Olympic's dark days--a twist on the Munich Massacre

Olympic's dark days--revisit a twist on the Munich Massacre with this free flashfiction

September 2012 marks the 40th anniversary of one of the most heinous and traumatic events in Olympic History--the Munich Massacre in 1972, during the second week of the Summer Olympics. Tracey Vale explores an intriguing twist in her free ebook.

September 2012 marks the 40th anniversary of the tragic events of the Munich Massacre. This free flashfiction, 'Olympic Honour', by Tracey Vale, offers the hope of redemption through a new Olympic challenge in London.

The free ebook is available for a limited time by downloading Ether Books free app, then go to the tab 'What's Hot' and scroll down to Tracey Vale, Olympic Honour. The app is available here: http://itunes.apple.com/app/id362070951?mt=8

In 1972, in Munich, Bavaria, members of the Palestinian terrorist group, Black September, took advantage of lax security at the Summer Olympics, entering the Olympic village with ease, dressed in tracksuits and carrying their ammunition in gym bags.

Members of the Israeli team were taken hostage, and eventually killed. Numbering 11 athletes, they were robbed of their chance to compete. An Israeli coach and a West German police officer were also killed in the ensuing massacre.

The free flashfiction, 'Olympic Honour' explores a charater related to one of the terrorists who disagrees with their actions. She defects to another country to start a new life but remains plagued by her family's past. How will she achieve redemption? How would you feel if you were related to one of those terrorists?

Israeli Yossef Romano, 31, was the first of the athletes to be killed, grabbing a gun from one of the intruders, only to be killed by another.

See the promo poster here: http://www.tumblr.com/blog/expresswords1
and download the free flashfiction from Ether books with their free app here: http://itunes.apple.com/app/id362070951?mt=8 

Free Olympic-themed Flash Fiction

September 2012 marks 40 years since one of the most tragic events in Olympic Games history—the Munich Massacre, occurring in the second week of the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Bavaria.
Author, Tracey Vale explores what could have happened if a close family member of one of the terrorists defected to Israel.

Read her account in this flash fiction read, titled ‘Olympic Honour’, available for a limited time at Ether Books. Download their free app here: http://itunes.apple.com/app/id362070951?mt=8 and look up the title.

A free flash fiction read

Wish upon a star

"We all have days when reality seems all too difficult, and hiding under the doona in bed starts to look increasingly appealing. Instead of surrendering to stress and sorrow, take a moment to breathe deeply, clear your mind and believe that possibility can bewitch actuality. Pick a dandelion and wish upon its seeds, or find the first star in the sky as dusk falls. reality can be a stern master but, just sometimes, magic can happen."
Source: Quote from Notebook Magazine, January 2006, p.35

Mt. Lofty Botanic Gardens. Copyright 2012, Tracey Vale

Popcorn packs a healthful punch, By Tracey Vale

A recent study by scientists at the University of Scranton, Pennsylvania, has revealed that popcorn is packed full of antioxidants and fibre. One serve provides more of these health benefits than that provided by total daily requirements of fruits or vegetables.

The study revealed that the hull has the highest concentration of polyphenols, a type of antioxidant, and fibre. Polyphenols are more diluted in fruits and vegetables due to the high water content, which is generally around 90 percent, compared with a four percent water content in popcorn. It is, however, important to note that popcorn must not be seen as a replacement for fruit and vegetables, also valuable for their high nutrient and essential vitamin content. Instead, use popcorn to replace unhealthy snacks such as potato chips and biscuits.

The level of polyphenols found in popcorn also rivals those found in nuts and products such as wholegrain tortilla chips.

Antioxidants are important in reducing the risk of cancer and many other diseases, including heart disease.

300 milligrams of polyphenols are found in one serving of popcorn, compared to 114 milligrams found in one serving of sweetcorn and 160 milligrams found in one serving of fruit.

The daily requirement of fruit provides 255 milligrams of polyphenols, while the daily requirement of vegetables contains 218 milligrams.

Popcorn is the only snack that is 100 percent unprocessed wholegrain. Other products listed as ‘wholegrain’ are only required to be at a level of 51%. One serving of popcorn provides 70 percent of daily wholegrain requirements.

In order for popcorn to be healthy, however, it must be cooked in a way which maintains the health benefits without adding unhealthy ingredients. Cinema popcorn is not healthy due to its liberal slatherings of butter and salt. Similarly, packaged popcorn has unnecessary additives, as does packaged microwave popcorn kernels.

Air-pop the popcorn, keeping oil and salt to a bare minimum. A healthy, quick microwave method is listed below. Flavour can be varied by adding your choice of the following:

• Grated parmesan cheese
• Mixed herbs
• Chopped dill
• Chilli powder
• Curry powder
• Cinnamon
• Mixed spice

Combinations of ingredients include:

• Parmesan, mustard powder, pepper
• Parmesan, oregano, dried tomato powder
• Curry powder, turmeric, ginger
• Pepper, onion powder, turmeric, ginger,
• Pepper, onion powder, mixed herbs
• 2 teaspoons sugar (replace salt), ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• Malt vinegar in a spritz spray bottle, sprayed onto salted popcorn

Healthy Microwave Popcorn

½ cup popcorn kernels (makes about 4 cups)

½ teaspoon olive oil

salt to taste

brown paper bag, folded down twice at the top (1.5cm folds)

Mix kernels in a cup with the oil and salt. Tip into the paper bag and fold the top over. Place upright in the microwave and cook on HIGH for 2 ½ minutes. Any uncooked kernels can be re-cooked once the popped corn is removed from the bag.

Resources:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120325173008.htm

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012/03/26/popcorn-packs-antioxidants-study-finds/

http://voices.yahoo.com/how-delicious-homemade-popcorn-seasonings-4529913.html

Autumn Collection

By an Autumn Fire, by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Now at our casement the wind is shrilling, 

Copyright Tracey Vale

Poignant and keen
And all the great boughs of the pines between
It is harping a lone and hungering strain
To the eldritch weeping of the rain;
And then to the wild, wet valley flying
It is seeking, sighing,
Something lost in the summer olden.
When night was silver and day was golden;
But out on the shore the waves are moaning
With ancient and never fulfilled desire,
And the spirits of all the empty spaces,
Of all the dark and haunted places,
With the rain and the wind on their death-white faces,
Come to the lure of our leaping fire.

But we bar them out with this rose-red splendor
From our blithe domain,  
And drown the whimper of wind and rain
With undaunted laughter, echoing long,
Cheery old tale and gay old song;
Ours is the joyance of ripe fruition,
Attained ambition.
Ours is the treasure of tested loving,
Friendship that needs no further proving;

No more of springtime hopes, sweet and uncertain,
Here we have largess of summer in fee­
Pile high the logs till the flame be leaping,
At bay the chill of the autumn keeping,
While pilgrim-wise, we may go a-reaping
In the fairest meadow of memory!

Autumn Fires, by Robert Louis Stevenson

In the other gardens
And all up the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
See the smoke trail!

Pleasant summer over
And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
The grey smoke towers.

Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
Fires in the fall!

Autumn Song, by Katherine Mansfield

Now's the time when children's noses
All become as red as roses
And the colour of their faces
Makes me think of orchard places
Where the juicy apples grow,
And tomatoes in a row.

And to-day the hardened sinner
Never could be late for dinner,
But will jump up to the table
Just as soon as he is able,
Ask for three times hot roast mutton--
Oh! the shocking little glutton.

Come then, find your ball and racket,
Pop into your winter jacket,
With the lovely bear-skin lining.
While the sun is brightly shining,
Let us run and play together
And just love the autumn weather

Autumn, by William Morris

Laden Autumn here I stand
Worn of heart, and weak of hand:
Nought but rest seems good to me,
Speak the word that sets me free.

Autumn in the Garden, by Henry Van Dyke

When the frosty kiss of Autumn in the dark
Makes its mark
On the flowers, and the misty morning grieves
Over fallen leaves;
Then my olden garden, where the golden soil
Through the toil
Of a hundred years is mellow, rich, and deep,
Whispers in its sleep.

'Mid the crumpled beds of marigold and phlox,
Where the box
Borders with its glossy green the ancient walks,
There's a voice that talks
Of the human hopes that bloomed and withered here
Year by year,--
Dreams of joy, that brightened all the labouring hours,
Fading as the flowers.

Yet the whispered story does not deepen grief;
But relief
For the loneliness of sorrow seems to flow
From the Long-Ago,
When I think of other lives that learned, like mine,
To resign,
And remember that the sadness of the fall
Comes alike to all.

What regrets, what longings for the lost were theirs!
And what prayers
For the silent strength that nerves us to endure
Things we cannot cure!
Pacing up and down the garden where they paced,
I have traced
All their well-worn paths of patience, till I find
Comfort in my mind.

Faint and far away their ancient griefs appear:
Yet how near
Is the tender voice, the careworn, kindly face,
Of the human race!
Let us walk together in the garden, dearest heart,
Not apart!
They who know the sorrows other lives have known
Never walk alone.

The Autumn, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Go, sit upon the lofty hill,
And turn your eyes around,
Where waving woods and waters wild
Do hymn an autumn sound.
The summer sun is faint on them --
The summer flowers depart --
Sit still -- as all transform'd to stone,
Except your musing heart.

How there you sat in summer-time,
May yet be in your mind;
And how you heard the green woods sing
Beneath the freshening wind.
Though the same wind now blows around,
You would its blast recall;
For every breath that stirs the trees,
Doth cause a leaf to fall.

Oh! like that wind, is all the mirth
That flesh and dust impart:
We cannot bear its visitings,
When change is on the heart.
Gay words and jests may make us smile,
When Sorrow is asleep;
But other things must make us smile,
When Sorrow bids us weep!

The dearest hands that clasp our hands, --
Their presence may be o'er;
The dearest voice that meets our ear,
That tone may come no more!
Youth fades; and then, the joys of youth,
Which once refresh'd our mind,
Shall come -- as, on those sighing woods,
The chilling autumn wind.

Hear not the wind -- view not the woods;
Look out o'er vale and hill-
In spring, the sky encircled them --
The sky is round them still.
Come autumn's scathe -- come winter's cold --
Come change -- and human fate!
Whatever prospect Heaven doth bound,
Can ne'er be desolate.

A song of Autumn, Adam Lindsay Gordon

‘WHERE shall we go for our garlands glad
At the falling of the year,
When the burnt-up banks are yellow and sad,
When the boughs are yellow and sere?
Where are the old ones that once we had,
And when are the new ones near?
What shall we do for our garlands glad
At the falling of the year?’
‘Child! can I tell where the garlands go?
Can I say where the lost leaves veer
On the brown-burnt banks, when the wild winds blow,
When they drift through the dead-wood drear?
Girl! when the garlands of next year glow,
You may gather again, my dear—
But I go where the last year’s lost leaves go
At the falling of the year.’

In autumn moonlight, when the white air wan, by Robert Seymour Bridges

In autumn moonlight, when the white air wan
Is fragrant in the wake of summer hence,
'Tis sweet to sit entranced, and muse thereon
In melancholy and godlike indolence:
When the proud spirit, lull'd by mortal prime
To fond pretence of immortality,
Vieweth all moments from the birth of time,
All things whate'er have been or yet shall be.
And like the garden, where the year is spent,
The ruin of old life is full of yearning,
Mingling poetic rapture of lament
With flowers and sunshine of spring's sure returning;
Only in visions of the white air wan
By godlike fancy seized and dwelt upon.

All photographs Copyright Tracey Vale 2012

The Fire Under Fyodor Dostoyevsky, By Tracey Vale

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dostoevsky_1872.jpg

The opening chapter of a book, the name of which I can’t recall, reminds us that we have, on average, a certain number of days left and that we should think of our lives in this way and not waste the time we have left. ‘Carpe Diem’, or ‘Seize the day’ is a quote made particularly famous in the movie Dead Poets’ Society and one that suits this message.

The renowned Russian writer, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) was reminded of this in a way that most of us will never experience, a completely jolting, terrifying experience causing him to value his time and talent and compelling him with an incredible drive.

It was December 1849, Dostoyevsky was blindfolded as part of his punishment for the ‘Patrashevsky conspiracy’, believed since to be a primarily harmless group, following his arrest for sedition. The firing squad, under orders from the Russian Czar, had lifted their rifles and prepared to shoot when a messenger ran toward them, yelling “Stop!”, signifying a last-minute reprieve. Instead, he was sentenced to four years imprisonment in Siberia.

“Czar Nicholas had decided to sentence the Petrashevsky radicals to hard labor soon after their arrest. But he wanted to teach them a harsher lesson as well, so he dreamed up the cruel theater of the death sentence, with its careful details—the priest, the hoods, the coffins, the last-second pardon. This, he thought, would really humble and humiliate them. In fact some of the prisoners were driven insane by the events of that day. But the effect on Dostoyevsky was different: he had been afflicted for years with a sense of wandering, of feeling lost, of not knowing what to do with his time. An extremely sensitive man, that day he literally felt his own death deep in his bones. And he experienced his "pardon" as a rebirth.”1

He returned to St. Petersburg with a new motto: to do as much as he could in the shortest possible time, to achieve to the best of his ability. As this attitude was directly the result of his overturned execution, he became angry at those who expressed pity for his time of imprisonment. There was no residual bitterness—only an open view of his future. He pledged to utilise every moment, forcing himself back to that day whenever he felt himself straying from this goal.

“…he would have to write, and not the way other novelists wrote—as if it were a pleasant little artistic career, with all its attendant delights of salons, lectures, and other frills. Dostoyevsky wrote as if his life were at stake, with an intense feeling of urgency and seriousness.” 1

It was a lasting pledge, right up until his death in 1881. He wrote 11 novels, including Poor Folk, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Devils and The Brothers Karamazov, 17 short novels, three novellas and three essays. Acknowledged as an important and relevant psychologist in world literature, his work has influenced such writers as Ernest Hemingway and Sigmund Freud as well as influencing thinkers behind both the French and Russian revolutions.

References

• 1. The 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene: Cited 4/5/12 at http://www.artblog.net/post/2012/01/dostoyevsky/
• http://www.yamazumiyourlife.com/pivot-points/ Cited 4/5/12
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoyevsky Cited 4/5/12
• http://www.utoronto.ca/tsq/DS/01/003.shtml Cited 4/5/12