Sunday, July 5, 2009
My Novel Is Being Serialized; Read Sections For Free
Beginning Monday, July 6, Murder Of An American Nazi will be posted, a chapter at a time, on The Daily Novel's web site. This is where readers can go to access good novels for free. Just click on www.dailynovel.net
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Glad To Have DeRosa; But LaRussa's Micromanaging Will Negate Him
The Cardinals' Front Office actually acquired an in-season impact player. I'm shocked; I never thought this would happen. Mark DeRosa can actually hit for average and power (.270, 11 homers 56 RBI), something our present outfielders are incapable of. He should play every day, but don't hold your breath. Remember, Tony LaGenius is our manager, and if there's one thing he will never resort to it is doing the obvious thing. For, you see, geniuses do not do the obvious. That's why they are geniuses. If it is plain to all that DeRosa should play every day, then you can bet he will not. Because LaGenius knows more than any fan, any player, any manager, any front office person who has ever seen a game of baseball. In fact, I have publicly begged him to bat the pitcher eighth so that he would do what every other manager in the history of the game has always done: bat the pitcher ninth. I figure if he gets the idea that the fans think batting the pitcher eighth is a good idea, he will resort to batting the pitcher ninth. Such is the bizarre conundrum of being a St. Louis Cardinals fan. (By the way, someday, god willing, LaLoser will retire or die, and ownership--Bill DeWallet--will sell, and I will be free to love my team again. After all, this has been my team since 1958; it is more my team than it is LaGenius's or DeWallet's.)
Back to the sweet and sour of having DeRosa. Because DeRosa is a very versatile player, it presents LaGenius with many options. And one thing we do not want is for LaGenius to have too many options, because he invariably thinks and ponders and intellecutalizes himself into the wrong choice. (Baseball is a simple game, but LaLoser insists on making it rocket science.) For instance, in today's game the Twins threw a lefty, Nelson Liriano, so it was a safe bet that DeRosa would be in left field (even though he prefers the infield) because we have a paucity of right-handed-hitting outfielders. (The only other is Ryan Ludwick, so it was a safe bet he would play also, though I sweated this out until game time. Note: this is the same Ryan Ludwick who hit 37 homers last year, drove in 117, batted .300, and made the All-Star team and won a Silver Slugger award...but who has been turned into a platoon player by LaGenius.) This must have been a devastating dilemma to LaGenius, because it meant that he would have to sit either his man-crush/love interest Rick Ankiel (.234, 5 HRs, 25 RBI) or the pitching coach's son, Chris Duncan (no power, no average, no clutch hitting)...or, god forbid, horror of horrors...bench both! Ah...alas, LaGenius chose to play Ankiel, rather than Colby Rasmus, our young phenom who has also been turned into an occasional player. So although Duncan was benched, Ankiel was not.
Let's back up here a minute, and let me explain something. Until the Cardinals acquired DeRosa, they had four outfielders (five if you include Skip Schumaker, whom LaGenius has converted into a mediocre second baseman). They are Ryan Ludwick, Colby Rasmus, Rick Ankiel, and Chris Duncan. It is obvious to me, and all logical Cardinals fans, that Ludwick (for reasons stated above) and Rasmus should be playing every day. Rasmus is only 21, but he can run, hit, field and throw. He has the most potential of any player. Playing him every third game is not going to develop his abilities; he needs to be a part of the everyday lineup. That leaves one outfield position vacant for the remaining two players--Ankiel and Duncan. The logical thing to do would be to play one and sit the other (I don't care which, because they are equally awful...and now that DeRosa has arrived, BOTH of these slugs should ride the bench). But there is a problem with this. Yeah, you guessed it: LaGenius is infatuated with both of them. Let's take them one at a time:
Rick Ankiel--A converted pitcher whose pitching career was ruined by LaLoser (He played head games with Ankiel prior to a playoff game and this began Rick's inclination to regularly throw the ball over the backstop from the pitcher's mound). LaLoser may feel intense guilt over this and thus is compelled to "carry" Ankiel as an outfielder. This despite the fact that Ankiel is a streaky hitter, who has prolonged slumps, never hits for a good average, has little power, and never hits in the clutch (.155 career with the bases loaded, and 0 for 8 with six strikeouts this year). Ankiel wraps the bat around his head and waves it before the arrival of the pitch. His swing is long and loopy, and has a decided uppercut. He invariably hits the bottom of the ball (for a pop-up) or the top of the ball (easy grounder). My son and I laugh as we watch him hit. We scream in unison, "he hit the top of the ball" as we watch yet another weak ground ball roll toward the second baseman; or, "he hit the bottom of the ball" as another lazy Ankiel pop-up drifts towards short right field. If you're a Cardinal fan, he is the LAST GUY you would want in the batter's box of a tie game, ninth inning, bases loaded. He has a fragile psyche (he spent years in therapy from an abusive father), and he folds easily under pressure. However, you should see him hit when the score is 10-1. Screaming line drives. Some say he has a good arm, but as many times as he throws a runner out, he will just as often miss the cutoff man. In short, I am sick of the high-maintenance, no-performance, head-case melodrama that is Rick Ankiel. But LaGenius is not sick of it. He has made us endure it for 10 years, and there is no end in sight. I believe, don't laugh, that LaGenius has a latent homosexual crush on Ankiel. Ankiel is a great athlete (not all great athletes are competent baseball players) and a good-looking guy, and I think, at some level LaGenius is in love with him. How else to explain this obsession with Ankiel? The guilt theory holds only so much water; LaLoser has ruined many careers without a scintilla of guilt. Why this soft spot for Ricky boy?
That brings us to Little Dunc, the son of longtime pitching coach, Dave Duncan. Little Dunc looks, talks, runs and plays baseball with all the acumen and agility of Frankenstein. No, wait, Frankenstein was a better left fielder. As long and loopy as Ankiel's swing is, that's how stiff, labored, and un-athletic Duncan's is. They say, he is playing out of position; first base is his natural home, but we already have one of those (perhaps you've heard of Albert Pujols? Not even LaGenius could justify benching Albert in favor of Lil Dunc...though I am positive the thought has crossed his mind). Then one day Albert was hurt and Lil Dunc got his chance. He dropped an easy popup; so much for the first-base wunderkind. He strikes out often (all curves and changeups fool him); his power has vanished; and he never gets a big hit. So why does LaGenius play him? It's as simple as this--nepotism. LaGenius is fiercely loyal to Duncan, Sr., and this blinds him to all of Little Dunc's shortcomings.
So there you have it. Ankiel and Duncan must play, despite all the evidence to the contrary. There will never be a time when both are benched in the same game, and they WILL NEVER BE TRADED as long as LaLoser is manager. Despite LaLoser's national reputation as a great manager (this endures as the greatest American lie since Oswald acted alone), who bases his decisions on a computer-like recall of stats, proabilities and tendencies, he is nothing more than an impulsive, illogical, manipulative boss who plays favorites and and covets the power he has over others. His lineups are a reflection of his personality--a mishmash of senselessness, contradiction, contrivance and pseudo-intellectualism. And, mark my words, DeRosa's usefulness will be limited by this. Watch and see--the day will come--perhaps tomorrow night when Lincecum, a right hander, pitches against us--when LaGenius will bench DeRosa and play both Ankiel and Duncan instead. After all, it's more than just baseball; it's Tony working out his neuroses, much to the anguish of Cardinal nation.
Back to the sweet and sour of having DeRosa. Because DeRosa is a very versatile player, it presents LaGenius with many options. And one thing we do not want is for LaGenius to have too many options, because he invariably thinks and ponders and intellecutalizes himself into the wrong choice. (Baseball is a simple game, but LaLoser insists on making it rocket science.) For instance, in today's game the Twins threw a lefty, Nelson Liriano, so it was a safe bet that DeRosa would be in left field (even though he prefers the infield) because we have a paucity of right-handed-hitting outfielders. (The only other is Ryan Ludwick, so it was a safe bet he would play also, though I sweated this out until game time. Note: this is the same Ryan Ludwick who hit 37 homers last year, drove in 117, batted .300, and made the All-Star team and won a Silver Slugger award...but who has been turned into a platoon player by LaGenius.) This must have been a devastating dilemma to LaGenius, because it meant that he would have to sit either his man-crush/love interest Rick Ankiel (.234, 5 HRs, 25 RBI) or the pitching coach's son, Chris Duncan (no power, no average, no clutch hitting)...or, god forbid, horror of horrors...bench both! Ah...alas, LaGenius chose to play Ankiel, rather than Colby Rasmus, our young phenom who has also been turned into an occasional player. So although Duncan was benched, Ankiel was not.
Let's back up here a minute, and let me explain something. Until the Cardinals acquired DeRosa, they had four outfielders (five if you include Skip Schumaker, whom LaGenius has converted into a mediocre second baseman). They are Ryan Ludwick, Colby Rasmus, Rick Ankiel, and Chris Duncan. It is obvious to me, and all logical Cardinals fans, that Ludwick (for reasons stated above) and Rasmus should be playing every day. Rasmus is only 21, but he can run, hit, field and throw. He has the most potential of any player. Playing him every third game is not going to develop his abilities; he needs to be a part of the everyday lineup. That leaves one outfield position vacant for the remaining two players--Ankiel and Duncan. The logical thing to do would be to play one and sit the other (I don't care which, because they are equally awful...and now that DeRosa has arrived, BOTH of these slugs should ride the bench). But there is a problem with this. Yeah, you guessed it: LaGenius is infatuated with both of them. Let's take them one at a time:
Rick Ankiel--A converted pitcher whose pitching career was ruined by LaLoser (He played head games with Ankiel prior to a playoff game and this began Rick's inclination to regularly throw the ball over the backstop from the pitcher's mound). LaLoser may feel intense guilt over this and thus is compelled to "carry" Ankiel as an outfielder. This despite the fact that Ankiel is a streaky hitter, who has prolonged slumps, never hits for a good average, has little power, and never hits in the clutch (.155 career with the bases loaded, and 0 for 8 with six strikeouts this year). Ankiel wraps the bat around his head and waves it before the arrival of the pitch. His swing is long and loopy, and has a decided uppercut. He invariably hits the bottom of the ball (for a pop-up) or the top of the ball (easy grounder). My son and I laugh as we watch him hit. We scream in unison, "he hit the top of the ball" as we watch yet another weak ground ball roll toward the second baseman; or, "he hit the bottom of the ball" as another lazy Ankiel pop-up drifts towards short right field. If you're a Cardinal fan, he is the LAST GUY you would want in the batter's box of a tie game, ninth inning, bases loaded. He has a fragile psyche (he spent years in therapy from an abusive father), and he folds easily under pressure. However, you should see him hit when the score is 10-1. Screaming line drives. Some say he has a good arm, but as many times as he throws a runner out, he will just as often miss the cutoff man. In short, I am sick of the high-maintenance, no-performance, head-case melodrama that is Rick Ankiel. But LaGenius is not sick of it. He has made us endure it for 10 years, and there is no end in sight. I believe, don't laugh, that LaGenius has a latent homosexual crush on Ankiel. Ankiel is a great athlete (not all great athletes are competent baseball players) and a good-looking guy, and I think, at some level LaGenius is in love with him. How else to explain this obsession with Ankiel? The guilt theory holds only so much water; LaLoser has ruined many careers without a scintilla of guilt. Why this soft spot for Ricky boy?
That brings us to Little Dunc, the son of longtime pitching coach, Dave Duncan. Little Dunc looks, talks, runs and plays baseball with all the acumen and agility of Frankenstein. No, wait, Frankenstein was a better left fielder. As long and loopy as Ankiel's swing is, that's how stiff, labored, and un-athletic Duncan's is. They say, he is playing out of position; first base is his natural home, but we already have one of those (perhaps you've heard of Albert Pujols? Not even LaGenius could justify benching Albert in favor of Lil Dunc...though I am positive the thought has crossed his mind). Then one day Albert was hurt and Lil Dunc got his chance. He dropped an easy popup; so much for the first-base wunderkind. He strikes out often (all curves and changeups fool him); his power has vanished; and he never gets a big hit. So why does LaGenius play him? It's as simple as this--nepotism. LaGenius is fiercely loyal to Duncan, Sr., and this blinds him to all of Little Dunc's shortcomings.
So there you have it. Ankiel and Duncan must play, despite all the evidence to the contrary. There will never be a time when both are benched in the same game, and they WILL NEVER BE TRADED as long as LaLoser is manager. Despite LaLoser's national reputation as a great manager (this endures as the greatest American lie since Oswald acted alone), who bases his decisions on a computer-like recall of stats, proabilities and tendencies, he is nothing more than an impulsive, illogical, manipulative boss who plays favorites and and covets the power he has over others. His lineups are a reflection of his personality--a mishmash of senselessness, contradiction, contrivance and pseudo-intellectualism. And, mark my words, DeRosa's usefulness will be limited by this. Watch and see--the day will come--perhaps tomorrow night when Lincecum, a right hander, pitches against us--when LaGenius will bench DeRosa and play both Ankiel and Duncan instead. After all, it's more than just baseball; it's Tony working out his neuroses, much to the anguish of Cardinal nation.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
I'll be a guest on a Blog Talk Radio show, 6/25
Grant Lawrence and Judy Lopez, hosts of Dream Catcher Entertainment on Blog Talk radio, have invited me to be a guest on their radio show, Thursday, 6/25, at 8 pm (central time). To access the show, go to http://www.blogtalkradio.com/DreamCatcherEntertainment
Scroll down to upcoming episodes and click on my link.
Judy and Grant have told me that we will be discussing my book and various other topics related to history, politics and American culture. I'm sure we'll touch on CIA atrocities, including the JFK Assassination, along the way.
Tune in and/or call in, and join the conversation.
Scroll down to upcoming episodes and click on my link.
Judy and Grant have told me that we will be discussing my book and various other topics related to history, politics and American culture. I'm sure we'll touch on CIA atrocities, including the JFK Assassination, along the way.
Tune in and/or call in, and join the conversation.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
The Sorry, Pathetic Mess That Is My Team--The St. Louis Cardinals
Where to begin with this woeful bunch? The anemic offense (worst in the majors in May)? The sloppy defense? The career minor leaguers who have been forced into action because the owner, Bill Dimwitt, Jr., (friend and supporter of George W. Bush) is too cheap to acquire real baseball players? The fraud of a manager? The red sheep who fill the stands each night? The sycohpantic media who fawn over the team? I have lots of gripes.
I am sick of the melodrama that is Rick Ankiel. The pitcher who used to throw balls over the backstop is now an outfielder who cannot hit, yet Tony LaLoser keeps sending him out there. Ankiel is hitting .220, with no power, and never gets a hit when it really matters. His mental and emotional problems are well-documented, and he wilts when the pressure is on. He's the last guy I want at the plate in the ninth inning of a tie game. Rarely does he make solid contact with the baseball because of his loopy, upper-cut swing. When he's not striking out, he hits the top of the ball (ground out) or the bottom of the ball (pop-up). He is erratic in the outfield and susceptible to injury. He is very high maintenance, and he never comes through in the clutch. So why is he still on the team? The manager has a man-crush on him. Ankiel is one of Tony LaLoser's favorites. As is the pitching coach's son--Chris Duncan.
Duncan plays left field with all the agility of Frankenstein. If butchers were all-star outfielders, this guy would be inducted into the Hall of Fame. And, like Ankiel, he cannot hit a curve ball or a chane-up. His swing is stiff and flawed, and opposing pitchers fool him with off-speed stuff constantly. Why is he still on the team? He's another of the manager's favorites; he's the son of LaLoser's long-time pitching coach--Dave Duncan.
The one outfielder who can hit is Ryan Ludwick. Ludwick had 37 homers, 110 RBI, and hit .300 last year. He was voted to the All-Star team and won a Silver Slugger award. So what does Tony LaGenius do with him? Platoons him in April, to the point where Ludwick questions, rightfully, the manager's sanity. This gets Ludwick a one-way ticket to the doghouse. He falls victim to the manager's mind games and now he's an average player. Who benefits? Favored children, Ankiel and Duncan, who have actually played in more games than Ludwick.
Meanwhile, unknowns like Brian Barden, Nick Stavinoha, Joe Thurston, Shane Robinson, Tyler Greene, and Brendan Ryan, all of whom should still be in AAA, get significant playing time. They are the oddest assortment of banjo-hitting slugs I have ever seen. They do not hit for power, average, or if their lives depended on it. Some nights, I swear, I think I am watching the Memphis Redbirds and not the St.Louis Cardinals.
And why do we have no talent in the minors? Because, apparently, the scouting and drafting departments are being run by Moe, Larry, and Curley. In the past 30 years, only two major league-worthy pitchers have been drafted and developed by the organization. One--Danny Haren--was traded away by Walt Jocketty. Jocketty was also responsible for signing Tino Martinez (a bust), Juan Encarnacion (a bigger bust), and Adam Kennedy (the grandaddy of busts). He traded for Mark Mulder (the most worthless ragarm of the three Billy Beane dumped), giving away Haren in the deal.
The current GM, John Mozeliak, is no better. His big signing was Khalil Greene, who is hitting about .200 and now has been diagnosed with anxiety disorder and likely will never play again. Good job researching Khalil's history, Mo.
Overseeing the whole mess is LaRussa, the most overrated manager of all time. How did he get the reputation of a genius? George Will, the creepy political geek who knows as much about baseball as I know about marine biology, once wrote a book in which he called LaLoser a genius. The label stuck, despite all evidence to the contrary. He changes line-ups every night to eradicate performance consistency. He cools off hot hitters (see Ludwick). He makes unfathomable in-game decisions, typically folding under the pressure of a tight game. (In a tie game, ninth inning, at Arizona in April, he sent up Brendan Ryan to pinch hit with the bases loaded instead of Silver Slugger Ryan Ludwick.) He typically destroys the confidence of young pitching talent. He plays favorites. He does not retaliate when his players get hit by pitches. (The one legitimate offensive threat, Albert Pujols, was plunked in the kidneys in a game in May...no retaliation was ordered by LaGenius.)
So how does the team manage to compete? The starting pitching has been pretty good. Especially Carpenter. But give it time...LaGenius will find a way to screw that up too. Meanwhile, red lemmings (aka Cardinal fans) fill the stadium every night, and Dimwitt, pockets full of cash, chortles all the way to the bank.
I am sick of the melodrama that is Rick Ankiel. The pitcher who used to throw balls over the backstop is now an outfielder who cannot hit, yet Tony LaLoser keeps sending him out there. Ankiel is hitting .220, with no power, and never gets a hit when it really matters. His mental and emotional problems are well-documented, and he wilts when the pressure is on. He's the last guy I want at the plate in the ninth inning of a tie game. Rarely does he make solid contact with the baseball because of his loopy, upper-cut swing. When he's not striking out, he hits the top of the ball (ground out) or the bottom of the ball (pop-up). He is erratic in the outfield and susceptible to injury. He is very high maintenance, and he never comes through in the clutch. So why is he still on the team? The manager has a man-crush on him. Ankiel is one of Tony LaLoser's favorites. As is the pitching coach's son--Chris Duncan.
Duncan plays left field with all the agility of Frankenstein. If butchers were all-star outfielders, this guy would be inducted into the Hall of Fame. And, like Ankiel, he cannot hit a curve ball or a chane-up. His swing is stiff and flawed, and opposing pitchers fool him with off-speed stuff constantly. Why is he still on the team? He's another of the manager's favorites; he's the son of LaLoser's long-time pitching coach--Dave Duncan.
The one outfielder who can hit is Ryan Ludwick. Ludwick had 37 homers, 110 RBI, and hit .300 last year. He was voted to the All-Star team and won a Silver Slugger award. So what does Tony LaGenius do with him? Platoons him in April, to the point where Ludwick questions, rightfully, the manager's sanity. This gets Ludwick a one-way ticket to the doghouse. He falls victim to the manager's mind games and now he's an average player. Who benefits? Favored children, Ankiel and Duncan, who have actually played in more games than Ludwick.
Meanwhile, unknowns like Brian Barden, Nick Stavinoha, Joe Thurston, Shane Robinson, Tyler Greene, and Brendan Ryan, all of whom should still be in AAA, get significant playing time. They are the oddest assortment of banjo-hitting slugs I have ever seen. They do not hit for power, average, or if their lives depended on it. Some nights, I swear, I think I am watching the Memphis Redbirds and not the St.Louis Cardinals.
And why do we have no talent in the minors? Because, apparently, the scouting and drafting departments are being run by Moe, Larry, and Curley. In the past 30 years, only two major league-worthy pitchers have been drafted and developed by the organization. One--Danny Haren--was traded away by Walt Jocketty. Jocketty was also responsible for signing Tino Martinez (a bust), Juan Encarnacion (a bigger bust), and Adam Kennedy (the grandaddy of busts). He traded for Mark Mulder (the most worthless ragarm of the three Billy Beane dumped), giving away Haren in the deal.
The current GM, John Mozeliak, is no better. His big signing was Khalil Greene, who is hitting about .200 and now has been diagnosed with anxiety disorder and likely will never play again. Good job researching Khalil's history, Mo.
Overseeing the whole mess is LaRussa, the most overrated manager of all time. How did he get the reputation of a genius? George Will, the creepy political geek who knows as much about baseball as I know about marine biology, once wrote a book in which he called LaLoser a genius. The label stuck, despite all evidence to the contrary. He changes line-ups every night to eradicate performance consistency. He cools off hot hitters (see Ludwick). He makes unfathomable in-game decisions, typically folding under the pressure of a tight game. (In a tie game, ninth inning, at Arizona in April, he sent up Brendan Ryan to pinch hit with the bases loaded instead of Silver Slugger Ryan Ludwick.) He typically destroys the confidence of young pitching talent. He plays favorites. He does not retaliate when his players get hit by pitches. (The one legitimate offensive threat, Albert Pujols, was plunked in the kidneys in a game in May...no retaliation was ordered by LaGenius.)
So how does the team manage to compete? The starting pitching has been pretty good. Especially Carpenter. But give it time...LaGenius will find a way to screw that up too. Meanwhile, red lemmings (aka Cardinal fans) fill the stadium every night, and Dimwitt, pockets full of cash, chortles all the way to the bank.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
The Hypocrisy of Right-Wing Radical Catholics
The recent flap over President Obama's appearance at Notre Dame's commencement again exposes the Catholic ultra-right for what it is--hypocritical, self-righteous, and narrow-minded.
Anti-abortionists showed up red-faced, hell-bent and furious in South Bend over the weekend to protest Obama's visit to that Catholic "sanctuary" Notre Dame. Actually, there were fewer protestors than you might think (the rabid few gave TV cameras their Jerry Springer moment), and Notre Dame (no longer a football factory due to recent losing seasons) accepts students of all faiths, backgrounds, and nationalities. Polls show a large portion of the student body backs Obama and accepts pro-choice dogma. So it was a bunch of lunatic outsiders who invaded South Bend to howl their one-issue message to the world.
Why are these people hypocrites? Because they never protest the war in Iraq, and authentic church dogma is as much anti-war as it is anti-abortion. I respect those Catholics who oppose war as well as abortion; at least, they are consistent. But those who line up on the political right, for one reason and one reason only, to oppose a woman's right to choose, do so with full knowledge that they are endorsing other political policies that fly in the face of the teachings of the Church. Apparently, they do this without the slightest flicker of conscience. For instance, Catholics who supported Bush because of his anti-abortion stance also supported, by proxy, his unholy war, his immoral torture of detainees, his defense contractors' blood profits, his eroding of civil liberties, and his anti-human positions on right-to-privacy and health care issues. These conscienceless Catholics never objected to the Bush atrocities on these fronts...only on abortion. To die on the battlefield, in prison, or because you can't pay for health care is just too bad, but perfectly okay, I guess. Think about it...that means they ascribe to this crazy logic: the end of life matters only before it begins, not after it begins. It must be quite comforting to be a white, suburban, Republican Catholic oblivious to social concerns other than abortion.
Truthfully, anti-abortion hypocrites take their cues from an out-of-touch, hopelessly isolated Roman hierarchy led by a man who once took his place in the ranks of the Hitler youth brigade. Come to think of it, if Hitler were still alive and were an anti-abortion candidate, the Catholic right would swarm to the polls to pull the lever for old Adolf.
Anti-abortionists showed up red-faced, hell-bent and furious in South Bend over the weekend to protest Obama's visit to that Catholic "sanctuary" Notre Dame. Actually, there were fewer protestors than you might think (the rabid few gave TV cameras their Jerry Springer moment), and Notre Dame (no longer a football factory due to recent losing seasons) accepts students of all faiths, backgrounds, and nationalities. Polls show a large portion of the student body backs Obama and accepts pro-choice dogma. So it was a bunch of lunatic outsiders who invaded South Bend to howl their one-issue message to the world.
Why are these people hypocrites? Because they never protest the war in Iraq, and authentic church dogma is as much anti-war as it is anti-abortion. I respect those Catholics who oppose war as well as abortion; at least, they are consistent. But those who line up on the political right, for one reason and one reason only, to oppose a woman's right to choose, do so with full knowledge that they are endorsing other political policies that fly in the face of the teachings of the Church. Apparently, they do this without the slightest flicker of conscience. For instance, Catholics who supported Bush because of his anti-abortion stance also supported, by proxy, his unholy war, his immoral torture of detainees, his defense contractors' blood profits, his eroding of civil liberties, and his anti-human positions on right-to-privacy and health care issues. These conscienceless Catholics never objected to the Bush atrocities on these fronts...only on abortion. To die on the battlefield, in prison, or because you can't pay for health care is just too bad, but perfectly okay, I guess. Think about it...that means they ascribe to this crazy logic: the end of life matters only before it begins, not after it begins. It must be quite comforting to be a white, suburban, Republican Catholic oblivious to social concerns other than abortion.
Truthfully, anti-abortion hypocrites take their cues from an out-of-touch, hopelessly isolated Roman hierarchy led by a man who once took his place in the ranks of the Hitler youth brigade. Come to think of it, if Hitler were still alive and were an anti-abortion candidate, the Catholic right would swarm to the polls to pull the lever for old Adolf.
Tune In To Authors Read show, May 18
I will be a guest on the Authors Read show, hosted by Lillian Brummet, Monday, May 18, at 11:30 am CDT. It's a live web broadcast where authors read excerpts from their novels. The link is:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/AuthorsRead/2009/05/18/Tim-Fleming-Murder-Of-An-American-Nazi-
I am posting the actual excerpt I will be reading below. It is from pages 102-105 of Murder Of An American Nazi:
Marie sailed through high school. She got straight A’s and was voted class valedictorian. She was supposed to deliver the commencement address, but, when school administrators scanned an advance copy of it, Marie was told to either switch topics, or the honor of speaking at the graduation would go to another student. The principal had only to read the title of the address, “The Importance of Fighting Nazi Infiltration of the American Government,” to know that Marie’s speech had to be censored.
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Marie was not surprised by the furor. Neither did she protest. She demurely turned over the valedictorian duties to a fellow student. She cared little about the provincial, narrow-minded obsessions of high school administrators. She was moving on to bigger and better things. She was going to change the world.
Because of her grades and Hannah’s lack of financial wherewithal, Marie won a full scholarship to American University in Washington, DC. She intended to study journalism and history. Her goal was to become an investigative reporter for a major U.S. paper, preferably the Washington Post or the New York Times, whose editorial
positions most reflected her own. She wanted to uncover the truth about her family’s
torturer and murderer, Walter Dornberger, and find out if there had indeed been a systematic recruitment and integration of Nazis into American government, military or intelligence positions and how it was done. Were these Nazis influencing our policy towards the Soviets? Were they exacerbating the Cold War?
She was eager to visit the university and chose to route her summer 1963 trip to St. Louis through Washington, DC. The campus was everything she had hoped it would be, a green oasis amid the monuments and momentousness of the nation’s capital.
She checked out her dormitory and discovered that her roommate was someone named
Julia Munshall. Without knowing it, she had arrived during commencement. JFK was to deliver the commencement address. Marie walked right into the ceremony as if she were with a graduate’s family. She took a seat in the bleachers, and what she heard there inspired her and, at the same time, confused her.
Kennedy’s words seemed to flow from a compartment of the government with which Marie was unfamiliar. She had developed a rather jaded, cynical view of America’s intentions. The government and the military publicly decried fascism, yet they secretly
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harbored the worst of the Nazi criminals. What else was going on in secret? What other terrible truths were they hiding? Why did they seem so intent on letting hatred of the Soviet Union bring them to the brink of nuclear annihilation? Did Kennedy even know what was going on in his own government?
Listening to the speech that day, Marie became convinced that Kennedy was going to turn American militarism and secrecy on its head. What he said made her proud, for the first time, to be an American. He spoke of disarmament and world peace. He spoke of commonalities Americans shared with the communists. He spoke of the beginning of the end of the days of conflict. He mentioned the word “peace” over and over. It flew in the face of everything Marie had come to know about America. Kennedy was really sticking his neck out, she thought. Someone would soon chop it off.
Kennedy said, “What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do I seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living.” An end to American military arrogance and domination? Marie was transfixed.
“Total war makes no sense in an age…when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe…we must reexamine our own attitude…every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward—by examining his own attitude toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the course of the Cold War, and toward freedom and peace here at home.”
“He wants Americans to question themselves; he wants us to make nice with the Russians?” Marie thought. “The military will hate this. And how about defense contractors and the war weapons industry, she thought. This is going to be bad for business.”
-104-
What Kennedy said next stunned Marie. No American president had ever uttered such a revolutionary idea, such a radical or far-sighted entreaty, such an enlightened way to view an avowed enemy. “No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue…we can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements in science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture and in acts of courage. Among the many traits the peoples of our two countries have in
common, none is stronger than our mutual abhorrence of war…no nation in the history of battle suffered more than the Soviet Union suffered in the course of the Second World War. At least twenty million lost their lives. Countless millions of homes were burned or sacked.”
The Russians had been our allies in World War II; Marie recalled Hannah telling her how the Russians had liberated some of the concentration camps. How had they become our bitter enemies in such a short period?
“…we are both devoting to weapons massive sums of money that could be better devoted to combating ignorance, poverty and disease. We are both caught up in a vicious and dangerous cycle in which suspicion on one side breeds suspicion on the other, and new weapons beget counterweapons. In short, both the United States and its allies, and the Soviet Union and its allies, have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace and in halting the arms race…if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”
The eloquence, lyricism and profundity of what she’d just heard left Marie limp. The man could deliver a speech like no other. And he could make the listener believe in the country’s future and his ability to get us there. Marie viewed it as a sign that she was in
-105-
the right place at the right time. Like Kennedy, she was determined to make the world a better place. Hope abounded.
___________________________
More than three decades after JFK spoke those words, Don Hayes had a completely different interpretation of what they meant. “He signed his death warrant with that speech,” he told me. “You have no idea how that one shook the halls of the Pentagon and the CIA. And the defense contractors? Are you kidding me? No more billion dollar awards to build fighter jets and weapons and helicopters. No more war profiteering for Brown and Root, Halliburton, Boeing and Bell Textron? An end to the system that had made them all so rich and powerful? No more Red-baiting? World peace? He wasn’t going to let them have Vietnam as their own playground, and they were never going to let Kennedy get away with that. Lemay and Lemnitzer already thought he was a traitor. So did Dulles and half the CIA, including Pfisterr and Dornberger,” spurted a red-faced Don.
“What does this have to do with…” I started.
Don interrupted, “Let me explain it as simply as I can. The same people who killed Kennedy, and then covered it up, were the same people who smuggled Dornberger and hundreds of other Nazis into this country. The same people who overthrew democratic governments. The same people who arranged for war profiteers to get rich. The same people who dosed their own citizens with LSD. The same people who blocked the free press. The same people who conspired with the Mafia to kill Castro, even after Kennedy promised to leave him alone. The same people who contrived to get us into Vietnam. The same people Ike warned us about when he left office. The same people who really ran this country until Kennedy stood up to them. The same people who killed my friend, James Carney.” His anger was so overt, Hayes nearly shouted the last name.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/AuthorsRead/2009/05/18/Tim-Fleming-Murder-Of-An-American-Nazi-
I am posting the actual excerpt I will be reading below. It is from pages 102-105 of Murder Of An American Nazi:
Marie sailed through high school. She got straight A’s and was voted class valedictorian. She was supposed to deliver the commencement address, but, when school administrators scanned an advance copy of it, Marie was told to either switch topics, or the honor of speaking at the graduation would go to another student. The principal had only to read the title of the address, “The Importance of Fighting Nazi Infiltration of the American Government,” to know that Marie’s speech had to be censored.
-102-
Marie was not surprised by the furor. Neither did she protest. She demurely turned over the valedictorian duties to a fellow student. She cared little about the provincial, narrow-minded obsessions of high school administrators. She was moving on to bigger and better things. She was going to change the world.
Because of her grades and Hannah’s lack of financial wherewithal, Marie won a full scholarship to American University in Washington, DC. She intended to study journalism and history. Her goal was to become an investigative reporter for a major U.S. paper, preferably the Washington Post or the New York Times, whose editorial
positions most reflected her own. She wanted to uncover the truth about her family’s
torturer and murderer, Walter Dornberger, and find out if there had indeed been a systematic recruitment and integration of Nazis into American government, military or intelligence positions and how it was done. Were these Nazis influencing our policy towards the Soviets? Were they exacerbating the Cold War?
She was eager to visit the university and chose to route her summer 1963 trip to St. Louis through Washington, DC. The campus was everything she had hoped it would be, a green oasis amid the monuments and momentousness of the nation’s capital.
She checked out her dormitory and discovered that her roommate was someone named
Julia Munshall. Without knowing it, she had arrived during commencement. JFK was to deliver the commencement address. Marie walked right into the ceremony as if she were with a graduate’s family. She took a seat in the bleachers, and what she heard there inspired her and, at the same time, confused her.
Kennedy’s words seemed to flow from a compartment of the government with which Marie was unfamiliar. She had developed a rather jaded, cynical view of America’s intentions. The government and the military publicly decried fascism, yet they secretly
-103-
harbored the worst of the Nazi criminals. What else was going on in secret? What other terrible truths were they hiding? Why did they seem so intent on letting hatred of the Soviet Union bring them to the brink of nuclear annihilation? Did Kennedy even know what was going on in his own government?
Listening to the speech that day, Marie became convinced that Kennedy was going to turn American militarism and secrecy on its head. What he said made her proud, for the first time, to be an American. He spoke of disarmament and world peace. He spoke of commonalities Americans shared with the communists. He spoke of the beginning of the end of the days of conflict. He mentioned the word “peace” over and over. It flew in the face of everything Marie had come to know about America. Kennedy was really sticking his neck out, she thought. Someone would soon chop it off.
Kennedy said, “What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do I seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living.” An end to American military arrogance and domination? Marie was transfixed.
“Total war makes no sense in an age…when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe…we must reexamine our own attitude…every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward—by examining his own attitude toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the course of the Cold War, and toward freedom and peace here at home.”
“He wants Americans to question themselves; he wants us to make nice with the Russians?” Marie thought. “The military will hate this. And how about defense contractors and the war weapons industry, she thought. This is going to be bad for business.”
-104-
What Kennedy said next stunned Marie. No American president had ever uttered such a revolutionary idea, such a radical or far-sighted entreaty, such an enlightened way to view an avowed enemy. “No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue…we can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements in science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture and in acts of courage. Among the many traits the peoples of our two countries have in
common, none is stronger than our mutual abhorrence of war…no nation in the history of battle suffered more than the Soviet Union suffered in the course of the Second World War. At least twenty million lost their lives. Countless millions of homes were burned or sacked.”
The Russians had been our allies in World War II; Marie recalled Hannah telling her how the Russians had liberated some of the concentration camps. How had they become our bitter enemies in such a short period?
“…we are both devoting to weapons massive sums of money that could be better devoted to combating ignorance, poverty and disease. We are both caught up in a vicious and dangerous cycle in which suspicion on one side breeds suspicion on the other, and new weapons beget counterweapons. In short, both the United States and its allies, and the Soviet Union and its allies, have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace and in halting the arms race…if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”
The eloquence, lyricism and profundity of what she’d just heard left Marie limp. The man could deliver a speech like no other. And he could make the listener believe in the country’s future and his ability to get us there. Marie viewed it as a sign that she was in
-105-
the right place at the right time. Like Kennedy, she was determined to make the world a better place. Hope abounded.
___________________________
More than three decades after JFK spoke those words, Don Hayes had a completely different interpretation of what they meant. “He signed his death warrant with that speech,” he told me. “You have no idea how that one shook the halls of the Pentagon and the CIA. And the defense contractors? Are you kidding me? No more billion dollar awards to build fighter jets and weapons and helicopters. No more war profiteering for Brown and Root, Halliburton, Boeing and Bell Textron? An end to the system that had made them all so rich and powerful? No more Red-baiting? World peace? He wasn’t going to let them have Vietnam as their own playground, and they were never going to let Kennedy get away with that. Lemay and Lemnitzer already thought he was a traitor. So did Dulles and half the CIA, including Pfisterr and Dornberger,” spurted a red-faced Don.
“What does this have to do with…” I started.
Don interrupted, “Let me explain it as simply as I can. The same people who killed Kennedy, and then covered it up, were the same people who smuggled Dornberger and hundreds of other Nazis into this country. The same people who overthrew democratic governments. The same people who arranged for war profiteers to get rich. The same people who dosed their own citizens with LSD. The same people who blocked the free press. The same people who conspired with the Mafia to kill Castro, even after Kennedy promised to leave him alone. The same people who contrived to get us into Vietnam. The same people Ike warned us about when he left office. The same people who really ran this country until Kennedy stood up to them. The same people who killed my friend, James Carney.” His anger was so overt, Hayes nearly shouted the last name.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Another Good Review for MOAAN
IAG writer Clayton Bye wrote this:
MURDER OF AN AMERICAN NAZI
By Tim Fleming
Eloquent Books, 2008
240 pp., $29.95, Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-606-93401-2
Historical Fiction
Timothy Fleming claims to have spent a lifetime researching the CIA's impact on post-World War II America. His blog, Left of the Looking Glass seems to back up that statement. But it’s his book, MURDER OF AN AMERICAN NAZI, that makes me believe it’s true. Reading like a documentary or a piece of non-fiction, Fleming’s historical novel reveals an America that we’ve all seen hints of but never want to believe could exist. Here is a story full of real world people, events and CIA operations anyone can discover on the net—if they have the right names, places and code names, all of which Fleming gives us. It’s a story about an American shadow government made up of greedy conglomerates, CIA enforcers and Nazi recruits.
Woven throughout the eerie tale is the life of one Marie Hannah Kanermann. Born in Dachau (a
German concentration camp) as it is liberated by the Allies and raised in the U.S. by the friend of her dead mother, Marie grows up fighting the secret government with words and actions.
Both her story and that of America after World War II unfold through the words of a retired cop, Don Hayes, as he tells one of his friends about the murder that never was: the death of ex-Nazi
and CIA operative Walter Dornberger.
German concentration camp) as it is liberated by the Allies and raised in the U.S. by the friend of her dead mother, Marie grows up fighting the secret government with words and actions.
Both her story and that of America after World War II unfold through the words of a retired cop, Don Hayes, as he tells one of his friends about the murder that never was: the death of ex-Nazi
and CIA operative Walter Dornberger.
Impeccably written, Timothy Fleming’s novel feels just too real to be fiction. Perhaps it’s the
sparseness of dialogue. Maybe it’s the fact most of the people mentioned in the book really
existed. Could be that I’ve seen one too many American wars started for falsely stated reasons.
All I can tell you is that if you can wade through the complex strings of accusations laid out in
the first half of the book, you won’t be able to put it down through the second half.
MURDER OF AN AMERICAN NAZI is a book meant to make you think. My opinion is it will
also keep you from sleeping.
sparseness of dialogue. Maybe it’s the fact most of the people mentioned in the book really
existed. Could be that I’ve seen one too many American wars started for falsely stated reasons.
All I can tell you is that if you can wade through the complex strings of accusations laid out in
the first half of the book, you won’t be able to put it down through the second half.
MURDER OF AN AMERICAN NAZI is a book meant to make you think. My opinion is it will
also keep you from sleeping.
Hell of a job, Mr. Fleming.
Copyright © 2009 by Clayton Bye
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