The contributing authors of the Alternative Read anthology, "Writers On The Wrong Side Of The Road," are offering a chance to win prizes for visiting their blog sites and leaving comments...thru Dec. 22. Look for the holiday hat logos on the book covers on each author's site (note: you'll have to click on my November 2011 archive button to the right to find my holiday hat logo and blog). The grand prize is a Free Kindle. Instructions on how to win that are at the bottom of this post. Here is a list of the writers and what you can win:
Holiday Hat Book Cover #1
28th Nov -- Sassy Brit - opens the tour
This is where it starts!
The Writers on the Wrong Side of the Road
Book Tour and Treasure Hunt #1 http://bit.ly/shf87H
Leave a comment on the AR blog for a chance to win
the book prize
Holiday Hat Book Cover #2
29th Nov -- Visit Editor Clayton Bye for day 2 of the tour
http://bit.ly/sFqHZQ
Leave a comment on Clayton's blog
for a chance to win the book prizes.
Holiday Hat Book Cover #3
30th Nov -- Megan Johns Invites
you to meet the editors: http://bit.ly/utwJTA
Leave a comment on Megan's blog
for a chance to win the prize!
Holiday Hat Book Cover #4
1st Dec --Megan Johns Invites
you to meet the authors: http://bit.ly/vTfl9U
Leave a comment on Megan's blog
for a chance to win the prize!
Holiday Hat Book Cover #5
2nd Dec -- Find the 5th Holiday Hat with John B. Rosenman
and win his book Dax Rigby War Correspondent while you are there http://bit.ly/rJL5UD
Leave a comment on John's blog
for a chance to win the book prize.
Holiday Hat Book Cover #6
5th Dec -- Angelika Devlyn is featured on Blossom and Thorn's blog -
To find out more about winning a copy of Black Ice
Go here and continue the hunt: http://bit.ly/tGjXio
Leave a comment on Blossom and Thorn's blog
for a chance to win the book prize.
Holiday Hat Book Cover #7
6th Dec -- Find the 7th Holiday Hat Book cover and win
an angelic fantasy with Marion Web-De Sisto
http://bit.ly/rJo0ZV
Leave a comment on Marion's blog for a chance to win the book prize.
Holiday Hat Book Cover #8
7th Dec -- Win an Erotic Deception with Karen Cote'
http://bit.ly/ud56ow
Leave a comment on Karen's blog for a chance to win the book prize.
Holiday Hat Book Cover #9
8th Dec -- Win 2 copies of Kit St. Germain's Escape clause here:
http://bit.ly/vPsicv (leave comments of the AR blog for a chance to win books).
Holiday Hat Book Cover #10
9th - Dec -- Win $25 or equivalent with Tonya R. Moore
http://bit.ly/tnxiK0
Leave a comment on Tonya's blog for a chance to win the $25 Amazon gift voucher prize.
Holiday Hat Book Cover #11
12th Dec -- Win a copy of Murder of an American Nazi with Tim Fleming
http://bit.ly/rAeCg1
Leave a comment on Tim's blog for a chance to win the book prize.
Holiday Hat Book Cover #12
13th Dec -- Win a copy of erotic dark fantasy Black Ice with Angelika Devlyn
http://bit.ly/sk4LXh
Leave a comment on Angelika's blog for a chance to win the book prize
Holiday Hat Book Cover #13
14th Dec -- Win a copy of Mike Brecon's book A Dangerous Remedy
http://bit.ly/vFTkmt
Leave a comment on Mike's blog for a chance to win the book prize.
You have until 22nd Dec to leave a comment on each of these authors blogs to win their individual prizes.
For the KINDLE CONTEST- you have until 25th Dec to send all your answers - the urls to all the places
you've found the 'Holiday Hat book covers' to Sassy Brit here: http://bit.ly/gNmBvs
Full details of both contests are here: http://bit.ly/sCuhYB
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Monday, November 28, 2011
My Meeting With The History Professor Who Doesn't Know His History--The Inspiration For My Short Story "The Barefoot Hero"
A few months back my wife retired from her position as a music professor at a local college. At her retirement party I struck up a conversation with a young history professor. Turns out he specializes in the history of southeast Asia. This was of particular interest to me because I consider myself something of an expert on the origins, purposes, and consequences of American involvement in the Vietnam War. I was excited to find a knowledgeable historian with whom I could share my views on the topic, and I looked forward to a stimulating discussion. The professor, however, soon blunted my enthusiasm. The more we talked, the more I realized he was the worst of all academicians--the history teacher who does not know his history.
When I mentioned that the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which LBJ used as his excuse for an all-out troop commitment and irreversible escalation, was a hoax, the professor looked befuddled. When I named all the defense contractors (including Halliburton/KBR...yes, even back then Halliburton was making billions in blood money) that got obscenely rich off the war, his eyes narrowed and his expression told me, "So what?" And when I tried to explain to him that the point of the war was not to win it but to make it last as long as possible for American war profiteers to suck every last penny they could from it, the professor got indignant. He stammered and sputtered, "What gives you...on what basis...why..."
Before he could form a coherent sentence, I made a pre-emptive strike. "Take for instance the Battle for Hill 875. Certainly you're familiar with that," I gently goaded.
"The what...875th Hill...huh?" mumbled the professor.
"It took place in the Central Highlands near Dak To in November 1967. One of the bloodiest battles of the entire war. I've talked to survivors of it, and they have never shaken its horrors. To this day they have nightmares about it. The VC were entrenched on a large hill, called 875 by the American high command. The order came down to take the hill, but this was the VC's home turf and they would not be easily defeated. They knew jungle warfare and how to survive in it. The carnage went on for four days. The casualties were great. One suvivor remembered the hill running red with blood. It finally ended on Thanksgiving Day. The VC retreated and the hill belonged to the 173rd airborne brigade. What did American forces do with this hard-won hill? They abandoned it within a week. It held no strategic advantage. In other words, there had been no point to the entire battle. This sort of thing happened over and over in Vietnam. Battle after battle, won and lost, to no apparent end. The objective observer can only conclude that the war had no ultimate purpose other than to line the pockets of weapons makers and other defense contractors."
The professor was stunned for a moment, but he managed to recover and recite the refrain of the hopelessly misinformed, "We stopped communist aggression. If Vietnam had fallen who knows...the communists might have come to our shores. Better there than here."
"Ah...the old domino theory. Tell me you're not clinging to that; it's been discredited long ago...even by the most hawkish historians," I condescended. My patience with this neophyte had run out. "The fact is South Vietnam did fall, yet the communists did not take over the world. They got not closer than China. Not one nation in the western hemisphere fell after Vietnam."
The professor took a hearty swig of beer and looked away in resignation. I almost felt sorry for him. "Look," I offered, "It's okay not to know something, but you should at least be inquisitive...where's the curiosity to find out more? And please tell me you're not polluting those young, malleable minds in your history class. They deserve better than that. All of us deserve to know our real history."
With that, the young professor skulked away and made a point of avoiding me for the rest of the night.
In subsequent days, the remembrance of that encounter gnawed at me. The history professor's lack of intellectual curiosity appalled me. Rather than sit me down and grill me to find out more, he simply dismissed me as a crackpot. Were all American professors this way? Were they feeding their students disinformation? What the hell was really going on in collegiate classrooms? The study of history should be a diligent search for the truth about our past, not a lazy recitation of textbook prevarications.
I decided to do something about it--write a story that makes the causes and effects of the war more personal, more meaningful. "The Barefoot Hero" is my small way of setting the record straight.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
My Short Story Will Be Published In New Anthology
Publisher, editor and writer C.C. Bye came to me with an offer I could not resist. He told me, "I want to publish a book that's off-beat, wild, maybe a little dangerous. Give me a short story that fits this description." So I did. "The Barefoot Hero" is my take on what Vietnam did to my generation, the lost generation of the '60s, if you will. The publishers loved it, and have readied it and the other stories for a November release. The front and back cover design is posted here.
"Writers On The Wrong Side Of The Road" will feature edgy, unconventional offerings of sci-fi, erotica, historical fiction, and more. More details to follow
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
A Modest Proposal To Stop Gulf Oil Leak
I've got a great idea to stop the BP Gulf Oil Leak--have Liz Cheney wrap her big mouth around it and see how much she can swallow. She's all over TV blowing off her big trap uselessly (trying to blame Obama for the spill), her family loves oil, and her father helped create the climate of Halliburton fraud and incompetence which led to the leak. Those responsible for the leak should fix it, right?
What happened to the good old days when ex-vice presidents and their families, especially hated ones, walked off into the sunset and were never heard from again? I wish Dick and his evil offspring would just disappear. But they've become corporate media darlings. Liz Cheney was on ABC's Sunday morning show (I don't even remember the name of this talking dead show...I just know it's imbued with George Will's right-wing hogwash) trying to blame Obama for the oil spill. This takes some outrageous audacity, considering it was Halliburton's faulty cementing of the pipe that caused the whole damn thing. At least Ariana Huffington ripped Liz a new one. She said, "This is just a continuation of the Bush/Cheney doctrine of allowing Halliburton to defraud American taxpayers out of hundreds of billions of dollars with incompetent, overpriced, and deadly work." Halliburton has made a fortune off the Iraq war and killed many soldiers with faulty labor. Some were fried while taking showers in quarters with faulty wiring made by Halliburton.
Yet Liz Cheney denied it all on national TV, and I'm sure the idiot right was appeased. As I watched her jack her fascist jaws (notice, she has the eyes of a snake...dead and soulless...just like Palin), I began to imagine what she would have done in previous times. Can't you just picture her screaming "Macht shnell, macht shnell!!" in 1940s Germany, as she herded prisoners into Dachau showers (made by Halliburton). Or blocking James Meredith's way as he tried to enter Mississippi U. in the '60s? Or shouting down women's equality marchers in the '70s? Or killing abortion doctors in the '90s?
America will be a better place when we are finally done with the Cheney tribe and its hateful, rapacious ways.
What happened to the good old days when ex-vice presidents and their families, especially hated ones, walked off into the sunset and were never heard from again? I wish Dick and his evil offspring would just disappear. But they've become corporate media darlings. Liz Cheney was on ABC's Sunday morning show (I don't even remember the name of this talking dead show...I just know it's imbued with George Will's right-wing hogwash) trying to blame Obama for the oil spill. This takes some outrageous audacity, considering it was Halliburton's faulty cementing of the pipe that caused the whole damn thing. At least Ariana Huffington ripped Liz a new one. She said, "This is just a continuation of the Bush/Cheney doctrine of allowing Halliburton to defraud American taxpayers out of hundreds of billions of dollars with incompetent, overpriced, and deadly work." Halliburton has made a fortune off the Iraq war and killed many soldiers with faulty labor. Some were fried while taking showers in quarters with faulty wiring made by Halliburton.
Yet Liz Cheney denied it all on national TV, and I'm sure the idiot right was appeased. As I watched her jack her fascist jaws (notice, she has the eyes of a snake...dead and soulless...just like Palin), I began to imagine what she would have done in previous times. Can't you just picture her screaming "Macht shnell, macht shnell!!" in 1940s Germany, as she herded prisoners into Dachau showers (made by Halliburton). Or blocking James Meredith's way as he tried to enter Mississippi U. in the '60s? Or shouting down women's equality marchers in the '70s? Or killing abortion doctors in the '90s?
America will be a better place when we are finally done with the Cheney tribe and its hateful, rapacious ways.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Opening Day Memories
Spring begins for me on the opening day of the baseball season. Warm winds are blowing across the plains today, and I am flooded with rich memories of Cardinal opening days.
In the early sixties I would rush home from school, flick on the large radio in my parents' bedroom, and hear the end of the opening game. I have always associated Harry Caray's voice (yes, Cubs fans he broadcasted the Cardinals games then) with the hope and heartbreak that comes with each new season. 1961 remains vivid for how the game ended. Daryl Spencer hit a long home run off Warren Spahn to beat the Milwaukee Braves in extra innings. Six days later the term Bay of Pigs became a topic of conversation in our house and on TV. I thought they were discussing the strange sounds farm animals make.
On a cold, gray day in 1965 the Cardinals and Cubs played to a 10-10 tie on opening day. The game was called because it was too dark to continue. St. Louis scored a run in the top of the eleventh to take the lead, but knuckleball reliever Barney Schultz blew it in the bottom of the eleventh. LBJ started sending ground troops to Vietnam the same year.
Back home from the Army in 1975, and high on an illegal substance, I attended opening day at Busch Stadium. I don't remember much, except the Cardinals lost to the Expos and I heckled our washed-up shortstop Eddie Brinkman. 23 days later, Saigon fell, and the war in Vietnam ended.
On April 11, 1981, a rainy Saturday in St. Louis, the Phillies beat the Cards to begin Whitey Herzog's first full year as manager. The players' strike shortened that year, and, though they had the best cumulative record in the National League, the Cardinals were excluded from the playoffs by a goofy split season playoff format. My daughter, born the previous autumn on a football Saturday, turned six months old in April 1981. We lived in a second-story shotgun flat in south St. Louis; not much of an apartment, but I remember it fondly now.
On a warm Easter Sunday in 1994, Ray Lankford lined a home run, which never got more than 10 feet off the ground, over the center-field wall at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. The Cards won that night, but their season was doomed. And so was their manager, Joe Torre.
In the early sixties I would rush home from school, flick on the large radio in my parents' bedroom, and hear the end of the opening game. I have always associated Harry Caray's voice (yes, Cubs fans he broadcasted the Cardinals games then) with the hope and heartbreak that comes with each new season. 1961 remains vivid for how the game ended. Daryl Spencer hit a long home run off Warren Spahn to beat the Milwaukee Braves in extra innings. Six days later the term Bay of Pigs became a topic of conversation in our house and on TV. I thought they were discussing the strange sounds farm animals make.
On a cold, gray day in 1965 the Cardinals and Cubs played to a 10-10 tie on opening day. The game was called because it was too dark to continue. St. Louis scored a run in the top of the eleventh to take the lead, but knuckleball reliever Barney Schultz blew it in the bottom of the eleventh. LBJ started sending ground troops to Vietnam the same year.
Back home from the Army in 1975, and high on an illegal substance, I attended opening day at Busch Stadium. I don't remember much, except the Cardinals lost to the Expos and I heckled our washed-up shortstop Eddie Brinkman. 23 days later, Saigon fell, and the war in Vietnam ended.
On April 11, 1981, a rainy Saturday in St. Louis, the Phillies beat the Cards to begin Whitey Herzog's first full year as manager. The players' strike shortened that year, and, though they had the best cumulative record in the National League, the Cardinals were excluded from the playoffs by a goofy split season playoff format. My daughter, born the previous autumn on a football Saturday, turned six months old in April 1981. We lived in a second-story shotgun flat in south St. Louis; not much of an apartment, but I remember it fondly now.
On a warm Easter Sunday in 1994, Ray Lankford lined a home run, which never got more than 10 feet off the ground, over the center-field wall at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. The Cards won that night, but their season was doomed. And so was their manager, Joe Torre.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Pope's Publicist Pisses People Off
VATICAN CITY – At a solemn Good Friday service, Pope Benedict XVI's personal preacher likened the tide of allegations that the pontiff has covered up sex abuse cases to the "more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism." But within hours, facing a storm of criticism at the comparison, the Vatican felt it necessary to distance the pope from the preacher's remarks.
Both Jewish and victims' groups responded that it was inappropriate to compare the discomfort being experienced by the church leadership in the sex abuse scandal to the violence that culminated in the Holocaust. The Vatican has been on the defensive in recent days, saying the church has been singled out and collectively stereotyped for the problem of pedophilia, which it says is a society-wide issue.
This was the AP story that ran tonight after the Pope's "preacher" tried to turn Catholic pedophile-priests into victims/martyrs. First of all, what the fuck is a "personal preacher"? Is that the Pope's PR agent? And who is this Jewish friend of his? It sounds like this letter was made up by the PR agent in a desperate attempt to deflect blame onto the real victims--abused children and their families.
These "men of God" are showing their true colors. They are vainglorious, clueless, and callous. Descendants of Peter who care only about covering their asses, trying to spin the outing of child rapists into a witch hunt. What a bunch of scoundrels. I hope the story never dies, until the Church is forced to clean its own house. The Pope is a head of state (Vatican City is its own country), but once he leaves his palace he can be arrested like a common criminal for being an accomplice to rape. This would never happen, but wouldn't it be great to see Ratzenberg, ex-Hitler youth, doing the perp walk.
Mary and Jack, my apologies, but the pious hypocrisy makes me want to hurl.
Both Jewish and victims' groups responded that it was inappropriate to compare the discomfort being experienced by the church leadership in the sex abuse scandal to the violence that culminated in the Holocaust. The Vatican has been on the defensive in recent days, saying the church has been singled out and collectively stereotyped for the problem of pedophilia, which it says is a society-wide issue.
This was the AP story that ran tonight after the Pope's "preacher" tried to turn Catholic pedophile-priests into victims/martyrs. First of all, what the fuck is a "personal preacher"? Is that the Pope's PR agent? And who is this Jewish friend of his? It sounds like this letter was made up by the PR agent in a desperate attempt to deflect blame onto the real victims--abused children and their families.
These "men of God" are showing their true colors. They are vainglorious, clueless, and callous. Descendants of Peter who care only about covering their asses, trying to spin the outing of child rapists into a witch hunt. What a bunch of scoundrels. I hope the story never dies, until the Church is forced to clean its own house. The Pope is a head of state (Vatican City is its own country), but once he leaves his palace he can be arrested like a common criminal for being an accomplice to rape. This would never happen, but wouldn't it be great to see Ratzenberg, ex-Hitler youth, doing the perp walk.
Mary and Jack, my apologies, but the pious hypocrisy makes me want to hurl.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Right-Wing Hate, Threats, Violence On The Rise
In the wake of passage of health-care reform, the loony right is becoming even more dangerous than usual. They are throwing bricks through the windows of Democratic offices; they are praying for the death of the President; they are even threatening to kill children.
No, these are not Minutemen hiding in some survivalist Idaho bunker. These are not Klansmen burning crosses in Mississippi. These are not neo-Nazis marching in Skokie. These are your neighbors, your pastors, your elected representatives.
Bricks have been thrown through the windows of local Democratic headquarters in Ohio and Kansas. Glass has been shattered at the offices of Louis Slaughter (D-NY) in Niagara Falls and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) in Tucson. A note was left behind by a vandal at another site. It referenced Barry Goldwater's, "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice."
A fundamentalist California preacher named Wiley Drake urged his flock to pray for the death of all congressmen who voted for the health-care reform bill. (Now that's a Christian attitude!) Racist and homophobic slurs were hurled at prominent Democrats Barney Frank and John Lewis.
Are Republican leaders encouraging cooler heads to prevail? No, they are instigating the hate. Sarah Palin cries, "Don't retreat; reload." Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) shouts "Baby Killer!" at Bart Stupak (D-MI) on the House floor.
And it's going to get worse, if you listen to the extremist rhetoric of the fringe right. Like whiny children who can't accept defeat, Republicans are still trying to derail health care with parliamentary technicalities and whacky amendments. Apparently they believe in democracy only when it works for them.
America is a scary place now, and I worry for the safety of anyone on the left who speaks his or her mind in public. We are like the Jews of Germany in the 1930s, huddled in our homes hoping that fascists don't throw bricks through our windows or haul us off to concentration camps. They are armed, and we are not. And they have Goebbels Limbaugh spewing hate on the radio all day, inciting the worst of the lot to take action.
Unlike the German Jews, however, I won't go quietly. In my little corner of the Midwest, I am still loudly resisting the bastards, and I will not stop. See my previous post, entitled "The GOP (Gathering Of Primitives) At My Door," for tips on how to deal with these mindless fanatics. Remember the words of Huey Long, "Fascism will come to America, but they will call it democracy. But only if we let it happen."
No, these are not Minutemen hiding in some survivalist Idaho bunker. These are not Klansmen burning crosses in Mississippi. These are not neo-Nazis marching in Skokie. These are your neighbors, your pastors, your elected representatives.
Bricks have been thrown through the windows of local Democratic headquarters in Ohio and Kansas. Glass has been shattered at the offices of Louis Slaughter (D-NY) in Niagara Falls and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) in Tucson. A note was left behind by a vandal at another site. It referenced Barry Goldwater's, "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice."
A fundamentalist California preacher named Wiley Drake urged his flock to pray for the death of all congressmen who voted for the health-care reform bill. (Now that's a Christian attitude!) Racist and homophobic slurs were hurled at prominent Democrats Barney Frank and John Lewis.
Are Republican leaders encouraging cooler heads to prevail? No, they are instigating the hate. Sarah Palin cries, "Don't retreat; reload." Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) shouts "Baby Killer!" at Bart Stupak (D-MI) on the House floor.
And it's going to get worse, if you listen to the extremist rhetoric of the fringe right. Like whiny children who can't accept defeat, Republicans are still trying to derail health care with parliamentary technicalities and whacky amendments. Apparently they believe in democracy only when it works for them.
America is a scary place now, and I worry for the safety of anyone on the left who speaks his or her mind in public. We are like the Jews of Germany in the 1930s, huddled in our homes hoping that fascists don't throw bricks through our windows or haul us off to concentration camps. They are armed, and we are not. And they have Goebbels Limbaugh spewing hate on the radio all day, inciting the worst of the lot to take action.
Unlike the German Jews, however, I won't go quietly. In my little corner of the Midwest, I am still loudly resisting the bastards, and I will not stop. See my previous post, entitled "The GOP (Gathering Of Primitives) At My Door," for tips on how to deal with these mindless fanatics. Remember the words of Huey Long, "Fascism will come to America, but they will call it democracy. But only if we let it happen."
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