“Patriot's Porn” – The title of this work alone is enough to misdirect the reader into assuming that this is sexual exploitation at its finest, by utilizing the U.S. military as premise for some low budget, cheesy pornography video or book. Trust me, it's not. If it were, I wouldn't find myself struggling to keep up with the reality of it, not the fictionalization. It's an undertaking where I have to “fictionalize” real-life events. So I have to be careful and not let my mind veer off into the left lane, to crash head-on with my own peace of mind. So all you critics out there, place yourself in my shoes and try, just try, to make a story out of these insane, borderline sublime, factual occurrences I have to work with. Hate me if you will, but do waste your negative energy on me, dispose of it on the men who condoned, promoted such inhumanity against our own human race. Hate them, and just consider me a nuisance.

Abu Ghraib. Now we all know the name of that dysfunctional, infamous prison of Saddam Hussein's. It was a house of terror and malevolence that he himself pounded his chest in pride when it was spoken of. And we Americans just couldn't let him take pride in this concrete box of suffering. We went there to tear that place down and let the bells of “freedom” ring throughout the now ”free” Iraq. No more horror stories would seep past its walls and runoff into the world's river of media. No, our fundamental duty to this same world was to cease any more acts of torture and death in this house of dark foreboding.

So we did what we know how to do best, we invaded their country, chased their dictator from power and began our “clean up” of this newly freed country. This prison, however, was already built and not “bombed out” (whether intentionally or not, who knows), so what better place to house some of these terrible threats against world peace and at the same time extract information from our enemy. After al, we desperately needed to know which camel was carrying the “weapons of mass destruction”.

So the birth of the ultimate hypocrisy was to be. It came into the world, once again, to take in a deep breath of duplicity and began its nursing from the teat evil. Men in Washington D.C. went about the strenuous task of developing new techniques to extract valuable information from this new foe of theirs. These methods they had conjured up, however, would have to be kept in total secrecy. Implementation of these tactics could only be conducted by the most seasoned intelligence officers, men who knew how to keep their mouths' shut and leave no evidence. It had to be this way because if the news media caught wind of these treacherous invocations there could potentially be careers lost. So these men in that little office (in the basement of the Pentagon) selected Colonel Roberts to take the lead on this fiasco. Roberts, an officer whose expertise in this type of interrogation, would keep his trap shut if ever called before a Senate hearing. He did when called back in '72, and they had no doubts that he'd “can't recall” throughout what ever proceedings would be mustered up if it ever came to light.

Colonel Roberts greedily accepted his assignment. Memories of long, lost tortures filled his mind and settled over him like some type of euphoric drug. The shots of whiskey couldn't even remotely compare to what they'd just given him. For free, no less. His only problem, more an inconvenience actually, was that he needed a henchman, a man who, in turn, enlists his own patsies to do his dirty work. Eventually, he chose a Captain, by the name Vosper. A dreadfully belligerent man Vosper was, and an ideal choice for this nasty business.

Of course, Captain Vosper jumps at the opportunity to inflict pain suffering upon these people. He feels that God has finally blessed him, so he goes out and hand selects several low life grunts, men and women who have trouble tying the laces on their boots every morning. He knows he's formed the perfect gang of ruthless idiots.

From there, it takes on a life of its own. They use the detainees religious beliefs against them, forcing them stand before women naked, eat pork and drink whiskey from a dog bowl while they're wearing dog collars around their necks and leashes to rein them in. They endure humiliation, and beatings, more severe than they would have if Iran had captured them.

Then one of the American soldiers comes up with the idea of making a pornographic movie, as well as taking still shots of all the fun they're having. From there… the rest is our own history.

Each and every day an American operating under the “color of authority” tortures and kills someone. And it's not enemy combatants they are torturing and killing… it's other Americans. What happened, and is still happening, in Abu Ghraib is not only inhumane, it's definitely criminal in nature. American prison guards torture and kill thousands upon thousands of their own countrymen. It even comes out in the media, constantly. But no one seems to give a damn about this. Only when it comes to our country ”looking bad” to the world is when the majority or the country cares and wants accountability. However, they fail to realize (or just don't give a damn) that there really is no accountability when people say they act “under color of authority”. Sure, a couple of those soldiers who were so stupid that they had their picture taken while torturing someone will receive a little disciplinary action. But that's only because of the world media attention Abu Ghraib received. And what about those above these low -level grunts? Anyone with a little intelligence knows those idiot acted under direct orders. And how come the U.S. government subcontracts the direct operations of these Iraqi prisons to civilians? Men who were/are … former wardens at, no less… U.S. prisons.

This book will definitely be criticized, but someone needs to get this work out there, so people can see what happens when you give some people too much power over others. There is thousands of Abu Ghraibs, one not too far from where

you are, right now, in America.

     We Only Kill Our Friends is a pulls-no-punches, first hand account of the California prison system as it is today, written with the depth of insight that only someone who served time can know. The author, released in August of 2004, had been an inmate within California correctional facilities for more than ten years.

Although other books have been published on the subject, the California penal system has changed dramatically since those earlier works and has evolved into on of the most violent, corrupt bureaucracies in the United States. While “public safety” is the rationale given for the staggering six and a half billion-dollars-a-year spent by California Department of Corrections, the fact is that much of that this sum is grossly mismanaged, often wasted, and helps to perpetrate violent and illegal acts by the very people who are supposed to protect society.

We Only Kill Our Friends takes the reader through a convict's personal experiences within the system. While detailing the malevolence of inmates, the book also exposes blatant immoral acts by the guards and administrators, and tells the truth about how the massive amounts of narcotics are introduced into “maximum security”. prisons, and how organized ”gladiator” fights between inmates have been staged for the gambling pleasure of guards.

Along the way, the author tells stories about infamous inmates such as the Hillside Strangler and their acts of violence. He shows how “state-raised” convicts metamorph from troubled teens, with terms in California Youth Authority, to cynical, cold-blooded killers at the state's hardest, hard core prison, Pelican Bay. And he links this transition to the system itself, demonstrating that far from implementing a desire to rehabilitate, California Department of Corrections policies largely encourage ongoing violence and recidivism.

Nor does the author spare himself; indeed, he carries the reader from his own misguided and troubled past, through his acts of prison violence, committed in order to survive (some of these not only known about in advance by guards, but condoned by them).

We Only Kill Our Friends outlines the financial inequities of the California prison system, indicating that much of the six and a half billion dollar annual budget goes to the prison guards, many of whom make more than university professors. Indeed, those with enough seniority make more than Secret Service agents who guard the President of the United States!

The book clearly demonstrates that far from “public safety” being the reason for the massive Department of Correction's budget, the prison guard's union, an organization that makes its own rules and designs its own pay scale – and is the largest single donor to political campaigns – has perpetuated a monster fraud on the people of California in order to build and maintain more prisons, and thus, the job security of its members. It is an organization that counts on more and more criminals feeding the machine itself.

We Only Kill Our Friends provides no sympathetic view of inmates. In fact, the author's experience leads him to believe that many are unredeemable and can no longer function in society. This book, however, indicts the system itself for this tragedy, with the guiding hands of prison administrators bearing ultimate responsibility. It accuses these same administrators, who, when caught in misdeeds, loudly proclaim that they operate under “color of authority”. The great tragedy, the book points out, is that they are nearly immune to scrutiny.

Public fascination with prison life and with the lives of inmates should make We Only Kill Our Friends , an eminently saleable work.

     “Quietus” – Just imagine… being reincarnated over and over again. And then, almost every time you depart from one of these lives - you're killed in some wickedly brutal fashion.

How terrible that would be!

Not for a man who believes his name, and being, is “Death”. A subhuman who erotically feeds off of killing people and taking in their souls like having a shot of the most finest of brandies.

During his many lives, this predator roams the earth in search of his next conquest

His lives taking him to periods of history that bespeak of grandiose adventures. Some that transform into painful misfortunes. From being a warrior for the Roman Empire to being one of the first “patrons” of San Quentin prison's electric chair. And, of course, he finds himself in the most precarious of dilemmas in life – he encounters friendship and a fleeting emotion called “love”; Two human characteristics that have no place in his existence.

“Death” takes us on journeys that excite the imagination to the point of not being able to put the book down. It is an intensely, sometimes quite violent, book for those who dare take a glimpse into the dark abyss of history and humanity.

“Death” wants to take you on his travels and show you the gateway to the end.

     “Obscured by Clouds” - The work begins with two teenage siblings, a girl named “Marybeth”, and her protective brother “Ricky”. Two youths that are forced to grow up in a run down trailer park in Southwest Virginia, a place where their drunken father beats them like they were dogs that bit their owner.

It is in this misery that their dreams flourish in their minds. But yet, they are only conscious imaginations that are so distant that they are sublime. However, both brother and sister refuse to acknowledge that this incredibly tortuous life may be what lies in their futures.

A single, incestuous act by the father against Marybeth is what ultimately will alter their destiny. Ricky, in his blind fury, takes the reins on both he and his sister's imposed fate, killing their father for his egregious, perverted assault upon his lovely sister. Even as the father's skull was half blown off, the bastard still made one last attempt to beat on his boy. But it wasn't to be. The old drunk would succumb to his destiny and lie amongst the dozens of empty beer cans that had become his living room carpet.

With this deed done, Ricky sends his sister to their naval officer uncle's to live and pursue her dreams as a normal teenage girl would.

Ricky, on the other hand, would use that old beat-up gun of his father's to begin an armed robbery spree that would last years and propel him to the F.B.I.'s Tem Most Wanted Fugitives list.

Two federal agents would end up dedicating their entire careers on trying to apprehend this enigmatic criminal. But their destiny would ultimately creep up on them as well. Their ardent pursuit of young Ricky would take them all over the Midwest and place them in near fatal situations.

This book is a very realistic detailing of how an armed robber will live his life, as well as all the pain and suffering he will invoke in those who love him. His is a life of a tortured soul, one that searches for the peace of mind and happiness through the hard, cold steel of a gun barrel.