Showing 271 - 280 of 311
Stepmotherly love
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 24/09/2012
» Families are the nuclei of nations, which explains why nations frequently deal with their disputes by going to war. The concept of the happy family is all too often more imaginative than real. Parents bicker, as do siblings. Fathers and mothers stray. Children have bad friends.
An imaginative thriller
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 01/10/2012
» When President Obama showed a select audience an ongoing closed circuit television mission that killed the most wanted man in the world enjoying sanctuary in Pakistan, he emphasized that locating and taking out the notorious Muslim terrorist by the US elite SEALs was a wholly American undertaking. It will certainly earn him votes at the next election.
A delightful sequel
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 08/10/2012
» Sequels are commonplace, but not necessarily by the same authors. They are penned shortly after the original becomes popular, or long afterwards. Alexander Dumas waited two decades before his follow-up to The Three Musketeers. More than one writer had been tapped to pick up where Alistair Maclean and Ian Fleming left off.
Scholar turned warrior
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 29/10/2012
» Wars of succession harken back to earliest recorded history. Turning wives against husbands, sisters against brothers, aunts against nephews. The temptation to wear the crown and wield the power of the throne is greater than the blood ties that supposedly hold families together. If driven away by the monarchy becoming a republic, the royalists wait in exile to be summoned home by the acclamation of the populace.
More terrorist outrages
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 10/09/2012
» Arab terrorists again, this time from Yemen. Osama bin Loony has come and gone, but his legacy of hate and destruction lingers on. What next after the outrage of 9/11? America again or some distant land? The world awaits the blow with trepidation. And with what weapon: chemical, biological, radiological?
A new morality
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 17/09/2012
» In the early days of Hollywood, film-makers realised that with all the brawling in Westerns, audiences tended to be confused as to who was the hero and who was the villain. Their solution was simplicity itself _ to dress the hero in white, the villain in black. This practice lasted for a half century.
Plague proportions
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 15/10/2012
» Of the many ways planet Earth ceases to exist, over-population isn't one of them. Whenever that likelihood appears to arise some force _ God, nature, human _ steps in to reverse the process. Comets, floods, disease, ethnic cleansing, wars. Millions, tens of millions die.
The one percent
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 03/09/2012
» Having written for decades a column about the vibrant night life in the Realm, I felt that I knew the subject better than anyone else and said so. To a large extent, this was no idle boast. My approach was non-judgemental. Others writing about it knew only a fraction as much as I did and had an axe to grind.
A Roman bladewielder
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 06/08/2012
» There are anomalies about the ancient world that defy explanation. Such as why Mussolini's efforts in the 20th century to revive the glory that was Rome two millennia before failed. Excuses about poor modern-day equipment don't cut it. Clearly they lacked the requisite vital ingredient of their ancestors. They needed poison gas to subdue the backward Ethiopians.
Punishing the innocent
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 13/08/2012
» Looking at the name of the author of 15 Seconds, I did a double-take. I knew that I hadn't reviewed a book by Andrew Gross before, so why was he familiar to me? The thumbnail sketch of his background provided the answer. Gross is in James Patterson's stable of writers.