A Letter to the Middle East

This is a letter to the people of the Middle East, just from a regular, average North American person with no political or religious affiliations or interests. Simply one individual, speaking to another individual through this letter, representing the North American way of life and culture, reaching out to you and your way of life and culture.

First of all, we do not hate you. The average North American person doesn’t have a hatred towards people of the Middle East, whether it’s Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, or any other country. We don’t hate you and we don’t want to destroy you. We don’t. We don’t want war. We don’t want your suffering. We don’t want your persecution. We don’t want any of these negative things that may or may not be happening to you. We are shown distorted images from our media. We are shown that you hate and fear us, consider our culture backwards. Our leaders, who manipulate us into fighting these wars for corporate interest, perpetuate an image of you being backwards and hating us and fearing us. They encourage us to hate and fear you.

The truth is, the common person doesn’t feel this way. The average person doesn’t feel this way. We don’t want our countries to go to war. We don’t want our country to attack yours in order to gain access to your oil. We’d rather not need that oil. We’d welcome technologies, advancements, alternatives to gasoline and fuel. We really would. We’d welcome changes that would improve your lives. We don’t hate your religion or your way of life. The average person is too busy trying to survive and navigate through our own life, our own world, our own culture, to worry about hating you. We don’t. In fact, we accept that you have a different culture or different beliefs or different religion, and that we may be based on different beliefs, but we’re still basically human beings. We can still find common ground if we focus on what we have in common, instead of what sets us apart. Continue reading “A Letter to the Middle East” →

Three Bestsellers in Three Weeks

Yep, Three of my books have been bestsellers in the last three weeks. Don’t just take my word for it, here are some screenshots with the details:

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The Illustrated Story of Pirates – reprinted by Jack Lake Productions. I had the privilege of restoring the artwork and re-coloring this book.

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Continue reading “Three Bestsellers in Three Weeks” →