IntenseDebate - Sgt. Mom

12 years ago @ Commentary Magazine - Politicizing the Auror... · 1 reply · +4 points

I have put a 48 hour (ok, maybe 24 hour) rule on myself for postiing anything about this on my various blogs, but that does not extend to Brian Ross. His and ABC's retraction and apology are not good enough.His tagging a completely different man on the basis of the same name and being a Tea Partier is completely unprofessional. He needs to go ... for this, and as an example to encourage the other old-news media to stop casually sliming Tea Party citizens.

12 years ago @ Big Hollywood - 'Good Morning Vietnam'... · 0 replies · +2 points

Comment, continued:
Officers on an on-air shift, commercially-produced albums in the studio (never happen, AFRTS electrical transcriptions - or records to the rest of you - were 16-in discs with very distinctive labels and in brown paper shucks), they did have R&R in the inventory then (I checked on this, actually - the AFRTS library went back to the late 1940s), starting the on-air show on the hour (no, live shows started at 5 minutes past), et cetera, et cetera. We thought it was a pity that no one ever wanted to do a reality-based comedy about AFRTS after that, since many of the things what actually happened were just as wierd, ironic and funny.
Sometime after GMV came out, a reporter asked the real Adrian C about how accurate it had been. His answer, as was reported to us, was absolutely priceless: he said, roughly as I remember, "There was a Vietnam War. And there is an Armed Forces Radio and Television Service."

12 years ago @ Big Hollywood - 'Good Morning Vietnam'... · 0 replies · +2 points

I served as a military broadcaster, from 1976 on to 1996 - which started me off on my own career about ten years after the time of GMV, but when the movie came out, all of us at EBS-Zaragoza went to see it, and came away laughing ... at Robin Williams, mostly ... but shaking our heads at the way that military broadcast ops were portrayed.

12 years ago @ Big Hollywood - 'Dead Six' Review: The... · 1 reply · +1 points

Right you are, Manchops - I write historical fiction set on the American frontier - what many people call Westerns, and they are very, very guy friendly. Adventure, war, wagon trains, cattle drives, guns, Texas Rangers and the occassional Indian encounter of the bad sort. Three-quarters of my fans are guys, many of them military veterans. What could be more guy-friendly than that?
Oh, and they are available also as Kindle and Nook books.

12 years ago @ Big Hollywood - 'Hummel's Cross' and t... · 0 replies · +1 points

Hi, Esgaroth - and thanks! I'd say that Books 2 and 3 of the Trilogy are completely PG, and so is Daughter of Texas, and my first HF, To Truckees' Trail (non-Texas frontier narrative) are also completely safe for middle-school aged students. In fact, some home-school parents have told me they use Truckee to teach about the emigrant trail. Book 1 of the Trilogy and Deep in the Heart do have some more late-teen appropriate content ... but heck, looking at what passes as appropriate on TV today ... YMMV. (And Amazon probably gives the best discount! Enjoy!)

12 years ago @ Big Hollywood - 'Hummel's Cross' and t... · 2 replies · +4 points

I went Indy six years ago, after giving myself the recommended year to find an agent for my first historical fiction - submitted to a couple of publishers without result. So went ahead and put it out there anyway, and it's done very well ever since. I followed that with a trilogy of novels about the German settlers in the Texas hill country, which has also done well. Right now I am working out a deal with a free-lance translater, to put a German version out there; a translation in exchange for a portion of royalties on the German-language version. I have always wanted to do this, as I would so clean up from all the Karl May fans out there! Part of being an indy writer is being creative when it comes to work-arounds.

12 years ago @ Big Hollywood - Grading Television's F... · 0 replies · +1 points

Molly Price, as Officer/Sgt Faith Yokas in Third Watch. I could totally believe her as a working cop - she was not the usual stick-insect-with-tits actress. She just looked real, in a police uniform, with all that gear slung around her belt.

12 years ago @ Big Hollywood - Blacklisted or Ostraci... · 1 reply · +4 points

Industry: Publishing
Position: Writer
Status: Discreet about discussing politics
I am fortunate to be an indy writer, and a freelance editor, in a part of the country that is pretty conservative, and out of a milieu (military) that is pretty conservative also. I don't particularly hide my views (I was pretty involved in a local Tea Party) but I don't go around flaunting them, either. Liberals read books too! I write historical fiction, and my books do reflect very traditional American values - patriotism, the strength of families, working your way in the world - that sort of thing.
Oh, and my books are available as Kindle and Nook editions.

13 years ago @ Big Hollywood - Bringing the Freedom o... · 0 replies · +1 points

Write on!

13 years ago @ Big Government - Today's Students 'Don'... · 0 replies · +5 points

Sigh - that's why I write historical fiction, about the American frontier; about pioneers and settlers, businessmen and ranchers: not just to tell a ripping good yarn, but to incorporate as much history as I can into it, and get readers interested in that history! Most people who have any knowlege at all about our past, have learned what little they now from popular culture (which is most always incomplete or the fashionable trope of the moment) or from school - which is even more so.
Now and again, I've been told by readers that they wish I had been one of their teachers - because I made it interesting! And I happen to know that some home-school parents have used one of my books "To Truckee's Trail" (AKA Wagon-Trains for Dummies) in teaching about the emigrant trails.
We have to know our history, know it whole and see it steadily, otherwise, as some of the commenters above have noted - we will be lost. Or at least, those who aren't taking the trouble to learn our history on their own will be lost.

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