A VERY PRIVATE SCHOOL by Charles Spencer

Charles Spencer, brother of the late Diana, has done the world an enormous favor, and I don’t say that as any sort of exaggeration. He’s done an amazingly good thing for humanity by publishing his new book, A VERY PRIVATE SCHOOL. Thank you, Charles Spencer!

In Spencer’s case, he had the misfortune of attending a boarding school in England called Maidwell Hall, and the place had a headmaster and staff of abusers and pedophiles. A staff chock full of nuts, in other words.

I myself did not attend a boarding school, something for which I daily thank God, but growing up, I went to six different schools, three public and three private day schools. The three public schools were fantastic. The three private ones? Bizarre! So weird that I always identify with books like this one by Charles Spencer, or the first-person accounts of Paris Hilton and Katherine Kubler.

Private schools, whether they be day schools or boarding schools, are almost always unregulated places, and therefore, hell for the children who are stuck in them. There is NO oversight. No inspections. No board of education concerned with the welfare of the children.

No one to turn to if you have a legitimate complaint. Nobody is “watching the store.” Ever.

They are only as good as the character of whatever headmaster or headmistress has landed in the principal’s office, and a lot of those who wind up there are sorely lacking in not only qualifications but moral fiber. That was the case for Charles Spencer, whose headmaster was a pervert.

In my case, one was a sadistic nun and another was a drunk who behaved more like a member of the Mafia than the head of a school. I can’t speak for whoever ran the third private school I went to because I got myself out of there within about two weeks – but I can only imagine.

There was corporal punishment in the first school and the strangest forms of emotional abuse I’ve ever had the displeasure of being on the receiving end in the other. I was not abused sexually but at one of the schools, I found out years later, two other students, boys, were. I have a working theory that it was even more widespread there than just those two victims, and have been trying to find out more information about that for years, but getting people from that place to talk is an uphill battle. On top of all else, a lot of these places seem to be run on the Mafia principle of “omertà,” the gangster’s code of silence.

Corruption in such places can be rife because the old adage is true. Where there’s an opportunity you’ll find opportunists. What better place for some sick degenerate to work than a school where no one is held accountable for their actions?

Anyway, I urge anyone who went to one of these wretched institutions to get to the nearest bookstore and read A VERY PRIVATE SCHOOL. Spencer hits the place he attended right between the eyes, and it’s high time somebody did! The weirdo headmaster, the sadistic teachers, the other teachers who were not abusive but nevertheless complicit and therefore useless, the way the parents were told one thing while all manner of hideous others were going on – it’s all there. All of it. It’s even made me see parts of my own experiences with new eyes.

If you survived private school, you’ll get a lot from this book.

BRAVO, CHARLES SPENCER!

What THE ZONE OF INTEREST Left Out

Congratulations to all involved with the movie THE ZONE OF INTEREST. It just received an Oscar for Best International Film.

I just wanted to add one thing. Well, maybe two.

This is a movie that tells the story of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoss and his family who lived in a really nice luxurious house – right beyond the gates of the notorious death camp. It’s intriguing to see how he and his wife and five children lived, sure. Beautiful house, lots of slave labor for help, a greenhouse, a pool for the kids, and so on, though how he and the wife managed to live with themselves in such a morally bankrupt situation is a whole other matter. And that’s the main point of the movie, that they carried on at home as if everything was normal when the ovens of Auschwitz were across the street and behind a wall.

Bizarre.

But the first thing I wanted to point out is not how Rudolf Hoss lived.

It’s how he died.

Rudolf Hoss wound up hanged for war crimes – as well he should have been! He commanded the camp where 1.1 million people were murdered. He may have enjoyed life in his villa when he went home to it after working hours but he didn’t get away with it. He was held accountable and executed with a rope like a common thug, which underneath his spiffy Nazi uniform was exactly what he really was. A thug. A killer. Amoral in the extreme.

Yet this wasn’t mentioned at all in the movie.

That just doesn’t seem right to me. Why not at least have a title card added at the end stating that Hoss ultimately got what was coming to him?

They also don’t get into what happened to the wife and children, but I went and looked it up. Apparently after the war the family was destitute. The wife couldn’t get a war widow’s pension due to her husband’s designation as a war criminal. Not that she would have deserved one, but you know what I mean. I’m just sayin’. Fact. She didn’t get one. His actions left her and the kids without resources. For a time the children were reportedly wearing rags tied on their feet because they didn’t have money for shoes.

There are those who probably would say there was some justice in that, but where children are concerned, I never like to hear that a child, even the child of a hideous Nazi, winds up in a bad place due to the actions of the parents. Those kids were hardly responsible for their father’s despicable choices or actions. Parents aren’t always all they’re cracked up to be, and that is especially in a situation like this.

Maybe the movie’s creative directors thought it would make more of a statement not to get into all of the details of the aftermath. Perhaps they wanted to leave the audience with a feeling of incompletion. If so, that worked for me.

For anyone else who may be interested in finding out more information about this chapter of history, I recommend the book Hanns and Rudolf by Thomas Harding. It’s about Hanns Alexander and Rudolf Hoss. Hanns, who fled Berlin for England while there was still time to get out of Germany, is the Jewish guy who tracked Hoss down after the war and brought him to justice. It’s an un-put-downable read by Hanns’ nephew. Thank goodness there are people like Hanns in the world.

BRAVO, HANNS!

THE PROGRAM on Netflix

THE PROGRAM on Netflix is outrageous.

Katherine Kubler, who was stuck in a “school” for “troubled teens” by her duped father and stepmother, along with several other kids from the same hideous facility, Ivy Ridge, went back and created a three-part documentary to reveal to the world what went on there, and what a great job they did! Ms. Kubler deserves a Medal of Honor, at the very least, for exposing such a place! And an Emmy.

I’ve said this before, when Paris Hilton’s documentary exposed another one of these creepy places, and I’m going to say this again. Any parent who thinks it’s “okay” to have thugs come into their home and KIDNAP a child to take them to one of these places IS A CHILD ABUSER! Period. Who would even consider such a move as being “good” for their child? That would screw any child up for life right there, and then, they’re brought by their hired kidnappers to a fake, unaccredited “school” that’s run like a cross between a prison camp and a dystopian alternate universe. Mommies and Daddies pay thousands upon thousands of dollars to keep them there and it’s not easy for the children to get out.

Wow, what parents those child victims have! Every parent who ever agreed to such a move belongs under arrest fro child child abuse. Period! No ifs, no ands, no buts – it’s child abuse!

At the site of the Ivy Ridge School, which is now – mercifully – closed, Kubler and her team found TONS of files and even videos documenting the atrocities that went on in that dreadful, unholy place. So there’s no hope for the perpetrators to claim “it didn’t happen.” It did, and there’s PROOF. Yes, folks – PROOF!

The enforcers who worked at these places also belong under arrest, for child abuse and a whole lot more – assault, wrongful imprisonment, kidnapping, negligent infliction of emotional distress, intentional infliction of emotional distress, in many cases sexual assault, and oh, how the list can go on! They should be rounded up and put away!

Then there’s the bozos who own and profit from these atrocious excuses for “schools,” brothers Robert and Narvin Lichfield from Utah. They should also be arrested, and posthaste. Where is the FBI? Isn’t kidnapping a federal offense? Isn’t kidnapping also a CAPITAL offense? Bruno Richard Hauptman got the electric chair for allegedly kidnapping the Lindbergh baby, for God’s sake! This despicable Lichfield duo was responsible for not only Ivy Ridge but for Paris Hilton’s “school,” Provo Canyon School, too. And more. They even have these fake prison/schools in other countries. Their company is called WWASP, which stands for “World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools.” They have plenty of these facilities. A lot of these places have been raided by the police and shut down due to the abuses goign on within them – but not all.

Not all.

Why are there WWASP failities that are still open?

Why are Robert and Narvin Lichfield not held accountable?

AND WHY HAVE THEY NOT BEEN ARRESTED YET?

Thanks to Katherine Kubler, Paris Hilton, and their production teams, people of goodwill everywhere now want to know!

Was There a Security Breach at Shopify?

What’s going on with Shopify?

Over the past four days I have received LITERALLY about 400 spam texts and spam email messages from various companies with websites located all over the world. Most of them sell unattractive-looking apparel, but there’s other items, and food, for sale as well. I have never heard of ANY of these companies before, and I can tell you, I already never want to hear from any of them again. It’s been a royal pain in the ass having to block 400 piddly-squat little companies from my devices!

This situation sucks!

When I contacted one of the local companies to ask them if they knew what was going on, they said it’s SHOPIFY that handles their mailings over texts and emails.

Well, if Shopify is handling the messages for these 400 companies, I say, HEY, SHOPIFY, YOUR SECURITY HAS BEEN BREACHED!

Do something about it and stop harrassing people like me!

UPDATE: It’s STILL going on five days later!

Making the WISH: Disney’s Newest Cruise Ship Movie

A documentary about Disney’s newest cruise ship.

Everything Disney does is always unsurpassed. Magical. The best!

Their latest cruise ship, The Wish, is, of course, no exception.

It’s been snowy and bitterly cold these last few days in the northeast, and I’ve been staying iside, watching a lot of movies and miniseries, as a result. I’ve got several streaming services, including Disney Plus, and that’s where I found the feel-good documentary about the creation of the company’s latest ship.

Would you believe that an estimated 15,000 people were involved in making this beautiful vessel happen?

Or that 100 building “blocks” of pieces, for lack of a better way of phrasing it, were involved in soldering it together?

Or that it’s three football fields long and twenty stories high?

Well, it’s the culmination of all of those things and more. There’s also the trademark Disney magic.

This documentary was absolutely wonderful to watch! It’s impossible not to smile as you see the engineers, imagineers and other creative types as they work to see their dreams for this ship come true right before their very eyes, piece by piece and bit by bit. They put so much love into it. To make matters even better, the ship was built during the pandemic. It took a whopping five years from the ship’s original conception to its maiden voyage, and there was a race against the clock at the end to get it ship-shape before it set sail, if you’ll excuse the pun, but it’s Disney, folks, so the race was won.

Take a look on Disney Plus yourself, and by all means, keep on smiling!

A Valentine’s Day New Book Release

Happy Valentine’s Day! How is everybody going to celebrate?

For me, the answer to that one is easy. Today is Release Day for my latest cozy mystery, CHILD OF SECRETS FROM AFAR. It’s a story of a nice family that adopts two orphans from Operation Babylift that was organized at the very end of the Vietnamese War. It begins in April 1975 and ends on Valentine’s Day 1976, which led to my choice of the publication date.

Here’s the synopsis:

Belinda and Jonathan O’Malley always wanted a sibling for their daughter, Holly.  When the opportunity arose in 1975 to adopt two Vietnamese orphan girls from Operation Babylift, they were overjoyed to welcome Liana and Bonnie into their home.   Exuberant Bonnie is delighted to finally find herself with a family but Liana is a lot more reticent.

When a strange Vietnamese man Belinda doesn’t know takes such an interest in Liana that he tracks her to the O’Malley’s Indiana hometown, Belinda has to wonder what is going on.   The stakes are raised higher when their new daughter, who isn’t forthcoming about her past, goes missing not long after this odd guy shows up.

Who is this man?  What does he want with her child?   And what, for that matter, went on with eight-year-old Liana, back in Vietnam, to have sparked this whole dilemma in the first place?

A riveting mystery about a well-intentioned American family and their adopted child of secrets.

It’s available now.

Have Yourselves A Fabulous Valentine’s Day!

Anne Frank’s Hiding Place Had A Courtyard with 40 Buildings Around It

The “Secret Annexe” where Anne Frank and seven other people hid, trying to survive World War II, can be seen in the block right above the church in this photo.

It took me a long time to locate this aerial view of the street on which they hid, Prinsengracht, but today I found it. Take a good look at the block in question. Every building on it was built around a courtyard.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I disagree wholeheartedly with the latest investigation into who betrayed Anne and her family and friends in hiding, which came to the outrageous conclusion that a Jewish man, on the Jewish council set up by the Nazis, deliberately betrayed these people. The investigation’s claim was that he had a list of Jews in hiding and might have given up the Franks et al. to “save his family.”

Right there, I find the whole idea ridiculous. Why the hell would a member of the Jewish Council have a written list of those in hiding just lying around for him to conveniently use to give their names up? The last thing any rational person would do during such a time period would be to put that kind of information in writing and have it handy. Absurd!

Then there’s the office helpers, like Miep Gies, who had supplied food and other items to her friends who were hiding in that building. Would they have taken the risk of “registering” what they were doing to that council man, or any other? The idea is ludicrous!

Furthermore, it has been alleged, though not proven, that a woman called in the tip of where to find the Franks and their hidden friends. If that’s true, it was not a man, Jewish or otherwise.

And most glaring of all, to me, is that courtyard.

I understand that FORTY buildings were erected around the courtyard. Just look at that photo! So there were eight people hiding in the back rooms of an office building facing a canal and a street at the front and a courtyard at the back. A boy in a documentary who lived in one of those buildings once said he saw a dark-haired girl looking out the window one day during the war, and when she saw him, she pulled back, out of view. 

That could only have been either Anne or Margot Frank.

And if one boy could have seen the girl, so could any one of the residents of those forty buildings, not to mention those on the canal and the street on the other side. On the weekends and at night the eight people in hiding could leave the back part of the edifice. They walked around in both parts of the building. That probably was a bad idea.

Add to that, there was the fact that this building was an active office and a warehouse, with employees going in and out. It’s been said that when it was raided, the Gestapo went straight to the bookcase, behind which the door to the “secret” rooms was concealed. It might have been from inside information. Either that, or on the other hand, they knew how these canal houses were constructed and figured the way to the back rooms was through a door that would have had to be in that particular area behind the bookcase.

Anyway, just take a look at that photo – and then tell me why I, or any of us, should believe the betrayal was due to “a member of the Jewish Council.”

Ridiculous!

This Week Only: Special eBook Deal on CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF ANSWERS

This week only, today, February 5, 2024, through February 11th, the eBook of CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF ANSWERS is available on a special discount of only $0.99. As they used to say next to the price on the cover of MAD Magazine, CHEAP!

I started writing CLOUDY during the lockdown and it was a joy to write, a total blast. I grew up in the suburbs. People who didn’t don’t always realize just how wacky the suburbs can be. I put a whole lot of that into writing this book. It’s a crime story, yes, but I also made it as funny as I possibly could. In fact, when I read over the first draft, I couldn’t stop laughing at the character of the dragon of a grandmother, even though she was my own creation. 

It’s available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo Rakuten, and so on. Download your copy today! Woo-HOO!

New Cozy Mystery Release: CHILD OF SECRETS FROM AFAR

Here comes my next cozy mystery, folks!

It’s called CHILD OF SECRETS FROM AFAR, and the story begins with the fall of Saigon, when so many orphans were being evacuted from Vietnam with Operation Babylift. A lovely midwestern couple and their daughter welcome two little Vietnamese girls into their home and their hearts. 

But why is there a strange man lurking around town who seems to be after one of them?

The book will be available on Valentine’s Day, and as always, I had a great time writing it. I could picture the main character, the adoptive mother, Belinda, as if I was standing right beside her and watching all of the goings-on.

I would say a whole lot more about this little historical mystery, and some of the stories I’ve heard over the years that inspired it, but hey, I never like to add spoilers to any posts I write about other people’s work, so I won’t be adding any to my own, either. All I’ll say is that, again, the book is called CHILD OF SECRETS FROM AFAR, so please be on the lookout for it! Does that child ever have a secret. 

Here’s Why You Should Never Mess with an Author

Tee hee hee!

How you treat people becomes a part of their story.  Authors have no problem telling it – and selling it!

It’s a point to ponder for bullies, if indeed any bullies are capable of reflection.

Happy Monday, Everybody!