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January Promise Zach Mann
element of real faith, and, what we as mortals rely on in order to continue the cycle, the evolution, the quest.
We use the passing of the earth around the sun to mark a cycle, and we call this cycle a year. Simply put, it is a measurement we call time. Time itself is our most limiting factor. We are born, we live, and then we die, and we remain blissfully ignorant of the longevity of this physical engagement with the planet. Whatever is beyond this life cycle, if anything, remains unknown. When someone, (anyone), endeavors to tell you that they know for certain what happens, they are lying, either to you, or to themselves, or to both. We constantly search for a reason to believe, and we do this out of necessity. Our true motivation at its most basic level is survival. Man, not unlike the coyote, adapts to an ever changing environment accordingly, as we are driven to do by nature itself. By now, as you read this, you may be growing defensive. It could be that your entire belief system is being challenged. An anger may swell within you as you scurry to defend your notion of God and what the moniker implies. You hope, (and pray), that there is much more than that which meets the eye and you are beyond uncomfortable with the suggestion that beyond your last breath, there may be nothing. It is only in this void where you can truly find God, or Allah, or Yahweh, or David Schwartz for that matter - meaning that it doesn’t matter what you call this universal presence. It is only important that you accept the possibility and live accordingly. One of my favorite people in life, who happens to be a certified scientific genius, summed it up this way when I asked what his feelings were regarding life in the hereafter:
So, a new cycle is upon us, and we call it 2016. The challenge to each of us in this newest chapter of fits and starts is relatively simple. Each and every one of us are charged to free ourselves from the bondage of prejudice, jaundice, dogma, and fear, so terribly pronounced in the recent past. Alas, the pendulum swings, as far as this world was compelled to succumb to these destructive idioms in 2015, let us endeavor to use our time on this rock to push the planet in the opposite direction in 2016. If you are still looking for God, stop looking in the same old places. Find the goodness within yourself, that which allows you to be a vessel for change. If there is a “God particle,” this is where it resides. It’s that part of you that feels compassion. Practice the love that exists within. Trust it. Lead with it. Be it. Happy New Year.
- Zach Mann
I consider this to be the perfect answer, free of dogma, or judgement, or prejudice. While acknowledging the possibility either way, his statement is one of hope. Hope is the quintessential
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January, 2016
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January 2016 * Volume 2 * Issue 1
CONTENTS It’s a new year, with new problems, new hopes, and a new promise.
January Promise Just go with it! Zach Mann
Page 1 FOR FREEDOM! Tell your children to eat everything on their plates, because there are Patriots starving in Oregon.
Page 3 Rick Baber
You think YOU have problems? What if you were trapped in a stew, or a salad, silently screaming for mercy?
Silence of the Yams Bret Burquest
Rick Baber
? Magazine January, 2016 YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO GET
This is true. If you Google “Quaaludes” you get a picture of Bill Cosby. Camille Nesler thinks that’s just wrong.
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January 2016 * Volume 2 * Issue 1
CONTENTS When in Rome … That’s where Zach is. And he’s sending us pictures and stories, when he’s not busy hanging out with the Pope.
Page 18 Zach Mann
Hey! They do it with guns. It’s a Drug Show Loophole.
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ABOUT OUR JANUARY COVER
Zach Mann
It’s a new year, and a new brand of politics. And, speaking of Rome … Rick Baber
Page 31 Starra Dotson’s touching remembrance of loss … and hope.
The memes associated with the armed militia takeover of a bird sanctuary in Oregon are simply too rich to ignore. Patrick Henry probably never envisioned his image on a postage stamp, or a digital magazine cover. Viva la Revolucion! Snack out!
Rainbows
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? Magazine January, 2016 YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO GET
? Question Mark Magazine Vol. 2 No. 1, January, 2016 Published by TigerEye Publications P.O. Box 6382 Springdale, AR 72766 E: cybermouth@hotmail.com Copyright 2016, Rick Baber Question Mark (?) Magazine is electronically published monthly, free to online subscribers, by TigerEye Publications, through ISSUU.com
Statement of Copyright: All rights reserved. Individual authors hold copyright on all materials herein. No part of this electronic magazine may be reproduced – except by ISSUU.com – without the written consent of Question Mark Magazine or the author. Email requests to copy any materials, including photographs and art work, to the address shown above. Please feel free to share the publication, or unaltered excerpts from it, via social media, with credit given to the Question Mark Magazine and the author. Acceptance of advertising does not carry with it endorsement by the publisher. Opinions expressed by Question Mark Magazine or any of its authors, do not necessarily reflect positions of our advertisers.
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Bret Burquest
Many philosophers believe that thoughts are deeds. If you project benevolent thoughts, you help create a benevolent environment. Projecting hostility creates hostility, etc. As we sow, so shall we reap. Cleve Backster, America’s foremost liedetector expert, hooked up a lie-detector to a plant about 40 years ago in an attempt to see how long it would take water to reach the leaves. A lie detector is a sensitive instrument that measures such things as Galvanic skin response, slight variations in temperature, pressure, rates of flow, etc. Backster quickly discovered the plant reacted “dramatically” to the experiment itself. When Backster decided to burn one of the leaves, the lie detector readings went off the charts. When he noticed the “trauma” being exhibited by the plant, he decided not to burn the plant after all, whereupon the plant became calm once again.
And when he had decided to call off the burning experiment, again only in his mind, the plant returned to normal. In subsequent experiments, Backster had trouble repeating the results because once a plant had been led to believe something was going to happen and it didn’t, the plant would retain that knowledge and not become “emotional” the second time. Consequently, fresh plants were required for continued experimentation. This led to the conclusion that plants have some sort of memory and discrimination capability.
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In other experiments, it became clear that the plants would only react if the experimenter actually intended to carry out the actions. If Backster was only bluffing to do something harmful, the plant wouldn’t respond. Thus he concluded that plants could discern intent (through thought transference) and had a “memory” of past events. Backster conducted further experiments over the last four decades and has become one of the leading bio-communications experts in the world. For example, he discovered that an egg would react when another egg was cracked. His work tends to confirm the Gaia Hypothesis which states that the world is one huge, living organism with self-regulating capability. Dorothy Retallack is another specialist in this field. She exposed a variety of plants to various types of music. Plants that were exposed to hard rock (Led Leppelin and Jimi Hendrix) began pointing away from the source of the music, whereas plants exposed to soothing music began pointing toward the source. Through further studies, she concluded that being gentle with plants helps them flourish and being the opposite has the opposite effect. “THE SECRET LIFE OF PLANTS,” by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, is a book detailing other experiments done on plant life. Distance doesn’t seem to matter when communicating with plants. For example, a chemist became so attuned to his house plants that they reacted excitedly when he made love to his girlfriend 80 miles away. In another instance, a philodendron activated by a thought impulse from a technician started a car two miles away. On a more unscientific note, my ex-wife, who is three-quarters Norwegian and one-quarter dingbat, used to talk to vegetables. She could spend hours chatting with a pod of peas or an ear of corn. She did most of the talking
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? while the vegetables listened politely without too much interruption. One day she got some financial advice from a zucchini. Two hours later she went out and bought some brand new furniture. “It really didn’t cost anything,” she told me, “I put it on the credit card.” I chopped up the zucchini and put it in a salad. One morning my ex-wife got into an argument with a kumquat. It had something to do with her new hair style — the kumquat thought it made her look fat. She tried to get a second opinion from a yam but it ignored her, so she decided to snarl at me instead. Apparently, yams don’t like to be confrontational. I never did communicate very well with the vegetables. They prefer to communicate with entities on their own intellectual level, such as fungi, mildew, politicians and dingbats. However, I once had a lengthy conversation with dill pickle about the meaning of life. They tend to be very good listeners.
Bret Burquest was a computer programmer and manager for various companies in Minneapolis and Los Angeles for 30+ years. He is also a former award-winning newspaper columnist and the author of 11 books. He currently resides in reclusive splendor on a dirt road in the Land of Ark, near Salem, with a few goofy dogs and an imaginary girlfriend named Tequila Mockingbird. 8
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Editorial
Camille Nesler
statue of limitations and as such, any consideration of a criminal filing is prohibited by law,” said comments on a DA’s charge evaluation worksheet, in regards to those allegations. Charges also were declined in regards to the allegations of model Chloe Goins, who stated she attended a party at the Playboy Mansion in the summer of 2008 when she was 18, during which time she claims she was drugged by Cosby, and assaulted. Authorities investigated after she met with Los Angeles police detectives to detail her allegations. Not long after, Cosby’s lawyer released a statement denying the accusations and reporting that Cosby was not in Los Angeles at that time. Investigators did find that he wasn’t listed as a guest at any of the parties in the summer of 2008, and the witness listed by Goins also denied knowing her or being at the Playboy mansion. Again, all this was listed on the DA worksheet.
Quaaludes: New Jello Pudding Flavor? By Camille Nesler By now I’m sure everyone has read or watched or heard that the majority of the cases filed against actor and comedian Bill Cosby have been thrown out. Los Angeles prosecutors announced on Wednesday January 6 that Cosby will not be charged with a sexually abusing two teenagers in 1965, and in 2008, citing both the statute of limitations, and a lack of evidence.
In addition to these two cases, prosecutors also rejected filing charges against Cosby based on allegations by Judy Huth, who claims in a lawsuit that he abused her at the Playboy Mansion in the early 1970s when she was 15. The prosecutors stated that 40 years was far past the 3 year statute of limitations at the time of the alleged incident. “Therefore, prosecution today for any potential felony sex crime for 1974 would also be barred,” The district attorney said.
A woman claimed that in 1965 when she was 17, Cosby took her to a jazz club in Hollywood, bought her alcoholic drinks and then took her to a home in Hollywood Hills where he forced her to have sex. “Filing the crime of forcible rape is barred by the
These were just three of almost 50 sexual assault accusations made against Cosby over the last two years, resulting in two of his television projects being stopped and many of his on-stage appearances canceled. Not only that, but reruns of
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Editorial the much loved “The Cosby Show” have also been yanked from the air. To date, only one criminal case has actually been brought against him, stemming from allegations that he drugged and sexually assaulted a woman inside his home in Philadelphia in 2004. It appears that in Philadelphia, the statute of limitations is much longer. Cosby’s lawyers in that case have called the charges unjustified and state they expect him to be fully exonerated. In fact, Cosby’s lawyer, Martin Singer, recently released a statement saying, “The new, never before heard claims from women who have come forward with unsubstantiated, fantastical stories about things they say occurred 30, 40 or even 50 years ago have escalated past the point of absurdity.” Cosby’s wife of more than 50 years, Camille, has also defended her husband, stating “He is a kind and generous man, a funny man and a wonderful husband, father and friend. He IS the man you thought you knew.” So, is Cosby guilty? Who knows? I sure don’t. But I do know that women coming out of the woodwork after 40 years to make outrageous claims, and women flat out LYING, when it can be proven he wasn’t even in the state, sure aren’t helping the ones who may actually BE telling the truth. Rape is a horrible thing and we all wish there was a way to eradicate it from our society, but the truth is, there just isn’t. We live in world where, unfortunately, there are bad people who do bad things. I’m not saying Cosby is one of them, though. I wasn’t there. YOU weren’t there. And nothing irritates me more than when someone is convicted through “The court of social media.”
I made a comment one time on a news story that involved a woman being abducted from an alley behind a bar at 2 in the morning. It was an innocent enough comment, something to the effect of, “I teach my daughters not to accept drinks from strangers, and not to go to questionable places alone, and always to know how to defend themselves.” Right away, a bunch of feminists started hollering how they could go anywhere they wanted at any time and drink as much as they wanted and walk anywhere alone and wear any type of clothing in any establishment. In fact one genius even told me she should be able to walk down the street naked if she chose to. Well sure, they’re absolutely right. And they can also deal with the consequences. Should men rape? NO. Not under any circumstances. But the sad fact is, it happens. And so I WILL teach my girls how to be proactive and how to take some personal responsibility. Don’t go to bars alone. Don’t accept drinks from strangers. Don’t go anywhere with a guy you don’t know. Don’t walk down a deserted street at night. I’ll also teach them how to kick, aiming straight for the gonads, and how to gouge out eyes with their car keys, too. I’m also teaching them not to be too trusting, either. After all, just because a dude is promoting Jello Pudding pops, doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a nice person.
Another thing that I’ve noticed that is fast becoming a trend whenever there is a case involving rape or sexual assault is the whole cry of “don’t feed into the rape culture or the rape mentality.”
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Question Mark Magazine?
We’re all about questions, and that’s a good one. So, let us try a few answers. To start, let’s look at the downside: 1. We’re new, so you’re afraid you won’t be getting much exposure for your money. 2. We actually have articles and stories on our pages, which might distract from your ad! 3. The magazine, and therefore your ad, won’t be lying on tables at the dentist’s office for somebody to randomly pick it up and see it. 4. That’s it. Absolutely not one other possible reason! ;) OK. There’s this. If you have a small, local “mom & pop” business, and your customers come exclusively from your community – we won’t lie to you – you are probably better off advertising in your local paper, or radio station. Question Mark is a FREE digital magazine for people who like to read, and, being a digital publication (although it is printed in English), it is distributed all over the world. Since our “Preview” edition was published in September, 2015, the reports we get from the digital publisher shows that we’ve had readers in 23 countries, on all six of the continents were human beings actually live … and read … and, assumedly purchase things. Because, we aren’t counting that really icy one at the bottom of the world where the penguins live. Apparently, penguins don’t like us much. But, if your business is one that isn’t limited by geographical boundaries, maybe this is something you might want to consider. Sure, the compelling general interest articles and stories might distract from your ad – but probably not as much as other ads would. Right? And here’s the really cool thing about digital page advertising: one ad gets you virtually unlimited exposure. “How?” you ask? Well, it’s like this. You can put a LINK in your ad to direct our readers to YOUR WEBSITE! There,
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you have complete control of the content. You can change/update it as often as you wish. So the “print” ad in Question Mark is virtually perpetual! You can’t do that with “ordinary” print ads. People can click on those things all day and they’ll still be there on that same page where they started. Nope. You won’t find a tattered issue of Question Mark on the cluttered table at the dentist’s office. But everyday more & more people are doing their reading on digital devices – and they bring their own! Our current overall statistics show that 44% of the people reading our magazine do so on desktop computers, 11% on tablets, and 45% on … their phones. And nobody ever leaves home without their phone.
So, that brings us down to money, doesn’t it? Nobody else does this; but we’re new, and we can’t figure out why not. And we have nothing to hide. Here are our simple ADVERTISING RATES (per issue):
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Ad Rates are subject to change as readership increases. Lock in NOW for up to 4 issues at the current monthly price. We require you to furnish the artwork for your ad – 8.5” x 11” at a minimum of 144 dpi. We can add the links, if requested. Email us: cybermouth@hotmail.com .
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? Rick Baber by people who had to do all of the above, same as you. (Part Deaux) *Continued from the December, 2015 issue. Read Part One HERE. THE MOON LANDINGS WERE FAKED. It was 1969. If you were on your couch, watching TV, and you wanted to change to one of the two other available channels, you had to get up and walk over there to do it – or threaten your little brother so he’d do it for you. If you missed the program, you had to hope it would come back on sometime as a re-run, or read about what happened in TV Guide. If you wanted to cook a frozen pizza, you had to remove it from the freezer, set it on the counter to thaw out, then put it into the oven for 20 minutes at 350 degrees. I guess. Don’t really remember having frozen pizzas at all back then. If you were driving across country and wanted to give your girlfriend a call, you had to seek out a pay phone and hope she would accept the “person-toperson” call; or carry a big sack of quarters to feed into the pay slot – and then again every time the operator ordered you to do so. The news came on TV before you got out of bed, at noon, at 6 pm, and at 10 pm. Half an hour, including the weather report, and sports, if there was anything of interest to report. You could get an almost instant photograph with your Polaroid Swinger; 10 of them before you had to change the cartridge. To keep it from fading before the end of the day, it was best if you rubbed that smelly stuff on it. But if you wanted some better quality, you took the photos with your Brownie camera, unloaded the film roll, took it down to the drug store, and sent it off to be developed. In only a couple of weeks, you could have the 4x5 prints back so your friends could look through the album and enjoy them. Meanwhile, on July 20, three American astronauts were on their way to the moon in a rocket ship, built and piloted
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It didn’t really seem right at the time, but we had all seen enough science fiction movies to believe that it must have been possible. And even though we were still at that point in our lives where a daily cussing at the AM Radio was the norm, most everybody was thrilled when Neil Armstrong became the first man to step foot on another celestial body and said “That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.” “Giant leap?” You think? That guy was 238,900 miles from earth, and he was coming in much clearer than the radio station, down by the river, any time you drove between two tall buildings.
Understandably, there were some people back then who believed the whole thing was a hoax; and there may be even more today. According to Wikipedia, on the basis of opinion polls, between 6% and 20% of Americans still believe all of the manned moon landings were faked. The theory is that the filming of those astronauts on the surface of the moon were actually done on a sound stage, provided by Walt Disney, in order to convince the Russians that the
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? US beat them in the race to the moon. Of course, in order to convince the Russians, Americans had to believe it first. But according to the polls mentioned above, 28% of Russians still don’t believe it either. From Wikipedia: “Some claim that the technology to send men to the Moon was lacking or that the Van Allen radiation belts, solar flares, solar wind, coronal mass ejections and cosmic rays made such a trip impossible. There are any number of photographs, video and audio clips to support the conspiracy theories, from flags blowing in the “breeze” of a place without an atmosphere to funky shadows from the light that should not have been available, to the absence of stars in the sky. Also from Wikipedia, this is interesting. “There are subcultures worldwide which advocate the belief that the Moon landings were faked. By 1977 the Hare Krishna magazine Back to Godhead called the landings a hoax, claiming that, since the Sun is 93,000,000 miles away, and ‘according to Hindu mythology the Moon is 800,000 miles farther away than that,’ the Moon would be nearly 94,000,000 miles away; to travel that span in 91 hours would require a speed of more than a million miles per hour, "a patently impossible feat even by the scientists' calculations.”
So, at least some of the conspiracy theories have some merit for investigation – even if some of them are patently absurd. But there was enough racket made about the conspiracies that NASA actually released an official response in 1977, and then again in 2001, just before Fox television's broadcast of Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?, attempting to debunk the hoax theories. Apparently, many are yet to be convinced. As recently as June, 2015, a Russian official has called for investigations into the hoax. Modern websites, such as this one, and this one offer narrated video’s attempting to at list pique the interest of the viewer regarding the possibility that not everything we saw on TV during these landings was accurate. Watch them. Many of the questions have been rebuked on other web sites, but not to the satisfaction of everybody, it seems. It has been suggested by some of the conspiracy theorists that the US did, eventually, put a man on the moon, once technology made it possible; but the landings supposedly done during the years of the Nixon Administration were just … fake.
But not all conspiracy theories are the same. There is growing support for the theory that not only did we accomplish the moon landings, as reported, but when we got there, we found alien beings and alien cities; and the aliens basically told us to back off. This video, while a little long and theatrical for me, could be fun to watch, maybe sometime you’re snowed in with several bottles of wine and nothing else to do. This Syfy program (my personal favorite), longer still, and also a bit theatrical, has lots of fascinating images and commentary that will keep you spellbound for about an hour and a half – whether you believe in extraterrestrial life or not. Watch it, if you get a chance, and then come back here and we’ll discuss THE REPTILIAN ELITE.
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? Alrighty then. If you’re like my wife, who doesn’t want to hear about “crazy stuff” like this, you’ve gone on to another article, or perhaps an entirely different magazine. That’s OK. Nobody here is trying to force you into believing anything you don’t want to believe. But the Reptilian Elite may be trying to. Listed as #10 on Time Magazine’s top conspiracy theories is the concept that shape-shifting reptilian humanoids from … somewhere else … have been here since (perhaps before) the dawn of civilization. They have infiltrated societies all over the world, and have strategically placed themselves into positions of power, with the ultimate goal of enslaving the entire human race. Some of these monsters are Queen Elizabeth, George W. Bush, Henry Kissinger, Bill and Hillary Clinton and Bob Hope. Bob Hope? Yeah. Checked it again, and that’s what it says. So, it appears that the Reptilians can, at least die – since Mr. Hope passed away in 2003. Or, did he?
They’ve been here, and in-charge of things, all along. Originally coming to Earth to mine for gold, the Annunaki decided they didn’t want to do all that
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back-breaking labor themselves. So they dabbled in some gene-splicing with the creatures of Earth until they created the perfect animal to do the work for them – man – created in their image; smart enough to understand their instructions, and, per those instructions, to worship them as gods. Well, that’s what they would have been, right? So, from this original Sumerian religion, all other religions evolved. The Sumerian beliefs subsequently were relegated to myths, because, who could believe crazy shit like that? As the human population became larger, and harder to control, some Annunaki bailed out to find another planet to mine, and others simply cloaked themselves as humans and integrated the planet – deciding to rule through deception or from the shadows to keep the populace from rising up and slaying them. But they’re still here; and possibly still in touch with those others who left for golder pastures. Some of them could be living in those cities on the dark side of the moon. Now I’ve never personally understood if Bill & Hillary are actual shape-shifting reptilians, themselves, or just humans who are working on their behalf. But, from a purely personal political perspective, I’d rather have a lizard for a president than Donald Trump – assuming he’s not one of them too. So… JESUS & MARY MAGDALENE were married, like normal people; and had children, like normal people. And, so, possibly somewhere, there are actual direct descendants of Jesus, walking among us. In itself, this doesn’t seem so much like a conspiracy theory as just a difference in beliefs. The conspiracy comes in with the cover-up by the Catholic Church, who couldn’t let the people see the Son of God as a regular, fornicating Joe. Personally, I don’t find this one as compelling as some of the others. The Da Vinci Code is much more entertaining than anything I could write here. So if you’re among the dozens of people who haven’t seen the movie, do that! The number 8 most popular conspiracy listed by Time is regarding Holocaust Revisionism. We January, 2016
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? were all taught in school that a crazy German leader named Adolf Hitler took it upon himself to cleanse the world of Jews, killing over 6 million of them in the process. That was pretty much a given for the years following World War II, but in the last several years there have been more and more people coming out challenging that version of history. The revisionists claim either that the genocide didn’t occur at all, or that the numbers were greatly exaggerated. Here is a video that I’m embarrassed to direct you to, but it pretty much explains the “theory,” albeit in the voice of some male, Australian version of Siri. It’s called “The Greatest Lie Ever Told.” Once you’re there, on YouTube, you can find plenty more like it.
The last item we’ll discuss from Time’s list – if only briefly - is The CIA and AIDS. Apparently, the CIA, and possibly Richard Nixon, had some “issues” with African Americans and homosexuals. So they invented the AIDS virus to exterminate them. Rather cruel, ain’t it? It does make one wonder what the CIA could possibly have against “the gays” to manufacture such a drastic remedy. Was there some unknown (to us) plot, hatching in the dark back rooms of interior decorators and hair salons to one day have a homosexual president of the United States? Or worse yet, a black one? Oops. There are many more conspiracy theories floating around that weren’t listed in the magazine’s Top 10. I suppose many of those could be tied to one of those listed – like President Reagan declaring Martial Law and having us undesirables put into internment camps; then President Bush, declaring Martial Law; then President Clinton declaring Martial Lay; then President G.W. Bush. Could be an Annunaki thing, I guess. Or, President Obama sending the black-booted black thugs to kick down our doors and take all of our precious guns. He’s going to have to hurry. We’ll soon have another president and a whole ‘nother round of entertainment opportunities on the interwebs. Can’t wait to see what they are.
It’s a growing belief. Hitler was just … you know… misunderstood. We’ll report. You decide. See how silly that sounds? 16
Great video. Click the pic. Byebye.
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Adventure phone calls to KLM which ultimately bordered on creating an international incident that my luggage finally did arrive.
First of all, flying to Rome from the U.S.A. typically requires a stopover in Amsterdam for a connecting flight and Amsterdam is the black hole for American luggage. I have no doubt that the busiest and most underpaid person in all of Europe is a fellow by the name of Andrea, who is one of three people facing the thundering herd at the lost luggage counter in the Rome airport. After waiting in a ridiculously long line which moved at the pace of escargot and thus caused us to miss our ground transportation into the city, I finally met Andrea, a slight gentleman whose English was better than my Italian but not by much. While waiting in said line I had become acutely aware that venting one’s frustrations toward Andrea would be useless and I thought it wise to employ a different tact. I’d had time to study Andrea, you see, and because I’ve been in the people pleasing business myself for most of my life, I knew that if I greeted him with a disarming and sympathetic smile and called him by his name tag, I could make an instant friend, which I desperately needed. I filled out the appropriate paperwork, including a detailed description of the missing luggage and its containments, and was elated when Andrea informed me that my suitcase had indeed been located in Amsterdam and would arrive on the very next flight and be hand delivered to my hotel post haste. He told me to save receipts for any incidentals I might need to purchase in the interim and KLM Airlines would gladly reimburse me upon request. Andrea, in no small part due to my own patience and universal understanding of human nature, had been able to rectify the situation to what would surely be a happy ending. Two and a half days later, when my luggage did finally arrive, I concluded that Andrea was and is a lying son of a bitch who would have told me anything to get me out of his hair. It was only after an ass ripping two hour obscenity laced series of frantic
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Patty and I had decided several months ago that we would be ready for a vacation by January. Originally, we were going to go to Atlantis in the Caribbean, but upon closer review discovered that we could actually come to Europe for less money and stay longer because it is the off season here and the height of tourist season in the more tropical destinations. The weather, since landing in Italy has been remarkable, with highs hovering around 60 and lows at night around 45. We spent yesterday wandering around the Colosseum and the ancient ruins of the Forum. Because there is nothing truly old in the United States, this experience was amazing. My only regret is that I wish I had accrued more knowledge about the Roman Empire before arriving as I soon realized how little I really know about ancient Roman history. The sheer size and scope of the Colosseum itself is …well… COLOSSAL, and, to think it was built without a single power tool! We opted for a guided tour of the Colosseum, which, for an extra 12 or 13 Euros apiece, was a good investment.
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Adventure You can read all about the various Roman attractions all over the internet and in countless history books, so I won’t bore you with rehashing all of that, but rather focus on An American Idiot in Europe’s overall impressions of our travelling experience. Here are a few observations that I feel are worth mentioning:
Well, this must do for now as we are off to explore more of Rome for the next 4 days before leaving for Paris later this week. We will be dropping in on Frankie, (the Pope) at the Vatican to say hey and checking out more of this amazing eternal city in the meantime. Ciao!!
(1) There aren’t a lot of fat people in Rome. I found this surprising at first but then began to consider why this must be true. Most people in Rome walk a lot more than we Americans do, and this is due to public transportation. They have it down! It takes a lot of walking to get to and from the train stations, subway stations, etcetera, and as they do, they do it briskly. (2) There is very little class distinction in Rome. Of course, there are the VERY RICH and of course there are the VERY POOR, but actually encountering either is the exception rather than the rule. Homelessness is at least 10 times the problem in the U.S. as it appears to be here. The vast majority of people seem to be of one socio-economic class which seems to be the equivalent of lower middle to middle class in the United States. Automobiles are very small for the most part, and a lot of commuters ride Mopeds. Traffic laws seem non-existent yet somehow it seems to work out fine. (3) Every public place with a loud speaker warns you to be on the alert for pickpockets but violent crime is very, very rare. Rome is very aware of how important tourism is to their economy and service is taken to an extreme in every service setting, whether it be hotel, restaurant, or bistro café, they dote on you constantly. Tipping here is greatly appreciated but you aren’t expected to tip nearly as high as you are in the U.S. and this is because service people are paid a living wage. 20
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DRUGSHOW LOOPHOLE -SPONSORED BY THE GOOD FOLKS AT THE NATIONAL DOPE ASSOCIATION Zach Mann
Have you paid your NDA dues? Your generous contributions and membership fees allow us to influence lawmakers the old fashioned way, by purchasing the consciences of lawmakers at every level of government. Remember, drugs don't kill people, people kill people. Your God given right to the pursuit of happiness are under constant attack by those who would choose to take your free choice away and we are your ONLY LINE OF DEFENSE. With your dollars, we are able to make certain that no one, AND WE MEAN NO ONE, can pick the crystal meth from your cold dead nostrils. Other areas of defense, aside from the DRUGSHOW LOOPHOLE, that we will be pursuing in the coming year include but are not limited to these so called " drug free school zones" which infringe on your rights to commerce. With the current majority of the Supreme Court recognizing that dollars are much more important than individuals and public safety, we are mounting a campaign to remove these restrictions. It's your God given rights at stake!!
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Living
When my younger brother was diagnosed at 31 with pancreatic cancer, the only surprise was the age that he was diagnosed. Our father had passed from the same cancer at 60. My mother had only been in remission from lung cancer for a few months. J had gone to the ER after experiencing abdominal pain and burning that would not go away. He had a high threshold for pain, so if he said it hurt, it hurt. I truly thought it was his gall bladder; I had mine removed a few years earlier after experiencing the same symptoms. After five days of tests, ultrasounds, and an MRI we were handed the unbelievable. Our immediate family gathered at the hospital as soon as we heard. J was offered chemo for pain management only. His cancer had already spread to his liver, and the Whipple Procedure was not an option. J was so against chemo after Mom’s treatment. His reasoning was why poison himself for what? It wasn’t a cure. There isn’t a cure or treatment protocol for pancreatic cancer. I asked my Mom and J if we could walk outside, talk privately about what to do next. The hospital had a lovely butterfly garden outside. My mom, J, and I had always loved butterflies and rainbows. J and his fiancé had found the garden in the previous days of his stay. The sun
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was hot, but it was beautiful outside. The flowers were glorious, and the butterflies were there. It’s funny when you look back and see the beauty in the tragedy. Through tears, I asked J to try the chemo, to hopefully make him more comfortable, even for a short time, before the pain took over. I reminded him how chemo had helped dad for a few months, making his remaining life tolerable. J was worried about getting married, and putting his fiancé through all of it. Was it fair for her to stay with him until he died? We said that was her decision, and we would help her as well, as much as she would let us. We sat outside for a long time not saying anything to each other. A butterfly landed on his knee, her wings flapping a time before she flew away. The world stopped spinning for me at that moment. And I held my breath for 8 months. J’s cancer journey wasn’t easy. There were many nights I begged God to take the cancer from J and give it to me. There were agonizing moments that would take your breath away, and other moments that were so beautiful it broke your heart. I could never see or feel what my mother or sisterin-law were going through while we all helped him die. The searing pain as a sister was so consuming that I couldn’t help anyone but J. You work, be married, be a mom, and watch your little brother fade away. My husband kept reminding me the reason I was J’s sister had come down to this moment in his life. Ten days before he passed, hospice told us it was getting close. I went with my mom and step dad to J’s town, thinking we would stay a few days and come back. We never left. J’s wife had to continue working, so I helped take care of J during the day. J had stopped eating the week before, and all that was left for him was palliative care. There was a parade of his closest friends that week, coming and going. I’ve known all of them since J was young. It was wonderful and so sad at the same time. J rallied while they were there. But after they left, I felt the final shift. I called my best friend, and she came and took care of me while I helped take care of J. My husband brought my girls to me the day
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Living before Mother’s Day. They spent time with J, watching Cartoon Network, my youngest daughter holding J’s hand. Such a sweet, simple moment I’ll always cherish. We took the kids to the hotel so they could swim. They were such a comfort to me. Then my brother-in-law showed up with rum and cokes. God bless him. It cannot be said enough – you find out who your real friends and family are when you are at your lowest. J died on Mother’s Day. The longest day of my life. The morning started out like the others, quiet. I left to get our mom a Mother’s Day card. The whole time I was gone I felt like I needed to get back. When I returned, I knew J was going. I called my husband to come; tried to convince my Mom this was it. Then I never left his side. He told us he loved us. Told his wife she was a hottie - one last flash of his sense of humor. We spent the last few hours telling him it was ok to go. How much we loved him. Trying to keep him comfortable and warm, or as he would have put it, “hovering.” The greatest blessing was he allowed us to be there when he went. My husband put his ear to his chest, listened, then closed J’s eyelids. A storm had been pushing in all afternoon, the wind had been crazy. The moment that J was gone, it was totally quiet. And wholly unbearable.
Then one more beautiful thing happened….as we called J’s loved ones to tell them he had passed, they all asked us if we had seen a rainbow. We couldn’t believe it. A year later on J’s birthday, my family and I were on vacation in Colorado. We were eating dinner, and it was pouring down rain. All of the sudden it stopped completely. The sun came blazing out. For two hours we were undulated with double and triple rainbows. I called my mom and best friend, trying to describe what was happened. The pictures
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I took didn’t do them justice. I knew it was a gift, but even if it wasn’t, I would have called J first to tell him about them. It’ll be six years since J passed, and my friends and husband still send me pictures of rainbows every time they see one. Whenever I see a butterfly, I think of the butterfly that landed on J’s knee. I truly believe that our dead loved ones are never really that far away.
Starra Dotson resides in Oklahoma with her family. She recently became a stay-at-home mother to her two princesses, and an experimental cook. Her new pastimes are housekeeping, laundry, and animal wrangling. She enjoys spending time with family and friends, music, cooking, traveling, and reading thrillers. Her creativity is limited to crocheting. She would like to thank her husband for continuously encouraging her to write for 22 years. He is very happy that she finally did it.
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EMPLOYMENT WANTED Hard-working, hard-headed male, mid 20s. Not too much on brains, but I can tote, and I’m too ugly to sleep with your wife. Non-smoker, drink like a fish. Would give my name and contact number here, but this is a fake ad to show people what kind of stuff they can put in their classifieds. Before this sentence there were only about 57 words, so just think of all the information you could squeeze into a 100 word ad. Click on that link on the right side of the page and start building yours! (97)
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DISCLAIMER We’re trying the Classifieds pages on an experimental basis. With none received yet, those posted are examples of some of the types of ads you can run – but certainly not all. Not responsible for typographic errors, as we’ll cut and paste the ads exactly as presented by the customer on the link provided above. Question Mark Magazine makes no warranty as to the authenticity of any of the classified ads published; and does not necessarily endorse any advertiser. BUYER BEWARE! This feature may be discontinued at any time at the discretion of the magazine. In such an event, all unpublished ad payments will be promptly returned.
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