PENTAGON - the enemy of the People

These generals, their think tanks and military planners have looked at the changing political situation, new developments in technology and where the new centers of super-profit would be. [...]

U.S./NATO bases have been established in every country of Eastern Europe and a growing number of former Soviet republics. Each country that joins NATO is forced to further indenture itself to equip its military with U.S. weapons and to send its troops as “volunteers” to fight U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. NATO bases now surround and encircle Russia. SOURCE

Lucy Maud Montgomery - house in Norval

Lucy Maud Montgomery, the author of Anne of Green Gables, spent a part of her life in the small village of Norval. Her husband, Ewan, was a minister there (he married E's great-grand parents in PEI some years before moving to Norval). Norval is prettily situated on the river, not far from the popular hiking trails of Terra Cotta (which is how we found it, quite by accident).

Lucy Maud wrote 5 novels in Norval. In her diaries she talked about the pond across the river(now a marsh, visible from the windows), and the Russell pines which you can still see from her tiny study and the bedroom windows.

The house is still used by ministers, and nothing of Lucy Maud's can be found inside apart from the fireplace and a single ceiling light fixture.  More

Photo 1 - House and the church:

Photo 2 - House, southern exposure:

Photo 3 - E and the Lucy Maud's house:

Photo 4 - E in Lucy Maud's bedroom:

Justification for Civil Disobedience

Times are ripe to think about it:

In a democratic society each man must act as he thinks the principles of political right require him to. We are to follow our understanding of the principles, and we cannot do otherwise. There can be no morally binding legal interpretation of these principles, not even by supreme court or legislature. [...] Although the Court has the final say in settling any particular case, it is not immune from powerful political influences that may change its reading of the law. [...] The final court of appeal is not the Court, or Congress, or the President, but the electorate as a whole.
John Rawls (professor of philosophy at Harvard University) in: The Justification of Civil Disobedience

Novel inspiration

This weekend marked the 18th anniversary of the event that inspired my latest novel: the assassination of the Jesuit scholars in El Salvador.

The murderers were graduates of the American School of Assassins at Fort Benning, and recipients of military aid aimed at terrorizing the civilian population.

Martyred Jesuits were the faculty of the Universidad Centroamericana in San Salvador. Their deaths brought to the world's attention the criminal activities of the US government: training of assassins and torturers that terrorize Latin America: from murdering, torturing, raping, and "disappearing" to staging coups - such as the overthrowing of Salvador Allende in Chile.

Lat weekend, over 11,000 protesters gathered outside of the Fort Benning were murderers are trained courtesy of US taxpayer. Among the protesters was Dennis Kucinich, Jesuits, students, families of the murdered and disappeared, and scores of people of conscience. Vigils in support of the protest were staged across America.

Jesuits murdered 18 years ago:

Fr Ignacio Ellacuría Beascoechea (1930-1989)

Fr Amando López Quintana (1936-1989)

Fr Joaquín López y López (1918-1989)

Fr Ignacio Martín Baró (1942-1989)

Fr Segundo Montes Mozo (1933-1989)

Fr Juan Ramón Moreno Pardo (1933-1989)

British double-agent honored in Moscow

Yesterday, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, SVR, honored one of Moscow's most important Soviet-era spies. The former British spy George Blake, who was recruited by the KGB in the 1950s, and went on to play a key role in Soviet intelligence gathering during the Cold War, is celebrating his 85th birthday. Blake revealed the names of more than 400 Western agents to his Soviet handlers, at least forty were captured as a result many were executed, according to Russia Today TV channel.
"The information provided by Blake was always acute, precise and extremely important," Sergei Ivanov, the Foreign Intelligence Service spokesman, told The Associated Press. He refused to say how many Western spies Blake exposed. READ MORE from SOURCE

The BIG sham

Former Boston University professor and political activist Howard Zinn last night said Americans need to “withdraw our obedience from our government” in response to what he called government deception surrounding modern wars.

“The war on terrorism is a sham,” Zinn said at Morse Auditorium. “Terrorism is an idea that exists all over. You can’t make war on it. If terrorism is the killing of innocent people for some presumed important purpose, then making a war on people is terrorism. War is terrorism. The terrorism of our war in Iraq has killed far, far more people than were killed in the twin towers.”

Zinn said a revolution is the only option Americans have to bring about change and charged his audience of more than 200 to form a “people’s” movement toward a “different world.”

SOURCE

Literary agent for espionage and commercial fiction

Deborah Grosvenor is now director at Kneerim & Williams at Fish & Richardson, Washington office.

See my list of literary agents and agencies that handle commercial fiction such as: espionage, suspense, thrillers, mystery and more.

Literary agency for commercial fiction

New literary agency handling commercial fiction:

The Steinberg Agency, formed by Peter Steinberg, formerly of Regal (Steinberg worked with Mario Puzo).

See listing of agencies dealing with commercial fiction, such as mystery, thrillers, suspense and so on.

Intelligence bloopers explained

Well, at last we have an "explanation" for all those intelligence bloopers of the last 7 years:

In his first public speech since taking over as Director-General of The Security Service (better known as MI5 and tasked with internal security) in April, Jonathan Evans, 49, expressed his disappointment about Russian, Chinese and others spying that distracts British intelligence from accute terrorism threat. Source

Does it also explain fabrication of intelligence about the so called terrorism?

Spy made a national hero

The only Soviet spy who managed to infiltrate secret US nuclear facilities has been honoured posthumously with Russia's highest honorary title by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russia Today TV channel reports. It says the 'Hero of Russia' medal was donated to Moscow's Military Intelligence Museum.

Speaking at the award ceremony, Vladimir Putin stressed this man's work strengthened Russia's defence capabilities considerably. During World War II, George Koval, also known as 'Delmar', collected secret information about the production of the first US atomic bomb and sent it to Moscow. Koval's work drastically reduced the amount of time it took for Russia to develop its nuclear weapons, Russia Today marks.

Source

Original novel vs translation

As I feared earlier - translation of my own novel is resulting in a book that differs from the original. So far, and I'm talking here about a perspective taken from the first few chapters - I see a plot that begs to go in a different direction and my main character as developing into a whole different person.

I thought that translating will be more or less word for word, with some creative transitions, but it wasn't working out that way. The only way I could do it was to read the original chapter, and rather than translate sentence after sentence - I'd do the whole thing without following the original text. I found that the result was much smoother and creative. Perhaps too creative... giving the new text a life of its own. Where does translation end and when does original work begin? How far can I go on, before I can call this translation an original? And, can I?

One other thing the translation of my own novel teaches me is the appreciation of there being different languages. I hope that humanity will never come to embrace a single language (unless we figure out how to combine many into one, but even then I would have my reservations: what about the different cultural experiences) as it will lead to a world much less colorful. Describing the same thought in a different language seems to give it a whole different life, life that is richer and more creative.