Finally, An Honest Answer—But Did He Think it Through?

As my profile says, I enjoy karaoke. I live in a small community that would be considered “rural” but in this homogenous country the only thing that separates rural from urban or suburban is whether you have farms on all four borders or whether you abut another town. While we’re only ten miles up the road from a major university, we still have our redneck element and you definitely meet them in the bars.

So.

I was out last evening in a local karaoke bar chatting with a man who actually did justice to Hootie and the Blowfish. When he found out that I was a writer and an editor, of course he had an idea for a book that he just had to share with me. Actually, he was describing a movie which is a completely different kind of writing. I’ll call him “Bill.” After we talked about his idea for a Biblical epic/2001 A Space Odyssey, the conversation went something like this.

“Hey, Honey!” He nudged his wife. “This lady’s a writer!”

“Oh, really? What have you written?” Honey replied.

“My book is called Rock Bound. It's about political prisoners who are arrested at a demonstration in Washington and sent to mine the moon as slave labor.”

“You must have been a hippie,” Bill commented. Honey turned back to her drink and their friends.

“Actually, I joined the Navy,” I replied. “I felt then the way most people feel now. I didn’t think we belonged in Viet Nam, but I believed we should support our troops.”

“What do you mean we don’t belong there?” Bill asked.

“Do you mean Viet Nam or Iraq?” I asked, wondering about his choice of present tense.

“Iraq,” he clarified.

I thought, Oh no, another redneck who thinks we should kill all people of Islamic belief because a few attacked us—or who still thinks Iraq had something to do with the attacks on 9/11. At least that stupid ABC movie clarified that much. But instead, I asked:

“Why do we belong in Iraq?” And was thoroughly startled by his reply.

“Well, I know they didn’t have anything to do with Osama Bin Ladin, but we need their oil.”

“Do you mean to tell me,” I asked, “that you would be willing to die so your neighbor can drive an SUV?”

“Yup.”

“How does that make us different from—“

“And now we need Rochelle at the karaoke stage!”

By the time I finished my song, he was talking with his wife and their friends and he and his wife left before I could complete that sentence. But I was amazed. I couldn’t believe this man actually admitted we had invaded another country to get its oil and thought that was OK. Is that how the Germans felt when Hitler saw something in Poland that he wanted and invaded that country, killing anyone who got in his way—military and civilians alike? I really hoped that the ABC movie would finally dispel the belief that Saddam Hussein or Iraq had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks and that more people would question why we are in Iraq. But it appears there is another viewpoint that is even more deadly—the viewpoint of the arrogant American who thinks we have the right to take over any nation that has what we want if the government of that country is unwilling to hand it to us.

I was afraid when I thought the only Nazi’s in this country were the ones in the West Wing and a few skinhead gangs and survivalists who don’t bother to vote. But this man appeared normal—at least as normal as a native of this town can be. And I’m afraid that he and his friends vote. Sometimes I really wish I could take my kids and grandkids and migrate to Canada—at least until American voters come to their senses and realize that “manifest destiny” wasn’t the noble cause our history books make it out to be. It was patently unfair to the people who already lived here. And now it seems to be spreading to the Third World. Bush will keep fighting in Iraq and claiming that the Iraqis are unable to govern themselves until they agree to vote for a leader who is friendly to Bush’s interests. You see, the Iraqis were ready to vote as soon as Hussein was found and removed from his hidey-hole but the theocracy they wanted to vote in was NOT friendly to US interests, so Bush and his cronies decided they were not ready to govern themselves. Just as Eisenhower decided the Vietnamese were not ready to govern themselves when they voted for a communist regime after we helped the French retreat from their colonies in Southeast Asia.

So—look out Third World. Or for that matter, look out World. Manifest Destiny is again the war cry of the United States. You’re only safe if you don’t have a commodity we desire.

Black & White -- The Good Old Days?

There is a popular piece making its way around the Internet. My friend, Raymond Anderson, wrote a rebuttal to this piece and gave me permission to publish it here. Many thanks, Raymond.

Black and White

(Under age 40?

You won't understand.)

You could hardly see for all the snow

Spread the rabbit ears as far as they go.

Pull a chair up to the TV set,

"Good Night, David. Good Night, Chet."

Depending on the channel you tuned,

You got Rob and Laura - or Ward and June.

It felt so good. It felt so right.

Life looked better in black and white.

I Love Lucy, The Real McCoys,

Dennis the Menace, the Cleaver boys,

Rawhide, Gunsmoke, Wagon Train,

Superman, Jimmy and Lois Lane.

Father Knows Best, Patty Duke,

Rin Tin Tin and Lassie too,

Donna Reed on Thursday night! --

Life looked better in black and white.

I wanna go back to black and white.

Everything always turned out right.

Simple people, simple lives...

Good guys always won the fights.

Now nothing is the way it seems,

In living color on the TV screen.

Too many murders, too many fights,

I wanna go back to black and white.

In God they trusted; alone in bed, they slept.

A promise made was a promise kept.

They never cussed or broke their vows.

They'd never make the network now.

But if I could, I'd rather be

In a TV town in '53.

It felt so good. It felt so right.

Life looked better in black and white.

I'd trade all the channels on the satellite

If I could just turn back the clock tonight

To when everybody knew wrong from right.

Life was better in black and white!

Anonymous

Black and White

(Don't know history?

You won't understand.)

I miss black-and-white times of 1950-some.

TV-Land is my friend, though some think it's dumb.

The innocent world that I knew in my youth —

What's wrong with the values I swallowed as truth?

Everyone had two parents and a family car;

Only small problems and help never far.

A good little black-and-white Pleasantville town

And old fashioned values gave our country renoun.

No Black or Jew was in leadership shown.

Orientals exotic, gay men were unknown.

Fair or not, Indians lost every fight;

You could count on the good guys to always be white.

"The Untouchables" taught us of drink to beware,

So instead we took smoking for our lungs and the air.

The times were so simple, the lives were so clean

When poor colored folk had their separate latrine.

We rode in the front

And they in the back.

And they had their own schools —

Don't blame us for their lack.

"Under God" was born of the Communist scare.

"One nation indivisible" apart did it tear.

McCarthy ruled through fear and brought on much woe

When a life was destroyed by all-American Joe.

Oh, we still had drug use, adultery, and VD,

But you never saw any on network TV.

We kept them invisible so good folks wouldn't mingle

With prostitutes, lesbians, and moms who were single.

Black and white times once again lie ahead.

"Either for or against", White House Occupant said.

“Hand over your freedom, we'll give safety for rights.

Then we'll know if you're part of the blacks or the whites.”

To return to the simple times we knew before,

Close your eyes to the world, facts of life just ignore.

There's no global warming, no gay marriage too.

The only people who matter are like me and like you.

Raymond T. Anderson

NASCAR -- The Un-American Sport?

I just spent almost two months with my youngest daughter and her husband. They are huge NASCAR fans. I am not. I find it boring to watch people drive around in circles. Yes, they drive as fast as they can, given the road conditions and the tolerances built into their specially-made cars. And people who do enjoy the sport are passionate. However, I think that right now it is a ridiculous pastime and even, perhaps, un-American.

Now most NASCAR fans would wave their flags in my face and call me a “pinko-commie” as my son-in-law’s father called two girls dressed as hippies in a movie we all watched that took place in the sixties. Frankly, it was amazing to me that the Speed channel wasn’t on instead, as it had been the entire weekend which I mostly spent in my grandson’s room, reading a book. My daughter and son-in-law live in Terre Haute, Indiana—about 70 miles from Indianapolis which is almost shouting distance. There was a big race at Indy this weekend. Racers drove their cars in circles for a total of 400 miles on Sunday, with preliminaries and qualifying trials on both Friday and Saturday.

My S-I-L’s parents came up from Texas on Thursday. They flew into Indianapolis and rented a car for the drive to Terre Haute. On Friday, they watched the race preliminaries on the Speed Channel. On Saturday, they took my two oldest grandkids to the qualifying trials and on Sunday, just the four adults went to the race. That’s three round-trips between Terre Haute and Indy for a total of 560 miles driven over the weekend by one family. It would have been four round trips if the Texas contingent hadn’t rented the car for transportation to and from the Indianapolis airport.

That is a lot of gas to use up in one weekend. Especially from the point of view of a person who is not sure she can afford gas to get to a doctor’s appointment at the VA in Danville on Wednesday. Just driving home from Terre Haute I’ve already logged over 100 miles on my own car so far this month. I can usually only afford one tank of gas a month.

So, why do I think NASCAR in un-American? Well, I’ll answer that question with a few questions aimed at NASCAR. How many thousand gallons of gas do racers use in a typical weekend of testing, qualifying and racing? How many thousand gallons of gas do fans use getting to and from the racetracks? And at a time when people are being urged to cut back their gasoline usage, to convert to more fuel-efficient cars—particularly hybrids of various sorts—and there are many people in this country who have to choose between buying groceries, medications or gas each month, how can NASCAR justify the colossal waste of such a precious commodity? How can people waste so much gasoline and yet wave the flag as vehemently as they do?

I think that NASCAR should suspend their racing until race-cars can be converted to use alternative fuels such as ethanol, which can be easily renewed. Are our soldiers fighting and dying in Iraq so people can watch cars go around in circles as fast as they can wasting the very commodity for which our service men and women are dying? We should be outraged. I know I am.

As Ive Been Saying

I have maintained for the past few years that the person sitting in the Oval Office should not only be impeached, but should be tried for crimes against humanity. In an article today on the AlterNet website, a Nuremberg prosecutor stated that George W. Bush, as the leader of the United States, has broken the highest law of the United Nations—the law against unprovoked aggression toward a sovereign nation—and that he should be tried for this most heinous crime at the International Court at the Hague. I feel vindicated. I’ve stated on several occasions that I believe this so-called Administration is the worst thing that has happened to this country since the Cuban Missile Crisis. When young people ask me (as a Navy veteran) whether they should join the military, I advise them against it—at least until these so-called “leaders” leave office.

I joined the military in 1971, during the Viet Nam conflict because I felt that whether the war, itself was right or wrong, the troops deserved our support. At that time, that was not a popular position and people questioned my decision to enlist in the military. I still feel that our troops deserve our support, but I do not recommend that anyone who is not already in the military enlist—not even in the National Guard. I fear that the greedy, power-hungry people who have managed to maneuver themselves into positions of leadership will send them off to Iraq or to yet another nation that has neither attacked nor provoked us in over a decade.

Meanwhile, back home, our rights are being removed right left and sideways. A VA nurse in New Mexico was arrested for sedition for expressing thoughts similar to these on the Internet. And a man was arrested at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center in Chicago for wearing a tee shirt to his doctor’s appointment that said “Veterans for Peace.” In my book, Rock Bound, people are arrested for defending the Bill of Rights. As a friend said on my Yahoo Group, “The Freezeland era approaches.” I was frightened when I read about the nurse in New Mexico, but this most recent travesty strikes close enough to home to leave me absolutely terrified. I was treated at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center for over a decade. I would proudly wear such a tee shirt to an appointment there. In fact, if I were not babysitting my grandkids right now, I would be up in Chicago protesting that arrest. But my daughter needs me here so I am not free to risk arrest.

The economy is so bleak that I am helping my kids pay their bills as well as babysitting for free. I just paid $3.05.99 for gas a few days ago here in Terre Haute. I hate to think what my kids and sister in Chicago are paying for gas. Yet, I have no doubt that Bush and his oil-tycoon buddies are getting extremely rich because of the so-called crises that have occurred during this Administration. They have created an atmosphere of fear and hate in this country, which rivals that of the aura of distrust that was aimed at Germans during World War I and at the Japanese during World War II. Meanwhile, we ignore the UN and the Geneva Conventions while Osama Bin Laden, the man who actually orchestrated the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and whose family has propped up every business venture at which “W” has failed, remains at large. And Iraq is now a war-torn country, destroyed at the hands of the US. And nurses and veterans are being arrested for expressing their views. Just like in Russia during Stalin’s Administration. Or in Germany under Hitler. Or the US under Freezeland. I’m glad we’re not ready to start mining the Moon yet. At least, I hope not.

Sad News at Inara Press

I have sad news for my blogs today. My publisher, Inara Press is closing its doors, as of June 30, 2006. All of the remaining episodes of the Inara serials will be released at that time, and can be downloaded to customers’ computers. After that, the rights revert to me. Dawn Seewer, who was both the publisher and cover artist, will also sign over the rights to the cover art, provided she receives proper credit for it. I can’t even begin to express my feelings on this turn of events.

The good news is that I am considering other opportunities in both the editorial realm and in terms of re-working Rock Bound and shopping it around to other publishers. In fact, I’ve been contacted by a publisher directly, and I am definitely considering this offer. I’ve reached the conclusion that it is more hard-core sci-fi than romance and that I might do better to offer it to a sci-fi publisher. Nonetheless, I think it needs more polishing before it goes out again.

I attended another science fiction convention. I went to DucKon in Chicago (Naperville, actually) and spoke on two panels. One was on getting published and the other was called “Where Does Your Romance Belong?” There seems to be a lot of crossover among genres these days—especially in the romance world. This was the second such panel I’ve seen. MARCon had a similar one and I caught the end of it.

I’ve reached the conclusion that in order to be sold successfully as a romance, even if it is a sci-fi, fantasy, or paranormal romance—a book has to follow a certain formula. It may not have to be quite as rigid is the Harlequin formula, but certain elements must be there. Boy meets girl and they fall in love, but something stands in their way until the very end when they finally fall into each other’s arms and live happily ever after. In Rock Bound, the couple doesn’t even speak until halfway through the book. So I don’t think romance reviewers quite knew what to do with it. Every review said that science fiction fans would love it, but none said it was a good romance.

So, I don’t plan to sell Rock Bound as a romance any longer. Which means I need to change a few blurbs and such. I felt that I rushed to finish it while I was trying to edit and proof other Inara Manuscripts. I will be able to do that more easily than I originally thought. The VA took another set of x-rays of my wrist and it is not broken. The pain is gone and I can type again. Woo Hoo!

So, watch my blog and join my Yahoo group at riw_author@yahoogroups.com for updates on Rock Bound when it reaches its new home and is re-released.

Well, that’s it for this week.

News & Another Review!

Haven’t updated this in awhile, so I thought I’d do so. There is no set subject—just news. First, more reviews are in and we received a rave from Coffee Time Romance. I’m really thrilled about this one. It made me cry when I read it. You can read the whole review at http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/BookReviews/rockbound.html

Jake Johnsrud is an account manager at a family-owned marketing firm in Chicago, his clients range from manufacturers of food and other items used in the home. His life is about to change.

Annie Peterson is an administrative assistant with a major accounting company, married to Paul who works as a construction foreman. Paul no longer serves in the Army but feels obliged to protect and uphold the Constitution rights. Annie and Paul leave for the protest rally in Washington taking their son with them.

Rock Bound allows all of Annie’s emotions… pain and loss come to life through the pages. When she begins to hold feelings for Jake while still harboring moments concerning Paul, the scene is riveting. Ms. Weber instills a serial that leaves the reader breathless with on-the-edge-of-your-seat entertainment with an endless list of characters. I can hardly wait to read more about these very interesting characters in this great tale. This is a very tightly written story.

I probably won/t be blogging a lot this summer, as I have a broken wrist. I fell and threw my arm out to “break” my fall and broke my wrist instead. Typing is somewhat laborious with a cast on.

However, I’m just back from my second sci-fi con as a panelist and I’ve been invited back. In fact, next year I may be assistant program chair for the writer’s track! My next convention will be ConClave in Detroit in October. Meanwhile, you can meet all of the Inara Press authors at a Romance At Heart tomorrow evening. Visit www.romanceatheart.com and click on the Chat Suite link for more info!

That

The Reviews are In!

Joelle Charbonneau-Blanco of Wanz Upon a Time writes: "Weber's strong descriptive abilities are put to good use in this volume. The moon and the unique needs of a space colony come across in vivid detail and the characters each have their own histories and abilities, which help the colony survive. Any science fiction reader will appreciate the world Weber has created."

You can read the entire review at Wantz Upon a Time.

It's Here! Rock Bound is Out!

Rock Bound is out at last! I'm so excited! It's the story of Annie Peterson and Jake Johnsrud, who are among the first political prisoners sentenced to slavery on the Moon--Jake as a miner, Annie as a doxy to "service the men." Will they survive to fall in love?

Check out my mini-site at http://www.inarapress.net/rockbound for more information or to order the book. It's an Inara Press Seron Serial so you'll susbcribe and get a chapter a week for 12 weeks. The price is $5.50. And after you've checked it out, I'd love to hear from you, either through the Inara Reader Realm or my readers group at riw_author@yahoogroups.com.

Share the adventure!

Rock Bound Release is Upon Us!

How does an author celebrate the release of her first book? By giving away a free copy—or in this case, a free subscription to the first season. I’m holding a Mother’s Day contest, so tell your friends about it. Anyone who is a member of my Yahoo group is eligible to win a free subscription to the first season of Rock Bound! The drawing will be held on Mother’s Day and the winner will be notified via e-mail. To join my group, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/riw_author.

I’m also giving away signed bookmarks. Just go to my webpage, www.rochelleweber.com and click on the “Contact” button, to send me a confidential e-mail with your address so that I can send you a bookmark via snail mail.

And don’t forget to subscribe to the first season of Rock Bound, available May 15 at www.inarapress.com.

Internet Freedom

Rochelle Weber--Author, Editor, Professional Grandmother Freedom of speech on the internet is as vital as freedom of speech on the street. Please do not allow Big Business to turn the Internet Highway into a toll road upon which only the very wealthy can afford to travel.

As am a first-time author, about to be published by a brand-new e-book publisher, I am very excited about the possibilities of e-publishing. If we had to pay for preferred space on the internet in order to reach our readers, we could not do business. The costs of paper, ink, equipment, transportation, warehousing and the overhead at stores like Borders and Barnes & Noble has made getting published in print an extremely difficult prospect. The internet IS the future of publishing--as long as access remains free.

Actress Alyssa Milano discussed this topic in her blog, which included a link to Move On, a grassroots organization that offers opportunities to speak out on subjects such as this. The Bush Administration and their cronies in Congress are trying to remove our fundamental human rights, including the right of free speech. It is vital that we do everything we can to stop them. So, please go to this link: http://www.freepress.net/news/15144 and sign the petition. Let Congress know that it is vital to maintain free access to the Information Superhighway.

Inara's Grand Opening Week

After months of waiting it finally arrived! Inara Press is now a fully going concern. We had help celebrating our opening week. Suite Magazine featured us in their Suite Escape Lounge Yahoo Group so we had a full week of chats with Inara authors. Of course, we all logged on and supported each other throughout the week. We’ve all communicated before through our own Yahoo Group, but I think that with posting excerpts from our books and answering questions about subjects ranging from where we get our ideas, to our individual writing processes, to what our offices look like, to whether we believe in and afterlife and if so what it would be like—we’ve gotten to know each other even better and grown closer. The Inara authors and staff are truly like a family and that certainly showed in our posts this week.

This was my first experience with an author chat, and I got so excited about it, I ended up having a 96 hour manic swing during which I slept a total of about 12 hours—not all at once, and not very well. I even had minor surgery during that time and didn’t even sleep during the surgery, despite the fact that they supposedly sedated me. That, however, is another whole story.

I want to thank everyone who participated—not only my fellow Inara authors and friends, but the new friends I made during the chats. It was truly heady for a truck driver’s daughter to hear the kind of feedback I was receiving from the excerpts I posted. I cracked up when our Marketing Director described Rock Bound as “a cautionary tale of the future” in a press release, but I thought, “well, of course she’s going to make it sound really good—she’s trying to generate sales.” However, when my editor and her husband both chimed in and told everyone that it was really good, I began to think maybe I got it right. My editor wrote: “Everyone, Rockbound is a really good futuristic that takes a hard look at some of the issues plaguing us today.” I couldn’t help but wonder who she was talking about. ;-) The rest of our authors also had good things to say about the excerpts. So I will hopefully have at least eight sales. I’ll let you judge for yourself. There is an excerpt from the beginning of Rock Bound on my webpage, www.rochelleweber.com, but I’ll add another tidbit here:

Rock Bound

Chapter Two

Processing the Prisoners

Set Up: After the US is taken over by a dictator, people congregate on the Mall in Washington, DC, to protest. The optimistic atmosphere is destroyed, however, when troops open fire on the protestors. Annie Peterson is led away in shock after her husband is killed and her baby is taken from her. She never notices Jake Johnsrud’s sympathetic glance as they are led away in opposite directions. The prisoners are taken to the Armory in DC to be processed, where they are crowded into a carvernous room with exercise mats on the floor in lieu of beds. Annie and Jake each bond with the people with whom they share their mats.

By the second day in the armory, rumors began circulating that the prisoners were being sold as slaves. Although slavery had been outlawed in the United States over 200 years ago, this was no longer the “land of the free and the home of the brave” in which they had grown up.

“I don’t get it,” Vivian said when the rumor reached the four women. “What sort of work is there for slaves to do? Even the farms are so industrialized humans aren’t needed the way they were back in the 18^th and 19^th Centuries.”

“Yeah, and where would they be sending us? All of the inhabitable parts of the Earth are already settled,” Crystal added.

“Well, wherever it is, I imagine we’re in for a rough time,” Annie agreed.

They didn’t have to wait long for answers. An announcement was made over the A-V system in the drill hall. The face of a general appeared on the view screens that hung on the walls around the room, and his voice boomed out of speakers in the ceiling.

“You have all been found guilty of treason and as you know that’s a capital offense,” the General announced. A buzz of conversation started but was chopped off as he continued. “But we have an alternate solution. We’re ready to begin mining operations on the Moon. If you choose to go to the Moon, you’ll be indentured to the Luna Mining Corporation for a total of ten years. Then you may return to Earth, if you can pay your way back.” The guards all laughed at that, as the murmur resumed among the prisoners.

The guards then began escorting groups of twenty prisoners out of the drill hall to a classroom where they were met by a colonel and a couple of sergeants. The officer sat at the teacher’s desk and the sergeants passed out contracts and pens to the prisoners, then stood at the sides of the room while the officer explained the terms of the contracts to them as they sat at student’s desks.

There was no question in Jake’s mind as to which alternative he would take. Ten years wasn’t that long, and with his skills, perhaps he’d be able to earn enough money once his indenture was up to pay his way home.

“I doubt anyone in this room has ever done any mining,” Jake pointed out to the colonel. “What else can we do up there?”

“We’ll train ya,” the colonel replied. “You’ll mine when you get up there.”

“How much is a ticket back?” another man asked.

The colonel laughed. “More money than you’ll ever have again.”

“Then why should we sign these papers?” Jake asked.

“Because treason’s a capital offense. Which part of that don’tcha understand?” the Colonel replied.

“Where do we sign?” Pete asked.

***

Annie and the other three women listened to the colonel in silence. Then Annie tentatively raised her hand.

“Excuse me, sir. What if we just aren’t strong enough for mining operations? Are there other positions we could fill when we get up there?”

“You women are being transported as doxies. You’ll service the men.”

“Service how?” Annie asked timidly. She thought she knew the answer, but couldn’t quite accept it. The guards were grinning at the sides of the room.

The colonel leered at her and answered, “However they want you to.”

“Women have done worse things to survive,” Crystal muttered as she signed her papers.

“Ten years isn’t so long,” Vivian agreed, and signed her name. Like Jake, she took it for granted that she would be able to return to Earth when her term was up.

Angie sat for a moment, staring blankly at the paperwork. Then she began to laugh hysterically. “First you rape me and then you ask me to ‘service’ more men? I’d rather be dead!”

“That’s what you will be if you don’t sign these papers,” Crystal hissed at her.

She began to sob. “I can’t, I can’t.” She slowly pushed the papers away. The colonel nodded to the guards standing near the doorway. Crystal and Annie, sitting on either side of Angie were both holding the sobbing girl, but the guards pried her out of their desperate embraces. Angie was taken away and the other three women never saw her again.

Well, it was prostitution or death. Annie supposed she could endure ten years as a prostitute. She imagined the women would perform other services as well, such as cooking and cleaning for the miners. She had joked when she got married that it was quite appropriate that the music of Here Comes The Bride was actually the march of the prostitutes from an old Wagnerian opera. Besides, maybe once she paid her debt to society, she would be able to find Bobby and get him back. She agreed to the sentence and signed the papers before her without reading them. After all, she already knew she was being screwed.

The Polyamory Dilemma

Did anyone happen to see Boston Legal tonight? They featured a V family--one husband, two wives. The husband was arrested for polygamy and the law firm was defending him. I really appreciated the wife who said that when she was too exhausted for sex she would send her husband to his other wife. It was so cool to hear someone say "I'm poly because I'm NOT horny." The woman on the program was exhausted from riding herd on the kids, whereas I suffer from a variety of ailments which, along with the meds I take to control them, have killed my libido.

At any rate, on this program they quoted divorce statistics and spoke about the fact that the family's poly arrangement worked. In the end, the people had to get divorced in order to stay together and keep the husband out of jail--which is the dilemma in which many poly people find ourselves. We can't be married in the eyes of the law to more than one person.

Yet the litter of monogamous marriages is strewn across the landscape of our lives. My daughter and grandkids are typical. My daughter has been married twice. She had two children with her first husband and one with her second. She is now engaged again (this time to a keeper) and he has a baby from a previous relationship. So, let's break it down:

Alex and Beth have: a father, a mother a step-mother, a current step-father and an ex-step-father.
Presley has: a father, a mother a step-father and a step-mother
Abby has: a father, a mother and a step-mother, as well as a variety of
Mom's boyfriends.

So, these four kids have had a total of ten parents so far, as well as various
girlfriends and boyfriends of their parents along the way. I didn't even try to count all of the grandparents and ex-granparents these kids have had. And this is a typical "monogamous" family. When are people going to wake up and realize that whatever works for the individuals involved is best and that our marriage laws are antiquated? Instead of penalizing people for finding paradigms that work, we should commend or at the very least support them. So I say, viva le poly difference!

It's Not My Fault

It’s Not My Fault

Each year I participate in a very special program at the VA called the National Veterans Creative Arts Competition. Almost 3,000 veterans from all over the country compete in 45 categories of artistic endeavor ranging from painting and sculpting to needlecrafts to singing, dancing and performing. When I lived in Chicago, I sang in the VA chorus there and we won three gold medals in two years. Upon moving to Danville, I began to compete as a solo artist. In 2004 I won a silver medal for vocal solo comedy, singing a parody written by the Capitol Steps, called God Bless My SUV. And last year I won a gold medal for a song I wrote about my bi-polar disorder. The song is “It’s Not My Fault,” and I’d like to share it with you here.

IT’S NOT MY FAULT

It’s not my fault,

Baby I’d never hurt you

It’s not my fault,

I’d die before I’d desert you

It’s not my fault…

Baby—I love you.

When the darkness fills my head,

And I feel that awful dread

I can’t control it.

When I feel the blinding rage

And I should be in a cage

You see I know it.

So I reach for what I can find

To ease the pain in my mind

Or at least to slow it.

And I sent you far, far away

In hopes that you would be safe

And that you would know it.

Repeat Chorus

I finally got the help I that needed

And the rage at last has receded

And I try not to blow it.

And now you’ve grown up so fast

And that pain is far in the past

Each day I show it.

Like Rhiannon I have survived

And kept all my love alive

So that I can bestow it.

On you and now on your kids

I’m no longer out on the skids

And I’m finally growing.

The Flag Drooped

Rochelle Weber

Copyright 2006

The Flag Drooped

One day the circus came to town. It was the Greatest Show on Earth and we had tickets. Nine of us piled into the minivan and headed downtown to the great stadium where our basketball and hockey teams usually play. Somehow, we got separated. Being disabled, I took the elevator to the third floor where my son-in-law said our seats were. But when I got off the elevator, there was no sign of the kids. While I was waiting in the lobby, the announcer’s voice came over the speaker system. “Welcome to the Greatest Show on Earth! Please rise for our National Anthem!”

As the music began I came to attention and saluted with my hand over my heart. I was the only one in the lobby who did. Vendors continued to sell popcorn and drinks. People continued to check their tickets for their seat numbers and scurry toward the correct doorway, urging each other to “Walk faster, we’re missing the start!”

The Flag drooped that day.

When I came home, I checked my e-mail. There was a message from my sister. You know, one of those things that get circulated. It was about the way terrorists are being treated. It was called “I Don’t Care…” It said “I'm supposed to care that a copy of the Koran was ‘desecrated’ when an overworked American soldier kicked it or got it wet? Well, I don't. I don't care at all….When I hear a story about a Marine roughing up an Iraqi terrorist to obtain information, know this: I don't care….When I see a fuzzy photo of a pile of naked Iraqi prisoners who have been humiliated in what amounts to a college hazing incident, rest assured that I don't care.”

Again, the flag drooped.

Because you see, I DO care. I DO care when my fellow citizens ignore the Flag or the National Anthem. I DO care when our country sinks to the level of the terrorists who attacked us. I DO care when the Bill of Rights is set aside. I DO care when our soldiers act like criminals and do not represent our country with honor. I am ashamed of the atrocities our country has committed in the name of “the war against terror.” I don't think that Al Quaeda represents all people of Islamic belief anymore than the Ku Klux Klan represents all of our people.

This is not to say that I don't support our troops. I support those who represent the ideals of our country and serve with honor. I support those who protect and defend the Constitution as they have taken an oath to do. And I still salute when the flag passes by or when the National Anthem is played.

Yes, the Flag drooped that day. But there are still those of us who wave it high—with pride—and defend it with honor, as did our fathers and mothers and their fathers and mothers. God bless our Flag. God bless our country. God bless America.

Introduction

Hi! Welcome to my blog!

Please fee free to check out my webpage, http://home.mchsi.com/~riweber/. I'm Rochelle Weber and I am an author, editor and professional grandma. My first book Rock Bound, will be released by Inara Press on May 15. http://inrarpress.com More about that later. We're doing some wonderful things at Inara and that's a post all its own.

This is my first blog, so please bear with me while I get the hang of it. I guess, I'll start by telling you about myself. I was born and raised on the Northwest Side of Chicago and yes, I'm a Cubs fan. In fact, in 1969 I was a Bleacher Bum! I graduated from Schurz High School in the top third of my class. There were over 800 of us, so that's a pretty decent achievement. I was one of those kids with a paragraph under her photo in the school yearbook, and another paragraph's worth of off-campus extracurricular activities such as Girl Scouts, Junior Achievement, Candy Striping, church choir and babysitting. And my love of reading developed early as well.

After high school, I worked for Ma Bell and became a USO volunteer. It was the only way I could meet boys with short hair in those days. Hanging out at the USO led to my joining the Navy. I became a medic (CorpsWave) and worked in the surgical ICU at the Navy Hospital in Oakland. I married a man I had met at the USO just before I left for boot camp and transfered to Pearl Harbor when he was assigned to a submarine there. I lasted about two, three months there before I got that malady that women sometimes get on their honeymoons. I was medically discharged from the Navy and Elizabeth Anne was born September 6, 1973 at the Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu. By the time we left Hawaii, we had acquired a fluff-butt pooch named Peaches, and Christine Renee was five weeks old.

I had always written short stories and such for fun. It was in the back of my head that I'd write when I retired. But I got serious about it when we were living in Charleston, SC and I was working as a receptionist at our local NPR affiliate. One of our producers noticed a letter I was writing to my family on my lunch-hour and said "Rochelle, you can really write!" She began to mentor me and I finally started college with an eye toward writing.

Well, college was a meandering path. After my husband got out of the Navy he began working outages at various nuclear power plants around the country. I was tired of staying home alone while he was at sea, so I quit my job at the radio station, packed up the kids and the dog, and we went on the road with him. That lasted for four years before it tore our marriage apart and I moved home, got another secretarial job, and went back to school. I finally got my bachelor's degree--in Communications with an emphasis on FictionWriting--at Columbia College, Chicago.

I continued to work in secretarial/administrative positions for over ten years until I became disabled and then I finally started to write again. I met several people in the Chicago Science Fiction community and began to attend sci-fi cons. I discovered that they weren't just a bunch of geeks dressing up like Klingons and getting authorgraphs. The cons I've attended all have at least a few workshops related to writing and publishing your work. Some even offer opportunities to meet editors and agents, as well as published authors. They're marvelous venues for networking. And that's how I made the first contact who hired me to edit her books. Then she recommended my services on the EPIC website and since then my career has snowballed and I am now editing for three publishers, one of whom has accepted my book.

So, here I am--setting up a webpage, registering for a domain name, and setting up a blog.

Again, please visit my website at http://home.mchsi.com/~riweber/.

I'll post an update when my domain name is registered and set up.

Many Thanks.