The Agony That Remains

In the northeast corner of Oklahoma, where the Trail of Tears ends and where one of the world’s largest clusters of ley lines intersect, there’s a place of extreme paranormal activity that has received little attention from the outside world. Join Brandon Callahan and his crew as they investigate the horrifying legacy of a bloody and brutal past, where generations of families have been terrorized by ghosts, demons, UFOs, Sasquatch, and countless other paranormal manifestations. Partnering with a family that’s been driven from their land, Brandon and his team discover energies that have no fear. As dark forces take hold of the investigators’ lives, Brandon must attempt to salvage what’s left of his team’s—and his own—sanity.

In the northeast corner of Oklahoma, where the Trail of Tears ends and where one of the world's largest clusters of ley lines intersect, there's a place of extreme paranormal activity that has received little attention from the outside world. Join Brandon Callahan and his crew as they investigate the horrifying legacy of a bloody and brutal past, where generations of families have been terrorized by ghosts, demons, UFOs, Sasquatch, and countless other paranormal manifestations.Partnering with a family that's been driven from their land, Brandon and his team discover energies that have no fear. As dark forces take hold of the investigators' lives, Brandon must attempt to salvage what's left of his team's-and his own-sanity.

The fact that governments lie is generally accepted today, but World War I was the first global conflict in which millions of young men were sacrificed for hidden causes. They did not die to save civilization; they were killed for profit and in the hopes of establishing a one-world government. By 1917, America had been thrust into the war by a President who promised to stay out of the conflict. But the real power behind the war consisted of the bankers, the financiers, and the politicians, referred to, in this book, as The Secret Elite. Scouring government papers on both sides of the Atlantic, memoirs that avoided the censor's pen, speeches made in Congress and Parliament, major newspapers of the time, and other sources, Prolonging the Agony maintains that the war was deliberately and unnecessarily prolonged and that the gross lies ingrained in modern "histories" still circulate because governments refuse citizens the truth. Featured in this book are shocking accounts of the alleged Belgian "outrages," the sinking of the Lusitania, the manipulation of votes for Herbert Hoover, Lord Kitchener's death, and American and British zionists in cahoots with Rothschild's manipulated Balfour Declaration. The proof is here in a fully documented exposé—a real history of the world at war.

Stone provides a brief historical overview of Algeria since 1830 before focusing on three crucial phases of the postcolonial era: that of Ben Bella and Boumedienne; the reform era of Chadli Benjedid; and the political and economic crisis under the Higher States Committee (HCE). He examines the dominant state institutions--the army and the FLN--and outlines the increasingly bitter divisions, social and political, which account for the current crisis. Since the Algerian military annulled an election in January 1992 that would have brought to power the world's first democratically elected Islamist government, a civil war has raged in which more than 100,000 Algerians have died. The military takeover polarized the country between the political and military elite and the mass of the population. The elite were perceived as interested only in personal gain and holding on to power, while most Algerians faced intense hardship. But the brutality of the Islamists' insurgency--including car bombings, the murder of 'immodestly' dressed women, the assassination of intellectuals, and the wiping out of whole villages--has lost them support. Most Algerians no longer want the Islamic republicanism of the FIS or the millenarianism of the GIA. Martin Stone provides a brief overview of Algeria since 1830 before focusing on three crucial phases of the postcolonial era--those of Ben Bella, Boumedienne and the reformist Chadli Bendjedid; and the political and economic crisis under the Haut Comité d'État (HCE). He examines the donimant state institutions--the army and the FLN--and the increasingly bitter divisions behind the current conflict, especially the factionalism that has hampered ALgeria's attempts to realize its great potential. The book also deals with the large Berber minority, relations with France, the economic background, forgien policy, the 1997 elections, and the administration of President Lamine Zeroual. In conclusion it examines whether the state can reconcile the moderate, convservative Islam of the majority with the minorities on either pole--both Islamic radicals and secularists--and create a political landscape where genuine political pluralism can flourish and extremism be suppressed.

The ongoing effort of the United States to account for its missing Vietnam War soldiers is unique. The United States requires the repatriation and positive identification of soldiers’ bodies to remove their names from the list of the missing. This quest for certainty in the form of the material, identified body marks a dramatic change from previous wars, in which circumstantial evidence often sufficed to account for missing casualties. In The Remains of War, Thomas M. Hawley considers why the body of the missing soldier came to assume such significance in the wake of the Vietnam War. Illuminating the relationship between the effort to account for missing troops and the political and cultural forces of the post-Vietnam era, Hawley argues that the body became the repository of the ambiguities and anxieties surrounding the U.S. involvement and defeat in Southeast Asia. Hawley combines the theoretical insights of Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, and Emmanuel Levinas with detailed research into the history of the movement to recover the remains of soldiers missing in Vietnam. He examines the practices that constitute the Defense Department’s accounting protocol: the archival research, archaeological excavation, and forensic identification of recovered remains. He considers the role of the American public and the families of missing soldiers in demanding the release of pows and encouraging the recovery of the missing; the place of the body of the Vietnam veteran within the war’s legacy; and the ways that memorials link individual bodies to the body politic. Highlighting the contradictions inherent in the recovery effort, Hawley reflects on the ethical implications of the massive endeavor of the American government and many officials in Vietnam to account for the remains of American soldiers.

This book is a complete and comprehensive projection of John Whiting as an absurdist playwright. It is a round and unvarnished story of a prodigious playwright who within a short span of his life, did much to outshine his contemporaries. His journey was not limited to stage and theatre. He also wrote for the films, television and even radio. The journey began with The Conditions of Agreement in 1946 and ended with The Devils in 1961. In between he wrote many landmark plays through which one can trace the evolutionary trajectory of a legend in the making who was a confluence of mind and mystery, love and revenge, sentimentality and blood lust. His plays are replete with sin and sleaze, callousness and collusion. This was because in Whiting, one also comes across the diminution of norms owning to ethical elasticity and dispensability of principles. In his plays the pathology of power is matched by the ethos of human failings as is exemplified by the rise and fall of Grandier in The Devils. Here the banality of power fails to keep distance between pretense and principles. Bereft of the romance of renewal and predictability, many of his plays end up on disjointed note in the best tradition of the theatre of the absurd. The playwright's obsession with pre-mediated violence creates a disconnect between storyline and characterization. In practically every plays of Whiting creates a heady cocktail of fear, violence, loathing and paranoia and yet they make for a compelling reading. This book is a summary of my findings regarding John Whiting with terse comments on his qualities as an absurdist playwright. It has been my endeavor to assess him both as a literary figure and a playwright, wedded to the absurdist tradition.

Drawing on critical race theory and empirical data from case studies involving fifty men of African descent, this book presents a new perspective on black masculinity, maleness, sexism, and institutional racism. The book situates black masculinity in a racial, socio-historical, and postcolonial context to provide innovative ways of understanding the profound effects of institutional racism. Although its focus is primarily on people of African descent, the book addresses issues concerning all races and ethnicities, explores the harmful effects of sexism and homophobia on women and queer people, and proposes practical steps that can be taken to fight against socio-economic inequality and injustice that is racially-, gender-, and sexually-based. Given the practical nature and interdisciplinary dimension of this book, readers and educators studying race, racism, sexism, and gender issues will find it germane to their needs and their classes.