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.




Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Homeland Peaks, then Flops

I watched through season five of Homeland, and as good as it already was, it was only getting better and better. By the time Season five ended, I really thought it was better than ever. Then came Season Six. Just like Blacklist, it flopped. I've watched the first two episodes, now, of Season Six of Homeland, and....BORING! BORING! BORING!

Sheesh, what a let down. I had been raving about Homeland ever since I first started watching it. And I was all set to continue raving about it after the last episode of Season Five. But now.... YUCK!

First, the star and heroine of the show, Carrie, is no longer working for (or with) the CIA. It's been an on again off again thing the last few seasons, which was frustrating, but they made it work. But now, not only is she not working for or with the CIA, she's working against them. And the show has actually made the CIA and the FBI the bad guys. And to me, that's a load of crap.

Why? Because that's NOT what I bargained for when I signed up to watch this series. But wait. It gets worse. Yeah, you guessed it. The MUSLIMS are the good guys. Or let's put it this way. They are the aggrieved party now. They're the victims.

Look, I know full well there are good Muslims. They are human beings like any other group of people. Good, bad, wonderful, horrible, and everything in between. Like any other people. I've known quite a few myself. But the premise of the show was fighting the radical ones. The ones who are the TERRORISTS. It's no secret that there are radical Muslim terrorists who kill and brag about how they want to kill Americans, and Jews, too, and anyone else for that matter who doesn't subscribe to their version of Islam. Even other Muslims!

And through Season Five, those were the bad guys. And by the way, kudos to  Homeland for including in their story-lines, not only the radical bad ones, but the good ones as well. There was a doctor who saved Quinn, for instance. A good man. A good Muslim man. I had no problem with that. But now to turn everything around? For what? For (god forbid,) political  correctness? Just like I said with Blacklist and Taken, when they did that, it's BULLSHIT. Why can't we do away with this political correctness crap? It ruins everything, and we didn't need it.

Why? Because Homeland had already established that there certainly are good Muslims out there. Good ones who help America fight the bad ones. Remember Fara? She was a Muslim woman who was also a CIA agent fighting the bad Muslims. Until one of those bad Muslims murdered her. Which I was saddened to see. I really liked Fara. She was one of my favorite characters. Yeah, a Muslim woman was one of my favorite characters. But in Season Six they've made the Muslims the victims and made the CIA and FBI the bad guys! I don't buy it.

Can it get worse? Yes. Another of my favorite characters was Peter Quinn. A total bad ass, who was a great fighter, and a great killer of bad guys. And that doesn't just include Muslim bad guys. One of my favorite scenes was when he had sneaked into the CIA director's personal residence, and warned him that if anything happened to a particular someone, the director would find him in his residence again. Because he "kills bad guys!" You see, Quinn was supposed to kill that particular someone until he realized that that particular someone WASN'T a bad guy.

Of course I loved that scene and that line. It was almost a scene straight from my own book, Killer of Killers and Killer Eyes. Trent Smith could had said the same thing word for word.

But now, in Season Six, Quinn is reduced to a brain damaged, handicapped, drug addict. And it is very annoying to see him in the scenes they have written for him now. It's more than annoying, actually. They've reduced Quinn from a terrific character who was very close to stealing the show from Carrie, to an uninteresting sideshow. It makes me want to stop watching the show.

So, like I said. I'm only two episodes into Season Six. And there's a Season Seven as well. So will I make it that far? At this rate, I'm not sure I'll finish Season Six. They better fix Quinn. And fast. Or I'm done. And they better stop trying so hard to convince me that Muslims can be good guys. Because I already knew that. They had already established that. All they're doing to the show now is turning it into bullshit. And that's a shame. It was so good.

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