Bio Credit to EzineArticles.

As VP Publishing & Communications for Ripley Entertainment, Tim O'Brien is responsible for coordinating the publicity and promotion of the company's 70-plus attractions throughout the world. Serving as the corporate national spokesperson, Tim enthusiastically shares the Ripley product with the public through numerous TV and radio appearances.

Prior to his position with Ripley Entertainment, Tim served as senior editor of Amusement Business, the world's leading business trade magazine for the amusement park and attraction industries. During his 18 years with the magazine, Tim traveled the world chronicling the news and the history of the parks and attractions industry.

Since carving out his journalistic niche as an industry specialist, the award winning photojournalist has had nearly 5,000 articles and more than 3,000 photos published. Tim has visited more than 500 parks and attractions in 18 countries and has ridden in excess of 400 different roller coasters. He has appeared in 10 theme park documentaries on the Travel Channel, The Discovery Channel and National Public Television and has authored nine books, including "The Amusement Park Guide," considered the Bible of theme park and amusement park guidebooks.

As national corporate spokesperson for Ripley, Tim has gotten to know, up-close and personal many of the world's unique pieces of weirdness, including shrunken heads from the Jivaro Indian tribe of Ecuador, South America; Vampire Killing kits from Eastern Europe; two headed cows, chickens, pigs and goats from America's farmlands; to the world's largest hairball.

During the past 12 months alone, Tim has appeared in more than 300 radio and TV interviews, including The Daily Buzz, The Martha Stewart Show, Montel Williams and Good Morning America, talking about his favorite subject - the weird and wacky world of Ripley's Believe It or Not!

A graduate of Ohio State University with a master's degree in journalism/film production, Tim is an accomplished photographer and public speaker, having lectured extensively at industry seminars, high schools, and various civic groups.

In 2001 he won the coveted "Lifetime Service Award" from the International Assn. of Amusement Parks & Attractions (IAAPA) for his devotion and his "long-term achievement Award" for his dedication and service to the theme park and attractions industry.

He was born in Columbus, Ohio, grew up on Buckeye Lake, and took his first airplane ride at age 7.

Brian Herbert, the author of numerous novels and short stories, has been critically acclaimed by leading reviewers in the United States and around the world. The eldest son of science fiction superstar Frank Herbert.

Brian has been involved in a wide variety of professions and endeavors, including work as an author, an editor, a business manager, an inventor of board games, and a creative consultant for both television and collectible card games. He did not begin his writing career until he was nearly thirty years old; prior to that he worked as an insurance underwriter and agent, an award-winning encyclopedia salesman, a waiter, a busboy, a maid, and a printer. He and his wife once owned a double-decker London bus, which they converted into an unusual gift shop. Brian also operated a mail-order record and tape business, in which he sold “golden oldies” music to remote regions of the world, including the Australian outback.

When Brian was in his late twenties and early thirties he began to grow closer to his father, who was a complex, enigmatic man. Brian’s efforts to unravel the intriguing mysteries of his father began with a detailed journal that Brian maintained for years, chronicling the fascinating events of the Herbert family—a document which ultimately included the tragic deaths of his mother and father, and which he expanded into a comprehensive biography of Frank Herbert. Tor Books published this work, entitled DREAMER OF DUNE on April 21, 2003. The quest to understand one’s father—which Joseph Campbell has described as one of the epic hero journeys of mankind—continued as Brian studied the entire six-volume Dune series and created a massive Dune Concordance. This would prove to be an invaluable reference book during the writing of additional Dune books in the three-volume Prelude to Dune series, which Brian undertook with Kevin J. Anderson in 1998, and with the publication of the new Legends of Dune series books, DUNE: THE BUTLERIAN JIHAD, DUNE: THE MACHINE CRUSADE, and DUNE: THE BATTLE OF CORRIN.

Huwaida Arraf (born 1976) is an American Palestinian Christian human rights activist, lawyer and co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a Palestinian-led organization focused on assisting the Palestinian side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict using non-violent protests. Her law practice is based in Ramallah.^[1]

Arraf, who is Christian, is the daughter of a Palestinian mother and father. Under Israeli law, she has Israeli citizenship through her father, an Israeli-Arab. Her parents moved from the West Bank to Detroit, Michigan, Arraf's birthplace, to be able to raise her away from the violence in the West Bank. She and her parents were able to visit Israel every few years until Arraf was ten years old.^[2]

Arraf majored in Arabic and Judaic studies and political science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She spent a year at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and studied Hebrew on a kibbutz.^[3] Arraf later earned a J.D. at American University's Washington College of Law. Her focus was on International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, with a particular interest in war crimes prosecution.

As a law student Arraf conducted research for the Public International Law and Policy Group, which provides pro bono legal assistance to governments involved in conflicts. Arraf also worked with the International Human Rights Law Clinic at the Washington College of Law, where she represented clients before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on issues ranging from indigenous lands rights to cross-border abductions and irregular rendition.^[4]

In the spring of 2000, Arraf traveled to Jerusalem to serve as program coordinator for Seeds of Peace, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that seeks to foster dialogue between Jewish and Palestinian youth.^[5]

In 2001 her title at the Center for Coexistence in Jerusalem was Regional Coordinator.^[6] Arraf married Adam Shapiro, another ISM co-founder, in 2002. They met while both were working at the Jerusalem center of Seeds of Peace.^[7]

Arraf co-founded the ISM in 2001, while living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. She founded the ISM with members of two Palestinian foundations with strong international ties, the Holy Land Trust and the Rapprochement Centre. At the ISM, she has participated in the training of thousands of volunteers from around the world in non-violence and in human-rights monitoring and reporting.

Arraf ’s ISM brands its method as “nonviolent direct action”: the members of the group knowingly place themselves in controversial situations and intentionally provoke physical confrontation. Arraf and Shapiro made clear that there was a difference between their own philosophy and that of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. They stress that it is important to understand “that Palestinians have a right to resist with arms, as they are an occupied people upon whom force and violence is being used.” They also advocate that Hamas send men eager for jihad to stand out in roadblocks as martyrs, saying this is as noble as carrying out a suicide bombing and that they would still be considered shaheed Allah.^[8]

Arraf has acknowledged that the ISM has direct contact with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the PFLP -- all US-designated terror organizations. She later clarified, saying that, in acknowledging those connections, she was offering them examples of ways they could take part in nonviolent resistance.^[9]

During the second Intifada, Arraf organized what she termed a demonstration against Jewish settlers in the west bank but which devolved to a riot with young Jewish children being injured by rocks. The Arab villagers who they helped organize threw rocks and molotov cocktails at Jewish drivers and their passengers--often young children on their way home.

Arraf was the chair of the Free Gaza Movement,^[10] the organization behind the Gaza Freedom Flotillas - a series of groups of ships carrying Pro-Palestinian activists that were organized to break Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. She was aboard the 2008 Free Gaza boats^[3] as well as the 2010 flotilla that was raided by Israeli commandos on May 31.^[11] Using a satellite phone on board, Arraf stated that their plan was to have the boats keep heading toward Gaza “until they either disable our boats or jump on board.”^[11]

At the time of the raid, Arraf was aboard the Challenger 1,^[11] one of the smallest ships (30 feet) of the flotilla. On Thursday, 3 June 2010, she provided her version of the events on Challenger 1 in an interview on Democracy Now.^[12]

Arraf resigned from this position in October, 2012, following a series of anti-Semitic tweets posted on the official Twitter feed of the Free Gaza Movement. ^[13]

Adam Shapiro (born 1972) is an American co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a pro-Palestinian organization, the stated mission of which is to bring civilians from around the world to resist nonviolently the Israeli occupation of West Bank and previously the Gaza Strip. He became famous for visiting Yasser Arafat in his Mukataa (government palace) in Ramallah while it was besieged during the March 2002 Israeli military operation in the West Bank and Gaza.

Shapiro was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York and brought up in a Jewish home, but he doesn't "identify as Jewish. I see it as a religion rather than an ethnicity and, as I have no religious feelings, I don't regard myself as Jewish."^[1]

Shapiro received his B.A. in political science and history from Washington University in St. Louis in 1993. He subsequently spent a year studying Arabic in Yemen after receiving his M.A. in Arab studies at Georgetown University. He received his M.A. in political science from New York University. He is currently pursuing a doctorate at American University in Washington.

His interest in the Palestinian cause started with his involvement with "Seeds of Peace," an organization seeks to foster dialogue between Israeli and Palestinian youth. In 2001, he was Co-Director of the Center for Coexistence in Jerusalem.^[2] There he met Huwaida Arraf, a Christian Palestinian American, whom he married in 2002. In 2001 they co-founded the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).^[3]

During the 2002 Israeli incursions into the West Bank and Gaza, ISM members would ride in ambulances in the hope of expediting their passage through checkpoints. Shapiro, who was living in Ramallah, volunteered with Irish activist Caoimhe Butterly to ride in ambulances. He recounts hearing that there were wounded people at the headquarters of Yasser Arafat, President of the Palestinian National Authority, and "several members of the movement marched by Israeli tanks into the Palestinian leader's office."^[4] Trapped inside by Israeli fire towards the compound,^[3][5] they remained overnight and Shapiro had breakfast with Arafat. Shapiro was allowed to leave when a doctor took his place.^[3] At the time he left the compound, over 300 people were inside, mostly policemen, though also civilian employees at the headquarters.

Shapiro's visit to Arafat's headquarters was reported in the American press. A New York Post columnist labeled him "the Jewish Taliban", after John Walker Lindh, "the American Taliban" who was captured serving in the Taliban army in Afghanistan. Shapiro's life was threatened, as well as that of his family, credit for which was taken by local chapters of Betar and the Jewish Defense League. His parents were temporarily forced out of their home by threats.^[3]

In 2004 Shapiro was part of a collective that released About Baghdad, the first documentary after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It features the return to Baghdad of the poet Sinan Antoon. In a Democracy Now interview Shapiro said: "I think it's hard to compare although what we’re seeing today in Iraq, unfortunately, and really tragically, is very reminiscent and of the tactics of the occupying forces that we find among Israeli forces."^[12][13]

In 2006 Shapiro, with Aisha Bain and Jen Marlowe, released Darfur Diaries. Filmmakers explored the history of the conflict in Darfur and interviewed refugees and displaced persons, particularly victimized women and children.^[14] Shapiro explained his interest in a Democracy Now interview, saying: "[J]ust looking around and seeing what I had been doing in the Occupied Territories, the recent film I had done in Iraq, I realized that if nobody else was going to do it, then it's incumbent upon us as individuals to try to do whatever we could."^[15]

Shapiro's next documentary, Chronicles of the Refugee, is a six-part documentary series about the experiences of Palestinian refugees worldwide. Shapiro conducted over 250 interviews in 18 countries. It was filmed for Palestinian and Arab audiences. He was inspired by his experiences trying to find homes for Palestinian refugees fleeing Iraq and having trouble finding countries to offer asylum and resettlement.^[16]

Mick Quinn - founder of Choice for Enlightened Living Fellowship

Currently residing in Utah with his wife, Debora Prieto, this Irish-born author was the founder and CEO of several multimillion-dollar companies and is quoted regularly in many publications, including CNN Living, The Washington Times and The Wall Street Journal. He chose to give up his American Dream lifestyle in 2001, and studied Buddhism, Christianity, and the evolution of consciousness - all in search of discovering and expressing his eternal motives.

The Uncommon Path is the second book by Irish author, Mick Quinn. Mick's work was first published in Spanish as Poder Y Gracia, by Corona Borealis Publishing in the summer of 2007.

Mick's life was radically transformed in the summer of 2001 while sitting in meditation with spiritual teacher, Andrew Cohen. As a result of this inner transformation, Mick left his former life behind and began to write and teach about the seed of great potential which rests with each one of us.

Mick's work is touching the hearts, minds, and spirits of all those who come in contact with its direct, yet gentle message. An essential aspect of his teachings points to identifying and transcending concealed conditioning on the path of awakening.

Mick is the founder of Choice for Enlightened Living Fellowship (CELF), a non-profit organization devoted to the discovery and expression of conscious values in daily life. He, along with his wife, Debora Prieto, who trained with Genpo Roshi in the Big Mind Process are currently leading a comprehensive consciousness course together. In addition, Mick and Debora offer joint and separate Integral-Coaching programs to clients worldwide.

Candida Royalle first came in to the public eye for her internationally acclaimed line of erotic films from a woman's perspective. Innovating the concept of "couples erotica", she created Femme Productions, Inc. in 1984 in order to produce adult films that spoke from a woman's voice and could be entertaining while promoting positive sexual role modeling for couples to view together.

Royalle's work has been favorably received by both viewers and the media, as well as the sexology community. She has become a sought-after speaker, having lectured at such venues as the Smithsonian Institute, the American Psychiatric Association's national conference, and the World Congress on Sexology, as well as several sexuality conferences and universities including Princeton, Columbia, Wellesley College and New York University. She is the first erotic filmmaker to have been invited to become a member of the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists due to the message of "positive sexuality" in her films.

Continuing to lead the way in women's sexual empowerment and pleasure, Royalle partnered with Dutch industrial designer Jandirk Groet, whose product design repertoire ranges from Nordica ski boots to Ricoh compact cameras and Panasonic TVs to the cockpit of the Fokker aircraft, and together they created the Natural Contours line of high-style, discreet ergonomically designed personal massagers. The line debuted in 1999 to favorable reviews in ID (Industrial Design) Magazine, Mademoiselle and Glamour, to name a few, and quickly became best-sellers in women's mainstream health catalogs. Drugstore.com launched its sexual wellness range with the Natural Contours line and Holland's leading drug store chain, ETOS, features the line as part of its family planning outreach.

In October '04 Royalle authored her first book, "How to Tell a Naked Man What to Do," published in the U.S. by Simon and Schuster/Fireside, and in the U.K. by Piatkus Press. The paperback was published in February '06.

Royalle recently created a new line of "ethnic erotica for couples" called Femme Chocolat in order to provide high quality intelligent erotica for the largely underserved market of ethnic women and couples.

She is now moving on to the role of mentoring young new female directors so that they may continue the Femme line while expressing their own visions and ideas.

What makes Ms. Royalle's story particularly interesting is her rich and varied background. The daughter of an accomplished professional jazz drummer, she trained and performed in music, dance and art, having attended New York's High School of Art and Design, Parsons School of Design, and the City University of New York, where she was active in the women's movement of the late '60's and early '70's. In San Francisco she hooked up with some of the original members of the infamous Cockettes including the late Divine to create avant garde jazz and theater productions. In '74, looking to finance her unconventional lifestyle, she entered the world of erotica as an actress, performing in about twenty-five adult feature films. She returned to her native New York City in 1980 and stepped behind the camera to create Femme Productions in 1984. Since then she has been a guest on almost every news and talk show from Anderson Cooper to Dateline NBC, and has been written up in countless magazines and newspapers from The New York Times, Time Magazine and The London Times to Glamour and Marie Claire.

Candida Royalle is a member of the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists, (AASECT) and a founding Board member of Feminists for Free Expression (FFE). Her work is distributed by Adam and Eve Pictures.

As Founder, Chairman and CEO, Allie T. Mallad holds safe the vision that wowgreen can free the world of toxic chemicals, one household at a time. A former Entrepreneur of the Year award winner, Allie made his name as the world's largest Little Caesars franchisee with revenues reaching over $100 million per year with over 2,000 employees. He leveraged his success to become owner of 10 national franchises, such as Applebees, Baskin Robbins, Jiffy Lube, and more, and was voted a Top 50 franchisee in 1998. Allie's business acumen led him to Network Marketing where in just 6 months he became the largest Metabolife distributor in the United States. As a true motivator of people, Allie T. Mallad is a leader ready to direct wowgreen International to the top of today's green revolution. With 25 years of business experience at the top, associations with industry leaders, an entrepreneurial spirit, and a passion that goes far beyond the norm, Allie will help guide wowgreen to a brighter, greener future.

Author of The Black Alchemist (1989), From the Ashes of Angels (1996), The Cygnus Mystery (2004), and The New Circlemakers (2009), Collins lectures worldwide, and is the organiser of the annual 'Questing Conference', one of Britain's annual events on forbidden archaeology and ancient mysteries.

Andrew Collins, is a science and history writer and the author of various books that challenge the way we perceive the past. They include From the Ashes of Angels (1996), which shows that the Watchers of the book of Enoch were shamans responsible for the Neolithic revolution, and that their homelandthe biblical Edenwas southeast Turkey, where archaeologists have recently found the oldest stone temple in the world; Gods of Eden (1998), which reveals that Egyptian civilization is thousands of years older than is conventionally believed; Gateway to Atlantis (2000), which demonstrates that Platos Atlantis was located in Cuba and the Bahamas, and The Cygnus Mystery (2006), which argues that veneration of the Cygnus constellation was responsible for the worlds earliest sky religions.

A recent book, Beneath the Pyramids, explores Gizas cave underworld, rediscovered by the author in 2008. Andrew, born in 1957, lives with his wife Sue near Marlborough, Wiltshire.