Mattie Lennon Author- COME HOME TO KERRY (North Kerry Reaching Out Festival)

COME HOME TO KERRY
By Mattie Lennon

I’ve always felt that Kerry people have a more profound sense of place than anyone else.

I’m sure the Lisselton writer Maurice Walsh was thinking of Kerry specifically when he wrote, “A place acquires an entity of its own, an entity that is the essence of all the life and thoughts and griefs and joys that have gone before.”

The late John B. Keane once wrote that if you spin a Kerryman around, three times, in any part of the world, when he stops rotating a certain one of his appendages will be pointing to Mount Brandon.

North Kerry Reaching Out (NKRO) is a coming together on a voluntary basis of the villages of North Kerry with a view to promoting and preserving our culture, heritage and history. It covers the parishes of: • Listowel • Ballyduff • Lisselton / Ballydonoghue • Ballybunion • Asdee • Ballylongford • Tarbert • Duagh • Lyreacrompane • Lixnaw • Moyvane/ Newtownsandes • Knockanure • Finuge and Kilflynn.

I’ll bet you won’t find one of the above place names that haven’t produced a poet, playwright, songwriter, novelist or philosopher. (Words are the tools of Kerry People and North Kerry is the home of the lateral thinker. Ireland’s greatest living man-of-letters, Kerryman, Con Houlihan, who says of North Kerry children ‘You would have a better chance of winning a duel with a Moore Street trader’ tells the story of how, when he was teaching in Renagown, he said to a young misbehaving child, I’ll kill you.” The reply? “If you kill me, sir, you’ll have to bury me.”) Wherever a Kerry person goes in the world he or she won’t usually lose the run of themselves; perhaps Bryan McMahon’s advice, all those years ago, to “Always keep one foot in the cow-dung” was unnecessary after all.

As one committee member buts it, “We are inviting people . . . to come and enjoy a week among their own people . . . . Join us in a magical journey through the towns and parishes that your ancestors left in centuries & decades past.”

However, if you, or your ancestors, are not from any of the places mentioned, don’t worry. The good people of North Kerry will look after you. And if you are famous and have North Kerry forebears you are in good company. The ancestors of world renowned figures as diverse as Thomas Moore and Kylie Minogue were reared on the banks of the Feale. When North Kerry Reaching Out Heritage Project (NKRO) invites the Irish Diaspora worldwide for its ‘Week of Welcomes’ it means it. Kerry people can give a welcome like nobody else.

In its few short months of existence NKRO has developed a network of followers throughout the world, whom it has helped trace their roots in North Kerry. Lewis Mumford said, “Every generation revolts against its fathers and makes friends with its grandfathers.”

Whether or not you revolted against your father NKRO, through its Genealogy Programme, will ensure that you get the opportunity to make friends with your grandfather and his grandfather and his . . .

The next step on its journey of discovery is the hosting of its first welcome home festival in the first week in August 2012. Activities planned for the week include ‘A Day in the Bog’, workshops in genealogy and local history, trips to places of beauty and historic importance as well as opportunities to learn a few Irish dance steps and how to wield a camán.

If you come to a place that produced George Fitmaurice, Brendan Kennelly, John B. Keane, Bryan McMahon, Dan Keane, Professor Alfred O Rahilly and Sean McCarthy you won’t be disappointed. Our Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Jimmy Deenihan, has found a connection between Listowel and, no less a scribe than, William Shakespeare. This is interesting because Professor Paul Myers of the Theatre Department of KU, Kansas, points out that some words in “Midsummer Night’s Dream” don’t rhyme if delivered in an English accent which prompts the question if Helena and Lysander were played by two Duagh people would the rhythm be more pleasing to the ear?

And a small corner of this green and misty island which can hold such international events as the Dan Paddy Andy Festival, The Brendan Kennelly Festival, the Sean McCarty Weekend and Listowel Writers Week, now in its 41st year, must be doing something right.

“Plans are currently being finalised for our week-long festival in August and we are looking forward to welcoming our many guests from throughout the world to experience life in North Kerry”, said Ger Greaney, Chairman of the Group. “We are delighted to say that we have already received several bookings from as far away as the USA and Australia. Irish people too are welcome to join us. We would love our group to be made up of North Kerry people from near and far.”

The package will include;
• Transport from airport
• Transport to and from events
• Entry to all events (such as turf cutting lessons, bog walking, traditional Irish music sessions and more)
• Transportation to visit your ancestral home in North Kerry.
• Concessionary prices from certain businesses within our locality
The detailed Programme of Events is available from the Group’s website http://www.northkerryreachingout.com which also includes a direct booking facility for the Festival.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Cara Trant, Secretary,
North Kerry Reaching Out,
C/o Seanchaí – Kerry Literary & Cultural Centre,
24 The Square, Listowel, Co. Kerry.
Tel. +353 (0)68 22212
Email: northkerryreachingout@gmail.com

Mattie Lennon

Pan Left Productions- US Border Patrol Shoots and Kills US Teen- Lamadrid Family Awaits Answers & Teen Trafficking

Pan Left- US Border Patrol Shoots and Kills US Teen- Lamadrid Family Awaits Answers

“Every murder or other injury, no matter for what cause, committed or inflicted on another is a crime against humanity.” Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

As of the date this video was posted, US Border Patrol Information Office did not respond to the video producers request for comments.

Articles have been printed with conflicting information, regarding this incident. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has taken over the investigation of events that took place March 21, 2011 that lead to the death of 19-year-old Carlos Lamadrid. More than one year later, Carlos Lamadrid’s family is still waiting for answers.

For more information please visit:Derechos Humanos

To support Tucson Grassroots work in documenting this and other stories, please visit:Tucson Grassroots.

Find us on Facebook:Tucson Grassroots Facebook

US Border Patrol shoots and kills US teen

Teen Trafficking
I am a local photojournalist and developing videographer and am excited to be part of Panleft. Since November 2011, I have been working on a video addressing the issue of domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST) in Pima County. It would be easy to assume that this doesn’t exist here if one only looks for statistics concerning arrests of pimps or johns on the books. But that would be an erroneous assumption. The high rate of runaway arrests in Pima County and the scarcity of shelter beds for teens alone suggest that survival sex must be a way of life for some. Our proximity to the border and the fact that Maricopa County has several arrests and convictions on the books makes it hard to assume our county lives in a “bubble” and is protected from such things.

Fortunately, due to a couple of conferences on the topic held in Pima County earlier this year, law enforcement and others who deal with the victims are beginning to look for signs of the problem and finding it exists here.

During the past few months, I have spoken with advocates, law enforcement, staff working with homeless teens and survivors of trafficking as well as their parents. The magnitude, the lack of awareness and the complex changes that need to occur to reduce the problem have been an eye-opening experience for me. As a result, my approach to the subject has shifted since I began.

What I hear often is that at least 80 percent of teens and adults who end up getting trafficked had a history of sexual abuse in their original homes which made them more vulnerable to ending up on the street. It goes often undetected and unreported. In spite of all the current emphasis in the media about tracking sex offenders who have been caught and convicted, the majority of these crimes go unreported because they occur with family members or close friends of the family.

I am therefore including the long-term effects of early child sexual abuse in the picture with DMST. The working title of the video(s) (it may become a series,) is
“The Price of Silence” because it is the lack of communication and support that allows it to breed the horrible consequence.

Would you like to help? I would be interested in talking with anyone who has some insight into this problem to continue my education. I would also like to find an editing coach to help me with the production end of things. I can be reached at 520-303-2672 or Anne Dalton

Pan Left Productions | 631 S. 6th Avenue | Tucson | AZ | 85711 panleft@panleft.org

Tom Kirkbride Author- BOOK IV GAMADIN GAZZ

BOOK IV GAMADIN GAZZ

by Tom Kirkbride

http://www.Gamadin.com

All life on the planet Gazz is about to be wiped out by a lethal gama ray burst in 11 days. Saving the planet with Millawanda’s force field was supposed to be a “slam dunk”. MIllie saves the planet, but at a cost: her power is sucked dry! Unable to maintain orbit, She plunges into the planet’s ocean. Adding to the tragey, Riverstone, Lu and Sizzle have vanished and a second gamma ray burst will hit the planet in 37 days. There is a source of power, Gazz is a 15th Century planet of windpowered ships and slithering beasts called “trass.” In a race against time, Harlowe must commandeer a pirate galleon and find the thermo-grym crystals that will power Millawanda back to life before his girl, his crew, his ship, the planet and his own life are lost…

ISBN: 978-0-9840643-6-6

University of Arizona Poetry Center- Poetry Off the Page Highlights & Writing True Fiction: The Continuing Influence of Myths and Archetypes Elizabeth Frankie Rollins

University of Arizona Poetry Center- Poetry Off the Page Highlights & Writing True Fiction: The Continuing Influence of Myths and Archetypes Elizabeth Frankie Rollins

The Poetry Center’s third international symposium, Poetry Off the Page, carved out three vital days in time in which spectacle, inquiry, creative play, collaboration, improvisation, and movement pushed poetry further into new literary territory. Many of these performances and panels will be available soon on voca, the Poetry Center’s audio video library. Watch a slideshow capturing some of Poetry Off the Page’s most dynamic moments here.

Meet our Summer Residents!
Congratulations to our 2012 residents: Genine Lentine (Poetry) and Harrison C. Fletcher (Prose). Genine and Harrison will each be staying at the Poetry Center for a two to four week stint, writing, researching, discovering Tucson, and presenting their work by reading at the Poetry Center. Find more information about this year’s residents including short bios and excerpts of their work here.

Coming Up at the Poetry Center
Writing True Fiction: The Continuing Influence of Myths and Archetypes with Elizabeth Frankie Rollins
Meets: Mondays, June 4 through July 9 from 6 to 8 p.m.
Tuition: $170 + $7 course material fee

This workshop will study the frameworks of myth and archetype in both modern and ancient texts. In writing experiments, we will look at archetypes as familiar forms that must be filled in with conscious life, first models which other things are patterned after: father, mother, oracle, trickster, hero, temptress, villain, maiden. In other experiments, we’ll try rewriting certain traditional myths with our own skies, people, beliefs, and behaviors. Students should expect to generate at least three new story beginnings, and/or students may want to use class exercises and discussions to further develop works-in-progress.

University of Arizona Poetry Center | 1508 East Helen Street | Tucson | AZ | 85721-0150
bonjean@email.arizona.edu

Randy Ford Author- POSTE RESTANTE Manila 60th Installment

The Spanish never gave them what they wanted. This failure spurred the Katipunan (KKK) onto revolt. So they tore up their cedulas (identification cards), which symbolized colonial oppression, and in Pugad Lawin started the Revolution. Three months later the Spanish executed Rizal in the same field that they garroted Fr. Burgos, and perhaps by then the government knew that it would take more than a few executions to stop the Filipinos.

On the same day every year, a tiny lady with a small voice left fresh flowers or lit candles in the middle of Bagumbayan field (now Luneta Park) in memory of Fr. Burgos (and later also in memory of Jose Rizal). Whenever she went she never talked to anyone. She however was observed and had to be careful. She therefore went at different times of the day. To be totally ignored would’ve been impossible. Each time she’d kneel and pray.

After three hundred and thirty-three years and with two oceans between them the colony and the mother country were no more closely tied together than they had ever been and the differences between them became irreconcilable. The figure of the Supremo along with two friends…that is the figure of Bonifacio led a charge that may have seemed insignificant at the time because they were betrayed before they hardly started. And yet they rekindled a fire that had been smoldering for over three hundred years, a spark that couldn’t be doused, and this fire grew into a full-blown revolution, which they wouldn’t have known how to sustain had it not already been fueled. Perhaps it’s still going on. If true, the flame and the keepers of the flame and the winds are the same.

Returning home from Fort Santiago and rehearsal Isabel Lopez found on the floor inside her door a letter from America, which informed her that her father was killed. She recognized the handwriting at once. It was her father’s second wife, whom she had never met. In recent years it had been this woman who’d communicated to her and not her father. Isabel read that Mr. Vernon was killed in an automobile accident and buried in Arlington National Cemetery. The woman who signed the letter expressed no sympathy for Isabel in her short note. She never had. She simply informed Isabel of her father’s death.

Isabel would keep the note. Her first reaction to the news wasn’t strong. It would hit her later. It all seemed unreal, that she had two fathers, that her real father had two wives and her mother, two husbands and that there hadn’t been a divorce. Life had gone on without a divorce, and the unreality was mixed in her mind with a certain amount of coldness and fear, coldness and fear that had always been there. Finally she placed the note in a shoebox containing other pieces of mail from America, memorandum of a life that she could’ve had had she chosen it. Instanatly she knew that she couldn’t have abandoned her mother and forsaken her homeland though her father urged her to come when she became old enough to decide for herself. And she had already begun the grieving process by then.

In the middle of the night, Isabel finally wept for a man who she knew was her father and who sent her and her mother money when she was young but who never returned to the Philippines. She remembered him slightly, remembered trying to remember him and didn’t know whether she actually remembered him or not or only remembered him through his letters and what her mother told her about him. She remembered his short letters with incomplete sentences and poor spelling, and she couldn’t believe how poorly he wrote and that her English was better than his. She remembered (and this she never forgot) that her father never forgot her birthday, something that made her wonder why he left her and her mother. Since 1948 he’d been absent from her life. He hadn’t been around as she matured into a beautiful, light-skinned woman (a rose by any other name is a rose, di ba?) and through hard work had become a popular movie star. And perhaps she was running away from doubt. Perhaps she did believe that her success was due to her light skin.

She couldn’t sleep that night and knew in the morning that she had to speak to her mother. She’d still have to make her rehearsal, maintain her professionalism, though she knew that her mind would be elsewhere. Isabel would have to put off seeing her mother and at the same time wondered if her mother knew about Mr. Vernon’s death (her mother always referred to her father as Mr. Vernon). At the theater there were rumors that the First Lady was coming to opening night, which meant the show wouldn’t start on time. Time was now of the essence, but she couldn’t approach her mother on the telephone; given the circumstances she couldn’t. After the rehearsal, with another rehearsal in the evening, she drove herself over to her mother’s home in Forbes Park, drove without paying much attention to the traffic and somehow avoided an accident. They hugged each other at the door; she couldn’t tell if her mother knew of her father’s death or knew and didn’t care, or what. Then she had to respond and blurted out the news. With Mr. Lopez at work and alone the two women sat around the swimming pool and cried while they wondered what their lives would’ve been like had Mr. Vernon taken them with him to America.

Randy Ford

Gracie Roberts Author- MORTUARY SCHOOL and TWISTED- THE PSYCHOPATH NEXT DOOR

MORTUARY SCHOOL and TWISTED-THE PSYCHOPATH NEXT DOOR

by Gracie Roberts

About MORTUARY SCHOOL, A Novel of Suspense:

The main character, Jake Malone, is trying to earn a living and hates every job he’s ever had. Jake decides he will try school one more time and thinks that mortuary school might be up his alley. But is mortuary school what he bargained for? The scene is set in San Francisco where the notorious Walker stalker, a serial killer, is running amok. While attending mortuary school people that Jake knows start getting seriously hurt, or wind up dead. Jake questions why this is happening and so does the detective hearding up; the Walker Stalker case. The detective clearly thinks it is a little more than coincidence that Jake knows the deceased. Is Jake the killer, hiding under the guise of a student mortician? Find out!

About TWISTED- THE PSYCHOPATH NEXT DOOR, A Novel of Suspense:

Savannah is used to getting what she wants when she wants it. Savannah is beautiful, charming and cunning and uses her wiles to her advantage. When her coworker, Malloy, discovers her dark secret, how far will Savannah go to get revenge? And how will Mallory escape Savannah’s clutches? The scene is set in Chaicago. The main character, Mallory, joins a prestigious law firm as a paralegal. Savannah Porter heads the paralegal department and soon becomes jealous of Mallory’s talents, and begins to sabotage her. Savannah becomes obsessed with Mallory. In the end who wins? Find out!

BIO: Gracie Roberts became a published author of her bebut mystery novel MORTUARY SCHOOL, which was published in April, 2011. Gracie is an Arizona native, grew up in Bisbee, Az, and now lives in Tucson, Az. Gracie is a huge supporter of animal rights and supports her local Humane Society and the National Animal Legal Defense Fund.

View Gracie’s website: http://www.graciesonlinebooks.com
Novels available on amazon.com

A. J. Scudiere Author – GOD’S EYE

GOD’S EYE

by A. J. Scudiere

A demon and an angel are each need of redemption. Katharine is their unsupecting pawn, until she realizes the choices are all her. But why can’t she recognize the evil she she knows is in front of her?

What is evil?

A. J. Scudiere Auth- aj@ajscudiere.com

http://www.ajscudiere.com

Secret Code #42