IMHO - a rare rant

An opinion…

I tend not to use cyberspace as a soap box for spouting my opinions mainly because I don’t find other people’s opinions all that interesting and thus, believe others are not interested in mine.  In fact, that’s why I didn’t renew my subscription to Maclean’s (Canada’s news magazine).  I found it contained altogether too many editorials and opinion pieces.  

I want the news media to just give me facts.  Then, I want to form my own opinions.  However, earlier this week on facebook, I shared this article Woman who would have ruled the blogsphere.  My daughter had forwarded me the link.  It’s about ten historic woman who wrote letters, diaries, books, memoires, essays (before the Social Networking age ) to make tremendous changes to their world.  

I figured that perhaps, I too, with my raging opinions, could make a difference. We're gonna give it a try right here.

I want to opine about Alberta’s recently enacted Distracted Driving Law.  I want to question why the heck we need such a law.  Citizens complain about there being too many laws, about too much government interference, about the cost of law-enforcement, etc., etc. yet these same citizens behave in such a manner as to require a law like this?

Laws against murder, theft, fraud, illicit drug use, etc. are more or less there so we know how to deal with people who do such things.  I mean, everyone knows it’s wrong to murder, law or not, and the vast majority of us don’t murder.

However this law, this Distracted Driving legislation is for the majority of us—to let us know we ought not to text while driving, that it’s dangerous and illegal.  ?????? 

I’m serious.  A few years ago, before the law came into being, I listened to a police officer incredulously relate how people would admit to such distracted behavior—as if it were a valid excuse, not realizing they were incriminating themselves.  “Sorry, sir.  I  didn't mean to kill anyone. I was on the phone with my wife and didn’t see the kids playing street hockey…”

Like someone telling the investigator, “Sorry, Sir, but I really needed the life-insurance policy to pay off my drug debts so I murdered him.”  (You'll forgive me, right?)

Negligent driving, driving without due care and attention, has always been illegal.  That we have to be specifically told that this includes texting, phoning, programming GPS’s, surfing the net, reading, applying mascara….

How intelligent are we as a race?  

I suggest we smarten up and, while we're at it,  teach our kids some commonsense.  If not, the government may soon feel compelled to enact laws forbidding us from wearing black at night when walking on dark streets, from over-eating, from smoking, from drinking while pregnant, from falling asleep in the sun when it's +30C…from jumping off tall buildings…

There.  That’s my rant.  I don’t know about you, but I feel better.

 Eileen Schuh Author of THE TRAZ, Schrödinger's Cat
Sample/purchase THE TRAZ: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/60190 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005199RFE
Web site: http://www.eileenschuh.com
Blog: http://eileenschuh.blogspot.com

Come join me on the brand new Famous FivePlus website (I'm one of the original Famous Five).  This band of international indie authors of all genres has attitude and ideas.  We intend to take the entire world by storm.

Medical Examiners

This past week I spent time with a group called Citizens Against Homicide. They help the families of homicide victims with many different issues. Coping with the police investigations, when there's an arrest educating the families on the whole court procedure and all the delays, working with families trying to keep the guilty person from getting out on parole, and much, much more.

They also talked about medical examiners how have no idea what they are doing. One of the biggest problems is calling a death either natural causes when it's a homicide, or calling a homicide a suicide. Here are two glaring examples:

One person who supposedly died of natural causes as determined by the medical examiner was sent to the mortuary. There the mortician discovered two bullet holes in the skull. Guess what? The crime scene was contaminated and so was the body. The person who probably committed the murder told the medical examiner that the person had a heart condition and had a heart attack. The medical examiner put that down as cause of death!

A victim with 24 stab wounds including some in his back and his buttocks was declared a suicide. No note, not nothing. How could something like this happen?

Obviously there are some incompetent medical examiners out there. It isn't like we see in the movies and on TV.

What I learned from the members of Citizens Against Homicide is that there is much, much more that goes on even after the murdered is caught and convicted.

Marilyn

The Lost Women of Lost Lake, Review By Carl Brookins

The Lost Women of Lost Lake


by Ellen Hart

ISBN: 978-0-312-61477-5

2011 hardcover release from

Minotaur Books, 320 pgs.



It is interesting how these things come in multiples. Libby Hellmann recently released a novel with its genesis in the riotous summer and fall of 1968. The Minnesota History Center has just opened an elaborate exhibit focused on 1968, and the History Theater in Saint Paul has mounted an original play, “1968, The year That Rocked The World.” And now here we have a powerful, emotionally intense novel by that excellent Minneapolis writer, Ellen Hart. It is a story of two women who are unable to divorce themselves from that same year, 1968 and the decisions and actions they took then.



The story is another event in the evolving saga of Minneapolis restaurateur, Jane Lawless. This time she and bosom chum Cordelia take what they intend to be a short vacation trip into Minnesota’s benign northern wilderness to the Lawless family lodge on a lake north of the Twin Cities. It’s a common enough activity, and bucolic time on placid water amid peaceful forests is expected to provide calm and rejuvenation. Jane is trying to decide whether she can commit to working with a close friend toward becoming a professional private investigator.



The peaceful appearing forest, like so many lives, conceals dark doings and Jane is drawn into a maelstrom of murder, revenge, drugs and double dealing. The multiple threads of this complex story intersect, divide, and then reweave. At times the action is high with tension, the pace frantic. At other times, the story becomes thoughtful, calm, like the smooth waters of the lake itself, allowing readers moments to reflect, perhaps, on their own lives and paths not taken. The women of lost lake, must, in the end, decide for themselves, and take for themselves the heart-rending consequences of their lives.

--
Carl Brookins www.carlbrookins.com http://agora2.blogspot.com, Case of the Great Train Robbery, Reunion, Red Sky

Alan Pinkerton - Again

I just love vintage illustrations. Here's another one from an old volume by Alan Pinkerton himself, founder of the famous Pinkerton's Detective Agency.

Not only is the woodcut of the finest quality but the picture itself is a wonderful archive of past times. I love the man's reflection looking out of the mirror.

Writers: Enter the Scribes Digest 'Best Pitch Contest' this November

If you're a writer, here's a great way to pitch one of your finished works...

Hello writers of all genres! The November Scribes Digest contest is FREE to enter and will give you a chance to publish your entry in our December issued EZINE!

In order to enter, you must have a completed work in any of these genres: feature film, short film, short story or novel.

We are looking for the TOP 3 best elevator pitches! An elevator pitch (or elevator speech or statement) is a short summary used to quickly and simply define your script, short story or novel. It should take no more than 5 lines to give your pitch and the writers with the best 3 pitches will have excerpts from their completed script, story or novel published in our December EZINE.

Our team of editors will be joined by two fantastic industry judges to choose the winners: Michael Baker, Producer and Founder of Bunk 11 Pictures Inc. and Cheryl Tardif, Publisher & Acquisitions Editor of Imajin Books.

Read more.