Will iconic images recorded in the grooves of an ancient vase unite the Holy Land or rip it further apart?

THE VASE

A novel by Mark M. DeRobertis

Muhsin Muhabi is a Palestinian potter, descended from a long line of potters. His business is run from the same shop owned by his ancestors since the day his forebears moved to Nazareth. The region's conflict saw the death of his oldest son, and rogue terrorists are in the process of recruiting his youngest in their plot to assassinate the Pope and Israeli prime minister.

Professor Hiram Weiss is an art historian at Nazareth’s Bethel University. He is also a Shin Bet operative on special assignment. With the help of fellow agent, Captain Benny Mathias, he plans to destroy the gang responsible for the death of his wife and only child. He puts a bomb in the ancient vase he takes on loan from Muhsin’s Pottery Shop.

Mary Levin, the charming assistant to the director of Shin Bet, has lost a husband and most of her extended family to recurring wars and never-ending terrorism. She dedicates her life to the preservation of Israel, but to whom will she dedicate her heart? The brilliant professor from Bethel University? Or the gallant captain who now leads Kidon?

Harvey Holmes, the Sherlock of Haunted Houses, is a Hollywood TV host whose reality show just flopped. When a Lebanese restaurant owner requests his ghost-hunting services, he believes the opportunity will resurrect his career. All he has to do is exorcise the ghosts that are haunting the restaurant. It happens to be located right across the street from Muhsin’s Pottery Shop.




Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Guns - Bad News

Guns are bad news. I don't say this because of the recent horror in Las Vegas. Or the other horrors that have occurred in so many other places in so many other instances. I say this because guns exist for only one reason. To kill. Whether it's people or animals, the reason is the same. Kill.

Hunters use guns to kill deer, ducks wild boars, or whatever else they're hunting. Soldiers use guns to kill enemy soldiers. Murderers use guns to kill innocent people. Whatever the target, the result is the same. Killing. With guns.

I am not a hunter. And I am not a soldier. I know police have guns. I will defend a policeman's right to have a gun for self-defense. Because criminals will use guns against policemen. It's a necessary evil. Necessary because evil exists. And policemen are in the front lines fighting that evil.

But during these modern times, does hunting really need to exist? I don't have the right to say it doesn't. I don't have the right to say people should not be hunters. But I do have the right to have an opinion. My opinion is that hunting is an obsolete sport. Killing a deer, or a duck, or a wild boar, or whatever... I don't see the sport in that. So I don't think hunting is a very cool sport. That's my opinion. Hunting...killing...guns...I wish those things would go away.

Of course the next argument is self-defense, like I was using for the police. There is evil out there. Thus we have police. And they have guns. Which I just admitted they need. So why don't everyday citizens also need guns for their protection? That's where I'm going with this post. Those citizens would not need guns if criminals did not have guns to use against them.

But how can that be? Criminals always have a way to get guns. Well, if Martin Luther King could have a dream, why can't I? My dream is this: What if all guns could go away? All guns except those in the military and law enforcement. No guns anywhere else. Wouldn't that be nice? Then the nuts like in Las Vegas and Sandy Hook, and Columbine, and San Bernardino, and everywhere else would not have had the ability to do what they did.

Sure, they might still have driven cars or trucks into crowds of people. Or concocted some kind of pressure cooker bombs, like the Boston Bombers did. Or figured out some other means of mass murder. But with no guns the other types of killing wouldn't happen. Impulsive killing. And killings of passion. Like when someone loses it, and then there's a gun and he or she  uses it, like that guy who went into that beauty parlor in LA and shot eight people because he was mad at his wife. If that gun wasn't at his disposal, I'm betting at least seven of those people would still be alive today. Maybe I'd lose that bet, but I'd still make that bet.

I have a dream that there is a way to get rid of every gun from every house in every city and town in every state in the entire country. That's my dream. I know at least half of the people in this country don't share that dream. Maybe half of the people reading this are vehemently disagreeing with me right now. And if they are, they need not worry. Unlike Martin Luther King's dream, it's a dream that will never come true. And the killings and murders and mass killings and mass murders will continue. Year in. And year out.

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