Rick McBee's Writings
Explore the magic of new ideas and books to read as well as see what books I have written, my favorite photos, my opinions on may subjects, including Science, Africa, the Caribbean, the Civil War, my Book Reviews, and Much More!
Book Review: Gravity by Tess Gerritsen
I’ve always loved Tess Gerritsen’s writing and her murder mysteries are fabulous. Here she diverges into a bit of science fiction and pulls off a great novel which I would mark as a ‘must read.’
Whether it’s inner space in the depths of the ocean where this tale begins, or in outer space where it ends, there is little room for error, whether it is in navigating your undersea pod, working with experimental organisms, or piloting a space shuttle. It’s in just such a place that Dr. Emma Watson gives her all in a battle to survive in battling a genetically modified organism that goes wild in the zero gravity of her space station. As a former parasitologist, I loved the references to know beasties such as hydatid cysts which nobody wants growing inside their bodies. The author’s creature makes this nasty earthling bug look almost like a cuddly lamb by comparison.
The cold, calculating character of the expedition leader, Diana Estes, her warm fuzzy lover boy astronaut Mike Griggs and the nervous isolation of Japanese astronaut Kenichi Hirai, all make for tension and dynamism leading up to the ‘accident’. It’s the other scientist astronauts: Emma Watson, Kittredge, Jill Hewitt, Mercer and the Russian, Nicolai who begin the battle for survival against a string of accidents, errors and the implacable growth of a deadly microbe.
What begins as a fairly unified team quickly falls apart as the infection spreads from one astronaut to another, as the attempted rescue fails and the space station is breached and cut off from Earth by a freak accident. In the end, only Emma’s lucky observation on the experimental lab mice gives a hint at a way to prevent disaster from reaching Earth and wiping out millions. He fate and that of her former husband, Jack McCallum, astronaut in forced retirement, will be tied together in a dramatic final attempt to save the space station and the mission.
You’ll love author Gerritsen’s plot and wealth of knowledge, all superbly tied together, right down to the surprise cure and dramatic ending.
[[ASIN:1532995342 The Ghosts of Ukuthula]]!
How far will men’s prejudices go to prevent a woman from becoming the next U.S. President?
A Sunday meditation essay on Matt. 7: 1-5 and John 8: 1-11 as it refers to our treatment of women.
It is apparent that the USA is a country in which women are second class citizens. This has been documented and reported on countless times by our national media. We that women are not allowed to have control of their own decision making when it comes to conceiving and bearing children. We know that the rate of abuse and rape of women by men is far greater than reported, and that the burden of proof for those acts is skewed to protect men. We know that women are regularly paid less for the same work than men in the same job position. Do we not see this as injustice when we rail against other nations for doing the same things?
How is all of this deeply ingrained societal prejudice against women going to play out in the coming presidential election?
Well let’s compare two candidates of the same sex.
What if a man running for President had a life-long career of service to the poor, the children, the health care, and the security of our nation, and in during that service had held governmental positions from volunteer to lawyer, to senator, to secretary of state? Would that man not have been deemed qualified to run for the presidency of the United States?
What if that man had been in a position of power during a terrible international terrorist incident and been grilled by our congress three times about possible foreknowledge; each time being found innocent of any wrong doing? Would that man not be judged innocent by our nation?
What if that man had been speaking to different groups around the country at large fundraising events for bankers, wealthy business persons, law enforcement, farmers and parents, with each talk focusing on our nation with a different spin? Would that difference of focus by that man not have been applauded as being cleverly political in order to persuade his audience?
What if a man of this stature had all of his emails for the past ten or more years investigated by the highest law enforcement agency of our country and found not to have broken any laws? Would this man not have been deemed to be innocent?
What if this same man had all of those same emails released to a rabble of rumor mongering journalists to pick through for scraps of dung. What if the director of the FBI then made an unofficial announcement of finding more of this man’s emails? Would we not have said the journalist were feeding on already chewed bones, and the FBI director needed to guard confidentiality of ongoing investigations or be fired?
What would we say about this man’s qualifications to be president as compared to another man who flouts public tax rules, molests women, mocks judges and minorities, defrauds students, cheats his servants and workers, and has no understanding of world affairs?
How does this same tale play out when “woman” replaces the word “man” for you?
Start the Day By Lifting Your Eyes To The Hills!
- Take five deep calming breaths, and exhale to blow out all the problems of the world!
- Now take three more deep breaths noting the picture’s features:
- Breath #1: The rising shaft of the rainbow sending your spirit souring!
- Breath #2: The intricacy of the Teepee shelter frame pointing skyward!
- Breath #3: The fleeing rain clouds are revealing the pure blue sky!
Now take three more deep breaths while staring at the picture as a whole.
Have a Great Day! Collect your Free Book!
Rick McBee
Halloween Saturday Freebie! Civil War History of Richard Clow! Rough Enough!
Remember! McBee gives you a Worldwide Freebie each Saturday until December 17, 2016!
Once there was a young man who volunteered three times for military service. Twice for the Civil War 
and once for the Frontier! 
Here’s your chance to get a free Kindle or PC copy for the 24 hours (Pacific Standard Time) on Saturday, 29 October, 2016. WORLDWIDE SALE SO CHECK YOUR TIME ZONE!
Read about his battles! 
His loves!
All in one book! 
Next Week! Watch for! 2 Books!
and 
Enjoy!>)
Book Review! “Kill Process” by William Hertling. A New Era of ‘IT’ Sci-Fi! I wish I Could Still Climb Aboard!
Kill Process by William Hertling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Open your eyes world! The new age of IT science fiction is upon us in a form that will educate you, entertain you and probably scare you a bit if you haven’t yet put masking tape over the intrusive camera eye of your PC, Laptop, or Smart-Phone. The process of working out all the set-up for an IT murder is fascinating! Especially when the murderer works for the largest IT corporation on the planet, can hack into the entire system, and is now thinking of starting up a new open source company that will cut into the mother company, TOMO, big time. It the threat to TOMO big enough for a murder contract to go out on our heroine? How do you work the deep net, sort out masses of burner phones and cheap PC’s to set up an untraceable hacking system to follow you quarry without getting nailed yourself?
Author William Hertling has the system down pat. He only lost me, I’m one of your ancient visual basic guys, for a couple of pages in the Ch. 15 – 16 discussions involving “Neuromancer” followed by the relationships between JSON, HTML, HTML5, and XML. Fortunately I didn’t ‘grok out’ and quit the book because it only gets smoother and better with every page.
Fabulously well written heroine and sub-heroine plots to overcome Angie’s PTSD, and paranoia in a male dominated world. The stats on abuse are great! The ending is the kind of suspense and tension that will suck you up and spit you out with new revelations on the uncanny ability of this author to devise new way of killing others. Definitely not an ‘old hat’ plot!
This book is a must read for all you old programmers, Apple 2E and Mac Classic users who have wished they could be reborn in this fabulous IT era!
Don’t forget to check out: [[ASIN:1532995342 The Ghosts of Ukuthula]]
Strategy: My 3 Kindle Books Free! 9 days of Worldwide Giveaway!
It’s that time of the year! Share my Time to try out a new strategy! Keep these dates when you and your friends will be able to receive free books of your choice. Forward this to as many of your followers as possible so they can share in the holiday joy!.
What am I doing? I’m doing a worldwide giveaway!>))
- The day when most books sell is Saturday! Check it all out! Sooooooo……
- I decided to rotate my Kindle Kindle Direct Publishing books through the offers they allow authors to give during a 90 day period. This means to offer their books FREE!
- With 9 Saturdays and one Cyber Monday between now and the traditional holiday celebrations of Christmas Eve Christmas Customs, Hanukkah Hanukkah Customs, and Kwanzaa Kwanzaa Customs , to name only a few of the celebrations this time of year. It’s a great time for people everywhere to relax and celebrate with a good book.
- I will be giving away my new South African Adventure novel 0n 5 days: 10/22, 11/12, 11/26, 11/28, and 12/10 between the hours of 12AM PST and 12PM PST (that’s GMT minus 8 hours for those of you on the other side of the planet. Check it out!
5. For all of you true to life history buffs, I will be giving away my Civil War History book on 2 days: 10/29, and 11/5, again between 12AM and 12PM on each date (GMT minus 8 hours) Check it out!
6. And Last but by no means least! For all of you traveling to Florida or the Caribbean I will be giving away my Seashells of the Caribbean book on 5 days: 11/5, 11/19, 11/26, 12/3, and 12/17, again between 12AM and 12PM on each of those dates (GMT minus 8 hours) Check it out!
Sounds Crazy? Yea! Enjoy yourselves and have a very merry holiday!
Another Wacky British WWII Genius
A secret Lake in Canada! A secret plan to defeat the U-boat domination of the central Atlantic Ocean gives rise to an amazing story! The documentation, held secret by the British for 35 years after the war reveal and eccentric genius, a half cocked plan to make an aircraft carrier of ice, and the selling of the idea to Churchill in a crazy bathtub demonstration by Lord Mountbatten. A mixture known as pykrete becomes the secrete to the prevention of melting and fracturing solid ice in order to stop bullets, torpedoes and bombs. Human ingenuity and the ability to think outside the box becomes an asset in wartime and this allows Geoffrey Pike to rise to enter the annals of history with his idea that sparked Britain and Canada to embark on a voyage of scientific discovery that brings to light more knowledge about the properties of water in the form of ice than had been known up to that point in time. A quick read and well worth it for those of us who have journeyed or plan to journey to Lake Louise in Canada. A side trip to nearby Lake Patricia will allow you to reflect on the ideas of a forgotten man, reborn as a genius in this small history. Author L. D. Cross has written an excellent book for a WW2 secret project that completely blew away my mind!
Check out the book on Amazon
Genealogists Love New Civil War History! 4 Great Reasons!
Another Ghost from Richard Clow’s Past Reappears! 
” I googled Richard Clow and came up with your wonderful information on Richard’s first wife Mary Bingham and her husband. Mary is my grandfather Abraham Earl White’s first cousin, as her mother, Rebecca White Bingham Larpenteur, was one of his father’s older sisters. I was so thrilled that you would share her story and photo online, as for years she has only been a story-less name on my family tree with a family-less husband. What a remarkable collection your family has preserved! If you have any other information on Mary Bingham and her family, I would be so interested as the Binghams remained in Little Sioux, Iowa, along with other White sisters and their husbands (Caroline White and Enos Fry, Abigail White and Isaac Ashton, Malinda White and Lorenzo Dow Driggs) while the rest of the family, including Mary’s widowed grandmother Rebecca Smith White, moved to Utah with the main group of Mormons.”
Now this is exactly what makes writing History so great! How else would I have ever been able to find out about these historical relations without someone chancing onto my blog posts in which I have photos and as much history as I can find on each person. This is what makes technology so powerful in tracing the past!
Why do genealogists love new Civil War History books such as “Rough Enough,” the story of Richard H, Clow in the Civil War and then on the frontier?
Here are 4 reasons!
1. The first reason is that new personalities from the Civil War are very often enlisted men who appear on the stage for the first time, thus giving us new information about themselves, their families and their activities during and after the war.
2. In addition to the information about themselves, new persons on the History stage generally bring along other characters with them and introduce us to a wide range of other persons. nI the case of Richard Clow, we meet his two wives, Mary Bingham Clow and Melinda Story Clow within the context of life on the frontier. We meet his father, John Stevenet Clow, his brother, John Sherwin Clow and one of his employers, Charles Larpenteur as well as a plethora of other enlisted men and minor officers, again persons we would never hear about, but who crop up in his letters and Diary.
Mary Bingham Clow John Stevenet Clow
3. We also get a fresh viewpoint straight from the trenches of the Civil War, or of the incidents on the Frontier, not muddled by the often self-serving promotion seen with officer’s reports. In this case we get original versions of songs transcribed directly into Clow’s diary.
4. Lastly we hear stories of the dead. As this tombstone at Fort Buford attests, Richard Clow was in the party that collected the bodies after the massacre, and wrote about it in one of his letters to his sister. It’s transcribed in the book. See Fort Buford, North Dakota
A big thanks to Claudia for making my day!>))
Book Review: China’s Second Continent by Howard W. French
China’s Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa by Howard W. French My rating: 5 of 5 stars A must read book! Listen up, all you former African Missionari…
Source: Book Review: China’s Second Continent by Howard W. French
Book Review: China’s Second Continent by Howard W. French
China’s Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa by Howard W. French
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A must read book! Listen up, all you former African Missionaries, AID workers, Peace Corps Volunteers and Diplomatic corps!
Time to read about the new kid on the African playing field who is picking up the ball that we-all seem to have fumbled during the last 40 years. That kid’s name is China! Author French has given us an eye-opener of a book and we need to read it and talk about what to do for the future of the planetary game.
In the same way that sixteenth century Europe financed explorers, trappers, traders and entrepreneurs to move to lesser developed parts of the world to begin farming, mining, intermarrying, exploring for new opportunities to benefit the homeland; China is sending its people out on a global diaspora that seems to be infiltrating every African nation. Farmers are being drawn in masses to the vast irrigable stretches along the Niger River in Mali to begin expanding rice production on a massive scale. Miners and engineers are moving into mineral rich nations from Namibia and Mozambique in the south through the Congo and as far as Ghana and Senegal in West Africa, and builders are setting up schools, stadiums, hospitals, roads and bridges in Zambia, Botswana, Nigeria and Upper Volta. All these countries are areas that the West only wanted to exploit but never really develop. Africans, sensing that the rest of the technological world might leave them behind have therefore turned towards a different pole of the planet.
This story, of course, is not all about lovely Chinese altruism, but rather a look at a model of development which the Chinese call win-win but, which in fact often gives the Chinese immigrants favored status in the country to do as they wish, while the African nation gets tokens of development and a lot of cash flowing into the pockets of the high officials within the country in order to keep them mollified. Does anyone out there still remember neocolonialism and imperialism? Will the Chinese become like the Portuguese or the British, or will they move beyond this initial exploitation to develop a vast commonwealth of African nations?
As one who considers himself to be somewhat of an “Old Africa Hand,” I find Howard French’s somewhat rambling dissertation on how China is beginning to wield its power, intriguing yet a bit disconcerting. We could be losing the whole ball of wax of the African continent’s vast wealth while we piddle around trying to see if we can install democratic governments into nations so diverse that we don’t even understand half their languages.
In the same way that it is a must read book, French’s excellent book is also a must discuss book.
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