Heartland stories and celebrities

I will write the evangel-poem of comrades and of love.
--Walt Whitman

Globally, we’re a celebrity-driven culture. In America, personalities like Anna Nicole Smith and Britney Spears get way more ink than is justified by their contributions. Other countries have their own celeb circuits. Otherwise, bin Ladin wouldn’t be a household name and Bollywood favorite Hrithik Roshan wouldn’t be in hot water after making harmless remarks about two other celebrities’ height.

My favorite stories to write are what I call “heartland stories.” I like to write about the woman or man who lives a life outside the spotlight, but whose contribution is significant just the same. One such story at the moment belongs to Gilmer Hernandez. At my Covering Florida blog, there’s an update to the Family Security Matters story I wrote. Last night, as I did phone interviews for the update, a friend of Hernandez told me the national media isn’t picking his story up.

That’s a sad state of affairs. Issues over illegal immigration have both major political parties muddled, and many of us are muddled as well. For me, the issue has nothing to do with those legally entering the country. It has to do with the fact we’re fighting a war abroad to protect our freedoms, but a significant vulnerability, one that will surely be exploited at some point, exists close to home. It has to do with the fact that politicians and statesmen in many nations are doing nothing to improve the lives of their people, despite resources available to them.

Another cause that governs what I write is freedom of speech. I learned about the plight of blogger Kareem Amer, an Egyptian facing four years in prison for writing critical remarks about Islam and President Hosni Mubarak. There’s an update today at Free Kareem!. Amer’s lawyers are appealing his sentence but only in hopes of decreasing the length of it. Amer’s advocates have opened a store to raise money for his efforts.

A centerpiece in my new nonfiction book tells the story of a Florida man, Taylor Wells, convicted of felony murder in 1994. He was 18 years old, several weeks shy of graduating high school. In the real world, he harmed no one. In the legal world, he was judged guilty enough to receive a life sentence. Others who were instrumental in the 1993 crime have already been released from prison. The difference between these actors in the crime: their attorneys. Taylor’s public defender was at a distinct disadvantage for a number of reasons.

A goal I’ve had since beginning my career involves what I call “lastingness.” I like to write for publications that have been around for a long time, where my work will remain archived. Among these pubs are Christian Science Monitor and The Writer. And of course one reason I write poetry is the lasting quality. It has a good shelf life. I recently wrote a poem about a young homeless man I talk to when we go to our favorite restaurant. I asked myself who else would tell his story.

As a writer, I can sometimes strengthen the voice of the disenfranchised or the non-elite. I figure it’s a small way to contribute something to a world that has returned so much to me, despite a rough patch at the beginning.

Media alert: Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer gets four years

This morning the Washington Post reports Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil, who writes under the pen name Kareem Amer, has been convicted of “insulting Islam and President Hosni Mubarak.” Nabil has been sentenced to four years in prison.

An advocacy blog,Free Kareem!, vows to continue to fight for the 22-year-old who attended Egypt's Al-Azhar University, an Islamic school. The blog says Nabil’s lawyers will launch an appeal on Saturday with hopes of at least shortening his sentence. The blog lists rallies to be held at Egyptian embassies around the world on Nabil’s behalf.

There’s a June, 2006, article, ‘SOS from an Egyptian blogger’ at Christian Science Monitor, explaining the perils bloggers face in Egypt. The article’s author goes by the pen name Sandmonkey to avoid the very circumstances confronting Nabil.

Sandmonkey says in the month before his article appeared in CSM, the American government criticized Egypt several times for “its treatment of protestors.”

Nothing strikes the core of a journalist more than seeing a fellow writer go to prison for expressing beliefs that harm no one. If Egypt continues to oppress those who are critical of Islam and the government, I hope our own media does what the U.S. State Department did.

We need to protest so loudly and so defiantly that Egypt takes notice: Free Kareem!

Couldn't put it down: The Alexandria Link

Steve Berry’s latest book is, in my opinion, his best.

The Alexandria Link builds a story around the lost library of Alexandria. Berry is a history buff, and so am I. He always engages my interest because he does his research carefully and he prods the story along with lots of action. He’s widely traveled, so the descriptions of locale always feel authentic.

What’s riveting about this book relates to a real theory put forth by a Lebanese scholar, Kamal Salibi. Salibi theorized, in a series of books, that many Biblical locations are mapped incorrectly—that the traditional land of Israel is in fact in West Arabia. Further intrigue revolves around the Saudi leveling of a neighborhood in that very area after Salibi’s works were published.

The novel's plot sends Berry’s main character Cotton Malone, a seller of rare books, retired from a U.S. intelligence agency, on a fantastic chase to track down the library by way of clues. Berry puts Middle East politics and American politics on the front burner, but this doesn’t impede the reader’s pleasure. Salibi's premise of Biblical locations mapped incorrectly contributes an air of intrigue and makes the reader think about something most of us never even considered. Berry skillfully weaves the real-life premises into his fiction.

This is easily his best book. I’ve read each of his novels, and he is just really coming into his own. He’s much more at ease with the characters, and his prose is very graceful. Berry is a natural-born storyteller.

I’ve met Steve several times at author events where we both were speaking, and he is a very nice fellow. Despite his string of bestsellers, he comes off as a regular fellow. Knowing that makes reading his work even more pleasurable for me.