The work of uncovering wisdom is also like panning for gold. We swish through the streams of experience, and we find a spangle here and there. In Explanation, author Rick Tobin offers those spangles, those nuggets of truth, through a series of letters written to his grandson. From abomination to termination, Tobin shares his important life experiences and opinions with his grandson. He explores doubts, fears, and perplexities that are found in various situations, and he illustrates how to find answers and personal truths to be a better person. The chapter Alternation speaks about the importance of truth and trust. In Condemnation, Tobin addresses the concept of working first and playing later as a rule to follow not only in school but in life. Insecurity and how it can contaminate ones life is discussed in the chapter Contamination, and the antidote is determination. Revolving around universal themes, Explanation speaks not only to Tobins grandson, but to all of us who may be seeking the nuggets, the spangles, the wisdoms of life that help us to be better people.

This user-friendly book includes listings for more than 300 websites. It helps users focus their emergency planning efforts and find the critical information they need on the Internet and explains how to use these resources to stay prepared and informed in a world increasingly vulnerable to the effects of disaster. Special features include a tour of Internet sites for emergency management, a discussion of practical applications for the Internet, and a guide for deciding when to use an emergency web site to deal with a disaster.

Few Americans would disagree that serious problems plague their country's education system. But what is the real reason for this serious malady? According to author and long-time teacher Rick Tobin, the usual suspects-beleaguered teachers, overcrowded classrooms, lack of funds, etc.-aren't to blame. Tobin believes that critics of the educational system have totally missed the point and that educational reform is aimed in the wrong direction. In his view, academic failure is the direct result of a loss of faith in American democracy. Current teaching objectives and the laws governing schools are failing to emphasize moral responsibility and personal accountability-fundamental aspects of the ethical framework that form the basis of American democracy and American education. These problems stem from what Tobin terms a prevailing "egoist" culture in America that largely ignores moral character building and downplays the need for individual accountability. He contends there are millions of Americans who fall within nine "classes" of people who are largely responsible for our educational mediocrity. Rick Tobin doesn't mince words in this candid expose, in which he also offers solutions for remedying our educational woes.

The book is divided into three parts. Using Mary Shelley's classic tale of horror, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, as a metaphor, I explain why too many Americans are turning into monsters. Too many Americans are becoming self-alienated and their children are not succeeding in our schools. I also explain what educators have mistakenly emphasized and tried in order to solve the problem. Part I: Making the Monster builds a definition of personal addiction. I argue that addicts teach addiction to others and that a vast population of Americans is deeply involved in an education in addiction. Part I deals with human needs, desires, and current cultural trends that give birth to addictive personality traits, the monster habits that I talk about when I show the Pet Monster to my pupils. These traits breed self-doubt and low self-esteem. They undermine our relationships and hinder our ability to love and care for ourselves and others. When we can't love ourselves, our children learn not to love themselves. They have difficulty adjusting to the demands and responsibilities they face in school. Addiction has become an entrenched cultural phenomenon. I argue that certain cultural trends are creating personal isolation, family dysfunction, and personal self-doubt. We are witnessing a withering of character and moral value. We are seeing a failure of commitment to personal growth. Part II: Feeding the Monster shows why more and more American families are becoming codependent to addictive cultural values and how this trend leads to the birth of the monster habits that keep our children from succeeding in school. I also discuss the ways our schools themselves support and nourish addictive tendencies in families and students. I look at the debate surrounding school reform and show how, although it is well intentioned, it is also misplaced. In Part II, we learn why we don't see our mistakes and why both parents and educators have developed blind spots in their vision of education. We're so accustomed to the supermonster of addiction that we just don't see it anymore. This is the true failure of education. We're not admitting that cultural codependency to addiction-to the monster-even exists. Part III: Taming the Monster explains what we can do to save ourselves from slipping farther into monsterhood. I suggest what schools, families, and communities must do to foster academic success and breathe value and character back into the lives of children and society. I also provide an outline for educational recovery. Only when we take steps to kill the supermonster and free ourselves from monstrous habits will we be able to stop the destruction that the monsters bring, the destruction that can end our world.

Here is poetry for the love sick, downtrodden, and the happy who need a wake up call. The Irish have a way about them: they laugh in the face of death, and mourn at moments of joy. There's no explaining it. It comes with the blood and from sitting around the table at night telling the stories of the day-of the hero's glory and victim's wounds. Here lie the bones of forty years of experiences-sometimes deeply troubling, sometimes uplifting, often dark, and some lighthearted. The works here stretch from the age of fourteen until my middle fifties-to cover the hates, loves, lusts, pains, frustrations, failures and successes that proceeded along a very winding path. Irish blood runs in the ink through them all, and over the skeleton made from the stone of Tara, which cannot be denied. Denial of the spirit's voice is not possible by any with the heritage from the Blessed Isle, for that murmuring grows over and through the soul, like heather 'round the stone.

From the delightful to the dreary, from beautiful to the defiled, this compendium of works from 2006-2010 represents the last poems written by Rick Tobin.

Selection of poems written by Rick Tobin from 2010 to 2012.

In 2013 San Francisco lies devastated after the pandemic of 2011 and the earthquake of 2012. Richard Sinclair is caught in the middle of intrigue and drama as mankind attempts a recovery. The Curse of the 8th Buddha is an adventure thriller in the new Knights Templar conspiracy genre. The tale involves the tragedy and turmoil faced by a new Templar initiate caught in the undertow of desperate conspiracies following the 2012 earth changes in the San Francisco Bay region. The secrets of what the Templars really are, their true agenda, and why humanity exists on Earth are all revealed through the hero's woes: he is a true trouble magnet extraordinaire. The story is filled with treachery, lust for gold, ancient mysteries and battles between good and evil, where perhaps only an eternal love can prevail against the curse of the 8th Buddha.

Mutant cephalopods, inter-species disease transmission, squabbling scientists. These are but some of the strange tales to be found in this book. Mad Scientist Journal: Summer 2016 collects twelve tales from the fictional worlds of mad science. For the discerning mad scientist reader, there are also pieces of fiction from Freya Marske, Maureen Bowden, and Samantha Cross. Readers will also find other resources for the budding mad scientist, including an advice column, horoscopes, and other brief messages from mad scientists. Authors featured in this volume also include Jacqueline Bridges, Amandeep Jutla, Tamoha Sengupta, Joshua Steely, Zach Bartlett, Alanna McFall, James Stephen, Simon Kewin, Luke McKinney, Franko Stephens, Braddock Gaskill, Judith Field, David Wing, Loria Chaddon, Rick Tobin, Shane Landry, Kate Elizabeth, and Sean Frost. Cover art by Matt Youngmark.

This book is a compilation of songs written by Rick Tobin from 1969 to 2009. The wide scope of topics and interests, as well as quality and composition, are clearly evident. The songs reflect the thoughts and experiences over a lifetime of creativity, stretching from the weirdness, anger and solitude of youth to the considerations and regrets from a body ripening towards harvest time. Some might be seen as outrageous, sexist, and just plain bizarre---and I've been all those things at one time or another in my youth. If our songs aren't true to who we are when we write them they are like the chalk drawings on a school yard in the rain. Besides, variety is the spice. What more would one expect from a writer born in the Year of the Cat?