“Dear Everybody” is first-rating story telling. Michael Kimball’s novel about the suicide of a disturbed, 32-year-old weatherman, Jonathon Bender, from Jefferson City, Mo, will grip the reader at emotional levels. Even though you know up front what’s coming, you will be caring about the painfully lonely Jonathon, right up to his very last breath.

"...there is not much to be overly optimistic about. It is Benjamin Netanyahu we are dealing with, which is anything but encouraging. In the end, it's pretty safe to say that baby steps are all we can hope for."

"US politics revolve round grabbing others’ resources - peacefully if they may, forcibly if they must. In Afghanistan’s case, force has failed to achieve the desired result so Uncle Sam, an ill-mannered and uncouth operator, is about to put on the charm offensive all over again, for oil and gas and to save his thick hide."

"...it is evident that the main focus of U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization interceptor missile deployments will be in the Black Sea region. The announcement that Romania will host American missiles was made on February 4; the news that Bulgaria would follow suit was disclosed on February 12."

"While no human loss is small, it is difficult to overlook western hypocrisy that tries to smear the record of the Turkish people and its government while hiding its more horrific crimes under the rug. Lest we forget it was not too long ago that the same US Congress voted against the Goldstone Report on Gaza simply because the objective, fact-finding investigations led by the Jewish South African Judge accused Israel of committing war crimes in its 2008-2009 campaign in Gaza. It is worth noting that the same report, which was rejected by the US Government, was endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council. What we see in such congressional actions is pure and simple: it is called hypocrisy a.k.a. double-standards. Through such a hypocritical stand, the US Congressional foreign affairs committee has shown that it does a great disservice to American people by behaving as Israel’s Amen Corner, hiding Israeli crimes of the last year, while getting all agog with a century-old controversial subject!"

"Holy places serve now as justification for the robbing expedition called settlement. Pieces of land are stolen all over the occupied territories because of their sanctity. The most extreme leaders of the settlers, all of them “rabbis”, fight for the liberation of holy graves. One of them is leading a crusade (or, rather, star-of-davidade) in order to take possession of the “tomb of Joseph” in the center of Nablus, which would turn the city into a second Hebron. The Israeli army chauffeurs the settlers there in armored vehicles, so they can “pray” there.)"

"Perhaps, just perhaps, some of that “redirected” 90% and recovered $150 bonus-billions might be used to bail-out failing Main Street businesses, restructure foreclosed mortgages, hire workers to repair and renew the disintegrating physical and human infrastructure – the roads, bridges, railbeds, utilities, public schools and universities, and courts – without which no industrial economy can function. Without which, in other words, those allegedly indispensible “producers” could never have accumulated their wealth."

"The genocidal campaign by the Buddhist king led to a mass scale forced eviction and exodus of hundreds of thousands of people of Arakan to the nearby territories of British India, esp. to Chittagong and CHT districts of today's Bangladesh. Nearly a hundred thousand people, mostly Muslims, were killed by the Burmese extermination campaign. The Mahamuni statue of Buddha itself was stolen away from the Arakan. Many Muslims were taken as slaves and forced to live elsewhere, e.g., in places like the Karen State of Burma."