Our local chapter of the “Occupy” movement (though they really don’t move all that much) has been occupying a local, privately owned park in the downtown area of Pittsburgh.  The owner, BNY New York, had been allowing the occupation, but recently figured out that placating stooges who hate you won’t make them like you.  In fact they lose respect for you, feel like they can push you around, and seek more.  That’s the whole “Occupy” movement.

So now that BNY Mellon decided that they want their property back they just need to shoo the protesters away right?  This is the part where I need help.  BNY Mellon has had to repeatedly go to court to evict the trespassers. 

“BNY Mellon is asking Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Christine A. Ward to allow it to evict protesters from its Downtown park. Testimony is scheduled to continue this morning.”

The “Occupy” protesters have been allowed by BNY Mellon to squat on their property and now that BNY Mellon wants their property back they have to take the protesters to court.  It’s BNY Mellon’s property; the “Occupy” folks are trespassing; there is no disputing that fact!  Why don’t the police just vacate the vagrants.  I really did not want to use the word “evict” as I think they only had a legal right to be there as long as BNY Mellon allowed it.  Why would I have to spend money in court to get someone to stop trespassing on my property?

I don’t have my money in any BNY Mellon institutions or stocks so the fact that they are spending thousands of dollars in legal fees doesn’t affect me, but it seems like a complete waste of money.  I would actually consider BNY Mellon’s troubles payment for their coddling anarchists if it wasn’t for the fact that I do pay taxes in the county where the legal action is taking place and will ultimately foot the bill for the legal proceedings.

I had heard good things about author Brad Thor’s novels featuring U.S. Secret Service agent Scot Harvath.  Rather than read the latest volume, I went back and bought his first novel. The Lions of Lucerne lived up to what I had heard, but it grabbed me and pulled me in like I love novels to do.  The Secret Service’s main role is to protect the President, however, powerful forces pull off perhaps the crime of the century killing all but one of a Secret Service detail.

Scot Harvath survives and uses his Navy SEAL training to avenge the deaths of his comrades and bring justice to those who committed the crimes.  Sophisticated weapons, intrigue, Washington politics, international criminals, and hostile sister agencies (FBI and CIA) plague Harvath’s efforts.  An interesting component of Harvath’s arsenal is a dry sense of humor which adds to the flavor of the hero.

If you want action…read The Lions of Lucerne.  My only recommendation is that you don’t start reading the book until the weekend so you’ll have plenty of time to finish what you started.

There is a strong connection between this book and Flynn’s previous novel, The Third Option as Rapp works to find out who tried to have him killed.  The intrigue reaches the top of American and foreign governments while the President wrestles with the confirmation of a new CIA director and the fact that Saddam Hussein is close to having three nuclear weapons. 

This novel was first published in 2001 and I am not sure if it was before September 11, but Flynn’s novel is all about killing the bad guy by any means necessary as illustrated by this passage by Mitch Rapp;

“Americans had grown soft with all of their rights and personal freedoms.  They had no idea how harsh the rest of the world was.  On the surface most Americans would be shocked by the things he had done.  But they would be shocked from the comfort of their homes, having no idea what things were like in the Middle East.  Women would judge him the harshest, and they would do so without thinking how they would be treated by the men he killed.  Women in these fundamentalistic Islamic communities weren’t even treated as second-class citizens.  They were property owned by their fathers and then their husbands…”

Flynn’s novel is refreshing in that there is no political correctness between the book covers, just a great deal of action.  Read this book, but I would read The Third Option first.

I definitely will have to put off reading Flynn’s fourth book for a few day as I need the sleep.