Tentative cover for "The Color of Evil," available soon as an E-book title on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
The Color of Evil, the first novel in a trilogy about a young boy with paranormal abilities, is about ready to launch. I sent it out to be reviewed, without realizing that they were going to post the review so quickly. Here it is. It’s good, but I don’t have the book totally converted, yet, so no cover picture, and you can’t buy it yet.
Here’s the review link:
But soon.
Whitney Houston, a tremendous talent, dies tragically at 48.
Whitney Houston possessed one of the most beautiful female voices of the past quarter century. She was the only female singer to have won a Grammy Award, an Emmy, an MTV Video award, an MTV movie award, a People’s choice award and a Billboard Music Award. She won six Grammies and earned twenty-six Grammy nominations, as well as twenty-two American music awards and thirty-eight nominations—a record.
But the Whitney Houston I saw onstage at the Moline (IL) Civic Center after her 1992 marriage to Bobby Brown seemed unprepared. She didn’t know what town she was in and didn’t seem to care. She seemed lost in a fog. That fog may have swallowed her up on February 11, 2012, as she lay in the bathtub of her room at the Beverley Hilton Hotel, where singer Ray J around 3:30 p.m discovered her, underwater and unconscious.
The call for help went out at 3:43, but help came too late. Clive Davis, who had launched her career, was trying to help Houston get her career back on track, but the damage was done. She looked weary in the last footage I saw of her, a brief interview with Houston and Jennifer Hudson.
It was too late for Whitney to undo years of damage to her body and her voice, a downward spiral that most believe began with her 1992 marriage to Bobby Brown, with whom she had a daughter, Bobby Kristina, in 1993. Some say her death was no accident. A video of her onstage singing, “Yes, Jesus Loves Me” two days prior was her final performance. The 3 prescription drugs found in her hotel room are not to be taken simultaneously. Xanax, Valium and lorazepam are all powerful anti-anxiety drugs and taking any of them in combination with alcohol would be potentially life-threatening. Did Whitney take a prescription drug by accident, lose consciousness, and sink beneath the waters of her bath by accident, thus dying by drowning? One comment that came out after the tragedy was that there were orders that Houston was not to take an unsupervised bath. (It makes one wonder how something as private as a bath can be “supervised.”) Whitney’s last album, meant to revitalize her career, did not do particularly well, but it was much better-received than her touring, which is where singers really make their money. At several of her latest shows, her voice showed seemed so ravaged by her hard living that patrons demanded their money back. This must have been a bitter pill for the woman who electrified the world with her version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the Superbowl in Tampa and whose “The Bodyguard” album sold millions of copies. Did Houston simply give up and give in, purposely taking the pills and slipping into oblivion? If so, she left no note, and she had talked to family members within a half-hour of her death.
Whitney charted seven consecutive Number One Billboard Hot 100 Hits: “Saving All My Love for You;” “How Will I Know?” “The Greatest Love of All,” “I Wanna’ Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)”, “Didn’t We Almost Have It All?”, “So Emotional,” and “Where Do Broken Hearts Go?” Those titles parallel the sad rise and fall of this beautiful and talented singer. The female lead in “The Bodyguard” opposite Kevin Costner, she also acted in three other films, including” Waiting to Exhale” and “Sparkle” and was working with Jordan Sparks on a new project, where she would play her mother. (To be released in August).
The Grammys were retooled to include a tribute to Houston with Jennifer Hudson singing a haunting rendition of “I Will Always Love You.”
A Feb. 20th issue of the Inquirer with unflattering photos of Houston detailed some late-night partying that had gone on in the days leading up to this year’s Grammys. Another article claimed she was broke, dependent on advances from the record company and from friends. Although there will be a surge in the sale of “I Will Always Love You,” it is the very much alive Dolly Parton, the songwriter, who will benefit, not the estate of Whitney Houston. Houston told Diane Sawyer in 2002, “The biggest devil is me. I’m either my best friend or my worst enemy.”
Woody Harrelson portrays a very bad cop in "Rampart."
Woody Harrelson’s new movie with director Owen Moverman, “Rampart,” is just as intense as “The Messenger,” which co-starred Ben Foster (Russell on television’s “Six Feet Under”). The poster carried the slogan: “The most corrupt cop you’ve ever seen onscreen.”
Those are big shoes to fill. Especially when we have such excellent predecessors as Richard Gere in “Internal Affairs,” Denzel Washington in “Training Day,” Harvey Keitel in “Bad Lieutenant,” Nicolas Cage in “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” Ethan Hawke in “Brooklyn’s Finest” and Matt Damon in “The Departed.”
“Rampart” opens wide on February 17, 2012. The cast includes Harrelson and Foster, together again, plus Ned Beatty, Sigourney Weaver, Anne Heche, Ice Cube, Cynthia Nixon, Robin Wright and Steve Buscemi.
Harrelson’s performance is a tour de force. He is definitely not a good cop, but he has standards that harken back to an earlier day. As veteran cop Ned Beatty tells him, “This isn’t your father’s LAPD.” Ben Foster, who helped Woody deliver the messages that a loved one was dead in combat in Moverman’s “The Messenger,” is almost unrecognizable (and irrelevant) as a paraplegic in a wheelchair (General Terry).
Dave Brown’s nickname in the department is “Date Rape Dave” because he cold-bloodedly murdered a business acquaintance he knew had date-raped several girls. He also married two sisters, consecutively. Each couple had a daughter. They are all living under one roof when the movie opens.
Cynthia Nixon plays Barbara and Anne Heche plays Catherine. (This may be the first time two lesbian actresses were hired to play sister wives.) At the height of the film, in one of the most intense scenes, Catherine screams at Dave (Harrelson), calling him a racist, a bigot, a sexist, a misanthrope, a womanizer and homophobic. His own oldest daughter, Helen, (Brie Larson) tells him, “You are a dinosaur, Date Rape.”
When Woody confesses to his daughters, “Every single thing you’ve heard and more, it’s true. I could never change. But I never hurt any good people,” his teen-aged daughter Helen (Brie Larson) says, “What about us?”
On IMDB (International Movie Data Base) this message appeared: “I just saw the screener. They better fix the ending.” Very, very true. Just as Francis Ford Coppola sweated bullets over a satisfactory ending for “Apocalypse Now,” the writers/director (James Ellroy and Oren Moverman) have come up short at the end of this otherwise fine film. For whatever reason(s), the ending is totally unsatisfactory. It just…ends.
It’s really a shame, because the performances of the fine cast and the intensity of Harrelson’s lead role are spot-on. Just when we are anticipating the much-discussed “Rampart” investigation of police corruption (“a shitstorm of epic proportions”), with Date Rape Dave one of its main targets (“Someone like me is more dangerous on the witness stand than on the street.”) there is an abrupt end to what had been a promising follow-up to Moverman’s “The Messenger.”
Sam LaHood and recent bride, Katie.
From “The Daily Beast.” Sam LaHood, son of Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and his wife are among those foreign nationals being refused permission to leave the country as of January 31, 2012.
2. Egypt Refuses to Release Americans
Egypt’s justice minister on Tuesday returned a letter to a U.S. ambassador asking Egypt to end a travel ban on Americans who are being investigated for illegally funding pro-democracy groups in the country. The minister said publicly that the letter should have been sent to the investigating justice, and that only those affected by the ban were entitled to make such a request. Egypt’s Parliament speaker, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, said the letter was “interference by the American embassy.” Several Americans were banned from leaving Egypt after their nongovernmental organizations were raided by the Egyptian military and are currently taking refuge at the U.S. embassy in Cairo.
The following ten questions were asked of Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner on Fahreed Zakaria’s CNN television show “GPS” —Global Public Square—on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, in Davos, Switzerland at the World Economic Forum.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
Q1: What is the United States economy going to grow at this year?
A1: “There are no oracles in economics and it’s still a pretty uncertain world, but I think the conventional view of the US now is that we’re growing between 2 and 3%, and I think that’s a realistic outcome for the U.S. economy, as long as we see a little more progress in Europe, and as long as we don’t see a lot of risk come up from Iran and the oil front.”
Q2: That scenario of 2 to 3% growth seems a little different from what Ben Bernanke thinks growth is going to look like. If you read the statement Ben Bernanke put out — to put out a statement almost guaranteeing that rates are going to remain where they are until almost the end of 2014 suggests that they don’t see any growth, any robust growth, for a long time. Are they wrong at the Fed?
A2: ” I’m not a forecaster, so my views aren’t worth much, but I think if you look at both the Feds forecast and the consensus of private forecasters in the business economy among economists, if you look in that cluster, it’s still pretty dependent on how the world unfolds. Again, I think it’s worth recognizing that we still face tremendous challenges in the country. We’re still repairing the damage left by a devastating financial crisis. Unemployment is still very high. Housing is still very, very weak, construction is still very weak. People still have too much debt. We’re bringing that down. That’s still gonna’ take a while to repair. That still has had a great impact on the fortunes of ordinary Americans.”
Q3: There is a very well-established narrative now among the business community in the United States that there would be a much more robust recovery, the U.S. economy would be recovering faster, if there were greater certainty, if people were willing to invest and the reason they are not is that there is sort of a tsunami of regulations, uncertainty about the tax policies, uncertainty about the deficit and above all that the economy is being thrown this huge array of legislation, that this is what is holding the economy is back.
A3: “I don’t think there is much basis for that line of thought. It’s true that we are putting in place tough new guidelines in the financial sector, we are trying to change the way the health care system works, and we are trying to change the ways Americans use energy and those are necessary, desirable, and very important for the long-term recovery of the United States. But I think if you look at the evidence about how the economy is doing and about how the business economy is doing, in particular, the reality does not justify that sense, so just look at the things you can use to measure basic health, business health. Profitability across the American economy is very, very high—higher than the pre-crisis peak—if you look at investment as a measure of confidence…private investment in equipment and software…it has grown more than 30% since the trough in the first part of 2009. That puts it up 22%. There is broad-based investment in energy, in agriculture, in manufacturing. Not just high tech manufacturing, but in heavy manufacturing. I was at a Seaman’s plant, a new plant, in North Carolina this week, which is building Seaman gas turbines and generators for export, and they’re doing that because they see in the basic fundamentals of the productivity of the United States, even with all our challenges, this pretty compelling competitive advantage relative to where else they are produced. So, I think if you look at the basic health of the American business sector it’s much stronger than anyone would have thought at the peak of our crisis, and stronger than many of us hoped.”
Q 4: While business productivity is up, manufacturing is up, unemployment still remains a huge challenge. Many businesses have become more productive because they’ve taken costs out of the system, they’ve managed things better. How do you get the American job machine going again?
A4: “The biggest drive of how fast the unemployment rate comes down is how fast we grow. And the biggest determiner of how fast we’re going to grow now is really going to depend on these two fundamental factors. One is what’s going to happen in the world, meaning in Europe and in the Gulf because of oil and, frankly, just to be direct about it, if the Republicans in Congress decide they want to legislate things that are good for growth in the short term. So what we think the right economic growth for the country is is to legislate a set of investment incentives that encourage things that are going to be good for long-term growth: rebuilding America’s infrastructure, education, more spending on innovation, basic science, better skills for Americans, tied to long-term fiscal reforms that restore sustainability. If we were able to legislate for those things in the short term that would make a big difference for confidence, that would make a difference for this rate of growth of the American economy in the short run. But, to be realistic, it’s going to take a long time still for us to repair the damage, particularly on unemployment, that caused the crisis. But the private sector has created 3.2 million (new) jobs and job growth has resumed. That’s actually pretty strong recovery in the job sector compared to the last 2 recoveries; it’s pretty strong, given the aftershocks of the crisis. We all want it to be stronger, though.”
Q5: Most people who look at the American tax code, which is, with regulation, 10,000 pages long, one of the most complicated in the world, believe that the key to reforming the tax code is broaden the base, eliminate the deductions and loopholes, lower the rates. Isn’t the president’s proposal in the State of the Union message taking us in exactly the opposite direction?
A5: “Not at all. The president’s proposals, which are focused on a set of investment favorable reforms in the investment sector, focusing on manufacturing and investment, and on a modest but necessary increase in the effective tax rate paid by the richest Americans, those 2 things I think are going to come, realistically, in the context of broad reform. What we’re going to try to do is to lay the foundation for tax reform, we can produce a more simple system (lower rates, broader base, more simple, less distortions….
(Fahreed, interrupting, “Why not just propose tax reform?”)
A6: “Because we have to start with principles for a framework and we have to be specific about those things which should dominate the debate. Again, I wish it were different for us, but the basic crude fiscal realities of the United States now, (and we have to recognize that we have to govern within those limits), means that when we do tax reform, we’re going to have to be helping contribute to deficit reduction. We don’t have the ability to offer the American people or the American business people a net tax cut. That is beyond the capacity of anybody realistic about our constraints, but again, just to put it in perspective, our fiscal problems are daunting for us, in the long run, but they are much more manageable problems than faced by almost any economy around the world. And it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that, given the high level of unemployment, given the very bad outcome for median income in the United States over the last 30 years, 20 years, 10 years, given the just appallingly high rates of poverty in the United States, given the competitive challenges we face that are going to require pretty significant investments in infrastructure, and in education, you have to take a much broader approach and we’re not going to solve our problems in this country by thinking they are about how we restore fiscal sustainability. That’s part of it, but it’s not the dominant challenge we face as a country.”
Q7: Does that suggest that austerity is not a path to growth?
A7: “I think the debate over austerity is mostly exaggerated. The people who talk about economic problems as being things you can fix by austerity get the main things wrong. It’s true, however, that in most of Europe, there are going to be significant budget reductions. They will not work if there is not a stronger commitment standing behind the European endeavor and, you’re right, the country will face the fact that austerity will feed the decline.”
Q8; Did you talk about the US/China trade in a way that you think will see results?
A8: “We’ll have to see. We measure people by their actions. China does provide a unique problem. They are still overwhelmingly dominated by the state and they still keep their exchange rate below fundamental and have for some time. Although China is, in many ways, is beginning to have a manufacturing presence that is major, they are supporting that presence in ways that are very damaging, not just to the economic factor, to the trade but to the political support around the world in order to support a more fair system around the world. I do think that China believes that it’s in its interests to try to make this broader system work. Of course it depends a lot on its access to our market and to other markets around the world and we hope that these markets are enough of an incentive to them to make more progress in these reforms.”
Q9: You announced recently that you would be leaving at the end of Obama’s first term. Was that your idea or his?
A9: “An excellent way to pose that question. Generally, anybody who takes these jobs serves at the discretion of the president. And at a time when we face so many challenges, so much pressure, and you have these things, you have to do them. And when he asked me to stay, when I thought it was the right time to leave, I agreed I would stay, and I agreed I would stay until the balance of his term, and he accepted that aspiration of mine. And that’s where it’s gonna’ come out, I think.”
Q10: What are you going to do next?
A10: “That feels like a long way away. Again, we’re in Europe and I know the eyes are all on Europe, but here living with terribly challenging and hugely consequential economic choices, we have a lot of unfinished business, even on the financial reform side and a lot of foundation laying on the things that are good for growth and investment in the United States, not just for the long-term fiscal economy, so I feel like we have a long year of hard work. It’s a political moment in the United States and people are skeptical if we can do anything but our judgment is that we still have a chance in some of these areas to make some progress, and I’m going to focus on that as long as I can.”
Sam LaHood and new bride Katie.
Current Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood’s, youngest son, Sam, is among 10 American and European citizens denied permission to leave Egypt. I was instantly taken back to the day when Sam, our next-door neighbor (then aged about five), wandered down our court one day, while the family down the street was at the cemetery burying a family member. When the family returned and entered their unlocked house, they found little “Sammy,” who had climbed up on the counter-top to help himself to a snack. “Sammy” was a darling little guy and has grown into a handsome young man who was married to new wife Katie on September 5, 2011, in Bermuda.
Transportation Secretary LaHood told the (Moline, IL) Dispatch (Jan. 27, 2012, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services) that his son’s detention is “absolutely an escalation. It’s de facto detention.” Last month, Egyptian officials raided Sam LaHood’s Cairo offices where he was director of the Washington-based International Republican Institute’s Egyptian program. This week, Egyptian newspapers announced that as many as forty foreigners were to appear in court next month on charges of “illicit foreign funding.” The move detaining so many foreign nationals is viewed as a crackdown on foreign pro-democracy groups by the generals in power.
When the LaHood family lived near us in East Moline, Illinois, Sam’s father, Ray LaHood, was director of the Rock Island County Youth Service Bureau and served for three years as chief planner at the Bi-State Metropolitan Planning Commission, (now called the Bi-State Regional Commission.) The elder LaHood, a Republican, also worked for former U.S. Representatives Tom Railsback and Bob Michel before serving in the House for 14 years from Peoria. LaHood has announced plans to retire at the end of Obama’s first term.
Ray LaHood’s oldest son, Darin, was appointed to the Illinois State Senate on February 27, 2010, and took office on March 1, 2010, the day after incumbent Dale Risinger retired from representing the seven-county thirty-seventh legislative district in Illinois.
Sunset, Mazatlan, Emerald Bay.
We’ve been here now since Saturday, and I have learned that it is not a good idea to mix wine, Bloody Marys, octopus, squid, pina coladas and Mexican coffee, which is set on fire tableside and contains tequila, in the same day. I learned this the hard way. (And I don’t even LIKE octopus!)
We finally got on a bus and took it to the OLD Pueblo Bonito location in the town. Where we are, the grounds are beautiful and there are at least 4 places one can dine, so going in to town doesn’t seem essential. Add to that the reports from the locals, who say the cruise ships no longer stop in the port and the Gold Zone, as it is known is “dead.” We were told that on Friday it might have more life, as there might be musicians, so we will go into the marketplace tomorrow, but tonight we will stay here and enjoy Italian night at the restaurant that is the fanciest one.
Of course, Kelly’s Bar is quite interesting, with all of its mounted heads on the wall and its feeling of Early Hemingway.
Sunset in Mazatlan.
There are quite a few ex-government employees here and quite a few retired college professors and quite a few retirees, in general. Yesterday, we met a gentleman (last name: Wee) who taught music at St. Olaf College, but was here with his family to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. He said he was 74. There is also a woman named Mary who taught at Auburn and also a young couple, who left on Wednesday.
We’re watching the New Hampshire primary fall-out on CNN and Fox here and I, in particular, am watching the South Carolina primary with interest.
Emerald Bay, Mazatlan, Mexico. January 10, 2012.
We’ve been here since January 7th, after a 12-hour flight that saw us turning in at 7:30 p.m.
Not doing much, other than reading Stephen King’s new book (and wondering if he ever read mine that dealt with time travel, “Out of Time.”)
I’ve taken a few pictures of the grounds. There are many more to come. It’s chilly, by my standards, but not THAT chilly when it’s only 45 degrees in Chicago.
Hope all is well at home.
By Boyu Huang, of “WordAlert” blog (http://wordalert1.blogspot.com/2012/01/color-of-evil.html)
Genre: Mystery/Thriller/Horror
Title: “The Color of Evil”
Author: Connie (Corcoran) Wilson
Not everyone wants to be a hero. But not everyone gets a choice.
Tad McGreevy had known he was different ever since he was small. He could see colored auras around people, indicating their true nature. But it wasn’t until third gtrade that he realized just how dangerous his power could be. Third grade was when the killer was on the loose. Third grade was when Tad almost lost himself to his power. From then on, he decided he would never tell anyone about what he could see ever again.
Eight years later, Tad has developed into a normal healthy teenager. His main focus now is to protect those he loves. But the horror isn’t over, and the evil hasn’t stopped. When the ones he cares about get involvd what can he do but dive into the colors of evil once again?
How much do the people around you really hide? The Color of Evil opens the doors wide to this question and shows you just how many dark secrets a small town can hold.
This book is both exciting and compelling, filled with young romance and riveting danger. Some graphic scenes keep this book suitable for those above thirteen only, but add to the sense of foreboding and horror…
This book is intense with a capital “I”; the first of a trilogy, I sincerely hope it sets an example for the two other books to come. The Color of Evil is highly recommended by Boyu Huang. (Allbooks Review)
The Color of Evil, the first novel in a trilogy that focuses on young Tad McGreevy, a boy with paranormal abilities, is ready to launch on Amazon and Barnes & Noble very shortly. A review of it has already appeared here:
"The Color of Evil," first in a trilogy about a young boy with paranormal abilities, will soon be available as an E-book on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
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