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.




Thursday, December 3, 2020

Blacklist Bottoms Out

 











Blacklist has been so bad the last two or three seasons, it's a wonder I watch it anymore. But I am, and it hasn't gotten any better. In fact, it has bottomed out. I mean it can't get any worse! Season eight is now underway, or maybe it's the conclusion of season seven? Whatever they were, whether they were season seven's conclusion or season eight's beginning, those two episodes were gawd awful.

So, we found out last season that Red is not the former lover of Lizzy's mother and had promised he would watch over her as if she were his real daughter. That was a flimsy way of explaining why he had shown the kind of affection and dedication to Lizzy as a real father would. And even though he has continued to show the affection and dedication of a real father to Lizzy for all seven seasons before this up to and including saving her life countless times, we have to watch this crap.

What crap? The kind of crap from Lizzy, I mean. Her entire role has bordered on boredom to stupidity to plain and simple crap.  Maybe it's not Megan Boone's fault. She has to play the role written for her, right? I mean, she doesn't have the kind of pull that a James Spader will have. Meaning, if he doesn't like what he's reading in a script, he can make it better. And if that's true, what the hell is he waiting for with the kind of crap we are seeing from Lizzy?

Is Spader content with shining, all the while allowing Boone to crap? Sheesh, is she nothing more than a foil to him? Does he believe that the worse she looks the better he'll look? Well, if he does, he's right and it's working. 

So, now, once again, for the umpteenth time, at the end of the last episode, (as in Season 8, episode 2) we have to watch Lizzy proclaiming how she's going to bring Red down, make him pay, utterly destroy him, and yadda, yadda, yadda. How many times has she made that declaration? I've lost count. Just like I've lost count how many times Red has saved her life!

And the combination of those two things truly makes this show suck. AND SUCK BIG TIME. I might use stronger language here, but I'm a teacher and I have to be careful what words I use. But this show sucks so bad that I wish I could use stronger language.

It's like the writers of this show had no idea that this show would last this long, and they don't know what to do with it. They probably had a good idea how the story would go for the first two or three seasons. But after that, it's like these writers are wingin' it. It truly looks like they are just trying to come up with something to last another season.

It reminds me of that other disaster of a show called LOST. They had something going for a bit, but then it was like they had no clue what to do with the story line after the first three seasons. They just winged it from there, and it had probably the worst series ending in the history of TV.

This is where Blacklist is going. For me, the ONLY thing that can save this show is if it is finally proven that Red really is Lizzy's biological father. How that can happen after he's already said he isn't her father, I don't care. Because if he isn't, then nothing about his show makes any sense at all. Because no one like a Red Reddington, or anyone I know even in the real world, would put up with a ridiculous character like Lizzy unless she really was his daughter. His real daughter. So let's see if that happens. Then and only then might I say, "Well, okay."

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