Reviews by Hubie Goode: Abducted to Kill

Abducted to Kill

by Pola Muzyka

A young man struggles to guard and sustain his love for God, his fiancée, and his family when faced with the brutality of Sharia law.

Abducted into the newly formed Hezbollah army, a young American Christian fights for his life, his freedom, and the woman he loves when he defies a brutal regime during one of the most difficult times in Middle East history.

Friends begin to go missing and rumors surface. Some of Joseph’s friends are never heard from again. How and why they disappear remains a mystery. Joseph becomes entrapped in the mystery of the disappearances when, one day after work, he and his friend are forcibly thrown into the backseat of a black Nissan.

He and his friend are forced to join a ruthless militia. This military, formed by the IRG to protect Lebanon from invasion by the Israelis, contradicts its credence. Joseph witnesses the most horrific sins that man can inflict upon another human being and he wants out. He thinks his Maker has abandoned him and he questions God’s very existence, ultimately doubting his own faith.

After grueling years of enduring this military life, escape and concealment, a way opens up for him to safely flee the country and eventually return to the U.S.

Recently, I sat in a room with quite a few hispanic-americans who had come from various countries and towns down below the border of the U.S. and Mexico. This is not surprising seeing as the proximity of Los Angeles to South America brings about these sorts of situations everyday for those who live here. Some of those folks are legal and some are not, and this is only a fact of little importance, but it does carry some weight in this current situation.

In this room was a rather large television which was showing an Hispanic news channel. The news report being broadcast was about some drug traffickers who had been stopped from crossing the border with a large amount of illegal drugs that they had purposed specifically for selling to those who have been captured by the addiction of such items as cocaine, heroine, et al.

These men had been in a gun battle with U.S. Narcotics officers and they were all lying around the street, sitting in their cars, and hanging out of the doors due to being shot multiple times. It was a grisly scene in my estimation. The sight of seeing human beings, even drug traffickers who mean to make money from other people’s suffering, being photographed and carded with evidence numbers, was a bit much to witness. And the casualness with which it was presented was not lost on me.

Of course, here in America, on our news channels, these sorts of scenes are given only a few seconds of coverage if they are reported on and shown to the public at all. The sad truth is that most of what goes on in the world comes to the American public with a dose of sugar coating. Those who come to America from war torn states often bring their experience and attitudes from those countries to America’s shores, and for them this is a natural way of life. Godless, yes, but seemingly just the way things are for them. Such scenes for those sitting in the TV room watching the news were common knowledge to those present.

In her book, Abducted to Kill, Pola Muzyka successfully displays common tragedy of something that does indeed happen in the world; the death, the destruction, especially of human lives, and also the assumed right that evil takes in performing atrocities upon mankind all in the name of fanaticism. What she also does is balance said condition with the heart of mankind that forges ever forward. It is curious isn’t it, that no matter who those “other people over there” are, they all have a mother and father. They all have sisters and brothers. They all have a heart that needs to be loved and a life that needs to be vilified. It never fails to amaze me how mankind can be both the most dangerous thing on the planet and yet the most beneficial.

What Ms. Muzyka has done here is taken a main character, one Joseph Rabbani, and given the reader his story in alternating scenes back and forth from his current condition and then into his back story, as she renders the common life of a young man suddenly turned hazardous, and yet sadly, as the world will tell you, not all that uncommon. The story itself is character oriented and brings out a great deal of minute details in giving the reader a realistic rendering of both the persons involved and also their sometimes frightening surroundings. Surroundings based on Ms. Muzyka’s research and some actual events.

It would be difficult to relay to you many of the points made in this story about what is happening in the middle east, especially as per the Hezbollah army, but let me just say that some of the points revealed, if they are to be taken literally, will make you think more about some of the social issues and public changes that are, and have been happening, right here in America, for some time.

In the rear of her book, Ms. Muzyka has a few references that will perhaps give you a better perspective of the issues covered in the story, and although the story is fictional, these items are cause for great concern in a world which is supposed to be claiming progress from anachronistic ideology.

Culture of Death - Islam’s focus on the afterlife is meant to encourage Muslims to live pious lives. But that isn’t what Muslims are learning. Thomas L. Friedman, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and New York Times columnist, recently wrote about a terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia in which gunmen ruthlessly attacked a housing complex and specifically sought out “infidels” and Westerners to kill. He asked where such intolerance was learned, and he answered: “The Saudi Public School system and religious curriculum.”

Adultery - Penalty Code Article 104 is specific about the type of stones that should be used when a woman is to be punished for adultery. They “should not be large enough to kill the woman by one or two strikes, nor should they be so small that they could not be defined as stones. She is to die a slow death.

There are quite few disturbing other points which she has gleaned from her research, but these two should at least give you the understanding of the kinds of subjects that are covered in a fictional story that will have you wondering just what is going on with the Earth these days. Truly such events as 9/11 are the results of culture wars as well as terrorism.

Joseph is taken from his protective, loving family, from which he has grown up Christian in America, while he is currently in a new living local in Iran where his father’s business takes him and his family. The cold hard realities of such an abduction are well laid out in the story as Joseph struggles to keep the humanity within himself which he has always known, which he grew up with and considers his very true person. In much the same way as the main character of the recent movie “Brothers”, Joseph is cornered into violating himself and his own deep convictions of what he knows to be the good and human thing to do. In the interim, his family too, is effected and also the love of his life is deemed brutally lost by those who oppose her Christian beliefs.

It’s a tightly written story that will keep you reading a you follow Joseph’s story of a life lost, namely his own, to the militant powers that surround him, as easily as they could surround you or me. For many people all around the world, that kind of life is indeed what they see all too often. Ms. Muzyka isn’t taking the core of the story easy on the reader, for she could have easily placed the meat of the story in a science fiction setting and given us aliens and far away planets as a buffer from stark realities that happen all around the world every day. But she hasn’t done that. Joseph and his family and friends are people just like anyone else, be they American, Chinese, Indian, or in this case Middle Eastern. If today you feel somewhat distanced from terror and the horrors it brings to the innocent, who of course are always the first victims in war, then perhaps you would take from this story a lesson about the encroachment of militant fanaticism, even in your own town.

A well written, and voluminous book that has been given painstaking detail, especially in the way it brings distant fleeting images of news footage from the other side of the world, which one may not give too much thought to, and injects them with the all too missed perception of tragic humanity that is involved.

Pola Muzyka is an accomplished award-winning TV, commercial and corporate writer. She has always had a flair for dramatic writing. In the 1980’S, She wrote part of a script for film director Federico Fellini. She researched and translated work for four-time Academy Award-winner Danilo Donati, who deemed her work “the most extensive research ever done on a film.” Abducted to Kill is her debut as a novelist and combines her talent as researcher and dramatic writer in this powerful and gripping story.
Pola is a multi-disciplinarian who began her career as a dramatic actress, having done both starring and feature roles in Hollywood-based motion pictures. She has showcased her visual art in many galleries and currently hosts a television series for baby boomers.
Although she has traveled and lived all over the world, Pola was raised on a sheep farm and continues to enjoy country living. Her passion lies in her relationship with Jesus Christ and her ministry connecting Christians in media. She is the founder of the internet based, Christian Media Alliance. Subsequently, she has toured India as a media missionary and produced documentary films helping pastors in various countries.

Reviews by Hubie Goode: The Dark Man

The Dark Man

by Marc Schooley

The Dark Man is a near-future thriller about a master of disguise working to eradicate Christianity in America. Charles Graves is haunted by his dead brother, his lost mother, and a phantom arising cryptically from a child’s puzzle. Charles goes undercover to infiltrate one of the last Christian cells in Southern North America, only to discover that someone else is attempting to infiltrate HIM. In a world turned over by oppressive government and a godless society, Charles strives to bring down the last Christian leaders.

But sometimes he who persecutes the Church is destined to serve her.

When I first began to read this novel, I found myself wondering just what kind of book it would be in comparison to the library of fiction that I am used to. After all, it’s not often you find a novel that implements many of the same devices that the general public is familiar with, things such as, making the reader feel great about the position of mankind, his supposed independence and power and even his social media programmed need for the visceral and, all too often, also for the puerile. It just goes to prove to an audience that it’s not necessary to always use the same triggers, despite their apparent money making draw, in order to create a work of fiction that is both engrossing and efficacious. And, indeed, The Dark Man is one of those books.

A famous writer once said, “The easier it is to read something the more work has been placed into its’ creation.” As a reviewer I get to use all those college words, as I have done already, but one thing Schooley does is make the reading experience seamless without pandering to verbosity and pedantry. You know, like I just did. So what the reader is in for is a beautifully written and intelligently formulated story that will entice you into its’ chapters without offense both plot wise and prose wise. I will say, however, that the audience is indeed Christian, and most obviously Bible Christian, not just religious or sect Christian. What this means is that there is quite a bit of originality to the plotting that one doesn’t usually see in most secular books, in that the good guys are the followers of Christ and they are NOT nut cases. In fact what they are, are real people with a real world problem on their hands working for a bigger cause.

This cause is not the same one you see in a lot of other novels who glorify mankind, some of them with the audacity to believe that a battle between a man and Satan can actually be won... just in the nick of time, and all by himself. You won’t find anything here, but real humanity, hoping and believing in the power of God working unseen in every circumstance as they struggle against those who would force a world to live without God. And let’s face it, that’s original!

The characterization propels the book at first as the personalities and situations are set up for the reader. There is a little bit of weird psychological magic also in revealing the Dark Man as a character whom only the protagonist is familiar with. This hero, Charles Graves, carries the Dark Man around with him in his head as an almost Shakespearean type commentator and antagonistic adviser during much of the action. The story itself is imbedded with elements in a worldly myriad of sources from The A-Team to James Bond, and this works on the level of familiarity needed to transfer the story to the reader.

In it’s Orwellian way the story brings the reader into a kind of New World Order organization that Charles Graves works for in a creative and entertaining spy type fashion. And this section of the story is entertaining and clever enough to bring about the set up for the rest of the book in a way that is both complex and yet easy to digest. Not an easy thing to do if you understand writing. Oh, but once you have gotten to the meat of this story, it turns into a grand rescue mission you will not soon forget.

Chapter after chapter of tense, well written plotting by a superior, literate writer turns what might have been a preachy, heavy handed tome into a brisk and involving thriller. Major plot lines and a few minor ones swirl around and into each other in an exciting and surprisingly understandable way, all dovetailing toward an end you may or may not see coming.

But just one word about this sort of thing. When I was a kid, I used to play a lot of flag football and I would love to create trick plays on the opposing team, in such a way as to orchestrate a series of plays from first down to fourth down that would get the other players to think in the way I wanted them to. So, say for instance, my team would run a double reverse on first down. Then on second down we would do a short cut back pass. The third down was crucial because we would run the double reverse again, but making it obvious, and the opposing team would think in their minds: “Aha! You’re not going to fool me with that again!” and they would, of course, over pursue. Little did they know that the double reverse was just a smokescreen for the real play we had in mind. Used to work like magic!

I was reminded of those days while reading through the book in that there is a pair of events just like this, and they are handled deftly I must say, in such a way as I was quite fooled by the level of delivery. You will be too, as the writer isn’t just out to entertain you but also to hoodwink you with some clever plotting. I was quite impressed, mostly due to the fact that I had underestimated the abilities of Marc Schooley to give me something I could brag about that was still not secularly written. It CAN be done! Hallelujah!

So what is it about? Well, its’ more action story than it is preachy tome but it still delivers on that promise to be true to its’ roots and its’ audience. In much the same way the book of Ester uses the trappings of the situation surrounding the main character without ever having God himself show up, but you know he is all over it. Agents and spies abound with a few space ship and sci fi ideas thrown in also.

They start out one way, rounding up the “resistors” but the main character has an epiphany of Paulian scope and suddenly finds himself at odds with his own organization and assisting the persecuted. In the meantime, we have real relationships of life, family and love we will all relate to, and there isn’t one angry word spoken throughout. I know.. amazing, huh?

I recommend this book for those who want to see more positive Christian portrayals of both man and his relationship to God, even in a fictional and somewhat hyper reality setting. And also to those who would like something original and different from the usual stuff you have seen in books, movies and TV and you don’t mind a presence of the Almighty on board. All in all a good, positive read and no doubt a ton of work for a talented writer.

Marc Schooley is a Texan, Christian Philosopher, theologian, Bible teacher, speaker, musician, and nascent Christian fiction writer. Join him at www.marcschooley.com

Reviews by Hubie Goode: Where Do I Begin? Part 2

Where Do I Begin?

Arming Yourself for
the Economic Changes Ahead

Part 2

Every year people decide to quit their jobs and go into business for themselves. Most of them unfortunately fail not too soon after they leave the safety of the 9 to 5 world. Business as such sees most shops and stores fail after four years on average. The thing is, there are those who do succeed. So what is the difference? Usually it is because most who fail are not ready to make the change. There are other reasons, of course, but there is only so much time and blog space to write on.

Quitting a full time job is no easy thing to do, and when considering it, you need to make as many considerations as you possibly can. The entrepreneurial life may not be for you, but the way our society is changing, you may have no choice but to learn how to earn. The future for our kids may be radically different from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s that most who read this blog will remember. Mom or dad leaving for work in the morning and the kids catching the bus for school may indeed be an anachronism in about 50 years or so. The new reality of family home life seems to be headed in the direction of home schooling and the provider’s work station in the spare bedroom in the back of the house. Dad gets his cup of coffee and sits down at his computer as mom starts the day with classes for the kids at 9 am, or some such permutation.

Many questions have to be asked when making any kind of decision like this. For instance: Do I have enough money? Is the family ready for this? What product or service do I make money with right now, and do people really need it? Will someone pay for a professionally produced product or service from little ol’ me? Should I learn how to earn first with something simple and small? (yes!) You may indeed want to run some type of business or shop, maybe even something from the internet, which is the wave of the future by the way, but a small dog walking business might be a better training ground to get your feet wet in. Learning how to earn is always the first step, and if your kids and their kids are going to make it in the next hundred or so years then they had better be selling lemonade on the corner at an early age, so to speak.

Sometime in the future, 9-5 is going to be over with. Everyone will work according to market trends. Say for instance you have a home based business on the internet, then your business day will be from getting out of bed to getting into bed, and the time in between may not be a total of 16 hours of work, but the job is always with you. Your ability to earn becomes a third arm on your body that you never leave behind totally. I know that sounds like hell to some people, but things are moving in this direction thanks to the internet, computers, cell phones and so forth. You might say that all jobs cannot be done with the internet, or a computer, and you would be right. The thing is, with the changeability of job security, everyone will need at least some type of supplement to the day to day work life. What will you be doing between those five or six jobs with five or six different companies that you will work for in your lifetime? Will they always be dependable for your income? Could you find yourself on the street at any moment due to the economy? Remember, the national debt is 13 trillion and isn’t going away in the next 200 years or so. You won’t live that long. Your kids wont live that long. Life as we all know it, as we have grown up in, is over with. Learn to earn. Make sure you have your own life raft. We will all need it.

more on this in part 3.

Reviews by Hubie Goode: Digestion, Food, Mixing Foods, Eating Right, Stomach trouble, Acid Reflux, Indigestion, Gas

Give Your Gut A Break

When you are a young kid, and even into your 20’s and for some of us into our 30’s, you can usually eat almost anything and never have any real problems with your tummy. When we get older, the gut no longer has the power to stave off the horrors that can come with eating the wrong thing at the wrong time of day. This can deeply effect all that we do, from sleeping correctly to keeping gas from making us a public spectacle.

Proper digestion is a must if we are to have happy tummies in our older years. There is a lot of information and many programs out there that are designed to help you make sense of food and its effects on your whole person. The problem is that many of them are confusing and often give conflicting advice. The real truth of the matter is actually quite simple. If we just think scientifically about our guts, we can get along a lot better than most people today and we don’t have to just “put up” with the constant problems many of us have dealing just with our digestive systems.

The linchpin to understanding our digestive systems is that our tummies are not designed for complex meals. One type of food makes a certain demand on the digestive system and another makes quite a different type of demand. We certainly can digest all sorts of different types of food, but this doesn’t mean that the job should be done all at once. Protein digestion, for instance, takes place in the stomach and requires a highly acidic environment. Starch, however, requires a highly alkaline environment. This also takes place in the mouth and in the small intestine. Vegetables and fats are also digested in the small intestine and require a mild alkaline environment.

It’s no stretch of the imagination to accept that if foods that are digested differently are included in the same meal, then havoc will ensue. Somewhere, somehow, there will be incomplete digestion of something if digestive necessity is mixed in its purposes. What you cannot properly digest, will be digested by harmful microforms. Compromised digestion paves the way for the little bad creatures in your gut to grow and become stronger, and when they do, they then produce lots of sticky mucus. Got a problem with mucus? This is one of the ways to control it.

How do we usually eat? Meat and potatoes, fish and chips, chicken and rice, burger and fries, and just about any type of sandwich. The Earl of Sandwich knew not what he was doing in combining multiple types of food in what was considered a nifty way to make a meal short and convenient. All these examples are an abuse of your digestive system, and when you reach middle age, your gut cannot fight off the effects of a lifetime of an abused gut. YOU HAVE TO DO IT MANUALLY. Combining sugar and starch and sugar and protein leads to the same problems. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are of Satan, and you should know that they are like a cruise missile for your digestive tract.

So what is the answer? In any meal it is important to mix no more than four foods from no more than two types of foods. Three vegetables with one protein or one complex carb are good examples. For instance, steamed carrots and a tomato salad with noodles. Choosing fewer foods provides a light load on the digestive system. If you use only one protein per meal, and only one complex carbohydrate then you are doing well, and your tummy will thank you.

If you concentrate on consuming foods that are high in water and low in sugar, you can go a long way to helping your gut heal itself, and you’ll sleep better too. This helps to automatically eliminate the problematic foods. The water in the food assists in the digestion and also increases the proper balance on the blood of alkaline and acid components. If you consider the makeup of your body, 70 percent water, 20 percent natural oils, 7 percent protein, 2 percent sugar, then foods that reflect this combination will be much easier on the body.

Keep in mind that you are trying to keep animal protein and starch separate, and sugar, including fruit, should be kept away from any combination. Low sugar, high water vegetables combine with everything. They are fine with protein, starch and oily foods, and even with other vegetables.

Starches can mix with veggies and low-sugar fruits. But no starches are to be combined with animal protein, and this includes starchy veggies too. Lemons and tomatoes are quite acidic and yet they make the body more alkaline, therefore they can be considered very helpful for the digestion of starches. Bread, pasta and potatoes should be eaten along side veggies and not fish.

Animal protein mixes well with veggies or low sugar fruits, but not starch, acids or oils. Vegetable proteins combine with all low sugar, high water content veggies and fruits, and also good oils. Have fish with veggies and not grain, no bread. No rice either, fish should be served with a bed of greens , even if they are steamed. Never cook veggies that are still alive, you kill the benefits of veggies by cooking them.

High sugar fruit should be left to itself, or not eaten at all. No fruit with protein, starch, veggies or anything oily. The good fruits of digestion are: lemon, lime, raw tomato, avocado, bell peppers of all colors (red bell peppers have the highest vitamin C content), and non-sweet grapefruit.

Seeds, nuts and avocado, all great sources of healthy fats, can be combined with plant and animal proteins, starches or even high sugar fruits. Keep the fish away from the oil and butter, use lemon juice, salsa, or herbs; your tummy will thank you.

You may not like to hear it, but the veggies you get from the Earth are the best thing for your body and they were made to be so. There are a few fruits which are also the best for you, but you have to keep in mind the fructose sugars contained in much of them. Fruit is great for repairing the body when it needs help, but it will make you bloat if too much fructose is consumed too quickly. Veggies build the body and keep you in balance, so it makes sense that they combine with each other well and also should be more and more a major part of your diet as you grow older.

Any combination of meat and starches, this includes those tasty onion rings, is murder on the gut. If you are not 15 years old, you need to stop this sort of thing right now. Acids block the production of ptyalin, a component of saliva that is necessary for starch digestion. Potatoes, bread, pasta, and even whole grains, break down into simple sugars in the body. Adding a high sugar fruit, even in juice form will layer sugar on top of sugar (and acid on top of acid). Want to shut down your immune system? Catch a cold on the bus or subway? Fill up on this kind of sugar combination and you will be defenseless for about five hours as your system literally quits functioning. Oils will also slow starch digestion, but is not a major problem if the starch is only 20 percent of the alkalinizing meal. Don’t avoid healthy oils, they can neutralize acids in the blood, and this is the best news possible for us all.

Animal protein in the stomach produces acid. Sugars and starches make even more acid in combination with protein. This leads to indigestion, heartburn and gas. Oils will slow the digestion of animal proteins and this causes constipation and acid reflux, heartburn and gas. Gas, gas, gas!

Most fruits are very high in sugars, the fructose I have mentioned before. They produce a lot of acid. With protein combined this is an invitation to major acid over production. Starch and fruit is double the sugar. Which means that if you eat starch and fruit together, the starch will prevent the digestion of the fruit and you can have rotting fruit in your digestive tract in no time at all. Nice, huh? Fruit and oil leads to constipation, and a wasting of nutrients. Remember that fruits are cleansers and healers, veggies are builders, so asking your gut to do different jobs at the same time can make you old before your time. You are what you eat and how you eat. Could you be killing yourself slowly with the wrong combos of foods?

You might not consider this, but choosing a drink with food can be a problem too. Just leave the drink aside, don’t wash down food with a drink, even water. Cold drinks can shut down the digestive fire needed in the belly and interferes once again with the ultimate purpose of what your body is designed to do. Drink water way before the meal, like a half hour or so, it can dilute the digestive chemicals that will be needed. Eat your juicer foods, with a higher water content first in a meal. Veggies and salads are actually good appetizers and help with the heavier items to come later in the main dish. A little warm water after a meal can also help with the digestion.

Remember, you have been taught wrong in the area of food consumption. Marketing companies have only been interested in your wallet and not your well being, despite what they say. If you have a big tummy problem, and just go to the acid control section of your drug store to see how much of an industry has been born from digestive problems, then you need to give yourself a break from the old ways of thinking about the relationship of your tummy and food. Advertisers sell image, not truth. You suffer from their lies designed to take the money from your pocket. Once you are ill, the doctor then gets his cut, and he may have to cut YOU. Find the truth, and the truth will set you free. ;-)

Reviews by Hubie Goode: National Grants Business Opportunity

National Grants
Business Opportunity

The seminar business is in high gear right now, and nothing proves it like the presentation for this opportunity by the National Grants people. Like so many others, they offer a full day of seminaring while listening to what is basically the yellow legal pad sales pitch.

I’ve seen the presentation twice now, and the first time when the speaker told his true to life story, he seemed very sincere and forthright, I will say I was not too pleased to see another speaker this time with the same story and set up. But I understand this sort of thing is the norm for seminars. Always see the same seminar several times if you can, it gives you a better perspective on what is real and what is rote.

This time however, the tone had changed greatly. Due to the ailing economy these folks, like others, are turning into chicken little. The sky is falling ! The sky is falling! You’ll never retire from your current job. Social Security is gone! You’ll have to scrape to get buy the rest of your life! But, we’ve got the answer!

Perhaps they do, but it all comes down to the same idea of free trade and commerce. Basically, the company holds your hand during the process of getting Government grants for various purposes. According to them, there is so much trash that has to be dealt with and considered, the average person can’t get Government grants. There are just too many hurdles to jump over.

For instance, you might fill out an application for a grant in the wrong ink color. Black instead of blue. But only on Tuesday, when the sun is in capricorn is blue favored, no... I am being a wise guy. But you get the idea. Knowing the Government as I do, there very well could be a valid concern for this sort of thing. And there are many examples like this of how conveluted and strange the Government system is, but that would take more space than I am willing to spend here.

The idea is that you join their club, for around $4,000 and become a member and then work with a team of people who assist you in getting grants. You can’t just get grants for any old thing though, and that’s where we run into trouble. You have to be doing something for the Government, say something like improving the community.

Say you want to renovate a bunch of abandoned buildings, turn them into apartments or condos. There is a grant for that. If you have a steel belly for becoming a landlord, then you might want to consider something like this. Done correctly, this could be a boon to the surrounding community, but how much of the money goes to the renovation? Are the renovations done cheap and the cash pocketed? Eh, who really knows, I would hope people could just do the right thing. ... I would hope.

There was no second meeting for this one, no deeper dig I could do at the time. I am, after all , sponsoring this sort of thing myself. I was not able to find too much bad blood on the internet about these guys, and maybe that’s a good sign. All I can tell you is that you have to pay to join their club for services in assistance in getting grants. Can you do it yourself without spending $4,000? Hard to say.