Thousand Drops Of Rain Makes Great Christmas Present — We last discussed Pete Crittenden back in September and now we can review his other book, A Thousand Drops of Rain.
One of the reasons it took so long to finish is because we didn’t want it to end.
It was that good.
It’s an old school compilation of short stories about adventure, mysticism and science fiction with Mike, a proprietor of a hotel and bar in Thailand on the shores of the Andaman Sea, being the glue that holds it together.
Pete is a retired Green Beret who grew up in Thailand and now lives in Chester County, Pa.
Some of the stories are inspired by things he actually experienced like a python sliding down a banyan tree to the terror of a dachshund, or a soldier participating in a voodoo ceremony to resolve a political issue.
For those concerned about the dog, he ends up fine.
And for a retired Green Beret, there is little shooting or blood and guts. The book is the perfect Christmas gift for a boy entering adolescence.
Survival Mindset Should Be In Every Home — A retired Green Beret living in Chester County, Pa. has written a must-read book for all who are used to a corner Wawa open 24/7.
Peter Crittenden’s Survival Mindset, A guide on What to do When Things Go Wrong, Bushcraft/Survival, Emergency Planning and Situational Awareness focuses on the mindset.
Yes, it includes very good how-tos. It describes what plants can be eaten (dandelions, yum); and animals, yes the flesh of all frogs is tasty and wholesome. It tells how water can be purified in a clear plastic bottle left in direct sun for six-hours. There are directions on building fires, tying necessary knots, and other things.
Crittenden’s main point, though, is the mental aspects summed up by the acronym S.U.R.V.I.V.A.L: Size up the situation; Use all senses; Remember where you are; Vanquish fear and panic; Improvise; Value living; Act like the natives; Live by you wits/Learn basic skills.
Peter Crittenden as a security consultant in the Congo
He gives three real life examples of average people surviving likely fatal events by using parts of S.U.R.V.I.V.A.L.
Survival Mindset is unique among fieldcraft or survival guides in that the principles of emergency planning and priorities for survival tasks and preparation are identified and clearly presented
Crittenden retired as a sergeant first class after 25 years in the U.S. Army. He was a SERE school instructor; tracked war criminals in Bosnia and evacuated missionaries from Côte d’Ivoire during its first civil war.
Crittenden was born in Australia and grew up in ex-pat communities in Thailand, Indonesia and Bangladesh due to his father’s engineering jobs.
He described killing cobras — the little ones — in his backyard in Bangladesh, and experienced coups-d’etat and civil wars in Indonesia, Bangladesh and Thailand.
He emigrated to the United States and became a draftsman but didn’t see a future in it so he joined the Army in 1983.
“I found a home,” he said.
He started off in infantry in the 82nd Airborne Division, then Special Forces where he served as an engineering sergeant and then an intelligence sergeant.
After retirement, he worked as a security consultant. This is what inspired the book, which is based on military manuals and his experiences.
He says his clients often enthused about training sessions.
Survival Mindset is published by Blacksmith Publishing and can be found on Amazon. The Kindle edition is less than half the price of the traditional book but this might be a case where you want to splurge.
Covid Sows Seeds For Totalitarian Harvest — Dr. Robert Malone, the inventor of the mRNA vaccine, has published on his Substack an article by Dr. Mattias Desmet, who coined the term mass formation psychosis, which is a “specific kind of group formation that makes people radically blind to everything that goes against what the group believes in. In this way, they take the most absurd beliefs for granted.”
He cites an incident in the 1979 Iranian Revolution when people started to believe that the portrait of Ayatollah Khomeini could be seen on the surface of the moon. Crowds would fill the streets during full moons to look for it — and claim to be able to see it.
More significantly, those griped by this psychosis become radically intolerant of dissent, and radically willing to sacrifice for the collective. He cites an Iranian mother who turned her son over to the authorities to be hanged. She then actually put the rope around his neck.
Mattias Desmet
Desmet is a well-published Belgian psychiatrist and statistician who is a professor at Ghent University.
Desmet is also the author of the recently publishedThe Psychology of Totalitarianism, which is also the title of the Substack article.
Obviously, mass formation psychosis is a stepping stone to totalitarianism.
“Totalitarianism is not a historical coincidence,” Desmet said. “It is the logical consequence of mechanistic thinking and the delusional belief in the omnipotence of human rationality. As such, totalitarianism is a defining feature of the Enlightenment tradition.”
He says his book focuses on the broader cultural–historical processes from which totalitarianism emerges.
He said the Covid response matches the process. Expert virologists were called upon to save us. They replaced unreliable politicians who had been answerable to the people. When the mechanistic experts failed, they changed definitions like Orwell’s pigs and consolidated power.
Desmet also said that the “explosive proliferation of mass surveillance technology led to new and previously unimaginable means for the manipulation of the masses.”
He said his book ultimately is about finding a way out of the current cultural impasse.
“The real task facing us as individuals and as a society is to envision a new view of humankind and the world, to find a new foundation for our identity, to formulate new principles for living together with others, and to reclaim a timely human capacity—Truth Speech,” he says.
Parallel Election Podcast Topic — Face The Culture’s podcast, A Tale of Two Elections, featuring whistleblowing authors Gregory Stenstrom and Leah Hoopes is available to the world.
Their The Parallel Electionmakes the slam-dunk case that vote fraud was real and massive in Delaware County, Pa. and gave the 2020 Presidential Election of Joe Biden.
The panel also featured moderators Stephen Gruen and Kim Kennedy, and myself.
It was revealed that Ingram Content Group reversed its gutless decision to stop the book’s distribution.
Gregory says poll watchers have defined legally enforceable duties and are different than observers.
“What they did in 2020 . . . was they created a class of people called observers,” he said.
Did these observers have any real power?
No.
“You have to stay in a pen, you can’t look at ballots, and just sit there and shut up like a turnip,” Greg said.
The poll watcher, however, has real power.
They have by-right access to the ballots. This right, however, was ignored at the Delaware County counting warehouse in Chester. He said those in charge there made up the rules as they went along, and it took them five hours to fight their way in.
He said Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld the powers of poll watchers but this was misquoted by the enforcers in large Democrat-controlled counties.
He said the court ruled that poll watchers as interveners for the citizenry are allowed to challenge ballots and uploading of drives.
“We are allowed to challenge anything that doesn’t have a chain of custody,” he said. “And they are forced to respond. We can even have somebody arrested.”
Again, however, Delaware County’s powers-that-be misconstrued the law.
“Some of the biggest liars and biggest participants in the fraud, were the attorneys,” Gregory said.
He said it must become common knowledge and something well understood by those running our elections what poll watchers and their powers are.
The book harshly criticizes GOP Republican candidate Sen. Doug Mastriano.
So who are they going to vote for?
“We are definitely not voting Shapiro,” Leah says.
Leah says their goal is to get the truth to the voters and are staying away from endorsing or promoting any politician.
Gregory’s excellent social media site, Patriot.Online, was mentioned. It’s growing, easy to use and has a strong Southeastern Pa flavor.
The book is a must read, especially for Delco residents. Buy it on Amazon , which now has it available on Kindle; other distributers; or, best, at ParallelElection.com.
Give it as a Labor Day present as Christmas may be too late.
Ingram Pulls Parallel Election; Call It Craven Cowardice — Emerald Robinson reports that distributor Ingram Content Group has pulled The Parallel Election after a cease-and-desist letter. Really. A letter. Not not a court order, but a letter that any angry person can send.
The Parallel Election by Gregory Stenstrom and Leah Hoopes describes the massive vote fraud they saw happen in Delaware County, Pa during the 2020 Presidential Election.
Both were certified poll watchers and observers at the county’s counting center
The Parallel Election Exposes Delco Vote Fraud — The Parallel Election by Gregory Stenstrom and Leah Hoopes should put paid to any doubts that tens of thousands of votes were manufactured for Joe Biden and tens of thousands stolen from Donald Trump in 2020, notably in Delaware County, Pa.
Stenstrom, of Glen Mills, and Mrs. Hoopes, of Bethel Township were certified poll watchers and observers at the counting center in 2020.
What they saw and what they suffered for revealing it would end indifference to what happened that year in all but the most stupid or hard-hearted.
The book tells of their suffering: financially and in their personal lives. It describes the threats from the powerful they received and the unremitting campaign of lawfare against them.
The authors say, specifically, their goal is not to overturn the election but to tell the truth.
And warn of the danger our republic faces.
The book’s villains are from both parties. Delaware County Republican Party officials stood down when faced with the mildest pressure and many went on to soft public jobs afterwards, they write.
They note how Act 77 — the main tool in the fraud — was not something hijacked by the Democrats, who are the minority party in the state legislature, but purposely passed by establishment Republicans who are enjoying easy living in government.
Act 77 allowed for the implementation of “no-excuse” mail-in ballots, despite a specific prohibition in the Pennsylvania Constitution.
They call out several by name including former Sen. Mike Folmer who represented the 48th District and just finished serving a sentence for having child porn; and former Sen. Tom Killion for whom Stenstrom was a poll watcher and who strangely dropped his challenge to the 9th Senatorial District results.
Killion now serves as State Director for the Mehmet Oz Senate campaign.
They were especially tough on this year’s GOP gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano. They say Mastriano abandoned them after the November 2020 Gettysburg Hearings in which they both testified.
The authors say they had been led by Mastriano to believe they would be under oath but were never sworn in. Stenstrom says he nearly backed out when he realized he would not be protected by having it be an official hearing and became suspicious that those who called it were just trying to cover themselves.
He testified, however, revealing that the chain of custody was shattered for more than 100,000 ballots; all the legally established procedures were ignored; and 47 USB cards containing vital data have disappeared.
The book is fairly easy to read with necessary but dense details placed at the end and in appendixs.
Arkhaven Comics Winning The Cultural War — Comics stopped being our thing when we turned thirteen but we can’t deny their social influence especially as most of the world-wide blockbuster movies are based on them.
Sliced Americana Jim Watkins — Just finished Sliced Americana by Jim Watkins and Sharon Green. It’s a great book. It’s a discordiate beatnik novel for the 21st century.
It’s Chandler Brossard with a heavy salting of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and a dollop of Thomas Jefferson.
What’s it about? Well, the plot elements include string theory, extra-dimensions, metaphysics, an exotic dancer, her twin children, extraterrestrial abductions, politics, and the adventures of the narrator and Chuck, his drag queen buddy.
There were honest belly laughs and historical tidbits. We never knew Spain invaded Cambodia. They did.
There are some rather graphic parts but it is not gratuitous and makes sense in context.
If you do decided to read and want to skip Chapter 2 which is a bit heavy on the string theory stuff, it still comes together in the end.
Watkins, besides being a writer, is the founder and owner of the legendary 8kun message board where the mysterious Q posted.
You can get Sliced Americana here; on Amazon and probably other palces.
This is the backstory of how I came to read Gigi Williams’ autobiographical book
God’s Hand in my “One” (looking back at the Master’s Plan). We had traveled to the village of North East , MD, to visit a friend — let’s call her M — as this location was equidistant from our homes.
While at a picnic table by the Bay, a few people came up to us. One of them was Gigi, a middle-aged woman with one hand, who offered her book, for free, which I accepted, on the condition that she sign it, which she did. My acceptance was based on the fact that I always accept free books, whether on peace, politics, poetry, or religion.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.
These words from Proverbs 3:5-6, are part of the introduction to Chapter 8 and this summarizes a main message of Gigi’s book, that she has had to lean on faith, as opposed to medical technology, which she has also tried.
Along with her faith she also stresses her acceptance which, in her case, means she sees herself as different rather than “disabled”. Her book talks about the faith and acceptance that led her to have a career, a college degree, a driving license,a marriage and a family, all while being different rather than being “disabled.”
She writes in a very direct, unemcumbered way.
Camp no limits, which she mentions towards the end, is still active in Maryland.
See https://nolimitsfoundation.org/ and Facebook. This is a camp focused on children with “limb loss”, not to be confused with the no limits foundation which focuses on autism related issues. Camp no Limits has a religious connection, which permeates the whole book. My sense is that her religious faith has sustained her, which I accept as one way to get through this labyrinth we call life.
This book can be ordered through www.gigiwilliams.info and also is carried by Amazon, and Barnes and Noble.
Almost every Saturday Night around 11:30 p.m. (9 a.m. Indian time the following day), we find ourselves going to Epiphany’s Church Service, in English (Cuttack,India), via Zoom. One of the most inspiring pastors is Rev. Moumita Biswas of the Church of Scotland.
This weekly schedule is not due to any great religious fervor, but rather relationships formed by my wife while she was in India previously, that were recently re-established.
This was many years and one husband ago.
Part of the story of Andy Mills in India is his role as in India as a Lay Missionary.
The Andy Mills we know is from his work in Witness for Peace. Witness for Peace was founded in 1983 and campaigns for “peace, justice, and sustainable economies in Latin America”.
Andrew Mills connects both these topics and more; He has been a Chairperson of Witness for Peace (1994-2012). Previously, he went to India , in a dual role as a consulting groundwater hydrologist/programmer and a lay Missionary under the UCBWM (United Church Board for World Ministries). This was from 1956-61, and 1967-71.
This book introduced me to a part of Andy that I never knew, the Missionary. He felt he was in India to help with both bodies and souls.
He talks honestly of the dichotomies between his views as a Christian Westerner, and both the Christian Indians and Hindu Indians. Along the way, there are also the differing views within the Christian Missionary Community.
One vital point he makes is the notion that he should live simply, in the same way that the Indians live. This adjustment was not easy for him as an American.
He also explained that the different groupings had much to learn from each other when they chose to listen.
Recently, when I looked up the current status of CNI, the Church of Northern India, I discovered that some of the same concerns that he wrote about were still in the process of being resolved.
The book is divided into sections covering his dual activities in India, and three epilogues, honoring both British and Indian Christians he worked with.
