The Joys of Nature

With everything going on around us, in today’s world, that we cannot control, the one thing we can is what we surround ourselves with in nature.

One of my most favorite things to do in the morning is, have a nice hot cup of coffee and listen to the birds. the music and songs they sing bring about an aura of happiness in a world that is being turned dark with all the talk of war.

This beautiful cottage birdhouse is available on my home products website: http://www.kamscloset.net

Take the time to surround yourself with beauty!

With everything going on around us, in today’s world, that we cannot control, the one thing we can is what we surround ourselves with in nature.

One of my most favorite things to do in the morning is, have a nice hot cup of coffee and listen to the birds. the music and songs they sing bring about an aura of happiness in a world that is being turned dark with all the talk of war.

This beautiful cottage birdhouse is available on my home products website: http://www.kamscloset.net

Take the time to surround yourself with beauty!

https://kamscloset.net/media/catalog/product/cache/0e162d827ad94beda56d4c6396a2f716/i/m/SIG/image_341855_2.jpg

If you are at all like me, the garden knome reminds me of snow white and the seven dwarfs. it gives me a reminder of some of most beloved stories as a child and it reminds me of what nature can bring. 

The garden knome is also available at http://www.kamscloset.net

https://kamscloset.net/media/catalog/product/cache/0e162d827ad94beda56d4c6396a2f716/i/m/SIG/849179014575_1.jpg

https://kamscloset.net/media/catalog/product/cache/0e162d827ad94beda56d4c6396a2f716/i/m/SIG/image_341855_2.jpg

If you are at all like me, the garden knome reminds me of snow white and the seven dwarfs. it gives me a reminder of some of most beloved stories as a child and it reminds me of what nature can bring. 

The garden knome is also available at http://www.kamscloset.net

https://kamscloset.net/media/catalog/product/cache/0e162d827ad94beda56d4c6396a2f716/i/m/SIG/849179014575_1.jpg

A Trafficked Child’s Account

Voices of the Present and the Future would like to bring to attention the human trafficking industry on this last day of Mental Awareness Month.

There have been millions of women, men and children around the world who have been and who continue to be subjected to forced labor, domestic servitude, or the sex trade at the hands of these human traffickers. It’s a form of modern-day slavery, the inhumane practice of human trafficking that takes place here in the United States as well.

Human trafficking is one of the most heinous crimes investigated by ICE. In it’s worst manifestation, human trafficking is akin to modern-day slavery. They are forced into  prostitution, involuntary labor and other forms of servitude to repay debts-often incurred during entry into the United States.

One story from a child who was trafficked:

“I was 17 around when I met ‘Robert’. It started off with me and my friend meeting him for social purposes. It just went on for about nine months and we were living in different hotels the entire time and I don’t even remember how many men there were. I was a runaway and wasn’t living anywhere stable, so since I was underage most of the time, I sort of needed him in order to get hotels and move around.

I had already been a prostitute since I was 15 and I think I just didn’t even know what was right or wrong and how I should be treated. Towards the end, he held me against my will in a hostage situation and forced me to prostitute and took all the money and just beat me severely.

The last time I saw him, he was just beating me until he was absolutely tired. I was covered in bruises, my face was completely disfigured and it’s causing me issue with my back to this day because of the way he was beating me and torturing me. That was probably the worst. There was a client in the room and he was having issue with something I couldn’t do because I was all beat up. I didn’t want to do it anymore. I didn’t want to do anything. He wanted his money back. When Robert and him were talking I ran out of the room and somehow was able to run faster than him.

I didn’t tell anyone. I kept it to myself until I got a call from the FBI that he’d been arrested for something else and asked would I talk. Having to go face everything and realize how serious everything was. For the longest time I didn’t even think it was that serious.

At the trial, it felt empowering to look at him the entire time. I’m sure it drove him crazy. He can never touch me but he had to look at me and listen and it made me feel good.

I had to learn that if I don’t at least have some kind of love and value for myself, no one ever will. My advice to other girls would be to let people help you.”

Empower yourself and help empower other writers, leave comments, follow, subscribe or just hit the like button. If you have a similar story to share we would love to hear it. Let us know what you have to say here at Voices, past, present,and future.

Mental Awareness Month

Good Morning friends. It’s been a few days for me, but now that the holiday weekend has now come to an end, graduations have come and gone (pre-K and First Grade for me), the graduation parties, the holiday barbeque’s, we can now fully dive back in to work. I devoted some long deserved time to my reading, so that I can return some books to the library on time, and worked on my short story course. I wasn’t fully off duty.

If you’re anything like me, your house is never television free. Somewhere there is always a TV on. As Stephen King say, “Television is on of the worst things you can have as a writer.” For me, THIS IS SO TRUE!

I was also trying to work out some of the kinks in my first draft. Where I want to take this character, what situation I would like to put this character in, and does this character really need to be in the book? Reworking the outline persay.

As the month of Mental Awareness comes to a close, I look back on some of my past articles/posts and I urge those of you who struggle with anything to seek help, be it a friend you can confide in, a pastor (preacher/ any religious person whom you trust), a family member, a spouse, or doctor. Don’t cheat yourself out of the life you deserve and the happiness you deserve.

Take a moment and love yourself today. Support your friends and fellow writers.

A Glance at a Moment in Time

Voices of the past, present, and future brings to you some some of the events impacting our world.

To start us off, I for one just learned while exploring Space.com, that an asteroid four times the size of the Empire State Building  will be barreling toward Earth on May 27th. The asteroid will zoom safely past Earth at 47, 200 mph, so fear not my friends.

In honor of my grandson, a giant ‘dragon of death’ with a 30-foot wingspan was unearthed in Argentina. Officially called a Thanotosdrakon, it is the largest pterosaur ever found in South America. My grandson, who knows every dinosaur, and everything about them, and he is only five, was thrilled to learn this new fact which I found in livescience.com.

According to bloodydisgusting.com and The Losers’ Club Podcast, ‘Rose Red’ marked the end of Stephen King’ Miniseries Boom.  According to King, Rose Red  had began a life as a potential dream collaboration between him and Steven spielberg, who wanted to make a haunted house movie that echoed Shirlie Jackson’s iconic The Haunting of Hill House. King, who was an avowed fan of Jackson’s masterpiece, had ran with the idea but also wove in the legend of the Winchester Mystery House. Due to creative differences between King and Spielberg, the project was was plagued and eventually shelved.

If we go back to August 11, 2021, we were supposed to be invaded by aliens, a person claiming to be a “real time traveler” had reported. He stated he was from the year 2714 in a TIKTOK video. He also stated “There will be a very large meteor shower that lasts for two weeks, it will be seen in the northern hemisphere, containing the Nozic message. One of the meteors will seem different than all the others, that is because it is a ship landing on Earth, starting preparations for the first Nozic War.”

And on to more recent events…. A 57-year-old cold case involving the brutal sexual assault and murder of a 9-year-old girl was solved using genetic genealogy in Pennsylvania. Marise Ann Chiverella was killed on March 18, 1964. She had been taking canned goods to a church on her way to school but never returned back to her home. Her murder now solved as of February 10, 2022. May she rest in peace.

Thank you for traveling with Voices, past, present, and future.

Don’t forget to support your fellow writers!

EXCITING NEWS

Hello my faithful followers and future ones! I want to provide you an update on my future book “Small Town Facade”. If you have not yet had the chance to go into my pages and check it out, now is the TIME! I will be providing you updated chapters and they are doosies!

There is more than just a kidnapping going on in this town my friends! AND…..Someone else will go missing!

Don’t cheat yourself out of a great read, especially on these rainy days, mother nature is providing us to get caught up on our reading.

I look forward to reading your comments and also listening to your input on what you think should happen. THIS IS a first draft.. and you WILL find many mistakes.

As a beginning writer, we all look to our fellow writers for insight and communication, and advice on how to make ourselves better writers.

Support your fellow writers. And look for those NEW chapters later today!

An Unmarked Grave

Voices of the Present and Future has recently been reading about the 751 unmarked graves found at the site of a former residential school in Saskatchewan. If you haven’t been following the news, please continue reading this post as this discovery just comes weeks after the remains of 215 children were found at a similar residential school in British Columbia.

A statement was given by Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. He said he was “terribly saddened” by the discovery in Saskatchewan. He also said it was “a shameful reminder of the systematic racism, descrimination, and injustice that indigenous peoples have faced.”

Between the years of 1863 and 1998, there were more than 150,000 indigenous children that were taken from their families and placed in these schools throughout Canada. Often, these children were not allowed to speak their language or to practice their culture. Many being abused and mistreated.

A former residential school student, Florence Sparvier, spoke at a press conference stating, ” They made us believe we didn’t have souls. They were putting us down as people, so we learned to not like who we were.”

A commission that was launched in 2008 to document the impacts of this system, found that large numbers of indigenous children never returned to their home communities. The practice amounted to cultural genocide. In 2008, the Canadian government formally apologized for the system, although this does not bring back the lives that were lost or to quote the words used, “the souls” that were lost.

Chief Delorme said there may have once been markers for the graves but the Roman Catholic Church, which oversaw the cemetary, may have removed them. It is not yet determined if all of these unmarked graves are those of children.

There was an estimated 6,000 children who died while attending these schools. The students were often housed in poorly built, poorly heated, and unsanitary facilities. There was also physical and sexual abuse at the hands of the school authorities which led other children to run away.

I urge you to take a moment of silence for the lives of those lost and prayers that identities will be provided for the unmarked graves that have been found.

Thank you for following Voices of the Present and Future today.

Statistically Speaking

Voices of the present and the future wants to offer you a little insight into the statistics of serial killers. According to research (via Discover; and Radford University’s Mike Aamodt), there are fewer serial killers on the prowl since the dawn of the new century. If we look at the 1980’s we were at a high point with almost 770, that we know of, that we operating across the U.S. during the decade. That number dropped during the 1990’s and yet again in the 2000’s, and by 2016, there had been only about 100 that had popped up in the prior decade. So, this has to be some good news for some of you who may suffer from regular nightmares that may involve being stalked or attacked by a serial killer. You can rest at ease, at least a little.

I want to offer you a few theories that police have put out there that may explain just what may be going on. It involves things like the advances in investigative methods and forensic science, a higher chance of getting caught, and being linked definintively to more crimes, there is stricter sentencing. There are also factors like cell phones and an increased connectivity between parents and children that make picking out victims a little more difficult these days. It is possible that our young kids and teens who have the potential to grow up to become serial killers are instead seeking help they need first.

We can’t say there aren’t any serial killers out there, because ther are, as well as new ones popping up. In addition to the ones who have managed to elude police and capture for a long time.

LET’S TAKE A LOOK AT WHO A FEW OF THEM ARE:

WE HAVE THE I-70 KILLER, who between April 8 and May 7, 1992, shot and killed six people along the stretch of I-70. There were striking similarities between these victims. Five of them were women and the police believe the sixth was mistaken for woman when the killer saw his long pony tail. All were brunettes, and all were employees at stores just off the highway. They were also all killed with a .22 caliber bullet. There had been no sexual assault, no major thefts, and witnesses were able to give a description of a man seen entering the stores before the murders. The spring of 2022 marks the 30-year anniversary of the still-unsolved murders.

WE ALSO HAVE THE EASTBOUND STRANGLER. On November 20, 2006, the bodies of four women had been beaten and neatly discarded behind the Golden Key Motel in a Subur outside of Atlantic City. The women had been fully clothed, except for their shoes and socks, and they had been positioned face down in a line behind the motel. They all had been strangled. This killer is still out there and a $25,000 reward has been issued for information leading to the killers arrest.

WE MOVE ON TO THE WEST MESA MURDERS. These murders stated back in 2001, when women started going missing more often than usual. Almost a decade late, on February 2, 2009, a woman came across a human bone, leading to a crime scene no one could imagine. Eleven victims of the “West Mesa Bone Collector” wouldn’t be identified for another 11 years. Eleven women and one child were found and identified. The West Mesa Bone Collector’s idenity still remains a mystery and the investigation is still ongoing. There is a $100,000 reward being offered for information about the killer.

There are many more as you will soon learn if you continue reading my blog. I urg you to follow the conversation and subscribe or leave a comment. Thank you to all my followers!

Humanity’s Future

Voices of the future would like to present to you thoughts on what the future may hold and the possibilities that ly out there for us.

An American cultural phenomenon began in the 1940’s and 50’s. Reports of “flying saucers”, strange sightings of objects unidetified objects in the sky would become the raw materials for Hollywood. With the ongoing ideas about life on the Moon or the canals on Mars, flying saucers represent the hopes and fears of the world we live in today.

Wonders about visitors from other planets brought about the questions as to if they are peaceful or is there the possibility of an attack and destruction of humanity as we know it? The destruction that the Atomic Bomb would bring, brought during the Cold War era, made way for extraterrestrial anxieties and the possibility, that this in turn, manifested visions of flying sauceres and the question of the possibility of aliens living among us.

A 1962 comic There are Martians Among us, illustrates the way fear of these extraterrestrials could reflect Cold War anxietiess. A part of the mythology of America are the ideas that there are indeed the ideas of aliens and flying saucers. Scientists and astronomers, although dismissing the idea that there are aliens who live among us, do express to varying degrees, some enthusiasm about the possibility of intelligent life in the universe. The skeptic and speculative imaginations represent two halvs of the whole. Strange as it may be, it is essential to entertain and explore these ideas, at the same time, we must test and evaluate the validity of these ideas.

Every day phenomenon that we take for granted, but can be explained, are the questions: Why does a Camel have a hump? Can you really tell the weather by listening to the chirp of a cricket? Why do our bones crack?

In 1901, an engineer named, Nicola Tesla, made an astonishing claim that he was receiving radio communications from Mars. Although his alleged communications with Mars captured media attention, scientists weren’t interested. Similar observations were made by an Italian engineer, Guglielmo Marconi. Thomas Edison stated that Marconi’s work offered “good grounds for the theory that inhabitants of other planets are trying to signal us.”

Carl Sagan and a team that he put together who developed the content for the Voyager record, were posed a question: What do you say to a super intelligent alien race on behalf of all the inhabitants of the world? In a letter Carl Sagan wrote to Alan Lomax, he called the Voyager Record “a comic greeting card.” It is unlikely that the voyager records now at the edge of our solar system will ever be found by alien life.

The mythology of martian civilization becomes a creative way to reflect on humanity’s future.

I ask you, what ideas do you like to consider when you reflect on our humanity’s future?

FUTURE

Voices of the future would like to share with you the predictions of many as to what our future holds for us.

2054-Mission to interstellar object ‘Ouamua. What does this mean? The prediction states that in 2054, close range observations are made of the interstellar object. It follows a complex and high speed Jupiter Oberth maneuver, that enables a probe to catch up with it.

In 2100-Africa is a major urban and political center. What does this mean? The prediction states that by 2100 Africa will emerge as a stronger, more confident, independent, and geopolitical influence, with a population that exceeds four billion.

Did you know that The Adam Smith Institute published a new report on property rights in space? I found out that it suggests dividing the Moon into regions and privatizing it. The institute believes that it could help end global poverty.

NASA predicts that sea levels will rise through to the year 2150.

In 2031 it is predicted that the International Space Station will be retired and crash intoa remote part of the Pacific Ocean.

What do these predictions mean to you, and do you believe someone can predict what will happen in the distant but near future?

Please support your fellow bloggers and join the conversation.