Aldric & Anneliese is now for sale for $5.50 as an e-book at both the Kindle Store at Amazon.com and at the Nook Store at Barnes and Noble.
The e-book versions are not yet linked to the print version's page. You need to search either the Kindle Store or the Nook Store for "Aldric & Anneliese" to find the e-book version. Did I mention it only cost $5.50 for the e-book? LOL
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
e-book Version of Aldric and Anneliese Soon
If all goes according to plan, the publisher, 4RV Publishing LLC, should have the e-book version of my latest book, Aldric and Anneliese, made available on Kindle at Amazon.com and on e-Nook at Barnes and Noble next week. Be sure to check for it then!
I know a lot of people these days prefer to buy e-books rather than print copies. My 11-year-old granddaughter reads books on her Kindle. She likes receiving Kindle gift cards as gifts. It's cheaper and quicker getting books that way.
I know a lot of people these days prefer to buy e-books rather than print copies. My 11-year-old granddaughter reads books on her Kindle. She likes receiving Kindle gift cards as gifts. It's cheaper and quicker getting books that way.
Aldric and Anneliese Book Trailer Receiving Viewings
My book trailer for Aldric and Anneliese now has 234 "hits". If you still haven't watched the trailer, now's a good time to do so. :-)
Monday, May 16, 2011
The Republican Party Is Built on White Men’s Racism
Look at Southern history: From the War Between the States onward through the 1960s, the South was solid for the Democratic Party. Then, within a few years, it became solid for the Republican Party. What happened to elicit this change? The Democratic Party in the 1960s openly pushed civil rights for blacks, whereas the Republican Party did not. Hence, southerners became Republican in opposition to civil rights for blacks. Pure racism at its best. Today this racist motive is not as openly visible, but it is there all the same. The Republican Party is the vestige of white, old men desperately trying to forestall America’s new demographic future. It and they ultimately will fail, but they will do irreparable harm to America before they do.
The Republican Party seems hell-bent on dismantling the American way of life for the common man / middle class as rapidly as possible. This includes privatizing Medicare / Medicaid so the common man ends up paying a greater and greater share of his elderly health care, busting unions to reduce the power of the common man in getting fair treatment at work, privatizing public education into a charter school system using government vouchers which won’t cover the cost so that getting an education cost more for the common man, ending programs that help the common man send his children to college so that getting a college education becomes harder and harder for the common man, destroying programs that aid primarily the welfare and lower working classes, such as HeadStart and Planned Parenthood, shorting and reducing unemployment benefits for the jobless, ending funding for the arts and music programs, on and on. All the while, the Republicans want to give more and bigger tax breaks and subsidies to corporations, including oil companies raking in billions and billions in profits, and to never raise taxes of the wealthiest millionaires / billionaires, i.e. the elite richest, top 5% of Americans.
I understand why the corporations and the billionaires like the Koch brothers support these Republican plans. However, why does the working / middle class support these plans that ultimately will take the American dream away from their children and grandchildren? It seemingly makes no sense. Until you examine the demographics of the Republican Party: the majority of its members are largely white, above the mean in age and income, i.e. “old white men.” They frequently claim they want to “take back America”, i.e. return to the 1950s when all the power rested in the hands of white men. The Republican Party appeals to white men who long for the good old days when they called all the shots. The reports that within three to four decades whites will become the minority in the U.S. with Hispanics, Blacks, and Asians being able to dominate politics scares these white men to death. They cling to the Republican Party as their only hope to somehow forestall the upcoming loss of control by the white population. The working / middle class supports the Republican Party because consciously or unconsciously they are responding to subtle racism. In some cases, like in Arizona, the racism is overt and heavy-handed.
The Republican Party will probably wither away over the next few decades as Hispanics, Blacks, and Asians take charge of the government. And with it will go the white man’s hope of keeping control of American politics. So, if white hopes are almost certainly doomed, what better than to have placed most of the control of the country’s economy into the hands of corporations and the richest elite, where white men will still dominate. Let the Hispanics, Blacks, and Asians take charge of the government some day. What they will inherit control over will be a third-world America. The white man will have won a Pyrrhic victory of sorts. As I see it, the working / middle class supports the Republican Party’s economy plans through racism and impossible dreams of keeping a white-controlled America forever. Why else do they support a party that is actively seeking to gut the working class?
The Republican Party seems hell-bent on dismantling the American way of life for the common man / middle class as rapidly as possible. This includes privatizing Medicare / Medicaid so the common man ends up paying a greater and greater share of his elderly health care, busting unions to reduce the power of the common man in getting fair treatment at work, privatizing public education into a charter school system using government vouchers which won’t cover the cost so that getting an education cost more for the common man, ending programs that help the common man send his children to college so that getting a college education becomes harder and harder for the common man, destroying programs that aid primarily the welfare and lower working classes, such as HeadStart and Planned Parenthood, shorting and reducing unemployment benefits for the jobless, ending funding for the arts and music programs, on and on. All the while, the Republicans want to give more and bigger tax breaks and subsidies to corporations, including oil companies raking in billions and billions in profits, and to never raise taxes of the wealthiest millionaires / billionaires, i.e. the elite richest, top 5% of Americans.
I understand why the corporations and the billionaires like the Koch brothers support these Republican plans. However, why does the working / middle class support these plans that ultimately will take the American dream away from their children and grandchildren? It seemingly makes no sense. Until you examine the demographics of the Republican Party: the majority of its members are largely white, above the mean in age and income, i.e. “old white men.” They frequently claim they want to “take back America”, i.e. return to the 1950s when all the power rested in the hands of white men. The Republican Party appeals to white men who long for the good old days when they called all the shots. The reports that within three to four decades whites will become the minority in the U.S. with Hispanics, Blacks, and Asians being able to dominate politics scares these white men to death. They cling to the Republican Party as their only hope to somehow forestall the upcoming loss of control by the white population. The working / middle class supports the Republican Party because consciously or unconsciously they are responding to subtle racism. In some cases, like in Arizona, the racism is overt and heavy-handed.
The Republican Party will probably wither away over the next few decades as Hispanics, Blacks, and Asians take charge of the government. And with it will go the white man’s hope of keeping control of American politics. So, if white hopes are almost certainly doomed, what better than to have placed most of the control of the country’s economy into the hands of corporations and the richest elite, where white men will still dominate. Let the Hispanics, Blacks, and Asians take charge of the government some day. What they will inherit control over will be a third-world America. The white man will have won a Pyrrhic victory of sorts. As I see it, the working / middle class supports the Republican Party’s economy plans through racism and impossible dreams of keeping a white-controlled America forever. Why else do they support a party that is actively seeking to gut the working class?
Saturday, May 14, 2011
The Republican Party and the Middle Class
The Republican Party is hell-bent on putting the common man (working people including the shrinking middle class) in as weak and powerless position as it can while vesting more and more power in the hands of corporations and the elite richest class.
The corporation-bought Supreme Court justices repaid the corporations for their largess by voting to treat corporations as individuals (how ludicrous can they be!), which allows corporation to spend unlimited amounts (literally hundreds of millions of dollars) to try to buy elections. This allows the Koch brothers and the variety of conservative front groups such as those Rove funds and directs to buy congressmen and governors, resulting in what we see now in states like Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, etc. (Why do the Koch brothers and power brokers like Rove hide behind their conservative front groups trying to make it appear their ads and support represent millions of supporters instead of being honest about where the vast majority of the funding actually comes from? Would that make it all too obvious that the elite rich are running the conservative movement for their own benefit, like removing EPA regulation over companies they own to increase their profit in the name of smaller government?)
These Republican–led state governments have declared war on the common man. They want to bust unions, privatize schools in favor of a national for-profit charter school business, sell off prisons to private corporations, force Medicare to be turned over to private insurance companies to run (which will cost more than the proposed government stipend to be paid to individuals so that individuals will have to pay more for their health care … but the private insurance companies will rake in untold billions of taxpayer dollars), allow financial Wall Street advisers/firms get their hands on Social Security and charge fees for their services (fees and more fees), cut unemployment payments to those who cannot find jobs, and on and on. At the same time these Republicans are hurting the common man, they are giving more tax breaks to the corporations and to the richest elite class.
I understand why CEOs of corporations and millionaires/billionaires vote Republican. It lines their pockets with more and more money. But, for Heaven’s sake, why do middle class Americans vote to put Republicans in office when doing so is cutting their own throats economically? Why on earth would working-class Republicans want to give Republicans control of the national government? I think I have figured this out. I’ll explain it in my next blog.
The corporation-bought Supreme Court justices repaid the corporations for their largess by voting to treat corporations as individuals (how ludicrous can they be!), which allows corporation to spend unlimited amounts (literally hundreds of millions of dollars) to try to buy elections. This allows the Koch brothers and the variety of conservative front groups such as those Rove funds and directs to buy congressmen and governors, resulting in what we see now in states like Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, etc. (Why do the Koch brothers and power brokers like Rove hide behind their conservative front groups trying to make it appear their ads and support represent millions of supporters instead of being honest about where the vast majority of the funding actually comes from? Would that make it all too obvious that the elite rich are running the conservative movement for their own benefit, like removing EPA regulation over companies they own to increase their profit in the name of smaller government?)
These Republican–led state governments have declared war on the common man. They want to bust unions, privatize schools in favor of a national for-profit charter school business, sell off prisons to private corporations, force Medicare to be turned over to private insurance companies to run (which will cost more than the proposed government stipend to be paid to individuals so that individuals will have to pay more for their health care … but the private insurance companies will rake in untold billions of taxpayer dollars), allow financial Wall Street advisers/firms get their hands on Social Security and charge fees for their services (fees and more fees), cut unemployment payments to those who cannot find jobs, and on and on. At the same time these Republicans are hurting the common man, they are giving more tax breaks to the corporations and to the richest elite class.
I understand why CEOs of corporations and millionaires/billionaires vote Republican. It lines their pockets with more and more money. But, for Heaven’s sake, why do middle class Americans vote to put Republicans in office when doing so is cutting their own throats economically? Why on earth would working-class Republicans want to give Republicans control of the national government? I think I have figured this out. I’ll explain it in my next blog.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Republicans Bush/Cheney Caused the Current High Deficit
The Unwisdom of Elites
"These days Americans get constant lectures about the need to reduce the budget deficit. That focus in itself represents distorted priorities, since our immediate concern should be job creation. But suppose we restrict ourselves to talking about the deficit, and ask: What happened to the budget surplus the federal government had in 2000?
The answer is, three main things. First, there were the Bush tax cuts, which added roughly $2 trillion to the national debt over the last decade. Second, there were the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which added an additional $1.1 trillion or so. And third was the Great Recession, which led both to a collapse in revenue and to a sharp rise in spending on unemployment insurance and other safety-net programs.
So who was responsible for these budget busters? It wasn’t the man in the street.
President George W. Bush cut taxes in the service of his party’s ideology, not in response to a groundswell of popular demand — and the bulk of the cuts went to a small, affluent minority.
Similarly, Mr. Bush chose to invade Iraq because that was something he and his advisers wanted to do, not because Americans were clamoring for war against a regime that had nothing to do with 9/11. In fact, it took a highly deceptive sales campaign to get Americans to support the invasion, and even so, voters were never as solidly behind the war as America’s political and pundit elite.
Finally, the Great Recession was brought on by a runaway financial sector, empowered by reckless deregulation. And who was responsible for that deregulation? Powerful people in Washington with close ties to the financial industry, that’s who. Let me give a particular shout-out to Alan Greenspan, who played a crucial role both in financial deregulation and in the passage of the Bush tax cuts — and who is now, of course, among those hectoring us about the deficit.
So it was the bad judgment of the elite, not the greediness of the common man, that caused America’s deficit."
by Op-Ed Columnist PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: May 8, 2011
New York Times
The Opinion Pages
This is so true! The Republicans caused the current financial deficit to soar to to the current high. They are to blame! Yet, now they are trying to pass the blame off on the "Tax and Spend" Democrats &/or the public. They are like a child when caught having screwed up: What? Not me! It's that guy over there.
"These days Americans get constant lectures about the need to reduce the budget deficit. That focus in itself represents distorted priorities, since our immediate concern should be job creation. But suppose we restrict ourselves to talking about the deficit, and ask: What happened to the budget surplus the federal government had in 2000?
The answer is, three main things. First, there were the Bush tax cuts, which added roughly $2 trillion to the national debt over the last decade. Second, there were the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which added an additional $1.1 trillion or so. And third was the Great Recession, which led both to a collapse in revenue and to a sharp rise in spending on unemployment insurance and other safety-net programs.
So who was responsible for these budget busters? It wasn’t the man in the street.
President George W. Bush cut taxes in the service of his party’s ideology, not in response to a groundswell of popular demand — and the bulk of the cuts went to a small, affluent minority.
Similarly, Mr. Bush chose to invade Iraq because that was something he and his advisers wanted to do, not because Americans were clamoring for war against a regime that had nothing to do with 9/11. In fact, it took a highly deceptive sales campaign to get Americans to support the invasion, and even so, voters were never as solidly behind the war as America’s political and pundit elite.
Finally, the Great Recession was brought on by a runaway financial sector, empowered by reckless deregulation. And who was responsible for that deregulation? Powerful people in Washington with close ties to the financial industry, that’s who. Let me give a particular shout-out to Alan Greenspan, who played a crucial role both in financial deregulation and in the passage of the Bush tax cuts — and who is now, of course, among those hectoring us about the deficit.
So it was the bad judgment of the elite, not the greediness of the common man, that caused America’s deficit."
by Op-Ed Columnist PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: May 8, 2011
New York Times
The Opinion Pages
This is so true! The Republicans caused the current financial deficit to soar to to the current high. They are to blame! Yet, now they are trying to pass the blame off on the "Tax and Spend" Democrats &/or the public. They are like a child when caught having screwed up: What? Not me! It's that guy over there.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Will Rogers Sayings
My sister Sperry, who lives in Fayetteville, GA south of Atlanta, sent me this in an e-mail. That Will Rogers was one smart man!
Will Rogers, who died in a 1935 plane crash with his best friend, Wylie Post, was probably the greatest political sage the U.S. ever has known. Proof of this statement is below:
1. Never slap a man who's chewing tobacco.
2. Never kick a cow chip on a hot day.
3. There are two theories to arguing with a woman . . . and neither works.
4. Never miss a good chance to shut up.
5. Always drink upstream from the herd.
6. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
7. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it and put it back into your pocket.
8. There are three kinds of men: The ones that learn by reading; The few who learn by observation; The rest of them have to urinate on the electric fence and find out for themselves.
9. Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
10. If you're riding' ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there.
11. Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier'n puttin' it back.
12. After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him. The moral: When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut.
ABOUT GROWING OLDER...
First ~ Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it.
Second ~ The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.
Third ~ Some people try to turn back their odometers.. Not me; I want people to know why I look this way. I've traveled a long way, and some of the roads weren't paved.
Fourth ~ When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to youth, think of Algebra.
Fifth ~ You know you are getting old when everything either dries up or leaks.
Sixth ~ I don't know how I got over the hill without getting to the top.
Seventh ~ One of the many things no one tells you about aging is that it is such a nice change from being young.
Eighth ~ One must wait until evening to see how splendid the day has been.
Ninth ~ Being young is beautiful, but being old is comfortable.
Tenth ~ Long ago, when men cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft. Today it's called golf.
And, finally ~ If you don't learn to laugh at trouble, you won't have anything to laugh at when you are old.
Will Rogers, who died in a 1935 plane crash with his best friend, Wylie Post, was probably the greatest political sage the U.S. ever has known. Proof of this statement is below:
1. Never slap a man who's chewing tobacco.
2. Never kick a cow chip on a hot day.
3. There are two theories to arguing with a woman . . . and neither works.
4. Never miss a good chance to shut up.
5. Always drink upstream from the herd.
6. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
7. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it and put it back into your pocket.
8. There are three kinds of men: The ones that learn by reading; The few who learn by observation; The rest of them have to urinate on the electric fence and find out for themselves.
9. Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
10. If you're riding' ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there.
11. Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier'n puttin' it back.
12. After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him. The moral: When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut.
ABOUT GROWING OLDER...
First ~ Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it.
Second ~ The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.
Third ~ Some people try to turn back their odometers.. Not me; I want people to know why I look this way. I've traveled a long way, and some of the roads weren't paved.
Fourth ~ When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to youth, think of Algebra.
Fifth ~ You know you are getting old when everything either dries up or leaks.
Sixth ~ I don't know how I got over the hill without getting to the top.
Seventh ~ One of the many things no one tells you about aging is that it is such a nice change from being young.
Eighth ~ One must wait until evening to see how splendid the day has been.
Ninth ~ Being young is beautiful, but being old is comfortable.
Tenth ~ Long ago, when men cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft. Today it's called golf.
And, finally ~ If you don't learn to laugh at trouble, you won't have anything to laugh at when you are old.
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