Rewrite of synopsis...

 

Maybe this is more involving? More Dynamic?

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Derry, Northern Ireland. It is 1966 and the Catholic minority has begun to push for civil rights against discrimination by the Protestant majority. One-man-one-vote. Decent housing. Good jobs. These are the most basic of requests, yet are still too much for those in power to accept. So there are confrontations and demonstrations that, step-by-step, grow more and more violent. 

Caught in the middle of this is Brendan Kinsella, a lad who just wants to live his life and follow his dreams. But history has decided to interfere.

Just days after his tenth birthday, his father is murdered. Because the man was a brutal drunk who kept the family in extreme poverty, Brendan is not sorry he is dead. 

However, he was killed by two Protestants, which sets his mother, Bernadette, on a path to Irish Nationalism. The third of her six children, Brendan is the one she constantly picks at and belittles as simple-minded, despite his knack for repairing things. In response, he stays quiet, observant, and consistently goes his own way. Even though it sometimes leads him into trouble. 

Through the next six years, Brendan is caught up in: 

• the Civil Rights demonstrations in Derry 
• the attack on peaceful marchers at Burntollet Bridge 
• the Battle of Bogside, the following August 
• the arrival of British troops to separate the two warring sides 
• the re-introduction of internment without trial
• Bloody Sunday 

There is also his growing relationship with a Protestant girl, one that has to be kept secret for fear of reprisals...from both sides...as he fights to find a place of safety in a world careening towards chaos.

This is volume one of three volumes.

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The situation between Israel and Hamas, in the Gaza Strip, is shredding me. I support Israel's right to exist and consider Hamas to be a terrorist organization. They keep needling Israel with rockets fired indiscriminately into the country, hoping they hit something. And sometimes they have, but it's more just an exercise in childish belligerence. 

They've also maintained a corrupt stranglehold of control on the people in Gaza since being elected in 2004, and won't allow new elections. They use the population as human shields, like cowards, and their slaughter in Israel last weekend was flat out evil.

But now Israel is bombing Gaza indiscriminately. They put out communiques claiming they've only targeted Hamas terrorists, but hundreds of children are dead, and the video coming out has destroyed Israel's image of righteousness. I've also learned Israel refused to let any of the weapons they've developed, like the Iron Dome, be sent to Ukraine for her defense. Like they're on Russia's side.

Russia funded and equipped Hamas, through Iran. Maybe even assisted and trained them in the terrorist attack. And Israel still supports that vile country? Somebody make it make sense.