Al Burian weaves an excellent fictional but real account of twenty / thirty something life in the modern USA. Here is an Excerpt: "We see humans engage in similar behavior, although admittedly less in the context of procreation and Darwinistic survival and more in the are of pay-per-view cable entertainment options, in the form of the "Ultimate Fighting Championship" program, an international sporting event in which there seem to be no rules except those generally governing global human rights abuses and war crimes. Martial arts masters from the Far East go up against guys from Newark whose idea of fighting expertise is drinking from a bottle of gin and starting a bar fight. The results are often surprising. The constant is the insane violence, the disturbing spectacle of seeing people pounding on each other like animals. "Ultimate Fighting Championship" viewing never fails to deliver a queasy, unsanitary sensation, the bottom-feeding feeling of watching the very lowest common denominator in what can still be identified as "entertainment" - one step up, maybe, from watching videos of police car wreck footage. Although, I must concede: if, as in ape culture, the prize for being the winner of "Ultimate Fighting Championship" was the exclusive right to mate with the women of earth, it would probably make the program more compelling viewing. In any case, I am not sure where I stand in regards to this whole mating-for-life-issue. Humans, Judith points out, are the only creatures that mate for entertainment. That whole aspect complicates everything greatly, we both agree. The great apes have a good thing going for their needs, in that they have an effective, albeit socio-mechanically primitive, form of assuring that the greatest of the ape qualities are passed on, and since these great qualities consist of exactly two, ass-kicking and chest-pounding, the selection process is reasonably simple. If humans subscribed to a winner-takes-all pecking order of the type the great apes favor, the only person currently allowed to initiate sexual intercourse would be someone like Bill Gates, a man of great power and influence but also a man whose dancing was characterized by Newsweek magazine as looking like "a twelve year old kicking around a squirrel."

    Dr. Martina McGowan is a retired MD, a mother, grandmother, and a poet. Her poetry provides insights that no think piece on racism can; putting readers in the uncomfortable position of feeling, reflecting, and facing what it means to be a Black American.This entire collection was created during 2020, many shortly after the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, to name but a few.

    After being attacked by a 20-stone California biker in for stabbing a girlfriend, Shaun writes about the prisoners who befriend, protect and inspire him. They include T-Bone, a massive African American ex-Marine who risks his life saving vulnerable inmates from rape, and Two Tonys, an old-school Mafia murderer who left the corpses of his rivals from Tucson to Alaska. They teach Shaun how to turn incarceration to his advantage, and to learn from his mistakes.Resigned to living alongside violent, mentally-ill, and drug-addicted inmates, Shaun immerses himself in psychology and philosophy to try to make sense of his past behaviour, and begins applying what he learns as he adapts to prison life. Encouraged by Two Tonys to explore fiction as well, Shaun reads over a thousand books which, with support from brilliant psychotherapist Dr. O, speed along his personal development. As his ability to deflect daily threats improves, Shaun begins to look forward to his release with optimism and a new love waiting for him. Yet the words of Aristotle from one of Shaun’s books will prove prophetic: 'We cannot learn without pain'.