Private institutions and banks will sponsor the projects. (Put bank and lending institutions to work. They must issue loans at low interest and without special attachments or conditions.) The projects should have commercial value such as: new housing / inspection and repair of homes, apartments and other living abodes; the construction of roads, bridges, and parks; and the production of essential material goods and food.
Reclamation and recycling services are vital. Clearing and cleaning away decrepit buildings and structures. Removing debris and trash from fields, forests, rivers, beaches, ponds, lakes, marshes and estuaries. Students will receive stipends for participating in these projects.
Students will also be instructed in basic life support, CPR, and other First Response programs. After completion of such courses, students may apply for apprenticeships in firefighting and law enforcement and of course volunteer as support staff in hospitals. (First Response certifications must be renewed every two years.)
[AJ- Seems to be less indented than other bullets]
At age sixteen, a student may commit to a trade, applying for formal apprenticeship with a chosen union. Students will then enter GED track, allowing the student to spend more time studying the trade. At this time, students will also be introduced to other trades such as machinist (tool & die), welding, farming, fishing, forestry, landscaping, sanitation etc.
[AJ- Seems to be no indent here at all]
At age eighteen, a graduating high school student may have acquired up to six years of general trade experience. This person will be able to work anywhere in America as they pursue careers and dreams and further education.
If student continues education, loans will be guaranteed frozen at rates to be determined later. [AJ- Later? Would this not have been detailed?] [DWR- This is a working proposal. I still have to run it by AG committees. Values will be determined later.] By this time, students will have money in the bank and the ready ability to make money, so loans will be low risk. Cash incentives will be offered to students who are admitted to top colleges and universities, as well as students who are accepted into Annapolis and West Point [AJ- Why would cash incentives be needed here?] [DWR- So they can build savings accounts and/or invest in stocks].
The Adult Workforce:
This program can also be applied to the immediate available workforce. Adults retrained to learn a trade or craft. This workforce can be directly employed to inspect, repair and maintain roads, tunnels, bridges, levees, dams, parks, etc. These projects have no end because maintenance is a never-ending element. (All structures require upgrade / retro-fit due to improvements in technology and age of structures.)
New technologies in energy, transportation, irrigation, farming, etc., will necessitate new construction.
This program can also be a tool of rehabilitation for non-violent incarcerated civilians. (Regarding violent offenders, case reviews will determine if program should be extended to these individuals.) While serving sentence, an inmate will be given a stipend for work and educational trade programs, just as a student. The bank holds the stipend and will distribute monies toward union dues, cost of inmate’s incarceration including all outstanding costs to any property damage related to inmate’s arrest or other incursions to private or public property and financially awarded civil suits. All remaining monies will be deposited into the inmate’s bank account.
The system will fashion a path for former incarcerated individuals to safely re-enter the general population and contribute to society.
This program allows artists, musicians and others the freedom to pursue their craft while remaining gainfully employed.
Long Term Aspirations:
Extra stellar commerce and space exploration.
Currently we have very talented individuals, already working in harsh and dangerous environments (commercial divers working on offshore oil derricks, and coal miners), who can easily adapt to the required working conditions of space. These rugged individuals will build the space stations – military and civilian – in orbit.
At this time, existing space debris, dying satellites and such will be repaired/upgraded, recycled, or collected and destroyed.
Only experienced trade and craftsman will be afforded the opportunity to work in space. An applicant must have six years of experience in trade/craft before an application for off-planet labor will be considered [AJ- Again, detail needed].
Mining asteroids for required materials should be a viable procedure. Once cost-effective transport and supply lines are in place for mining facilities, numerous commercial enterprises can be created.
Profitable Commercial Ventures:
The removal and repair of satellites and other orbital debris.
Mining and space exploration.
Orbital restaurants.
Weekends in space.
Trips to the moon. (General stargazing.)
Concerts and sporting events.
Romantic getaways that offer facilities allowing couples to experience zero-g intimacy.
Regarding Armed Services:
Only enlisted servicemen and women will be allowed to work on orbital military installations or space exploration vessels. All functions to be performed by enlisted servicemen and women. This will lower operating costs and maintain enrollment and stimulate ‘recruitment into’ the armed services.
Cancel all existing and proposed contracts with any and all Private Military Companies, sometimes called or classified as Private Military Contractors, Private Security Contractors, Private Military Corporations, Private Military Firms, Military Service Providers, and generally any business considered a participant in the Private Military Industry.
Regarding Logistics and the Use of Educational Technologies:
All educational material should be switched to e-reader format. This will enable teachers to present current and relative learning tools to the classroom. E-readers will also eliminate the burden of carrying out-dated and heavy schoolbooks. E-readers should be manufactured entirely in the United States. (No foreign contracts.)
Schools must be updated with Wi-Fi technology. A standardized learning platform should be developed for the classroom and the wireless desktop units should be manufactured in the United States. The desktop units will communicate with the e-reader, allowing teachers to assign and elevate onsite exercises and homework with less stress and a more comprehensive outlook. This system conducts students to work assignments at their own pace and will grant educators inclusive one-on-one time with struggling students.
Classes will be staggered to accommodate students’ trade/craft work schedules. (Perhaps as much as two days – 12/16 hours – of work.) Students should also be encouraged to participate in music, sports, clubs and organizations.
In Summary:
Peace is profitable! Remember, a large end of the American economy is balanced on one event – Christmas. The birth of Jesus Christ: the Prince of Peace. I say again, peace is profitable. Bank on the Lord and watch your interest grow daily. And the dividends are amazing.
– End of document –
Elsewhen Press
an independent publisher specialising in Speculative Fiction
Visit the Elsewhen Press website at elsewhen.co.uk for the latest information on all of our titles, authors and events; to read our blog; to find out where to buy our books and ebooks; or to place an order.
Elsewhen Press
Dandelion Trilogy
Mike French
Literary surrealism, contemporary fantasy, biting satire, dystopian science fiction. The Dandelion Trilogy by Mike French is all of these and more. Starting with The Ascent of Isaac Steward, this is literary surrealism at its most profound. A contemporary fantasy that follows one man’s journey into his own mind as he struggles to come to terms with the trauma that has reshaped his life and starts to question his own existence. Moving forward to 2034 in Blue Friday, this biting satire warns of a Britain where overtime for married couples is banned, there is enforced viewing of f
amily television (much of it repeats of old shows from the sixties and seventies), monitored family meal-times and a coming of age where twenty-five year-olds are automatically assigned a spouse by the state computer if they have failed to marry. Only the Overtime Underground network resists with the illicit Avodah drug to increase productivity. Finally Convergence delivers us into a truly dystopian future, where a covert military/governmental project uses prisoners on death row to explore what happens to people as they die, downloading the Convergence Point formed in the brain's memory at the point of death into clones. But when combined with Avodah they inadvertently trigger what may be the end of humanity – or a new beginning.
What does it have to do with dandelions? You'll have to read it to find out...
ebook, paperback
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Elsewhen Press
Arteess: Conflict
James Starling
Winner of the SILVER Award in the Teenage Fiction category of the 2013 Wishing Shelf Independent Book Awards
Arteess: Conflict is the first in a new science fiction series where much of the action takes place inside a game. But surviving the game is not child’s play. We learn of science, betrayal, power and progress – from the perspective of innocent, but nevertheless accomplished gamers.
Created as an experiment into the nature of time itself, the virtual world of Arteess exists, in the near future, as a private digital realm. A full-body virtual reality experience where the talented, the shrewd and the lucky are invited to participate in an international war zone of nomadic factions. We are introduced into the world of Arteess alongside the Shard squad, a group of friends specialising in conflict arenas. Though each member possesses unique talents, they are ultimately defined by their personalities, their own personal battles and the moral choices they make in the consequence-free virtual environment.
Surrounded by sociopathic technicians, facetious pilots and a potentially insane commander, they must carve out a place for themselves while surviving the onslaught of rivals and the antics of the rest of their own faction.
ebook, paperback (256pp)
visit bit.ly/Arteess-Conflict
Elsewhen Press
Future Perfect
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A future in which men and women are almost identical, relationships forbidden. The BodyPerfect cult means looks are everything. A young woman, Caia becomes attracted to co-worker Mac, a rebel questioning their ‘utopian society’. Slowly drawn into a forbidden world, her life changes irreversibly when they are both sent on an outdoor research mission.
ebook, paperback (288pp)
visit bit.ly/FuturePerfect
Elsewhen Press
LiGa™
Sanem Ozdural
Have YOU had your invitation yet?
Literary science fiction, LiGa™ tells of a game in which the players are, literally, gambling with their lives. Sanem Ozdural’s debut novel is set in a near-future where a secretive organisation has developed technology to transfer the regenerative power of a body’s cells from one person to another, conferring extended or even indefinite life expectancy. Access is limited to those invited to play.
At once fantastic, yet credible, the familiarity of the contemporary setting gives a definite slipstream feel to Sanem’s debut novel, providing a fascinating insight into the motivation of those characters who win the possibility of virtual immortality and of those who will lose some of their life expectancy.
ebook, paperback (400pp)
visit bit.ly/LiGaBook
Elsewhen Press
The Lost Men, an allegory
David Colón
A world where the human population has been decimated. For the few remaining people, the only human contact is their counsel, a mentor who guides them to find ‘the one’, their life mate as decreed by Fate. The only threats to this stable, if sparse, existence are the ‘lost men’ - mindless murderers, living outside the confines of counsel and Fate.
Is Fate a real force, or is it totally imagined, an arbitrary convention, a product of mankind’s self-destructive tendency? In this allegorical tale, David Colón uses an alternate near-future to explore the boundaries of the human condition and the extent to which we are prepared to surrender our capacity for decisions and self-determination in the face of a very personally directed and apparently benevolent, authoritarianism. Is it our responsibility to rebuke inherited ‘wisdom’ for the sake of envisioning and manifesting our own will?
ebook, paperback (192pp)
visit lost-men.com
Elsewhen Press
SUFFICIENTLY ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY
THE FIRST BOOK IN THE INVERSE SHADOWS UNIVERSE
CHRISTOPHER NUTTALL
For the post-singularity Confederation, manipulating the quantum foam – the ability to alter the base code of the universe itself and achieve transcendence – is the holy grail of science. But it seems an impossible dream until their scouts encounter Darius, a lost colony world whose inhabitants have apparently discarded the technology that brought them to the planet in order to adopt a virtually feudal culture. On Darius, the ruling elite exhibits abilities that defy the accepted laws of physics. They can manipulate the quantum foam!
Desperate to understand what is happening on Darius, the Confederation dispatches a stealth team to infiltrate the planet's society and discover the truth behind their strange abilities. But they will soon realise that the people on Darius are not all the simple folk that they seem – and they are sitting on a secret that threatens the entire universe ...
ebook, paperback (336pp)
visit bit.ly/SAT-Nuttall
the author
Stefan Jackson was born in North Carolina beside the calm eddies of the Trent and Neuse rivers, but spent the latter part of his childhood in southern California. In 1994 he moved to Brooklyn looking for a change, drawn to the energetic confluence of the Hudson and East rivers of the Big Bright City. There he met a lovely woman who became his wife, and they have an enchanting daughter. And a cat.
He now lives in Queens, where he writes stories, plays drums, coaches pee-wee girl’s basketball, works the cubicle life, cooks breakfast, rides the F line, laughs and rests his head in the land of jazz.
Stefan has had over two-dozen original short stories and comic scripts published in small press publications and on the web. Glass Shore is his first novel.
Stefan says “Cheers to the first fifty years. Hoping the next fifty are just as kind.”
Glass Shore Page 27
