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Rampage of the Innocents - My Historical Romance Novel (now, with more sex and violence for my teenaged readers)

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The Frisky Mole Boy of Groton

Norman Rogers recounts the summer he spent hiding from the stern love of his father and living as the world-famous “frisky mole boy” in the Groton, Connecticut sewer system.

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    Entries in Celebrity (7)

    Wednesday
    30Dec2009

    Let's All Bow Our Heads in Prayer

    Rush Limbaugh

    I think a moment of silent prayer is in order:

    A Honolulu television station is reporting that conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh was taken to a hospital with chest pains.

    KITV reported Wednesday that paramedics responded to a call at 2:41 p.m. from the Kahala Hotel and Resort where Limbaugh is vacationing.

    The station, citing unnamed sources, said paramedics treated Limbaugh and took him to The Queen’s Medical Center in serious condition.

    Queen’s spokesman N. Makana Shook says the hospital is unable to comment on the report.

    Limbaugh was seen golfing at Waialae Country Club earlier this week. The country club is next to the Kahala Hotel and Resort.

    Let’s hope it is just some heartburn, and nothing more. God, I may begin weeping at any moment.

    Sunday
    20Dec2009

    Brittany Murphy 1977-2009

    Brittany Murphy

    What an absolute tragedy.

    I have always thought that Murphy was one of the most genuine and hilarious actresses, ever. Her turn in “Drop Dead Gorgeous” introduced us to her, and to the equally wonderful Amy Adams.

    If you want to see Murphy at her best, see her in that, and in Clueless.

    Thursday
    17Dec2009

    Learning From the Tragedy of Chris Henry

    This is just too sad for words:
    Charlotte-Mecklenburg police say Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chris Henry has died, one day after suffering serious injuries upon falling out of the back of a pickup truck in what authorities describe as a domestic dispute with his fiancee.

    Police say Henry died at 6:36 a.m. Thursday. Henry was 26.

    Away from the team because of a broken forearm, Henry was rushed to the hospital Wednesday after being found on a residential road. Police say a dispute began at a home about a half-mile away, and Henry jumped into the bed of the truck as his fiancee was driving away from the residence.

    Police said at some point when she was driving, Henry “came out of the back of the vehicle.”
    What do you do at this point? What do you do if you’re the National Football League and you see, time and again, a serious problem with your players, with the lifestyle they find themselves in as rookies, and domestic violence?

    Rookie orientation in the NFL is a series of classes or briefings where new players are shown some of the pitfalls that go with big money contracts, old friends from the neighborhood, new girlfriends and wives, and everything that goes with becoming a high profile member of a community.

    I think the NFL deserves credit for rookie orientation, but perhaps what it needs is an ongoing briefing, held every year for every team, that helps show players how society is evolving. Call it the Insider Briefing. Make it about players talking to players, not some crusty old veteran giving a PowerPoint about what happened to him when he woke up drunk in his driveway in a stolen prom dress when he played for Denver in the 1980s. You haven’t heard that one? I made it up. I made it up because a variation of that happened to me when I played for Princeton. Don’t ask, because we don’t talk about the prom dress in the Rogers household. Suffice it so say, Mr. Peej was able to prevent the Princeton cops from pressing charges against me because we were able to salvage the dress and the reputation of that high school girl. It cost us all of our mad money for the month, but it was worth it.

    The Insider Briefing can be as simple as having a troubled player go around and talk about what he thinks is right or wrong about being an NFL player who runs afoul of the law. It should not be about shame. It should be someone at that very elite level being able to go into a room without being judged to talk with men at his elite level and it should be a conversation, not a lecture. I realize that these men play on teams. In point of fact, they play on teams that are a part of a League, and that league is an ever-changing and evolving thing. I would like to see something put in place that takes a player like Chris Henry, who has had trouble, and maybe a Peyton Manning and three guys who don’t start who play on other teams and has them go around during training camp to spend some time with other players to talk about what they see, what they know about groupies and hangers-on, what they think can be done to deal with a girlfriend who is spending too much money, what can be done about family members who ask for money, and what guns, violence and fear of failure can do to someone who is exalted above all others.

    I hate to tag you with this, Mr. Manning, but, so far, you haven’t screwed up and driven your vehicle into a crowded Outback Steakhouse with a naked grandmother on the hood and an Uzi on your lap. Let’s help other players avoid such a thing, and let’s help you with their perspective on keeping the media, the whores, the drugs, the politicians, and the Disney Corporation at bay.

    Don’t think I’m not looking at you, Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson. I see you flirting with Disney. We’re here to bring you back, brother. I know you didn’t get to play in the NFL, but let’s be honest—Miami is damned near the NFL, and is practically the development league. Mr. Johnson has a nephew drafted by the Browns and another nephew at UCLA—and we need to save him from the Disney Corporation. We need to reach out to a brother in need and see if someone can hook him up with some honest cheddar. I understand you’re going to do Jonny Quest. Before there even was a Jonny Quest, I was Jonny Quest. The basis of that show was stolen from my Father, and from the life we lived on the lam from the Truman Administration. Don’t laugh. At one time, I was the most famous boy in the world, except now everyone has forgotten me because Father used his connections to prevent me from becoming the next Opie. Yes, we really have to have seven or eight more blog posts about this, don’t we? Father—I’m spilling the beans. You’re almost dead, and we can deal with this sooner than later.

    It’s probably not realistic, but it can’t be about blaming this young man just for doing something stupid and dying too young. There are so many people who live at the intersection of fame, fortune, and celebrity who can help. It doesn’t matter if you’re the late Steve McNair or someone who got cut and never made it. Everyone needs help understanding what can happen and what can go wrong with you mix money, family, and fame or near fame in a big ol’ bowl and try to fight over who gets to take the first drink and how much and when they can drink it.

    On the off chance that someone who plays on special teams for another team who had a thing with a fiancee three years ago can go into a room and talk to people like Chris Henry and say, “you know, sometimes, it’s better to just let her drive away. Let her go have a moment. Let her think about things and come back when she’s ready.” That may or may not have been the thing that caused Henry to pause and walk back into the house. I don’t know.

    Realistic? I don’t know. I don’t want to write a condemnation when writing something a little more constructive might go down better than a poison pill or just some tut-tut joke at someone’s expense. This is not a joke—there’s no reason this young mad had to fall into the road and die in a hospital.
    Wednesday
    16Dec2009

    Are the Anti-Stalking Laws Tough Enough?

    Actress Jennifer Garner

    Stalking is something that crops up in the news or in the public consciousness only when something terrible happens. Maintaining an awareness of the problem and making certain we have proper laws and proper enforcement in place is up to advocacy groups, and I’m sure that they’re on the case. I don’t think we have uniform laws as of yet, since so many “pending” laws appear on the website of this organization, which is the website for the stalking resource center.

    The two cases that I am familiar with today are the Erin Andrews case, which has been national news since it was discovered that a pervert, with some sort of deranged entrepreneurial streak, had followed Andrews and had taken videos of her, and the case of actress Jennifer Garner, which appeared today in a news alert.

    In the case of Andrews, she has bravely faced her stalker in court, but laments the fact that he’s probably not going to face the maximum penalty under the Federal anti-stalking law:

    Walking into a courtroom Tuesday to face the man who posted naked videos of her online left Erin Andrews momentarily shaken, the ESPN sideline reporter admitted later.

    But by the time she started to tell a federal judge about the devastation and humiliation that Illinois insurance executive Michael David Barrett caused her, the veteran sideline reporter was determined and composed.

    She called him a sexual predator, occasionally looking over to steal a glance at the suit-clad man who she said has shaken her confidence and hurt her career.

    “I don’t know him,” she said. “I haven’t met him. I hope he never sees the light of day.”

    Erin Andrews, ESPN 

    Her remarks were made before Barrett pleaded guilty to one felony count of interstate stalking. Before he could admit his crime, both Barrett and Andrews listened as U.S. District Judge Manuel Real read details of the crime in painstaking detail.

    For 10 minutes, Barrett stood, hearing how he pursued Andrews, taped her, posted the videos online and then tried to sell them.

    Andrews at times appeared to clench her jaw. She occasionally looked down, shook her head and dabbed tears from her eyes after the 48-year-old admitted the allegations.

    She vowed to return on Feb. 22 when Barrett is sentenced and speak against a proposed sentence that would send him to federal prison for 27 months. Real could sentence Barrett to up to five years in prison, fine him $250,000 and order him to pay restitution to Andrews.

    That’s rare, I believe. Rare that someone really gets their comeuppance so forcefully from someone who, despite overwhelming fear and embarrassment, has made it her cause to stand up to his criminal behavior. Barrett should be forced to register as a sex offender for the rest of his natural life—anything less is a travesty. First and foremost, the public needs to be protected from a man who obsessively tried to cross the line and exploit Andrews for his own gain. A man who would do that has no ethics or values and is a parasite in our midst.

    In the case of Jennifer Garner, it’s scary as well, but for different reasons:

    A man is in custody in California on accusations that he violated a restraining order preventing him from coming within 100 yards of actress Jennifer Garner and her family.

    Police say Steven Burky was arrested Monday at the nursery school where Violet Affleck, one of Garner’s two daughters with husband Ben Affleck, is enrolled.

    Police say Burky is being held on $150,000 bail at the Santa Monica Jail.

    Garner was granted a restraining order against Burky in November 2008 after she told the court she believed he posed a threat to her and her family. Garner alleged that Burky had been stalking her since 2002.

    In the first case, Barrett is a sexual predator (we don’t have to use that word alleged; it is de facto) and in the second case, Burky is clearly mentally ill and menacing Garner, and her young children. I’m not making a claim that one is worse than the other—that’s not what this is about. I am making the case that here we have two separate incidents with two distinctly different kinds of stalker and the laws don’t seem to work worth a damn in protecting the privacy of these two women.

    Now would be a good time to take up the cause and fix these laws, at the state and Federal level, and with some sense of urgency.

    Wednesday
    09Dec2009

    Has Barry Bonds Really Disappeared?

    Barry Bonds(notes), 45, has not filed retirement papers, despite not having played in two seasons. Why not? “Because he’s not retired,” said Bonds’ agent, Jeff Borris. “He was run out of the game.”

    I find it remarkable that Barry Bonds has simply vanished from baseball, vanished from the public consciousness, gone down the rabbit hole, in other words. Oh, sure—he has legal issues. He’s here. But he’s not really here anymore, is he? In light of the scandal surrounding him, that’s probably a relief for him as a person, not so much as a player who is one more season away from getting to 3,000 hits and breaking a few more records, notably, Rickey Henderson’s record for runs.

    In general, though, you would think that he would be omnipresent, and a part of the sports discussion and a part of what’s going on in baseball. Instead, baseball acts like there was no Barry Bonds, like he didn’t break the home run record, and that his absence from the discussion is a good thing.

    In previous years, you couldn’t go a single day without a mention of Barry Bonds. Now? Nothing.

    UPDATE: No kidding. The day after I put this up, you have this story on the wires:

    BondsBar ry Bonds still has yet to formally retire from baseball. But the career of the major leagues’ reigning home run king is over, his agent says, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

     
    Bonds has insisted he won’t retire, leaving open the possibility that he might yet catch on with another team. But that hasn’t happened, and his agent doubts that it ever will, according to the report.

    “It’s two years since he played his last game, and if there was any chance he’d be back in a major-league uniform, it would have happened by now,” his agent, Jeff Borris, said Wednesday, according to the report.

    Coincidence?

    Friday
    27Nov2009

    This is Not Going to Turn Out Well

    I don’t know what else to add. The Salahis may very well be supporters of President Obama. Too bad their quest for fame and for status have inadvertently cheapened the office of the presidency. Too bad their actions have exposed a glaring fault in the way that the Secret Service is protecting the President. I don’t think anyone—anyone—could have gotten this close to President Bush by lying their way or bluffing their way past a Secret Service check point. And then to stand there, and shake his hand, while he stands next to another head of state?

    Where is your shame, ma’am? Where is your sense of personal shame and responsibility? Do you have no idea what you did? Are you that irresponsible and childish and caught up in yourself that you can’t think past your own cloying attempt at getting on a television show or elevating your status in the rarified air of D-list Washington D.C. celebrity?

    What makes this different is that it happened at the White House. At a political function elsewhere in the country? Still not good, but that places the story in a slightly different context. This was a state dinner where an important ally, India, was feted. And how do you think they feel, given the past year of heightened anxiety in India after the Mumbai attacks, to see that these cheap, unsavory people were able to get this close to the President and their Prime Minister?

    This was a stunt gone awry, and it happened because of a sickening quest for fame and attention and status. If I were the President, I would wonder what the hell is going on with the Secret Service. I would expect people to be fired or disciplined here. I don’t think a reasonable American would conclude that this was a harmless gatecrashing prank or something funny. I think this was a very serious breach of security, happening at a very tense time in American history.