#my parents split and are selling the ranch i grew up on

[veritasrose]

Throwing a bunch of stuff in tags in case people are wondering why I seem off or quieter than usual as of late.

Lots of great things happened, too. But its just... A Lot to process and I am definitely having trouble with that.

#in the past year my i have had to cut off contact with my dad and my brother and set boundaries with mom #my parents split and are selling the ranch i grew up on #a friend destroyed the house i helped build and was to inherit #i was injured and lost a lot of functioning in my left leg and thus my overall physical abilities #had to step back from my dream job and work only 2 days a week #watched my closest aunt starve to death and an uncle die of covid #gained a ton of weight due to ed recovery and limited mobility #had multiple loved ones attempt suicide #dog developed epilepsy #found out we wont have kids #and my in law has cancer for the 3rd time in 4 years #also just like the whole general pandemic and world state

[whereistheonepiece]

So @lesbian-space-ranger​ and I accidentally created a new Zosan AU that we’ve been talking about since last night. A note: half of this is me summarizing, half of it is pulled directly from Discord because Cas (lesbian-space-ranger) has such great ideas.

This is a long post. I don’t feel like putting it under a read more. So. Enjoy. Or keep scrolling. Either works.

So this post happened

These roles just came to me. Didn’t need to give it much thought because Sanji has the appearance and demeanor of a lead singer and I like the idea of him using his skilled hands to play piano at the same time.

I also watched the movie Rocketman earlier in the week. You know, that Elton John biopic. I adored it and it’s been heavy on my mind lately and I liked the idea of Sanji giving a high energy performance from the piano. (Sir Elton John’s music comes into play later.)

And as for Zoro, I find the bass and/or the beat the sexiest part of the music in a song and, naturally, I can see him rocking at either.

So I asked Cas if she had any other headcanons for this AU and this thing is too good to not share.

Yeah, so Zoro and Sanji are in a boy band with Usopp and Luffy. Luffy started the band. Luffy does guitar, Zoro is on bass, Usopp is on drums, and Sanji is on keyboard and vocals.

Nami is their manager. She works them hard and has taken a 40% cut of the profits because of the guys’ naivete and inexperience. But she’s why they took off. She booked their gigs at every venue she could manage, no matter how small.

They got their big break when Nami met Vivi, who’s a talent scout for the record label Baroque Works. Nami insisted that Vivi had to see the boys perform because they’re something else and Vivi’s heard that a thousand times, but she agreed because Nami is cute. Nami and Vivi are dating. Also, re Baroque Works: Crocodile looks like a sleazy music producer, doesn’t he? So does Doflamingo.

So Sanji is the pretty one, Luffy is the funny one, Zoro is the quiet/broody one, and Usopp is the smart one.

Zoro has a lot of deals with fitness brands, but secretly finds the famous life unfulfilling. This comes back later, so keep that in your back pocket.

Robin runs their social media. She’s so good at her job, running all of their accounts and tweeting simultaneously, you’d swear she had four sets of hands. Wink.

Franky does pyrotechnics/lighting.

Brook is their stylist.

Chopper was their first real fan. He and Zoro grew up in the same neighborhood and Chopper just always idolized him. He followed them before anyone knew their names. He was their hype man, saying encouraging things like "I know you guys are gonna be great!" He believed in them even when they didn't believe in themselves.

Usopp set up their recordings before they got signed because he’s savvy. And then Chopper would sell their crappy CDs. At these tiny gigs. Like coffeehouses and stuff.

Sanji can play keyboard because his parents forced him to play piano as a kid. They had this idea that classical music would teach him discipline and make him smarter. This is how he meets Zeff. Zeff’s your typical stern instructor, but he’s the first adult to ask Sanji what he actually wants and likes. Zeff sees Sanji’s not into it so he asks him what music he likes and Sanji tells him he likes pop, so Zeff gives Sanji a more rounded education. This includes Elton John because I say so. It did inspire me to put Sanji on keyboard, after all.

But other than being Sanji’s piano instructor, Zeff becomes the one positive adult figure in young Sanji’s life and he becomes something of a mentor figure for him. Zeff has a garden and he lets Sanji work in it with him. This garden is how Sanji gets his “little eggplant” nickname. Sanji pulls an eggplant out before it’s ready and it’s so small and pitiful and Zeff won’t let him live it down. Like, Sanji keeps in touch with Zeff even into adulthood and after he makes it big and he still calls Sanji little eggplant.

Zoro and Sanji are always doing that, "Kind of flirting, not really” thing on stage.  Sanji is always like walking up to Zoro on stage and acting like he's going to kiss him but pushing him away at the last moment. And it's this huge mystery whether they're actually an item or not. This comes from Nami. Sanji and Zoro have this natural chemistry with each other that leads to speculation and Nami, knowing how boy band fan bases work, saw dollar signs. But it’s not just pragmatism on her part; she knows that one cannot simply go up to Zoro and Sanji and say “You obviously like each other. You should date.” So she makes money and helps her friends find happiness.

Usopp has speculation going on as well. People are always confused as to who he’s dating. Tabloids keep being like "Usopp dumped Nami and is now dating Luffy!" "Luffy Scorned?" "Luffy ditches Usopp and steals his girl!" And they just think the entire thing is hilarious. They collect headlines. The answer is Usopp is dating Luffy and Nami and Luffy and Nami just become really affectionate with each other after dating Usopp long enough. Also Nami is dating Vivi, like I mentioned, and sometimes Nami brings her on as a plus one. 

Sanji and Zoro keep giving conflicting answers about their relationship status. Like they'll tell one person they hate each other and another person they're gonna get married someday. Sanji has to walk this fine line of being "in love" with all of his female fans and also "in love" with Zoro. Or not. Who knows? Like Sanji enjoys the attention but he really really plays shit up for his fangirls. This makes Sanji even more popular. Just picture pages upon pages of Sanji/Reader and “Zanji” fics on Wattpad. Nami is one smart lady. "I am the smartest, prettiest, most clever person alive."

Zosan getting together really is just a bunch of Fake Dating tropes. At first it really is just to get more press for the band. Nami schemes with Usopp and Robin to push them together. Robin's a social media genius and knows how to craft tweets and Instagram posts that fans will overanalyze. 

Meanwhile eventually Zoro and Sanji admit to each other they have actual feelings and one day Usopp finds Sanji sleeping in Zoro's bed, both of them completely tuckered out. But they don’t know Nami crafted this. They just come clean and hope she won't be mad and she's like, "Yes! Finally!" and they're like "What?" and she's like, "I've been waiting for you two to realize you have actual feelings. Did you really think I'd just use you for profit like that?" and they're both like "Yes" "Of course"

Zoro’s mad at her for meddling. Secretly he’s grateful, but he doesn’t want to give her the satisfaction and he’s yelling until Sanji grabs his hand and he just calms down.

And to bring Elton John back into the picture, just picture Sanji doing a cover of “Your Song” and uploading it online and thinking about Zoro. Naturally the comments are abuzz with people speculating that he’s singing about Zoro. And like. Onstage Sanji does his rendition and sends these small glances Zoro’s way, partially because he knows it’ll get the band a lot of attention, partially because that song is sweet and beautiful and it’s such a simple way to explain his feelings. (There is a reason why Moulin Rouge included it!!) I imagine this happens before they come clean to each other. Like, Zoro comes to him and is all “I keep thinking about that song you did...” And they go from there.

And eventually the band comes to its natural end. 

Usopp goes solo and flourishes, working as a songwriter and a producer. He wrote the band’s songs and he’s had a drum kit since he was, like, ten and he can make his own beats. He’s not the singing type (though he is good at it and could reach new heights if he came out of his shell), so he’s the kind of artist who makes the beat and then gets super famous pop singers to feature on his tracks. But he also writes songs for other singers and is so good at it and produces other artists’ tracks. I also like the idea that he’s taught himself to play multiple instruments, but he prefers the drums/percussion. He totally played percussion in school and was in marching band. I was in marching band for one year. I loathed every second of it, but I know he’d be phenomenal in drum corps.

Luffy isn’t much in music anymore, but he keeps himself busy. He’s something of an influencer, the kind of celebrity who gets paid to wear fashion brands’ clothing. He’s also Usopp’s trophy husband, living off the money he made off the band. Usopp grew wise to Nami’s antics and made sure he and Luffy would live comfortably for the rest of their lives, even if Usopp were to retire. Luffy also is secretly a Buzzfeed journalist because it’s fun for him to write these hit articles and people not know it’s him because he’s writing on this super bland pseudonym. 

And then there’s Zosan. They have a falling out after the band splits and go their separate ways.

Sanji quits being a professional singer because he’s tired of the prying into his personal life, but he still mentors and/or teaches. He has a string of girlfriends and finds no fulfillment in those relationships because the women are only interested in his celebrity.

And they aren’t Zoro.

Zoro tried branching off into commercials for fitness, but his heart wasn’t in it. He kind of takes up ranching on a whim and learns that he’s really good at it. He likes the physical labor, the quiet, being away from it all, nobody knowing his name. He doesn’t pursue anyone after Sanji because he feels like if it’s meant to be, someone will appear.

And Sanji does.

Sanji finds out where Zoro is through Luffy. So he makes his way to the ranch and finds Zoro and Sanji is all “Come back. I miss you.”

And there’s just a lot of soft Zosan content during Sanji’s visit. Sanji’s always been afraid of horses, but he’s not afraid when he’s with Zoro, and Zoro teaches him they can be gentle creatures, it’s just that you just have to respect them. (Ha. Get it?) Zoro takes Sanji on a ride and they go out and he takes him up the mountain and shows him how beautiful the view is. Sanji's watching the sunset and he's like, "Damn that's the prettiest thing I've ever seen." And Zoro is looking at Sanji and he says, "It sure is." And Sanji's like, "you're not... even looking." And Zoro's like, "No, I'm looking alright. Prettiest thing I've ever seen for sure."

More soft things like Zoro taking off his cowboy hat and putting it on Sanji. Them sitting by the fire, Zoro playing acoustic while Sanji sings. Whenever people see them they’ll ask them if they’re musicians and they share a knowing smile and say “Yeah. Something like that.”

And Zoro convinces Sanji to move out there with him. The others come to visit. Luffy and Chopper are obsessed with the cows and horses and the chickens. Luffy wants, like, eight pet chickens. Usopp is skeptical. Doesn’t believe Lu can look after a pet.

And it kind of ends there. It was us going back and forth, oftentimes out of chronological order, and so here I am putting it all together because it’s too good not to share. But it was a lot of fun.

#zosan #zoro #sanji #lusona #luffy #usopp #nami #robin #franky #chopper #brook #vivi #namivivi #long post #music au

[woildismyerster]

I need tooth-rottingly sweet, so-sweet-I’ll-vomit Specs fluff asap (or when you can find time, no rush)

I hope this does it for you, homie.

There were no adult Newsies.  People were more likely to buy from a kid, so the people parenting the younger Newsies were only in their mid to late teens themselves.

Jack was the head honcho, the man to follow.

Mush and Finch were the physical guys.  Some days that meant that they took an offensive stance, but sometimes that meant that the kids had somebody to wrestle with before bed.

Your job was, whether you wanted to or not, be soft.  You cleaned scrapes and split up arguments.  

Specs was the confidant, the safe, the counselor.  He knew secrets before anybody else, and it was for good reason.  He never wanted to tell anybody, and his ability to be objective was unparalleled.

He knew about Jack’s thing for Katherine long before anybody else.

He was the person you went to, years prior, when you were scared to walk to your selling spot because of shifty eyed men who lurked around corners in the quiet hours.  He was also the person who walked you to the dock then, and the person who shielded you from the men, just as you had hoped he would be.

He was the first person Davey told when the Jacobs boys were able to go back to school.

He held you after the strike, listening to you talk about everything and nothing until your breathing slowed to match his.  

You went to Specs a lot, more than the other Newsies, maybe, but he didn’t mind.  He seeked you out more often than not, and it flooded his chest and roared in his ears when you did the same.

Really, Specs liked to listen.  He liked to know what was happening around him, even if it wouldn’t be affecting him directly.  He hadn’t been on edge at all when Albert pulled him aside one day - maybe it was about whatever Albert, Race, and JoJo had been whispering about the other night.

“You and Y/N are pretty close, right?”

Specs blinked, surprised.  Yes, of course you were close.  All Newsies were close.  None of you had too many other people to be close to.  “Sure.”

Albert glanced over his shoulder, where Race and JoJo were watching expectantly.  “Good - yeah, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”  His eyes were bright, and his ears were a little pink.  

“Okay, what?”

“I kind of have a thing for Y/N,” he said sheepishly.  “It’s been driving me crazy - I had to get it off my chest.”

Specs’ eyebrows rose, but that was the sign he heard.  He wouldn’t - couldn’t - say anything.  You and Albert?  Really?  Maybe that wasn’t too much of a surprise; you were pretty spectacular, and Albert wasn’t an idiot.

Specs swallowed thickly, noting the way Albert kept looking back at the other two.  “What are they doing here?”

“They thought I was being weird,” Albert said.  “I didn’t want to talk to them about it - you know how chatty Race can be - so they thought I should talk to you.”

“Oh,” Specs said.  He took off his glasses to polish the spotless glass.  “Yeah, that makes sense.  Do you feel better?”

“Yes,” Albert said quickly.  “I definitely do.  See you ‘round.”

Specs should have tried to talk more to Albert about it - figuring out how to deal with having a crush on a friend could be a pretty stressful experience.  He should have offered to talk to you for Albert.  He should have helped the boy come up with a plan.  

Specs did not try to do any of those things, since the very idea of it made him feel sick to his stomach.

You grinned at Specs, hair plastered to your face from the onslaught of rain.  You had shoved all of your papers under your shirt, but he wasn’t sure how well it protected them.  “Think we should call it quits?  I ain’t sure there’ll be that many customers in this.”

He shrugged.  “Whatever you want.  Feeling lucky?”

He wasn’t feeling lucky.  How could Albert have a crush on you?  Of all of the teenagers in all the world, Albert just had to choose the person that Specs valued the most.

“Not particularly,” you said, squinting up at the sky.  “Wanna go to Jacobi’s?”

“Why go there when there’s plenty of water out here?”  Specs smiled when you laughed.

Of course Albert had a crush on you.  Who wouldn’t?  If Specs was a really good friend, he would help Albert out.

“You’s right,” you said.  “We can just stay out here, catching the rain in our mouths.  It’ll act as a shower, too.  Two for one.”

“Brilliant.  You planning to strip first, or should I?”

You laughed again, and Specs thought that he was a bad friend, twice over.

First, he was filled with an unhealthy dose of resentment toward a friend who had trusted him.

Second, he thought that he might be bitter because he liked you too, and he would rather Albert be unhappy than himself.

Specs could hardly breathe, and he couldn’t think of a way to bring the air back into the room.

You were standing across the way, and Albert had an arm slung over your shoulders.  You were laughing at something he was saying, and Albert hadn’t looked away from your face the entire time he talked.

Was that how Specs looked at you?

Albert ducked down to whisper something in your ear, and your eyes gleamed when you ducked out of the way.

Did you look at Specs like that?

You caught Specs’ eye, and waved him over.  He shook his head, and though your grin faltered, you turned back to Albert.  If you knew how Albert felt, would you be letting him touch you like that?

Would you be letting him touch you more?

Albert grinned at Specs from across the way, and Specs grimaced back.  He had never wanted to spill somebody’s secret so badly.

“Plans for after we age out,” you whispered.  “Go.”

Specs bit the inside of his cheek.  Soon enough, the two of you would have to start looking for other work.  In all likelihood, you would both end up in factories.  In times like this, when he was looking at your bunk from his, anything was possible.

Quietly, so none of the boys could get irritated, Specs dreamed a life.  “I’ll go to New Orleans and learn voodoo.  I’ll make a living selling charms and curses to anybody who can afford it.”

He could see a flash of your teeth in the moonlight.  “I like it.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll go into moving pictures,” you said.  “Everybody in America will know my name.”

Specs wrinkled his nose.  “Why would you want that?”

“Money.  Respect.”  You shifted, pulling your blanket up to your chin.  “Why not?”

“I don’t want to be known by everybody,” he said.  “Just a few people.”

“You’s gonna have an easy time being happy, then,” you told him.

He shrugged, taking off his glasses.  He immediately lost you in the dark blur.  “I’ll use my voodoo to make you happy, too.”

“You don’t have to.  You make me happy enough.”  The last words were muffled by a yawn, and followed by a sleepy good night.

Specs thought that his heart might have broken.  He thought that he might be in love with you.  He thought that maybe you were right, and that what would make him happy may be simpler than what would make you happy.  Maybe you deserved something better, and he was being selfish by keeping you to himself.

“Albert, I owe you an apology.”

Albert’s eyebrows rose, and his lips curved into a surprised smile.  “For what?”

“I like Y/N,” Specs said.  “I like Y/N, and I know that you do too.  I won’t act on it, but I’s sure that I’ve been getting in the way of you -”

Albert gave a bark of laughter.  “I don’t like Y/N.  Like that, anyway.”

“But you said -”

“Race, JoJo, and I have been talking,” Albert said.  He bore a smug grin.  “We’s been watching you and Y/N for ages, and it was sickening, man.  Absolutely nauseating, and you had no idea.  We weren’t even sure you knew how perfect for each other you are.  We thought that if you thought I would make a move, you’d realize you don’t want me to.”

Specs gaped at him.  “You lied.”

“For what it’s worth,” Albert offered, “I’s sure Y/N likes you back.”

“How does that help?”

“You can have this,” Albert said with a shrug.  “We don’t have much, and we might not ever have much, but you and Y/N have always had each other.  Why not make the most of that?”

That was, surprisingly, a good point.  Specs had pulled Albert aside ready to give you up.  He hadn’t imagined having the opportunity to walk out of the conversation with more.

So long as you felt the same way, that is.

Specs held a paper over your head, blocking the sun from your eyes.  It was too hot today, and he found himself missing the rain.  “What’ll you do when we age out?”

You looked up at him, surprised, but pursed your lips in thought.  “Buy a ranch in the south.  Get some horses, some sheep, the works.  What’ll you do?”

“Follow you there,” Specs said.

You half smiled.  “Really?  A world of possibility, and you just want to follow me to New Mexico, or wherever?”

“Sure.”  Specs gave you a full grin, and yours grew in response.  “That’s the dream, isn’t it?  You’s the only person that needs to know me.  If I’ve got you, there’s nothing else to want.”

“Really?”  You gave a heavy swallow, hands worrying at the corner of one of your papes.  “That’s really what you want once we’ve grown up?”

“Is there something else I should want?”  The paper in Specs’ hand shook a little, and the sun flickered on and off your face.  

“I’s giving you a chance to back out,” you admitted.  “To make a joke out of it.”

“I’ve never been so serious in my entire life.”

You grinned.  Bracing your hands on his shoulders, you gave him a brief kiss.  Surprised, Specs didn’t even bother lowering the paper roof he had created for you.  

“What was that for?”

“Sealing the deal,” you said.  “You’s stuck with me, now.  Whatever I do, you’ll be there.”

He scoffed.  “As if that wasn’t already the plan.”

“It wasn’t something you ever said out loud,” you protested.  

He leaned down and kissed you, then.  “Did I have to?”

“No,” you said, and Specs understand the appeal of telling somebody a secret.  If people felt half as good telling people secrets as he did after telling you how he felt, he couldn’t imagine ever stopping.

#Newsies #newsies fanfiction #newsies x reader #specs #specs newsies #specs x reader #ally writes

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Ford Greene and the Moonies

Ford Greene: Attorney at odds

By Tad Whitaker, IJ reporter      January 9, 2005 Marin Independence Journal

San Anselmo resident Ford Greene sounds like a typical Marin County lawyer, what with his outspoken liberalism, scruffy hair and a white Porsche in the garage. But this self-described “cult buster” is anything but that.

Greene was in the spotlight recently for posting a large political sign on the side of his office building along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, where commuters are faced with messages against the Iraq war and President Bush, among other things. …

But the furor surrounding the sign doesn’t compare with what’s been stirred up in Greene’s professional life: He has been prosecuted for kidnapping in Colorado and has won a landmark case before the California Supreme Court against the Unification Church that enabled former followers to sue for damages. Greene says he has de-programmed more than 100 followers —often called Moonies— of the church, which was founded in 1954 by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

Those professional chops made Greene one of six finalists for the honor of Trial Lawyer of Year in 2003 by the organization Trial Lawyers for Public Justice. But his drive stems from an experience many people would try to forget.

“I was a Moonie slave,” he says. “The Moonies’ nickname for me is a special servant of Satan.”

Greene’s “cult-busting” and colorful past, however, have turned him into a lightning rod for criticism for the organizations he targets.

“He’s a wing nut,” says Jeff Quiros, president of the Church of Scientology of San Francisco. “He really is.”

Aylesworth Crawford “Ford” Greene III, 52, comes from a family whose Ross Valley roots can be traced to the 1880s. …

Greene grew up the oldest of four privileged children who were raised around San Anselmo and Ross. The nuclear family expanded when two cousins needed a home after their mother died of cancer.

Greene’s father was a successful corporate lawyer who attended Yale University with former New York Sen. James L. Buckley, who became the young Greene’s godfather. His mother served as chairwoman of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and was on an advisory commission for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Greene attended … The Thatcher School in Ojai, near Ventura, for high school. But he ran away during his freshman year in 1969 and came home.

“I wanted to be a hippie at Redwood with my friends,” he says.

Greene says he “terrorized” his parents while attending Redwood and ultimately graduated from Woodside Priory in Portola Valley. He briefly attended college in Southern California but left, depressed over a difficult romantic relationship.

Back in Marin, Greene bucked hay, milked cows and unclogged sewers at Straus Family Creamery before taking a backpacking trip in which he climbed 16 14,000-foot peaks in three months. At about that time, his sister Catherine, 18, disappeared.

Moonies expanding

The year was 1974 and the Rev. Moon was expanding his Unification Church in the United States. Moon, who is from South Korea, was a wealthy but controversial figure accused of brainwashing young people to support his religious organization by selling flowers among other items.

Catherine —the second youngest child and closest in nature to Greene— had joined the Unification Church and gone to a camp called New Ideal City Ranch, outside Boonville in Mendocino County. When she finally called her family, Greene says she had changed.

“It sounded like her loyalties were being split,” he says. “She sounded torn up.”

Greene traveled to the Boonville camp a few days later to confront Catherine, but it was difficult; she was surrounded by Moonies at all times. A church leader invited Greene to return the following weekend for a training session.

Greene drove home, still depressed and, he recalls, even suicidal because of a difficult relationship with his father. He decided to hear Moon speak in person at the San Francisco Opera House. Greene recalls that Moon sounded Hitler-like, “but there was a calmness afterward, and that appealed to me.”

Greene went to the training camp with two friends, but he says they were separated and escorted everywhere —including the bathroom— by at least one church member, a process he says the Moonies called love bombing. Joined by new recruits from all over the Bay Area, he attended a group session at which he explained that he’d come to rescue his sister. But then everyone turned toward him and began singing about how much they loved him.

“Holding hands and singing with 200 people felt really good to me,” he recalls. “My programming had begun.”

Greene’s friends left the camp after the weekend, but he stayed behind to listen to lectures, singing groups and discussions about personal experiences. Although images of Hitler Youth kept popping into his mind, he says church leaders poured on the love when he confronted them about the program —a strategy that helped reinforce the power structure and created self-doubt. After all, says Greene bluntly, “You’re being an a--hole to someone who’s being nice to you.”

Still unable to fully believe what he was being told —that Moon was the second coming of Christ— Greene went to a nearby creek to pray. But later that afternoon, Greene says he received an affirmation from God.

Faith begins wavering

Greene moved back to the Bay Area to live in Unification Church dorm houses in Berkeley and San Francisco, where members were expected to share toothbrushes stored in a bucket and hand over the keys to their cars. He took a job at a church-owned gas station on Market Street and, when his faith wavered, he returned to the ranch for re-education.

The re-education periods reinforced a belief that anyone against the church was Satan, he says, but it also gave him some perspective on what was happening. He remembers seeing new recruits arrive with doubts but eventually snapping under the pressure, turning their minds over to the church. It provided him with a guilty pleasure that they, too, had been unable to resist.

“That bothered me a lot,” he recalls.

It took Greene three attempts to leave the church before he was successful. In July 1975, he drove his BMW back to his parents’ house in Ross and began working with his mother, who was an outspoken critic of the Unification Church and supporter of deprogramming.

“She was a one-woman clearinghouse,” he says.

▲ Daphne Greene

Testifying before Senate

At the request of his godfather, he testified about cults at a U.S. Senate subcommittee in 1976. On that day, he says, about 50 Unification members —wearing matching blue suits with red flowers in the lapels— walked into the Senate chambers to listen.

“It was hairy,” he says.

Greene says he never worked with a deprogrammer. Using therapy, he deprogrammed himself. “It was an experience that hurt me but I was able to overcome,” he says.

Throughout his time in the Unification Church, Greene says he rarely saw Catherine. While he was working at the church-owned gas station, he says the church put her youthful good looks to work as part of a team that traveled the country raising money and bringing in new recruits.

“She could make a $1,000 a day selling flowers,” he says.

From 1976 to ’78, Greene says he deprogrammed Moonies, including the Prince of Tahiti with the cooperation of the royal family. He was even mentioned in journalist Josh Freed’s book “Moonwebs.”

One of his biggest failures, however, was an attempt to deprogram his own sister.

Greene set up a plan, using his mother as bait, to capture Catherine. Handcuffed and blindfolded, Catherine was taken by family members to a boarded-up house in Lucas Valley. But deprogramming his own sister proved harder than deprogramming strangers, with whom he could be tougher, he says.

He eventually let Catherine go after she intentionally cut her hand and had to be hospitalized. By then, Moonies were picketing his father’s law office in San Francisco and pressing the Marin County District Attorney to file kidnapping charges against the family.

No charges were ever brought against the family, but Catherine returned to the church and filed a $5.2 million lawsuit against Greene, his parents and others who helped with the abduction.

“It was horrible,” he says. “The experience is that they’re dead but you can’t put them in the ground.”

In 1977, Greene says he was hired by Colorado authorities to kidnap and deprogram a man who tried to sign over the family farm to the Unification Church. Greene worked with police officers and private investigators, but was arrested and prosecuted for kidnapping after the man ran away and returned to the church. He successfully fought the kidnapping charge because he was acting under a court order.

Off to law school

Although he never earned a bachelor’s degree, Greene was enrolled in the New College of California Law School in 1978. During that time he started getting death threats, but he was determined to go after Moon.

“This man is no different than Adolf Hitler and, as an American, I had to do something,” he says. “To play in that arena, you had to be a lawyer and I went to law school.”

After passing the California State Bar exam, Greene worked as a criminal defense attorney with San Anselmo attorney Carl Shapiro, who had developed a reputation for working with families to reclaim family members who joined cults.

With Shapiro’s help, Greene argued and won a case in 1988 before the California Supreme Court that opened the door for former Moonies to sue the Unification Church for damages and, he says, “put cult-busting on the legal map.”

In 1989, Greene says he sued the Church of Scientology on behalf of the church’s head of worldwide security and his wife. In 2002, Greene celebrated his biggest victory against Scientology, when he and two other lawyers received an $8.7 million judgment in another case.

For Greene, religious organizations must be held accountable for any socially destructive conduct that exploits the best in people. “In my book there isn’t anything worse than that,” he says.

But Scientologists say Greene’s crusade against them isn’t very effective.

One-man campaign

Quiros, of the church’s San Francisco branch, likens Greene to someone shooting Scientologists in the back with a BB gun. Greene may be a hassle, Quiros says, but he represents nothing in the grand scheme of things for an organization that has 8 million members worldwide.

“This is a one-man campaign to discredit the fastest-growing church in the world,” Quiros says.

Quiros likes to direct people to a web site — www.friendsofsananselmo.org — that seeks to discredit Greene. Posted on the site are Greene’s run-ins with the law, ranging from shoplifting to kidnapping to stalking, along with a host of other critiques.

According to internic.net, an Internet domain name information site, www.friendsofsananselmo.org is registered to Allen Long at a private postal box at 10 Liberty Ship Way in Sausalito. Long did not answer requests for an interview sent via e-mail or in a note left at the postal box.

Web site counterattack

Quiros says Scientology has nothing to do with the web site, although he appreciates what it brings to light. “That is a great summary of Ford Greene,” he says. “He’s a nut case. I’m trying to think of a better word but there isn’t one.”

Greene eagerly and openly explains every claim on the web site. He says he was guilty of shoplifting a set of sheets in college, pleaded guilty to trespassing over a dispute with a former girlfriend he handled poorly, was never charged with burglary or stalking, and a driving under the influence conviction listed on the web site is actually his father’s.

“It’s all a big smear,” he says.

▲ The mass wedding of 1,275 couples in Korea, January 1989.

Reached at a Unification Church site, Catherine —who was married during a mass wedding of 1,275 couples and is now Catherine Ono— says although Greene may continue thinking she’s brainwashed and not in control of her mind, she still cares for her brother. “To me it’s like, come on,” she says. “That’s old.”

Ono, who remains a Unification Church member, lives in Somerville, Mass., with her husband and their two daughters. The couple will celebrate their 16th wedding anniversary next week.

Ono says she didn’t see her family between 1977 and ’83 because she feared they would try to kidnap her again. She says she began seeing them again after Greene and her parents apologized —a claim Greene disputes— and visited Greene with her daughters last August.

“The aftermath was pretty devastating,” she says. “They realized they had betrayed my trust.”

But Greene says the entire family rarely speaks with Ono anymore and that he never apologized for the kidnapping, and his mother didn’t either. “Catherine may be nice, but she makes me sick,” he says with a laugh.

Although he says it was good to see her last summer, he can’t relate to her because her entire world view is defined by Moon’s ideology.

“Catherine thinks I’m Satanic at the core,” he says.

In his San Anselmo office, Greene has created a Scientology war room lined with volumes of books, stacks of promotional and instructional videos and an enormous flow chart that illustrates the command structure of Scientology. Asked whether he is just going after Scientology’s money, Greene makes no qualms about it. “I have every intention of trying,” he says.

Even though he was once a devoted member of an organization he calls a cult, Greene says he isn’t worried about surrounding himself with information about Scientology and other organizations he targets.

“I’m confident in my instincts and I trust them,” he says.

Ford Greene is featured in the book Moonwebs

The book was made into the movie, Ticket to Heaven

Suppose the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification were to take over the whole world?

Hak Ja Han’s Cheon Il Guk Constitution is troubling

“Ancestor Liberation must be done” Hak Ja Han 2015

Hak Ja Han and Sun Myung Moon and the United Nations

Moon’s ultimate truth is … absolute obedience

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Greene

#Moonies #Sun Myung Moon #Hak Ja Han #Ford Greene #FFWPU #cheon il guk constitution

[anotherlifefic]

Chapter 44: Jalon

Chapter 44

Jalon

I awoke in Link‘s arms the next morning, torn from my slumber from the sounds of Gareth fussing in his room. I yawned, gently freed myself from my husband‘s embrace and got up to take care of our him.

We had swapped the cradle for a bigger crib. Gareth was growing fast; I was pretty sure he would end up being taller than Link eventually. And now he was sitting at the bars of his crib and rattling them, loudly squealing to be fed.

„It‘s alright, sweetie. Mommy is here.“ I lifted him into my arms and pulled down the collar of my dress so he could drink. Then I left the room and tiptoed down the stairs, hoping not to wake Link, so I could prepare breakfast.

I passed the front door on my way to the kitchen, only to stop and slowly look to the floor. There lay an envelope. A letter adressed to Link and me. I picked it up and continued on my way to the kitchen, settling Gareth in his kitchen-crib after burping him and opening the letter.

My eyes widened as I read it. Then I dropped it onto the table and rushed upstairs to wake Link.

I all but jumped onto the bed, grabbing his shoulders.

He opened his eyes wide, and for a split second, I wondered what I must have looked like to him. What did he think, opening his eyes only to see his wife looming over him with wide eyes and a broad grin plastered onto her face?

„Rebecca?! What‘s going on?!“ „We just got a letter from Talon! Malon had her baby yesterday. It‘s a boy!“

A few hours later we had saddled Epona and Glory and were on our way to LonLon Ranch. I mentally smacked myself for not having prepared any baby-gifts. And giving Malon Gareth‘s hand-me-downs felt kind of tacky. So we had bought a pretty little wooden rattle with little sheep and cows painted on it, and a soft blanket for her little boy at the market on our way to the stable.

Talon greeted us when we arrived. „Hello, dear friends! So good to see you. Malon and Matthias are inside.“ His cheeks were rosy and there was nothing but joy in his eyes. „Malon will be so happy that you have come to welcome little Jalon into the world.“

„Is she alright?“, I asked, remembering how taxing the birth of Gareth had been.

„As well as she could be! Of course she‘s exhausted, but that‘s to be expected. Come on in, now!“

Malon was in her room, sitting in her bed with her newborn son in her arms. She looked up and smiled at us.

„Rebecca. Link. You came.“

I hugged her. „Of course we did. I‘m just sorry that I completely missed my opportunity to prepare gifts for your little one.“ With that, I placed the rattle and the blanket on the bedside table.

„Well, he‘ll be around for a while, so there‘s still time“, she joked, rocking Jalon in her arms. „These are fine, don‘t worry! Thank you so much.“

Link stepped closer, Gareth in his arms. „Congratulations, Malon.“

„Thank you, Fairyboy“, she replied. „I see you brought Gareth.“

„Sorry about that, but my parents were busy and we couldn‘t find another babysitter on such short notice“, I explained. Then I gently took Gareth‘s hand and waved it at Jalon. „Say ‚Hello‘, Gareth!“

„Ahh ohhh!“, Gareth replied, trying and failing to copy the sounds that came out of my mouth and causing us all to giggle.

We stayed for a bit, talking to Malon and Matthias, before Malon grew tired and we had to bid our goodbyes, so she could rest.

Once we were back home at the city, I started to prepare supper while Link was playing with Gareth. The whole time, I couldn‘t stop smiling to myself. A new life being brought into the world was such a beautiful thing… a myriad of possibilities for little Jalon to grow up. And maybe he and Gareth would be as close as Malon and I were.

Two more months passed, during which we just went about our normal business. We occasionally visited Zelda in the castle and checked up on the progress of our new house, or visited Talon, Malon, Matthias and Jalon at LonLon Ranch.

The heat of summer faded, and a noticable chill in the air announced the arrival of autumn. Gareth was now almost nine months old, and Link and I were happier than ever.

Then, in the middle of autumn, we received word that our new home was ready.

We hadn‘t visited Zelda for a few weeks because she was busy with her royal duties, so we hadn‘t had the opportunity to see the house since the topping out ceremony. And so we hadn‘t known what to expect.

It was a large farmhouse, similar to the main building at LonLon-Ranch, but bigger with a facade of wooden beams and white clay. It had two stories, like our old house, but the second floor seemed to be a bit smaller than the first floor to make room for a roof-terrace. Next to the building stood a smaller, wooden building with  two entrances; one accessible from the outside and one leading to a large fenced pasture.

Worked into the clay wall above the front door was the crest of the royal family; the Loftwing with the Triforce between its wings. Why would Zelda tell the builders to put this there?

My eyes widened. This was no house, this was an estate!

„There you are!“ The foreman, a large, middle aged man, approached us. „Whaddaya say? Her Majesty didn‘t have much to say about the specifics, she just told us to make it big for you. Furniture an‘ all is already included. I dunno who ye are, but the Queen sure seems to like ya a bunch if she gifts so sumthin like this! I hadta make all of my boys work day n‘ night to get it done in time!“

„It‘s beautiful!“, I said, trying to keep my voice under control so I wouldn‘t squeal like a delighted child.

„Well… about the furniture...“, Link began hesitantly.

„Dontcha worry ‚bout a thing, forest boy! Her Majesty told us to make the furniture look forest-y for ye.“

„She did? That‘s great!“ Link took my hand. „Come on, let‘s take a look inside!“

The first floor consisted of the kitchen, with a stove, stone-oven and sink, dining area with a huge treestump serving as the table, a living area with a fireplace, a couch and two armchairs and two staircases, one leading down into the cellar, where the food-storage was, and the other leading up to the second floor. And while the furniture was very forest-y, as the foreman had so eloquently put it, it was at the same time definitely not the same. There were elaborate swirly-patterns carved into the bark of the furniture. The floor of the living area was covered in a carpet that, in work that must have taken ages, had a pattern of lighter and darker greens, yellows, browns and reds stitched into it to make it look like the forest floor covered in foliage. And above the fireplace the builders had mounted a Hylian Shield with two swords crossed behind it. There were racks for displaying weapons at the wall.

We continued upstairs, and found ourselves in a hallway with five doors. The one up ahead led to the a large bedroom. As the bed in our old home had been, the new bed was cut from a single, huge tree. And that tree must have been truly enormous, because it was also at least twice as big as the old bed. And it had a canopy made of pieces of fabric cut to look like leaves. On both sides of the bed were small tables made form the stumps of slightly smaller trees, and on the other side of the room were a basin for washing and a door that led to a walk-in closet. The floor was covered with the same kind of carpet we had seen in the living area. And above the bed, again, was the crest of the royal family.

The next room was the one adjacent to this one. It was a bathroom with a huge tub, big enough to fit in at least five people. And to my joy I discovered that they had actually hooked us up to the water-system of Hyrule, something which only high nobility could afford under normal circumstances. So we also had a proper toilet, and there was a fireplace underneath the tub so we could heat up the water in it.

The tub itself was made of ceramics, with intricate patters worked into it in beaten gold.

The next room was Gareth‘s nursery. The crib was in the middle; a loverly bed with the same forest design most of the other furniture had. There was a crib-mobile fastened on the ceiling above it, with tiny horses and cows dangling from strings. On one side of the room, there was a large chest filled to the brim with toys.

The remaining room was empty, so we would have to come up with a use for it.

To say that I was overwhelmed as we concluded our tour of the house would have put it mildly. Sure, I had been a guest at the castle for extended periods of time before, but being a guest in a luxurious place and actually owning one were two completely different beasts. I felt dizzy, so Link led me to one of the armchairs downstairs and urged me to sit down.

„Well this is… certainly a house“, I said carefully.

„It is“, Link confirmed, his voice giving no indication of his actual feelings about this place.

„So…“, I said. „What now?“

Link sighed, rubbing his eyes. „I… suppose there are a few things in our old house that we could use over here. Most of our clothes, for example. And after that, we could sell it. Or maybe rent it out. I still have plenty of rupees left, but a steady source of income would be nice.“

„And we have to get Epona and Glory over here“, I added.

Link and I looked at each other and let out a deep sigh. This house would take some getting used to.

We left the house for a bit to go fetch our possessions from our old place. Clothes, weapons, Gareth‘s toys and of course our horses. It was already late evening when everything was packed away and Epona and Glory had been introduced to their new home.

We were just about to retire to our bedroom when someone knocked on our door.

„Did we invite anyone?“, I asked, puzzled.

„Not that I know of.“ Link got up and answered.

A few moments later, Zelda stepped into the living area, weaking a black cloak over her finery so she wouldn‘t be spotted so easily. „Hello, you two! I just wanted to come by and see how you liked your new home!“

„It‘s so big“, I replied, accepting her warm, welcoming hug. „And luxurious.“

„The two of you deserve no less. The people of Hyrule may have forgotten what you have done for the kingdom. But I haven‘t.“ She lightly kissed my cheek, though I couldn‘t help but notice how close to the corner of my mouth that kiss ended up. She then hugged Link and gave him the same kind of kiss; mostly on the cheek but very close to the corner of his mouth.

I nodded in the direction of the fireplace. „Why don‘t you have a seat? Would you like something to drink? Link and I just drank some tea, and the water should still be hot.“

„Tea sounds lovely right now, thank you.“

Link took Zelda‘s cloak while I walked into the kitchen, getting out one of our finest teacups and prepared some tea for Zelda. When I returned to the living area, she had settled into one of the armchairs, while Link sat on the couch. I handed the cup to Zelda and then sat down next to my husband. Zelda was just about to speak when something, or rather someone, tugged at her skirt. With a smile, she reached down and lifted Gareth onto her lap. „Hello there, little one. Did you come to say hello to your dear auntie Zelda?“ Then she stopped for a moment. „...Goddesses, that just made me sound terribly old, didn‘t it?“ Then she shook her head. „No wonder, though. I feel like I have aged ten years since my coronation.“

„Even if you did, you‘d still be pretty far from old“, I remarked.

Zelda lightly pinched Gareth‘s rosy cheek. „The ministers are starting to pester me about marriage.“ She pulled a face, causing Gareth to giggle, and said in a mocking imitation of a typical aristocrat‘s voice:„It doesn‘t have to be a king, Your Majesty. Of course we wouldn‘t insinuate that you aren‘t perfectly capable of ruling Hyrule on your own, Your Majesty. But you should at least take a royal consort who can give you an heir, so the kingdom isn‘t left leaderless incase something happens to you.“ She sighed and continued in her normal voice:„They are correct, of course. But it‘s hard to agree to a marriage born out of politics or convenience when I know how happy marriages out of love can be.“ With that, she cast her sad gaze at us.

I blushed and at the same time felt tears sting in my eyes. I felt no guilt over being Link‘s wife anymore. But I felt for Zelda.

Then I had an idea. „...does your heir have to be the result of a marriage?“

Zelda tilted her head to the side. „No, I suppose not. Since the father would actually be quite irrelevant. Why do you ask?“

My heart stung, but I turned to Link. „Link, you love Zelda, don‘t you?“

Link blushed and looked at me with wide eyes. „What? I… I love you, more than anything, and my feelings for Zelda-“

„Link, I am not doubting your fidelity. You love Zelda. Hell, both of us do! And we can help her right now.“ Then I looked to Zelda again. „...if you will agree with that plan, Zelda.“

Zelda looked at both of us with her mouth hanging open. „You… would do that?“ Once the initial shock had worn off, she looked off to the side. „I couldn‘t do that to you, Rebecca. For that, I cherish you too much. If we‘re doing this… then it‘s going to be all three of us.“

My heart skipped a beat, and my face flushed red. „All three of us?“

She leaned forward, suddenly smiling. „I wouldn‘t be the first Queen of Hyrule to have multiple lovers.“

„Lovers…?“, I muttered, feeling my blush deepen.

Zelda slightly shook her head. „I thought you would have noticed by now. How I have come to love you as much as I love Link.“

„Zelda...“

Link got up. „This is absolutely insane.“ Then he smiled. „Insane enough to be the perfect plan for the three of us. Let‘s put Gareth to bed and then retire to the master bedroom.“

I could barely contain the flurry of emotions within me as we entered the bedroom. Lacings were undone, tunics and underclothes dropped to the floor with barely a whisper of sound, and before I knew it, Zelda was on top of me on the bed, her erect nipples grazing against mine as she kissed me. I moaned into her mouth as her fingers found my most sensitive spot and began to circle around it, enough to tease and arouse, but not enough to satisfy.

Link was breathing heavily, just looking at us touching each other, before approaching and putting his hands on Zelda‘s hips. He let his hands run up and down her thighs, then slipped one of them between her legs and followed the glistening slit of her vagina. She tensed a little and moaned, but never stopped stimulating me, even though I was already dripping wet and loudly groaning for more.

Once Link found Zelda ready, he put his hands back on her hips. „I‘m… I‘m going to put it in now, Zelda.“

She half turned to him. „Go right ahead.“

Nothing could have prepared me for the rush of arousal I felt when I saw Link push forward into Zelda‘s body, and the feeling of her tair tickling my breasts as she pressed her face onto my chest. Seeing two people I loved so consumed in pleasure was indiscribable. And the whole time, Zelda didn‘t stop touching me. I felt my orgasm approach and moved against her fingers. As much as I would have loved to feel Link inside of me at that moment, her fingers felt amazing. I reached down, finding the bundle of nerves between her legs, and began rubbing it with the rhythm of Link‘s thrusts. Zelda dissolved into a sweaty, moaning mess and screamed into my breasts as she finally unravelled. Link cried out in pleasure and spilled himself into her. Both sank down on me, panting and exhausted.

I wasn‘t quite satisfied yet, but this evening wasn‘t about me. So I just watched them gather themselves. Zelda was the first one to regain her voice.

„It seems that you didn‘t get your due, Rebecca“, she mumbled, tracing the outline of my breasts with her index finger.

„It‘s fine“, I assured her.

„Absolutely not.“ She slid behind me, pulling my legs open so I was all but presenting my intimate zone to Link. „Look at her, Link. How can you say no to that?“

Link lifted his index finger to ask us to wait. „Give… give me a moment.“

„Suit yourself.“ And while we were waiting for Link to recover, Zelda stroked my breasts and kissed the base of my neck. „You have an amazing body, Rebecca. Even after giving birth, you‘re still so beautiful.“

„Nothing can beat your beauty“, I said in a low voice. „You seem quite comfortable with yourself. Have you done this before?“

„Not with other people.“ She kissed my earlobe. „But a good Queen knows to feign confidence.“

„Hmmmm...“

Meanwhile, Link turned to us again, his member once again standing proud.

I cried out as he pushed into me. And clung to him, even while Zelda was kissing me and egging us on. But Link was still exhausted, and I had been on the verge of climax anyway, so that second round didn‘t last long. At the end of it, the three of us crawled under the bedsheets; Zelda in the middle and Link and I snuggled up to her sides. Link and I rested our entwined hands on her stomach, and huddled together like that, we soon fell asleep.

#The Legend of Zelda #Another Life Fic #Lemon #OC

[wakingwriter]

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I didn’t think of myself as a writer until I swept the awards at San Francisco State University. I was denied admission into the MFA Program before this unprecedented achievement, with the majority of tenured professors voting against me. So, I waltzed into the Creative Writing office and knocked on the Chair’s door, who happened to be Frances Mayes (Under the Tuscan Sun). I told Frances I had an appointment with SFSU’s president to discuss me being denied, and she suddenly said I was worthy of being admitted. That’s when I realized how much of getting ahead as a writer was political and that the majority of professors didn’t know their butt from a hole in the ground.

Why did you choose to write in your particular field or genre?

I think creative nonfiction is an interesting crossroads between fiction and nonfiction, one in which my narrative voice helps shape a historical setting with a focal character in the middle. I usually stick to third person but will be exploring first person in my next book. Creative nonfiction is an excellent way of documenting the lives of family members who have made a difference in your life. Now I don’t mean writing down sugar-coated commercials about relatives for posterity. That’s boring. I mean, who wants to read a brag book? I challenge myself to capture the psychological underpinnings of character by exploring the deep dark interior world of a particular relative, then attempt to gaze out at the world through his or her eyes. Try it. If you can see their parents and siblings through their unique vision, you’re on to something important.

Are you a full-time or part-time writer and how does that affect your writing?

I write full time but have to work part-time as an accountant to pay the bills. There have been times when opportunities opened up overseas. I lectured with the poet Gary Snyder at the Hong Kong International Writers Conference and they paid me the equivalent of what a Hong Kong bank VP makes. My latest journey was to Finland as an Artist-in-Residence, where I explored Helsinki, Stockholm, and the Finnish Archipelago.

What are some day jobs you have held?

In Hawaii, I built lagoon walls, planted coconut trees, and did pick-and-shovel construction in Waikiki. Yes, I wore a hard hat. My work background in San Diego includes car sales at Team Nissan in Encinitas and Rancho Olds on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard. I was also the PR Director for the Carlsbad Inn, where I ran the Great Mercedes Benz Giveaway as a promotion. I am a Current Writer at the San Diego Reader. I’m best known for my gonzo journalism, particularly my take on the First Day of the Del Mar Races. Occasionally I do freelance work and have been paid for pieces in Writer’s Digest, Green Magazine, and Southword Journal out of Ireland.

What have you written so far?

I have written thirteen books to date in various genres, including flash (micro stories), poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. I have been published in over three-hundred university literary journals, including Harpur Palate, 580 Split, Reed Magazine, Blue Mesa Review, Artful Dodge, Moon City Review, Hawai’i Review, Honolulu Weekly, Hawai’i Pacific Review, and SDSU’s Pacific Review. I also write plays and screenplays. I won the 2018 Las Vegas Screenplay Contest and a stage play set in the Deep South took Third Place at the 2018 Caanes Screenplay Contest. Sometimes I harvest material from my stories when crafting plays such as HOUDINI, which was performed at the Actors Alliance Festival in San Diego. Cross-pollination is a great way to get a lot of material out there fast. My first book of poetry took First Place at the San Diego Book Awards. My most recent play is As Big as a Dallas Cowboy, which opens in downtown Honolulu on April 13th, 2019. The play’s opening coincides with my Honolulu book tour for The Queen of Moloka’i.

How do you feel about indie/alternative vs. conventional publishing?

I’m supportive of writers and poets who go the indie route because of the difficulty landing a publishing contract and/or finding an agent. It’s brutal out there for literary writers because the big publishing houses are mostly interested in making money, not promoting literature. There are exceptions to the rule of course, but generally the big publishers evaluate a manuscript by first considering its monetary value as a mass-marketed commodity. It sucks. I think the editors in New York who work for those houses should be ashamed of themselves. And to top it off, the biggies have many of the top newspaper reviewers in their pockets and can get them to say almost anything about a book they want promoted. Some publishers even go as far as contacting Hollywood celebrities to obtain one-line blurbs. I doubt those stars seldom read even two pages of books they’re touting. Very sad. I fear greed is destroying good literature by discouraging deserving writers and poets.

Is there any marketing technique you used that had an immediate impact on your sales figures?

Getting author interviews is terrific. It’s a way to share your interior world with people interested in you work, which is something most readers are interested in. And if you have an affinity for a writer you’re going to want to buy his or her book right? Another technique that works is to contact libraries directly and ask them to buy the book. Since I am a regional writer of the South Pacific, I focus on the libraries in the islands. It’s also not a bad idea to get on your local TV talk shows, particularly the weekday morning news. I noticed an increased turnout at my signings after my appearance on Fox News in Honolulu.

What advice would you give to aspiring authors?

Read other writers but develop your own voice. Always remember the term “Best Seller” doesn’t necessarily mean the book possesses any literary value. I checked out some of the most popular books on The New York Times Best Seller List and they were filled with horror and gore because the big publishers think that sells. Sad. Those books may be popular now, but they will not stand the test of time. Did you know that The Great Gatsby sold less that 5,000 copies after it was released? Look at it now.

Submit your work to university literary reviews and journals. Get rejected? Submit again and again. Submit multiple times to increase your chances of publication. Take rejection with a grain of salt. Say out loud, “It’s their loss.” If you must choose between online and hard copy publication, I’d go with online because more people will read it. Edit like crazy. Take the advice of editors and keep revising until you have polished jewels. Don’t try to be the next Hemingway, Plath, or Fitzgerald. Just be yourself. Bring your own unique vision into this world by sharing it on paper.

Five chapters from The Queen of Moloka’i manuscript were published online during the writing process. These acceptances gave me momentum. I have found that, by submitting chapters as stand-alone stories, you soon find out if your chapters are worthwhile. My advice to any wannabe writer is to get his or her work in the pages of respected magazines. Yes, it’s great to strive for The New Yorker like Salinger, but there are many other important publications as well. Once my chapters were online, I hunkered down and re-edited them to make them even stronger. I also think it’s important for people to get down the stories of their elders before they pass. Just remember to get down both sides of the coin—the good with the bad.

Can you share with readers a little bit about your latest book?

We are on the verge of the Roaring Twenties in Honolulu. Julia Wright and Sue, her big sister, have met a pair of dashing English brothers sent to Hawaii by a wealthy father to avoid the draft in their home country. Sue strikes gold, receiving a marriage proposal from her overseas beau. Sixteen-year-old Julia has a passionate affair with the younger brother but must fend for herself after he leaves her pregnant. Julia’s rebound affair with a Portuguese sea merchant gets her pregnant again and she now has two infant sons to raise. Luckily, her mother allows her to live at the family home and they raise the half-brothers as best as they can. Then local boy Chipper Gilman returns a hero from the Great War. He’s seven years Julia’s senior and has admired her since her girlhood days. He secures a job at a ranch on the island of Moloka’i and invites Julia to join him, but without her sons. He says they will get married and she can send for her boys if she adapts to the rural lifestyle. Julia leaves her sons behind for her mother to take care of, convinced she can become a country girl. She’s tested every step of the way on the rural island and begins doubting Chipper ever intended to marry her at all.

What made you decide to sit down and actually start writing this book?

Remembering my grandmother and deciding her life should be recorded. Julia Wright was one of six children that grew up in Palolo Valley. Julia was a party girl in Waikiki. She made big mistakes in love, especially after meeting a blond Englishman at the Moana Hotel. He left her hapai (pregnant) after promising he’d send for her once he got settled in San Francisco. Julia never heard from the Englishman again and gave birth to my father the first day of world peace. Then she met a Portuguese sea merchant at the Young Hotel downtown and soon she was hapai again. Julia was forced to raise both sons in her mother’s tiny rental in Kaimuki. Her third love interest was Chipper, a decorated war vet. Chipper asked her to accompany him to the Molokai Ranch, where he’d secured a job as a paniolo (cowboy). Julia said she would. Chipper told her she couldn’t bring her sons along until she proved she could handle the rural lifestyle. She was caught between the fear of becoming an old maid raising two half-brothers or the possibility of marrying her teenage crush.

If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?

I believe that honor would be shared by Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce. Both writers were extremely influential in my growth as a writer because their coming of age stories resonated with me. In Our Time tracks the maturation process of Nick Adams, particularly his changing relationship with his doctor father and with Marjorie. I love that zone between childhood and adulthood because I feel that’s where the person you become is formed, and both Hemingway and Joyce are masters at revealing the psychological undercurrents of their boy characters. In his story “Araby,” Joyce examines an Irish boy’s crush on Mangan’s sister and his journey to a distant carnival to bring her back the Holy Grail as a sign of his undying devotion.

Want to know more about Kirby?

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  Kirby Michael Wright, author of The Queen of Moloka'i @kibs33 When did you first consider yourself a writer? I didn’t think of myself as a writer until I swept the awards at San Francisco State University.

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Real-Life Love Stories That Will Remind You True Love Does Exist

A long time ago, someone told me one of the truest love stories. It was this: the real value of your life is how well you loved and were loved back.

In an age where people, places and moments are too easily replaced, societal norm has acclimatized to a kind of social media dating that is anything but normal.

I have often pondered what impact this modern re-invention of romance would have on me if I were 10-years-old today. I grew up where liking a boy meant a stomach of fluttering butterflies if he looked at me. At 10-years-old, my idea of romance or love stories was the way your reflection danced into someone’s eyes and how that made you feel.

I have never stopped believing that or living by that.

Here are some inspiring love stories to restore that faith in love that the 10-year-old you had:

1. True love knows no obstacles or distance.

Despite abject poverty and social stigmas of his “untouchable” caste, Pradyumna Kumar Mahanandia[1] earned a place as a student at the College of Art in New Delhi.

Following his painting of Indira Gandhi, many people wanted him to draw them. One of those was Charlotte Von Schedvin, who was traveling in India.

They soon fell in love and got married. Charlotte, however, had to return home to Sweden. She offered to pay for Pradyumna’s plane ticket, but he had too much pride to accept and promised he would make the money on his own.

After a year, he had still not saved enough.

Selling all of his possessions, he made enough to buy a bicycle. He then cycled for four months and three weeks, covering 4,000 miles across Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Germany, Austria, and Denmark to get to Sweden.

They are still happily married 40 years later, and live in Sweden with their two children. Pradyumna became a well-known artist and is a cultural ambassador.

When asked about his arduous journey, his reply was, “I did what I had to, I had no money but I had to meet her. I was cycling for love, but never loved cycling. It’s simple.”

2. You are never too old to find love.

In 1946, Anna and Boris had only been married for 3 days in Serbia when he left for the army.[2] Afterwards, Anna and her family were exiled and despite both their frantic searching, the two were unable to find each other.

Years passed and they both married other people, yet neither forgot their first love.

When their spouses had died and after 60 years, they coincidentally visited their hometown at the same time. When Boris saw her, he ran up to her and said: ‘My darling, I’ve been waiting for you for so long. My wife, my life…’”

They remarried not long after.

3. Love as first sight does exist.

Nacho Figueras is universally recognizable as the polo player with the striking model looks, featured in many of the “Polo by Ralph Lauren” adverts.[3]

He first saw Delfina Blaquier in their native Argentina when they were just teenagers. He knew immediately that he would marry her and decided to pursue her properly.

Every night, he would travel for almost 2 hours to see her, after working all day at a ranch. He would sit with her on her porch and play his guitar to her for a short while, before going home to sleep for another long day at work.

The couple married in 2004 and have since had four children

4. True love means loving each other until the very end.

Princess Charlotte was the daughter of George, Prince of Wales (later George IV) and Caroline of Brunswick.[4] She was the future heir to the throne and was adored by the people, which was a stark contrast to the rest of the Royal family who were loathed.

Her upbringing was turbulent amidst her warring parents. At 17-years-old, Charlotte was pressured into agreeing to marry a Prince she didn’t like, until she met the handsome and dashing Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Her father finally relented and permitted her to marry the impoverished Leopold.

Following their wedding and two miscarriages, Charlotte again became pregnant with the entire country elated.

In 1817, at 21-years-old and after two days of a difficult labor, Charlotte delivered a stillborn 9-pound son by breech birth. Prince Leopold was so worried that he refused to leave his wife’s side and insisted on helping her–something that was unheard of at the time.

After the third day, Charlotte’s condition seemingly improved. Leopold was urged to take an opiate to rest, as he had not slept for 3 days. Unfortunately, Charlotte’s condition worsened and it was not possibly to rouse the sleeping Leopold as she died.

Her death elicited international grieving on an even bigger scale than Princess Diana’s. Britain ran out of black cloth because everyone wore black–even the homeless found black scraps to tie around his or her arms.

Prince Leopold plunged into depression and eventually took a mistress who resembled Charlotte. Years later, he remarried and named his daughter Charlotte.

The Princess’ final wish before dying was for Leopold to be buried beside her when his time came. Shortly before he died, he asked Queen Victoria for this wish to be fulfilled but it was denied. His last words were: “Charlotte Charlotte”.

5. Remembering your love stories will keep love alive.

Jack and Phyllis Potter met in 1941.[5] Jack frequently wrote in his diary about their story and continued to do so for his whole life.

After seventy years together, Phyllis had to be moved to a nursing home as her dementia became too much for Jack to deal with alone. Unperturbed, Jack visited her daily and read to her each day from his diaries to help her to remember their love and life.

6. Young romance can stand the test of time.

Kate Middleton was just 19-years-old in 2001 when she first met Prince William, where they both studied at St. Andrews University.[6]

Unfortunately, the pressures of the media and a long distance relationship caused them to split up in 2007. They, however, decided to get back together later in the same year.

Prince William eventually proposed in 2010 with the late Princess Diana’s famous sapphire engagement ring. And in 2011, millions all across the world watched their wedding ceremony that culminated with “that kiss” on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.

7. Love stories that are worth it, are worth the wait.

In the 1974, Irina and Woodford McClellan got married in Moscow.[7] Woodford, an American, had to return to the USA when his visa expired. He was repeatedly denied returning to Russia, and she was likewise refused entry to the USA.

It took 11 years of phone calls and letters to each other and unwavering endeavors before they were in 1986 in the United States.

Final Words: Live, Laugh, and Love

For those who have found love, remember the beauty of being in love is finding new ways to keep falling in love with that person.

For those who are still looking for love, don’t let the cynicism of the social media generation to cloud your hopes. It’s true that love happens when you are not looking and when you least expect it. Have faith in yourself and in the love that you deserve. After all, you owe it to your 10-year-old self.

Featured photo credit: Stocksnap via stocksnap.io

Reference

[1]^BBC NEWS: The man who cycled from India to Europe for love[2]^Telegraph: Russian couple reunited after 60 years apart[3]^This Glamorous: great love stories № 02 | nacho figueras & delfina blaquier[4]^QAB: The Tragic Life Story of Princess Charlotte[5]^ABC News: Jack Potter Reads 75 Years of Diaries to Wife With Dementia[6]^Express: William and Kate: The story so far[7]^People: Kept Apart by An Iron Curtain for a Dozen Years, the Mcclellans Overcome the Trauma of Reunion

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[nancy-astorga]

Meet the cocaine-addled, Hitler-obsessed drug smuggler who tried to take down Pablo Escobar

Pablo Escobar is remembered as the face of the Medellin cartel, the Colombian criminal organization that flooded the world with cocaine in the 1980s.

But for all his deeds and bluster, Escobar was just one member of a clan of traffickers who helped create the Medellin cartel.

And in terms of narco eccentricities, one Medellin capo stands out: Carlos Lehder Rivas.

Born to a German father and Colombian mother in Armenia, a district in west-central Colombia, in 1949, Lehder spent most of his childhood in Colombia.

But after his parents separated, he relocated to New York City when he was 15, Colombian newspaper El Espectador reported in 2012.

In the US, he got involved in petty crime, working on the US East Coast and in Canada leading a stolen-car ring and moving marijuana. He got picked up for car theft in June 1973 and was sent to federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut. His brief stint in jail would forever alter the US and the world.

George Jung, the now famous drug smuggler and subject of the movie “Blow,” was Lehder’s cell mate and described the Colombian-American as well mannered and well dressed. As Jung told PBS, even while locked up for minor crimes, Lehder had his mind on a more ambitious criminal enterprise:

“As time wore on, we got to know each other and then he asked me if I knew anything about cocaine and I told him no. And I said, ‘Why don’t you tell me about it.’ And he said, ‘Did you know it sells for $60,000.00 a kilo in the United States?'”

“And I said, ‘No. I had no idea. How much does it cost down in Colombia?’ and he said, ‘$4,000 to $5,000.’ And immediately bells started to go off and the cash register started ringing up in my head.“

“It was like destiny” that Jung and Lehder ended up together at Danbury, Mike Vigil, a former chief of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, told Business Insider.

Jung and Lehder were released in the late 1970s, but they soon hooked up again, setting up an airborne-smuggling operation that moved cocaine from Colombia to the southeastern US.

As their operation expanded in the late ’70s and early ’80s, Lehder grew closer to the capos back in Medellin, and in the Caribbean, they looked for a way station for their bustling trafficking business.

‘It just turned into a freak show’

“They used to smuggle drugs through Nassau, Bahamas, by using corrupt officials that would open up the airport and look the other way … But they wanted a more isolated area — an area where they could operate more freely and not have to pay a ton of Bahamian individuals,” said Vigil, author of “Metal Coffins: The Blood Alliance Cartel.”

“So that’s when they came out to Norman’s Cay,” he told Business Insider.

At Norman’s Cay, a small spit of land 210 miles southeast of Miami, Lehder’s eccentricities — fueled by his growing cocaine habit — came to the fore.

Lehder, considered handsome by men and women, was regarded as intelligent and charming, but given to excess and probably lacking self-control, Ron Chepesiuk, author of “Crazy Charlie: Revolutionary or Neo-Nazi,” told Vice.

Lehder was also an aggressive businessman, and he eventually forced Jung out of their arrangement, but not before Jung visited Norman’s Cay and observed Lehder’s behavior. “He wasn’t crazy… he had delusions, though. He loved John Lennon and Adolf Hitler at the same time. That should have been a sign for me,” Jung told High Times.

“I mean, Walter Cronkite showed up there, and these thugs came with machine guns and told him, ‘You better leave.’ It just turned into a freak show,” Jung said.

“There were other people that lived there, but they started to drive them out, and Carlos Lehder started to develop kind of like a neo-Nazi group there, that would protect the planeloads of coke and intimidate the people that lived there,” Vigil said.

Lehder started behaving more erratically on Norman’s Cay, hosting parties and orgies and running roughshod over the community on the island. Spooked by law enforcement and emboldened by the officials he had bought off, Lehder went so far as to drop leaflets over Nassau, the Bahamanian capital, saying, “DEA go home.”

“Eventually Carlos started to become more visible and started to be in the crosshairs of the DEA, and that’s when the Bahamian government said, ‘Hey, you have to go. You can’t be here anymore because the DEA is coming, and we don’t want them meddling in our business and investigating us as well,'” Vigil told Business Insider.

Lehder retreated to Colombia after a DEA raid on Norman’s Cay in 1980. His airborne-smuggling operation had accelerated Medellin’s cocaine business and made Lehder a valuable member of the cartel — a status his actions in Colombia would start to erode.

He built a hacienda and started spreading money around his home turf in Armenia and around Quindio, the state where Armenia is located. He built a statue of John Lennon on his front lawn and raised eyebrows by buying the state government a modern airplane as a gift. Like Escobar, Lehder had a political awakening in the early 1980s.

Escobar went along with Colombia’s democratic system and won a seat as a backup for a legislator in the National Assembly. Lehder, however, lifted the Nazi leanings he likely absorbed from his father (the younger Lehder was reportedly a Holocaust denier) and used them to undergird his political movement in Colombia.

“He wants to get into politics and his idea is to form like a Nazi-type of government in Colombia,” Vigil told Business Insider. “This is how deranged he is now and delusional.”

“There is plenty of evidence to support the characterization that Lehder was a neo-Nazi,” Chepesiuk told Vice. “He certainly wasn’t shy about giving interviews or expressing his views. He often praised Hitler and railed against the Jews.”

He retreated into the jungle but still held press conferences and declared his intention to fight the government. He was also known to quote Hitler, who he admitted to admiring, according to El Espectador.

A Colombian national-police raid on a home linked to Lehder in a remote part of Colombia uncovered several million US dollars, “and the whole house is plastered with photographs and memorabilia of Adolf Hitler, who he idolized,” Vigil told Business Insider.

His party, called the National Latin Movement, had a “fascist-populist program [that] called for radical changes in Colombia’s political landscape.” He also embraced anti-imperialism, criticizing the US for its involvement in Latin America. He saw cocaine as a means of liberation, calling it Latin America’s atomic bomb, Vigil said.

Like Escobar, Lehder’s political efforts also focused on defeating Colombia’s extradition agreement with the US, which, after the 1984 assassination of Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, allowed for immediate extradition of Lehder and other narcos if they were caught.

‘He knew that Pablo Escobar had turned him in’

Lehder’s megalomania, heavily fueled by cocaine, sparked his falling out with Escobar, which would set the stage for his undoing.

At a party at Escobar’s Hacienda Napoles, outside of Medellin, “Carlos is high on coke, and he gets into an argument with one of Pablo Escobar’s sicarios, or hit men, and shoots and kills him,” Vigil told Business Insider.

This angered Escobar, Vigil added, because it made it look like the Medellin chief, who was particularly close to his hit men, couldn’t protect the people who worked for him.

Escobar, having decided that Lehder was more of a liability than an asset, “basically gives him up, gives up his location” to the Colombian government, Vigil said. Escobar later denied he rolled over on Lehder in a public letter, according to Chepesiuk.

At 6 a.m. on February 4, 1987, on a ranch near Medellin where Lehder was again embracing his hedonism, Colombian police and soldiers moved in, capturing Lehder after a brief firefight.

Eleven hours later, he was bound for Miami, becoming the first victim of the extradition agreement he had fought against.

He soon arrived at a federal prison in Marion, Illinois. With the US-Colombian campaign against Escobar reaching full throat, Lehder was a person of interest to US authorities.

Vigil, a DEA official at the time, traveled to Marion to meet Lehder upon his return to the US:

“Very short individual, fluent English. The first impression that I had of him was that he was a con artist, a manipulator. … He really didn’t want to talk about his involvement in the drug trade.”

“His whole focus — and he knew that Pablo Escobar had turned him in — and he said, ‘listen, I can help you capture Pablo Escobar. I’m willing to go back to Colombia. You can put me under the security of the Colombian army, and I can find Pablo Escobar for you.'”

“But we were not going to take a chance on him going back to Colombia and getting into the wind again,” Vigil said. “But he definitely, definitely wanted to do Pablo Escobar.”

Lehder’s split with Escobar in the mid-1980s left him without information that US authorities were interested in trading for.

He was sentenced to life without parole plus 135 years in 1988, a term the judge said was “a signal to our society that it will do everything it can to rid itself of this cancer.”

Lehder’s involvement in the drug trade proved valuable when he was able to testify against Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, who had assisted the Medellin cartel with its money-laundering activities.

Lehder got his sentence reduced, but he remains locked up in the US. His exact whereabouts aren’t known, as he is probably in witness protection, though his lawyers occasionally appear on his behalf.

The nearly 30 years he has spent in prison have weighed on him. He has accused the US of violating his rights and reneging on an agreement to let him out in return for his Noriega testimony. He has written to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, asking for help to repatriate himself so that he can die on Colombian soil — a wish he might well get upon returning.

“He’s got a lot of enemies in Colombia” Vigil said. “So if he went back there, I don’t think he’d survive more than a few months.”

SEE ALSO: ‘Nobody is ever going to tell you’: 3 theories regarding who killed ‘The King of Cocaine’ Pablo Escobar

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Pablo Escobar: The life and death of one of the biggest cocaine kingpins in history

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Real-Life Love Stories That Will Remind You True Love Does Exist

A long time ago, someone told me one of the truest love stories. It was this: the real value of your life is how well you loved and were loved back.

In an age where people, places and moments are too easily replaced, societal norm has acclimatized to a kind of social media dating that is anything but normal.

I have often pondered what impact this modern re-invention of romance would have on me if I were 10-years-old today. I grew up where liking a boy meant a stomach of fluttering butterflies if he looked at me. At 10-years-old, my idea of romance or love stories was the way your reflection danced into someone’s eyes and how that made you feel.

I have never stopped believing that or living by that.

Here are some inspiring love stories to restore that faith in love that the 10-year-old you had:

1. True love knows no obstacles or distance.

Despite abject poverty and social stigmas of his “untouchable” caste, Pradyumna Kumar Mahanandia[1] earned a place as a student at the College of Art in New Delhi.

Following his painting of Indira Gandhi, many people wanted him to draw them. One of those was Charlotte Von Schedvin, who was traveling in India.

They soon fell in love and got married. Charlotte, however, had to return home to Sweden. She offered to pay for Pradyumna’s plane ticket, but he had too much pride to accept and promised he would make the money on his own.

After a year, he had still not saved enough.

Selling all of his possessions, he made enough to buy a bicycle. He then cycled for four months and three weeks, covering 4,000 miles across Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Germany, Austria, and Denmark to get to Sweden.

They are still happily married 40 years later, and live in Sweden with their two children. Pradyumna became a well-known artist and is a cultural ambassador.

When asked about his arduous journey, his reply was, “I did what I had to, I had no money but I had to meet her. I was cycling for love, but never loved cycling. It’s simple.”

2. You are never too old to find love.

In 1946, Anna and Boris had only been married for 3 days in Serbia when he left for the army.[2] Afterwards, Anna and her family were exiled and despite both their frantic searching, the two were unable to find each other.

Years passed and they both married other people, yet neither forgot their first love.

When their spouses had died and after 60 years, they coincidentally visited their hometown at the same time. When Boris saw her, he ran up to her and said: ‘My darling, I’ve been waiting for you for so long. My wife, my life…’”

They remarried not long after.

3. Love as first sight does exist.

Nacho Figueras is universally recognizable as the polo player with the striking model looks, featured in many of the “Polo by Ralph Lauren” adverts.[3]

He first saw Delfina Blaquier in their native Argentina when they were just teenagers. He knew immediately that he would marry her and decided to pursue her properly.

Every night, he would travel for almost 2 hours to see her, after working all day at a ranch. He would sit with her on her porch and play his guitar to her for a short while, before going home to sleep for another long day at work.

The couple married in 2004 and have since had four children

4. True love means loving each other until the very end.

Princess Charlotte was the daughter of George, Prince of Wales (later George IV) and Caroline of Brunswick.[4] She was the future heir to the throne and was adored by the people, which was a stark contrast to the rest of the Royal family who were loathed.

Her upbringing was turbulent amidst her warring parents. At 17-years-old, Charlotte was pressured into agreeing to marry a Prince she didn’t like, until she met the handsome and dashing Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Her father finally relented and permitted her to marry the impoverished Leopold.

Following their wedding and two miscarriages, Charlotte again became pregnant with the entire country elated.

In 1817, at 21-years-old and after two days of a difficult labor, Charlotte delivered a stillborn 9-pound son by breech birth. Prince Leopold was so worried that he refused to leave his wife’s side and insisted on helping her–something that was unheard of at the time.

After the third day, Charlotte’s condition seemingly improved. Leopold was urged to take an opiate to rest, as he had not slept for 3 days. Unfortunately, Charlotte’s condition worsened and it was not possibly to rouse the sleeping Leopold as she died.

Her death elicited international grieving on an even bigger scale than Princess Diana’s. Britain ran out of black cloth because everyone wore black–even the homeless found black scraps to tie around his or her arms.

Prince Leopold plunged into depression and eventually took a mistress who resembled Charlotte. Years later, he remarried and named his daughter Charlotte.

The Princess’ final wish before dying was for Leopold to be buried beside her when his time came. Shortly before he died, he asked Queen Victoria for this wish to be fulfilled but it was denied. His last words were: “Charlotte Charlotte”.

5. Remembering your love stories will keep love alive.

Jack and Phyllis Potter met in 1941.[5] Jack frequently wrote in his diary about their story and continued to do so for his whole life.

After seventy years together, Phyllis had to be moved to a nursing home as her dementia became too much for Jack to deal with alone. Unperturbed, Jack visited her daily and read to her each day from his diaries to help her to remember their love and life.

6. Young romance can stand the test of time.

Kate Middleton was just 19-years-old in 2001 when she first met Prince William, where they both studied at St. Andrews University.[6]

Unfortunately, the pressures of the media and a long distance relationship caused them to split up in 2007. They, however, decided to get back together later in the same year.

Prince William eventually proposed in 2010 with the late Princess Diana’s famous sapphire engagement ring. And in 2011, millions all across the world watched their wedding ceremony that culminated with “that kiss” on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.

7. Love stories that are worth it, are worth the wait.

In the 1974, Irina and Woodford McClellan got married in Moscow.[7] Woodford, an American, had to return to the USA when his visa expired. He was repeatedly denied returning to Russia, and she was likewise refused entry to the USA.

It took 11 years of phone calls and letters to each other and unwavering endeavors before they were in 1986 in the United States.

Final Words: Live, Laugh, and Love

For those who have found love, remember the beauty of being in love is finding new ways to keep falling in love with that person.

For those who are still looking for love, don’t let the cynicism of the social media generation to cloud your hopes. It’s true that love happens when you are not looking and when you least expect it. Have faith in yourself and in the love that you deserve. After all, you owe it to your 10-year-old self.

Featured photo credit: Stocksnap via stocksnap.io

Reference

[1]^BBC NEWS: The man who cycled from India to Europe for love[2]^Telegraph: Russian couple reunited after 60 years apart[3]^This Glamorous: great love stories № 02 | nacho figueras & delfina blaquier[4]^QAB: The Tragic Life Story of Princess Charlotte[5]^ABC News: Jack Potter Reads 75 Years of Diaries to Wife With Dementia[6]^Express: William and Kate: The story so far[7]^People: Kept Apart by An Iron Curtain for a Dozen Years, the Mcclellans Overcome the Trauma of Reunion

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from Viral News HQ http://ift.tt/2qoLN5i via Viral News HQ

#IFTTT #Viral News HQ

[nancy-astorga]

Meet the cocaine-addled, Hitler-obsessed drug smuggler who tried to take down Pablo Escobar

Pablo Escobar is remembered as the face of the Medellin cartel, the Colombian criminal organization that flooded the world with cocaine in the 1980s.

But for all his deeds and bluster, Escobar was just one member of a clan of traffickers who helped create the Medellin cartel.

And in terms of narco eccentricities, one Medellin capo stands out: Carlos Lehder Rivas.

Born to a German father and Colombian mother in Armenia, a district in west-central Colombia, in 1949, Lehder spent most of his childhood in Colombia.

But after his parents separated, he relocated to New York City when he was 15, Colombian newspaper El Espectador reported in 2012.

In the US, he got involved in petty crime, working on the US East Coast and in Canada leading a stolen-car ring and moving marijuana. He got picked up for car theft in June 1973 and was sent to federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut. His brief stint in jail would forever alter the US and the world.

George Jung, the now famous drug smuggler and subject of the movie “Blow,” was Lehder’s cell mate and described the Colombian-American as well mannered and well dressed. As Jung told PBS, even while locked up for minor crimes, Lehder had his mind on a more ambitious criminal enterprise:

“As time wore on, we got to know each other and then he asked me if I knew anything about cocaine and I told him no. And I said, ‘Why don’t you tell me about it.’ And he said, ‘Did you know it sells for $60,000.00 a kilo in the United States?'”

“And I said, ‘No. I had no idea. How much does it cost down in Colombia?’ and he said, ‘$4,000 to $5,000.’ And immediately bells started to go off and the cash register started ringing up in my head.“

“It was like destiny” that Jung and Lehder ended up together at Danbury, Mike Vigil, a former chief of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, told Business Insider.

Jung and Lehder were released in the late 1970s, but they soon hooked up again, setting up an airborne-smuggling operation that moved cocaine from Colombia to the southeastern US.

As their operation expanded in the late ’70s and early ’80s, Lehder grew closer to the capos back in Medellin, and in the Caribbean, they looked for a way station for their bustling trafficking business.

‘It just turned into a freak show’

“They used to smuggle drugs through Nassau, Bahamas, by using corrupt officials that would open up the airport and look the other way … But they wanted a more isolated area — an area where they could operate more freely and not have to pay a ton of Bahamian individuals,” said Vigil, author of “Metal Coffins: The Blood Alliance Cartel.”

“So that’s when they came out to Norman’s Cay,” he told Business Insider.

At Norman’s Cay, a small spit of land 210 miles southeast of Miami, Lehder’s eccentricities — fueled by his growing cocaine habit — came to the fore.

Lehder, considered handsome by men and women, was regarded as intelligent and charming, but given to excess and probably lacking self-control, Ron Chepesiuk, author of “Crazy Charlie: Revolutionary or Neo-Nazi,” told Vice.

Lehder was also an aggressive businessman, and he eventually forced Jung out of their arrangement, but not before Jung visited Norman’s Cay and observed Lehder’s behavior. “He wasn’t crazy… he had delusions, though. He loved John Lennon and Adolf Hitler at the same time. That should have been a sign for me,” Jung told High Times.

“I mean, Walter Cronkite showed up there, and these thugs came with machine guns and told him, ‘You better leave.’ It just turned into a freak show,” Jung said.

“There were other people that lived there, but they started to drive them out, and Carlos Lehder started to develop kind of like a neo-Nazi group there, that would protect the planeloads of coke and intimidate the people that lived there,” Vigil said.

Lehder started behaving more erratically on Norman’s Cay, hosting parties and orgies and running roughshod over the community on the island. Spooked by law enforcement and emboldened by the officials he had bought off, Lehder went so far as to drop leaflets over Nassau, the Bahamanian capital, saying, “DEA go home.”

“Eventually Carlos started to become more visible and started to be in the crosshairs of the DEA, and that’s when the Bahamian government said, ‘Hey, you have to go. You can’t be here anymore because the DEA is coming, and we don’t want them meddling in our business and investigating us as well,'” Vigil told Business Insider.

Lehder retreated to Colombia after a DEA raid on Norman’s Cay in 1980. His airborne-smuggling operation had accelerated Medellin’s cocaine business and made Lehder a valuable member of the cartel — a status his actions in Colombia would start to erode.

He built a hacienda and started spreading money around his home turf in Armenia and around Quindio, the state where Armenia is located. He built a statue of John Lennon on his front lawn and raised eyebrows by buying the state government a modern airplane as a gift. Like Escobar, Lehder had a political awakening in the early 1980s.

Escobar went along with Colombia’s democratic system and won a seat as a backup for a legislator in the National Assembly. Lehder, however, lifted the Nazi leanings he likely absorbed from his father (the younger Lehder was reportedly a Holocaust denier) and used them to undergird his political movement in Colombia.

“He wants to get into politics and his idea is to form like a Nazi-type of government in Colombia,” Vigil told Business Insider. “This is how deranged he is now and delusional.”

“There is plenty of evidence to support the characterization that Lehder was a neo-Nazi,” Chepesiuk told Vice. “He certainly wasn’t shy about giving interviews or expressing his views. He often praised Hitler and railed against the Jews.”

He retreated into the jungle but still held press conferences and declared his intention to fight the government. He was also known to quote Hitler, who he admitted to admiring, according to El Espectador.

A Colombian national-police raid on a home linked to Lehder in a remote part of Colombia uncovered several million US dollars, “and the whole house is plastered with photographs and memorabilia of Adolf Hitler, who he idolized,” Vigil told Business Insider.

His party, called the National Latin Movement, had a “fascist-populist program [that] called for radical changes in Colombia’s political landscape.” He also embraced anti-imperialism, criticizing the US for its involvement in Latin America. He saw cocaine as a means of liberation, calling it Latin America’s atomic bomb, Vigil said.

Like Escobar, Lehder’s political efforts also focused on defeating Colombia’s extradition agreement with the US, which, after the 1984 assassination of Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, allowed for immediate extradition of Lehder and other narcos if they were caught.

‘He knew that Pablo Escobar had turned him in’

Lehder’s megalomania, heavily fueled by cocaine, sparked his falling out with Escobar, which would set the stage for his undoing.

At a party at Escobar’s Hacienda Napoles, outside of Medellin, “Carlos is high on coke, and he gets into an argument with one of Pablo Escobar’s sicarios, or hit men, and shoots and kills him,” Vigil told Business Insider.

This angered Escobar, Vigil added, because it made it look like the Medellin chief, who was particularly close to his hit men, couldn’t protect the people who worked for him.

Escobar, having decided that Lehder was more of a liability than an asset, “basically gives him up, gives up his location” to the Colombian government, Vigil said. Escobar later denied he rolled over on Lehder in a public letter, according to Chepesiuk.

At 6 a.m. on February 4, 1987, on a ranch near Medellin where Lehder was again embracing his hedonism, Colombian police and soldiers moved in, capturing Lehder after a brief firefight.

Eleven hours later, he was bound for Miami, becoming the first victim of the extradition agreement he had fought against.

He soon arrived at a federal prison in Marion, Illinois. With the US-Colombian campaign against Escobar reaching full throat, Lehder was a person of interest to US authorities.

Vigil, a DEA official at the time, traveled to Marion to meet Lehder upon his return to the US:

“Very short individual, fluent English. The first impression that I had of him was that he was a con artist, a manipulator. … He really didn’t want to talk about his involvement in the drug trade.”

“His whole focus — and he knew that Pablo Escobar had turned him in — and he said, ‘listen, I can help you capture Pablo Escobar. I’m willing to go back to Colombia. You can put me under the security of the Colombian army, and I can find Pablo Escobar for you.'”

“But we were not going to take a chance on him going back to Colombia and getting into the wind again,” Vigil said. “But he definitely, definitely wanted to do Pablo Escobar.”

Lehder’s split with Escobar in the mid-1980s left him without information that US authorities were interested in trading for.

He was sentenced to life without parole plus 135 years in 1988, a term the judge said was “a signal to our society that it will do everything it can to rid itself of this cancer.”

Lehder’s involvement in the drug trade proved valuable when he was able to testify against Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, who had assisted the Medellin cartel with its money-laundering activities.

Lehder got his sentence reduced, but he remains locked up in the US. His exact whereabouts aren’t known, as he is probably in witness protection, though his lawyers occasionally appear on his behalf.

The nearly 30 years he has spent in prison have weighed on him. He has accused the US of violating his rights and reneging on an agreement to let him out in return for his Noriega testimony. He has written to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, asking for help to repatriate himself so that he can die on Colombian soil — a wish he might well get upon returning.

“He’s got a lot of enemies in Colombia” Vigil said. “So if he went back there, I don’t think he’d survive more than a few months.”

SEE ALSO: ‘Nobody is ever going to tell you’: 3 theories regarding who killed ‘The King of Cocaine’ Pablo Escobar

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