Welcome to my site

What can I say? I'm so pleased that you've come here. I've spent 5 years blogging, more than that building websites and have been writing "professionally" since 2003. I'm here to help writers with their writing, encourage people through this life, and point them to Jesus. That's the most important thing. So stay tuned. Check this site regularly as "some of the features" may change. I'll need help from time to time, because I'm not perfect. If you're perfect, please go to another site. I'm pretty sure you won't fit in here.

Unbalanced Scales

I'm sure everyone in the U.S. already knows that we are in danger. The problem is that so much of the rhetoric and the old rules are just antagonizing things.

For instance, only weeks ago all the media could do was talk about going over a fiscal cliff. Now, however, that cliff seems to have disappeared and they are talking about spending ceilings. I don't know about you, but this tells me that the people in Washington (D.C) don't know what they're talking about.

Then comes the IRS looming on the horizon. It's hard enough to get around with their hands in our pockets year round, but they expect an extra-special bonus via our Income Tax. We've been gritting our teeth and baring this for years, but now it's becoming harder and harder to find the forms to fill out, even if you can understand them, so you can send them in and pay that tax. I'm of the inclination that if they want my money they should come and fill out all the forms and make it easy. I'm not one of these people who expect freebies. It's just that the founding fathers didn't get paid, and if they did it was by their district, and probably in feed or livestock. I say we go back to that. You want to get out of our $15 trillion debt, then stop paying the people who aren't listening to us when we say, "No taxes."

I know, that's idealistic, but this country was built on ideals, and hard work made it work. That is until the government decided to pay for those who didn't want to work. Take a good idea and present it to Congress or the Senate and the first thing they do is appoint a special task force to investigate the problem. Oh, and all those tax problems we face, they do not face. How'd that happen. Whatever happened to "We the People..?"

Friday, July 16, 2010

Predator, by Terri Blackstock

The final of the 3 books by Terri Blackstock I've chosen to review is Predator. This is both a timely and informative work of suspense on a different level. This was truly and up all night suspense.

The story begins before we open to the first page. We are attending the funeral services of Emily Carmichael, dead at 14, and view the story through the eyes of her sister, Krista. How was a Christian, good girl dead at the tender age of 14? Krista traces some things out and finds that her activities on GrapeVyne, an online social network, provided her attacker with all the information he needed to find Emily when she was most vulnerable. Krista, feeling she has failed at protecting her sister, sets out on a crusade to protect others from online predators. Her first stop is GrapeVyne, and its creator Ryan Adkins. Her explosive confrontation with him masks her own feelings of devastation. Meanwhile her father keeps sinking deeper and deeper in depression. This God-appointed meeter between Krista and Ryan, coupled with the continued actions of the predator and the depths of depression we find the father in make for some dynamics that is, well, artful, while at the same time impressing on us the importance of knowing what we are doing when we are online.

I'm not going to go into the story too much, because it is so well crafted I don't want to ruin it for you. I will say this, after reading this I was so moved that I began talking to friends and family members about their online activities. I've caught myself starting to say something in a "comment" which would have been plastered all over my "friends" sites (much like the "Thought Bubbles" mentioned in Predator). It is so easy to let something slip. It's so easy to tell people that you are going to a certain store or event at that moment, and through a series of other slips a predator can find out what your real name is, where you live (even sometimes the actual street address), know your current age, gender, interests, when you are alone, when you feel vulnerable, when you feel safe, who you trust and who you would be wary of. Taking all of this information predators go after their prey. The most common predator is the sexual predator. Girls, you post photos of yourself that show locations as well as, in many cases, too much skin. You tease, imply, flirt. And all the while a sexual predator is taking all of this down. Too many people find themselves victims of sexual predators and others simply because they supplied them all the information. I can't impress on you strong enough how Predator, by Terri Blackstock has restructured the way I view things online. Read it and let it change the way you do things and look at things. It's not enough to trust in the Lord. Sometimes God asks that you use the common sense He gave you. When you don't you step out from under His protection, and the results can be devastation.

Click Here to visit Terri Blackstock's site
or Here to read her Testimony (I highly recommend reading this)

You can purchase her this book at:

Christian Book

Barnes & Noble as well as

Amazon
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