Since the beginning of the year I've read forty-seven novels, a dozen or so non-fiction tomes, countless magazine, newspaper and web articles, blogs, cereal boxes, instruction manuals, salsa jars, deodorizer cans..you get the idea, I read a lot. Most writers are insatiable readers and I am no exception in that regard.
On this blog this year, I have reviewed seven books, mostly mysteries or thrillers. That means I haven't written reviews for forty books. Mostly because more than a few have been classics revisited or first visited. Some have been back lists of writers whose work I have discovered and come to respect but that may not currently be widely available. A few that just weren't particularly good and I just don't want to waste my-or your-time with them. Some were published that shouldn't have been and a couple that haven't been that should be.
Recently I finished a book--When She Flew--by Jennie Shortridge that should be on everyone's must-read list. This richly woven tapestry explores the human condition through the eyes of a 13 year old girl suddenly snatched from her home--albeit it an unconventional one--and a female cop pushing 40 looking back at a life of lost opportunities and regrets. A cop who tried so hard to protect her own now-estranged daughter that she forgot she sometimes just needed to be mom.
At the unlikely intersection of these lives a haunted war veteran struggles to maintain his own grip on normality while providing a life for his daughter. A handful of cops each weigh their legal obligations with what their hearts and experience tell them is the right thing to do, and a compassionate intercessor makes the unthinkable a possibility.
This is a sensitive and revealing portrait of how we treat our veterans--no just of wars on distant shores--but also in our neighborhoods and streets. But it is also a searing assessment of how impersonal bureaucracies and an ever increasing sensation-driven media grind up real lives in their unfeeling machinery.
When She Flew is a talisman for our times and deserves a space in our consciousness reserved for books that so poignantly define an era that they forever change hearts and minds. So long as books are read, this one ought to live among the giants.
Widely available including electronically at Amazon and Barnes & Noble
When She Flew by Jennie Shortridge
New American Library ( A Penguin Imprint )
ISBN: 978-0-451-22798-0
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Monday, August 8, 2011
Babies and Bathwater
Like so many congresses before it, the 112th Congress has kicked the can on the budget down the road a few years, but not before Speaker Boehner was mugged by the recalcitrant Tea Party-ers throwing a tantrum worthy of the most leather-lunged three year old. Meanwhile, Majority Leader Eric Cantor was busy cutting the legs out from under his own leader by pandering to this mob with calculating ambitions of his own for the Speaker's office. All this hissy-fitting by the no-new-taxes-compromise-is-a-dirty-word crowd was playing out against a backdrop of exasperated voters, shell-shocked investors and worried governments world wide.
The difference this time, however, is that the real world consequences of this doomsday approach have been plastered on the news as investors around the world panicked and dropped markets by huge margins. At least one investment rating company downgraded U.S. Treasuries from their AAA rating for the first time since Andrew Jackson issued debt obligations on behalf of the fledgling United States of America.
Real world results? By refusing to consider all the options on the table, the Tea Party has emasculated party leadership and sent the economy on a roller coaster ride that will almost certainly kill any near-term job creation in this country, and likely will put us into the second half of a double-dip recession. So, what do we have to show for it?
No serious effort to reduce the deficit was achieved. We are still trying to drain Lake Superior with a teaspoon. The much ballyhooed concession of getting a vote on a balanced budget amendment was political theatre from the start. Super majority voting requirements in both houses of Congress and all the states doomed this before birth and even with a successful vote in Congress it would take years of wrangling in the states before any decision was reached. I haven't even touched on the scary notion that in a time of national emergency, the ability to raise money by borrowing from friendly nations would be constitutionally foreclosed, likely with devastating results.
The right-wing, to which I proudly belonged not too long ago, is fond of describing taxes as job-killing. To put not too fine a point on it--that's just crap. Really.
The tax code of the United States has been successfully manipulated by special interest lobbyists almost since income tax was imposed in the early twentieth century and thus we see a set of laws that has been bent to serve business--big and small. Everywhere you look the law is riddled with deductions, exclusions and exemptions for starting and owning a business. For example, capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than ordinary income. Stamps and phone lines, office supplies and advertising, employee benefits and 401Ks and thousands more, all designed to allow business to re-invest in the economy and still be profitable. The truth is, business knows exactly how to avoid higher taxes: They invest more in the business.
It isn't new or higher taxes business really fears, it's uncertainty. People like a level of predictability in the ordering of their lives and businesses-being owned and operated by people for people-like exactly the same thing. Predictable, responsible action in Congress and the White House begets confidence in leadership. The feeling that there is a reliable hand on the tiller of the ship of state leaves the electorate free to do what we do best-innovate, grow and outstrip the world in creativity and productivity.
Instead we find ourselves held hostage by a super-minority of mal-contented neer-do-wells struggling to wrest the tiller from calmer and more experienced shipmates as we veer madly toward the rocks. This is not healthy debate, this is throwing not only the baby out with the bath water, but the soap, towel and tub right along with it. At the core, the uber-rich don't want new taxes because an uncertain future clouds the vision of new business growth so they want to squirrel away their cache against further calamities. An altogether reasonable response in uncertain times, however unfair it might seem to those of us with modest means.
Meaningful debt reduction can only begin when we re-evaluate how and where we choose to project military force and start making defense budget begin to look proportionate to the actual needs rather than having an enormous standing military in anticipation of what might happen. I'd like to have a million bucks in the bank in anticipation of what might happen but in order to achieve that goal I have to increase my income and decrease my expenditures--substantially. In governmental terms, I need to raise taxes and cut spending. Slashing one without the other just leaves a bloody stump.
I heard a Tea Party Republican on a talking heads Sunday news show make the following statement: "I don't think all these bad things are going to happen like they say they are. It's a bunch of hooey."
The three most salient words in that sentence? I don't think..
The difference this time, however, is that the real world consequences of this doomsday approach have been plastered on the news as investors around the world panicked and dropped markets by huge margins. At least one investment rating company downgraded U.S. Treasuries from their AAA rating for the first time since Andrew Jackson issued debt obligations on behalf of the fledgling United States of America.
Real world results? By refusing to consider all the options on the table, the Tea Party has emasculated party leadership and sent the economy on a roller coaster ride that will almost certainly kill any near-term job creation in this country, and likely will put us into the second half of a double-dip recession. So, what do we have to show for it?
No serious effort to reduce the deficit was achieved. We are still trying to drain Lake Superior with a teaspoon. The much ballyhooed concession of getting a vote on a balanced budget amendment was political theatre from the start. Super majority voting requirements in both houses of Congress and all the states doomed this before birth and even with a successful vote in Congress it would take years of wrangling in the states before any decision was reached. I haven't even touched on the scary notion that in a time of national emergency, the ability to raise money by borrowing from friendly nations would be constitutionally foreclosed, likely with devastating results.
The right-wing, to which I proudly belonged not too long ago, is fond of describing taxes as job-killing. To put not too fine a point on it--that's just crap. Really.
The tax code of the United States has been successfully manipulated by special interest lobbyists almost since income tax was imposed in the early twentieth century and thus we see a set of laws that has been bent to serve business--big and small. Everywhere you look the law is riddled with deductions, exclusions and exemptions for starting and owning a business. For example, capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than ordinary income. Stamps and phone lines, office supplies and advertising, employee benefits and 401Ks and thousands more, all designed to allow business to re-invest in the economy and still be profitable. The truth is, business knows exactly how to avoid higher taxes: They invest more in the business.
It isn't new or higher taxes business really fears, it's uncertainty. People like a level of predictability in the ordering of their lives and businesses-being owned and operated by people for people-like exactly the same thing. Predictable, responsible action in Congress and the White House begets confidence in leadership. The feeling that there is a reliable hand on the tiller of the ship of state leaves the electorate free to do what we do best-innovate, grow and outstrip the world in creativity and productivity.
Instead we find ourselves held hostage by a super-minority of mal-contented neer-do-wells struggling to wrest the tiller from calmer and more experienced shipmates as we veer madly toward the rocks. This is not healthy debate, this is throwing not only the baby out with the bath water, but the soap, towel and tub right along with it. At the core, the uber-rich don't want new taxes because an uncertain future clouds the vision of new business growth so they want to squirrel away their cache against further calamities. An altogether reasonable response in uncertain times, however unfair it might seem to those of us with modest means.
Meaningful debt reduction can only begin when we re-evaluate how and where we choose to project military force and start making defense budget begin to look proportionate to the actual needs rather than having an enormous standing military in anticipation of what might happen. I'd like to have a million bucks in the bank in anticipation of what might happen but in order to achieve that goal I have to increase my income and decrease my expenditures--substantially. In governmental terms, I need to raise taxes and cut spending. Slashing one without the other just leaves a bloody stump.
I heard a Tea Party Republican on a talking heads Sunday news show make the following statement: "I don't think all these bad things are going to happen like they say they are. It's a bunch of hooey."
The three most salient words in that sentence? I don't think..
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Housekeeping
I've neglected this blog for too long, but I have an excuse. I spent the last month putting all the pieces in place to e publish my book 'Island Dawn'. It's up and available for Kindle and Nook for just $3.99, so I invite my followers and friends to give it a download and then send me some feedback. I'm planning some new posts very soon, so stay tuned.
As an aside, I spent the last week at the Pacific Northwest Writers Association Conference in Bellevue, Washington rubbing elbows with NY Times bestselling authors and senior agents from major literary representation firms. My work has been well enough received that several want to take a look. So wish me luck, perhaps I might find print with a publisher and actually have something to autograph for fans in the future. I remain hopeful, particularly with so many wonderful fans rooting for me. Thanks to you all.
As an aside, I spent the last week at the Pacific Northwest Writers Association Conference in Bellevue, Washington rubbing elbows with NY Times bestselling authors and senior agents from major literary representation firms. My work has been well enough received that several want to take a look. So wish me luck, perhaps I might find print with a publisher and actually have something to autograph for fans in the future. I remain hopeful, particularly with so many wonderful fans rooting for me. Thanks to you all.
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