Town East Baptist Church Release Form: Fill & Download for Free

I had a number of spiritual experiences through various drugs and hallucinogens during the 70s. I was a spiritual seeker. As a teenager, I searched the eastern philosophies first. Eventually, through my spiritual meditations I was drawn to the deep desire to communicate with a personal being as the cause of existence. I wrote out my search in as My Personal Journey Into Faith.What was your first reaction when you heard the concept of God and Heaven? Did you embrace it as a trusting child? Did it mean little to you when you were young and even less when you were older? Was your belief expected and pushed on you? Was your only experience with God saying the Pledge of Allegiance in school each morning? Was it a positive, negative, or neutral idea when you first encountered it? It is literally impossible to live in society without making a decision as to how important or unimportant this belief is going to be in your own life. Will the value you place on it be a driving force or irrelevant to daily life? Will you disbelieve it so much that you become an antagonist to those who do or just avoid believers at all cost. There are numerous other positions and emphases people place on God and things spiritual. On a scale of 1 to 10, how far have you worked these issues out for yourself?This is where my testimony begins. At this point in my life, I can’t even imagine not fully addressing the question of God and His relevance to my life and those closest to me and beyond. But, this was not always so. I was a small child once without the knowledge of a god of any type or special nature. To my parents, God was mostly irrelevant. My mother was raised in a family who was in church on Sunday with a mother and father she was not emotionally close to, but I’m sure loved her in their own way. This was the old days when children were expected to be seen and not heard. Her church going ended by the time she left home at age twenty-one to marry my father. My father was raised by a family that did not attend church. He had no personal faith of his own and never did see it as important to life. He mentioned how he once had said a sinner’s prayer with a religious missionary woman before he went overseas to join the battle in World War II, but this was not a conversion experience for my father as far as I could tell. His army-air force dog tags said protestant, but that basically meant he was an average American of the times. So, as a result, there was little spiritual input into my mind in the first years of life.I remember very vividly at the age of three I witnessed a mid-air explosion of a B-52 bomber east of our small home in Tracy, California as the east-facing front window shook violently. Being in the living room at the time, I peered out to see the plane wreckage descending in smoke and the open parachutes of several of those who survived. I don’t remember any spiritual questions about death at this age. It would be a few more years until death raised a more profound question for me. At about six years old, my mother did drop me off at a local church for Sunday school for a short period of time. It was also about this age that I was watching a movie on television about Blackbeard the pirate. At the end of the movie, though not historically accurate, Blackbeard is shot, wounded, and then buried up to his neck in sand and left to drown in the incoming tide. Thinking about his slow death caused me to reflect on what would be going through your mind when you have time to realize you are dying. Afterwards I asked my mother, “What happens when you die?” She answered with the only response a church raised mother could give, “When you die, you go to Heaven.” What else would she have told me at six years of age? I’m not sure this was something she even fully believed at the time. It was the “stock” answer. Later in life she was more of a doubter than a believer. In her eighties she seems to give a little more credence to belief in an afterlife, but I’m not sure what that means to her. I, at the age of six, was satisfied with my mother’s pronouncement and had no more questions for several years. The Pledge of Allegiance to “one nation under God” at the start of each school day was the extent of my worship. Then, in fourth grade, my parents divorced, and my brothers and I were sent to live with our mother in Palo Alto, California. Here, I found a friend in the next-door neighbor boy named, Lyle Sakamoto. His family was of Japanese ancestry and religion. I learned his family was Buddhist. I also learned that Buddhists didn’t believe in God. I was confused at first. Didn’t everyone believe in God? It felt a little awkward that my friend did not share my belief. I had just assumed until that point in my young life that everyone believed the same. It was a real learning experience for an eight-year-old. Life went on. In sixth grade, my brothers and I moved back to be with my dad in Tracy, California. We had a Mormon live-in housekeeper who took us to an LDS church for a period of time. I don’t remember caring much for going to the church, but I did like being in the boy scout troop that they sponsored. That all ended when we moved to Stockton, California a year later. After a couple of shorter term house keepers, we finally hired a seventy-six-year old woman who was with us through high school. She was a faithful Christian woman, Clara, who attended the Baptist Church down the street. We didn’t attend, but I did go to their youth groups a few times. I remember quitting the group after one gathering. It was a sort of fun and activities event where they wouldn’t let me say no to a spin-‘til-your-dizzy race even after I warned them about my problems with car-sickness and getting dizzy too easily. I obliged and ran headlong into a patio-cover support post. As I said, I never went back. I didn’t blame their religion though.My faith journey was actually just starting to pick up. It was the Jesus Freak era just taking off in the late ‘60s that brought my next thinking-about-God encounter. I had been a little rebellious of thought about mainline preachers. I’m not quite sure where that thinking came from, television preachers or whatever. I just didn’t care much for the idea of church in my teen years. Then came along one of my hippie high school friends named Bob Dauphney. He was the essential Jesus Freak of that time. This was the approach that got through my defenses. He actually got me to read a paperback copy of the New Testament of the Bible called Good News for Modern Man. I began in the front with theGospel of Matthew where I learned all about the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. I kept going, next I began to read the Gospel of Mark. What? It was the same story. “Hey what’s going on?” I thought. This is the same story, they can’t fool me. Then came the Gospel of Luke and John. They were all the same story basically about how God sent his Son to save man from his sins by dying on the cross. It made no sense to me at the time why they would tell the same story four times in a row. Yes, now I know they just wanted the story confirmed by multiple witnesses to the event with different perspectives, but agreeing on the essentials, but at the time it seemed odd to me. I put it down for the time and read no further.In my late teens, I began to experiment with mind altering drugs. I also began reading about mystical religious experiences such as occur in Buddhist meditation. I read a book by Carlos Casteneda titled, “The teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge” in which hallucinogenic drugs and mystical experience become intertwined. I had friends who were Hari Krishna followers. I was surrounded and influenced by the legacy of the Beatles and the culture that was forming at that time, yet there was something missing. I remember being at a concert in the city, “San Francisco,” and getting locked out of the concert because, while under the influence of some mind-altering drug, I left the venue which clearly stated, “No Readmittance.” While outside, feeling sorry for myself for my situation, I felt the need to speak to the infinite mind, or whatever I deemed the ultimate spiritual nature of the universe to be. Even though my personal leanings had been toward some undefined mystical presence out in the cosmos, I couldn’t get away from the need to talk to it. And, if I was to talk to it, wouldn’t it really be more of a personal deity or god that I felt the need to relate my troubles to? I decided there that my petitions were to a personal God and not just an impersonal transcendent reality that I could only reach through great meditation in some cave in the wilderness. Oh, by the way, I solved my problem of getting locked out of the concert. I paid a second admission. LOL.Sometime, a bit later on, some friends and I drove from our home town of Stockton to attend a rock concert in the old broken down Grand Theater in Tracy, California. I had fond remembrances of movies I had seen there for a quarter as a child in the 1950s when we had lived there. The concert, unexpectedly was put on by a Christian rock band. I think a lot of people were unaware that this was the type of music they were going to hear as well as the testimony of one of the members. The audience began booing. I don’t remember if my friends took part, but, as the booing continued, the leader of the group said a few words to the crowd, and then asked for everyone who believed in God to stand with them. I and a few others from the audience stood with them. I don’t remember any of my friends taking the offer. I think that really was a turning point for me and, though I didn’t really think about it, took me a step farther down the path towards a personal relationship with God. My friends and life style still had not changed a whole lot.Sometime later, I moved into an apartment with that friend from high school, Bob Dauphney. He had recently disavowed his faith in Christ and gone back to the general heathen lifestyle we all engaged in. I was a little disappointed for him as he had been so fervent and excited about his faith. He had recently broken up with his girlfriend from the Church in the Park, a small outside gathering in Stockton. He took up with another more, let’s say, liberated woman and got back to the lifestyle of us actual urban hippies of the day as the free love and peace era began fading out there about 1972. I remember, a summer or two later, I was driving home from my summer forklift job at a grading station when I noticed some hitchhiking hippies. I pulled over and offered them a ride. Well, guess what? They were Jesus freaks, and they proceeded to preach to me all I needed to know about Jesus and that without Him, I would certainly go to hell. So much for my act of kindness that day. Well, I filed that experience away and went on with life. As 1974 arrived and I was preparing to transfer to Sacramento State University, I began to have a sudden attraction to crosses that people wore around their necks. I even made an attempt to go to a Christian bookstore and buy one, but I believe I forgot to bring enough cash or for some reason it didn’t work out. I think I tried another time at another location, and that didn’t work out either so I finally gave up. I thought about this later, and I just figured God was telling me it wasn’t the right time. I needed to know His Son first.Fall came that year, and I left for CSUS to live just off campus in some local dorms. I didn’t know anyone in my dorms. I had one sort-of-friend from high school a few dorms over. I began to meet other students at the commons where our meals were served. Two of the friendliest students were these two girls, Cindy and Susy who were, not quite Jesus freaks, but very evangelical at the same time. They shared a lot about their faith with me. I took it all in stride and continued to look for new relationships and parties that were happening in the dorms area. So, one day, after attending a small get together in a nearby dorm room occupied by a couple female students, I decided to return for a short visit. One of the girls was just getting ready to leave for an evening college group at the Fremont Presbyterian Church just across the street from the university. She said I could join her if I wished. I took up the invitation as I seem to have been softening to the call of God in my life over the previous few years. There were a number of students from the university in attendance, none of whom I knew. There was a teaching that evening from the book of book of 1Corinthians 13 on the gifts of the Spirit. It was quite a bit over my head at the time, but it rang true somehow, and, as the evening finished, I knew I had found my place in a spiritual sense. The young lady who brought me that night never returned. I, on the other hand, had found a real home here to nurture my new-found beliefs. The personal God I had been gravitating toward had a real face in Christian teaching. I marked that first Sunday in November of 1974 as my commitment to serve Jesus Christ. My actual prayer to confirm it came a couple of months later.A few months passed, then one Sunday, in our college group, a young lady collapsed in a fit of tears and grief. We formed a group around her and began praying for her. I recall a very strange experience happening as we laid hands on her continuing to pray. It was as if another presence was speaking in unintelligible words within my head. I don’t believe it was God or his Spirit as it seemed more oppressive. It was nothing like I have ever experienced before or after. When the prayer was finished she seemed to recover herself and was fine. I don’t remember the issue she was having, but it was as if a cloud had lifted. In retrospect, I chalk it up to some sort of spiritual warfare she was undergoing. God took care of it. I didn’t need to know the details. This experience opened my eyes to an even deeper level of the reality of God working with man as he seeks His active presence in daily life.At about this same time, Cindy, whom I previously mentioned, got in contact with a couple of men who began teaching a Bible study one night a week in the dorms. I attended. We got some deeper insights into scripture from these two, Dean and Rich, which whetted our appetites for more.Cindy, and several of us from the dorms, began attending their small church overlooking Saugstad Park in Roseville, CA. The church, formerly a Baptist church, was renamed Trinity Chapel and became a part of the charismatic movement. They had a loose affiliation with several other similar churches across the country. There were missionaries that traveled this circuit to raise funds for their evangelical work overseas. One evangelist by the name of Wayne Crooke visited the church several times. He often spoke of miracles God had done in Southeast Asia during their crusades. On one of the visits, the message was followed by prayer for healing for those in need. A different woman named Cindy, who had been in the church a short time, went forward. She was a co-worker at a dentist’s office of another woman, Alana Edmison, who had been with the church for a while. She asked for prayer for a short leg for which she wore a built-up shoe. The difference between legs was about an inch. Wayne asked if anyone wanted to see a miracle. Several of us from the college age group went forward and sat on the rug right in front of her. Wayne said he didn’t want to get God’s glory so he had the pastor pray instead while he stood by. Pastor Wells held up her legs as she sat on a chair. There was a clear difference in their lengths. As he prayed, some movement began. Pastor Wells did not pull her leg; he simply supported it. The leg shifted forward then back slightly and came to rest even with the other. Saying we were amazed falls far too short. It’s hard to find an acceptable word to describe how it really affects your thoughts when a miracle occurs right in front of you. Several of us sat with her on the floor afterward. We played with her leg for several minutes. She walked around just fine in her stocking feet. It had clearly changed. She was not able to wear her built-up shoe home from the meeting. It now made her walk awkwardly. Her husband, not a believer, came the next week to see what kind of church this was where things like this happened. The leg never returned to the shortened state. Do I have scientific proof? No but, I don’t need any. I saw what I saw, up close. It would be great if we had before and after x-rays, but that would be for those who were not there to see faith in Jesus at work. There were other healings in those years at Trinity, but this is the most dramatic one I remember. It really gave credence to all those reports of miracles Wayne and his team performed in Thailand and beyond. I once had a badly pinched group of muscles in my back and neck release instantly after prayer at Trinity. I’ve never had this happen since except by days of heating pads so I find this small miracle personally significant.In another dimension of the church’s faith ministry, there were elders who would pray for those they felt were oppressed by demons. Now, Christians don’t see most demons as they are portrayed in horror movies. They are more like nuisance spiritual beings, fallen angels, that try to influence the minds of people who open themselves up in one way or another by continued addictive, mean, selfish or evil actions that become like a door into their souls. They can become an integral part of someone’s personality and indistinguishable from the person’s basic personality. The manifestation is usually an unkind or uncaring act or lack of self-control in an area that is detrimental to themselves or others in various degrees of severity. Most unkindness and uncaring acts are simply the nature of the fallen state of man, not demons.So, one Sunday, at church, an elderly woman drove her inebriated son into the parking lot trying to get him to come into the church. He was resisting her. Finally, Pastor Wells came out to see what the issue was. Upon seeing Pastor Wells, he started mumbling and flailing in an increasingly violent manner. At that point, Pastor Wells pointed at him and commanded, “In the name of Jesus Christ cease this display.” Immediately the man went limp and was escorted into a Sunday school room where they talked with the mother. It was decided, due to the kind of behavior the man was exhibiting, that the problem of alcohol addiction was more than typical, and that likely a demon was at the root. It was decided that an elder would go over and pray for the man at his mother’s mobile home. I volunteered to go along to observe and help if needed. I arrived with one of the deacons, Wayne Beck, a short time after Dean West arrived and had been ministering to the man. He was at the point of asking him to give up any other alcohol he had stored around the house. The man kept denying he had any more than that which he had already surrendered, but Dean kept at him.After about ten minutes, I had been convinced by the man’s continued sincere sounding denials. Finally, about the time I thought it was becoming a useless effort to get the poor guy to confess to something that he wasn’t in fact doing, Dean gets what is called in the Bible, a word of knowledge. It’s like a prophetic word in a sense, but is more specific. It often applies to a present situation. He says, “You do have more alcohol, and there are two bottles. One is almost full, one is almost empty.” So then, he presses in on the guy further. The man continues to deny this. After a few more minutes of questioning, he finally gives in. He confesses, “They’re in the car under the seat.” So, I get chosen to go and retrieve the bottles. I get out to the carport, unlock the door, and look under the seat. Sure enough, there is a bag with two bottles in it. One is almost full to the top and the other almost empty. It was amazing, but we had to give God the glory for such demonstration of his Holy Spirit’s gifts. The follow-up to this story was more than that man’s deliverance that day. The follow-up was how I ran into him a couple of years later to find out that he had been totally delivered from his alcohol addiction and was himself ministering to others. That’s the best part of the whole miracle.I have been around and heard testimony of numerous other supernatural acts and miracles, but I have recounted only those I was most intimately connected with. The most powerful witness to me still has to be the ring of truth of the scriptures themselves. The lives of those who experienced and recorded them beam with forthrightness. The more you know of them and compare them to other religious writings, the more you are convinced of the absolute veracity and uniqueness of their message so grounded in history. The prophetic pronouncements concerning history up to our day in the gospels and especially the Books of Daniel and Revelation cannot be dismissed lightly. We have incredible opportunity to hold the Holy Scriptures in our hands that did not exist until a couple of centuries ago. But today the world has pretty much turned its back on the Bible. In scripture, Phillipians1:18, it states that, “Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed,.” It seems Hollywood’s versions of an impending Apocalypse are everywhere, though they diverge widely from scripture in most cases. Maybe even these inaccurate twistings of scripture God can use. The Book of Revelations is difficult, but we have a multitude of wisdom in the consensus of the theologians and writers of the past and these present days. Once we weed out all the minor disagreements, we see that the message that remains still leads us to great hope in the midst of our unique time in history. Ought we not learn it from the four horsemen’s mouths themselves. Sorry about the play on words here. I believe Jesus is coming again!

The author from the U.K. pissed me off big time when he took a big one on this — as I gave him an elaborate response, Raphael Merriman as this one trying to open an old wound of the factions. I had pulled out anti-Brit slurs to insult him as I suggested he took a piss on a memory of my friend Elmer. I caught those who were co-publishers who appeared with me on Dark Gothic Resurrected: Autumn 2007 shitting on this one.Feeding The “Dogs” as this was written by a Primitive Catholic Priest who will invoke “Drink your own piss and eat your own dung” as a blog entry. He bitched because of my use of the word “fuck” and told him you preach Ephesians to a monkey that doesn’t understand English or written language.This voiceless understands a gestured rooted in Philosophy — Angry monkey gives the middle finger during his morning bath (no really one just cannot make this up.) I discuss Cabbie on A lovecraftian kind of writing, here — as I relate about yelling at Ralphie. He was pissed when I tweeted the gesture to author Four And 20 Blackbirds author.I will go into detail about some of my more powerful outings — as I mentioned I cannot say just one being the most powerful. The roster as a whole illustrated how one has a mask they wear. This well — it’s similar the brooding photograph that’s my editor photo in silhouette behind in front of one of the towers. That photo was for some people was pure nightmare fuel when paired with The Pattern Of Diagnosis as I took the photos for this during the daytime in the Medical District. I found this; UnFundy Meme Generator as it does drive what I wrote home. I found others having anti-Arabic attitudes; or hiding behind Christianity to resurrect Jim Crow Laws."If a person reads The Cabbie Homicide, is there ANY grounds for that person to criticize it, any aspect at all that you would accept criticism over?"Well this is not exactly an easy question to answer as I have more than one short story that applies; in 2004 — The Fandom Writer. Noted by a few places — *snicker* as this one underestimated the venom of this. The equal to RationalWiki shows the “Pissed at us” response when RationalWiki placed many on the spot. There are many that would answer the question being one presented, but hands down Wandering In Darkness and The Pattern Of Diagnosis.This was the one where I saw an entire fandom of fannish fabulists pissed when it emerged. Creative Nonfiction recognized The Pattern Of Diagnosis as they seen Issue Five in one form. I brought this into the independent publishing circles along with those in the New Weird. The story is paired with my friend Leper’s first album; and this track. Agony (feat. Jyro), by Argyle Park as this was a side project that torqued the Evangelical community because how dark it was.When introducing the known piece, having friends who never heard a single explicit term uses — these friends who I was at College Church with, they wanted me to write more. During the era I had The Pattern of Diagnosis introduced I was connected with the Boondocks creator on MySpace. Safe to say it was a guess him doing BET Sucks took cues from when I wrote The Fandom Writer, it’s a guess.What’s the word, Churchy urban dictionary has a very harsh term as I almost asked my former classmate this. I revealed she was just a foodie blogger who never got into the hard reporting.The other story that also applies to this question is discussed on this website, How can a fiction author avoid romanticizing mental illness? as I do a presentation that illustrated the long standing stigma between Evangelical and Mental Illness.Thrash Metal act Deliverance was playing intense catch-up when they addressed the subject. Metallica is easy the experts on the mental health subject for many years as it’s their nightmare fuel trope.In 2011, Wandering in Darkness from as linked on Pinterest (More From A Library Of Unknown Horrors.) Then you have this sleeper, untitled johnny alien story, from 2007 as I will show the link to character creator, johnnyalien, as he was a classmate from high school in 1990–1994. My more diabolical horror stories when I invoke Literature / The Chew Toy. The Roster over the years will say this is a Pacione Trope as Freakier than Fiction.Wandering In Darkness I did the chew toy to a former guidance councilor who actively fucked me over when I was 16. I did this on an epic level as the fictionalized Dean was based on the real one in the era. I took cues from after '80s Teen Flick Director John Hughes Dies and adverted Hollywood Chicago (the fictionalized area that lampshades the North Shore.)My roster will joke, “this is the Pacione trope.” I interweave Asshole Victim, Conspiracy Kitchen Sink as this is the collective trope of the roster over the years and heavy doses of Real Life / Humiliation Conga. I invoke with this, The Things One Finds, as the response from the direct aim well priceless huckster blocked me both on Facebook and Twitter.Eric Hovind after engaging him my first science fiction outing had a literary dissonance an ironic echo of an event back in 1990 over in New Lenox, Illinois. Some of the tropes I invoke are as old as dirt but they re-emerged in the 1980’s and realized in the 1990’s. The Fandom Writer employed The Chew Toy as I didn’t realize the trope had a name.The approach was my most complex in terms of the range of subjects I approached in this one. The best creative nonfiction piece I did is The Pattern of Diagnosis and The Cabbie Homicide: October 13, 1993 as I wrote everything from memory in 2002. I found this, Without Question or Pause on the website where I parked a short story based upon a classmate’s character he was developing for a comic book.I ask those who toy with the show. It’s a guess how much do they know the terminology in Chicago such as “DIBS” or “ASSWIPE” as they have ties to Chicago-only slang as are some of these. “DIBS” in Chicago is when you shovel snow from your parking place and place a lawn chair or some object in front of it. This tweet shows the real response of my classmate from the era who is serving life in prison.https://t.co/OmN8AyBg2J If you mock this one, you am going to say you don't have the balls to read the @chicagotribune articles from the era #nightmarefuel inducing @tvtropes #creepypasta codifier as it was a yerexample of it. @iHorrorNews and @AsmithChicago #TBT #darkerandedgier pic.twitter.com/QEj2XuE5sx— Nickolaus Pacione (@nickwashere1976) February 23, 2018I will see some from the Evangelical circles pull this, FICTITIOUS BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. I don’t spout when I wrote my output though characters will have some undercurrents but not forcing it on the reader. I have seen the King James Only types pull copypasta of King James Scripture on Wattpad. It’s more effective when I don’t spout every other verse as I did this in college. When I was doing my website in 1997 I got shit because I didn’t sound churchy .It’s part of the reason when I was going to church when I was 17–19 years old. I didn’t get my ass kicked though the first time going to The Metro, they found a hardcover NIV on me in my backpack. I commented, “What did you expect someone carrying a loaded gun?”At the time I wrote The Pattern of Diagnosis, I just befriended Leper as he was doing a gig at a church my then room mate was doing a giveaway for. The vibe was extremely similar to what he does as it had the shadowy undertones going for it. I proved I not only held my own with Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft in both namesakes. With Issue Five, I held my own with Matt Carroll reported on the case.I learned from that. As I had seen those from Pacific Garden Mission. Noted I heard one of them would say they don’t read any other authors than The Bible, Unshackled! would have The Pattern Of Diagnosis under fire because of the R-rated language. One of the insults to the triage nurse referring to her as a “harpie.”The Cabbie Homicide invoked an argument with an evangelical horror author because of my open use of the word as there’s the articles like this. Why I Don't Use the F-Word — as I seen the facebook postings that I find pretty funny, “I love Jesus but I cuss a little.”I relate to those who have said “fuck” than those who never cussed at all. The Pattern of Diagnosis is noted for some uses of “fuck” in the story as the story I wrote that became this as it had the c-word in there.Why are we uncensored? as I relate on my company page when it came to possible contributors — churches gave dirty looks to “Cusser.” I find Christians who cuss extremely funny. I find great humor when they do because it reflects a real honesty as The Apostle Paul when he did one of his letters in the New Testament — he used the Greek equal to the word “Shit.”The Pattern of Diagnosis I had pointed out to a few who were from the Evangelical set the story though has strong language like it’s urban literature counterparts. It has strong Evangelical ties as I was with two Assemblies of God congregations in Bloomingdale and Wheaton as a then girlfriend attended the Bloomingdale congregation. Both stories would piss off as Urban Dictionary: Fundie would define IFBs. Who are the Independent Baptists, and what do they believe?Six Degrees of Separation as this blog entry the humor site Stuff Fundies Like shared. I explained with The Pattern of Diagnosis. I mention the Good Neighbor Parable in passing without quoting it word-for-word. I found a modern image illustrating this as The Pattern of Diagnosis seen it played up in form of an African-American male nurse giving me his blue Reebok joggers as I was photographed in them.In 2007, I was showing my first namesake project before I was scammed by a serial plagiarist as I had the joggers on at the time. When I introduced The Ethereal Gazette: Issue Five to both CreateSpace then to TheBookPatch.com I had presented the parable from Luke 10:25-37 - Modern English Version in the Editor’s Lounge. I edited the numbers out to make it presented like it would appear in a magazine article in the modern era to help bring readers into a sense of perspective. This took on new personalities when I re-affirmed in 2007.I did this a takeaway in the center of the two column introduction without the numbers (to present it as a magazine column format) but as a solid narrative of two paragraphs. On A Publisher's Confessional with The Pattern Of Diagnosis: 8 Years Later tag I took the readers on Tumblr further into the news stories and the history of Oak Lawn.What I Learned (And Regret) From My Time On The Boston Globe's 'Spotlight' Team. Matthew S. Carroll in 2007 was I did not realize he was still part of The Boston Globe at the time. Noted as the news report he was covering became a film in 2015 —Spotlight (2015) spoke of the scandal as it reached the Inland North region in the era.The Ethereal Gazette: Issue Five is noted for bringing two from Edgar Allan Poe: FanFiction Archive on the fifth issue. The two joined the roster, for the first time one seen FictionPress and FanFiction together in the same TOC, after they saw my short story Spectral Exile. Issue Five was noted for being the completion of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Stylus as it’s noted for the quote from Poe on the back cover.The Pattern Of Diagnosis was one of those I wrote with a lot to prove; as it was a standout of my catalog. Known as it’s often the story other stories are often compared to. I weighed in on this blog entry, Transcript for “Why Fanworks Should Be Celebrated.” I had mixed attitudes to those who engage in doing content from established copyrighted characters. I also looked for other modern versions of the parable mentioned in passing — but what I did I didn’t quote word for word. The Pattern Of Diagnosis complimented a few members on the Issue Five roster, Flight of the Cosmonaut, an Ebook by David Wright as he was part of Tabloid Purposes 3. Each contributor had some form of theology as well as a well rounded literary background though Independent Baptists will be royally pissed.If Jesus Told The Story of the Good Samaritan Today - Biblical Faith and Society as this minister relates as I commented on his wordpress location of the blog. This wattpad piece I found, as he’s also a Philosophy student in college — Ponder: Did God Create the Universe? (Intelligent Design) as I was discussing The Pattern Of Diagnosis in part to a few in Disqus. I also commented on this which appeared sometime in recent years — God's Not Dead (Movies) as this one is a piece from this. I will point out as someone handled this with some I will say delicate. I asked her what she made of the King James Only Movement; and those who do fanworks based off The Duggars treat them like a Philosophy examination.Andrew Boughton and Steven Morgan came after reading The Pattern Of Diagnosis. Tragic Wrath who was on the cover of Insomnia Magazine was the first to see this story as it was done, as she noticed how quite real it was. The short story that was in the magazine she was on the cover of was brought back stateside in my first namesake project. The church I was with in 1994, in recent years became this — Mosque takes over former Wheaton church. I pointed out with Muslims as defined on Urban Dictionary; DuPage Muslim as they were truly neighbors with us as kids.It attributed to having Zahid as the lead author on Issue Five. Amazon.com: The Asylum. This is his post-Ethereal Gazette released projects as he made the channels during the 2004 era on Cyber-pulp then to Tabloid 3. He and Dagstine came on Issue Five.The painting below was found on this blog, Compassion and the EU Referendum as the blogger discusses the parable. I found a story on FanFiction which emerged around the time The Pattern Of Diagnosis was published the second time, Through the Eyes of A Thief.I am going to point out with this — it’s noted for telling the narrative through first person through the eyes of one of the thieves hanging from the cross. When I wrote this in 2007 — I told those who were of certain factions in the Evangelical population.As one points out — (i.e young earth creationist/Independent Baptist) that I am not going to give a damned Sunday-school answer when it came to my output; as I seen a few in Mason City, Iowa, do this. As 2010, had this blog, Science and Southern Baptists Agree on Something as the said sect above zeroed in on Billy Graham. CLE Articles as this website’s followers took direct aim at me along with some of my correspondents.You have this one on named Israel Booker on Wattpad who is doing what I call the fundie (see definition 16 of this one as Stuff Fundies Like reports on the weirdness of the King James Only congregations. The blog did an entry about the same church a year later, much like I did the blog in 2014, King James Only Examined) version of Copypasta.After further research they would coin the writer of The Book of Luke and The Book of Acts, Luke The Physician: with "Medicine for the Souls." It could be noted he could been the first investigative journalist. Though the knowledge of medicine in that era was in it’s infancy so it’s suiting I present this with how I speak about The Pattern of Diagnosis. One who is reading this; can find it in DARK GOTHIC RESURRECTED---FALL '07 as well. Though the story itself was overshadowed by the lead author’s scientific abomination.I had caught a Something Awful goon known as Robert L. Baupader aka RLBaupader on VampireFreaks and DeviantArt putting his name on three of my outings. Including The Pattern of Diagnosis as I caught a rival author defending him for doing it.I retorted, “You give your students a passing grade for plagiarizing your rivals in the industry.” The Pattern Of Diagnosis I ran through irl.me and the result was David Foster Wallace.I went looking for his material online to analyse it. Good People by him was published around the time when the known piece was making the rounds. Pattern was about to be introduced on The Ethereal Gazette. I noticed the eerie similarity between me and Wallace when I did this. I didn’t look into his material in 2006–2007 at the time when the story was first written.Urban Dictionary: Creative Nonfiction is finally defined on Urban Dictionary as I introduced the form to the independent small press circles in 2004. I was noted for doing this treatment with Gothic Horror atmospheres. It was Lee Gutkind who introduced this form in the 1990s but I gave it it’s much darker tone in 2002.I toyed with the style in 1997 — it wasn’t as evident as I did in the 2000s as The Cabbie Homicide, Observations From An Abandoned Seminary, Memoir Of Cuba Road, Apt. #2W and The Pattern of Diagnosis then An Eye In Shadows were introduced. I never imagined that Issue Five would gain the approval and impress Gitane Demone. Back in the mid-1990s, she was photographed with my ex-room mate during the era of when it was written. Leper caught the attention of Mick Mercer in 2011 as he taught me how to do The Ethereal Gazette. He was following me when I was the maintainer of the LiveJournal Goth Community.The Pattern of Diagnosis became quite distinct of the three as it references the play the church I was a part of off and on for two years. Heaven's Gates, Hell's Flames — Reality Outreach Ministries Inc was responsible for the presentation. I do a blog presentation of the play with the story’s blog tag on Tumblr.It will surprise readers about this, Category Films based on newspaper and magazine articles, as this is relatively young. This is the darker side of Chicago cinema as a lot of the nerve-shattering films are right from articles in Chicago Tribune. On my personal profile I have this from 2014, Paranoia of Small Towns as it speaks about some of my contemporaries from small town climates. Noted who don’t understand the scope of the creative nonfiction work I did in 2006. I caught a rival accusing me of being derivative. I didn’t do fictional villages like what DC Comics did when they developed Superman or Batman.This story became a landmark in the journalism known as Citizen journalism as one can find other examples. As found within The most insightful stories about Citizen Journalism – Medium.. Noted I was able to track down newspaper articles talking about doctors who were making house calls in 2006. My blog An Author's Blog rivaled many of the major New Media with fact checking I did. I used major news sources such as The Guardian, Fox News and Dark Documentaries when I did some of my entries. I learned how to be an investigative from my alumni who were journalists and some wrote on news papers. I had shared some of my own buzzfeed contributions in this presentation too.Nickolaus Pacione as one can see the article A Question Of Celebrity then Post: Scarring People For All Time.As this particular piece held it’s own with Matt as he was with the mag, I speak of some of the former friends from the era on medium. Matt Carroll started contributing to medium about the same time as I appeared. It also had a scary turn when one realized three of my friends died under 40 between 2007 into 2010. Kristopher P. Kemp (1974-2009) and childhood friend, Elmer O Aleman (1975-2010) as they were both 34.Elmer had me thinking of picking a few Latino writers and attributed to discovering Alex in 2005, as he came to Issue 3 then came to Issue Five. As the Pakistani classmates, attributed to publishing Zahid Zaman in 2006 with Tabloid 3 as he came to Issue Five as the lead author.The classmates who are of color had me picking Steve Morgan and later the contributors of Issue 7. He returned for Issue 11 then the reboot of the first namesake and having Mike Pringle on namesake 2. The accusations some of the factions of the industry would make, (i.e. calling me a racist, that’s the biggest misconception.)If I was a racist I wouldn’t have done Issue Five the way I did the. Pointed out with the publication; this reflected where I grew up more than anything as the House of Pain E-Zine alumni knew not to dismiss this one. The church I was with for a stint in the summer of 1994, Wheaton Christian Center when they were in Glendale Heights attributed to publishing African-American authors. In 2004 I wanted to do this but couldn’t find any who could free up their submissions — this article as I found. A word in advance — just to warn the folks on Quora one of the images is a mindscrew.And They’ll Know We Are Christians By .. has a few images that invoke a real mindfuck. It reminds me of my former classmate who responded when the word “fuck” was thrown at her as this minister on his blogs use the word “piss.” Sometimes it’s not always about the altar call. My classmate aka the pastor’s wife expected me to include this with every single one of my outings — When Altar Calls Don't Work points out sometimes it turns off the subject.Since everyone retained their original copyrights to the stories, Amazon.com: Write or Die eBook: Steven Morgan contains the story from the Gazette as it starts on page 33. Steve gave The Ethereal Gazette: Issue Five it’s true urban element as it complimented The Pattern Of Diagnosis and the story that Alex Rivera contributed.Years later — he became known for this blog, The Aeon Eye Blog as he was no slouch when it came to Lovecraftian Horror and Urban Literature.Holden's Counterpart, which is a creative nonfiction work that plays up like a crossover between Catcher in the Rye and The Twilight Zone. Noted for putting those who do bricks of work where the character isn’t theirs as in an established copyrighted character from either a book, TV Show or Video Game — Fanfiction.net (see Definition 8 for this. FanFiction regulars really don’t like Creative Nonfiction invading the website. They try to come up with something derogatory for creative nonfiction practitioners.)Pattern was written on Thanxgiving Weekend 2006 on Microsoft Works then it was saved as a .doc attachment. I had this printed out as a paper manuscript as I was making the rounds with it in December of 2006. I queried for submitting creative nonfiction so I could submit it to Dark Gothic Resurrected. When I queried, she saw An Eye In Shadows in a work of progress stage. So she agreed to let me send The P ‘o D as it was a reprint from my own magazine.This would be the screen cap of the table of contents as she used the old preview system from 2004–2007 on Lulu to publish this. As of the 2010’s, she moved the future publications to CreateSpace to present —- this is bing search of the lead story, His Touch of Ice. I saw the preview but looking for the vomit button when I saw this. Then you have the congregation I weighed in on having this, KJV 1611 which was the church I examined when I did the 2014, blog entry.Known the church examined in the blog as King James Only Examined where their pastor, Rev Frank Gale Noyes is in the pearly gates. These congregations and other legalistic types would parrot Ephesians 4:29 as you point out “drink your own piss and eat your own dung.” The lead author on the issue can’t even give this literary eyesore away.This blog entry gave the 2006 era story and published in 2007 a bit more power because I point out no one speaks like the era. This blog pointed out the Problems with the Language of the King James Version. As then one will see those who are like Gail Riplinger who make weird claims such as having a hidden dictionary.Paraphrase that in Libre Office and you will have some of the modern uses of profanity; there’s power in the word “Fuck.” The eyebrows will truly be raised as one pointed out, the Apostle Paul used the Greek counterpart to what’s known as the word “shit.” The contention with the mainline evangelicals with The Pattern Of Diagnosis is the swearing present in the pages; I am not going to lie to the reader - it’s a hard R for language.I never imagined when I wrote this in 2006. That I eventually would end up banging heads with the King James Only and IFB establishment; challenging Moral guardians."Skubala?" The Apostle Paul Uses the Word "Shit" in the Bible — this will cause a stir as Coach Culbertson invoked full artistic freedom in an Evangelical form. Some as I had friends like this — 27 Sure Signs You Grew Up Evangelical as chronicled on BuzzFeed. Some of them gave me very weird looks because I had Stephen King books, swear, secular heavy metal, and R-rated horror films in the house.The Pattern of Diagnosis combined Gothic Horror, Urban fiction (as Steven Morgan introduced this to Issue Five. Also some notice my take on Gothic Horror had the vibe too,) and Atmospheric elements with creative nonfiction. Noted as it’s the one with the most Evangelical of the output. The Cabbie Homicide: October 13, 1993 is the creative nonfiction successor to The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe as one can see the stronger punch of The Cabbie Homicide.Especially; when they’re read back-to-back as the latter is more dialog driven. How to Write Gothic Fiction as one can look at this when applying it to creative nonfiction as you will have The Stygian Memoir approach.As in 2007, when he did Coach’s Midnight Diner: Jesus Vs. Cthuhu Edition encouraged contributors to be quite uncensored as two went for broke and went for the “fuck” word. When I found the first anthology it was as I was finishing up Tabloid Purposes IV and shopping around some material; I picked this up on a whim and said, “Holy shit — these guys are hardcore!”@RLBaupader pay attention the two on the right; @jaysonblair7 are you watching? #journalism101 catching a fraud. . pic.twitter.com/fEc9yES2C4— Nickolaus Pacione (@nickwashere1976) January 22, 2016I had tapped Jason Blair to catch Baupader with his plagiarism as a few were skeptical about the real authorship of this story. I explained the story was still had the paperclip attached from when I was making rounds in 2006 with it. I pointed out to a journalist who is connected to a professor who saw a scandal in Wheaton because she sported a Hijab. I explained to him that this story appeared in my magazine as teletype font with the photo of Cook County Hospital hugging the text of one of the pages.This would be the story in the pages of my mag as this is one of the versions that were in the flesh and blood form. I pointed out if those who celebrate this getting plagiarized they don’t have a heart. Some of the factions I pointed out had did the damned hashtag #makenickyunpublished over what I pointed out.I had caught Ramsey Campbell accusing me of lifting from David Foster Wallace. I pointed out to him this — I analyzed my story and seen one of his as it had a similar result on I Write Like. David Foster Wallace’s short story and The Pattern of Diagnosis were from the same era; but I didn’t see Wallace’s story until 2015 when I reintroduced Issue Five to TheBookPatch.com. I had caught a few with a download of the magazine appearance out east then dismantled the pdf just.This was so Baupader can put his byline on it and change the title to The Pattern of a Hypochondriac. Caustic during the 2007 era had tried to railroad Issue Five as in recent years he kicked the bottle as he was a boozing drunk during the era Issue Five was first published. He had me on his shitlist on VampireFreaks because I was the one who said, “Retire you fucking drunk!”It came from what he pulled on THE GOTH SCENE and chicago_gothic in 2007 where I famously banned him when I was the maintainer — noted where Scary Lady Sarah and I had a falling out. I also pointed out in 2010 she had a missed chance to learn more about me from a post-punk performer I grew up with back in the 1980s into the 1990s.. Then an epic feud was invoked with a plagiarizing DJ from Something Awful when I was tossed from LiveJournal in 2008. DJ took over and made it a shell of what it was in 2002–2003.If Matt Pathogen shut his mouth in 2007; Issue Five may had gotten a lot bigger and more recognition — it deserved a lot more exposure. I tested this out on Fuzzie Bunnies of Death members while I was doing a signing with buddy who just put a book out himself in this era. I gave Ig a copy of Tales of the Talisman 2.4 as a way of thanking him.Between his e-mails and my phone conversation with my late grandmother, giving me what would become The Pattern of Diagnosis and the story this stemmed from called Chronic Disease. My room mate in the era, had purchased Edison Records as during the era I wrote The Pattern of Diagnosis. As the stories of mine in Tales of the Talisman I learned how to mold the wax records.He told me when I published this he said there was a lot more than what I revealed when I wrote this. He pointed out she ignored the voicemails I left her and was snowed from cough medicine. My time with with two churches from the 1994 era — one of them wasn’t pleased with referring them. Well in all truth attributed to the potent nature of The Pattern Of Diagnosis.The two respective churches had both housed Immigrant founders as he had a different approach than their downstate American counterparts. I suggest before one approaches the creative nonfiction yarn, visit Oak Lawn Patch on facebook to get some insight on the region.Then you have this scathing blog about Oak Park, IL blog as one wonders of the era of The Pattern of Diagnosis as the story played up in parts of this region. When one has Hemingway and the creator of Tarzan from this region, one will see something interesting invoked when the respective story plays up.

Civil War affects relationship between the north and southIn the USA, slavery has, does, and will always be at the bottom of every issue, every supposed cause, every reason why the South was ultimately led from the Union. It will not go away, it will not recede, it will not be driven from the pages of our collective history.The North and South have always been culturally different even to this day, but the simple fact remains, without slavery, without those who were in charge who had a vested interest in slavery, no Civil Way would have been fought, not one of those non slaveholding boys would have ever needed to enlist, fight and die for the Confederacy. . There was simply no other reason, no other cause, that could bring about the slaughter of 620,000 Americans. Slavery, and the South's refusal to give it up, but its stubborn insistence to protect it, to maintain it, to expand it at the expense of others, brought on the war and the need for non slaveholders to sacrifice their homes, their families, and their lives for one of the worst reasons ever to go to war.The institution of slavery was regarded as immoral in the 18th century western world and had been eliminated in European colonies, but it remained strong in the American south, and it lowered the value and soul of the south and retarded southern economic development. First and foremost, immigrants coming to the United States generally settled in the North where they could earn a wage. Secondly, with slavery, markets tend to 'undervalue' labor and rely on labor intensive practices to the detriment of capital. As a result, the South remain heavily dependent on agriculture as the North industrialized. The North had the advantages of having the moral high ground.There was widespread acceptance of and support for slavery in the antebellum south that went beyond the owners of record of slaves. Slaves formed nearly half the southern population and were everywhere, plus slavery was not just an economic/labor system, it was a system of social control sustained by a people who could not conceive of living with 4 million free blacks who as freedmen might expect some modicum of political power.The American Civil War , fought over many 'States Rights' and cultural issues, would never have been fought without slavery, and was a bloody, brutal time in the history of the US. It not only pitted "brother against brother," as the saying goes; it was also a fight over the soul of the country for (at least) the next 150 years.Essentially the South only had to muster the will to keep fighting until the North felt like quitting. That didn't happen, but theoretically it could have. The south had the advantage of having a large motivated army. The South were the ones who started this war, they want to finish it. They were the ones with a motive. The North just wants to put the country back together.So here is a little history . . . The Islamic Ottoman Empire defeated the eastern Christian Roman empire headquartered in Constantinople and closed the western trade routes to the East - India. Spain sent Columbus west across the unexplored Atlantic in 1492 to find a new route to India whereupon he came upon the Caribbean and new trade routes from Europe to the Americas were established. Spain then started the African slave trade in the 15th century to help build its western Caribbean and south American frontier settlements. Other European countries continued the way west for settlements and continued the slave trade to build cities and farm land. Most of the African slave trade went to the Caribbean, central and South America - Brazil got the most, the US the least. The enslavement of African Americans in what became the United States formally began during the 1630s and l64OsAccording to a variety of sources, only 400,000 Africans of 12.5 million shipped from various parts of Africa as part of the Transatlantic Slave Trade made it to North America from the 16th century to 19th century. Children made up about 26% of the total number. Britain and the US outlawed the slave trade in 1805, but illegal shipments from Africa snuck in.In the Caribbean and South America - except Brazil where slaves were integrated and married into the population settling the Amazon - plantation masters argued callously that it was "cheaper to buy than to breed"--it was cheaper to work the slaves to death and then buy new ones than it was to allow them to live long enough and under sufficiently healthy conditions that they could bear children to increase their numbers. During this phase, the life span of a slave from initial purchase to death was only seven years. The conditions in the US were far better than elsewhere and the slave population lived longer and grew exponentially. By the time of the Civil War there were more than 5 million slaves in the US, all most all in the south being used for cotton plantations. Prior to independence, slavery existed in all the American colonies and therefore was not an issue of sectional debate. With the arrival of independence fro0m Britain however, the new Northern states - those of New England along with New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey - came to see slavery as immoral and contradictory to the ideals of the Revolution and instituted programs of gradual emancipation. By 1820 there were only about 3,000 slaves in the North, almost all of them working on large farms in New Jersey.Virginia planters began to free many of their slaves in the decade after the Revolution as well. Some did so because they believed in the principles of human liberty. After all, Virginian slave owners wrote some of the chief documents defining American freedom like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and much of the Bill of Rights. Others, however, did so for a much more cynical reason. Their surplus slaves had become a burden to house and feed. In response, they emancipated those who were too old or feeble to be of much use on the plantation. Ironically, one of the first laws in Virginia restricting the rights of masters to free their slaves was passed for the protection of the slaves. It denied slave owners the right to free valueless slaves, thus throwing them on public charity for survival. Many upper South slave owners around 1800 believed that slavery would gradually die Out because there was no longer enough work for the slaves to do, and without masters to care for them, the ex-slaves would die out as well.The US Census of 1860 showed the eleven Southern States that would form the Confederacy to be 9 million of which more than 4 million were slaves and about another 500,000 were free blacks. Slaves were everywhere in the south, nearly half of the population was of African descent. When the Civil War started, about 500,000 whites left the south to fight for the north. So that left less than five million white southerners to fight the 24 million white northerners. The rounding is done to include US territories that were so far removed from the war, rounding up to the nearest million . Slaves were part of the culture and all around the south, they were rented out as labors to small farms pulling in a harvest, became blacksmiths and Mississippi stevedores on the paddle boats, and were all around field hands. Slavery in the antebellum South was not a monolithic system; its nature varied widely across the region. At one extreme one white family in thirty owned slaves in Delaware; in contrast, half of all white families in South Carolina did so. Overall, 26 percent of Southern white families owned slaves.In 1860, families owning more than fifty slaves numbered less than 10,000; those owning more than a hundred numbered less than 3,000 in the whole South. The typical Southern slave owner possessed one or two slaves, and the typical white Southern male owned none. He was an artisan, mechanic, or more frequently, a small farmer. This reality is vital in understanding why white Southerners went to war to defend slavery in 1861. Most of them did not have a direct financial investment in the system. Their willingness to fight in its defense was more complicated and subtle than simple fear of monetary loss. They deeply believed in the Southern way of life, of which slavery was an inextricable part. They also were convinced that Northern threats to undermine slavery would unleash the pent-up hostilities of 4 million African American slaves who had been subjugated for centuries.Black slaves were bred for size and were much larger than those found in Africa who tended to be spindle and small. Also, white slave owners bred with black slaves build the slave population and lighten their skin color which brought higher prices on the slave selling blocks. Is anyone going to deny the massive amounts of master/slave babies? Plus slavery was not just an economic/labor system, it was a system of social control sustained by a people who could not conceive of living with 4 million free blacks who as freedmen might expect some modicum of political power.One half of all Southerners in 1860 were either slaves themselves or members of slaveholding families. These elite families shaped the mores and political stance of the South, which reflected their common concerns. Foremost among these were controlling slaves and assuring an adequate supply of slave labor. The legislatures of the Southern states passed laws designed to protect the masters right to their human chattel. Central to these laws were "slave codes," which in their way were grudging admissions that slaves were, in fact, human beings, not simply property like so many cattle or pigs. They attempted to regulate the system so as to minimize the possibility of slave resistance or rebellion. In all states the codes made it illegal for slaves to read and write, to attend church services without the presence of a white person, or to testify in court against a white person. Slaves were forbidden to leave their home plantation without a written pass from their masters. Additional laws tried to secure slavery by restricting the possibility of manumission (the freeing of ones slaves). Between 1810 and 1860, all Southern states passed laws severely restricting the right of slave owners to free their slaves, even in a will. Free blacks were dangerous, for they might inspire slaves to rebel. As a consequence, most Southern states required that any slaves who were freed by their masters leave the state within thirty days.To enforce the slave codes, authorities established "slave patrols." These were usually locally organized bands of young white men, both slave owners and yeomen farmers, who rode about at night checking that slaves were securely in their quarters. Although some planters felt that the slave patrolmen abused slaves who had been given permission to travel, the slave patrols nevertheless reinforced the sense of white solidarity between slave owners and those who owned none. They shared a desire to keep the nonwhite population in check. (These antebellum slave patrols are seen by many historians as antecedents of the Reconstruction era Ku Klux Klan, which similarly tried to discipline the freed blacks. The Klan helped reinforce white solidarity in a time when the class lines between ex--slave owners and white yeomen were collapsing because of slavery's end.)White southerners were uneducated and ignorant to the world. The antebellum South neglected to provide for the education of its people. Planters controlled the governmental revenues that could have financed public education, but they saw no need to do so. Their slaves were forbidden to learn; their own children were educated by private tutors or in exclusive and expensive private academies. As a result, most white yeomen were left without access to education. A few lucky ones near towns or cities could sometimes send their children to fee schools or charity schools, but many were too poor or too proud to use either option.Slavery in the antebellum South, then, made a minority of white Southerners - owners of large slaveholdings--enormously wealthy. At the same time, it demeaned and exploited Southerners of African descent, left the majority of white Southerners impoverished and uneducated, and retarded the overall economic, cultural, and social growth of the region. Slavery was the institution by which the South defined itself when it chose to secede from the Union. But it was the existence of slavery, with its negative impact on politics, economics, and social relations, that fatally crippled the South in its bid for independence.Extremely wealthy plantation owners managed to convince the general people that the federal government had overstepped its bounds by demanding freedom for slaves. Lets face it; the poor whites, who owned no land, owned no slaves, and couldn't vote, had nothing to gain from the war, whether they knew it or not. The situation was ugly enough that the Confederate Army rapidly ran out of volunteers and had to institute conscription (what we would now call the Draft).On top of everything else, no foreign nation recognized the Confederacy as a sovereign power, and they lost much of the trade they were counting on to support the war effort. Even without the Union blockade, much of the cotton for export would have sat on the docks anyway. All of this basically crushed Confederate morale; about 2/3 of the Confederate Army deserted, which really suggests that they began to question why they were fighting at all.South's Advantages: Outstanding general . Strong military traditions, better leadership, they were fighting on home ground . Skilled with guns & horses. Cotton was King.North's advantages: four times the population, manufacturing ability, traditional advantage in weapons - artillery, including new rifled cannon Industrial capability - access to all kinds of war-supplies; more railroad mileage - whole armies could move by train Big enough navy to blockade Southern coast, all battles (except Gettysburg) fought on southern soil.It may surprise someone new to the history of the American Civil War that black men fought for the Confederacy, but it's true. An estimated 3,000 to 6,000 fought as soldiers while another 100,000 supported the armies of the South as laborers and teamsters (though their motivation is in dispute). By the end of the war, 10% of the Union Army and Navy was made up of black men.At the same time, roughly 25% of recruits for the Union army were immigrants. By 1860, 13% of Americans were born overseas and 43% of the armed forces were either immigrants or the sons of immigrants.Foreigners lined up at US diplomatic legations abroad to join the Union cause - so many that the US minister to Berlin had to put a sign up to tell people his office was not a recruiter,It was Sherman's capture of Atlanta that won Lincoln's reelection in 1864, ending the Democratic Party's call for peace talks. His march to the sea and subsequent uncontested sweep through the Carolinas devastated the South and hastened the end of the war.President Lincoln outlawed slavery in US territories in 1862. He freed slaves who had masters in the Confederate Army. In 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves held in rebel states.An estimated 625,000 people were killed in the Civil War, and that number includes only the troops. There were an estimated 225,000 civilian casualties, which would set the total as high as 850,000. When tens of thousands of soldiers shit on fields, huge waste dumps are created attracting insects like mosquitoes that bite soldiers many who get malaria and many die. The No. 1 killer of Civil War troops was disease - the most prevalent of those were dysentery, typhoid fever, malaria, pneumonia, and simple childhood troubles like measles and mumps. Flies, mosquitoes, ticks, lice, maggots, and fleas were rampant, and germ theory was not yet accepted medical practice.The now-controversial and highly recognizable Rebel, or Dixie, flag wasn't the official banner of the Confederate States of America. The crossed-bar flag was actually just the battle flag of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. A few states, including North Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, and Tennessee, still base their flag on different iterations of the actual, official CSA flag. The "Stars and Bars" flag that represented the Southern states features three bars and seven stars.After the Civil War, freed black slaves became the Tiger by the tail in the US. In the North where free laborers wanted no part of the black refugees whom they feared would destroy their livelihood. The NY riots were the result. And my, weren't those refugees welcomed with open arms over the past 150 years? Freed black Africans mixing with white Europeans have been problematic for 150 years after the war.Since the Civil War, Southern institutions had made segregation and Jim Crow laws part of the main stream social and economic landscape. It was standard Southern thinking and tradition. I felt that many Southern white people supported segregation because their DNA was basically racist from four hundred years of slavery and Jim Crow, and even in these modern times, they were trained from childhood to believe in race separation based on White superiority. It was ingrained in all their religious, political, educational, and government institutions. Racial segregation and White superiority was in their bones and yet they were born again Christians . . . what a farce! Norfolk was a southern town and fighting to the death Civil Rights. For years, Norfolk was crazed with government enforced segregation, police violence, and was targeted by Southern governors as their test court case against school integration. Norfolk had the usual lunch counter sit-ins, Ku Klux Klan running around threatening people who agreed with the Civil Rights movement like me, burning crosses on their front lawn and even killing people. Leroy Vancamp, my next neighbor, was the news anchor for the local TV station and he would report every night about the “communists” running amuck trying to destroy our southern way of life and damning the fascist federal government for trying to de segregate the south. I would approach him critically for this kind of opinionating, and he said that is the way it is and if I don’t like it, get out and go north. Believe it or not, that is the way it was back then. That’s the way most southerners looked at civil rights, as a communist movement, and Martin Luther King and his cohorts being communist provocateurs. They preached this from the church pulpit and if you went against this messaging, you were in real trouble. There was no dissent allowed. Organize a protest march and the police would sic the dogs on you and you would be arrested. It was Nazi Germany all over again.The 1960s SouthThe Civil War is like a mountain range that guards all roads into the South: you can’t go there without encountering it. Specifically, you can’t go there without addressing a question that may seem as if it shouldn’t even be a question - to wit: what caused the war? One hundred years after the event, the Confederate Flag still flies south of the Mason Dixon line and southerners don't think the Civil War had anything to do with slavery - regardless that Jefferson Davis and all the seceding states stated slavery was the reason for the war. It was the 1960s and African Americans were waging epic struggles for civil rights that altered white Southerners’ worlds that reacted with hostility. They feared social and political change, and grappled uncomfortably with the fact that their way of life seemed gone for good.The “Southern way of life” encompassed a distinctive mix of economic, social, and cultural practices — symbolized by the fragrant magnolia, the slow pace of life, and the sweet mint julep, a popular alcoholic beverage. It also contained implications about the region’s racial order - one in which whites wielded power and blacks accommodated. Centuries of slavery and decades of segregation cemented a legal and political system characterized by white dominance. By the 20th century, “Jim Crow” had become shorthand for legalized segregation. Massive inequalities marked every facet of daily life. Blacks always addressed whites as “Mr.” or “Mrs.,” though whites seldom bestowed such courtesy titles on African Americans. Blacks labored in white homes as nannies, cooks, maids, and yardmen. Whites expected docility; black resistance seemed unfathomable.The American Civil Rights Movement in the late 1950s and 1960s represents a pivotal event in world history. The positive changes it brought to voting and civil rights continue to be felt throughout the United States and much of the world. Although this struggle for black equality was fought on hundreds of different “battlefields” throughout the United States, many observers at the time described the state of Mississippi as the most racist and violent. In 1955, Reverend George Lee, vice president of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership and NAACP worker, was shot in the face and killed for urging blacks in the Mississippi Delta to vote. Although eyewitnesses saw a carload of whites drive by and shoot into Lee's automobile, the authorities failed to charge anyone. Governor Hugh White refused requests to send investigators to Belzoni, Mississippi, where the murder occurred.In August 1955, Lamar Smith, sixty-three-year-old farmer and World War II veteran, was shot in cold blood on the crowded courthouse lawn in Brookhaven, Mississippi, for urging blacks to vote. Although the sheriff saw a white man leaving the scene 'with blood all over him' no one admitted to having witnessed the shooting” and “the killer went free. Mississippi's lawmakers, law enforcement officers, public officials, and private citizens worked long and hard to maintain the segregated way of life that had dominated the state since the end of the Civil War in 1865. The method that ensured segregation persisted was the use and threat of violence against people who sought to end it. On September 25, 1961, farmer Herbert Lee was shot and killed in Liberty, Mississippi, by E.H. Hurst, a member of the Mississippi State Legislature. Hurst murdered Lee because of his participation in the voter registration campaign sweeping through southwest Mississippi. Authorities never charged him with the crime. Hurst was acquitted by a coroner's jury, held in a room full of armed white men, the same day as the killing. Hurst never spent a night in jail.”NAACP State Director Medgar Evers was gunned down in 1963 in his Jackson driveway by rifle-wielding white Citizens Council member Byron De La Beckwith from Greenwood, Mississippi. Perhaps the most notable episode of violence came in Freedom Summer of 1964, when civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner left their base in Meridian, Mississippi, to investigate one of a number of church burnings in the eastern part of the state. The Ku Klux Klan had burned Mount Zion Church because the minister had allowed it to be used as a meeting place for civil rights activists.After the three young men had gone into Neshoba County to investigate, they were subsequently stopped and arrested by Neshoba County Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price. After several hours, Price finally released them only to arrest them again shortly after 10 p.m. He then turned the civil rights workers over to his fellow Klansmen. The group took the activists to a remote area, beat them, and then shot them to death. Dittmer suggests that because Schwerner and Goodman were white the federal government responded by establishing an FBI office in Jackson and calling out the Mississippi National Guard and U. S. Navy to help search for the three men. Of course this was the response the Freedom Summer organizers had hoped for when they asked for white volunteers.BirminghamCivil Rights were afoot and then came along Martin Luther King, Jr., a Baptist minister, who was a driving force in the push for racial equality in the 1950's and the 1960's. In 1963, King and his staff focused on Birmingham, Alabama. They marched and protested nonviolently, raising the ire of local officials who sicced water cannon and police dogs on the marchers, whose ranks included teenagers and children. The bad publicity and breakdown of business forced the white leaders of Birmingham to concede to some anti segregation demands. King adhered to Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence. In 1955 he began his struggle to persuade the US Government to declare the policy of racial discrimination in the southern states unlawful. The racists responded with violence to the black people's nonviolent initiatives. Martin Luther King dreamed that all inhabitants of the United States would be judged by their personal qualities and not by the color of their skin. In April 1968 he was murdered by a white racist. Four years earlier, he had received the Noble Peace Prize for his nonviolent campaign against racism. The battle lines are drawn in Birmingham, Alabama, that was, in 1960, "probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States." Although the city's population of almost 350,000 was 60% white and 40% black, Birmingham (as most southern cities) had no black police officers, firefighters, sales clerks in department stores, bus drivers, bank tellers, or store cashiers. Black secretaries could not work for white professionals. Jobs available to blacks were limited to manual labor in Birmingham's steel mills, work in household service and yard maintenance, or work in black neighborhoods. When layoffs were necessary, black employees were the first to go. The unemployment rate for blacks was two and a half times higher than for whites. The average income for blacks in the city was less than half that of whites. Significantly lower pay scales for black workers at the local steel mills were common. Racial segregation of public and commercial facilities throughout Jefferson County was legally required, covered all aspects of life, and was rigidly enforced. Only 10 percent of the city's black population was registered to vote in 1960.The Civil Rights plan called for direct nonviolent action to attract media attention to "the biggest and baddest city of the South," with a variety of nonviolent methods of confrontation, including sit-ins at libraries and lunch counters, kneel‑ins by black visitors at white churches, and a march to the county building to mark the beginning of a voter‑registration drive. Most businesses responded by refusing to serve demonstrators. Some white spectators at a sit‑in at a Woolworth's lunch counter spat upon the participants. A few hundred protesters, including jazz musician Al Hibbler, were arrested, although Hibbler was immediately released by Connor.President John F. Kennedy later said of him, "The Civil Rights movement should thank God for Bull Connor. He's helped it as much as Abraham Lincoln."Southerners view Northerners1950sAfter high school in 1955, I was in the South, first assigned to Bainbridge for Weapons School, then Norfolk for duty on a WW II Destroyer in the 2nd Fleet. I found Norfolk to be an ugly and mean city. Was this what the south was like I asked? I found everyday social life was depressing, very different from my home of Milwaukee, an open minded critical thinking white European working man's society, liberal and socially generous, with thousands of things to do vs. the South which was backward, racist and low brow nasty, with nothing to do and racially legally segregated. If you had to make a comparison between good and evil, the south was definitely evil. Us northerners wondered how anyone could live here in this colorless and dull witted society, hypocrites - full of Bible belt evangelical religion and hateful to the core.Whereas in Milwaukee segregation between the races [there were very few blacks in Milwaukee back then] was social and very much class oriented, here in the South the races were separated by law which was vigorously enforced by the police and they seemed to relish harassing Blacks, military or civilian. By civilized Milwaukee standards, these southern police were psychopaths, escaped guards from Nazi Germany prison camps. Any type of non whites, including Asians, Puerto Ricans, Caribbean's, etc., didn't get any respect and were treated terribly. If your skin was darker, you were legally separated into a lower class and discriminated against. Even the Jews, just like my childhood buddies from my old neighborhood, were held in low esteem and treated like garbage.I got my start in NYC in the 1950s when I was in the Navy spending many weekend liberties in Manhattan seeking to escape the segregated and dismal south. Times Square was an euphoria of delight, a paradigm of exoticness coupled with the world's diversity of peoples and life styles all wrapped in one package. During our annual 'Fleet Week' when my Battle Group visited New York City and my Destroyer anchored in the Hudson by the George Washington Bridge, I stood Military Police in Times Square before we were deployed to the Med for six to eight months. Compared to dismal Norfolk, Manhattan was like comparing Paris to Calcutta.1960sAfter serving in the Navy and now living in the south as an IBM Engineer begs some comparisons. I spent many years in the Tidewater, Hampton Roads and Chesapeake Bay area of Virginia and enjoyably lived the hunting and fishing small town culture. Most people in this area were associated with the military, were conservative, very religious (even though they supported Jim Crow segregation which really mystified me).The Civil Rights struggle awakens the world and southern politicians and misguided evangelical pastors perverting Biblical truth and cloaking politics with religion are preying on the fears of those same people that are afraid of losing their white superiority traditions and culture. However, the era brought forth one of the greatest human beings to ever walk the planet in Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK)I loved the six years hunting in Dismal Swamp filled with poisonous snakes - rattlers- pygmy and diamondbacks - cottonmouths, hog-nosed and all manners of wild pigs, biting insects were all as big as your thumb or hand and gators. You could run into black bears anytime, in fact I saw a couple of panthers long-distance once and got surprised by a humongous wild hog when biking on some backwoods trails.People died in the swamp and what with flesh eating critters and heat, their remains were totally decomposed into the earth within a week. I played around with some mudpuppies, scores of lizards and the endless parade of insects and even had Sand Sharks brush up against my legs in the ocean. When I think of all the snake and animal things wandering around I cringe even as an adult. Believe it or not, I did became a red neck with 20 guns, had my own 18-foot cabin cruiser, hung around with the good ole boys as I fished and hunted with them, sipped white lightening and developed a taste for grits and BBQ chicken.. I became a politician working for Jack Kennedy, Civil Rights worker and a Red Neck all at the same time.The south is a land of comfort, low speed ease, warm weather, tradition, good friends and hospitality. Everyone is so polite, they say "Bless your heart" which makes it OK when followed by a verbal bomb, like "Your breath stinks. " But while it is all giving with warm fuzzys on the surface, I still felt underneath it was like a bomb waiting to go off. There is so much 'anti' feelings exhibited toward people not like them, like Yankees and most especially New Yorker with their liberal values.. I felt southern culture was kind of ridiculous. Sweet tea. Lots of churches. Religious judgmental attitudes out the wazoo. Ugh It just seemed so phony. But every corner I turned, there was an voluptuous white or black woman in a spring, floral-print dress with big hair and too much makeup, smiling and telling me, "Bless yer heart." I kinda liked that! Made me feel good and welcome.But the south has great irritations for me. For example, The "War" ain't over, the confederacy lives on and the south will rise again in the Deep South like Alabama and Mississippi is heard often in churches and town halls... They have a world view separate from the rest of the USA. They want to teach "creationism" in the schools and elect ultra conservative politicians who want to make the USA a Christian nation. From the outside it has looked like a gaggle of incompetent evangelical inbreeds at times.I will never accept evangelicals constantly putting their religion into politics and always the ultra conservative kind that supports racial segregation, fights the Civil Rights movement saying it s communist just like Martin Luther King and all his cohorts just like me. I don't like the constant Confederate reminders, rants against immigrants and critical thinkers and the unrequited love of guns and 'Stand Your ground' culture.Yes the south is backward, I see things on a daily basis that test my patience. I have never seen so many Confederate flags as I have since I moved here, and every single time it makes me angry. When that happens, I take a deep breath and remind myself that people believe what they are taught to believe - the people flying those flags were taught by parents, teachers, or whoever else that those banners are symbols of history, not of the systematic oppression of someone who looked different than they do.Northerners tend to be far more educated, industrialized, high tech, socially advanced, and immigrant driven worldly. More students from Northern States go to Ivy League and highly academic Colleges and get more well rounded educations. The North generally spearheaded and protected many of the American social and domestic human rights movements as a first world country in the early 1900's to ensure the good of its people. The south still remains in a backward thinking, a capricious slumber in which visions of white power and hate speech are as common as the rising of the sun.The south is vastly different than the north - It’s not really strictly a Northern vs. Southern thing. It’s much more related to being an urban vs. rural thing, although that’s not everything. There is also their extreme religiosity, slave and Jim Crow history and resultant Civil War where 650,000 people were killed leaving deep feelings in the south. There is a saying in the south "The War ain't over."Southern States Generally are more Conservative than the Northern StatesLike nearly everything else in the South, it has to do with slavery. Southern society was never founded on the same egalitarian concepts as the North. The South was established as slavery based system for two and a half centuries. Jefferson Davis and the southern governors all said slavery was the reason for succession and that with Lincoln as president the ‘Slaveholding States’ would no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government had become their enemy.The North parts of the country have very different histories right from the beginning. In New England (NE), you typically had small farmers, merchants and religious nonconformists. They set up a society based on modern infrastructures, agricultural mores (fences and laws), education and somewhat austere and very different faith traditions. In NE, you had a strong elementary level of education for almost everybody and (for a few) university education. The North was established as an immigrant driven, manufacturing and freedom oriented country, the South as a plantation system using slave labor. In the south, you had a Bible belt mentality, very little education, not much infrastructure, it was an agrarian society built on cotton and slave labor. At the time of the Civil War, there 4.8 million black slaves and 5 million whites in the south. The North ended up being more industrial and the people much wealthier, while the South stayed very rural, poor and secluded.My Midwestern history was formed by my immigrant Viking/German/Irish family, with a long history in ship building, construction within a highly disciplined traditional family life filled with rigid values. My growing up normal was a traditional one for decency, stability and political order, e.g.: you get an education, work hard, keep your nose clean, stay away from bad people, develop and keep enlightened ideals, persist in your endeavors, get married and have kids, watch them close and love them constantly, grow old gracefully and you will and yours win. You stand for what is right and fight the evils of bigotry, fascism, communism, murder and mayhem throughout the world, respect our flag and military for defending our ideals.Differences between the North and the South were readily apparent well before the American Revolution. Economic, social and political structures differed significantly between the two regions, one an oligarchy slave labor agrarian region, the other a democratic manufacturing region, and these disparities only widened in the 1800s. In 1861, the Civil War erupted between the two sides, and much of the conflict surrounded sectional differences. Once the war ended, Reconstruction lessened some sectional disparities but increased others like a never ending animosity toward Yankees.But what is considered the south? I think the south is the old Confederacy who many call Dixie which has become one of those stereotypes of Red Necks, pickup trucks, low IQ, Fox News officiandos, and Confederate Flags. For political pundits, it’s shorthand for 'White People' South of I-64 or I-40 who goes to evangelical churches and vote Republican. Mysteriously, although black people can be found in vast numbers in Southern states and arguably have more collective sweat equity in the region than anybody, but whenever pundits say “Dixie” they are always talking exclusively about the ugly fat white people who chew tobacco then spit, think the north started the Civil War and is socialist, ungodly and secular, Obama is a Muslim, 500 pounders who go to Wal*Mart in bikini shorts and wife beater T shirts and think they are pretty or handsome. We could say, for example, that people who eat grits, listen to country music, follow NASCAR, support corporal punishment in the schools, hunt possum, go to evangelical - Baptist churches and prefer bourbon to scotch (if they drink at all) are likely to be Southerners. Bottom line, southerners think highly of themselves and try very hard to be different. In any case, the South still is at the bottom of the socioeconomic heap in the USA and is responsible for the huge culture wars in the USA, it being about the ultra conservative religious and political types embedded in the 19th century verses the secular progressives living in the 21st century.Today the southern US is the fastest growing region in the country. The north is taxing its citizens to death and it is cold. And the south has socially modernized to some extent. What is called segregation is big cities all over the USA have huge pockets of minority (Black, Brown, Korean, etc.) neighborhoods, but I think this represents people sticking to their own kind. Let's face it; whites tend to be Republicans and minorities Democratic and today that represent a huge difference in culture.As a 82 year old Yankee who lived in the south and was involved in the civil rights struggle, I remember well the segregated south, the separate schools, washrooms and water fountains, the lynching, marching and murders of civil rights workers. Those were violent times and most interesting too. The washrooms marked “colored” were unisex. I’m speaking here of gas station facilities. I would use those marked “colored” when the “White” washrooms had a line. In some places the police would arrest you for using a 'colored' washroom, jail you ad treat you brutally. In some places no one ever said a word to us. And honestly they were cleaner than the “White” washrooms, since the Black people did not write on the walls. The “White” men’s rooms were full of graffiti and tons of offers for sex - mostly of the homosexual variety. I could go on about those days, but why? Segregation of that sort is long gone. Towns and cities may be segregated even to day, but not by law. And public businesses are assuredly not.The south started changing after WW II. Between jamming millions of men into military service which forced them all to accommodate each other and learn a bit about the varieties of people and culture and America's 'Great Generation' becoming industrialized, America was changing greatly. Then there were the 1960s freeways, people got more connected, rest stops became cleaner and facilities more uniform. Small towns either became smaller or got foreign manufacturing to build there. Cities became larger and more indistinguishable from many across the nation. And finally there was air conditioning. That allowed the south to accommodate Yankees used to cooler weather and they came by the millions - much to the chagrin of the southerners.I live in the south now and love it - where high school football is the second religion, warm weather, cheap housing and low taxes for a retiree is a good thing. However, religion and politics is different than my northern experiences, the south its very conservative; church going, Trump loving and immigrant hating territory. And our pace and style are markedly different from other areas of the country. Here people live a much lower pace, eat lots of fast food, socialize from churches instead of as northerners do in shopping mall bowling alleys, Diners, highway [sic Holiday Inn] sausage and salad buffets, and family oriented sports bars with big TV screens showing football and baseball games, serving pizza, boiled eggs and pigs feet with sour pickles. Believe it or not I’ve even eaten decent cornbread and black eyed peas in New HampshireSince integration has occurred and is now an accepted, normal fact of life, the last echo of Jim Crow South is attenuating to nothing. The virulent racists of the previous generation are mostly gone. The racism of my generation is emasculated, frustrated and isolated. When we finally die-off we will carry with us the last memories of Jim Crow. Racism won’t be entirely gone but it will be such an oddity that I hope my descendants will just laugh at the foolishness of people; scratching their heads, wondering what the fuss was about. So maybe that still sets us apart a bit—the fast-fading memory of Jim Crow segregation. The south has a 'Black heavy' population who form a majority in many southern counties and most cities. But racism is a very big issue here from both sides. As a result, it seems as though crime and police brutality is higher here than in most places throughout the U.S.The south is still deeply conscious and disturbed by the Civil War where many call it the war of ' Northern Aggression' since most of the battles were fought here and Sherman's march across Georgia to the sea is still lamented. I could say something cliché like people there still fly rebel flags in their yards, but the truth is since the mid-seventies there has been so much redistribution of people and younger people growing up with more modern and widely held habits and ideas etc that there is not anything that happens there now that doesn’t happen in every part of the world.The south is all about food which is greatly influenced by traditional Black cooking. Fried chicken, frog’s legs, turnips (the green parts), grits, black eyed peas, chitterlings, ham hocks, and such. The south was built by Black cooking and Black labor. But go to any large southern city and you will find every nationality of food known: from French to Laotian - all served with ICED tea, usually sweetened. One drinks iced tea all year in the south. Of course the high brows do have their hot tea too, and folks have green tea, and, yes, there are vegans!Yes the north has a few dishes but they taste nothing like the dishes from the south. Especially in the coastal states. You will find they eat just about anything they can farm, fish or hunt. Yes opossum, raccoons, deer, snake, squirrel, turtle, shark, stingray, oysters, sheep, etc. You name it if it can be cooked, it can be eaten. Animal parts and organs are also eaten. They eat pig feet, tail, hog mawls, chitterlings, cow tongue, chicken feet, chicken gizzards, chicken neck and chicken and beef livers. Its not uncommon to see a frozen cow head or goat head for sale in the store. Yes they will eat foods some throw away. They find ways to make them taste and look delicious. They wash it down with sweet tea, freshly squeezed lemonade or soda.There are lots of hurricanes, trailer parks and rain. Where small towns and cities well north of the Gulf Coast become RV trailer parks for evacuees when hurricanes are heading towards land. Where divided highways become one-way for traffic evacuating coastal areas before a hurricane makes landfall. Where people hang out in open garages drinking beer and grilling on the bar-b-queue during severe weather events to keep an eye out for tornadoes. Staying home from work or school because there’s a few inches of snow on the roads since nobody plows the roads, including the interstates. Tropical downpours so heavy that you can’t see past the hood of your car and sometimes nothing past the windshield glass. Where a late afternoon ‘Patio Pounder” (localized thunderhead collapse) will dump 1–2″ of rain in 20–30 minutes to cause flooding a short distance away where the ground is bone dry.The south is basically 'country.' Dirt roads and back roads are common. There are long trips between gas stations and many back roads( in some places) Yes it rains a lot so have your 4 wheel drive ready. Don't worry if your truck gets stuck in the mud or you run short of gas and break down. They will help you( if they see you).They are very conservative. No they are not all Trumpets but even the most liberal southerner is very conservative. On Sundays they go to church, no exceptions. They work and encourage the children to go to school. They take care of each other and each others children. They know their neighbors and neighborhood. The churches usually are staples in the neighborhood especially during times of disasters.As far as I am concerned, the confederate flag holds a racist meaning and you will see it flying across the deep south where some southerners hold it as a symbol of pride aand heritage and 150 years after the war it is a symbol of serious contention. Its not uncommon to see it and the American flag flying proudly at someone's home or on their car.And visit Savannah and Charleston: Fabulous, unlike anywhere in the USA. Savannah’s old downtown is situated around a series of squares. Visit the Mercer - Williams house on Bull St. Visit the antebellum mansions of a vanished culture.Visit the Graveyards around New Orleans. They are often featured in movies, but movies are not the real thing. It is best to go with a guide who will explain how the tombs are utilized.Finally, the Civil War was fought with rare exception all over the South. The Battlefields are heartbreaking but very moving to visit. So are Southern graveyards, which go back to the beginning of our Country.Criticism ObservationsI hear a lot of criticism about the South from Northerners on my e-mail distribution, especially those from the New York Metro area, and most especially those friends and co workers who worked in Manhattan that I stay in touch with.When Bettie and I visited our old home in Middletown, NY a few weeks ago, we heard complaints about the South from friends in our church who visited there recently and experienced nasty Southern attitudes not found in Middletown, some comments were racial, some were from the political right trash talking Obama, and much that showed how totally uninformed some people were.Yes, the North is politically liberal compared to the conservative South, but my friends thought many Southern opinions are based on some very strange and incorrect conclusions of fact. The mess the USA is in has been around and growing for more than thirty years and has to do with the globalization of the economy and lack of investment in the USA, and the biggest culprit these days being the Republican party for its “do nothing,” say “no,” even forget the good of the country and do anything to defeat Obama, style of politics - at least that is the way most Northerners understand the Southern problem.My friends were also confused on the dichotomy, the Bible Belt that is so intolerant and lacking the compassion for their fellow man, they expected more from religious people. There were some bad stories too, including Ku Klux Klan types wearing T-shirts and mouthing off their hate of Jews, Negroes and Yankees. To many Northerners, the South is considered a white mans enclaves of right wing politics. My old church members didn’t like what they heard and decided never to move there.Here is a comment from on of my friends who lived in New Jersey and moved to North Carolina and now regret it:Quote: I sure do miss NJ. Quick access by rail to New York and Philly. Lots of Educated people who actually work at real professions and know what is going on in the world. Great ethnic food from "real" supermarkets and restaurants. Sports other than NASCAR! Sidewalks! Delis! The Jersey Shore. Bars, juke joints, dance clubs, where neighbors can hang together and get to know each other. In other words, civilization!Too many Southerners are safely content only while sitting in their back yards, drinking warm beer and talking about deer hunting and NASCAR while they pick their noses and bitch about government, taxes, gays, and everything else that they are ignorant about and afraid of (Mexicans, Europeans, Muslims, Yankees, Blacks, women they're not related to and therefore cannot have sex with), etc. I've met hundreds of North Carolinians who've never been outside the County, yet they claim to know everything there is to know about the world. I feel sorry for them. They never have had a life. New Jersey is an expensive place to live, because it's a great place to live and I wish I was still there. End quote . . .Since moving South, I have heard a neverending charade of hateful comments about New York coming from Southerners who regard the Big Apple as sin incarnate. It’s more than a cultural war between two geopolitical sections of the country with very different views of the world, it is a clash of ideas and life styles, one conforming and the other freedom loving, that I am sure will be reflected in the ballot box.Will it ever end?