Hello All!
I’ve been reminded that I haven’t put together a newsletter for awhile. Nothing wrong, just working on my next novel, The Puppet Master, the prequel to The Amendment Killer, which–largely thanks to you guys and gals–is doing very nicely in terms of reviews and sales. And trying to watch some of the Winter Olympics, two of my favorite subjects covered at the same time and in the same place, international sports and international politics.
Speaking of nice reviews, consider, for example, the following highlights from a review on The Amendment Killer recently posted on Amazon by Grady Harp (who I have never met and with whom I have never spoken, but who I would like to meet), who regularly offers his reviews on Amazon’s website:
“In this Brooks/Lotello thriller series, THE AMENDMENT KILLER, Ron Barak addresses the country’s dysfunctional government representatives, framing practical remedies to the political abuse and corruption adversely affecting too many people’s lives today. Ron’s in-depth legal background and insights allow him to cleverly cross-pollinate his fiction and today’s sad state of political reality. Timely, well crafted, realistic and pertinent, THE AMENDMENT KILLER is not only a spellbinding thriller: it is also an insightful examination of our present political situation. It is a must read.”
In his bio on Amazon, Grady says of himself: “In painting and sculpture, in music, and in literature, I am ever on the alert for the new and promising geniuses of tomorrow.” I couldn’t have better described Grady’s review myself. 🙂
Not content just to read The Amendment Killer, Grady also does his homework. Here’s how he began his review:
“California author Ronald S. Barak is a law school honors graduate and a former Olympic athlete. While still in law school, he authored a bill introduced in Congress that overnight forced the settlement of a decades-long dispute between the NCAA and the AAU to control amateur athletics in the United States.”
(Pulitzer Prize winning author James A. Michener first reported these efforts on my part in his 1976 treatise Sports In America.)
On my website, I define my brand as “Blurring Reality and Fiction.” The Amendment Killer is about Congress’ request that the Supreme Court invalidate a hypothetical 28th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution criminalizing abuse and corruption on the part of our dysfunctional political “leaders.” Given my experience with proposed legislation while I was still in law school to end the decades old dispute between the NCAA and the AAU, I thought I might make another run at our dysfunctional leadership a mere 50 years later, this time in the form of a piece of fiction. In writing The Amendment Killer, first and foremost intended by me to be an “unputabledown” political suspense thriller, I also drafted and included in the novel a proposed 28th Amendment to our U.S. Constitution. You can read it here.
Paragraph 5 of my 28th Amendment requires that those obtaining welfare entitlements be willing to work or at least provide public service to the extent that they are reasonably able in order to maintain their eligibility to vote. Consider what the real world Los Angeles Times recently (January 14, 2018) reported on this subject, entitled Why is Liberal California The Poverty Capital of America.
The essence of this article is twofold. First, California’s entitlement system requires nothing back from the recipients, no matter how able they might be. When this is so, studies show that the entitled make no effort to climb out of whatever hole they’re in. In contrast, when other supposedly “poor” states, such as Mississippi, require something back, the results of the entitlement programs produce much better results in terms of reducing poverty. Second, why do California’s controlling lawmakers not fix this? Because of their interest in maintaining the status quo; they don’t want to offend this huge number of voters, whose votes they expect–and buy–with these free handouts. This opinion piece substantiates the corresponding provisions in my 28th Amendment.
Interviewed by Chris Wallace on Sunday’s Fox News on February 18, Rush Limbaugh, who is consistently down on free welfare handouts, said he would reverse his position entirely if welfare recipients lose the right to vote for at least 15 years. Personally, while not irrational, I think that’s harsh and my 28th Amendment only imposes the loss of the right to vote to the extent that welfare recipients refuse to give back to the extent they reasonably can. For me, the choice is theirs.
So, is my brand, “Blurring Reality and Fiction,” the real deal, or just a novelist trying to be cute? What do you think? (Hint: no one other than The Wife has ever called me cute.)
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