We are cat people. I know that conjures up a particular picture in people's minds, and that's okay with me. We have two cats: one enormous (20-lb.) tiger tabby, and one small calico. Friends have told me they don't like cats because cats are "sneaky", and you can't ever tell what they're thinking. Too true. That's one reason I like them so much. Dogs are fairly predictable: they slobber, they lick, they demand to be attended to, and they have a distinct odor (and not just when they're wet, though God knows that makes it worse). They'll pretty much eat anything, generally like everyone, and have to be walked.
Cats are much more independent and discriminating. They don't have an odor (I don't count the litterbox. That's an entirely different issue.), they mostly don't care whether or not you are there, and they take care of their own toileting. They do go a little crazy when they see birds outside the window, but they don't bark. Cats are sneaky. They have to be. They are delicate, and in order to survive, they have had to develop slyness, quietness, and a slinky way of moving that is almost undetectable to their prey. This makes them very successful hunters.
Because cats are so persnickety about the people they love, some people find them stand-off-ish. People, that is your own insecurity speaking! Don't blame that on cats. If cats love you, you should be proud, because they are pretty particular about their humans.
So, cats rule, and dogs drool. Need I say more?
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Monday, June 13, 2011
Southern speech
Some people claim that southerners are lazy in their speech, that they aren't smart, that they are people who should be mocked because of the way they talk.
This is wrong. Southerners are NOT lazy, they are just economical. Since the Civil War, people who live in the South have had to be frugal; they have struggled to hold onto or reclaim what they had. Even today, people in the southern states (excluding Florida, perhaps) are among the poorest in the country. As a child, I watched my grandmother cut up old sheets to use as pillow cases and dishtowels. Nothing went to waste around her house. Leftover bacon grease was re-used as oil to cook in or with. She was thrifty and had no patience for those who wasted food or anything else.
Because they've had to be careful with everything, so they have learned to be careful in their speech. I call it "economy of language". For example, why use up three words to describe a group of people when the word "y'all" says the same thing and you save two words!
Southerners have learned to conserve; they conserve resources, and they conserve language. They deserve respect, not ridicule!
This is wrong. Southerners are NOT lazy, they are just economical. Since the Civil War, people who live in the South have had to be frugal; they have struggled to hold onto or reclaim what they had. Even today, people in the southern states (excluding Florida, perhaps) are among the poorest in the country. As a child, I watched my grandmother cut up old sheets to use as pillow cases and dishtowels. Nothing went to waste around her house. Leftover bacon grease was re-used as oil to cook in or with. She was thrifty and had no patience for those who wasted food or anything else.
Because they've had to be careful with everything, so they have learned to be careful in their speech. I call it "economy of language". For example, why use up three words to describe a group of people when the word "y'all" says the same thing and you save two words!
Southerners have learned to conserve; they conserve resources, and they conserve language. They deserve respect, not ridicule!
Friday, June 10, 2011
Is Larry Flynt a hero or a villain?
My ebook, A Spy At Home, makes the U S government look bad, and deals with killing and money laundering. Do I owe the freedom to write about these topics under the First Amendment to Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler? What do you think?
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Excerpt From A SPY AT HOME, available on Amazon
Note To Reader:
Since you’re reading this, I’m dead. A great many years of my life I worked for the CIA, Central Intelligence Agency, for the federal government of the United States of America. I didn’t say proudly worked, because I wasn’t proudly serving the entire time. Don’t yawn; you haven’t read this one before. The book won’t self-destruct; this isn’t the same reworded spy novel you’ve read a dozen times where the hero does the right thing in the final scene, and everyone good lives happily ever after, and the bad guys go to jail. To be honest with you, I don’t know how much spy stuff will be in this book. The important thing for you to know is that the royalties from this book support Noah, my son. He was a surprise, but not the kind of surprise you’re thinking. You’ll meet him later, and I assure you that you'll like him. Everyone does. We’re complete opposites. He’s innocent, and I’m not.
As for me, you’ll get to know me. I’d really like to hear what you think about me, but I was too chickenshit to release this while I lived. You’ll have to judge me posthumously. Most people tell stories using themselves as the conquering hero. I tried not to do that; in fact, I’m certain you won’t conclude I’m any kind of hero. On the other hand, I hope you don’t end up hating me. My excuse for not presenting this during my lifetime was National Security. You know the term that forgives all government workers for being dishonest and secretive.
In case I forget to say it later, thanks for the money. You paid me a lot of dough over the years for my salary, and one big lump sum, which you’ll hear about in detail. Being a CIA operative means everything I do is covered under the veil of National Security. Don’t worry; nothing you’re going to read will put any American agents in danger. I’ve been out of the game for a long time, and most of the governments I helped create or defeat have no one left alive who can figure out my real identity.
My job enters into this book some, well, a lot, but it’s not really the point. I hope you think I ended up being a good person. My guess would be that most folks will see what I did in my job as acts of evil piled onto one another to build a temple to undermining decency. At the time, I acted for God and country, actually, just country because I don’t believe in God. I was raised Catholic – before you ask, no, I wasn’t molested by a priest. After touring the worst parts of the world, and seeing the worst side of humanity, I decided not to worship anything that had the power to rectify those cruelties and chose not to. Life is less complicated for me when I believe God simply doesn’t exist.
Some of you might recognize part of this story from newspaper accounts in Nashville, Tennessee. I’m the guy who shot his wife; again, not for the reason(s) you think. We’ll cover that in detail, too. You’ll hate me for shooting someone who gave so much to the world and always thought of others. I hate myself for it.
I wrote some of the book and then came back to this note. You should be warned that this tale doesn’t follow some chronology of events. It’s not some impossible to read stream-of-consciousness, but it is out of order.
My death happens at a shootout with a terrorist group from a small Middle Eastern country where I help thwart the terrorist group’s coup against the country’s President, who secretly sympathizes with America’s precarious oil dependency. Just kidding – how in the hell could I possibly know that while I’m writing this? I probably die alone of some common disease in a nursing home with so many beds that all the patients become anonymous. Who cares? (Other than Noah if he survives me)
Since you’re reading this, I’m dead. A great many years of my life I worked for the CIA, Central Intelligence Agency, for the federal government of the United States of America. I didn’t say proudly worked, because I wasn’t proudly serving the entire time. Don’t yawn; you haven’t read this one before. The book won’t self-destruct; this isn’t the same reworded spy novel you’ve read a dozen times where the hero does the right thing in the final scene, and everyone good lives happily ever after, and the bad guys go to jail. To be honest with you, I don’t know how much spy stuff will be in this book. The important thing for you to know is that the royalties from this book support Noah, my son. He was a surprise, but not the kind of surprise you’re thinking. You’ll meet him later, and I assure you that you'll like him. Everyone does. We’re complete opposites. He’s innocent, and I’m not.
As for me, you’ll get to know me. I’d really like to hear what you think about me, but I was too chickenshit to release this while I lived. You’ll have to judge me posthumously. Most people tell stories using themselves as the conquering hero. I tried not to do that; in fact, I’m certain you won’t conclude I’m any kind of hero. On the other hand, I hope you don’t end up hating me. My excuse for not presenting this during my lifetime was National Security. You know the term that forgives all government workers for being dishonest and secretive.
In case I forget to say it later, thanks for the money. You paid me a lot of dough over the years for my salary, and one big lump sum, which you’ll hear about in detail. Being a CIA operative means everything I do is covered under the veil of National Security. Don’t worry; nothing you’re going to read will put any American agents in danger. I’ve been out of the game for a long time, and most of the governments I helped create or defeat have no one left alive who can figure out my real identity.
My job enters into this book some, well, a lot, but it’s not really the point. I hope you think I ended up being a good person. My guess would be that most folks will see what I did in my job as acts of evil piled onto one another to build a temple to undermining decency. At the time, I acted for God and country, actually, just country because I don’t believe in God. I was raised Catholic – before you ask, no, I wasn’t molested by a priest. After touring the worst parts of the world, and seeing the worst side of humanity, I decided not to worship anything that had the power to rectify those cruelties and chose not to. Life is less complicated for me when I believe God simply doesn’t exist.
Some of you might recognize part of this story from newspaper accounts in Nashville, Tennessee. I’m the guy who shot his wife; again, not for the reason(s) you think. We’ll cover that in detail, too. You’ll hate me for shooting someone who gave so much to the world and always thought of others. I hate myself for it.
I wrote some of the book and then came back to this note. You should be warned that this tale doesn’t follow some chronology of events. It’s not some impossible to read stream-of-consciousness, but it is out of order.
My death happens at a shootout with a terrorist group from a small Middle Eastern country where I help thwart the terrorist group’s coup against the country’s President, who secretly sympathizes with America’s precarious oil dependency. Just kidding – how in the hell could I possibly know that while I’m writing this? I probably die alone of some common disease in a nursing home with so many beds that all the patients become anonymous. Who cares? (Other than Noah if he survives me)
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Writing books is hard!
Don't ever let anyone tell you that writing a book is easy. It's NOT! My first effort came about because I was between jobs. I had always been a voracious reader, and I thought, "Gee, how hard could it be to write a book?" The answer is: not hard to write one, just hard to write a good one.
I began with my first mistake: too much research on the subject of the book, too little creative thinking before I plunged into the "story". The story itself was thin, the protagonist not particularly admirable, and the ending abrupt and incomplete. In other words, my first novel sucked! In my naive perception of how books are published, I began mailing entire manuscripts to agents and publishers. I can't even remember how much postage I wasted doing that before I realized that most of them only want query letters. So then I began writing query letters. The problem is I was writing them as if they were business letters; because I work in finance, these letters were dry and uninteresting, and they didn't have any life of their own. The rejections poured in.
You'd think that this would have deterred me from writing another book, but I had many more stories in me, so I plunged into the next novel headfirst. Again, too much research, but a much better story.
Now I have written nine novels, have one published and available on Amazon as an ebook, and have another one in the editing stages. The ebook, A SPY AT HOME, is selling fairly well, and I am working the social media frantically, trying to get the word out.
So, novice writers, take heed. Even if you believe that your novel is the best work out there, remember there are tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) just like you who believe the same thing. Work hard, promote your book every way you can, and don't lose heart. But remember, you are up against some very stiff competition, and you must persevere!
I began with my first mistake: too much research on the subject of the book, too little creative thinking before I plunged into the "story". The story itself was thin, the protagonist not particularly admirable, and the ending abrupt and incomplete. In other words, my first novel sucked! In my naive perception of how books are published, I began mailing entire manuscripts to agents and publishers. I can't even remember how much postage I wasted doing that before I realized that most of them only want query letters. So then I began writing query letters. The problem is I was writing them as if they were business letters; because I work in finance, these letters were dry and uninteresting, and they didn't have any life of their own. The rejections poured in.
You'd think that this would have deterred me from writing another book, but I had many more stories in me, so I plunged into the next novel headfirst. Again, too much research, but a much better story.
Now I have written nine novels, have one published and available on Amazon as an ebook, and have another one in the editing stages. The ebook, A SPY AT HOME, is selling fairly well, and I am working the social media frantically, trying to get the word out.
So, novice writers, take heed. Even if you believe that your novel is the best work out there, remember there are tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) just like you who believe the same thing. Work hard, promote your book every way you can, and don't lose heart. But remember, you are up against some very stiff competition, and you must persevere!
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Let's Talk About Polygamy
Okay. Let's talk about polygamy. Webster defines polygamy as "the practice of having more than one wife (or husband) at one time".
Polygamy is illegal in every state in the U.S. So how can someone be a polygamist and be arrested and prosecuted for that? If it's illegal, you can't have more than one wife at a time, so any other women you "marry" are not your legal wives to begin with. If they aren't your legal wives, how can you be prosecuted for being married to more than one wife? Is it just me, or is this one of those stupid things that makes no sense?
I admit I have become quite addicted to the show Sister Wives, although in truth, because plural marriage is illegal, shouldn't the show be called Sister Wife Plus Three? After all, only the first woman Cody married is his legal wife. So now they are all leaving Utah because they are supposedly in trouble with the law for their "plural marriage". I say that there are no grounds for prosecution because Cody isn't really "married" to any of the three last "wives". Doesn't that make more sense? And to carry on about this, even if they move to Nevada, won't they still be in trouble if the "plural marriage" is what's getting them in trouble in Utah? I don't get it.
So here are the facts: Cody is married to one wife, and he is living in a committed relationship with and has children with three additional wives (well, actually only two, because he has no children yet with Robin). He is legally married to one, living with three others, and a whole bunch of children also live in the household. What law(s) has he broken? He is really only legally married to one wife, so how is he guilty of polygamy?
In my opinion, polygamy does not exist because in every one of the 50 states, you can really only legally be married to one person at a time. So why are they all packing up (in fear) and leaving one state to go to another because they are in "danger" of being prosecuted for plural marriage? I am baffled by this. Anyone care to comment?
Polygamy is illegal in every state in the U.S. So how can someone be a polygamist and be arrested and prosecuted for that? If it's illegal, you can't have more than one wife at a time, so any other women you "marry" are not your legal wives to begin with. If they aren't your legal wives, how can you be prosecuted for being married to more than one wife? Is it just me, or is this one of those stupid things that makes no sense?
I admit I have become quite addicted to the show Sister Wives, although in truth, because plural marriage is illegal, shouldn't the show be called Sister Wife Plus Three? After all, only the first woman Cody married is his legal wife. So now they are all leaving Utah because they are supposedly in trouble with the law for their "plural marriage". I say that there are no grounds for prosecution because Cody isn't really "married" to any of the three last "wives". Doesn't that make more sense? And to carry on about this, even if they move to Nevada, won't they still be in trouble if the "plural marriage" is what's getting them in trouble in Utah? I don't get it.
So here are the facts: Cody is married to one wife, and he is living in a committed relationship with and has children with three additional wives (well, actually only two, because he has no children yet with Robin). He is legally married to one, living with three others, and a whole bunch of children also live in the household. What law(s) has he broken? He is really only legally married to one wife, so how is he guilty of polygamy?
In my opinion, polygamy does not exist because in every one of the 50 states, you can really only legally be married to one person at a time. So why are they all packing up (in fear) and leaving one state to go to another because they are in "danger" of being prosecuted for plural marriage? I am baffled by this. Anyone care to comment?
Friday, May 27, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Special Olympics - Dare To Win!
My daughter is 37 now and has participated in Special Olympics since she was 8. She has competed in bocce, basketball, bowling, track & field, and powerlifting. Special Olympics has given her the opportunity to not only participate in sports that typical peers participate in, but to compete and to win! It has given her confidence, joy, and pride in her efforts. She will be competing in the Tennessee Special Olympics state competition this weekend in powerlifting. This 5-foot-tall girl can bench press 55 pounds and deadlift over 100 pounds. It is amazing to watch her and to see the total concentration and effort she puts into every event.
Being the parent of a child with special needs is an honor and a privilege. She has taught me many things: among them, patience, persistence, and what true competition means. I am so proud of her, and win or lose, she is always proud of herself.
I hope that each of my blog readers has the opportunity to either watch, volunteer for, or coach athletes in these terrific Games. It will reward you richly. Special Olympics always needs volunteers; contact your local office to offer your energies to an organization that gives these opportunities to people with special needs. You will not regret it.
Being the parent of a child with special needs is an honor and a privilege. She has taught me many things: among them, patience, persistence, and what true competition means. I am so proud of her, and win or lose, she is always proud of herself.
I hope that each of my blog readers has the opportunity to either watch, volunteer for, or coach athletes in these terrific Games. It will reward you richly. Special Olympics always needs volunteers; contact your local office to offer your energies to an organization that gives these opportunities to people with special needs. You will not regret it.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Kindle! What a wonderful toy! You can do so many things with it, and it is so much easier to read than a physical book. Predictions are that physical books are going the way of the dinosaurs, and I hope that is true, particularly because I write ebooks and sell them on Amazon.
Amazon has a veritable cornucopia of products to sell, but I think the Kindle is terrific. There are so many other things you can do with it besides read books, but I'll let you investigate that on your own. Happy Kindle-ing!
Amazon has a veritable cornucopia of products to sell, but I think the Kindle is terrific. There are so many other things you can do with it besides read books, but I'll let you investigate that on your own. Happy Kindle-ing!
NFL Lockout?
Are we going to have an NFL season this year? It looks grim. Because I live in Nashville, I follow the Tennessee Titans (who have had a rough time recently), and because they have hired a new coach, and because they are likely to draft some young, fresh players, I hope their season will be better than it was last year. BUT, if the players and the owners cannot come to some kind of an agreement, it doesn't look good. Time is ticking away, ticking away, and it won't be long before the team will have to get serious about preparing for the 2011-12 season.
Let's go, Titans! Get your act together, and start practicing, working out, and getting ready to kick some NFL butt!
Let's go, Titans! Get your act together, and start practicing, working out, and getting ready to kick some NFL butt!
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