Chris James

This is not a random thought on my part, it has been a theme in much of what I write and will soon appear in my next story. We all need to be inspired to support the developing life of gay kids because society is not functioning on that level very well. I was very glad to find this posting as it expresses just what the adult gay community, and parents can do for this next generation: http://www.insidelacrosse.com/article/lasagna-the-courage-to-stand-for-inclusion/32481

Aw Cole, you write fiction...how hard can it be?

I think Cole has too much time on his hands...perhaps the result of a well running post of his latest novel. Canned anything just kills my palate, and although I have some canned tuna in my hurricane supplies I hope never to eat it.

Sorry, James...even in jest a conversation like this is counterproductive if it is viewed by the people you mentioned and they use it as proof that the gay community is terribly dangerous in their irrational blogs and tweets. Yeah, it's fun to think about but humor always seems to evade the dark forces of the religious right.

Hey there, wait a minute. I like Nigel's story and believe it is nothing like mine. In fact Nigel gives us all the pomp and circumstance of high end English society, as well as the nasty attitude towards gay men. And James, you are going to blow my cover with all this gay assassin talk. I may have to discard my sniper rifle and the long list of targets in the Christian right wing....(snicker). My killer story is a one off and I am moving on from there even though readers are already clamoring for a sequel. How do they know I will not round out this story in the next few chapters?

The murders captured live on television yesterday have sensationalized the media world, and now we know the killer was a gay man. The screams from the religious right have already begun so now murderer will be added to the mantra right wing pundits have for gays. http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2015/08/wbdj-gunman-bryce-williams-manifesto-reveals-his-sexual-orientation/ Unfortunately Bryce Williams is dead so we will have no further explanation of his actions other than the documents he produced before killing himself. There are far too many questions left unanswered but his actions were selfish, irrational, and leave a stain on the community for a long time to come. If Mr. Williams felt he was fired from his job for being gay then there are other more rational means of dealing with the issue. But he chose violence, spurred on by the recent mass killings across the country. Now the gay community is left to deal with the fallout.

Yeah, better to cut and paste that heading into a Google search engine to find the article...which also comes with a load of spam. The answer of course is our appalling Congress and their inaction in funding judicial courts throughout government. I am waiting for Donald Trump to notice the issue and suggest if he is elected that he will outsource our reluctant legislative body to India.

I am still stumbling along with Windows 8 which came with this PC some years ago. Since I treat this machine with little attention to the sophistication available in the multiple tasks i see on the desktop that is just fine. To me my PC is just a glorified word processor although my internet visits are mostly to sites like this. But knowing the history of MS I wonder when they will take away Windows 8 and force us to use 10.

From what I gather Islam as seen through the eyes of ISIS is not at all a religion of peace. In fact most of those in the real Muslum world have condemned ISIS much like the real Christian world denies anything to do with the right wing Christian evangelicals.

This story could be a real Cole tour de force in that he is taking his time to flesh out the characters and their relationships with no apparent rush. I have quite enjoyed the dynamics presented between father and son. We have learned so much in the dialogue between them, and yet it seems much has been left unsaid...as if our sneaky author seems to have something up his sleeve. Perhaps I should have waited but the first chapter has teased me into reading each posting at it appears. I could wait a few weeks and go back to catch up, but that is not likely to happen. Is it Wednesday yet? Thanks Cole, enjoying the ride and I haven't been on a horse in 30 years.

From all I read about the Australian situation it seems the first and most important move is to get rid of Prime Minister Tony Abbott. When the man in charge is not reading from the same playbook as the citizens of his country he needs to go.

I suppose this crap will keep happening until someone has to shell out millions of dollars in damages. One of the incomprehensible things that still exist in our society is homophobia in the educational system. It used to be that colleges conferred degrees and a modicum of intelligence on those slated to become teachers and administrators in our nation. I guess there is little intelligence in this Kentucky town. http://www.outsports.com/2015/8/12/9135377/gay-basketball-kentucky-yearbook-dalton-Maldonado A fair judgment on this school would involve firing the principal and the others responsible for this homophobic act. Do they care so little about the quality of their programs, or do we have a bunch of staunch religionists who think that the Bible ought to be their only textbook? Their homophobia has to come from somewhere and I doubt if you would have to look any further than their local churches. The embarrassment and shame intended to hurt this young man is unconscionable, not to mention making the kid feel like he wasted his high school career in sports. Someone call the ACLU and let's get rid of these bastards before they hurt some other young man.

"A joint by any other name would smell as sweet...and still get you high." Can you imagine Shakespeare writing something along those lines? Perhaps he did and we were never told about it. Research seems to indicate something in old William's pipe inspired him: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/shakespeare-may-have-been-a-pot-smoker-study-finds/ar-BBlCS9e?ocid=LENDHP Old England was the crossroads of trade all those hundreds of years ago but we hardly think about the trade in marijuana, cocaine, or opiate drugs, but perhaps an ancient apothecary would handle these items. As we have all guessed from some of the things Willy wrote, he was a bad boy.

Nigel writes a fine little story here about fakes in the art world. I was attracted by the detail of how the whole scam was put together. That took some intelligent research...unless of course Nigel has a secret background of forging art works. I always wondered what he did in his off time between stories. Keep smiling, Nigel.

We should not forget that the atomic bombs dropped on Japan would in this day and age be considered mere firecrackers compared to modern nuclear weapons. The reaction of horror following the bombing set the tone for many decades and became ingrained in our political thought. So many end of the world scenarios were spun out and each of them ended in a large mushroom cloud. That was never more evident than in the Russian/American confrontation over placing missiles in Cuba during the Kennedy years. By that point Americans believed that the Soviets were irresponsible war mongers, and yet they backed away from the confrontation. No nation since then has come close to crossing the line by threatening to use nuclear weapons. The remembrance of nuclear destruction and death now belongs to Japanese history. It is important that they share this Hiroshima Day with the rest of the world so that it remains clear in the minds of humanity just how easy it is to obliterate tens of thousands of people in the blink of an eye. It is far too easy to forget things we don't want to remember, but Hiroshima must be shared with every generation. So stop for a moment of silence today for the 80,000 people who perished in a small Japanese city 70 years ago.

A stunning reminder of Hiroshima sits in Washington, D.C. and it is beautiful: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/this-390-year-old-bonsai-tree-survived-an-atomic-bomb/ar-BBllbHc?ocid=LENDHP

The first chapter in any story is always a difficult time for the author and the reader. The tone of the story must be set, details handed out, characters established, and the author must engage the readers in what is hopefully a long relationship...Cole has done all of that and more. Within several pages I had complete empathy with the main character and knew his life mattered. The details of a life are complicated and I didn't expect to learn as much as I did in this one chapter, but the information was all there. And like a good storyteller, Cole ended the chapter by giving the reader the impetus to read on about these interesting lives. Chapter two cannot come soon enough. I applaud the author. You'll find the story here: http://www.awesomedude.com/cole-parker/ren/index.htm

I remember thinking my father was a hawk while I was the dove. We had deep discussions when I was in high school about war, communism, and the bomb. In seventh grade we had one of those duck and cover drills which earned me a detention when I spoke out about the foolishness of cowering under a desk during a nuclear attack. That was the beginning of my activism. Much to my father's dismay I became a peacenik and that only intensified our discussions. I was of the opinion that his generation was responsible for the nuclear threat we now lived under and he gave me back that standard line about how the bomb assured us peace. For a long time in my teen years we endured the standoff between the US and the Soviet Union, and then things changed. It would be good to think that world leaders came to a rational conclusion that nuclear war would be the end of us all, but the standoff ended for financial reasons. A dozen years ago I recall reading an interview with a former Soviet general who said that their rocket forces were in a shambles. He suggested that if their leaders had called for a nuclear launch that perhaps a quarter of the missiles would have blown up on the launch pad and detonated the bombs. Today we worry about Iran getting the bomb. Of more immediate concern is that terrorists like ISIS may steal one from Pakistan. The latest manifesto from ISIS is in the news and it calls for the end of the world. A bomb in the hands of these people would not end the world, just their piece of it. Fanatics have always been the issue. A fanatic with a bomb would leave other nations with no choice except the nuclear option. Looking back I can see the blind innocence of the peaceniks when it comes to global political issues. But the bomb gave activists a focal point, an object to revile, a cause to espouse. That peace generation is now entrenched in governments across the globe. Let's hope we don't forget that earlier commitment to peace.

It is interesting to note that even if the United States had developed the atomic bomb a year earlier that it would probably not have been used on the Germans. The European war was far different, and by the end much of Germany had suffered enough and was ready to capitulate. Berlin was a pile of rubble and Dresden was just gone. The situation in the Pacific was another matter. Although General MacArthur was making plans for the invasion of the Japanese mainland islands the stark reality of the casualty statistics the planners forecast was astounding. Taking into account nearly a million men to invade they predicted a full one third would be killed or severely wounded. The now famous battles on Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal had decimated military battalions, the soldiers were tired and the nation had had just about enough. Interesting to note that Harry Truman had only been in office a short time when he made the decision to drop the bombs. But he had stood on the sidelines as Roosevelt pushed U.S forces across the Pacific and knew what an invasion of Japan would do to the troops. Of course by then the Japanese atrocities in the Philippines and China were known, the Kamikaze pilots were attacking U.S ships, and the general attitude of the Japanese military was not to surrender at any cost. The structure of the Japanese government allowed the military to control nearly everything. The people of Japan knew little about the real progress of the war and even the Emperor was kept in the dark on many important matters. All that ended in a flash on August 6th, 1945. I arrived in Tokyo ten years later during the summer of 1955. I was only five years old but I knew something about the war because my father had been in it. I had been told that we had been at war with Japan but that now we were friends. The only hostility I ever felt while I lived there was not aimed at the Americans or other foreigners, but was leveled by the Japanese people towards their former rulers. Ten years on the nation was in recovery and America was helping fulfill that massive task. As an aside I must tell you that I played with many neighborhood Japanese kids. They learned a little English in school and I learned a lot of Japanese from them. We had battles in some of the vacant lots around the neighborhood, but we were not playing at soldiers, that seemed to be off limits. Instead we played at cowboys and Indians...no I am not joking. Japanese television was dismal, but they were circulating American comic books at an incredible rate and the cowboy and Indian stories were favored. The remembrances of August 6th still go on in Hiroshima. In the 1950's Americans were discouraged from visiting there because the U.S. government had concerns about our safety which only shows how little they knew of the Japanese people. In all of my six years in Japan I was approached many times on streetcars, in stores and on the street. "I am sorry," they would say either in English or Japanese. There was no need to ask why, they were apologizing for their homeland. How many Americans could do that today?

Unlike some of you who have a certain close knowledge of the events surrounding WW2 and the Blitz what I have is second hand. My father was in the Army during that war: tanks, Normandy, battle wounds, Patton, several medals for bravery...this is my image of those times from the stories he tells. Today I would much rather envision the sacrifice necessary from England and America through images like this: https://youtu.be/omlBeCGLFG4

Heartwarming story of the month: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/boy-asks-mailman-junk-mail-books-read_55b6b002e4b0224d88338ba4?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592 You would think the boy's school might have a library of age appropriate books but not all schools do, and we are a wealthy country. I think it is criminal for kids not to have access to books. At the very least Salt Lake City officials should issue free bus passes so a boy like this can reach the library.

One of the things I enjoy about this site is that a good story can spawn such interest in historical subjects. Credit Mihangel for providing the framework around all the links and videos posted in this thread. While most of the stories on AD are inclusive of the generations who read them, The Finest Hour is an honest view of young boys pushed to the brink of manhood by the harsh realities of war. We may write about the heroic deeds of our characters but this drawn from real life story is an inspiration. Set in a period of English history where homosexuals were persecuted and perceived as less than manly this whole short saga puts the lie to such thinking. In modern times we look back at the life of Alan Turing and see the blind ignorance of English society towards the homosexuals in their midst. It was the worst case of bullying an individual by attacking personal freedom with laws that enshrined public ignorance. Mihangel's young characters have that everyman feel about them as they should. Untold numbers of heroic deeds occurred during that time of national crisis, everyone pitched in, and yet it took years for English society to change the laws regarding homosexuality. Humanity may never see an end to war but it may see an end to homosexual persecution. Unfortunately not in my lifetime as there is still too much ignorance.

I know selfies are all the rage these days, but rarely are they this expensive: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/rattlesnake-selfie-hospital-bill_55b38198e4b0a13f9d18bf80?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592 We may all laugh at this man's plight, but that bill is a serious end to his stupid photography skills.

It has been ten years since I read The March by EL Doctorow and judged it to be one of the finest pieces of historical fiction I have ever read. We all know about Sherman's march across the south during the Civil War but seen through the eyes of Doctorow's characters it took on new meaning and gave me a wonderful insight on the event. Time to go read it again.

I don't follow an outline in the creation of a story, instead I spend a good deal of time thinking on the subject while doing other things. Events have inspired most of my work, some of them historical and others just a part of daily life. I suppose a known event is like an outline in that it has a beginning and an end, but even then I find my stories are character driven. I try to think of a story in terms of dialogue between characters. The thoughts of a fictional individual motivate the action within the context of an event. If you've read Boys in Blue and Gray you can see that happening from the very beginning. That started with a very specific historical event and spun off into the main character moving between battles and meeting known historical figures. To address Rutabaga's conundrum with an apparent dead end in a story, my choice when something like that happens is...make a ninety degree right turn. I can't tell you how many times that the creation of a detour from the main objective has allowed the story to roll onwards. Add a new character, perhaps one that is only there for a few pages but will inject a new train of thought in your ensemble of fictional people. Blue and Gray was actually two stories I combined. When writing on the subject of young men achieving maturity so many stories contain the same ideals and with a little effort will meld together quite well. The objective is not to give up after all the effort you have put into the work. Let things simmer on the back burner and allow the flavors to combine in your mind. What you wrote last year might just have greater meaning in the future.