Libertarian Actress Darcey Halsey's New Gig

Actress Darcy Halsey, a registered Libertarian and avowed peace activist, has a new gig -- helping travelers find the information they need at Los Angeles's Traveler's Bookcase, 8375 West Third Street.

The store has an intimate setup, offering a comfort zone where people can sit, sip tea or coffee, and discuss travel and books about travel.

"I've seen the owner spends hours with some customers, sharing travel advice and helping them with their upcoming trips," says Halsey.


But it's not only about travel -- Traveler's Bookcase has a sideline devoted to mystery books about travel. Mystery fans can prepare for upcoming trips by reading some sleuthing tales set along their itinerary.

"We have a mystery table with mysteries set around the world," says owner Natalie Compagno. "We've had two signings recently -- Michael Genelin and Cara Black, both hugely successful. We'd love to have more events.

"We also have lots of coffee table books for gifts," she says. "And I just got pulled onto a gift basket project for E Entertainment, and had to make some books happen!"


Store hours are Monday 11-7, Tuesday through Saturday 10-7, and Sunday 11-5. Open every day except July 4th, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Year's.

Smuggling Gaza Floatilla Footage Out of the Israeli State

I remember the anti-Communist Reaganism of the 1980s. One of conservativism's points of evidence against Communism was the Soviet State's attempt to suppress free expression. Book, photos, film footage had to be smuggled out of the Soviet Union.

Conservatives regarded it as a "given" that if people had to smuggle information out of a country, that alone was enough to indict the country's government. Didn't matter how accurate the information was -- that was for the viewer or reader to decide. Free nations did not suppress information.

Shortly after Israel attacked the Gaza Aid Floatilla, killing 9 aid workers, talk radio in Los Angeles, almost unanimously, defended Israel's attack. Soon afterwards, Israel released footage of the attack, which its defenders claimed "proved" that armed Israeli commandos were merely defending themselves against civilian aid workers.

But as The Guardian reports:

"Michalis Grigoropoulos, who was at the wheel of the Free Mediterranean, said: 'We were in international waters. The Israelis acted like pirates, completely out of the normal way that they conduct nautical exercises, and seized our ship. They took us hostage, pointing guns at our heads; they descended from helicopters and fired tear gas and bullets. There was absolutely nothing we could do … Those who tried to resist forming a human ring on the bridge were given electric shocks.'

"Grigoropoulos, who insisted the ship was full of humanitarian aid bound for Gaza 'and nothing more', said that, once detained, the human rights activists were not allowed to contact a lawyer or the Greek embassy in Tel Aviv. 'They didn't let us go to the toilet, eat or drink water and throughout they videoed us. They confiscated everything, mobile phones, laptops, cameras and personal effects. They only allowed us to keep our papers.'

Now, you can prove almost anything depending on how you edit footage. Israel had all the footage -- its own and that which it confiscated. Any conservative, or libertarian, who is consistent, would at least doubt the footage released by any government, especially if that government had confiscated its opponent's footage.

Fortunately for the truth, some footage has been successfully smuggled out of Israel. (And what does it say about a nation, that one must "smuggle" footage out of it?)

Here's some of it now:



And part two:

KHC Guest Eddie McMullen's Universal Dead

KHC attendees may remember horror journalist Eddie McMullen, who writes for FeoAmante.com and appeared at last March's KHC meeting.

Eddie was the art director on Universal Dead, a newly released webisode series:



Eddie is currently trying to raise money to direct a horror feature film.

Hollywood Witches Satirizes Industry Hypocrisies

Hollywood says it loves equal opportunity and multicultural diversity. Development executive Diana Däagen thinks the studio's hiring is based more on ageism, sexism, and nepotism.

And so, surrounded by followers of Wicca, astrology, Native American shamans, telephone psychics, UFO prophets, a channeled warlord from Atlantis, and the alchemy of Hermes Trismegistus, Diana's coven of New Age witches hatch a plot to infiltrate and diversify the entertainment industry until Hollywood "looks like America" -- no matter how many eggs must be broken along the way.

Only the intrepid supermarket tabloid reporters of the Hollywood Investigator and Weekly Universe family of family publications can stop Diana's path toward world media domination.

Hollywood Witches is an urban fantasy/satire, debuting as an Amazon Kindle ebook. Look for a paper edition later in 2010.

Libertarians Should Welcome New Anti-Torture Play

Robert Johnson of the New Jersey Star-Ledger reviews An American Rendition, a new play that tackles America's pro-torture policy in the "War on Terror":

"Americans would rather not consider the suffering of people water-boarded, beaten and deprived of sleep as part of our government's so-called war on terror.

"Choreographer Jane Comfort tackles what she calls this 'collective unwillingness to look' in 'An American Rendition,' a grimly mocking work of contemporary dance-theater coming to the Theatre at Raritan Valley Community College on Saturday.



"The piece recalls the by-now much publicized activities of government agents who sequestered individuals without trial and have subjected them to practices explicitly prohibited under U.S. and international law.

"While 'An American Rendition' focuses on the plight of a fictional character mistakenly detained and transported to a U.S.-operated black site, the piece ironically juxtaposes the gruesome incidents of his captivity with weirdly light-hearted scenes inspired by reality television."

Read the rest of the article.

Also read: Pentagon Possessed: A Neocon Horror Story.

An Easy Way to Promote Peace

Jon Rainwater suggests an easy way to donate money to the peace movement -- and it costs you nothing:

Your smarts can be put to good use AND help Peace Action West raise some money, quickly and easily.

Our friends at CREDO, the progressive mobile phone company, have figured out a way to put all those crazy things the right wing nuts say to work for good causes like us. They put together a quiz to test you on the latest conservative claptrap – it's called OMG GOP WTF?!

Every time you answer a question correctly, we get 10 cents. There are five questions, so that means that if we get 1000 people to take the quiz and you score okay…we get $500 dollars. Check out the quiz: www.omggopwtf.com.

But, you’ll want to act fast. The quiz only benefits Peace Action West from February 15 to February 21. Next week, it will be a new quiz and a new organization, so don’t wait!

Thanks,

Jon Rainwater
Executive Director, Peace Action West

Anti-Iraq War Satire on Kindle

Back in the summer of 2006, I wrote a screenplay, Pentagon Possessed: A Neocon Horror Story.

In 2007, it was a quarterfinalist in four screenplay contests: the Fade-In Magazine Screenplay Contest; Writers on the Storm; the AAA Screenplay Contest; and The Writer's Network contest.

Pentagon Possessed is an X-Files parody set against recent history. In my script, two FBI agents discover that dark supernatural forces were behind the Patriot Act, and America's entry into the Iraq War.

A reader for the Slamdance Screenplay Competition wrote in the coverage report: "The writer's awesome research into the details of the disinformation generated by the Neocon cabal within the government, in order to justify the invasion of Iraq, suggests strongly this should be a television docudrama, as the genesis of the Vietnam War was treated in John Frankenheimer's HBO presentation, The Path To War (2003). The scenes in the script based on this research are quite good, with a strong accent of mockery of the participants that is quite entertaining. For entertainment value, such a docudrama would beat Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 all to hell."

Pentagon Possessed is a satirical horror story that reminds us that governments will use fear of a foreign enemy to suppress civil liberties at home. That war is the health of the state. And that questioning authority is patriotic.

Despite some favorable attention in Hollywood, Pentagon Possessed was never bought or produced. Perhaps someday...

But in the meantime, I am making Pentagon Possessed available to the general public as an Amazon Kindle ebook.