Réal Laplaine's Blog, page 6
March 28, 2023
Is there an alternative to war?
To even pose such a question in the face of a global military industrial complex today, one where war is an industry of profit more than anything else, is to be challenged. Nevertheless, the majority of the world's population prefers peace over the constant conflicts and wars, particularly those started by dictators such as Vladimir Putin.
The question is, can we avoid war, or at the very least, can we stem it before it becomes a global issue that affects millions, destroys cities and forces millions to flee such as we see in Ukraine today.
The answer is YES.
The real question is WHY ISN'T IT BEING DONE?
In earlier decades, war was a matter of numbers, throwing men and women into the battlefield and with enough spilled blood, someone eventually won.
Today it's about technology, or at least, it should be.
We see it in the Ukraine today, with drones being used by both sides, where Ukraine is using them to take out tanks and the Russians are using them to assault civilian targets. But that is just one tiny aspect of drone technology. Drones exist today which are smaller than a plum, and with the advanced Ai technology built into them, they are capable of infiltrating most security nets, and providing not only reconnaissance about an enemy, but in fact, capable of delivering a weapon to a specific target or location.
Given that fact, it becomes both a question of morality and humanity. Should a simple drone, no larger than a plum, be used to penetrate the Kremlin and eliminate the dictator who is destroying an entire nation? Or is it better to continue a protracted war, where thousands are dying every month, where cities are being eviscerated, while the military industrial complex in many nations, largely private contractors, are making billions of dollars in profit feeding that war machine?
One man or millions? It is a question of the greater good.
If we had this technology in World War II, would there have been any doubt or question about the morality of using it to eliminate one man, Hitler, and stop a global war? I don't think so.
So, once again, the question becomes, why are the massive military establishments around the globe, and the governments who control them, not using the technology to stop Putin in his tracks? Moreover, why are they continuing to let young men and women die in the battle fields when the war could be ended in one day?
The answer to that question is not difficult. It's not based on principles. Its founded on the matter of profits. If you can stop the dictators who start wars, then you don't need massive military complexes, you don't need the machinery of war, and private contractors then lose MASSIVE profits. It's not conspiracy, its about the dollars and cents - pure math.
About the book:
As two dictators, with over 7000 nuclear weapons between them, enough to turn our world into a smoldering heap, continue to threaten global peace, democracy and stability, a mystery group in Canada calling themselves the 9th Divinity, penetrates the Kremlin and issues a public mandate directly to Vladimir Putin - cease your invasion of Ukraine and dismantle Russia's nuclear arsenal, or face the worst. They go on to sabotage North Korean nuclear silos - sending its dictator, Kim Jong-un, into a spiraling rage. As the crisis mounts, Canada's top anti-terrorism team is called into action, but can they stop the 9th Divinity? And with world powers already failing to bring a halt to the Russian and North Korean threat, should they? A twisted, contemporary geopolitical and crime thriller that will haunt you.
Reviews:
"If you want to explore the very real struggles facing the world today through an exciting, well-written political thriller then The 9th Divinity is the book to choose. It’s a compelling concept and a story that might well haunt your thoughts for a long time to come."
- Mr. D.J. Luddington
"In his latest crime thriller, Real takes the reader across continents fighting the big players in nuclear warfare. Readers get a picture of the devastations in Ukraine that shook the world as well as a glimpse into a nuclear disaster that very well could happen. The sociological insights into the minds of sociopathic leaders and how it leads to mass compliance in their citizens is impressively weaved into the story. With compelling storytelling skills, Real makes us question our shared responsibility in the disasters of the millennium."
- Dr. Anuradha Prathap (PhD)
"Mr. Laplaine is at it again! Keeno the Canadian superhero, goes international as he joins a brilliant accomplice taking on the two world's biggest sociopaths; Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin, and on the brink of World War Three all is made right again except for one terrible disaster. Through the dialogues written, he dares us to listen to his political view about the attitudes of not only the bad guys but also the nonchalant public who allow these types to influence us and rise up to such power for their own benefit. As a read I found it riveting and everyone should read it."
- Joseph. B
Very much enjoying this new delivery in this series. Current international events, high tension and an insightful view of the madness that our planet is experiencing. Laplaine keeps getting better and better, it is hard to put down. Highly recommended.
- Andrea S.
Opening The 9th Divinity is thought-changing and mindset-shifting. It's takes you to a different level though. It's emotionally rich, raw and so real as the characters dive deeper into the sad state of our world. As I read, and I do love a thrilling, suspenseful novel, I keep finding moments and details I can understand, as we are living it today... Hopefully we can learn from some of the paths this book travels and that war is not the answer.
- April B.
https://youtu.be/NCv1fEiOl04Available at:
www.writersinspiringchange.com
...and more
March 27, 2023
What if Marilyn had a chance to tell us what really happened?
We've all heard the story... she apparently committed suicide, which makes a whole lot of sense when you consider she was only 36 years old and one of the most successful and celebrated women in the world at the time - so yeah of course, suicide is logical, or is it?
Apparently she was having a fling with JFK, apparently, and besides that, Hoover of FBI fame, had his claws into her life because he suspected her of having Communist ties, one of his favorite mantras - so maybe, just maybe, the whole "suicide" story is a myth.
After reading what Marlon Brando had to say about her death, and he knew her well, I decided to take license and give the iconic blond a chance to tell the world what really happened on that fateful night.
Stretch your imagination a bit, but otherwise, enjoy the magic of Marilyn as she returns from the grave with a mission in Dead but not Gone.
[image error][image error][image error]About Dead but not Gone:
What would Marilyn tell us if she came back from the grave today - sixty years after her death?
Would she agree with the popular version that she committed suicide at the age of 36, one of the most successful and celebrated women of her time? Or would she tell us another story, the one about the Hollywood icon who had her foot inside the White House, who was on Hoover's FBI watch list because of suspected communist ties - someone he considered a threat?
In Dead but not Gone, the author takes license and presents us with a chance to hear Marilyn's side of what happened on that fateful night.
When a solar flare intercepts a passing cosmic anomaly, a powerful flash sweeps across Los Angeles directly over the spot where Marilyn lies since 1962. Her crypt suddenly shakes and rattles, and what emerges is certainly not the skeletal remains of the iconic blonde, but rather, Marilyn, just as beautiful and whole as the day she died. When she realizes that the Universe has given her a second chance, she sets herself on a mission to tell the world what really happened to her and at the hands of whom - and therein begins a thriller with a romantic edge. Dead but not Gone is a tribute to Marilyn - giving her the voice she never had after her tragic passing and letting her grace the world with a little more of her magic.
Reviews:
"I loved the premise of this book, I found the pace good, I liked the story. I think my only drawback would be for a bit more detail, but overall, I really enjoyed the story and the possibility of "WHAT IF". No one really knows what did happen, I liked how the author gave some plausible possibilities, that could be true of what happened to her." Francis L.
“Finally, a book that gives a different look at Marilyn, and a happy ending that she rightly deserves!!!!!! The only reason I did not give it 5 stars was the science part of the book, it drugged on a little too long. But in all a Great Book!!!! Marilyn fans if only this was true.” DJ
https://youtu.be/YPxhXD0i88QConspiracy Theory and the culture of silence
What would you do if you overheard people planning a terrorist attack on your nation?
Who would you report it to?
How would you prove it?
The 9/11 incident in 2001 teaches us that any story can be played out, and given enough authoritative muscle, people will buy it.
And yet, ample evidence has since come forward from unbiased engineers and investigators around the globe, showing that the Twin Towers were not brought down by the two planes striking them, whereas actual evidence shows explosives going off at various places down the towers, causing them to collapse in their footprint. Investigators have shown that Thermite, which burns through steel girders, was present and used to cut through the very stanchions holding up those buildings.
Conspiracy Theory is a powerful tool to nullify and silence the voice of truth, and those in positions of power, since 2001, and before, have used that mantra to shoot down any other statement than the one that serves their purposes.
About the book:
Some sources say that upwards of 10% of the population have had at least one out-of-body-experience in their lifetime, the sensation of actually floating above the body at whatever distance. Troy Evans had his first out-of-body-experience at a young age when he fell from a tree and nearly cracked his skull, where he found himself hovering above first-responders and medical personnel trying to save his life. As the years went on, he experienced more of them, minus the trauma of falling from trees. By his mid-twenties, now an established graphics designer in Minneapolis, Troy occasionally hones his skills in secret. No one knows that he can leave his body at will and return to it, and over the years, he's learned to differentiate sensations and things he sees. One night, quite inexplicably, while drifting to sleep, he casually hovers above his body and is suddenly drawn to a strange scene half a continent away in Baltimore, Maryland, to a room in a hotel where several men are clandestinely speaking about a domestic terrorist attack, one they are planning to launch against the nation. He sees their faces, but he doesn't know who they are.
Shocked by the experience, he reports the matter to Homeland Security, and within days, Federal agents storm his apartment and take him into custody; followed by a rapid trial where Troy finds himself labelled a terrorist and a danger to society and is placed in a maximum-security mental facility.
Troy tries to convince his therapist, who is assigned to treat him, that he is telling the truth and that he has been railroaded there to shut him up. He finally proves to her that what he is saying is the truth and that within a matter of days, the attack on the nation is going to happen. She helps him escape his prison, and together they run, attempting as they go to contact different authorities to get their help in stopping the debacle, but no one will listen, and those behind the plot are on their trail. As the clock ticks down, the question is, can they stop it and who will listen to two fugitives on the run, especially a man who claims to have witnessed the whole thing while experiencing an out-of-body. A fast-paced thriller with the colors of 9/11 painted on its canvas.
https://youtu.be/f-jkurW1jGIConspiracy Theory and the Silence Treatment
What would you do if you overheard people planning a terrorist attack on your nation?
Who would you report it to?
How would you prove it?
The 9/11 incident in 2001 teaches us that any story can be played out, and given enough authoritative muscle, people will buy it.
And yet, ample evidence has since come forward from unbiased engineers and investigators around the globe, showing that the Twin Towers were not brought down by the two planes striking them, whereas actual evidence shows explosives going off at various places down the towers, causing them to collapse in their footprint. Investigators have shown that Thermite, which burns through steel girders, was present and used to cut through the very stanchions holding up those buildings.
Conspiracy Theory is a powerful tool to nullify and silence the voice of truth, and those in positions of power, since 2001, and before, have used that mantra to shoot down any other statement than the one that serves their purposes.
About the book:
Some sources say that upwards of 10% of the population have had at least one out-of-body-experience in their lifetime, the sensation of actually floating above the body at whatever distance. Troy Evans had his first out-of-body-experience at a young age when he fell from a tree and nearly cracked his skull, where he found himself hovering above first-responders and medical personnel trying to save his life. As the years went on, he experienced more of them, minus the trauma of falling from trees. By his mid-twenties, now an established graphics designer in Minneapolis, Troy occasionally hones his skills in secret. No one knows that he can leave his body at will and return to it, and over the years, he's learned to differentiate sensations and things he sees. One night, quite inexplicably, while drifting to sleep, he casually hovers above his body and is suddenly drawn to a strange scene half a continent away in Baltimore, Maryland, to a room in a hotel where several men are clandestinely speaking about a domestic terrorist attack, one they are planning to launch against the nation. He sees their faces, but he doesn't know who they are.
Shocked by the experience, he reports the matter to Homeland Security, and within days, Federal agents storm his apartment and take him into custody; followed by a rapid trial where Troy finds himself labelled a terrorist and a danger to society and is placed in a maximum-security mental facility.
Troy tries to convince his therapist, who is assigned to treat him, that he is telling the truth and that he has been railroaded there to shut him up. He finally proves to her that what he is saying is the truth and that within a matter of days, the attack on the nation is going to happen. She helps him escape his prison, and together they run, attempting as they go to contact different authorities to get their help in stopping the debacle, but no one will listen, and those behind the plot are on their trail. As the clock ticks down, the question is, can they stop it and who will listen to two fugitives on the run, especially a man who claims to have witnessed the whole thing while experiencing an out-of-body. A fast-paced thriller with the colors of 9/11 painted on its canvas.
https://youtu.be/f-jkurW1jGIMarch 24, 2023
ABBA nostalgia will never fade
In 2008, my wife and I decided to watch MAMMA MIA, the film with Meryl Streep, a musical fueled by ABBA songs. I was never an ABBA fan before that, in fact, I rarely listened to them, but after watching the film, I was so inspired by their music that I went to my office, that night, and started writing the book - FINDING AGNETHA.
The story came from a place deep inside me where inspiration burns - and within a matter of days, I had finished the story about a young boy in Buffalo New York, who loves ABBA and wants to become a musician, like them, but before that, he wants to reunite the band, one which had not played together in over 25 years. He concocts a plan and runs away from his troubled home, and with the help of another unsuspecting adult who also loves ABBA, makes it to Sweden and begins his search for Agnetha Fältskog, the iconic blond in the band, to convince her to get the band to do a live performance for the whole world. Of course, his parents and police in both America and Sweden are searching for him.
It's an inspiring story, because as Morrie Norris, our protagonist, inches closer and closer to making his dream come true, the people he encounters along the way, all of whom tell him that ABBA will never reunite again, find their lives upended, and their own dreams suddenly sparked back to life. No spoilers - but yeah, I believed that ABBA would reunite some day and I wasn't disappointed in recent years when that did happen. The story stands alone and still puts a smile on people's faces.
Is human trafficking "over there"?
When I have spoken at venues around Sweden, about my book, SEE ME NOT and the subject of human trafficking, it became clear to me that many people viewed human trafficking as something that was going on "over there" - meaning, in other countries, but not their own. In truth, human trafficking is happening around us EVERY day.
Young women, both here in Europe and elsewhere, are being trafficked by the thousands, lured and tricked into the sex industry, where, under pressure and extortion of threats to harm their own children or family back home, are forced to be sexual performers for the porn industry or in sex shops or brothels.
In fact, the means of human trafficking in the porn and sex industry is more like a snare, a trap, where young women with the promise of making money and changing their economic situation, are lured into the industry. Once their faces appear in porn films and videos, they are branded. They can be extorted and are silently and brutally forced by an industry that knows very well that their faces and bodies, now being seen by millions across the world, is a mark on their forehead. Those young girls are going to be stereotyped, they are going to have a difficult time being treated as equals in the world that sees them as "different", where doors of opportunity open to others, will not be so easily open to them - and this is where the human trafficking element comes into play - they can be controlled and manipulated by the porn and sex industry, who knows this fact very well and who entice them to continue.
Human trafficking is not "over there" - it is all around us, because the sex industry, porn for one, engages countless thousands of young women, and even children, into its net, every year.
See Me Not was inspired by an actual six year-old girl we found in Calcutta, India, who was living on the streets with her one-year-old brother. Researching her circumstances, I discovered that thousands of children, just like her, are scooped up by traffickers and forced into sexual servitude at very young ages, or as drug mules. See Me Not while a literary fiction, is entirely based on the factual circumstances of what actually happens to these children and young girls.
The book has been popularly accepted by readers, and should you decide to pick up a copy for yourself, we will send a 2nd copy, at no cost to you, to any school, library or non-profit institution of your choosing, with a notation of the donor (you). We will email you at the point of purchase to get the details and inform you when the book is sent.
https://youtu.be/TQb2kVtP06Ihttps://youtu.be/Td8y1olTlPgMarch 23, 2023
Would an energy desperate China go after Iran's oil?
Opening chapter to Twilight Visitor
China’s rise as a global leader and their general sense of global indispensability was best couched by their ambassador to the Asian Economic Summit held in Kuala Lumpur, wherein he announced that both Asia and the rest of the world could no longer enjoy true prosperity and stability without China.
Although almost arrogant, the statement was nonetheless factual – because over the last several decades, both western and even Asian economies, now enjoyed a higher standard of living because of the massive Chinese workforce and the lowered cost of manufacturing the essentials which fueled their own economies. China had entered the households of millions, if not even billions across the planet, and its global influence was both undeniable and irrevocable.
Economists and the banking industry all knew, in fact, predicted, that the trend would only continue. The manufacturing process had already been well ensconced into the Chinese and Asian domain and the west was now utterly dependent on them. Whereas in the mid-20th century, 80% of the global wealth resided in the west and 20% in the eastern and poorer economies, that powerbase was radically shifting. So much so that predictions estimated that in just a matter of years, China’s GDP would surpass the global giant, America, and moreover, within another decade or two, the scales would tip, with the lion’s share of global wealth residing in the eastern nations, not the west. The world was changing, radically so, and China had its foot on the accelerator and was driving that very change.
However, that global dominance came with a price, one which had been seriously threatened by the recent announcement from OPEC that oil reserves were estimated to significantly drop-off by upwards of 25-35% as early as the next five or ten years.
The looming repercussions of such had sent renewed shockwaves through the inner sanctum of Beijing’s governing enclave. And though the Chinese leaders had known years before that they had to move fast in generating new forms of renewable energy, unfortunately the giant had been far too complacent...
https://video.wixstatic.com/video/696416_bc1a8777d07b4838a53407421577899c/720p/mp4/file.mp4
The RIFT - The World in 2024
Prologue to Earth Escape
In 2024, Russia, China and several other nations including Turkey, Syria, Mongolia, Chad, and Libya in North Africa, as well as North Korea, declared themselves a united geopolitical coalition under the mantle of The Triumvirate – an allegorical reference to the three pillars of power; with Russia and China forming two of those pillars, and the other nations combined forming the third.
Although the announcement of the Triumvirate caused shock waves around the globe, the truth is that the signs were there to be seen long before.
For years, Russia and China had been warming up to each other. Ever since the aggressive stance taken by Russia against Ukraine during the Crimean debacle of 2014 and later in 2022, and the sanctions imposed upon Russia by Europe and America as a result, Russia had been distancing itself from the West.
The Syrian war, which had resulted in a literal ocean of human beings forced from their homes, millions of people who were either killed or who had fled into Europe to escape that brutal conflict, had brought about a divisional state of mind, where Europe began to systematically close off its borders. Russia and China, who backed the Syrian regime of that time, and America and its allies who opposed the regime and were financing rebel forces to fight against it, had only deepened the rift between East and West.
An attempted coup in Turkey in 2016 began the devolvement of that nation from a pseudo-democracy to a dictatorship which had closed-down relations with many Western lands.
And of course, North Korea’s tyrannical regime and its continued aggressive stance against the West, not to mention threats of nuclear attack, made it the perfect rogue recruit for the Triumvirate.
Overall, the stage had been set for Russia and China to invite these other nations into their league – forming a brotherhood of sorts, capitalizing on their sense of disenfranchisement from the West and using this to form a partnership that would enhance economic ties as well as political and military might. It was a clear intent to announce to the world on which side of the fence these nations stood.
China, being the global manufacturing leader at the time, stood to lose the most. However, the need for global commerce to remain intact proved a greater force, so, China’s commercial ties were not affected – but relationships were certainly strained, and trust and credibility began to fray at the edges – an incremental breakdown that would eventually reach a boiling point.
Within the year of that announcement, the Americas, that is, the United States of America, Canada and South America, the Oceania, the European Union, Great Britain, South Africa, South Korea, and Japan, announced The Alliance – a cooperative partnership of nations, the oppositional-global-power to the Triumvirate.
Amid this wave of change, a council of the most powerful Imams declared the formation of the Republic of Islam – a league of Islamic-faith-based nations, who, without compromising borders, unified themselves as an embodiment, an avatar of sorts. These Imams declared to the world that they, as a unified league, would no longer permit rebel extremists to exist within their composite borders, those who claimed that their violent jihadist campaigns were compelled by religious conviction, and that they would take unified action to rid their lands of these terrorists while also closing the door on further western intervention. This new umbrella-republic, which included such nations as Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and several others, also demanded that all foreign military powers leave, forthwith and immediately. And while trade and diplomatic accords remained intact, the days of American and other allied boots landing wherever they chose, were over.
As man faced off with man, Mother Earth was not taking the back seat and she too was flagging her own issues, demanding restitution for the impact on her domain. Global warming, the progressive polar ice-cap melt, dramatic climatic changes resulting in blighted farmlands around the globe, flooding, drought, oceanic-pollution compounded by the depletion of marine life, and more, were all on the rise as Mother Nature declared her right to defend her one and only child - Earth.
In 2028 two Canadian scientists announced to the world that they had broken the code on something which would change the very nature of quantum physics, in what would come to be known as Quantum Propulsion – a technology of repulsive electro-magnetic-force, one which could catapult humanity to the stars in the lifetime of one human being.
Three global forces were now racing against inevitable time; the ticking-bomb of tensions between the geopolitical powers, Mother Nature and the new frontier, deep space exploration, which had suddenly opened new vistas, including the opportunity to find a new home for us.
The question was – who would win?
https://video.wixstatic.com/video/696416_b9dce55a6fa742f3b814d2331a2d4bda/720p/mp4/file.mp4
A Tribute to Radiator Don as the Buffalo Kid
The Buffalo Kid, my first book, was inspired by homeless people I had met in my life, living in Los Angeles, and then Buffalo, New York. It was also very much inspired by the city of Buffalo itself, a town which I fell in love with, and yet one whose streets and broken neighborhoods reflected its tragic background, and yet whose resilience and inner beauty caught my heart. Buffalo personified the very character I created in the book, a destitute man in his early 70’s whom they called the Buffalo Kid because he was the oldest homeless person in the city.
For years I searched the web for the perfect person to match my concept of the Kid, someone I could use for the front cover of the book, but it wasn’t until I met up with Cindy Anderson, a brilliant artist and designer who lived in Paso Robles, California, who told me about a friend of hers named Radiator Don, whom she thought might be willing to pose for a new cover edition of the book.
When I heard his story and saw the image of him, I was taken. In his face, his eyes, the very air about him, without ever having met the man, I knew that Radiator Don would embrace the virtues I depicted in the book and that he was, and is, The Buffalo Kid.
https://video.wixstatic.com/video/696416_2a8691d6232344ae98442563ad73c5ab/360p/mp4/file.mp4
April 16, 2021
Why ABBA?
When I launched my writing career a decade or so ago, I never thought or planned whatsoever to write a book about ABBA - the Swedish pop group. And yet, sitting in our 3rd story loft in Buffalo New York, my wife and I wa...
