Augustine Sam's Blog, page 4

AuthorSuite Poetry Week

MUSINGS, WITS & ROMANTIC VERSES `Butterflies deep under, walking around the heart With the feet of a thousand millipedes'By Grady Harp            Top 500 Reviewer | Hall of Fame | Vine Voice<span style="font-size: 21.3333px;"><h2 style="text-align: center;">Liquid flowing music ...</span></h2>
A Portrait Of Love 

 Talk to me about love todayBut please, make no use of words Give me a portrait with your touch alone
For love is...Like an epochal turning point Preceded by afflictionPowered by upheavals, andSucceeded by illusions undreamt
Yet the epoch, it is notFor love is...
(Read more...) © Flashes of Emotion      

'Flashes of Emotion is romantic poetry... written in a vivid and refreshing style, a compilation that is a pleasure to read and reread. Sam knows how to put across emotions and thoughts and they resonate from every poem.'                             
'Fifty-two poems, intellectual and emotional. You will find relationship galore. If you are looking for a sad love poem, turn to "The Greatest Gift"... that voice produced several favorites in my notes. Five stars it is, and extremely recommended.'

                                                                                                          




Ode To A beautiful stranger
You are electrifying, like a bolt of lightning in an ebony sky,
My
Beautiful
Stranger.

Your look is ingenuous and seductive
Your lips are luscious and devilish
Your gaze is delicate and intimidating
Your eyes are like pearls, dreamy and magnificent 

Your eyelashes unfurl, sensual and provocative
Like a lion tamer's whip.

You are fascinating like sunrise
You are soothing like a healing balm
You are captivating, and, yes, avid,
Like an angel and a mischievous sprite incarnated as one.

My beautiful stranger,
Your advent on that water's edge ...
A spectacle so entrancing, an aura so exquisite
My lethargic mind was roused from limbo
Monotonous sights and sounds dispelled
Juicy laughter in my soul, sweet music loud in my ears

On that promenade of despair,
My beautiful stranger,

I lived.

Will your distant hands ever reach and touch my face?
Will your warm breasts ever be nigh for my head to abide?
Will my yearning eyes be blessed with a glimpse of your grin? 



If this expectancy beyond the pale is all I have,
My beautiful stranger,
I shall bask, forever, in the opulence you've brought my way
My last thought, of course, shall be of you
So that in this memory I might revel
A cherished fortune it ever will be
That a beautiful stranger once crossed my path.

Therefore, this song is for you,
For your brilliant smiles,
For your palpitating heart,
For your mystifying love,
For the afterglow of your thought in my head,
A thought that crushes emotions, let it be known.

And crushed, I must remain, for
A more stunning glow than you
My monotonous path has never been graced
A lovelier rose I've never glimpsed
A headier perfume I've never inhaled

You are electrifying, like a bolt of lightning In an ebony sky,
My

Beautiful
Stranger.


'Liquid flowing music from a poet who understands passion. His eloquent poems speak to each of us as private as a whispered conversation. Brilliant. Augustine's poems glow with musical invention and the manner in which he elects to place his words on the page enhances the meaning and the beauty of these works.'   -  Grady Harp

5.0 out of 5 stars Poetry for the Modern AgeAlison Cubitt it was amazing

'The precise use of language and metaphor immerses the reader in the drama of the moment. A well-crafted poem, like a good screenplay, uses as few words as possible to convey meaning and this is a notion that this writer has clearly understood.'
5.0 out of 5 stars I'm not a great reader of poetry but in my humble opinion this ...
'This is an exceptional poetry collection. The imagery is so fresh and vivid it paints pictures in the mind and as a reader, I was able to recognize those fleeting emotions that are so hard to capture. I started to note my favorites as I read, but the list became too long.'
t of 5 starsThe dirge and symphony of love

5.0 out of 5 stars Cherish these PoemsMarjo it was amazingBook Readers Review
'Flashes of Emotion is a book of poems written to reflect life, love, death, pain, joy and many kinds of emotion. It is a book to be savored and returned to on many occasions. If you are not a frequent reader of poetry, Augustine's poems will change your view. This is a rare collection.'
                                   


 

AuthorSuite Foto-Synthesis

 Memories of the Year in Review2017: A year of palpable madness & a few little idiosyncrasies... 
About this time last year, people were asking if it was the worst year ever, and for good reason: the world was facing increasing uncertainties. Brexit - Britain's guilt-ridden vote to leave the European Union - was followed by the election of a rabble-rouser, Donald Trump, as U.S. president. In the Old Continent, two frightening phenomena - terrorism and populism - were on the rise. But 2016, as it turned out, wasn't the worst year ever, perhaps neither was 2017. 

António Guterres  Trump's inaugurationThe year began with the arrival on the world stage of António Guterres, a former Portuguese Prime Minister as the 9th Secretary-General of the United Nations. On 20th January, a Friday, Donald Trump took the oath of office as the 45th president of the United States. 

Trump with Flynn & BannonTwenty-three days later, his national security adviser, Michael Flynn, the first in a series of high-profile departures from the White House, resigned when it emerged he had lied about his contacts with Russian elements during the transition period. 

WH Counselor Kellyanne ConwayOther top figures ousted amid stormy days in the White House include Chief of Staff, Reince Priebus, Communications Director, Antonio Scaramucci, Press Secretary, Sean Spicer,  and Chief Strategist, Steve Bannon. 

FBI Director, James ComeyThese departures failed to calm things down in what appeared to be a dysfunctional White House, especially as the specter of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election continued to hang over Trump and his team. What was worse, FBI's unrelenting probe into the affair led to the sacking of FBI director, James Comey. 
Special Counsel, Robert Mueller
But the ouster, far from resolving the problem for Trump, resulted in the appointment of a special counsel, Robert Mueller whose investigation seem poised to continue well into 2018. 

Theresa May
Meanwhile, in a Europe beset with an unwieldy immigration crisis and uncertainties over Brexit, two political leaders, Theresa May of Britain and Angela Merkel of Germany, were weakened by electoral misfortunes

Angela Merkel
But in France, there was a very different political reckoning. The emergence of Emmanuel Macron, a 40-year-old political neophyte with a new, untested political movement, annihilated France's scandal-tainted two-party establishment. In a year of rising populism, tensions were high and fear was rife. It was Macron in a military vehicle up the Champs Élyséesa presidential campaign like none other in French history, and in a nail-biting finish, Macron defeated the populist candidate, Marine Le Pen to claim the presidency. 

2017 also brought the world closer to a nuclear conflict with North Korea's provocative test of ballistic missiles and the "war of words" between its leader, Kim Jong-Un and the U.S. Kim Jong-Un of  North KoreaPresident, Donald Trump who nicknamed each other respectively, "Rocket Man" & "Dotard Trump." 

There were a number of heartbreaking celebrity deaths too, from Mary Tyler Moore who became a torchbearer for women with "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," to Hugh Hefner of Playboy fame, to Ralphie May, Bill Paxton, Chuck Berry, Don Rickles, John Heard, and Roger
Moore, British secret agent James Bond in seven feature films, among others.

Celebrity deaths in 2017Devastating hurricanes also struck, from Texas to  Florida, to Puerto Rico, causing upward of $290 billion in damage. Despite an outcry by scientists over the effects of human activity on the climate, the governing Republican Party in the United States continued to regard Climate Change as a hoax. And Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement. 

San Francisco 49ers players  Two hashtags - #TakeAKnee & #MeToo - which became powerful social movements against unjust killings of black men by the police and the sexual harassment of women,   made an impact, though, so far, only the latter has engineered a shift in social consciousness and caused the resignation of many influential politicians and public figures. 

In Africa, a former soccer George Weahsuperstar and the only African to have won the coveted FIFA Player of the Year, George Weah, was elected the 25th president of Liberia. And in Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe who'd ruled the country for 37 years was ousted in the continent's most peaceful and camouflaged coup d'ètats. 

Another unexpected fall from grace, at least in the collective imagination of many around the world, was the Nobel Prize laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi Rohingya Moslems who, as leader of Myanmar presided over what the U.N. called a textbook case of ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Moslems. 

2017 also saw the fall of Mosul, Iraq's second largest city captured by ISIS in 2014 where it declared a new Caliphate. The cost of liberation was high, nearly 40,000 civilians were said to have died in the fighting and about a million more displaced. In the Catalonia region of Spain, an unauthorized independence referendum  Xi Jingpintriggered a major political crisis that might haunt the country in the year to come. 

In the midst of all these, Chinese leader, Xi Jingpin, was named a "core leader" at the 19th Chinese Communist Party Congress which wrote "Xi Jingpin Thought" into the party's constitution, an honor previously bestowed only on Mao Zedong.

Prince Harry & Meghan MarkleOn a lighter note, the year saw British singer, Adele, triumph at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards with an impressive five Grammy win. The royal family in Britain ended the year with a joyful piece of news when Prince Harry announced his engagement to American actress Meghan Markle. 


And...oh yes, 2017 was also the year of "The Great American Eclipse." 



   GOODBYE 2017!

Anatomy of a Plot - Black Gold

Femi & Jessica!  -------------------A young, unassuming couple gets swept into international       intrigue by an           unscrupulous conglomerate Lecture hall - Cà Foscari University,
Venice, where the couple met.
Black Gold was an interesting read. Cerebral at times, emotional too, but an accurate portrayal of life at all times! Themes that held me throughout the novel were:

Jessica Rhodes & Femi Adeola
     The interracial marriage —the joy of being free to choose, the pain of the disruption of relationships, of outgrowing one’s family, and of missing loved ones who no longer understand who you have become. The pain of knowing you cannot go back, that “Home” is no longer your home.

    The unsettling environment of “the first ‘real job,’” of being easy prey for the pawn movers, and knowing there is little you can do to protect or defend yourself.
The plot centers around how two brilliant but impulsive university students find each other from opposite sides of the globe, and how these naive “babes in the woods” navigate the treacherous waters of the corporate world while keeping their relationship intact. The pacing of the storyline fits with the topic—no slow slogging parts! 
A waterfront view of Lagos
where the blackmail scene is set The characters —Kudos to the author, the characters walk off the page, from Femi and Jessica to the cigar-puffing corporate CEO, and the confused parents who grieved, watching their son walk away with his foreign bride.
The writing —I find the writing excellent. Sam is able to draw word pictures that make a reader “see” the image the author has in his mind. Although the reader might sometimes feel distanced from the action on the page, almost as if he were in the narrator’s head, now and then the author drops the reader right in the center of the emotion of the characters. For example, the scene depicting Femi’s shock when he realized the job he had was not the one he had signed up for—the moment he became aware of his precarious situation, the sudden realization of how unscrupulous his boss was, and how he could do nothing to stop the train he was on. That scene was palpable! The editing was also excellent—no typo distractions or grammar confusions. I appreciate a clean read.
Reviewed by
Carol A. Brown
Retired Educator | Midwest USA
                                             Movie Book Trailer - Black Gold
               

Rosie Amber  
Roses are Amber Book Club“I like the trouble this interracial marriage caused when the couple met Femi’s parents and I enjoy the scenes set in Italy; the author’s knowledge of the country make them believable. He also puts his poetic ability to good use and there are lots of examples of this in the descriptive sections.” 


Venice - Home of Cà Foscari University“Black Gold is chock-full of lyrical imagery and metaphors. Frequently, the result is beautiful.” - J.W. George | Author
“The language is flowery and evocative. Every scene, every setting, every action, every emotion, is described in luxurious detail, with perhaps more similes than I’ve ever encountered in a single novel.” – Dave Saari | Retired Aerospace Engineer

A Novelist with the Heart of a Poet
Augustine Sam - Journalist | Author | Poet“Literature must be relevant to its times. It must be both timely and timeless. It must resonate with the people and the period in which it is set, and contribute to the discourse, political or otherwise, as well as put events in their proper historical and social contexts. It is my belief that fiction, used properly, can be a very effective vehicle for expounding on real-life issues. And they don't necessarily have to be politically correct.”

Quotes To Live By

“If you are lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it.”          - John Irving

  
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
- Oscar Wilde“Obstacles are things a person sees when he takes his eyes off his goal.”

- E. Joseph Cossman

“The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.”  - Emile Zola
“The future is like heaven, everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there now.”      - James Baldwin “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”- Maya Angelou

“It’s easy to sit up & take notice. What’s difficult is getting up & taking action.”
- Honore de Balzac

“A great artist is always before his time or behind it.”
   - George Edward Moore 
“IF YOU JUDGE A BOOK BY THE COVER YOU MIGHT MISS AN AMAZING STORY”

Authors Byte

By Alicia Dean

Today’s Author Byte comes from Augustine Sam, author of Mystery/thriller, THE CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE 

Tourist English

From AuthorSuite Travel Journal                                    Outside a fuel station in Lagos Google imageFor many travelers, holiday fun doesn't end with the summer. The Fall is also a great season for vacation. So, whether you had a summer or a Fall vacation, now that you are back the question is: did you pick up something special during your travels, like souvenirs, foreign currency, or photos? Well, I picked up a non-tangible collectible which I'll call #TouristEnglish. You see, people in non-English speaking countries sometimes go out of their way to communicate with their English-speaking tourists. Fall Reflection: Cincinnati Spring Grove Cemetery& Arboretum
Now, as part of the #AuthorSuite #HumorWeek, I'm sharing here a list of hilarious signs and expressions seen around the world: 
The Coliseum, Rome (Google image)At a laundry in Rome:  LADIES, LEAVE YOUR CLOTHES HERE AND SPEND THE AFTERNOON HAVING A GOOD TIME. 

At a doctor's office, Rome: SPECIALIST IN WOMEN AND OTHER DISEASES. 
Hotel brochure, Italy: THIS HOTEL IS RENOWNED FOR ITS PEACE AND SOLITUDE. IN FACT, CROWDS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD FLOCK HERE TO ENJOY ITS SOLITUDE.  
A giraffe at Nairobi National Park (Google image)In a Nairobi restaurant:  CUSTOMERS WHO FIND OUR WAITRESSES RUDE OUGHT TO SEE THE MANAGER.
In a Pumwani maternity ward: NO CHILDREN ALLOWED.

A sign outside a cemetery: PERSONS ARE PROHIBITED FROM PICKING FLOWERS FROM ANY BUT THEIR OWN GRAVES.
A sign on the hand dryer in a restroom: DO NOT ACTIVATE WITH WET HANDS.                                                                A news item in an East African newspaper: A NEW SWIMMING POOL IS RAPIDLY TAKING SHAPE SINCE THE CONTRACTORS HAVE THROWN IN THE BULK OF THEIR WORKERS.
Mt. Fuji with fall colors in Japan (Google image)Instruction on using a hotel air conditioner, Japan: IF YOU WANT CONDITION OF WARM AIR IN YOUR ROOM, PLEASE CONTROL YOURSELF.
In a Tokyo bar: SPECIAL COCKTAILS FOR THE LADIES WITH NUTS.
Hotel service flyer, Japan: YOU ARE INVITED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE CHAMBERMAID.
Tokyo hotel's rules and regulations: GUESTS ARE REQUESTED NOT TO SMOKE OR DO OTHER DISGUSTING BEHAVIOURS IN BED.
St Moscow, Basil’s Cathedral (Google image)Car rental brochure, Tokyo: WHEN PASSENGER ON FOOT HEAVE IN SIGHT, TOOTLE THE HORN. TRUMPET HIM MELODIOUSLY AT FIRST, BUT IF HE STILL OBSTACLES YOUR PASSAGE THEN TOOTLE HIM WITH VIGOUR.

In the lobby of a Moscow hotel across from a Russian Orthodox monastery: 

YOU ARE WELCOME TO VISIT THE CEMETERY WHERE FAMOUS RUSSIAN AND SOVIET COMPOSERS, ARTISTS, AND WRITERS ARE BURIED DAILY EXCEPT THURSDAY.
Google imageAn advertisement by a Hong Kong dentist: TEETH EXTRACTED BY THE LATEST METHODISTS.
Supermarket, Hong Kong: FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE, WE RECOMMEND COURTEOUS, EFFICIENT SELF-SERVICE.
On the box of a clockwork toy made in Hong Kong: GUARANTEED TO WORK THROUGHOUT ITS USEFUL LIFE.
Elephant-Parade, Thailand (Google image)Advertisement for donkey rides in Thailand: WOULD YOU LIKE TO RIDE ON YOUR OWN ASS?
Hotel room notice, Chiang Mai, Thailand: PLEASE DO NOT BRING SOLICITORS INTO YOUR ROOM.
In a Bangkok temple: IT IS FORBIDDEN TO ENTER A WOMAN EVEN A FOREIGNER IF DRESSED AS A MAN. Bangkok, Thailand (Google image)
At a Budapest zoo: PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS. IF YOU HAVE ANY SUITABLE FOOD, GIVE IT TO THE GUARD ON DUTY.
Hotel lobby, Bucharest: THE LIFT IS BEING FIXED FOR THE NEXT DAY. DURING THAT TIME WE REGRET THAT YOU WILL BE UNBEARABLE. 

Google imageTourist agency, Czech Republic: TAKE ONE OF OUR HORSE-DRIVEN CITY TOURS. WE GUARANTEE NO MISCARRIAGES.
Airline ticket office, Copenhagen: WE TAKE YOUR BAGS AND SEND THEM IN ALL DIRECTIONS.
Hotel, Zurich: BECAUSE OF THE IMPROPRIETY OF ENTERTAINING GUESTS OF THE OPPOSITE SEX IN THE BEDROOM, IT IS SUGGESTED THAT THE LOBBY BE USED FOR THIS PURPOSE.
A sign posted in Germany's Black Forest: IT IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN ON OUR BLACK FOREST CAMPING SITE THAT PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT SEX, FOR INSTANCE, MEN AND WOMEN, LIVE TOGETHER IN ONE TENT UNLESS THEY ARE MARRIED WITH
EACH OTHER FOR THIS PURPOSE.
Hotel, Vienna: IN CASE OF FIRE, DO YOUR UTMOST TO ALARM THE HOTEL PORTER.
Hotel, Bosnia: THE FLATTENING OF UNDERWEAR WITH PLEASURE IS THE JOB OF THE CHAMBERMAID.
On the menu of a Swiss restaurant: OUR WINES LEAVE YOU NOTHING TO HOPE FOR.
On an Athi River highway: TAKE NOTICE: WHEN THIS SIGN IS UNDER WATER, THIS ROAD IS IMPASSABLE.
Hotel, Acapulco: THE MANAGER HAS PERSONALLY PASSED ALL THE WATER SERVED HERE.
Cocktail lounge, Norway: LADIES ARE REQUESTED NOT TO HAVE CHILDREN IN THE BAR.

*** Do you have holiday stories to tell? Send it to: #AuthorSuiteStories

Goodreads Review Group Hop

5th Birthday Giveaway!      September 22nd - September 29th 2017      •✼*̩̩̩̥ ୨୧⑅*♡ Review Group 5th Birthday Facebook/Goodreads Hop ♡*⑅୨୧*̩̩̩̥✼•  Do you love books as much as we do? Fantastic! Because we’re bringing the party to you! You can never have too many books!
The Goodreads Review Group is the biggest peer review group on Goodreads and helps indie authors get non-reciprocal, 100% honest reviews for their work. To celebrate the group's 5th anniversary, we are organizing a Facebook/Goodreads hop during which you'll meet a variety of authors offering 20+ books and much more.
Join the hop on Facebook                                                                Join the hop on Goodreads                                                           
As part of the hop, Augustine Sam is offering:
1) A $10 Amazon Gift Card2) Two ebooks: Flashes of Emotion & Black Gold 
For a chance to win: 
Like his Facebook page/Follow him on twitter. And tell him where to send your prize + your preferred ebook format ('cos you may be the winner) by sending a message here
A Winner will be chosen at random after the hop ends.


   

The Irony of Aung San Suu Kyi

The general impression now is that in Aung San Suu Kyi, the world mistook a craving for power for a genuine struggle for equal rights and democracy.Until recently, Aung San Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for “her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights,” was a national hero in Burma (now Myanmar) and an international icon. Admired around the world, she was often likened to such moral giants as Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. Born in 1945 in Rangoon (now Yangon), the largest city in Myanmar, she studied at international schools in the city until her mother was appointed an ambassador to India when she was 15 and the family moved to Delhi. In 1964, she won a place at Oxford to study PPE where she met her future husband, Michael Aris, a British academic.
John Kerry & Aung San Suu KyiBefore their marriage, Aung San Suu Kyi was said to have warned Aris that one day she might take up politics. “I made him promise that if there was ever a time I had to go back to my country, he would not stand in my way,” she was reported to have told New York Times. “And he promised.” That time came in 1988 when her mother’s illness (following a stroke) coincided with political upheavals in the country accompanied by protests against the military dictatorship. 
Family FotoAung San Suu Kyi, on returning to Myanmar to be at her mother’s bedside, was persuaded to join the opposition movement by activists who hoped to harness the power of her family name. Her husband and sons (then aged 11 and 15) later went to Yangon to discuss whether she should enter politics, a discussion they knew would have a significant impact on the family. Her decision to stay back in Myanmar and participate in the political process effectively put her family second and her country first, and didn’t change even as her husband battled cancer alone in 1999, which left her young sons to struggle after his death.
In August 1989, Aung San Suu Kyi delivered her first speech to a euphoric
reception. She co-founded the National League for Democracy and was jailed that summer. Two years later, she won the Nobel Peace Prize. No matter, her persecution by the military junta continued, and their decades-long standoff made her arguably the most famous political prisoner in the world while the junta became an international pariah. 
From The Lady, a film starring Michelle YeohResponding to years of house arrest by playing piano and taking up meditation, her calmness endeared her to many around the world. She only broke down when a rare call with her dying husband was cut off. But her perseverance fed the legend that saw her life made into a film, The Lady, starring Michelle Yeoh and pushed the isolated military regime to make concessions.
Michelle Yeoh as Aung San Suu Kyi in The LadyAung San Suu Kyi was finally released from house arrest in 2010, and two years later, allowed to contest a by-election which she won. Free to leave Myanmar at last, she traveled overseas to collect the awards that had stacked up during her years of detention. Delivering her Nobel lecture two decades after being awarded the prize, she dwelt on the “great sufferings” addressed in Buddhist theology, saying: “I thought of prisoners and refugees, of migrant workers and victims of human trafficking, of that great mass of uprooted of the earth who have been torn away from their homes, parted from families and friends, forced to live out their lives among strangers who are not always welcoming.” Rohingya Muslim MinoritiesBut since taking power, Aung San Suu Kyi has shocked many by her awful lack of concern for continued abuses against the Rohingya Muslim minority perpetrated by a government of which she is now a part which UN officials have described as “ethnic cleansing.”   The woman who was introduced by John Bercow (Speaker of the British House of Commons) as “the conscience of a country and the heroine of humanity,” has become an enthusiastic apologist for the military’s abuses of human rights in a country she almost gave her life for. A shocked Archbishop Desmond Tutu told her in a letter, “If the political price of your ascension to the highest office in Myanmar is your silence, the price is surely too steep.” 

"If the political price of your ascension to the highest office in Myanmar is your silence, the price is surely too steep.” pic.twitter.com/20wb0jZj91— The Guardian (@guardian) September 8, 2017

But Aung San Suu Kyi is not silent, not anymore. In a surprise outburst reported by the BBC, she described reports of the abuse as “Fake News,” which, ironically underscores her own words in Freedom From Fear (her most famous work): “It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it.”   

Freedom of Speech & Charlie Hebdo

“I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of yourself.” - #Quote
Not many people outside France knew about the existence of satirical French magazine, Charlie Hebdo, before January 2015 when two gunmen who claimed allegiance to Al-Qaeda stormed the offices of the publication and killed 12 people including the editor and the magazine’s star cartoonists. The killing provoked outrage across the world, and in France, hundreds of thousands of people marched through the streets in defense of the right to free speech. On the radio, television, and in newspapers, supporters of freedom of speech/freedom of the press—from Italy to the US—adopted the now famous slogan and logo, “Je Suis Charlie” (I am Charlie), created by French art director Joachim Roncin, and rose in condemnation of the killers for their intolerance of free speech.
But last year, in the aftermath of the deadly Italian earthquake, not many people held the same view when the magazine ridiculed Italy’s collapsed houses by likening them to pizzas and suggesting they were built by the mafia. No matter, the magazine, it seemed, continued to test the limits of people’s defense of free speech. In the wake of the terrorist attacks in Manchester during an Ariana Grande concert last June, it published a cover featuring a decapitated British Prime Minister, Theresa May, with a header, “Multiculturalism, English style.”
This week, the publication is at it again. Its latest cover depicts Texans who drowned in the flood waters caused by the tropical storm, Harvey, as Nazis. The banner headline, “God Exists! He Drowned All the Neo-Nazis of Texas,” seems to be the magazine’s take on the ongoing White Supremacy debate in the United States, apparently ridiculing Texas for voting for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential elections seeing as he has been criticized for failing to condemn the neo-nazis and white supremacists during a riot in Charlottesville that killed one protester.
This latest cover has sparked controversy in the US, generating angry reactions on social media. In France, former minister of Agriculture and Socialist MP, Stéphane Le Foll, called it “extremely dangerous.” 



But a few others have wondered why there is so much outrage regarding this particular cover. Some even ask if the satirical cover was more controversial than remarks made by conservative commentator, Ann Coulter which suggested that Hurricane Harvey may well be God’s punishment for Houston’s election of a lesbian mayor.  
Whatever your position on the matter, Charlie Hebdo thrives on satire. The publication, rightly or wrongly, goes out of its way to provoke angry reactions from its targets. Over the years, its cartoons have catapulted it into international headlines and caused outrage especially in the Islamic world, with some calling for its editors to be killed. More than that, it has brought to the front burner a debate on the freedom of speech. Is it acceptable for defenders of the right to free speech to decide, on the basis of particular targets, whether to say “Je Suis Charlie” or “Damn you, Charlie Hebdo?” The other question, though, is: How far is too far? Or, is there such a thing as a limit to freedom of expression?
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”  - S.G. Tallentyre 
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”  
- George Orwell
“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” - George Washington