Whew. We all know there is Free Speech, and there is Below-the-belt Speech. One attacks beliefs, thoughts, and opinions, etc. The other attacks people’s personal attributes.

Be my guest – go for my opinions. I don’t expect everyone to opine the same way I do. Nor would I want that. Because exchanging ideas makes me smarter. Conversation improves my knowledge and informs me. I encourage sharing ideas.

And bring on your emotion. My emotions run high when innocent children – people are slaughtered. Sixteen years ago youngsters were gunned down while attending high school. It happened a dozen blocks away from my home. These were students I’d seen around the neighborhood. One had been our paperboy years before.

Our area of Columbine was never the same after April of 1999. The impact of the tragedy has touched our community. Tragedy. It is so commonplace now that it’s called an incident.

I was never the same after that day either. I worked hard writing letters, making calls, and supporting in any way I could. I am a victim’s rights advocate. And for sixteen years have not forgotten that it is our civic duty to protect one another and ourselves.

Days ago, I again felt frustrated and hopeless. Columbine was meant to be an emblem of courage and strength to see that our young people are safe. We want future generations to be secure.

Columbine High School has become a primer for future killers to study. Mass murderers who want to be rock-stars research it. They are self-styled celebrity-seeking malcontents. They take life as if it is no more than a tally of their evil. Yes, that angers me. Inhumanity angers me, and yes it saddens me.

I’ve tired of being a mediator for logic. I’m done being an apologist for sick people who want headlines, and are sane enough to get them. So I’ve become vocal about ways to stop the madness.

Those who object to any suggestions I might present, fine. I implore you to solve the problem. Something that hasn’t been tried. We’ve spent billions to solve the problem. It hasn’t worked. All of our efforts have simply produced failed policy. Sixteen years and countless deaths have not made us safer.

My opinions may not be what people want to hear. I don’t want to say them. No one has to respect or accept my words. Argue your points. Tell me respectively about your thoughts.

I’ve shunned confrontation. Admittedly it’s my journalism background of seeing both sides objectively. But recently I’m realizing that my suggestions, thoughts, feelings, should be heard.We don’t need to agree. We need to be civil. That exchange of thought might give way to an idea that will work.

But there is no need to personally attack me. Not only is it against FB policy, but it is unsportsperson like.

Please, be kind if there is a disagreement. You can tear apart my logic, my thoughts, my opinions. .

And your attack on people may break their hearts. They may have thought you a better person.

THE MAKING OF TOURING KELLY’S POEM

Decades ago I took notes, constructed a book, rewrote the book, and had a contract with a major publishing house. With the lucrative contract came a paragraph that required I change the ending of the book. I declined.

With all the conceit of a young, inexperienced writer, I expected them to understand that I couldn’t possibly change the ending. After all, they were madly in love with the manuscript. They would publicize it as being the literary link between Catcher in the Rye and Fear of Flying.

They were going to make my book famous – if the ending could be rewritten. But they weren’t going to budge about their resolve to have heterosexuality ride off into the sunset with the main character.

Those were the times. But I didn’t want the times to reconstruct my book. The contract was torn up. The manuscript was tossed into a closet. I stayed out of the closet. For years, I would pick it up and play with it. A sadness would end up overwhelming me. And I returned it to a dusty shelf.

I’m sure Touring Kelly’s Poem became lonely packed away, forgotten, unread, unwanted.

At one point I had attempted to shop it to the feminist press. The lesbian publishers weren’t interested – because the main character did what most women of that era did. She tried a man first. I wanted to be true to the times – and that’s what most women did during the early nineteen-sixties.

Into a cardboard box, and out to the corner of a garage the manuscript went. I revitalized it from time to time. Then when the time was right – it was suddenly right.

Scarlet Clover Publishers LLC was born. My previous publisher had gone out of business. And Scarlet Clover seemed like the answer.

I’m certain that after three or four name changes, dozens of various cold storage homes, Touring Kelly’s Poem was tired. And undoubted felt defeated. With a chance to tell the story through a new, more accepting timeline, I retrieved the manuscript.

A little CPR was needed to breathe new life into it. It was still alive, and breathing, and its heart only need a little shock. I prettied it up, polishing it, shining it, and preparing it for print.

I’m still not certain if I fell back in love with it, or I never fell out of love with it. No matter, it’s alive and well. It has been released on Kindle, and will soon be available in print from Amazon.

Born, reborn – I have no idea. It is the making of a poet. Allegorical, perhaps. When the book proof arrived at my front door, I opened it. I held it and yes, I cried. It deserved my tears – and my laughter. Touring Kelly’s Poem – Yep! Keep believing and good things happen. I love a happy ending.

To find out more about Touring Kelly’s Poem, I invite you to my Author’s page at: http://www.amazon.com/author/kieranyork

Century Link Stink – Plenty Awful!

Century Link touts quick speed. For the ten days I was without landline and internet service, I heard their commercials bragging about how Century Link offers speed. Well, as a dissatisfied consumer – the REPAIR  service ain’t so speedy!

No, there was no major catastrophic reason (storms, floods, etc.) for being without service. Nor was there anything other than poor management and incompetence that was prohibiting the repairing.

On Tuesday, Jan. 6, my internet failed. I called the repair line, and found out that my landline was also gone. Then I was transferred to another consultant. I couldn’t understand much of the conversation. I was told that there was a power outage and service would be out until Saturday, Jan. 10th. I thought I hadn’t heard correctly.

When Saturday rolled around, my service was not resumed. Then, I was told by a hotshot (not so much) PR (hardly) guy named FitzDavid that they couldn’t get a repair person until the 14th. Nine days without service. And Fitzy was such a jerk – I gave up the argument saying that it was inexcusable, and terribly lame to treat consumers in such a way.

Wed., the 14th, came around, I was told that they were short of repair folks. Company foresight is such a wonderful thing. So, it was the next day when my service was finally repaired.

Power outage? Maybe. But what was happening, I found out later, was that Century Link was putting up something called Prism. They’d been hawking a new TV system, and as they attempted to get that developed, the land line system was destroyed, and they hadn’t hired enough properly trained folks to handle the crush.

And the person who had been a customer for thirty-five years could sit without phone and internet. For ten days – that’s one third of the month, we could pine over the ads on TV telling about fast internet. We didn’t have any internet at all – not even slow internet. And no phone service to boot.

The quote ‘Let them eat cake.’ popped into my mind. What the flummery! Corporate America deserves a rant. My landline phone and network provider deserves my wrath.

I hate to complain. Really I do. I usually just let it go. I don’t have time to stand in a ‘complaint’ line, nor do I have time to write a blog about ten days without a service that a corporation pledged to the PUC and FCC that they would keep operable.

However, suppose it was an elderly person with only a landline connecting them to emergency operations? Suppose it was a single mother, depending on that landline?

The corporate overseers will keep gouging the corporation to get their enormous salary. They will spout their jingle-jangle lies and cover-ups. Whose fault was it? Lower rung employees? A construction company was digging and hit a wire? Or maybe it was greedy corporate America unwilling to spend the money to prevent the problems that they create, and fail to take care of.

Century Link gets a failing grade. If it was a damaged cable – it should have been fixed in a proper and timely manner. The consumer deserves the service that the provider promised the PUC and FCC that they would deliver.

Hold the line while I evaluate the service, I heard that message for days. Well, I’m evaluating the Century Link service. I’m sending missives to the FCC, PUC, Colorado Attorney General -consumer division, AARP, Colorado Consumer Line, and various investigative media platforms.

The Century Link Stink needs to be aired!

Have a nice day!

What’s Next?

Coming up September 2014 – A new release from Scarlet Clover Publishers:
Earthen Trinkets

If you liked Appointment with a Smile, I think you’ll like Earthen Trinkets!

An over-sixty couple, a dilapidated Kansas farm near a seemingly bigoted small town, a twenty-two year old ex-juvie, financial woes, a wildlife reserve next door…and – This surely couldn’t be the tranquil retirement the two women had worked for all their adult lives.

From the Jacket:

Bryana Hays and her longtime partner, Michelle Dawson, were in their early sixties. They had dreamed of a comfortable retirement in Denver, Colorado. They could never have envisioned being penniless and living on a Kansas farm.

The farm was located near Buffalo Plains, Kansas – a town controlled by the wealthy, powerful, and bigoted, Roland family. The Rolands had a special disdain for the two new residence of their community. Tank Roland’s land bordered the Hays farm. He would like nothing better than to expand his wild game hunting reserve by getting title to Bryana and Michelle’s property.

The women were overwhelmed with work, so their best friend from Denver, L.J. Tracy, arrived with what she thought might be an answer to their farmhand problem. Ricki James was an ex-juvenile delinquent, a hardcore dyke, and was not meant for the homophobic small town.

Bryana questioned if she and Michelle would ever again know peace and tranquility. She wondered if they could save the farm – not only for themselves, but also the wildlife:

The thought remained. Year after year, her father had tended the land…And now she understood the peril involved when the gamble was against fate. Just as her parents had taken their stewardship over the land seriously, Bryana knew the land required reverence.

A second release by Kieran York shortly after release of Earthen Trinkets:

Night Without Time

The Brent family might very well be called ‘out of control.’ Some might ascribe the word madcap to them.

What a cast! What a story they weave. From giggles to tears – they provide it all.

One Day their lives were changed forever. A fortune presented itself.

The mother, Willa Brent, is sometimes befuddled and often staunch. At times she’s wiser than any sagacious parent has a right to be. Three sisters, approaching forty, are usually at odds. But their disharmony becomes intensified after the announcement of sudden wealth.

Eldest daughter Isabel is the housewife. Middle daughter is Vicky – a lesbian copywriter. Youngest is Leandra – a stunning ex-convict. The trio is maladjusted by nature – but after the announcement of wealth, more so than ever. Half a million dollars bring sibling rivalry, not only front and center, but to a new high.

These women are colorful and could be mistaken for ditzy, zany, quirky, or flaky. As far as their quaint, sweet Littleton, Colorado neighborhood goes – the women fit in beautifully.

One Night their lives were rearranged forever. They understood the meaning of fortune.
It was a Night Without Time!

Also being reprinted and reissued are Appointment with a Smile and Careful Flowers.

More releases to come in 2015. Scarlet Clover Publishers knows that Red Clover comes in three varieties: Scarlet is the most intense, crimson, and pink. Fields of Scarlet Clover are not bashful.