It has come to my attention that somehow there are people who think that here, in the U.S., there is a literal "button" which can be pushed to instantly launch a nuke and start a nuclear war.

Launching nukes is an actual process that involves a series of actions and a few other people besides a president.

Click here to check out the Wikipedia entry on the process. The link labeled "nuclear football" is also rich with information.

The dual nature of the word "sanction" drives me up the wall. I avoid using it, and when I do use it I do so exclusively in its original, positive context. There are plenty of words to use in place of "sanction" in a negative context.

"The verb form has traditionally related to the positive meaning, not the negative one. Thomas Jefferson wrote in his autobiography of preserving 'the very words of the established law, wherever their meaning had been sanctioned by judicial decisions.'"

Click here for a short article from the Wall Street Journal on the word and its usage over time.

"Impeachment" is a word that is frequently misunderstood. Here's a brief definition from Wikipedia:

"Impeachment in the United States is an enumerated power of the legislature that allows formal charges to be brought against a civil officer of government for crimes alleged to have been committed. Most impeachments have concerned alleged crimes committed while in office, though there have been a few cases in which Congress has impeached and convicted officials partly for prior crimes.The actual trial on such charges, and subsequent removal of an official upon conviction, is separate from the act of impeachment itself."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_in_the_United_States

If you haven't yet seen the October 2016 issue of the free monthly online literary magazine Synchronized Chaos, click here to check it out! It's full of poetry and other written work from a great selection of authors.

Also, I wrote the editorial this time around which was a lot of fun to do.

Enjoy!

A short and important demonstration in reading comprehension, starring Pumpkin Pie Spice

Sometimes when you leave a word out of a sentence, the sentence can still mean the same thing. But often, ignoring a word can change the meaning of what is being said and cause misunderstanding.

"Pumpkin pie" and "pumpkin pie spice" are two different things. One is a pie made from a squash, and the other is a familiar spice mixture of cinnamon, allspice and cloves that you put into the pie to give it its distinctive spiced flavor.

Which one does the label of your specialty food or drink say on it? If it includes the word "spice" or "spiced", do not expect it to have pumpkin in it, or to taste like pumpkin. It very well may taste of pumpkin if the chefs in the test kitchen for the product were feeling generous, but it's a very slim chance.

Ordinarily, it's just going to taste like spice.

Book Review: "STRAY SON" by Richard Slota

Book:Stray Son
Author: Richard Slota
Release date: September 27, 2016
Genre: Speculative Fiction, Family Saga
Publisher: Rainbowdash Publishers LLC
Available Formats: Kindle Ebook (273 pages)

I'd like to start off with a content warning: childhood sexual abuse and its associated mental trauma is at the core of this novel.

Richard Slota's Stray Son is a tale of incest and familial betrayal. It is an exploration of how unresolved issues can inform one's life and family relationships, and of the way the past has of refusing to let go until all of its unseemly contents are dragged into the sunlight to be dealt with.

In the year 2000, Patrick Jaworsky is a post-middle-aged, remarried Vietnam vet eking out a living by schlepping corpses for a funeral home. He's only marginally happy in his life, but he is comforted somewhat by his wife Lynn, his daughter Helen, and his adopted son Mike. Patrick is seeing a therapist to learn how to handle the incest his mother inflicted upon when he was a child; his coming to terms with that abuse is at the crux of this story.

Though the subject matter is quite serious and ventures into territory that makes the novel unsuitable for younger audiences, I found it to be a thrilling, enjoyable read. It veers from being a typical "mommy issues" tale in that Patrick's compulsion to deal with the damage done to him is initiated by the arrival of a shade bearing his father's youth--and that this spectre is no figment of the protagonist's guilt-ridden imagination but an actual time traveler from an earlier period in history.

On an otherwise unremarkable day Patrick Jaworsky begins to be followed by this young version of his father; the young man is somehow a ghost from the past even though the elderly version of the Sr. Jaworsky still lives. Thus begins a deeply intriguing tale featuring time travel, misplaced affection, dread, and finally, redemption.

I love that not only can his family see and interact with the "ghost" (though others often can't), Patrick also doesn't try very hard to hide the situation from them to begin with. Too many novels have the main character keeping strange happenings a secret for no good reason--something which I find baffling and irritating as a reader.

Make no mistake, this is no science fiction or fantasy novel. The method of time travel is neither displayed in any technical way nor really explained; regardless, I found the incidents where time is transversed to be believable. There were also a couple of odd occurrences which will leave the reader guessing about whether they were real or simply products of Patrick's tortured psyche. I usually like things a little more cut-and-dried than that, but in this case the elements integrated well with the story line and so were, in their own ways, appropriate.  One such thing is the appearance of 1940's starlet Rita Hayworth. Galvanized by her close relationship to the Sr. Jaworsky, she makes a few appearances as a sort of mentor to Patrick and his father. Her presence adds an extra layer of mystery to this already slightly surreal tale.

Strangely, the Sr. Jaworsky in his younger guise was the character I ended up feeling the most affection for. Not that Patrick himself was in any way unlikable, but his father appealed to me in that he was a person of strong ethical character who was nobly struggling against all predictions to keep his dignity alive. As we know from Patrick's flashbacks of childhood, the guy was a right prick while raising his son, but when the father was a young bachelor--and before the destroying influence of Patrick's mother--the man was good-hearted and reliable (if a bit gruff). It is this version of him we are treated to in Stray Son.

A thing I found refreshing about Stray Son is that aside from the scenes recounting the actual acts of abuse, the author doesn't implement cut-away shots to avoid fully depicting the disturbing nature of some of the most frightening scenes. Slota trusts the reader to be able to handle this raw tableau of a family embroiled in moral and psychic disarray, and I'm impressed whenever I find a book where that sort of consideration for the fortitude of the audience has been made by the author.

Richard Slota's Stray Son is available at Amazon.com

And check out an interview with Richard Slota on Authors Interviews here.

This review also appears on Goodreads.com and The Dog-Eared Dragon Facebook Page.

Book Review: "ONE GROOVY SUMMER: A SUMMER ADVENTURE FROM 1968" a novel by Rocky Gregory

Genre: Memoir-style Fiction
Released: 04/24/2014
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
Available Formats: Paperback, Kindle eBook

I've always harbored a deep sort of love for the freewheeling counterculture of the 1960s. Over the years, this affection has manifested as a festering nostalgia for a time which I was born far too late to participate in. Because of that it's little surprise that a book like this easily grabbed me by the ears, refusing to let go until the final page.

In this semi-autobiographical novel, author Rocky Gregory introduces us to Wilbur "Will" Hinklemeyer, a young man who has just spent his final years as a minor enrolled in a military school for juvenile delinquents. With his newly granted freedom, but with the threat of a Vietnam draft haunting him, Will is looking to score some big fun, enlisting his best friend Skip for a bombastic summer spree.

Their adventurous trip across the country culminates with endless partying in a sexual smorgasbord, a good time exemplifying one of the most carefree subcultures in American history.

In an unusual turn for books set in the Flower Children era, there was hardly any drug use--in fact, I can't immediately remember any at all--only plenty of alcohol. It was an interesting change to see the perspective of someone who was involved with the hippie movement but who was less extreme than many--on the fringes of the fringe, as it were.

The scenic descriptions were broad and well-mastered, steeping the tale in an atmosphere both magical and ephemeral, satisfying my wistful longing for the 60's zeitgeist in a very pleasing way. This novel was an enjoyable peek into a teenage mind during the mid-20th century, and will be enjoyed by young adults and mature readers alike.

ONE GROOVY SUMMER: A SUMMER ADVENTURE FROM 1968 is available at Barnes and Noble.com, Abebooks.com, and Amazon.com.

~Assena V


A version of this review previously appeared on the Dog-Eared Dragon Facebook Page, Goodreads.com, and Barnes and Noble.com on March 31, 2016.