. And always partner with a reputable web professional who has the experience and understanding of what's really happening.


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Movie Review – Bible, The: In The Beginning
Principal Cast : Michael Parks, Ulla Bergryd, Richard Harris, John Huston, Stephen Boyd, George C Scott, Ava Gardner, Peter O'Toole, Zoe Sallis, Gabriele Ferzetti, Elenora Rossi Drago, Franco Nero, Pupella Maggio, Robert Rietti, Peter Heinze, Roger Beaumont.
Synopsis: Extravagant production of the first part of the book of Genesis. Covers Adam and Eve, Noah and the Flood and Abraham and Isaac.
For a film entitled The Bible: In The Beginning, John Huston's laboured dramatic mounting of the first few books of the Old Testament is certainly… biblical. Suffice to say, they don't make epics like this any more, and when they do they're usually a visual hodgepodge that skews as far from the Bible as it's possible to get before it becomes not the Bible. Separated into several sections, recounting the Creation Story, the arrival of Adam and Eve in the Garden, Noah and the ark, the Tower of Babel, and a lengthy portion on Abraham, Huston's film wants not for scale and scope, nor does it tread far from the scriptures as we know them – take heed, Darren Aaronofsky – but by all that's holy this film is dead boring.
The middle of the 20th Century was a fearful time for Biblical cinema. Massive productions and epic stories retold various elements of Christianity's favourite novel, including (but not limited to) Ben Hur, DeMille's The Ten Commandments, The Greatest Story Ever Told, and Barabbas being a few films released during the height of the genre's popularity through the 1950's and 60's. Some, like Ben Hur, deserve the praise and adulation heaped upon them, for they folded faith-based storytelling into a larger (far more fictional) narrative that evoked grandeur yet retained humility and humanity. Some, however, focus more on spectacle over story – The Ten Commandments is perhaps the most egregious of those listed above – and tend to vacillate between pompous and arrogant. John Huston's 1966 opus, a nearly three-hour Biblical retelling in its luxurious widescreen format, falls swiftly onto the side of pretentious theatricality, a charisma-free but expensive attempt to kick off a multi-film saga in which the entire Old Testament is given the "greatest hits" treatment by dragging willing Christians in off the streets to see their favourite Bible stories brought to thrilling life. Whether you think Huston's film is a thrill or not, you can't argue the man's passion for what he achieves on the screen visually, which is arguably excellent, if only the story and characters felt a little less stiff and adhered too rigidly to the printed word.
The film kicks off with a protracted Creation sequence, cuing up a variety of volcanoes, waterfalls, oceans and bursts of sunlight to depict the most famous opening paragraph in all of literature. Once we get past this, thought – some ten minutes later – we are startled to see a very young and very naked Michael Parks, he of Tarantino cult-film fame, lying in the Italian backlot they decided was The Garden of Eden. Parks mugs gratingly for the camera, as Adam he must appear virtuous and innocent, which is a stark contrast to many characters he would play in his more recent career, and when the delectable Ulla Bergryd shows up as Eve – looking for all the world like a Blue Lagoon-like Brooke Shields was crossed with a Splash-era Daryl Hannah – things seem to be heading in an excellent direction. But the film's exposition is told almost exclusively through narration, an omniscient God not just showing us what's going on but making sure the YE OLDE KING JAMES LANGUAGE REMAINETH INTACTETH, which is nothing if not annoying as all get out.
Once Adam and Eve are booted from the Garden, we cut to a respite from all this nudity with a lanky, vaudevillian John Huston playing Noah, side-eye glances and all. Huston's decision to cast himself as Noah came after failed attempts to woo Alec Guinness and Charlie Chaplin for the role, and it would be an untruth to suggest I couldn't see them in the role, but Huston fills out the part magnificently. Sadly, however, this is where the film's strongly defined rigidity to King James' flowery language ruins the seriousness of the movie: everyone speaks in Ye Olde English, as if they've all stepped right out of Eton or Cambridge, to the point where you can see the various Italian supporting cast mangling the words and internally rolling their eyes at the silliness of it all. I know, this was the thinking of the 1960's as to how "modern" audiences wanted to see the Biblical stories represented, but the dialogue throughout the entire film, from portentous narration to Huston's gloriously Santa-esque Noah to poor George C Scott's block-of-granite Abraham, is atrocious. At least to modern ears, I think. Admittedly, the Noah's Ark sequence isn't designed for depth of intellect or expanding our understanding of the Biblical text as much as it is showcasing the film's inordinately large budget: reputedly between 15 and 18 million dollars, which is splashed entirely up on the screen. The Ark sequence, in which several different sized arks were built, including a full sized one on a soundstage in which hundred of live animals were corralled for filming, is truly awe-inspiring in a visual sense, despite having the emotional complexity of a rock.
A brief sojourn to the Tower of Babel and an appearance by an unrecognisable Stephen Boyd as the local King, Nimrod (titter), is impressive to say the least, before Scott's Abraham and his multiple wives and varying solemnity to Biblical behaviour arrives to close out the film. Scott is stoic as the Biblical titan, imbuing the role with a sense of presence he's vastly overqualified to deliver and yet bizarrely off-key with how flat and impenetrable he makes the role. Poor Ava Gardner, as Abraham's barren wife Sarah, and Zoe Sallis, as Abraham's other wife Hagar, are given short thrift as the film skips across the decades and years to contort a fairly considerable chunk of contextualisation into a few all-too-brief moments of character development; in trying to give us everything, Huston and screenwriter Christopher Fry end up giving us nothing, certainly nothing of any humanity or interesting complexity. Instead, it's a basic, generic play-by-play of the Old Testament's biggest names and heaviest hitters, a roll-call of Star Power acting talent dashed onto the rocks of unfeeling, over-enunciated theology. There's no warmth to the film, no sense of humanity, just one-note characters with a vested interest in staring off into the middle distance as often as possible.
The film's chief flaw is simply that it's boring. Flat, lifeless direction, uninteresting characters and almost no development of any of the major players beyond that which we can find in the texts, leaves The Bible: In The Beginning defeated before it can begin. There's no energy here, no sense of showmanship despite the huge budget – the Babel tower sequence is lavish and grand in scope, with countless extras in the background of some no-doubt African desert-scape adding depth to the film's almighty purpose, but the sequence is poorly explained and has almost no discernible meaning for those unfamiliar with the story – and Huston's ponderous, laborious narration and inexplicable desire to skip large chunks of the Bible's text that might provide substance to the stories he's telling, reduce the film to that which I described earlier: a greatest hits montage done better in other films. The film seems to think we're in love with it before we've even seen it, or that we should regard it with the same adoration Christians do for their faith every day, only without any work to accomplish it. Commendable special effects – and the film does boasts some brilliant production design, cinematography, and an admirably enthusiastic score (by Toshiro Mayuzumi and an uncredited Ennio Morricone) – can't salvage this trainwreck Bible epic from hurling itself onto the rocks of iniquity and dashing all hope of entertainment.
The Bible: In The Beginning was supposed to kick off a 1960's Old Testament Cinematic Universe, and a bit like Universal's abortive Dark Universe, it put the cart before the horse and went down in hideous flames of pretentiousness. It's a hugely expensive stage-play version of the Bible, a massive fan-fiction mounting of classic theological stories that leave their intentions behind and focus on the well known beats. Blink and miss Richard Harris, blink and miss Peter O'Toole, gaze in wonder as George C Scott spends the film gazing in wonder, and gasp at the ludicrousness of Huston's Noah trying to hide from God with an ongoing sight-gag involving double-takes, and you'll have a ball just laughing at how truly lifeless this listless, gargantuan disaster ends up being. Or, to save some time, skip it and re-watch Charlton Hestone's Ben-Hur again.


An authority on marine biology who specializes in tropical-marine and deep-sea fishes.
Carole was born in South Carolina and developed an early love for the ocean while living near the seashore and exploring the beaches and tide pools. She earned a BS in Biology at James Madison University and a MS in Marine Biology from the College of Charleston, before receiving her Ph.D. in Marine Science from the College of William and Mary. A summer job as a research assistant working with larval fishes at the Charleston Marine Lab led Carole to her first job at the Smithsonian Institution. She has worked in the Division of Fishes at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History as a research biologist since 1992.
Carole has published over four dozen scientific articles and has discovered new species of fishes in Belize, Tobago, Cook Islands, Australia, El Salvador and the Galápagos Islands. She is devoted to sharing her experiences as a marine biologist with school students and the general public and is a positive role model for young girls considering careers in science.
She serves as Secretary of The Biological Society of Washington and on the advisory board for the Caribbean Coral Reef Ecosystems Program. In 2001, her website was selected as a Hot New Site by USA Today. In 2003, she was inducted into the Women Divers Hall of Fame. Dr. Baldwin is senior author of One Fish, Two Fish, Crawfish, Bluefish - The Smithsonian Sustainable Seafood Cookbook (Smithsonian Books, 2003), a marine conservation project featuring educational information and recipes from professional chefs for U.S. seafood species.
Dr. Carole Baldwin put her scientific expertise to the test on a six-week expedition to explore the Earth's last great frontier - following in the footsteps of Charles Darwin to explore the deep sea and coastal environments around the Galapagos Islands. Read an excerpt from Carole's journey diary.


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Overview. Scraper underground mining machine, also known as the excavation loader, is a combination of a robot and a conveyor.The collection and conveying functions are combined into one. The production unit of the electro hydraulic control system is characterized by safety, environmental protection, low energy consumption and high efficiency.


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Home > WATER SPORTS > Snorkeling > Sodwana Bay, Elephant Coast
Sodwana Bay, Elephant Coast
/ KwaZulu-Natal South Africa
Snorkeling in Sodwana Bay, Elephant Coast, KwaZulu-Natal South Africa
Depths:
8-10m/26-32ft
15- 40m/49-131ft
Water Temperatures:
20-28°C/68-82.4°F
The Elephant coast is located at the eastern seaboard of South Africa. It stretches along the Indian Ocean in the east, it borders with Mozambique in the north while the south-west lies on the Zululand. The spot is extended inland across the Lubombo mountains and the famous Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve, which is the oldest in Africa and home to the big 5.
Elephant coast is an extraordinary untamed area, promising an unforgettable adventure with amazing scenic beauty and unique experiences.
Snorkeling in Elephant Coast is at the amazing Sodwana Bay which is just phenomenal. The spot offers amazing snorkeling with warm clean water all through the year.
Water temperatures range between 20-28°C/68-82.4°F with snorkeling spots ranging from protected rock pools to offshore corals and sandstone reefs. Underwater world is filled with brilliant colors and a variety of tropical fish and coral with some larger species like the turtle, dolphins and whale sharks. Depths are shallow ranging from 8-10 m/26-32 ft.
Wasini Island, Shimoni
/ Coast Province Kenya
Located at 75 km/46 mi from Mombasa town and 45 minutes drive from the famous Diani Beach at the southern coast of Mombasa, Wasini Island is a marine lover's heaven, allowing for an absolute example between man and nature.
Chappaquoit Beach, Falmouth
/ Massachusetts USA
Chappaquoit Beach is a sandy beach located in Falmouth, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA.
Ilha Grande, Rio de Janeiro
/ Rio de Janeiro State Brazil
Ilha Grande is the biggest and most well known island of the Green Bay at about 150 km/93 mi in the west-side of the State of Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro, commonly known as Rio, is the capital city of the Rio de Janeiro State, the second largest city of Brazil and the third largest metropolitan area in South America. Since July 2012, part of the city has been designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in the category of ''cultural landscape''.
Yanchep Beach, Perth
/ Western Australia Australia
Perth is the capital city of Western Australia, located on the Swan River. The climate here is classified as Mediterranean, with hot and dry summers and cool and wet winters. Immerse yourself in the unique combination of stunning natural surroundings, beautiful beaches with clear waters, greenery park-lands and outstanding city architecture that attract visitors all year long.
Krakatoa Reef, Barra Peninsula
/ Inhambane Mozambique
Inhambane is a city in the southern Mozambique, lying on the Inhambane Bay at 470 km/292 mi north-east of Maputo. Known as Terra De Boa Gente (Land of Good People), it is one of the oldest and prettiest settlements in Mozambique. The landscape surrounding Inhambane is dominated by vast coconut palms where an architectural atmosphere, rich in diverse history dominated the spot's character.
Moonta Bay, Yorke Peninsula
/ South Australia Australia
Moonta Bay and Port Hughes are close neighboring spots for snorkeling. Sandy beaches and crystal blue waters, beach-side cafes and historic jetties make this location the ideal destination for snorkeling fans. The spot is ideal for beginners and advanced fans of snorkeling.
Durban / Elephant Coast / Richards Bay / St. Lucia /
Aliwal Shoal, Durban
Durban is a beautiful city and the biggest one in the KwaZulu - Natal. lt has an amazing coastline, diverse landscape with the most spectacular mountain range in South Africa. Climate is sub-tropical with warm wet summers, mild frost-free winters and all year round sunshine. Its amazing sandy beaches stretch into the Indian Ocean with water temperatures at 19 degrees even during winter.
South Beach, Durban
Durban is a beautiful city and the biggest one in the KwaZulu - Natal. lt has an amazing coastline, diverse landscape with the most spectacular mountain range in South Africa. Climate is sub-tropical with warm wet summers, mild frost-free winters and all year round sunshine. Its amazing sandy beaches stretch into the Indian Ocean with water temperatures at 19°C/66.2°F even during winter.
Sani Pass, Drakensberg
Rising from the Eastern Cape and running along the Kwazulu-Natal's western border, the Drakensberg mountain range is the highest in South Africa standing at 3482 m/11424 ft in height. The mountains are capped by a layer of basalt of 1400 m/4593 ft thick and offers amazing flora and fauna.
St. Lucia, Elephant Coast
The Elephant coast is located on the eastern seaboard of South Africa. It stretches along the Indian Ocean in the east, it borders with Mozambique in the north while the south-west lies on the Zululand. Extending inland across the Lubombo mountains and the famous Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve, which is the oldest in Africa and home to the big 5.
Winterton, Drakensberg
The Elephant coast is located at the eastern seaboard of South Africa. It stretches along the Indian Ocean in the east, it borders with Mozambique in the north while the south-west lies on the Zululand. Extending inland across the Lubombo mountains and the famous Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve, which is the oldest in Africa and home to the big 5.
Isimangaliso Wetland Park, Elephant Coast


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See Caitlyn Elam's article "Getting Schooled on Education Law" in the February edition of DICTA.
The state of Tennessee enrolls approximately 998,000 students in 147 public school districts each year. As federal law requires that every child receive a free and appropriate public education ("FAPE"), any lawyer who desires to maintain an education law practice must be prepared to face a diverse range of issues on a daily, if not hourly, basis. For example, lawyers who represent school systems can face issues related to student records, student discipline, contract review, student privacy, teacher discipline/termination, and federal investigations. Those lawyers who represent parents and students face many of the same issues from the other side, including negligence, a failure to provide FAPE, and constitutional rights violations. Any lawyer practicing education law must be prepared to pivot quickly and come up with creative and practical solutions for their clients.
Tenn. Code Ann. § 49-2-203 authorizes a board of education to employ legal counsel to advise or represent the board. Thus, whether the board decides to employ the local municipality or country's attorneys or hire outside counsel, it is the board who is the client. Oftentimes the board will appoint the Director of Schools to work directly with legal counsel to resolve day-to-day issues. The lawyer must always remember, however, that the board of education is his/her client, not the employees of the school system. Typically lawyers representing parents and students will find themselves working with te parent to resolve problems related to the student. Remember, however, to always consider whether one or both of the parents have the right to make educational decisions for the child. Moreover, Tennessee law provides that a student's educational rights transfer to the student upon the age of majority, unless the child has otherwise been adjudicated incompetent under Tennessee law. It is always important to remember who your client is to ensure that you are providing the best advice for that entity or individual.
While attorneys are required to maintain client confidentiality and protect privileged materials, the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 ("FERPA") protects the privacy of educational records and the contents thereof. Parents of eligible students and eligible students who have reached the age of majority have the right to inspect and review the student's educational records. Attorneys representing school systems must understand what items and records are considered "educational records" under the law and under what circumstances and to whom these records can be disclosed. Attorneys representing parents and students must likewise understand how to request these records and what these records do and do not contain.
Perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of practicing educational law is ensuring that you have consulted every applicable law, procedure, policy, guideline, and rule. The US Department of Education is responsible for establishing policies on the distribution of federal funding, conducting research, prohibiting discrimination, and ensuring equal access to education. While consulting guidance of the US Department of Education is responsible for establishing policies on the distribution of federal funding, conducting research, prohibiting discrimination, and ensuring equal access to education. While consulting guidance of the US DOE is important, the majority of the day-to-day issues faced by education lawyers are governed at the state and local level. The essential items in every education lawyers' tool kit are: Title 49 of the Tennessee Code; the Tennessee State Board of Education's Rules, Policies, and Guidance; and your local board of education's policies and administrative procedures.
While many civil litigators are comfortable with the state and federal rules of procedure, education lawyers must be prepared to find themselves in a variety of settings. For example, at the school level, lawyers' roles during Disciplinary Hearing Authority ("DHA") hearings and Individual Education Plan ("IEP") meetings are limited in nature. At the district level, lawyers can find themselves filing and/or responding to complaints with the Office for Civil Rights or the State Department of Education Division of Special Education, hearings with administrative Law Judges, and/or appeals to various state courts. Regardless, each of these situations comes with different deadlines, procedural rules, expectations, and consequences.
While the general practitioner is slowly becoming a thing of the past, it is still important to recognize when you are out of your element and comfort zone. Education law involves the intersection of many complex state and federal laws implicating a student's fundamental right to a free and appropriate public education. Understanding the intricacies of each law will help the education lawyer find the most effective route to a quick and effective resolution for his/her client, whether school system or parent/student. Data suggests that approximately 13% of all students are eligible for special education services. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA") mandates that children 3-21 with disabilities be provided FAPE in the public school setting. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits discrimination based upon disability. The civil rights statute requires school systems to meet the needs of students with disabilities as adequately as the needs of their hon-disabled peers. Each of these laws comes with a complex web of regulatory statutes, state rules, state regulations, and a variety of legal mechanisms by which these rights can be enforced. It is imperative that any education lawyer adequately "school' themselves on these special education laws to determine whether they are equipped to handle these types of disputes, administrative proceedings, and/or federal lawsuits.


The one apparent performance marker that varies with compensation: Patient satisfaction. "Hospitals with high performance on patient satisfaction compensated their CEOs $51,706 more than did those with low performance on patient satisfaction," according to Dr. Joynt et al. Oddly, though, I think this is also often a marker for size. Patients tend to think you're good if you're large and well-known. Famously, one Massachusetts survey rated Massachusetts General's OB-GYN and birthing program as the most highly-regarded in the state — at a time when it actually did not even have one.
Every one of these, in one way or another, is a measure of real performance. In other words, if you pay more to hire and retain a better, more skilled, more experienced CEO, here's where you would expect the return on your investment. And it's not there.
We are moving into a time when healthcare has a wildly different and more complex economic base than it is used to, an economic situation in which most of the people now running healthcare enterprises are newbies, and most of the new conglomerations, concatenations and congeries of healthcare capabilities and financing structures being slapped together are prototypes. It's prototypes all the way down.
How would you measure and pay for executive performance in such an environment? What is it that you really want? Is it the margin of the whole enterprise, including its insurance arm and any accountable-care joint ventures it has set up? What if you paid the CEO 0.2% of that margin (I'll do the arithmetic: On a $5 billion enterprise with, say, a 5% margin, that would be $1 million). What behavior would that drive? No margin, you're on food stamps, buddy.
How about 0.02% of margin ($100,000 in our example), plus large bonuses for outcome markers such as lower readmission rates and lower mortality rates, plus certain process performance markers? What behavior would that drive?
In what other ways could executive pay be tied to the performance that we really want to see?
We are increasingly talking about (and sometimes implementing) many different ways of paying physicians for performance, with many different types of incentives beyond those labeled "Pay For Performance." Yet clearly the executive talent driving the strategies of these major organization needs to adapt and up their game for the new world of healthcare — and clearly across healthcare many if not most are hanging back, unclear on the best strategy, playing it as safe as possible by consolidating and sticking as much as possible to the old model.
New Discoveries show how to naturally increase your own body's stem cell production provide the key to unlocking your own body's natural repair kit. One company and one group of people are poised to profit from the coming boom!
I agree that complaining about executive pay, either of healthcare organizations or health insurers, as a percentage of healthcare costs misses the point. The concern about executive pay is not the amount, it is what it gives them incentives to do: How is hospital and health system strategy skewed by the personal financial priorities of the CEOs who drive them?
I have never stated nor implied that CEO salaries add visibly to U.S. aggregate health care spending. They are an ethical affront in their own right. That a top cardiovascular surgeon can cut me open, fix life-threateningly damaged stuff, sew me back up, and save my life, yet be compensated at a small fraction of that of the top Healthcare/Pharma C Suite exec is a reflection of our egregiously misaligned socioeconomic values — one that extends well beyond the healthcare space, as we all know by now.
As long as there is a seemingly endless stream of money, there's no real incentive to tie pay to performance. That's especially true in the health-care marketplace, where it's always someone else's money.
The best way to get a handle on pay for performance is for the stream of money to stop.
I come from the world of journalism, where for many many years people all the way up and down the food chain refused to believe that the stream of money would dwindle or stop. Once that happened, epochal change arrived.
Old models seem comfy, until they aren't any more.
As long as we view health care on the revenue side instead on the expense side we won't contain costs/prices/growth. Just think what government would look like if we considered it a profit center.
Good point. I read somewhere that in Finland empty hospital beds are considered a good sign that the community is in good health.
Good thoughts, Jeff. Yes, the "incestuous and lucrative compensation practice" bases salaries on hospitals of similar size — because they lack anything else to compare them to.
Oh, and thanks for referring to your June post. That was an interesting and useful analysis.
So… Apparently size does matter.
Hospitals are here to make money. Doctors, yes also need to make money, but they have the moral and ethical requirement to try to do the right things (not that they always do). In this age of escalating healthcare costs and massive turmoil in the health field, what would drive the hospital administrator to "do well by their patient"?
Thank you for this. Every time I come across a mention of "screening" I say to myself there's another one — trolling for business. Of course those with specific risk factors or symptoms indicating a problem should be tested. But a cattle call for everybody who darkens the door to be "screened" is categorically different. As you say, most people are generally healthy.
Ah, thanks for that, Jay. I looked for other pieces to complement the Joynt study, but I missed that one. Looks useful.
Oops, sorry. That was for the other link. Elisabeth Rosenthal is another trooper. As a journalist she is eligible for prizes, and her work is prize-worthy, too.
Joe Flower is doing the heavy lifting as usual. This post deserves to be read far and wide.
I'm pleased to know that somewhere in the system hospitals actually track margins, liquidity and capital investments. I knew about all that other stuff but I always wondered if billing and accounting was just throw some s**** against the wall and see what sticks.
I hope somebody important is getting this.
Agreed. The most broadly knowledgeable and charitable healthcare thinker I've run across.
Potter is a treasure. Too bad there are no prizes for people like him. Fact is, if he keeps it up he may need to be in a witness protection program.
Hm, interesting. I wonder what relationship exists between hospital exec salary and physician salary, if any? I bet you'd see some surprising relationships.


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News One | praiserichmond Staff
The Best Clapbacks After Trump Supporters Tried It With #BoycottHawaii
Trump's base branded angry tweets in opposition to a federal judge's decision with #BoycottHawaii, but most social media users weren't having it.
NEWS ROUNDUP: Bush Sisters Pen Heartfelt Letter To Obama Sisters; African-American Lady Liberty Coin…AND MORE
The letter reflected on how President Obama's daughters have gracefully come into their own over the past eight years and it provided advice on how to adjust to life after living in the White House.
Ricky Dillard On How He's Addressing "Concern" Over Donald Trump's Presidency [EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW]
Ricky Dillard explains what he plans to do about his concern over Donald Trump.
NEWS ROUNDUP: High School Students Lead Nationwide Anti-Trump Protests; Chicago Celebrates 'Bernie Mac Day'…AND MORE
Scores of students staged a walk-out on Monday to express disdain for the President-Elect Donald Trump.
National | praiserichmond Staff
'How Many N-Words In My Store?' Maryland Girl Records Classmates Chant Racial Slur
A Black Maryland middle school student recorded a video of her classmates chanting a racist slur on their school bus. The video went viral, and adds more evidence of growing student incivility.
NEWS ROUNDUP: Appeals Court Orders New Trial In Phylicia Barnes Case…AND MORE
The Court of Special Appeals in Maryland, the state's second-highest court, has ordered another trial and restored charges against a man from Northwest Baltimore who was acquitted in the murder of North Carolina native Phylicia Barnes. The court says Circuit Judge John Addison Howard committed a mistake in January 2015 when he acquitted Michael Johnson of […]
NEWS ROUNDUP: George Zimmerman's Gun Up For Auction Again…AND MORE
After causing a stir for attempting to auction off the firearm used to kill Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman is still determined to sell the gun. According to reports, Zimmerman will repost the gun on an auction site for the third time. When he first put the firearm on the auction block, he priced the gun […]
Suspect In Custody After Maryland Shooting Spree
A suspect is in police custody for a fatal shooting spree in Maryland. One of the victims is the suspect's estranged wife.
Freddie Gray Prosecutors Hope To Force Another Officer To Testify
The motion was filed last Thursday (March 31) at the Baltimore City Circuit Court to have Garrett Miller testify at Nero's trial, which will begin May 10. The order was filed since Miller will most likely refuse to take the stand because of his right against self-incrimination, says the report. Prosecutors dealt with similar issues in the case of Officer William Porter.
Maryland Votes To Remove References To Confederacy From State Song
Lyrics from the song (including those calling Northerners "scum") will be replaced with a poem by John T. White about the state's appearance and natural beauty.
Maryland Police Officer Dead, 3 In Custody After Shooting Outside Police Station
Jacai Colson, a four-year veteran of the Prince George's County police department, "immediately stepped into action," when the gunman opened fire around 4:30 p.m. at the police station.
Police Investigate Foul Play After Body Of Baltimore Stylist Damon Jennings Found In Ditch
Jennings' clothed body was transported to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore to determine cause of death.


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We're delighted to announce that we have secured exclusive listings with the UK's number one supermarket chain for new releases; Venus & Mars, Milk Stout and My Generation Pale Ale, as well as 54° North – our first-ever lager.
54° North, a 4.5% ABV premium small batch craft lager, will be available in 6 x 330ml can format, following its launch to pub trade customers in 30L keg format last year.
It was created in 2017, our 25th anniversary year, in homage to our hometown of Masham, which sits on 54' 13' 24" N; 1' 39' 20" W longitude and latitude lines.
Venus & Mars and Milk Stout will be available in 500ml bottled format, with My Generation being scaled up to 500ml bottles for the first time.
A 4.5% ABV cross-over, pale ale, the Venus & Mars name derives from Venus, the Greek Goddess of Beauty, and Mars, the Greek God of Agriculture, we've fused First Gold, Summit and Chinook hops to provide a 'hop forward' tasting beer.
Milk Stout, a 4.4% ABV creamy stout with notes of chocolate, vanilla and coffee, has been scaled up to bottled format for the first time.
My Generation is distributed through Black Sheep and is brewed from an exciting blend of new world hops including Cascade, Galena, Magnum and Polaris. The 4.7% ABV beer was previously only available in can and 30L keg formats.
Jo Theakston, Sales and Marketing Director here at the brewery, said: "The launch of our first lager, 54° North, was a defining moment for Black Sheep and securing this exclusive partnership with Tesco is another significant moment for us.
54° North is available now and Milk Stout, My Generation and Venus & Mars will all be available from w.c. 9th April. If you see it on the shelves be sure to get in touch!


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What is a cerebrovascular accident?
By Catherine Stoddard
Published January 11, 2022 1:37PM
A cerebrovascular accident is more commonly known as a stroke and is the No. 5 cause of death in the United States, according to the American Heart Association.
America's grandma and beloved Golden Girl Betty White died on Dec. 31 of a cerebrovascular accident, more commonly known as a stroke, per her death certificate which was obtained by TMZ.
According to her death certificate, White suffered a stroke six days before her death and was just 17 days shy of celebrating her 100th birthday.
The iconic TV actress, comedian, producer and animal advocate has had one of the longest careers in television history.
She was cremated and her remains were given Friday to Glenn Kaplan, the man in charge of White's advanced health care directive.
RELATED: Betty White suffered a stroke six days before she died
Stroke is the No. 5 cause of death in the United States, killing nearly 129,000 people a year, according to the American Heart Association.
"Someone in the United States has a stroke every 40 seconds. Every four minutes, someone dies of stroke," according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Annually, more than 795,000 people in the U.S. suffer a stroke, according to the CDC. Of the 795,000, 610,000 of those patients experienced their very first stroke.
A cerebrovascular accident happens when a blood clot or a broken blood vessel stops blood flow from entering a part of the brain. according to the National Cancer Institute.
"Symptoms include dizziness, numbness, weakness on one side of the body, and problems with talking, writing, or understanding language," the health agency continued.
FILE - Saggital plane cross-section brain scan after cerebrovascular accident.
What causes cerebrovascular accidents?
Some common causes of cerebrovascular accidents, also known as strokes of CVA, are high blood pressure, older age, smoking, diabetes, high cholesterol, heart disease, and the buildup of fatty material and plaque inside the coronary arteries. CVA can also be hereditary, according to the National Cancer Institute.
Every year, about 15 million people worldwide suffer a stroke.
"Of these, five million die and another five million are left permanently disabled. Stroke is uncommon in people under 40 years; when it does occur, the main cause is high blood pressure. However, stroke also occurs in about 8% of children with sickle cell disease," according to the World Health Organization.
How to decrease chances of cerebrovascular accidents
Preventing stroke or any sort of cardiovascular disease starts with life changes, according to the CDC.
Maintaining a healthy diet, consistent exercise and a healthy weight are key to lowering the risk of a stroke.
The CDC also recommends consuming limited amounts of alcohol and absolutely no smoking.
"Men should have no more than two drinks per day, and women only one," the CDC advised.
The Associated Press and FOX LA contributed to this report.
Man attacked with hammer, shot at in Bronx attack


Senator Tom Berryhill (R-Twain Harte) and Assemblyman Frank Bigelow (R-O'Neals) honored Amanda Kirkeby and her family during today's legislative session at the California State Capitol. Amanda was recognized for her recent selection as the 2015 California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Athlete of the Year.
The Mammoth High School senior has a 4.25 GPA, is ranked second in her class academically and is a member of the school's varsity Nordic skiing, track & field and volleyball teams. Amanda has received numerous academic, athletic and extra-curricular honors and recognitions throughout her high school career. She is headed to Middlebury College (Vermont) in the fall.


Certified medication aides administer daily pharmaceutics to patients under the supervision of a registered nurse (RN). Medication aides are required to study the different classifications of drugs as well as their side effects. They also need to know the dangers of combining certain medications and what to do in case of an overdose.
Certified medication aides dispense oral, inhalation and topical medications to patients. They observe patients for drug reactions and report any problems to the nurses. Medication aides monitor the patient's vital signs, calculate medication dosages and stock the medication cart. Certified medication aides also record what medications were given for the day and the dosage in the nurse's medication administration record (MAR) chart.
Medication aide training requires enrollment in a one-year certificate program either through a community college, junior college or trade school. Some schools require that applicants possess a certified nursing assistant (CNA) license, over 1,000 hours of work experience as a nursing assistant and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) certification. Throughout their coursework, students will study such areas as human anatomy, medical terminology and basic pharmacology through classroom and laboratory instruction. Toward the end of the program, students are required to complete an externship at a local nursing home.
Once training is complete, graduates are required to obtain their medication aide certification through the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN). Graduates are required to take the certification exam within three months after training. Individuals who do not take the exam within three months or pass the exam will have to retrain. After passing the exam, medication aides are required to complete 10 continuing education units (CEU) and renew their certification every two years.
Certified medication aides may be employed in nursing homes, inpatient rehabilitation centers, adult day care centers, hospices, hospitals, schools, childcare facilities and correction facilities. Some medication aides even choose to work for a traveling nurse company in which they visit a patient's home to administer medications.
Medication aides advance their careers by going back to school to obtain a two-year associate's degree or a four-year bachelor's degree in nursing. Students study such areas as pathology, microbiology, advanced pharmacology and advanced patient care techniques. After training, graduates can sit for their RN licensure.
As of May 2010, certified medication aides, with one to four years of experience, saw a median salary range of $15,118 to $28,730 with a median hourly rate of $9.68 to $12.25.
Schwartz, Mindy. "The Job Description of a Certified Medication Aide." , https://careertrend.com/about-6528418-job-description-certified-medication-aide.html. 05 July 2017.


Want to win a free paperback copy of Yesterday's Demons? I'm giving away five copies via a Goodreads.com giveaway.
It is proving to be a more popular giveaway than I'd expected. If you already own the book, but you know someone who'd be interested in receiving a free copy, please let them know about the giveaway and ask them to enter. I can't wait to send out these free books.
The giveaway ends on February 15.
At this time last year, I posted a 2015 recap of the progress I'd made on that "become a published author" project I'd been working on. With the new year now upon us, it's a good time for me to reflect back on 2016 and see how similar Plan and Reality ended up. Here's what I had planned for 2016, followed by when I checked the item off my list… or when I didn't.
The pre-order went live on March 10, and the book was released on April 12. There's really nothing else that I can consider my professional highlight of the year. This was a dream come true. If you haven't bought it yet, check out the shopping links in the sidebar or on this page.
On April 22, newsletter subscribers were the first to learn this was now available. At this point, I exclusively read ebooks. But I learned that plenty of folks still prefer books made out of atoms instead of bits. And as my friend William Munn recently put it, he's come to see a dead tree copy of a book as a collectible. So this was also a big milestone, and a true highlight of the year. For purchasing links, again see the sidebar or this page.
After releasing Yesterday's Demons in ebook and paperback, I spent the remainder of 2016 head down writing its sequel. I had hoped to have a near-final draft of that book in the hands of my editor by the end the year, but life got in the way. I transitioned to a new day job, which was great for my mental health but bad (for a while) for my productivity. But the biggest problem I had in finishing by my self-imposed due date was that I struggled with the book for a while. I don't know if I'd call it "writer's block" so much as I'd call it "writer's doubt." For a while, I just wasn't certain I was writing something that was Not Crap.
In the end, everything came together into something I'm proud of and excited about. This is the news that newsletter subscribers got earlier this week: on December 31, I completed the first draft of The Verdant Revival, Book 2: Tomorrow's Shepherd.
This time I chose a bowl of Frosted Flakes with some fresh strawberries and blueberries and, because it was Christmas and because my wife is an amazing Italian, I garnished it with some struffoli on top.
These are the two items that were on my 2016 checklist that I did not accomplish. At some point last year, I opened my 2016 annual plan notes, found the "finish the first draft" item, and added in red ink: "This seems wildly unrealistic." Sadly that turned out to be true. But though I didn't get as far as I hoped, I ended up with a work I'm wildly enthusiastic about. I'm an artist; I'll take quality over deadlines any day.
So what's next? I'm still formulating my complete 2017 plan, but I can say my number one goal for the year is to have Tomorrow's Shepherd on sale by the end of the year. I'm going to work hard on that one, because I can't wait for you to read it.
I've mentioned that each of the three books in The Verdant Revival will feature a different main character: first Siv, then Fritz, and finally Cassie. What I haven't mentioned before is that each book also has a different theological virtue at its core. Yesterday's Demons was about love, the opposite of fear. The finale will be about faith. And Tomorrow's Shepherd is about hope. So while I wish I would have finished the book's first draft sooner, there was something special about completing it during the Christmas season — the ultimate season of hope.
On April 12 of this year, I released Yesterday's Demons, and all of you have shown me so much support by buying the ebook and the paperback and by leaving reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. Y'all have made me feel like George Bailey on Christmas Eve.
So today I have a holiday treat for you: a holiday-themed short story prequel to Yesterday's Demons. You can read "The First Lenerstelen Without You" on this site right now.
I wrote this story in December 2014. That month, my writing group's monthly prompt was "holiday story." I tossed a few ideas back and forth, but I couldn't find one I really liked. (Although I know I have a Santa Claus story in me, I just haven't come up with the idea yet.) That December, I'd been listening to a lot of Sixpence None the Richer's Christmas album, The Dawn of Grace, and I was particularly enamored by "The Last Christmas Without You." The song is a beautiful letter from a mother to her unborn child in which the mother sings to her baby about this last Christmas she is about to experience before her baby is born.
But its opening guitar riffs have a haunted quality that felt a little out of place with the joyful nature of the rest of the song — and those riffs are the ones I kept humming over and over. Those melancholy melodies and a title idea inspired by the song's title gave me the seed of a story. I realized I had a chance not just to describe a holiday on planet Verde, but to explore Siv's youth and some of the choices he made that made him into the man we meet in Yesterday's Demons.
When you become a Goodreads author, a few "Ask the Author" questions are automatically placed in your queue. Two of them are "How do you get inspired to write?" and "Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?" I think this is because people are fascinated with writers' imaginations. Everyone wants to know if that character is based on a real person, or what prompted the author to make the story take place in the 1700s, or OMG how in the world could you have let that happen to my hero?!
You can read my answers to the questions above on Goodreads.com, but I'd like to go more in-depth on this topic because I love talking about it… and because a friend and writing group colleague of mine, KM Alexander, has started #My5 — a familiar format for authors to share their inspirations.
So without further ado, here are five influences on my first novel, book 1 of The Verdant Revival, Yesterday's Demons.
Before Phantasy Star, I liked fantasy, and I liked science fiction, but there was a line between the two. To my 13 or 14-year-old self, fantasy was about swords and sorcery and medieval times, while science fiction was about laser guns and spaceships and the future.
Phantasy Star destroyed that line. It featured heroes who wielded both swords and laser guns. In it, I traveled to castles in the sky and to distant planets. Some obstacles were overcome with magic keys; others with high-powered, high-tech ice diggers.
It might not have been the first story to blend these worlds. It might not have even been the first console RPG to do it. But Phantasy Star was the first time I experienced this kind of mash-up. That innovative mix didn't just hook me from the start, it became my favorite kind of world to escape into. It is no mistake at all that Yesterday's Demons takes place in a world with a similar mix of genres.
Final Fantasy VII is rightfully remembered as the most popular RPG of the late 1990s, and I liked it a lot. It probably would have been the sixth item on this list if this were My6 instead of My5. But it wasn't my favorite RPG of that era. That honor goes to Wild Arms.
Ahh, Wild Arms… how I love thee!
In the late 1990s, my beloved Phantasy Star series had come to an apparent close and I was in search of new games to fill the void. From the first day I saw it on the Vidpro wall at Toys "R" Us, Wild Arms filled that void, built a home, and tunneled its way into a very special place in my world. It has all the heart and soul, and fantasy and science fiction, that I loved about Phantasy Star. But it also added a new element: an Old West-style world, complete with gunslingers and ten-gallon hats. I can directly attribute the Western-like setting of Yesterday's Demons to my love of Wild Arms and its planet, Filgaia.
Yeah, yeah, a fantasy novel was inspired by Tolkien — how shocking. But it's actually not what you might think. Tolkien's influence on Yesterday's Demons does come from his status as the godfather of fantasy, of course. But Yesterday's Demons was also influenced by the one-two punch of Tolkien's dislike of allegory and his Catholic worldview.
But while no one would call Frodo Baggins "the Jesus Hobbit," Frodo's role as the Ring-bearer parallels Christ's role as the sin-bearer. There are shades of Simon of Cyrene in Samwise Gamgee, especially when Samwise helps a beaten and exhausted Frodo bear his burden for a short time. And the OneRing was destroyed, and evil thoroughly conquered in Middle-Earth, on March 25, the day on which Christians celebrate the Annunciation of the angel Gabriel to Mary — the day on which Christ was conceived in His mother's womb.
Tolkien's Catholic faith was deeply important to him, and it was impossible for him to separate it from his work. He didn't use allegory, yet his stories were inevitably and undeniably infused with Catholic morals and a Catholic worldview. And that's pretty much exactly what I hope people will say about my own work.
How in the world do old "true crime" TV shows from the 1980s like Unsolved Mysteries and Rescue 911 influence a fantasy, SF, Western novel?
Some of my grandmother's favorite shows were what we'd now call "true crime TV." I watched many of them with her, even though they often scared the pants off of me. I was afraid to visit the restroom during an Unsolved Mysteries commercial break for fear that a criminal or alien would be standing at the window watching me. Rescue 911 gave me recurring nightmares that someone had broken into my garage. And when the annual Unsolved Mysteries Halloween episode aired featuring ghost stories? Whoa no! I didn't sleep for days.
Fast forward to my earliest thoughts about the story that would become Yesterday's Demons. I knew I wanted to write a fantasy, SF, Western novel. But I also knew I wanted it to be about fear — how fear controls us in ways both good and bad, how it can be both healthy and maddening. And you know what they say: write what you know! Thanks to all those paranoid fears and nightmares brought on by my grandmother's true crime TV shows, I knew old friend fear far too well.
I moved to Texas in 2007 and I've never looked back and I never will. I love it in God's country. Since Yesterday's Demons was published, friends have told me they saw some of our mutual friends in the book's protagonist, Siv McCaig. And they're right… all of them, no matter which mutual friend they mentioned by name. In many ways, Siv is an amalgamation of every Texan I've met since living in the Lone Star State.
I have a good friend who laughs the loudest at his own jokes. I have a pair of mentors who are brothers who always refer to their father as "our father"… except when they're talking to each other, in which case he's always "Daddy" — and these are big, tough, barbecuing Texans. Siv wears boots and jeans and when he's planning to do something, he says he's "fixing" to do it… just like every native Texan I know.
So that's it… or rather, that's the big five that came to mind the fastest. If you like any of the items listed above and you haven't yet given Yesterday's Demons a try, I think you're missing out.
Yesterday's Demons is on sale now!
Today's the day! Yesterday's Demons is available for immediate download from your favorite ebook retailer. If print books are your thing, bear with me a little longer. The print edition will be here I hope (crosses fingers) by the end of the month. And my fingers were crossed in a good luck way, not in an "I'm lying but it's OK because I crossed my fingers" way.
What is Yesterday's Demons all about?
Meet the book's main characters: Siv, Cassie, and Fritz.
After you read it, please write an honest review of it on your preferred platform. Amazon and Goodreads are great places for that. If you didn't like it, tell me why. If you did like it, well I know for a fact the Internet needs that information.
But don't worry, you're going to love it.


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New York : Hyperion Books for Children, an imprint of Disney Book Group, 2014.
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