Millie McCall's Full Moon Poker Night

Eastsound WA: A full moon sets Darvill's bookstore aglow for the launch of Four of a Kind, Doug Quinn's collection of poker tales from around the country. Who should stride right in, wearing her flaming red gown and her Harley leathers, but Millie McCall herself, the eccentric herione of my novella, Millie McCall's Full Moon Poker Night, showering readers with cards and poker chips, just as riotous ever she was, the sort of  outrageous character much beloved here in the San Juan Islands.

In the Final Analysis, 23 percent of Americans believe that President Obama was born in Kenya and somebody, quite possibly his wily grandparents, inserted a fake birth announcement in the two major Honolulu newspapers.  This startling statistic jumped out at me from the inside back page of the August 2010 issue of Psychology Today.

 That was back when the previous poster boy for the “birther” movement, Terrance Larkin,  a U.S. Army Lt. Colonel and a medical doctor faced court-marshal  for refusing a second tour of duty in Afghanistan.  Larkin claimed that President Obama had not produced a birth certificate and therefore could not prove he was the legitimate President. This meant that Larkin was under no obligation to follow Army orders.

In the end, after being touted on the internet as a national hero, Larkin ate crow at his own trial, pleading for leniency. The Army was no place to serve as a political platform, Larkin admitted, and the Army agreed, at which point jurors put Larkin in jail for six months and tossed him out of the service.

 Donald Trump dragged up this this fake political issue in his recent bid to become the Republican nominee for President of the United States. As for those who disagree with Obama’s policies, there are plenty of reasons for legitimate debate, about real issues of substance to the nation. Too bad we have heard nothing of substance from The Donald.

Last May, during the Larkin debate, CNN Reporter Anderson Cooper flashed a Hawaiian birth certificate popped onto the screen. There I sat, staring at a familiar document issued by the State of Hawaii Health Department. Since my two sons were born on the Island of Maui, I have several certified copies of their birth certificates in the house, so, if anyone cares to ask, I’ll personally verify that the President’s birth certificate is legitimate.

State of Hawaii birth certificates for my sons have been accepted by public schools, colleges, universities, and the U.S. Government Passport Agency. I am able to order birth certificates for my sons because, as their mother, I am a person who is entitled to order one under the tests set forth under a very common sense provision of Hawaii law which excludes the general public from requesting anybody’s birth certificate and doing weird things with it, for instance passing themselves off as someone else, for instance, the president.

If Obama has no Hawaii birth certificate, just how is it that he could have gone to school in the United States, been admitted to Columbia University and Harvard, served in the United States Senate, and traveled outside the country on a United States passport?

If Obama has no Hawaii birth certificate, then my sons have no birth certificates. If the President of the United States has no personal privacy, then my sons have none, and neither do the millions of native born Hawaiians.

As for Donald Trump’s bid for the presidency, I do hope that the powers-that-be in the GOP will drag The Donald into the boardroom and give him a little of his own medicine: “Donald Trump, you are fired.”

I'm looking for love in the ole' salt shaker

http://healthland.time.com/2011/04/07/why-french-fries-are-good-comfort-food/?xid=newsletter-daily

Don't Miss the Naples Authors and Books Festival This Weekend

http://authorsandbooksfestival.org/2010/12/book-as-event/

Here's a book festival with something for everyone, and it's coming up this weekend. Aside from a two day slate of workshops, there's a wonderful Saturday luncheon at one of Naples' premier restaurants with the lively Nancy Cohen as keynote speaker, two days of workshops, pitch sessions with editors and literary agents and an evening street fair for attending authors. There's a mystery authors panel on Sunday morning, where we're talking about the nuts and bolts of the most popular genre in the nation, and I'd love to see you there.

Even if you can't make the conference, take the virtual tour through the website which offers tips, quips and suggestions to help you make the most of your writing career.

First Day of Spring

The otter slinks past my window, tail curled high, in a salute to the sky.

Southwest Florida Book Festival-- See You There!

Southwest Florida Reading Festival Festival Authors

Got books? Posters? Name Badge? Reivew? Bookmarks? Tape? Oh, yes, do not forget, never forget a pen to sign copies with.

And so it goes, I'm getting ready once again for that grand book fair, the Southwest Florida Reading Festival, tomorrow, Saturday, March 18, Harborside Hall, downtown Fort Myers. I've taken a perch in the Marketplace. Do stop by and say hello where I'll be signing my suspense novels One Big Itch and The Don Juan Con--if I haven't sneaked off to hear one of my favorite authors giving a talk, that is.

Nelson DeMille and Linda Fairstein are headliners, this year a thriller writer and a mystery author, and as it happens the Gulf Coasting Magazine of the News-Press in Fort Myers thought to inquire of the lovely librarians who organize this event just how it is that they select the authors who are invited to speak. The lineup this year also includes J.A. Jance, Ridley Pearson Heather Graham, Mary Jane Clark, and our own Prudy Taylor Board.

Guess what? The Librarians look at their own checkout numbers and pick the most popular novelists available. So why is mystery at the top of the list? Because they are the most sought after books in the library, that's why.

One of the very great pleasures of a newly published author such as myself is to meet and chat with the most famous names in the business. I met Linda Fairstein a few years ago at SleuthFest in Fort Lauderdale, one of the greatest mystery writers' conferences in the nation. Fairstein is a mystery writer after my own heart. She laces her books with historical touches. One of my favorites is Entombed, about Edgar Allen Poe and the house he occupied along the Hudson River in upstate New York. "All these things intrigue me," Fairstein told Tropicalia: "I'm not interested in car chases and shootouts. I want to come away smarter. I like to learn something in the year it takes me to write a book."

Right on, Linda. Besides that, I have to confide what she whispered to me, when I first met her. "I'll buy your book she said. "I remember those days when I started out just how hard it was to sell my books."




 

The Caped Superintendent Myth Plagues Schools

How are we going to solve the education crisis? Just throw money at the next superintendent and this talented creature will create magic in the classroom. Since I happen to be a bi-coastal bird with one webbed foot in a southwest Florida metropolis and the other on a dinky village in the San Juan Islands of Washington, I see the same story over and over in school districts I happen to know about.

Whether a large district of a small one, our communities care about education, but too often school boards fall prey to the siren song of  head-hunters who cheer them on, with expensive and disasterous results. A wealthy community in Collier County, Florida home to the extravagant community of Naples is a case in point, which I felt it was worthy of attention.

I'll venture to say that you, dear reader, have seen this very thing going on on in a community you know and love and so I offer this column, which appeared in the Fort Myers News-Press this morning as a cautionary tale.

http://www.news-press.com/article/20110310/OPINION/103100362/1015/Collier-schools-pay-big-superintendent-mistake