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Buy this FBI memoirs book - it rocks!

 

 

 

 

A Solution Polynesian, European and Seasonal

 

Family Fun by Karen Cole

My petite, hyperactive daughter is what I call our Christmas present from God. That’s because my husband was raised Jewish, but is Polynesian, which means he was supposed to be Catholic, but never made it into the church due to some vaguely absurdist Biblical reasons.

Late December - in the 90s - out popped our brown bundle of joy, Angela Peralta, the mommie-described “Prettiest Girl in the World.” She’s modest enough not to think so, or so she says. Beauty and charm rolled into one Philippine-American package, except when she tracks in a ton of sand from the beach. We have to hit those universal, Pacific NW-located ocean sides on a regular basis, as that’s the only celebration of her most obvious heritage we really can do. Except for the River Dancing. This is because she has ancestry from all over the world.

Mine covers both Eastern and Western Europe, and my husband’s covers Asia and Polynesia, as well as Western Europe again and who knows what all else. So aside from being related to Australian aborigines (we have found they are probably distant cousins), Angie’s a definite World Class Citizen.

And thus is stuck going to her big sister’s Irish dancing classes on a semi-regular basis, for strangely enough, her Polynesian half-sister has that as part of her heritage, and is the twenty-six-year-old executive director of North West Irish Folk dancing. So every so often we see our little island princess dancing hippity-hoppity, with both arms straight down at her sides, resembling nothing so much as a mildly demented pepper shaker, with a certain amount of graceful élan, when she gets the steps exactly right.

But lately, there have been the usual homework woes. What started out as Angie’s clear desire to please both mommie and daddie, and to get every chore done and every homework turned in on time, has filtered down to her doing everything at the last possible second, and getting it turned in on “late day.” My husband, having all that prior experience with the last three children, of course simply laughs the above off as what he’s already been through in a triceling. “It’s just a stage,” he says in that aggravating but enormously pleased tone of voice he uses when I start to turn into a vaguely screechy whine directed at Angela’s tender pinky-brown ears. “You just have to know him,” he says.

Reggie, being a Pinoy pidgin speaker, always uses “him” for “her” whenever the active principle is involved, and the reverse when someone male is passive. He then calls anything male a “she.” This took awhile to get used to, and still raises eyebrows in public occasionally. You just have to know “her,” and then you understand my Pinoy hubbie. Of course, it hasn’t rubbed off on me, and I still am my own man about it….I think.

Well, to get around to the story, after having given you the background: one time Angela and I attended a movie about a comic-book character named “Daredevil,” and she had a hard time getting over the death of the main female character. She reminded her too much of her sissie Jayne, the Irish dancing director. Angie kept talking about how “he died, HE DIED!” and this of course greatly interfered with her homework, too.

So although at first I fumed at both her tendency to parrot Daddy’s sad mistake about the sexing of our English language, and her leaving her homework until possibly third grade rolls around, I managed to cut my whining down to a slightly embittered wail. I told Angela, “Just get around to him (did I forget to mention that “its” are usually “hims?”) when you feel like it, and whenever you’re ready, we’ll hit the beach again later. That is, simply do half of him before we visit her (the beach), and do the other half of him when we get home.”
To make a long story short, that’s exactly what he (Angie) did. We spent a wonderful Sunday collecting sand crabs, mussel shells, small clams, scraps and pieces of driftwood, and heck only knows what else that was smelly and needed lots of washing when we wearily trekked our way home.

Angie immediately headed for the bathroom, and stuck both “his” feet into the sink, washing them off and leaving me the shoes, which are presently drying in the tub. And I know “he” will have finished all the needed homework in time to turn “him” in for late day, as we “pinkie swore” on it - a useful method to make sure we both do what we are supposed to do, involving intertwining two of our little pinkies, and promising solemnly forever to do what’s right - and that my little Polynesian princess will muddle on through her homework, and her life, somehow.

At least that’s what her daddy knows. As for me, “he” still has quite a lot to savvy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Lady of Whitechapel

Fiction Short Story - Written by Karen Cole

 

An ordinary domestic dandelion is a beautiful, golden yellow weed that may gradually take over your house’s garden. It is up to you to decide if the people in this are dandelions. There is a young British woman who died long ago.

 

Is she something that needs to be rooted out of a giant lawn, namely, London, England? Before she takes it over, ruling and dominating it with the world’s most lengthy and painful possible forms of death? Or is it Charles, a stranger in a strange land, who might seek his eternally lost soul, which he thought was in the future, who is the real dandelion?

 

Lastly, is it possibly the person or people you would most suspect of such a status – murderers? Some think death is something to be imitated, though it may be a weed in all of our gardens. And one of the world’s most famous killers, oft imitated, is a part of the following story.

 

“This will never be easy,” thought me to myself as I gazed out the filthy panes of the room I was renting. It was a beautiful day in our many districts of London, one of which inhabited England of the 1870’s. I knew, however, that I was special and different. I had been favored by the gods that be for some unusual purpose, or I was imagining things. Some unnatural thing had been telling me what to do for my life’s purposes.

 

For my name was Annie Chapman, born of two parents as all such usual people are, but I was definitely stuck now living in the Whitechapel area of a small but scattered parish of London, a city of multiple desires and random lost causes, but mostly punishment. In my time, it was well known - and all our mortal souls had to suffer its bitterest stings. So far as I could tell, women and children seemed to suffer most of these prejudices. The men had a hideous freedom to their causes widespread throughout Victorian England, in spite of the fact we were ruled by a queen. Feeling permanently depressed about this, I gazed out the window, looking at an autumn tree beginning to sprout its wondrous and small leaves. I recalled my father, a man of austerity and grace, who had been impoverished. The fact he was stuck presiding over an ant farm bothered me.

 

I sensed to myself, that although I was some colored and unfavoured, as I was not very coloured, I could perhaps get a job from the Jews down the street at one of their many small perfume, antique and trinket shoppes, a jewelry store, or perhaps a lasting slot as a flower girl in another district. Still, as my parents had told me to trust Jesus our Lord and Saviour, I was curious. I had found Whitechapel district, and it seemed to me that we were so overcrowded and under favoured in London of that time and place that it would be best to end my existence here. I did not much apply at the shoppes. I saw my looks to be somewhat freakish - and felt work for me was scarce in all known quarters.

 

I was not certain of suicide, but had taken to light drinking of the only local beverage that afforded me any substantial pleasure at all, which of course was small beer. I noticed these imported beers were oft German or Irish. As I was with the other local “girls” who inhabited the lodgings of our elderly female landlord, who winked at me and let me know that only pleasures of the evening or money could reconcile her duplicate balance sheets, which I was dead sure she was forced to keep, I was sad, for I knew my eventual end must come from intractable diseases. On the other hand, nightly I dreamed of a time when I could experience genuine sexual pleasure. This often involved fornication in broad daylight, which I only imagined. Sometimes I also envisioned a husband, who looked peculiarly like my father. He was finally killing me to get rid of enforced existence, and I hated this as much as anyone would in near same situation.

 

I loathed being only a girl in a men’s world, and did not want to be anything else. For to me, it would make no difference if I lived or died, as it seemed to be for all others in my time, but in some way I would have liked to lead an entire human existence.

 

My sole body was to be for the filthy old men - and the younger, equally filthy rogue, lordly and absurd - but well dressed middle aged gentleman of that era, and whatever else came my way, one which would only be stifled as far as ultimate heartbreak and pain needed to be hidden. I cheerfully went about my business, sometimes wondering if a time would come when I would meet my true lord and savior of the world, Jesus Christ. For I could not forsake the duty that God Himself had apparently handed me. I was surely to leave this world too soon. With the juxtaposition of a name like Annie Chapman with Whitechapel, I knew my end would not be pleasant, nor a good example. I understood my tale that was never told was not for your children, the god fearing, or the happy.

 

I often thought: the Word between me and Whitechapel was simply the word “chap,” almost a common word used in English at that time. There was a logical explanation for my concupiscent unstoppable fate. Perhaps our local, bitter deaths were supplying its greater usage. Yet after having applied at a dozen small shops, including apparently two Jewish ones, and after several episodes of being winked at, tormented by flies and insects, and smelling the street garbage, I felt something like a voice telling me where to go. I knew I was no such “chap.” I was a crappie and would never be a dowager. I had to learn that man is the dominant life form, and that woman was only a feeling appendage.

 

I headed for Whitechapel based upon this. There was simply nowhere else to go. But I wondered. Was there some other place for one like me, I thought as I looked down the length and breadth of my home’s glowering streets, wandering for the sake of exercise alone, during the day. I thought, it is time. I must gather my long skirts to myself, and reflect upon what I must do. It will not a good thing be. I must never gain too much weight, or I would lose the one job I had left my family early to access.

 

I will have to sell myself at night to these strange men, as I cannot seem to get another job. Yet, it is not so much because of my eerie skin color, I reflected. Surely, although I am “dirty,” and “filthy,” and all of those things, this could not be a pre-ordained fate. I am as much blonde and blue eyed I decided, as I am a lady of colour, although I am only one person, who must decide if she is a person. Surely a lady of the evening could never be let to be. Although at one time, I found myself at a veterinarian’s office, being told that the only living I could have was cleaning animal cages. I wondered to the man in charge if I could have any facial coverings for this. “No, chit, hurry up and clean those cages, or you are terminated from this job. Get over here, and when you are done, come in the back. I have a big surprise waiting for you, chippie.” He wanted it clearly for free. As I left, I told him, “Next time, supply the “chippie” with a mask of some kind.”

 

Needless to say, once outside this office, I realized what my definite fate would have to be. I had been too defiant in my own way of something I could not understand or relate my life about. I was rooming near the Whitechapel district at the time, in a rundown and filthy hovel, and I simply went to the office of the renting hostelry, talked to the manage, and was told I owed sixteen farthings for rent, even though I owed none. I knew I needed a certain amount of farthings to make my way in the world, and had oft lost count, as the varieties of pence and farthing, quid and crown danced through my growing mind. I had not met the level of souls who needed only pence, as that would come later.

 

I remember thinking, damn you, God in the highest. You are simply some concept dreamed up by man. I am going to live in Whitechapel district, alone, and away from you. But at night, I cannot even dream of a man. I must face down the British Empire beasts who think they are lions at night, one at a time, until “it” finally happens. And the unicorn can never help lasses who cannot see straight after two days of life. As the seal of the British Empire dictates, something is a lion, and something is a freak.

 

Therefore the first is a predator, it casts around for what to feed upon, and it must eat in order to survive. If this is its wife, its husband or its own land, it must make its statements, sign onto its “just” causes, and take on its own workloads. But these are always assigned to it by another force, one which subsumes it to cause its death.

 

Casting about for the dozen girls whom I was to work with, whom I had first met at a trade school, I found Cecilia, and Mary. I asked Mary if there was anyone else named same as her in Whitecap area. I immediate thought there ought to be two such Maries. “I should like to live in the same rooms with her,” I told Cecilia. “What, are you an invert? Do you like women? You don’t look dark or short enough. I’d think beer and some high life would be enough for you. I have a nice man who wants to see you. His name is Charles. He’s the cutest bloody bloke in England. Come back here.” She was indicating the deep interior of the tavern we congregated at, to speak between us.

 

I paused for a moment. “What, is Charles not lit up? Is he, ah, a drunkard, and perhaps not white or something?” I had been introduced for breeding purposes to many such. Having turned them all down as unsuitable, I had slept only with white men.

 

“Whatever would make you say that? He has a name and a pedigree. Don’t you think you would like to meet him? By the way, he wants to discuss an arrangement with you. He told me he wants to organize us ladies into sort of union. Can you imagine, Annie, we could work for decent wages for a change?” She giggled. “Really, he thinks he’s bonnie Prince Charlie, oh, he’s a rough but good hearted cuss. No, he’s out for blood.”

 

I had read in the newspapers, having been a schoolgirl and able to read, and having greatly enjoyed this period of time in my life, of things such as unions and also how men only took advantage of women. Still, I knew how men lived and died on the job. My father had perished away from our apartment, and we had never known what had happened. There had been a story in the papers out of Sussex about an industrial accident in the silver mines of Brazil. I wondered how my father had traversed the waters; maybe easily, maybe hard. In a ship, or in a slave boat? Such had begun my long slow slide downwards. I had taken to drinking and also carousing with the local men. But I had also contemplated drug abuse, especially cocaine, and had turned aside. I had thought of my education. But my mother ran out for our four other children, all younger than me, and I had to go work for my living. For a time, I had to suffer cocaine withdrawal, but we were tough girls at the time and no problem was had waiting out the shaking. You see, the elaborate clothing of our times dictated our existences almost completely. It took well nigh unto fifteen minutes to lace up one’s high button shoes, and they cramped one’s feet sufficiently to cause intolerable agony, although removal of them felt like surrender.

 

Most fortuitously, in Leeds I found a new style of shoes that were less ponderous. These simply laced up to the ankles and had become widespread in America. Made of patent leather, they were expensive but not impossible to buy with our wages.

 

Penny small pence for my thoughts, where I could ever head them, as my dark friend Cecilia, who was good at slipping in and out of the shadows and back alleys as she introduced me to the Life, dragged me to the back of the dingy tavern and I came across Charles. He was standing there, and sure enough, I had to think what I thought. He was indeed a Negro man, and he had on the most arcane African grin I had ever seen.

 

“Would you care to make more money at what you are bound to do?” Charles asked me, taking my hand quite gently and giving me an obviously acquisitive peck on the back of my hand. “I’ve never been treated so like a lady before, Charles. Is’t your real name?”

 

“Yes, but you are now to have a new name. I want to call you something else, but you may select it, my fair lady. What would’ a care to be called, now if you work for us?” He was a scant taller than me, but loomed larger than my desires could push him back.

 

I reflected upon how much I loved my Lord and Saviour, and how much Charles looked like the Devil. As he stood there, he resembled pictures of the Moors I had seen in my book. They were treated as the enemies of our England, and I wondered. Would this man help secure me better fortunes? No, there was no such thing as hope. He held my hand for the briefest of moments, and then released it as his gently slid downwards.

 

“I’m sorry, Charles, but I do so work alone. I will reside in Whitechapel, and, ah, I will await the coming of the one who will save me from my appointed task. Upon the coming of my Lord, I will then go home. Do you understand this, my Charlie?” I decided to give him his grin back, and smiled the smile of one I knew was quite uncertain. Perhaps this boyish man had something in mind along the lines of gathering up our monies. His hat was cut of the finest cloth, and his costume smacked of recent times and extremely well adjusted accouterment. He looked like a good “old boy” from say, Liverpool, where I understood the fine arts were gaining in attention, and there were nice museums. But I doubted he’d long attended school, from his overly active mannerisms. His frown was too like his smile; arduous, songlike, and full of evil implications.

 

“Ah, I understand. But would you like me to buy you a beer first?” The fellow stood there, looking at me proudly and far too arrogantly to be thinking he would be in any trouble for accosting me. I knew now what my prospective clients would also probably be. There would be no mercy whatsoever from the disease threat. I knew now beyond all certainty what I was going to be forced to become. And it might last longer than long. There were growing hospitals that could take me in, and the treatments there for disease were as medieval and arcane as any I had studied in my way at school.

 

I would be taking some of the men of England with me on this unpleasant Biblical Job like journey, I decided. If not many a long year would await my misfortune, I should be a slit throat. It would help make up for some of I and my girls’ lack of good circumstance. It was not the men folks’ fault; I could not see it any other way. And yet they all seemed to think that sex was something they owned or otherwise could throw away as some sort of ungodly machinelike contraption. I was sure I myself would turn out to be one.

 

“Charles, I need initiated into this. Could you buy me a beer, and could we step upwards into an upstairs bedroom, one last time, before I settle down into my life of prostitution?”

 

He snidely frowned, and said, “Look, young lady, I am definitely not liking your mood and would require some recompense for your time, if I was to be a fancy man for you. I have done this now for several years, and it is high time I became upwardly mobile. When do you want to go into an upstairs bedroom with me?”

 

As he stood there, I saw that he would be rankled if I took anything like a sweet time with him. Also, I picked up a deep sense that he wanted something nice out of life which he could never obtain.

 

I took his two toned but silken left hand in one sudden motion. “I have sixteen pence in my pocket. If you must be such a small boy about this, I can certainly pay you for going through the motions with an aging and soiled dove such as me. It is my rent money, and it is all I have. Let us go upstairs, and for one hour, let us be a man and a woman together. You can show me the way. I will even lead the way upstairs for you. Do you want to beat on me? Do you have equipment, or is it as simple as it looks?”

 

“No,” said Charles, casting his eyes away. “I do, but actually, I will take your sixteen pence and get you out of here. Let us go buy you one beer, and be done with you. Come on now, such a choppy; let us go buy you a glass of wine. Come on now, Dove.”

 

So he led me over to where I and my friends congregated, and was the only one of his kind there as we settled in to what would be one of my few last glasses of heavy and dark brew. I sat and tired watched its aged traces swirl in the glass. The piano player was fetching a good tune out of the wooden instrument, and several of the girls were dancing merrily, pulling their skirts up aways, sometimes doing what we thought of as the stage dancing which I had seen growing up, down in another district, one which the rich were known to haunt and which had many a festive ballroom hall dance going in it. Some journeymen, carpenters and tradesmen, were dancing about, as the tavern was not as small as it looked from the outside, and it was a good time being had by all. Even me. I was surprised as I looked around, happy for a moment at the lack of Christian antipathy. The men whirled their girls around, dipping them, sometimes dancing erratically. I began tapping my shod foot rapid time to the music, and clapping my hands.

 

“Chuck - my bonnie lad,” I tittered suddenly into my feminine hand, which had beautiful red nail polish on each nail - but of the nailpolish was starting to chip around the edges. “Charlie my darling, let us get up and dance.” As I gazed down the bar, I could see the Jewish owner of the tavern, or so I thought of him, wiping all the glasses with one towel, and dreamed briefly of securing a job as a tavern girl. Charles seemed to flinch. I thought, would the tavern owner hire him? Perhaps he would not work there. I wanted to reach out and grab him by the waistcoat and haul him - slowly - upstairs with me.

 

“Wait. I have to go dance with the ladies who work for me. Wait here.” He left me, his grey tailcoats swirling around in mock protest. Then one of what I assumed now were his girls handed me a newspaper. It was a headline on that grabbed my attention. As I read it, my heart sank, although it was nothing unexpected and I had been looking for it.

 

It read, “Ladies of the Evening Disappearing in Whitechapel.” As I read the story, it turned out they were doing anything but disappearing. Our bodies were being found in strange and peculiar places, splayed out like carpetbags, in odd positions. And I felt chilled to the bone when I found other Mary indeed. It was a young girl I knew who had gone to a separate school than mine, once I had met her at a coffee shop, and we had shared dreams of working as writers, musicians, waitresses and artists, and she had been found in an alley with her throat ripped wide open and her abdominal cavity also gutted through her heavy clothing, in a position which began to sink deeply into me.

 

Sitting with my head spinning out of control, I happenstance saw a street at night. It was one of many - with dead bodies upon it. I also viewed an absolute picture of what had happened. As the grey cold swirls of a thick London negotiable fog gathered around both the victim and the oppressor, I saw who it was. He wore a long black cloak and a broad grey brimmed hat. He knew what he was doing, too good of a job at it. If it was one person, it was an unlined medical doctor. I read other articles, and there was some attempt to blame the entire local Jewish population. It finally centered on a butcher named Leather Apron, and there was talk of arresting this Jew. I knew for a cold hard fact that it was not him, but a cadaverer who lived and worked near the vicinity.

 

And I next saw a sepia toned picture of what the “vultures” that gather and make money off of us had done to her “pretty” corse. She was so dark and mysterious, and had lovely long black hair. They had sewed her body all up to pose her both as a new thing called pornography - and as a medical item. I had to think, I somewhat minded the porno, but was happy about the medical aspect. Then it dawned on me. This would lead to the widespread abuse of women. However, it seemed a new way to make money, one that might get some of us away from the horrendous sweatshops, where in crowds you could only work until you dropped, were out on the streets and got yours. And the growing photography arena must of course have something strange to take on. I thought, Charles should try taking pictures of us, but perhaps he has not such knowledge as that.

 

I was sure of a sudden that it had all been a necessity, and that it had happed before, but had not been reported on by the newspapers so frequently. Please if there be a God, I briefly prayed: do not take enormous photographs of my dead naked body. And what if this attitude spread out, engulfed the other citizens of London, and destroyed her?

 

“Excuse me. I have to go see a doctor now, everyone. Oh, I have to get out of here.” Being medium height but of slight build, yet a little paunchy round the middle, it took quite a lot of lifting my skirts and pushing to get the crowd aside and to leave the large room of a tavern. God was telling me where next to go. I cruised lightly down the street, giving a glance to the left of me every time, seeing the beautiful shops of the Jews and others gleaming in the broad daylight. It looked like a nice home for real people, the sort that could wish you a taught day and hand you the proper portion of goods. I looked, and there was someone who looked like Charles working in the back part of grocers. It turned out to be an island woman from Haiti who was sweet on white men, the likes of whom gave her three children, but had deserted her each time for someone else. Every time I needed fresh fruit, I would ask her to give me an extra portion for the others. But she finally stated that her billet was too long to give us any further. Her name was Hattie, and I almost asked grocers if they would hire me instead of her. Grocers was white mostly, but Hattie had been so nice to us I could not bear to hurt her and ruin her life.

 

I sighed, adjusting my bonnet and retying the strings alongside my glowing cheeks. In autumn in London town, there were many bustling down the sidewalks, heading places all unknown to me, many of which I had already been. I knew the shop of the doctor was down the street about two more blocks. I shifted my skirts about my leggings, and began padding like I was some sort of panther - or perhaps another cat of my own - a bit further. As my eyesight was perilously obscure, I could make out the sign above the door. It had been hand painted, but I had been told long ago that only menfolk painted signs.

 

“Dr. Jack Rinehart,” it seemed to proudly proclaim, “Mortician, barber, necrologist, and exterminator.” As I lingered over the last word, I seemed to hear a macabre song in my head, one about cockroaches and the plague. I shuddered as the wind whipped around my bonnet, and as I looked over at a greenly growing oak tree in a planter, it sent some leaves over to me. They slicked across my eyes - and then I took one - and peeled it off. It was the only way I could be a “peeler.” That was a member of the authorities, such as Scotland Yard, or the local bobby police. The job of a policewoman was rare indeed. All of our girls made the lowest possible wages, and were easy to take advantage of, but so were most of the men, I supposed. I had dreamed of taking the train to Stratford of Avon on Sea, but had no relatives out there whom I could stay with while I found work. I hoofed it to the chap’s office, thinking that if enough of us were dead, they would eventually catch the miscreant. Still, considering what we were doing, it seemed all right to me either way. Surely, the population of England could use some lowering.

 

I paused at the door of his office, wondering if it was also his residence. It was so crowded in downtown London that it probably was also his place of abode. There was at least one set of rooms above the office, and a gaslight flickering in one of them. In those days, you see, we had no electric light everywhere and relied on flame lights.

 

But the chap was a medical doctor. As I walked into his office, I gasped in horror. There were various undone girls on the tables, and quite a few boys. Dead boys, everywhere. Corpses were openly spread to see, obviously to be examined in spurious and hideous manners. As I wheeled around, seeing the dead for the first time in my life, I gulped and gasped. I drew a hand to my throat, putting it away, and stared at the man with a kind of hatred. Something real was telling me this was our persecutor, and not a good man.

 

“Are…you a mortician? Is this where you take their lives, or save them?” He looked slowly over his pince nez, taking his spectacles off, rubbing them on his bloody sleeve. I looked into what appeared to be a Teutonic face, one which I had never seen before. It was white but red with a kind of age, and looked furrowed above the brows. His hair was uncombed, and his cloth apron as blood soaked as I had ever seen on a cattle butcher. And his entire body was shot through with disease, especially most of his face.

 

“Miss, I presume you want to speak with me? Come have a seat over here. Would you like to get up on a table, so I can examine you?” His lips curled into a kind of vicious snarl, as he began to reach behind me, perhaps to close the door at my back. I inched myself backwards, holding the door’s handle grasped firmly, ready to swing it open, but had nowhere really to go at this point in time.

 

“Nooooooooooo,” I scattered through my loose teeth, thinking this could be the occasion I had been waiting for right here in his office. “Do you, that is, are you Jack Rinehart, and would you come up with me to my rooms now - and we could have a good time?” I wondered if trying to make him into a customer would settle his hash. But it was more than obvious he had something utmost lifelong in mind that I couldn’t approach. “Do you think you and I could go up the street to a lovely restaurant, and eat?”

 

End of Brief Excerpt from Story

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t Drink Your Calories!

 

Sample of a Health Related Article

Written by Karen Cole

 

It may well be that soda pop is mankind’s worst ever discovery. If you drink soda pop, especially the caffeinated kind, it could kill you, as shown recently when a man’s death seems to have been associated with his over consumption of diet soda. But most especially, it can go right after your kids’ health. Pop gives the average teenager approximately 12.5 teaspoons of refined sugar a day. It works out to that much more than what our US government has determined people need in unrefined sugar per day. Also, your kid and you are using soda pop, in all probability, as a food. In 1977-78, teenagers drank twice as much milk as soft drinks, but by 1994-96, it had turned around; they were drinking twice as much soda as they were drinking milk. And such consumption is linked with lower intake of nutrients, such as vitamins, minerals and fiber.

Meanwhile, empty calories are all those soda pops contain, aside from ulcer-causing acids. The ingredients in both regular and diet pop can eat away the inner lining of your stomach, eventually causing severe digestive problems. And the average small bottle or can of soda contains over 200 calories, none of which harbor any real nutrients for your health whatsoever. If you consume one can of pop per day, you will gain 12 pounds in only one year. Pop is contributing to major health problems, particularly obesity. Such a condition has been proven to injure your health by the USDA Economic Research Service. Several studies by them have shown that weight gain is directly related to soft drink consumption. Weight gain itself is the prime risk factor for Type Two Diabetes, which can make you go blind, cause lifelong paralysis and finally death. It can be controlled only through a daily regimen of diet or medication. Do you want that sort of thing in your life? If not, cut back on your drinking of soda pop.

Also, fruit juices and drinks like iced tea, Gatorade, Snapple, and other such common drinks which are promoted to be “healthier” than soda pop are often no such thing. Check the label before you buy fruit juice. It may contain only 10% real fruit juice. And the drinks that claim to contain 100% real fruit juice have just as many calories as soft drinks and are not that much more nutritious, either. Many fruit juices are simply loaded with sugar, either refined or unrefined. A glass of apple juice holds 10 teaspoons of sugar, as the juice is concentrated from a much larger amount of apples. You’re much better off eating a single apple and getting the smaller amount of calories and the roughage instead. The sugar in apple juice is concentrated, unlike when in the original apple, and it will raise your insulin level, making your body burn excess blood sugars rather than fats.

And our average alcohol intake is certainly not any better. Hard liquors contain a high amount of calories, and even a light beer has about 100 calories—all empty. Alcohol is quite dense in calories; one gram of alcohol is worth seven calories. Although an occasional glass of fine vintage red wine is good for your heart, it contains a high amount of alcohol, which is high in calories and contains no nutrients. And alcohol does not satisfy your body’s hunger cravings, as your body will burn alcohol for fuel before it begins to burn your body fat. So you will continue to eat commensurate to your hunger, thus piling on the calories. This is not to mention the facts that alcohol also destroys your brain cells and causes a remarkable amount of vehicle accidents and deaths.

It may well be that soda pop, alcohol and other such empty calorie consumption is a major problem in America, especially for teens and adults. That’s why they’re trying to remove it from the schools. And as you get older, being overweight can give you coronary disease, strokes from blood clots building up in your arteries, and cancer. Cancer is like being eaten away by your own body, literally a piece at a time.

Also, always downing that two-liter of soda pop increases the risk of osteoporosis in both men and women when they drink soda pop instead of milk, which is rich in bone-building calcium, and dentists are especially keen on people not drinking sugar-laden, no calcium, hopelessly empty soda pop. All it seems to do is taste good, it would appear. Dental experts say that if you drink it between meals to quench your thirst, you get tooth decay and dental erosion due to the sugars and the acids in pop.

Some of your desire for pop puts you at a risk for kidney stones and a slightly higher risk of heart disease. There needs to be more research done in these two areas, but there has been a fair degree of documentation done by the University of California at Berkeley.

Caffeine, on the same hand, has been proven to be a highly addictive drug. If you drink a cup of coffee or more per day, day in and day out, you are technically addicted to coffee. It’s a stimulant and has been proven to help people’s sex lives somewhat, but it also increases the excretion of calcium. Other ingredients in soda pop such as Yellow Number Five promote attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in some children. Yellow #5 also induces allergic reactions such as asthma in a sizeable portion of individuals.

Soft drinks are one of the most heavily promoted items in all of human history. You can find them in gas station stores, the 7-11 or the AM-PM, vending machines are everywhere, and they are lining the school halls also. You need something wet to quench your thirst, and that’s the secret reason people are going to bars anyway. To get a drink. But neither the soda pop nor the booze, as both caffeine and alcohol are addictive drugs.

US companies spend $700 million or more per year on media advertising for soda pop per year, and hundreds of millions on other promotional activities. They even make contracts with your public school systems to sell soda pop in the halls. Parents and educators have recently, however, been making a concerted attempt to reign in that form of merchandising. Several states have banned at least the non-diet soft drinks from some or all schools, but that could be more of a step backward than a step forward. It does cut the calories, and diet soda has been proven to not quench hunger by some studies, again done at the University of California. Your kids will not do much better on diet soda, but at least they’ll be more prone to eating or drinking something else…unless they don’t. Diet soda is still full of those same acids they mentioned, and have no sugar in them to help them along in your digestive cramp. They can cause nausea, diarrhea and constipation, not to mention those same allergic reactions, including asthma, as regular soda does. Diet soda alone is not an “easy way out.”

Nonetheless, the Center for Science in the Public Interest makes these recommendations: that governments should require chain restaurants to declare the calorie content of soft drinks and all other items on menus and menu boards; the Food and Drug Administration has been told by them to require labels on non-diet soft drinks to state that frequent consumption of sugar-laden drinks promotes obesity, diabetes, tooth decay, osteoporosis and other health problems; governments should provide water fountains in schools, government buildings, parks and other public places; school systems and other organizations, and all those organizations which cater to children should stop selling soft drinks, candy and junk foods in hallways, shops and cafeterias.

Until this month of September, 2005, there was no hard and clear evidence through science that soda itself alone can make kids fatter. But reporting in The Lancet, a British medical journal, a team of Harvard researchers had found the first evidence absolutely linking soda pop drinking to childhood obesity. Twelve year olds who drink soft drinks regularly are far more likely to become or to be obese than those who don’t.

Obesity experts at Harvard found this to be highly important and spent 19 months following the children rather than simply following them around for a week or so like many studies gone before have done. Statistically through many similar studies it’s been found to be more important to use a lengthy study than a sporadic or shorter study. And in this study, it was found that schoolchildren consume who drink pop take in some 200 calories per day more than children who usually don’t. It supports the notion that long-term obesity is an ingrained behavior, starting in childhood, and that we don’t compensate well for calories in liquid. In short, water or milk is simply better.

In fact, the answer to this problem is patently obvious: drink water, and more water. Milk is good, but you should always remember that it’s a food, and not that useful for thirst purposes. Whole milk especially is high in both fat and calories, so go easy on the milk. Water, on the other hand, has no calories and is the very thing you should drink to quench your thirst. You should drink a minimum of six eight-ounce glasses of water per day, say all the experts who have studied this subject. And water, without adding on any calories, can take the edge off your hunger and help you fill up. A good time to drink a glass of water is just before a big, calorie laden meal; it will slow you down. One strategy that works is to always carry a bottle of fresh, clean water with you, and to take sips from it frequently. This also helps prevent daily dehydration, which can be exacerbated by overconsumption of alcohol, soda pop and coffee or tea, which all produce excess thirst.

A small daily consumption of coffee and/or tea is fine, as long as you don’t add lots of sugar to your caffeinated or decaffeinated beverage. Both coffee and tea contain antioxidants, which are anti-cancer agents benefiting your overall health. Green tea has been discovered to have terrific health benefits, less caffeine, and to boost your metabolism, helping you to burn fat. You can even drink it before you go to bed, calming hunger cravings for that “midnight snack” which might cause you to gain weight. But avoid the “designer drinks” you find at Starbuck’s and other such shops which are loaded with high amounts of milk fat and sugar. If you must have your latte, put cinnamon in it, which helps slow down your absorption of sugar--and which also has no calories and tastes delicious. And add honey or turbinado sugar and low-fat milk to your drink.

Although fruit juices are not the best bet to quench your hunger and your thirst, as they contain too high of amounts of insulin-raising sugars, vegetable juices such as V-8, Welch’s, and Heinz tomato juice are fine, as they are both low in calories and do not have a high sugar concentration. However, don’t depend on them too heavily, as they are high in salt content, which again like soda pop, alcohol and caffeinated beverages make you thirstier. Too high of salt intake is also associated with major health problems. And you should not substitute “veggie” juices for fresh fruits and vegetable, which contain fibers and other nutrients than you will find in the juices from them. In fact, if you eat fresh fruit and vegetables in large quantities, they will help you with your thirst problem and fill you up with proper food and nutrients as well. Have a slice of watermelon instead of a beer. Fruits and veggies will help quench your thirst, as well as drinking plenty of water.

But soda pop has been shown to make you thirstier, and that does lead to the further drinking of it as you attempt to quench your thirst. Something about the combination of chemicals in many soda pops dries out people. So then they reach for another can of soda, thus becoming committed to a vicious cycle. And that greatly increases their calorie intake, especially since pop today is now coming supersized as well, filling up those larger and larger plastic single-serve looking bottles. It might not be a bad idea to try to follow the serving suggestion, at least, on the bottle. And it might be a better idea to drink either soda pop or alcohol of any kind from a plastic or glass bottle than an aluminum can, as the aluminum has been shown to seep into the can. This may have something to do with the formation of Alzheimer plaques in the human brain, as aluminum may be a cause of Alzheimer’s disease, a dreadful illness that causes people to forget everyone and everything that holds any meaning whatsoever in their lives.

Is it worth it, to worship a can of a kid’s drink that was invented as a snake oil remedy in a poor man’s fireplace by bubbling a concoction of chemicals together that tasted good? He only intended to sell it in small amounts to adults as a tonic, as it did seem to settle people’s stomachs, and stimulate them. That’s because original formula Coke’s main ingredient was cocaine, not caffeine, but eventually cocaine became illegal. Caffeine and alcohol are both heavily addictive drugs which have been overly promoted as beverages. Water is not. Water is good for you, where caffeine and alcohol can actually hurt your body and eventually cause long-term health problems leading to great pain and death.

The Coca-Cola Company finally removed cocaine from its product. Perhaps someday, we should follow suit on caffeine and alcohol. But until that day ever comes, we are stuck having to police ourselves and our children. Please do it wisely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

AC 666 - Timeline

 

Original ideas by CO III
Ghost written by Karen Cole

 

The timeline below was altered to suit revisions to the book.

 

 

 

1,000,000,000 BA, beginning of real vegetation and life on Venus -- when Noah and the mystery spacecraft actually land on Venus (Primitive Past Earth)

 

2,000,000 BC, beginning of Pleistocene Era (first use of stone tools by primitive humans) -- when the Antis' and the Antichrist's spaceship was supposed to land on Venus (Past Earth)

1,000,000 BC -- when the Tower of Babel was actually built; the Antichrist founded the militia of the Antis, which separated into the Antis and the Illuminati; the Antichrist disappears for a million years; beginning of the Ice Age and land bridges

12,000-10,000 BC -- end of the Ice Age; roughly when Lemurian Atlantis was covered in water and became a sunken, domed city, where the Antis were told to move by the aliens whom they eventually became

10,500 BC -- when the Great Pyramids of Giza were actually built by the Antis; when the Antis began making the blueprints of the spaces

8000-6000 BC -- when scholars believe the Tower of Babel was supposedly built (roughly)

3750 BC -- approximately the time when the Earth was supposedly created by God (Jewish religion)

3114 BC, August 1 -- beginning of the Tzolk'in, the Sacred Mayan calendar, based on the 26,000-year cycle of the Pleiades; 13 cycles of 400 Mayan years will pass and then the calendar will end in 2012 AD, December 27

2500 BC -- when scholars believe the Great Pyramids of Giza were built; also when the beginnings of the Mayan culture were formed in the Yucatan, Mexico

1313 BC -- supposed time of formation of the Jewish people, when God revealed the Torah; beginning of the cultural and religious mythos and prophesies about the Antichrist in the Old Testament

500 BC -- the pyramids of Teotihuacan are built in central Mexico by the Toltecs, who are the Mayan and Aztec precursors and relatives

20 BC to 20 AD -- when Jesus appeared and performed his miracles; beginning of the major and elaborate Antichrist and Second Coming mythos of the New Testament

250 AD -- the Mayans rise to prominence in central Mexico

666 AC -- time of great significance to the Antis, when they actually began building the spaceship, having finally secured the needed technology and metallurgy; on the 666th cycled trip through time, they will begin evolving into the gray aliens

1776 AD -- when the Freemasons/Illuminati were officially born and recognized in America

1976 AD -- Mabus the Antichrist (the AC) is born

1989 AD -- the AC is 13 and has a terrible encounter, is raped and injured, and is rescued by the aliens, which he doesn't know at the time

1992 AD -- AC is taken in by a carpenter and begins to form his theories about the Egyptian pyramids being the exact same ones as the Cydonian pyramids of Mars

2004-2006 AD -- Mabus comes to the realization that he's the AC; Jupiter is hit by a meteor on 6-6-06; AC begins his prophesied 7-year reign of the world

2007-2010 AD -- AC rebuilds Jewish Temple at Jerusalem as the sixth Great Pyramid

2012 AD -- the Second Coming of Jesus occurs, the AC and the Antis leave Earth for Venus, and the Earth is hit by the giant meteor, all on December 27; the reign of the Illuminati on Earth begins; end of the world on the Sacred Mayan calendar

2013 AD (2,000,000 BC) -- the AC and the Antis are supposed to land on Venus (Past Earth)

2013 AC (1,000,000,000 BA) -- Noah and the mystery spacecraft actually land on Venus (Primitive Past Earth)

2500 AD -- all human life on Earth (Primitive Future Mars) has died out

 

 

 

 

Roses of Sharon

 

From the "International Library of Poetry"

Written by Karen Cole

Won awards at Writing.com and Poetry.com

(I wrote this poem in honor of any non-Japanese who
kept Japanese-American property safe on Bainbridge
Island, WA, during the WWII Japanese-American
Internment. If there even were any such people. Most
other Americans ripped off J-A property, and bought
their houses from the US government for cheap.)

ROSES OF SHARON

Are broken sideways.
The moon is the guide,
time and time again,
muddy as bean-paste
mixed with vinegar.
Oars hit waves.
My old self sits again,
with a bit of madness in me.
A big ball of snow,
not quite his fill;
piercing alarms to drive a badger away,
the beautiful pears ripe in his garden,
who my neighbor truly is.
In a way, it was fun not to see Mt. Fuji in foggy rain.

 

Letter of Query Sample

 

 

Written by Karen Cole

 

 

(Literary Agent or Publisher)

(Today’s Date)

 

Dear (Literary Agent or Publisher),

 

Don’t you find it amazing how women will spend thousands of dollars to improve their lives?  Plastic surgery, diets that don’t work, exercise machinery, therapy--it seems that women are willing to spend whatever it takes to improve their looks and feel a greater sense of control over their lives.  What these women don’t realize is that with a few simple, extremely inexpensive and carefully applied holistic steps, an improved lifestyle can be achieved both naturally and quickly.  You don’t need to spend the money.  What you need to spend is the time.     

My book, Forever Young & Beautiful: A Woman’s Health and Wellness Guide for the Body, Mind, & Spirit, is almost guaranteed to bring about such positive and natural lifestyle changes.  I am a professional motivational speaker, group counselor, and author of several published articles on health, beauty, and nutrition.  I have also been a licensed beautician and cosmetologist who owned and operated several beauty salons.  I have long been a natural, holistically-oriented beauty expert, and am aware of many industry secrets.  And along with many medical experts and nutritionists, I am totally convinced that healthy dietary changes and better lifestyle choices have a lot to do with the quality and longevity of women’s lives.

In Forever Young & Beautiful, I share the many holistic secrets I have found over the years that aid women in feeling wonderful, looking younger, and living longer--naturally.  This book covers a wide and extensive range of topics, ranging from well-balanced nutrition and the postponement of aging to successful parenting and almost everything you need to know about the early child care years.  Techniques for achieving outer beauty and inner peace as well as a holistic segment on spiritual health are also included.  Forever Young & Beautiful is sure to teach readers everything they need to know about staying young, healthy, and more than exuberantly delighted with their lives!

Forever Young & Beautiful includes information on:

1) Eating well through choosing the right foods

2) The role of antioxidant vitamins and minerals in healing and extending women’s lives

3) Weight control through a balanced diet

4) Postponement and reversal of the aging process

5) Inner & outer beauty--natural skin care and make-up

6) Spiritual health--Aromatherapy--Meditation--Yoga--The power of prayer 

7) Parenting--proper step-by-step nutrition for mother and baby

8) Healthy, natural holistic recipes--and much more!

Forever Young & Beautiful has been gradually compiled from both my own personal experience and my carefully exhaustive research of medical journals, books on natural health and nutrition, and my frequent studies at holistic health seminars.  It is designed for the busy woman who doesn’t have a lot of time for lengthy, dull and overly complicated books.  It is straightforward, succinct while covering a lot of ground, and contains nothing but up-to-the-moment information. It is life-changing, and may even save some women’s lives!

Forever Young & Beautiful is approximately 250 double-spaced manuscript pages (50,000 words).  I received a lot of positive feedback from the book’s general audience.  It was first published in December 2001, and I am now looking to publish a completely revised version, one which will reach a much broader mass-market audience.

I am a motivational writer and researcher with a passion for self-help, natural health, nutrition and spirituality-based literature.  My second book, tentatively titled Destined Love:  A Practical Guide to Attracting Your Soul Mate, will be completed in 2004.  If you help to publish Forever Young & Beautiful, I will certainly publish that second book through you.  Due to my many years of experience in this field, I am sure both books will sell extremely well, and will return an ample profit for your company.

Thank you for your time and attention. I look forward to hearing from you.  I’ve enclosed a biographical note, a comparative market assessment, and an SASE for your reply.  Return of any of the materials is not necessary.

 

With the Warmest Regards,

Joanne B. Parrotta

 

P.S.  This is a multiple submission.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE DEATH-DEFYING

WAREHOUSE PARTY LIFE

 

Interview by

“W. of Orange” (Karen Cole)

 

About an entire local music industry that’s rarely heard from, briefly navigated by a remote being that coalesces, rarely, around music scenes and their absurd atrocities; published by "The Stranger" weekly newspaper of Seattle, WA.

 

Sonny Chelf is the orneriest house party producer I know who hails from Tacoma.  In fact, he’s the only such producer I know from Tacoma.  Most of those kind of guys hang about the Seattle area, drifting back and forth in their musical skeins and ongoing search for monetary angles.

Jason Alley’s from Issaquah.  They both operate forklifts in warehouses for their real livings.  And I met them over coffee awhile ago at Starbucks on Broadway for a happy, peppy interview with two of the greater Seattle area’s own warehouse party producers.

Sonny, casual, relaxed and vivacious, wore “Portuguese” golden earrings; Jason, soft-spoken and shy, wore a diamond-blue ball cap over his sweet blue eyes and blond hair.  Sonny is fair and Black, but doesn’t sound that way until you press him, and then a trickle of southern Blacklish begins to filter in, conversationally speaking.

How long have you been involved in the warehouse game, I suddenly asked.

Sonny:  The first part of this took place in 1981.  That was in Germany.  Parties in Germany used more hype.  Parties here seem to be more about money and competition.

Jason:  I joined TUF Productions for the last party.  I joined with another party than ours…some producers have a different agenda than others…(indicating Sonny, giggling.)

What is your agenda?  I ask the cute black dude.

Sonny:  First we sit there and have a headache.  Nah, usually I like to find a space first.  That’s kind of a last minute thing you have to do.

Jason:  There’s been a lot of problems with the city.  The city is pushing hard to shut the shows down.

Sonny:  There was a battle over permits being in order.

Jason:  The city would threaten to take the house over.

Sonny:  Yeah.

Jason:  The city would intimate that a party would be through.  The owners of the building would refuse to rent to those who produced shows, for fear their properties would have police action taken against them.

These statements led to general murmurings amongst us.

So, whatever is your “agenda” now, I softly inquired.

Sonny:  (About) the agenda?  Line up the DJs!!!  They come from everywhere, basically.  When we produce a flyer, we try to promote it (the party) day in and day out.  During that time, we finish producing the rest of the show.  Lights, sound, security, permits, “etcetera.”  And then it’s showtime!  I like to get in a building at noon, but it never happens.  Just to fine-tune the building!  (He laughed, sliding slowly backwards in his seat.)

Jason:  If we have decorations, some people put up fences.  (I never found out what “fences” are.)  It needs all completed.  The sound system usually arrives in the middle of things.

We joked around about the house movement….”Yeah, the houses are moving!!!” as I’m not much of a raver m’self, yet.  The joints do indeed jump.

What message to others, anyway, do you guys have to impart?

Jason:  Positive energy.

Sonny:  Peace, love, joining one another together.  But after the party comes the teardown.  I hate it, but it has to be done.

I asked Sonny if that’s his real name.  Yes, it is.  He was wearing a hunting cap, Polynesian earrings, and he vaguely resembled a certain letter of the alphabet due to his glasses.

Jason’s blue ball cap was fastidiously reversed.  Two more either-bread and mayonnaise guys could not be found, but they were definitely having to skirt the law.

I finally found out what happened last spring, which had been the current House Party Mystery Scenario.

Sonny:  A dividing of the whole scene here occurred.  There were occurrences of two parties being thrown on the same night.  Something had to stop.  Seattle’s not that big.  It’s not that good here, we need more party room.  Evolution (back in October, and partially run by a close relative of mine named Joachim, incidentally) just had 1500 people.  It was over 1500, really.

Jason:  We had over 1200.  But Seattle is not really a good indicator.  In LA (what doesn’t begin, end, and stall out in LA?) they have BIG huge parties, with a couple hundred thousand people, easily.

A couple…what?  I stupifiedly intoned, slurping my Starbucks.  That couldn’t be real, I thought, they’d need a football stadium…which they have, somewhere.

I dreamed to myself, the party interview vortex has been reentered.  I’ve been being told that everyone and no one ever interviews these warehouse party guys.  Now I see why.  No one ever believes them when they talk about the party sizes.

Sonny then said he begged in on things with Jason through a mutual friend of theirs named Tim.  On Tim, Sonny said, “we’ve talked to Tim.  How’re you?”  This, referring to my earlier interview more on the Seattle end of things, with Joachim.  Tim, there, is not a part of the company anymore.  I guess that’s the party vortex for you.

Sonny next managed to imitate the world’s blandest, meekest expression, which was already on Jason’s wan, pink face.

Jason:  All I have to say is we hope people keep supporting the shows.

Sonny:  I’m the quiet person of all this.  I like to come in like the wind and leave…like…the wind…

Jason:  I like to be around the people.  I like to be around the friends.  (I always got the impression this is a tightly-knit, hard-to-enter crowd.  But I asked them about making a living at it.)

Sonny:  I like to be around this for the money.  If I didn’t do this for the money, I wouldn’t do it.

It feels like I’ve learned, after several interviews with Seattle/Tacoma’s warehouse partying folks, that there’s no money in this, really.  Off the last shows, they don’t seem to have made a dime.

PeaceFrog’s Civilization party in November barely broke even, in fact losing at least $200.  One of the PeaceFrog producers told me only about half the people coming in even paid.  I don’t think Joachim got his cut at all.  But their group is still plugging away at making the lively, eventful, and appreciably loud parties continue to happen.

Sonny said, the way I feel…it might make the WRONG money…(I think he meant the probable drug revenues from hangers-on selling at the parties.)  Me, I broke in with:  But, what if you were, say, normal?

Jason:  Good point.

Sonny:  What if everybody else was like what’s on the street, already there.  (Recall that Sonny’s Black, please.)  You’re gonna get ‘em “thowed in jay-al.”  I’ve done two (parties) in Tacoma (an infamously Black establishment, in some ways.)  There’s a problem with that.  Seattle people don’t travel.  The Dome is too commercial.  This isn’t…a commercial event...that I do.

Go to shows, Sonny said.  I have a real job.  I work, in a warehouse, driving forklifts.  I’m a laborer.  Saturday nights are my date.  That’s the party date.  (He pretty much implied this is his social life.  I am forced to think both Sonny and Jason are house-devoted, maximally.)

After this pleasant, caring interview time was spent, one happy writer left those two fine, unrude, music-bestrewed dudes to hit their next appointment in town.  The memory lingers, but the music is fortunately elsewhere, waiting for the next major warehouse debacle to begin.  From the general sound of things, I would suggest checking out Los Angeles if you want to hit the biggest party scenes.

 

 

 

Sample Ad Copy

Written by Karen Cole

 

“If knowledge is power, then knowledge conveyed is power applied.”

Human Imagineering, Thomas B. Wallace

 

         Welcome to Human Imagineering, a Creative Services Company, dedicated to bringing you the technology to make your informational visions into Reality!  Our products will surely bring out all the finest of your creative talents and financial endeavors.

         First, take a look at our Creative Services and Classes.  We offer several downloadable E-Books and E-Commerce sites, including “Instant Internet Empires,” a fully downloadable E-Book that helps you to set up, organize and market several highly lucrative Internet products and businesses; the “Building Wealth Audio Seminar and Web Site,” which outlines proven strategies for building wealth on the Internet; “Million-Dollar E-Mails,” a collection of proven sellers giving you the outlines of where you need to go with any e-mail campaign; “Black Belt Internet Marketing,” a course in the techniques and technologies of Internet marketing; and “Auto Responder Magic,” which teaches novices and experienced ‘Net citizens how to build an auto responder to e-mail contacts, enabling you to bond with your customers in a more personal way.  Any and all of these wealth-promoting resources can lead to your making thousands of dollars from a minimal initial investment, and they all come to you at extremely rock-bottom prices!

        The purchase of one of these featured products, “Instant Internet Empires,” entitles you to entry in “Trivia Challenges #1,” an exciting intellectual contest that lets you match wits with me, your faithful fellow entrepreneur.  You may also enter “Trivia Challenges #2” at no purchase cost to you for a $15 entry/processing fee.  You must enter either or both contests through the Human Imagineering web site, and follow the outlined instructions.  The prizes for both games will be awarded based upon the first three entirely correct submissions for each game received in date/time order on the Human Imagineering web site e-mail, thomasxxxxxxxx@msn.com .  Prizes for TC #1 are:  First Place, $500; Second Place, $250; and Third Place, $100.  Prizes for TC #2 are:  First Place, $400; Second Place, $200; and Third Place, $75.  For consideration, all submissions to TC #1 must include a completed purchase of the featured product related to the trivia questions.  Both contests must receive the minimum number of submissions described in the contest rules (42 qualified entries for TC #1, 25 qualified entries for TC #2) before the time limit for submissions commences (30 days to close of submissions, 60 days to announcement of winners.)  No information you give us will be shared with any third parties at all!

        Human Imagineering also offers several Creative Skills Services, such as:  Home Page Links for your creative skills, $30 per year; Speech Writing and Coaching, writing $25 per five minutes of delivery, coaching $25 per hour; Business and Research Reports, $25 to $50 per page; Letters, $25 per original/$10 per follow-up; Ghostwriting, 10 cents to 20 cents per word, partial/complete; Poetry, $2 per line; and Clients Links Subscriptions, $10 per year.  We also offer a Picture Gallery, Clients Links, a Calendar of Events, Discussion Groups, and Downloadable Files for your perusal and enjoyment.

        Finally, Human Imagineering offers a “Yeshua Sensei” reference page to help you fulfill your particular path of spiritual enlightenment, leading to ideas for you to discuss with other interested parties in the Discussion Groups offered above.

        Our goal is to help you “learn to break free of the everyday and make each day a thrill, a hunt for the perfect image of your life in a world without impossibility.”—Tom Wallace.  We hope your visits to our site will help you bring all your creative visions to the fullest possible fruition, and that you have a most enjoyable experience every time you contact our marvelous site, dedicated to all your Human Imagineering!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Written by Karen Cole

 

Internet Advancement Appoints Wickham CEO

        REDMOND, WA -- Internet Advancement, provider of enterprise-class dynamic information management website optimization, today announced the appointment of Todd Wickham as its Chief Executive Officer.  Wickham brings to the company his extensive knowledge of global operations and world-class experience in overseeing high-level enterprise sales to Fortune 500 companies.

        Todd Wickham was born and raised in Washington State, and is 43 years old.  He holds a bachelor’s degree in business management.  Prior to his tenure as CEO of IA, Wickham held executive positions with some of Washington’s largest automobile dealerships, including the fourth largest in the nation.  He was Vice-President from 1996-2002 for Dealer Promotions Services, Inc., dealing with marketing/consulting for automobile promotions nationally.  In his new position, Wickham will oversee the continuing growth in the company’s enterprise sales effort.  Wickham’s appointment comes as the company prepares to announce publicly its mission to effectively market commercial websites.

        “We are thrilled that Todd will be joining the IA team.  Todd brings a wealth of high-end enterprise sales management experience--placing him in an ideal position to drive forward IA’s technology and global sales operations,” said Ernest Villamor, co-founder of Internet Advancement.  “Our focus on enterprise sales will be greatly enhanced through Todd’s experience and contacts, and will help us reinforce our position as a leader in online business intelligence services.”

        “IA’s unique technology, customer base and international presence present a tremendous opportunity for the company and an exciting step in my career,” said Wickham.  “I look forward to helping the company grow through aggressive sales growth and acquisition.

        “The unique marketing services of IA complement our existing internet mall division, www.4greatbuys.com, which is under construction to eventually become a major search engine in its own right.”

        The hiring of a Puget Sound veteran such as Wickham underlines the company’s focus on further developing its already successful enterprise sales operation.  Villamor will assume the role of Chairman of the Board.

About Internet Advancement

        IA is a leading pioneer in the commercial website optimization and positioning industry, and continues to deliver a full range of advanced Internet marketing solutions for companies.  We combine traditional business practices with proven Internet strategies and ongoing research in order to help clients maximize online sales and marketing.  IA is comprised entirely of talented, goal-oriented individuals who are relentless in their pursuit of successful delivery of excellent results to our clients.  We analyze their singularities and create naturally fitting solutions that directly enhance and strengthen our clients’ natural growth paths. Our company consists of seasoned consultants, and we are strategically aligned with specialists in web content and graphic design.  We are all dedicated to providing top-notch customer service.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sample of Rewritten Website Copy

for a Real Estate Website Company

Copy edited by Karen Cole

 

 

1. http://www.site4re.com/view

This is an example of the website you can have: a website for real estate with an object's searching system and a convenient photo viewing system.

Our Two Primary Services

1. Website creation for real estate, including everything your site needs: domain name registration, web design, hosting and support.
2. Special further support: for only $214 per month you can hire a webmaster who will take care of your site and who will perform all the work related to your site.

We will create a real estate website for you and provide special support for its operation. The idea of support is to make sure that you will never need to solve any problems by yourself on your site. We will work on your behalf during the site’s creation and continue to maintain it after its completion. Simply put, we will take care of absolutely everything.

You are in the process of creating an excellent and professional business; let us create an excellent and professional website for you.

Total price to create your new website: $674

All inclusive:
- Registration of a unique domain name (web address) for your website: $10
- Unique web design development and personalization for you (logo etc.): $300
- Software needed for site and specialized real estate CMS developed by us: $150
- Special further support. Hire our webmaster: $214 monthly - 1 month is already included
- Free website hosting

Learn more about our special further support by contacting us.

2. http://www.site4re.com/view/demo

This is a demo website. It is an example of the site we can create for you.

Here you should pay attention to:
1. Real estate objects searching system. You can set as many options as you’d like. (Look below the left menu.)
2. Simple and convenient photo viewing system. You can see all the photos for the object without page uploading each time. (Click any photo of any object.)
3. Section "Hot Offers" has been designed for advertisements. You can put your best or your sponsored objects there. (Bottom of the page.)
4. Description for each object. You will be replacing the sample text with your own descriptions. There are no limits for texts, number of photos or objects. In fact, there are no limits at all.

Do not pay any attention to the web design or structure of this site - you will have your own unique design and structure of a completely personalized website. Do not pay any attention to texts which describe objects (houses, apartments, commercial) or Rent/Sell buttons - these are all just examples.
 

Will your site be the same? No, it won’t. Your site will be exactly what you want, including unique web design, structure, domain name (web address), and content as well. An unlimited number of objects, photos, texts, pages and anything else you’d like can be placed on your website – there are no limits.

3. http://www.site4re.com/view/support

Our Special Support

When your website is completed we don’t give you tons of documentation telling you how to work with it, how to manage it or solve all those problems that may arise. We simply take care of everything ourselves.

Our support includes specialized technical support and handling of your website. Here is a brief list of what we will do:

• Place all necessary content on the website. You provide us with information (texts, photos etc), tell where on the website you want it to be – and we’ll place it. The only thing you need to do is give us all the information you want to put on the site. If necessary, we will even help you with this as well.
• Add new real estate objects (houses, offices, apartments etc).
• Manage all content of the website according to your preferences.
• Create / remove any number of pages, sections or anything else on the site.
• Solve all problems related to the site. We guarantee that you will have a website running, up and operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• Take care of EVERYTHING related to the website.

4. http://www.site4re.com/view/cms

Real estate website content management system (CMS):

 

We offer you a content management system allowing you not only to update your site quickly and easily, saving you time and money and ensuring that your site is always up-to-date, it also:

1) Has a very comfortable and useful searching system designed for a real estate website. It has all necessary options for your visitors to quickly find any objects that they want.

2) Allows your visitors to easily navigate between your real estate objects, viewing all photos by scrolling them in a special window and clicking on them to enlarge, without waiting each time for a page to update.

3) Allows you to manage all of your objects and photos very fast and simply.

4) Has a lot of useful options for you to manage your real estate objects, photos, texts, site's pages and the whole website’s content when editing.

5) Has a unique database designed for the real estate website.

6) Is a really friendly, simple, fast and smart real estate CMS, both for you to manage the site and for your visitors to use it.

 

It is possible to see how our CMS works and to buy it. But we also offer special support, where you do not need to ever work on your website. We can perform all of the required and requested work on your site regularly and on an ongoing, continuous basis.

5. http://www.site4re.com/view/about

About Us

Our company specializes in real estate website creation and provides special further support after website completion. You do not need to solve any problems related to your site or work with it at all. We will take care of everything that comes up, whether it’s daily work required for website maintenance or work you personally request us to perform on the site for you.

The Way to Success

We believe that in order to be the most effective and successful people should do only one job, the one they do the best. Such people are called professionals. This is why in our humble opinion people who run a business (for example real estate professionals) but who don't know anything about IT technologies shouldn't make their own websites. If you want your site to be really professional, modern and powerful, if you want it to be a successful instrument of your business but not "a website for 5 minutes" - leave your website creation to us.

 

We are focusing all of our creative energy, talents and efforts upon achieving the best results.

6. http://www.site4re.com/view/faq

Questions

Why do we in particular create real estate websites?

Our company has developed specialized real estate website software that is necessary for the modern real estate website. Here are two main advantages of this software for website visitors:
1) The system of photo viewing which is simple, easy and convenient in use (you are at the demo site right now at the same time – click on any photo to check the system by yourself).
2) The searching system which is very important for any real estate website and its visitors. It is a specialized real estate searching system that differs from the more common ones (check it out yourself - below the left menu).

There are also a lot of advantages for owners of our real estate website software. Learn more about our real estate website content management system (CMS).

What makes us the best?

We are focusing all of our energy and efforts on achieving the best results. We believe that in order to be successful, one should concentrate all one’s efforts in one direction. We specialize in real estate website development. That’s why we say: you run your business - let us create and take care of your website for you.

What is the idea?

Simply the following: you do not need to solve a problem called a "website". Leave it to us - we will create a real estate website for you and take care of it regularly. The only one thing you need to do is to give us all the information that you want to put on your site. Learn more about our support by contacting us.

7. One paragraph. (http://www.site4re.com/view/domain_name)

Everything written below is included in our service; we will do it ALL for you. Ten dollars is the price fixed by our ISP (Internet Service Provider), and it is taken for one domain name registration for a one year period.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sample Business Letter

 

 

Written by Karen Cole

 

 

To:  Miranda Heller, VP of Programming, HBO

Subject:  Mutual Contact, Idea for HBO Original Series

From:  the Desk of Rainbow Writing, Inc.


Dear Miranda,


    We understand you are the Vice President of Programming at HBO.  We received your name and e-mail address from an excellent script writer we both happen to know, one whose scripts are frequently produced by famous directors, such as Spike Lee and Franco Zeffirelli.
    We are Rainbow Writing, Inc., a well-known writing, editing and web development company.  And we have a sexy, controversial and extremely modern hot new property to introduce to you, by a lady who shall soon be known worldwide.
    Her name is Claudia San Luis, and she is the published author of "Sarlakk," a very controversial and seductive adult/science fiction/dark fantasy/religious-satanic novel, part of a series, which both nobly and colorfully displays the heartfelt interaction of Good versus Evil.  Good finally comes out as the most positive force in the end.  But Ms. San Luis lovingly and elaborately explains the dynamically necessary interaction of all the dark and light forces, through a well-drawn web of intriguing characterizations and engagingly interwoven plot elements.
    She has many interrelated themes in her series of novels, all with similar and continuing concepts and characters.  We can send you an excerpt of her enticingly romantic, darkly fascinating prose, which encompasses heated sex, detailed and dark-hued political maneuverings, and much freely feminine symbolism, including gay and bisexual references and "the immortal poison of the succulently scarlet rose!"  Simply request it from us, and we will send it on to you, if you are interested.
    Although the novels are both sensuously and sexually graphic, they can be readily adapted to fit HBO's requirements and formats.  The sexual sequences can be toned down and implied rather than actually presented very easily.  And Ms. San Luis, along with RWI and the aforementioned script writer, are willing to work closely with you and HBO to make all the perceived necessary changes to any of the structures, scenes and characteristics of her work needed by the programming agencies.
    I am also writing to Carolyn Strauss, the head of HBO's "Original Series" program, with a similar letter, outlining the exceptional qualities of Ms. San Luis' series of books.  Please reply back as soon as possible regarding an overall review of her writing talents.  After you have made your decision, which should most definitively be in the positive, we will begin the process of formalizing a contract, and producing the treatment and a full script of the first book in this new and seductively controversial adult-oriented series, "Sarlakk."

 

With the Warmest Regards,

Karen Cole

Executive Director

Rainbow Writing, Inc.

www.rainbowriting.com

 

KLC

klc

 

 

 

If Puget Sound is Falling Down

 

Written by Karen Cole
Used by students in the University of Washington’s Geophysics Program
Won a Writing Excellence Award at Writing.Com

 

          William Steele, the Seismology Lab Coordinator at the University of Washington Geophysics Program, has a son, Chris, who goes to elementary school.

          “He comes in sometimes and he loves to do stuff.”  It seems he’d recently put a sticker on one of the lab’s monitors, and his father had some trouble accessing the equipment.  “What an excuse!”  Steele never did get into the program he’d wanted to show me.

          December 4 of last year there was a magnitude 5.1 quake in Klamath Falls, Oregon.  Aftershocks were felt in Washington State.  I had headed out to the UW in search of information on recent earthquake activity in the Puget Sound region.

          “Oregon is relatively quiet next to Washington.  But this year, we’ve had an enormous amount of activity in Oregon, counter to past patterns.”  Klamath Falls couldn’t be noisier, said Steele, ticking off the numbers:  September 4, 5.9; Sept. 20, 5.9, 5.0, 4.3; Dec. 4, 5.1; and Christmas Day, 4.0, 3.4.

          Most of our local activity in the Puget Sound region is recorded by the UW’s lab equipment.  They have an emergency preparation computer program called “Beat the Quake,” hailing from the land of quakes, California, which has suffered through quite a lot of severe earthquake damage lately.  That’s the program Steele had trouble running on his computer.  Fortunately, the UW’s Seismology Lab has far more emergency preparedness information “so we don’t have to begin from ground zero” in the likely event of an earthquake.  Steele is also the Public Information Officer covering quakes through the UW.  “We have 135 seismic stations throughout Washington and Oregon, currently operating, and we’re expanding.  We really cover a tremendously broad area.”

          They locate quakes precisely, then determine the magnitude (quantity of total energy released by the quake), location (area affected by the quake), and epicenter (location on the surface directly above the focus, or place where an earthquake originates.)          They collect data about the geology of the region as well.  “It’s critical data.   This lab is an educational center for graduate students in geophysics.”  They also educate citizens.  School groups bring in students, and Steele speaks at civic organizations, encouraging people to take action and make themselves safer from earthquakes.

          Of course, the big question everyone asks is, “When?”

          “We’re not able to put down a date.  It’s more complicated because three types of quakes occur in the Puget Sound region.  The most common are deep earthquakes.

          “Signals travel through the planet’s crust, sometimes all the way from the other side.”  Events from anywhere show up on their helicorder sheets, making an analog, a 24-hour record, of every quake.  For example, the Klamath Falls quakes, which are very near California on the Oregon coast.

          “We cover the Cascade Range, and have multiple stations on every volcano.  We have a good station at Mt. Baker, adequate to cover the region.”  Earthquakes around volcanoes are very common.

          The lab shares data with California for quakes occurring on the border of California and Oregon.  “We’re part of the Washington Regional Seismic Network.”  Steele showed me a map of Pacific Northwest Seismicity, 1969-1991.  There were huge blue clusters in Puget Sound.  What are those, I asked.  “Moderate, shallow, and deep quakes.  The deep clusters are in the Puget Basin.”

          Deep earthquakes, the ones you really tend to write home about, are the largest in magnitude as measured on the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale.  The values usually range from 1.0 (not felt) to 7.0 (extreme damage to buildings and land surfaces).  They can go even higher, as they have in recent deep quakes in Alaska.

          Here’s what’s happening in Puget Sound:  about 300 kilometers or more out from the coast is where the deep quakes are generated.  There’s a ridge 500 to 700 kilometers out called the Juan de Fuca Ridge, and new material, new sea floor, is being deposited all the time along it.  It pushes the Juan de Fuca plate toward the North American plate underneath the Seattle area.  The Juan de Fuca plate moves an average of two inches a year, towards us, lifting the other plate.

          A border zone locks it up, an interface between the two plates that stops the oceanic plate, making it subduct beneath us, forcing the ocean plate down into the mantle of the Earth.  This boundary is called the Cascadia Subduction Zone, and extends from the middle of Vancouver Island in British Columbia down to Northern California.

          The Earth’s mantle lies beneath its brittle crust.  It’s semi-solid, due to tremendous heat and pressure.  “Our Cascade volcanoes are probably there because of plate subduction beneath us.  The push deforms the crust and builds up tremendous stresses.  Right now, the coast of Washington is rising.  It’s bulging up.”  The oceanic plate is “cold rock” and the shock of the two forces meeting leads to deep earthquakes.  Washington has recently experienced two large ones, in 1949 and 1965.

          A flyer from the lab states that roughly 1,000 earthquakes per year are recorded in Washington and Oregon.  “Between one and two dozen of these cause enough ground shaking to be felt by residents.  Most are in the Puget Sound region, and few cause any real damage.  However, based on the history of past damaging earthquakes and our understanding of the geologic history of the Pacific Northwest, we are certain that damaging earthquakes (magnitude 6.0 or greater) will recur in our area, although we have no way to predict whether this is more likely to be today, or years from now.”  Steele thinks it will be soon.

          “In 1949, there was a severe earthquake in Olympia, 7.1.  Eight people were killed and there was millions of dollars worth of property damage.  The quake was located 70 kilometers deep.

          “In 1965, there was a magnitude 6.5 quake between Seattle and Tacoma.”  Both earthquakes were felt as far away as Montana.  But there were no aftershocks, as is usual during a deep quake.  The infamous aftershocks, known to catch people in the middle of recovering from a bad earthquake, happen during land-based shallow earthquakes.  The ocean-based shocks occurred once, causing ground tremors that lasted several minutes.  “The 1965 quake killed about five people, and again there was millions of dollars of property damage.”  Other deep events, difficult to calculate from records of the times, occurred in 1882, 1909, and 1939.  “Every 35 years or so a 6.0+ magnitude quake occurs beneath Puget Basin.  The whole region along the coast will shift at once.  When it finally builds up enough pressure to kick up, it’ll be a big one.”

          Eighty percent of the quakes on the planet happen along the Pacific North West Rim, which is referred to as “The Ring of Fire” because of all our volcanic activity.  In 1964, one year before this area’s last big event, south-central Alaska generated a monster 9.3 quake, shaking the ground for twenty minutes, generating tidal waves that decimated Seward’s coast, affected 34,000 square miles, and killed 143 people.  And there’s been recent large quakes in Cape Mendecino, California, and Parkfield, California, infamous for ground shaking, in 1992.

          Brian Atwater of the USGS (United States Geological Service) and the UW geology department has done studies along the coasts of Washington and Oregon.  He’s found a kind of layered soil…”what he found…ghost forests killed by the last big quakes.  Subduction zone material covered by coarse black sand.”  A layer gradually turned into forest floor and then the sand layer.  “As bulging continues, coastline rises, and low-lying areas are flushed clean by salt water.  Stress released during the quake makes the coastline subside by seven or eight feet.  It ‘drops.’  If you’re living at five feet above sea level, it’s not a very comfortable thing.”

          Earthquakes also generate large tsunamis, or tidal waves; the biggest ones, generated by larger quakes, can rip up an entire coastline for miles, wiping out bridges, roads, and buildings.  The really great subduction zone quakes, 9.0 or more, only occur about once a century on the face of the planet.  Strangely, a big quake may result in only about three-and-a-half minutes worth of strong ground shaking, which doesn’t sound like much.  “One recent California quake was only seventeen seconds of strong ground motion, a 7.1 quake.  A 7.0 quake releases the equivalent of 199,000 tons of TNT in energy; a 9.0 releases 200 million tons, or 17,000 atomic bombs’ worth of force.

          “The difference between an 8 and a 9 is greater than the difference between a 2 and an 8, because of the logarithmic scale.  The force increases exponentially.  It gets 30 times greater each time.”  I wondered if it ever goes up to 10.0.

          By carbon-14 dating organic matter in ground and sea levels, “scientists can determine approximate dates for events going back 10,000 years.”  Finding clues about these earthquakes involves both painstaking research and educated guesswork.

          Research has recently identified a Seattle fault which generated a large quake between 1,000 to 1,100 years ago.  “There were landslides, and a huge seiche  -- when something big falls in the water, creating waves like tsunamis.  Large block landslides occurred in forests.  Restoration Point on Bainbridge Island rose twenty feet from Puget  Sound in seconds during that event.”

          Buildup from glacial ice sheets once covering the continent make it difficult to analyze shallow crust faults.  But geologists are pretty sure there are two major Seattle faults.  The biggest one runs from the north tip of Mercer Island through Eastgate to the Kingdome, just north of West Seattle.  The other fault runs through White Center, parallel to the bigger one.  In 1872, an estimated 7.3 shallow quake caused what seismologists call “felt reports” from observers, the only evidence of some older quakes.  Native Americans tell legends about what must have been some very sizeable earthquakes and tsunamis.

          Nowadays, all the real-time telemetry (automatic transmission of data from a distant source to a receiving station) comes through in the back of the lab, where Steele poured me a cup of Starbucks coffee at their metal sink in a very equipment-crowded space.  “Relays ‘zap’ activity energy in nanoseconds to the lab.  Before people in a region know what’s going to hit them, we do.”  The helicorders monitor 23 stations on analog.

         “We focus on volcanoes.  All stations, including the ones on helicorders, go onto the computer system in the next room.  The discriminator in the back takes FM carrier signals and separates them from seismic signals, leaving an amplified seismic signal.  It goes to the front room, changing into digital information the computer can read.

          “If it picks up a ‘jump’ (a skip in the needle on the helicorder) on a station, it checks other stations and records all data, whether there’s a signal or not.  If it’s a big quake, it does estimates of the magnitude etc. via programs, beeps the people (like Steele), and sends information to seismologists around the region.”  Steele might hear a “beep” anytime.

          As I drank my coffee, Steele told me he’s a grad student, his life’s partner works, and together they support their family, renting a house in Wallingford and raising two kids.  “It’s a rewarding job, but…the rewards are not monetary.”  Nonetheless, he feels treated as a colleague by everyone, and has a good working relationship with all his “fellows at the lab.”

          About earthquake preparedness, Steele is adamant.  “The secret is not fear and loathing in Seattle, and that we have to hide under our beds.  Let’s get ready.  Our schools need to get to the point where we can withstand a 7.4 earthquake.  How many little bodies do we need under bricks before we start spending some money?”  Right now, there are no definite laws enforcing earthquake building codes, “if the building code years ago said you could pile bricks without mortar on top of each other.”

          Unreinforced masonry creates structures that fall during even moderate earthquakes.  “The entire wall of a school can fall down and kill students.  A brick that falls three stories doesn’t slow down,” he said, referring to the death of a boy during the 1965 earthquake.  Steele is certain such deaths are preventable.

          At least six schools in Oregon have unreinforced structures, bricks that can fall and fill a doorway, blocking the exit.  “Retrofit them, or tear them down and build another school.  If a school has been considered unsafe for a quake lately, they can sell it, and it becomes a senior center.  No laws stop that.  These buildings need to be brought up to code or taken down.  Deaths will happen unless we act.  India just had a 6.8 quake…tens of thousands dead.  There needs to be water and food stored away to last 72 hours.  You need to get under a table and ride it out; get down on the ground, under something; check to see if you smell gas, and turn it off; electricity, too.”

          You should get to know your community resources, Steele said.  And in case of severe aftershocks, if you’re in a building “you should wait until the shaking stops, and then get out.”   Lots of people are killed by falling debris while evacuating buildings.

          The number of FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) in Woodinville, headed by Chris Trisler, is (206) 487-4645.  It’s their job to assist people with earthquake preparedness, though in recent years the national organization has been associated with poorly planned disaster relief - due to the frequent East/South Coast hurricanes.

          What does Steele see in the immediate future?  “I expect more of the same.  Probably some quakes greater than 4.0 in the Puget Sound area.  While we’ve been talking, there’ve been events in Klamath Falls,.”  As I write this, there are aftershocks east of the Dec. 4 “sequence” starting in Klamath Falls.  “The question is, are we going to recognize the danger and do something about it, or are we going to wait until we have an adequate death toll?  I’d like to see a dedicated plan and some leadership from the state.  It’ll be a lot of money.”

          Steele said a colleague of his said it best:  “The next great disaster will happen as soon as we forget about the last one.”

          (Some of the info in this article is from “Washington State Earthquake Hazards,” by Lawrance, Qamar and Thorsen, 1988.)

 

 

If you'd like to see a bit more of my writing,

please check out this recent portfolio page:

 

Karen Cole's Public Portfolio

 

 

(Ghostwriter Service) (Ghostwriter Resume)

(Ghostwriter Portfolio)

 

 

 

 

 

karen@rainbowriting.com

 

 

 

  This ghost writer site is protected by copyright © and trademark™ laws

under U.S. and international law. All rights reserved 2010.

                  

                           

07/24/2010 18:50:57