By Toni Last year, about this time of the year, I’d gone to visit my good friend CJ Lyons in Hilton Head, SC. 
Stepping back…
By Toni I took this shot last November (11/03/13) at about 6:30 AM. It’s unusual for me to be on St. Charles that early in the morning, and I’m not used to seeing the avenue without traffic or crowds. It was a bit like stepping back in time.
The Parrots Squawk About Obamacare (with commentary from the usual gang of idiots)
By JD Rhoades
The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion
As I entered the shop, a string of bells attached to the door jingled to announce my presence.
The place was small and cluttered, with narrow aisles between shelves crammed with pet foods, aquarium gear, and cat litter. The air had a slightly rank animal smell.
A little old man with a wrinkled face and a fringe of white hair around the top of his bald head came out from the back, wiping his hands on a rag. “Welcome to GOPets,” he said. “Can I help you?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I saw the sign, and I was wondering about it.”
He straightened up, beaming with pride. “We sell only genuine Republican pets to right-thinking individuals.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “How can pets have political parties?”
“Come on back and see,” he said. He led me to a back room, where a line of parrots sat on perches. “Our latest shipment,” he said. “These parrots are specially trained by hours of watching Fox News to expose the problems of Obamacare.”
“Really,” I said. “And what problems would those be?”
“Check it out,” he said proudly. He pointed at the nearest bird, which spread its wings and squawked, “No one’s going to sign up for Obamacare! Everyone hates it! RAWK! It’ll fail! RAWK!”
“Guess this little guy hasn’t heard the news,” I said. “Despite the problems early in the rollout, looks like they hit the target, and then some — 7.1 million enrollees as of April 1. And that doesn’t count the young people who got coverage on their parents’ insurance till they’re 26 or the people who got coverage through Medicaid expansion.”
“Well, how about this one?” the old man said. He led me to an orange and yellow bird that crowed, “The people who signed up for Obamacare aren’t going to pay their premiums! RAWK! It’ll fail! RAWK!”
“Actually,” I said, “that’s pure speculation, since most of the people who signed up recently haven’t even gotten a bill yet. And the places that have reported in so far — California and Vermont — say 85 to 90 percent of the people who have gotten a bill are paying, which is plenty enough to sustain the program. What else you got?”
A green and yellow-striped bird called from a nearby perch. “People lost their coverage! Obama lied! RAWK!”
“Some people lost their old coverage because their plans were lousy and didn’t meet the minimum standards set by the ACA,” I said. “But Obama didn’t cancel them, the insurance companies did — and then most replaced them with new, compliant policies. And every single one of the ‘Obamascare’ news stories about people losing their coverage turned out to be bogus.
“When news organizations got off their butts and investigated rather than just repeating the scripts of attack ads, they found out that these fake ‘victims’ were ignoring the fact that they could have gotten cheaper, better insurance through the Exchanges, or that they were actually paying lower premiums and ignoring the cap on out-of-pocket costs. Fact is, millions more are now covered than were before.”
“Cooking the books! Cooking the books! RAWK!” a nearby blue-feathered bird piped up.
“Let me guess,” I said, “back during the election, this bird was squawking about ‘skewed polls,’ right?”
He looked stunned. “How did you know?”
“They’re nothing if not predictable. And how’d that work out for you?”
As I spoke, I spotted one grizzled old bird whose feathers were ragged and faded. As I approached, he looked at me balefully with an eye filmy with age.
“I’m not a parrot,” he said in a croaking, pitiful voice. “The Democrats are the parrots. They’ll never criticize Obama. Rawk.”
“Wow,” I said, “that’s an old one, all right. Delusional as well. … So is anybody buying any of this?”
“Not as many people as used to,” the old man said sadly. “If it wasn’t for the news media repeating everything the parrots say without challenging it, no one would know about them at all.”
He began to cry. “I’m ruined,” he said. “All the talking points my parrots have learned are useless.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” I said. “There’ll always be some who’ll listen to a lie over and over and believe in it even after it’s debunked.”
A mynah bird in the corner stretched its wings and threw back its head. “BENGHAAAAAZI!” it hollered. “OBAMA LIED, PEOPLE DIED! CAW!”
“See what I mean?” I said.
The old man smiled. “I feel better already.”
I sighed. “I wish I did.”
THE PARROTS SQUAWK BACK:
Perennial anonymous coward fugitiveguy, commenting as he does every week on the Pilot website:
Dusty would be right at home on a comedy central roast. Anyone who feels that the needless death of 4 brave Americans including the first ambassador killed in 3 decades is fodder for faux humor just to file a column would be in good company. I don’t think it was just the string of bells that announced your presence.
This is a pretty frequent tactic of the wingnuts: make fun of their desperate attempts to create an Administration destroying scandal out of the Benghazi tragedy, and they cry all sort of crocodile tears about how you’re mocking the dead. So let me make it clear: I’m not mocking the dead, dim-bulb, I’m mocking people like you. Hope this helps.
Then there’s my old pal Frank Staples aka “skylinefirepest”, who posted this gem:
Dusty, you’re turning into a brazen liar trying to defend your idol’s defenseless crapola. Your parents would not approve!
Frank’s comments constantly invoke my parents, because like most wingnuts, he’s an asshole with no sense of boundaries.
Actually, Frank, my mom tells me quite often how she likes my columns. She’s told me she thinks you’re a jerk, though.
My favorite, though, is this one, from anonymous cowards “JK”:
Does anyone read Mr. Roades’ [sic] columns…. certainly not me!
Gotta love the idiots who spend time commenting on something they say they never read.
Via: J.D. Rhoades
Chapter 1
By PD Martin
I’m about to start a new novel and I thought it might be interesting (especially for aspiring writers!) for me to blog about the process. For a start, while I’ve titled this post ‘Chapter 1′ that’s not the first thing I’ve done. I very rarely start a book by sitting down and writing the first chapter without some preparation. And this new novel is no exception. I’m moving into a new genre (again!) and so my first step was to read some of the books selling in this space. What do I like about these novels? What do I LOVE about these novels? And what were the things I didn’t like so much?
Next I came up with about five ideas that would work as novels and wrote a paragraph or two about each one. Then it was decision time – I selected one idea to be the first in this new direction.
For this novel, my next step was to plot the novel out. While I don’t want to reveal the specific genre/style (yet) I will say that the most important element in the genre is to have a multitude of layers. So, in this case it made sense to look at plot first. I decided to keep it simple. Rather than using a plot tool like Blake Snyder’s beat sheet, or even the three-act structure I simply wrote out each chapter/scene in bullet points. This is different to the plot tools and techniques I’ve used before, but somehow it seemed right. There are two viewpoint characters that I’m alternating between, so it was literally the person’s name, then a few bullet points on what happened and/or how they felt in that scene.
Next (and this is where I’m at now) is character development. I’ve started with my female viewpoint character and I’m on istock.com looking at images that look like the girl I’ve got in my head. I’ve set up a lightbox called ‘Jodi’ (yes, that’s my main character’s name) and I’m filling it with photos. Soon I’ll narrow it down to 3-10 photos that capture the character or her mood. Maybe it will be the hair of this woman, with the sense of carefree attitude in this pic, but with the ability to stare into your soul in her calmer moments. We all have different faces, so no ONE photo will be the one. My character is going to experience highs and lows in the novel, so I like to have visual reminders of how she looks happy, thoughtful, sad, etc. These pics come together with the image I already have of her to form MY Jodi. It’s visual, but it’s also more than that.
This is my current lightbox (still working on it though!). It gives a good idea of the visual element of my character development process.
Next stop: My character questionnaire!
And here’s a summary for the cheats/time-poor writers out there
1. Research genre.
2. Come up with several ideas in that space and select the one that’s calling to you the most. (Note: 1 & 2 are often/usually done in the opposite order to my example…the idea comes first, then you research genre).
3. Use a plot technique that works for you to plot your novel (if you want to do it before you start writing).
4. Work on your characters – I recommend choosing photos that look like your projected image of him/her and also completing a character questionnaire to drill deep into the character’s personality and psyche.
I’ll let you know how I’m going on 1 May.
Via: P.D. Martin
Chapter 1
By PD Martin
I’m about to start a new novel and I thought it might be interesting (especially for aspiring writers!) for me to blog about the process. For a start, while I’ve titled this post ‘Chapter 1′ that’s not the first thing I’ve done. I very rarely start a book by sitting down and writing the first chapter without some preparation. And this new novel is no exception. I’m moving into a new genre (again!) and so my first step was to read some of the books selling in this space. What do I like about these novels? What do I LOVE about these novels? And what were the things I didn’t like so much?
Next I came up with about five ideas that would work as novels and wrote a paragraph or two about each one. Then it was decision time – I selected one idea to be the first in this new direction.
For this novel, my next step was to plot the novel out. While I don’t want to reveal the specific genre/style (yet) I will say that the most important element in the genre is to have a multitude of layers. So, in this case it made sense to look at plot first. I decided to keep it simple. Rather than using a plot tool like Blake Snyder’s beat sheet, or even the three-act structure I simply wrote out each chapter/scene in bullet points. This is different to the plot tools and techniques I’ve used before, but somehow it seemed right. There are two viewpoint characters that I’m alternating between, so it was literally the person’s name, then a few bullet points on what happened and/or how they felt in that scene.
Next (and this is where I’m at now) is character development. I’ve started with my female viewpoint character and I’m on istock.com looking at images that look like the girl I’ve got in my head. I’ve set up a lightbox called ‘Jodi’ (yes, that’s my main character’s name) and I’m filling it with photos. Soon I’ll narrow it down to 3-10 photos that capture the character or her mood. Maybe it will be the hair of this woman, with the sense of carefree attitude in this pic, but with the ability to stare into your soul in her calmer moments. We all have different faces, so no ONE photo will be the one. My character is going to experience highs and lows in the novel, so I like to have visual reminders of how she looks happy, thoughtful, sad, etc. These pics come together with the image I already have of her to form MY Jodi. It’s visual, but it’s also more than that.
This is my current lightbox (still working on it though!). It gives a good idea of the visual element of my character development process.
Next stop: My character questionnaire!
And here’s a summary for the cheats/time-poor writers out there
1. Research genre.
2. Come up with several ideas in that space and select the one that’s calling to you the most. (Note: 1 & 2 are often/usually done in the opposite order to my example…the idea comes first, then you research genre).
3. Use a plot technique that works for you to plot your novel (if you want to do it before you start writing).
4. Work on your characters – I recommend choosing photos that look like your projected image of him/her and also completing a character questionnaire to drill deep into the character’s personality and psyche.
I’ll let you know how I’m going on 1 May.
The Well Truly Has No Bottom
By JD Rhoades
You know, after my last column, I didn’t think there was anyone who would be low enough to rise to defend the late Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church. When even the usual gang of haters fell silent (the ones who show up every week to tell me how uninteresting they find the column they read every week), I thought there would finally be someone so vile, even the wingnuttiest of the wingnuts wouldn’t throw in their lot with them.
I was wrong.
Thank you, ******* **** of Carthage, NC for your letter (yes, an actual mailed letter) that proved to me there actually are people in my own town who will defend picketing the funerals of slain children, murder victims, and soldiers fallen in the service of their country, all in the name of hate and in the name of God. Thank you, ******* **** of Carthage, NC for proving that the well of hate, ignorance and abject stupidity truly has no bottom.
Dusty
PS: Thank you especially for attaching a copy of the column to your note, because I certainly would not have known what I’d written otherwise. Also thanks for attaching the obit from Time Magazine with the highlighted sentence that you think proves your point, but which actually does nothing of the sort. If you hadn’t done that, I might not have realized I was dealing with a complete dimwit.
Yours in Christ, D
(Updated to remove the actual name, since this sort of idiot would use it to whine and play the martyr.)
Via: J.D. Rhoades
Goodbye,Mr. Phelps. You Failed.
By JD Rhoades
On March 19, Fred Phelps, founder and pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church, passed away in a hospice in Kansas. You have to admit, he was an easy guy to hate.
Members of the WBC became famous in recent years, not just for their virulent anti-gay stance, but in the way they expressed it: by picketing funerals.
Phelps and his crew started off by picketing in parks in their hometown of Topeka, Kan., because said parks were supposedly sites for gay activity. Soon they were making headlines for protesting at the funerals of gay murder victims, such as Matthew Shepard, waving signs that said that Shepard was in hell and especially that “God Hates Fags,” a phrase which became the slogan most identified with the church.
Quickly, however, they decided to expand the group of people they were trying to offend to, well, just about everyone. They began picketing the funerals of American soldiers killed overseas in 2005, because, Phelps said, combat deaths were God’s punishment for America’s “tolerance” of homosexuals.
I must confess, when I saw a picture of a WBC sign that said “Thank God For Dead Soldiers,” I had to wonder if this wasn’t some bizarre piece of performance art meant to discredit the anti-gay rights movement. (They also once picketed a store for selling Swedish-made vacuum cleaners — because, I guess, Sweden was too gay for them).)
But no, it eventually became clear that these wackaloons were serious. They picketed the funerals of people killed in the Sago Mine disaster. They picketed the funeral of Mister Rogers. They picketed the funeral of the 9-year-old girl killed in the same shooting that wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. They stomped on the American flag at the gates of Camp Lejeune after the murder of Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach (even though there was zero evidence that Lauterbach was gay).
Their philosophy could best be summed up by a song the church once recorded, a parody of “We Are the World” called “God Hates the World.” And everywhere they went, you saw Phelps grinning his ghastly death’s-head grin and looking like The Beast from “Poltergeist II.”
He was the living, hideous symbol of the worst hatred and bigotry in America, a man who made you grit your teeth whenever you admitted, as the Supreme Court ruled in one case brought against him, that freedom of speech extended even to the most egregiously offensive speech imaginable.
Now he’s gone. So how should we react to the death of someone so completely horrible? Quite a few tweets and Facebook comments called for either dancing or performing — shall we say — other functions upon Phelps’ grave. Others called for studiously ignoring the event.
My favorite suggestion, however, was from a former Baptist minister who came out a few years ago and now blogs under the title of “The Gay Christian”: “My final prayer is that people do show up to his funeral as a show of pageantry. I hope they show up with large, decorated signs and billboards. I hope they line the streets leading to the funeral home, and I hope that they make sure they are seen. Finally, I hope every one of those billboards and signs read, ‘We forgive you.’”
Now, I understand how that would be hard for some, and downright impossible for others. There’s no way anyone can judge a mother of a dead son or daughter targeted by Phelps if she can’t bring herself to forgive him and his followers for publicly insisting that her child’s death was God’s judgment or that the child was at that moment burning in hell.
But I had to smile when I saw the picture of a group of counter-demonstrators who showed up at the first WBC protest after Phelps’ death with a banner that simply said “Sorry for Your Loss.”
Fred Phelps once told an interviewer that if people hated him, he felt he was doing his job right. Maybe it’s time for people, every day, to show Fred Phelps, wherever he is, just how badly he failed, by not hating anyone, even him, the way he and his flock hated others.
Via: J.D. Rhoades
Nailed. It.
By Toni
10 Ways to be Safe in the French Quarter
By Toni This is a perennial list. As I’m writing this, it’s spring, 2014, and we’re about to run headlong into French Quarter Fest (my favorite festival here), and then Jazz Fest (also awesome). We just came out of Mardi Gras, and there are multiple smaller festivals nearly every weekend. Add in big games (the SAINTS […]
On Breaking My Lenten Fast to Share Great News: More Nicholas Drummond Books Coming!
By JT Ellison
So I promised I’d reach out from my 40 Days of Silence if anything newsworthy happened. Well, this counts, I think. From Publishers Marketplace:
Fiction: Thriller
NYT bestselling author Catherine Coulter’s next two books in her BRIT IN THE FBI series, co-authored with J.T. Ellison, which expands her FBI books with the addition of the UK-bred hero Nicholas Drummond of Scotland Yard, to Ivan Held at Putnam, in a major deal, for seven figures, by Robert Gottlieb at Trident Media Group (NA).
I am so excited to continue working with my amazing friend Catherine Coulter on the Brit in the FBI series, with our incredible editor Chris Pepe, and awesome Putnam and Trident Media Group teams. We are having so much fun developing these books. The second in the series, THE LOST KEY, will release September 30. (Cover reveal coming soon – it is SO pretty!)
So this means more exciting locales and intriguing characters and wild-ass villains. I can’t wait.
And you must know, you make these awesome things happen. You buy and read the books, cheer us on, and I can’t thank you enough for reading.
I hope everyone is doing wonderfully. I miss you all! Raising my champagne glass to you.
xoxo, JT