Integrity In A World Where Cheaters Prosper January 12, 2010

I was raised constantly being told that cheaters never prosper. While doing things honestly is oftentimes a more difficult road to travel you enjoy a much more rewarding journey.

Babe Ruth, Roger Merris, Hank Aaron, Ryan Nolan, Cy Young and Lou Gehrig. Those are my heros. They did what they did with honor and integrity. They LOVED the game of baseball and baseball and it’s fans loved them back.

People like Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Pete Rose and Sammy Sosa loved baseball’s money and empty records. They cheated the fans, the game, the history and, most of all, the greats that paved the road for them. They broke and achieved records with a big fat * and not one of them belongs in the Hall of Fame. If they make it there, then every future generation will learn the cheaters do, in fact prosper.

The records they broke should be wiped from the books and handed back to the players they broke them honestly, through hard work and love of the game. If that doesn’t happen, baseball will slowly die and it will never be America’s pastime.

My newest venture October 28, 2009

Currently I am working on “Black Moon”, my version of Midnight Sun from Edward’s Point of View. My goal was to finish before the release of the movie but life gets in the way and schedules change. My goal is to still finish by the release date but I will have editing to do after that. Then I will release it to the world. I want to finish it before I see the movie because I don’t want it to affect how I take Edward on his painful journey.

So if I am not always in chat, or calling you on the phone, or visiting in person, know that I am doing this with all of my Twi friends in mind. You all inspire me and encourage me and most of all, give me the courage to take on this monumental task.

Compassion for Terrorists? August 21, 2009

So, it seems, Scotland is all about compassion. They released the only person ever held responsible for the Lockerbee bombing. Why? Because he was diagnosed with three months to live due to pancreatic cancer. Well, I am certain all the victims of the flight we blew up would have liked to have had three months to tie up their loose ends before dying. Compassion? Let me stick a bomb up his ass and show him my kind of compassion.

Now he has three months to plan future attacks with his terrorist friends, or to enjoy life knowing he has exactly three months to live. He definitely needs a bomb shoved up his ass so he die unexpectedly.

I suspect that if most of the victims on that flight were British or Scottish that he would not have been released from a life sentence after serving only 8 years. He had his freedom for all of those years before Libya offered him up. Life is Life. He was sentenced to life and therefore should have served that time out in the inside of a prison.

Little Ashes July 19, 2009

This is a phenomenal movie that, sadly, is not in wide-release and may go unnoticed. It is a beautiful story about the artist Salvador Dali and poet Federico Garcia Lorca.

It is a Spanish-made film with a brilliant cast of actors including Robert Pattinson (Twilight) and Javier Bertran. It is the story of Dali from his time as a student in Madrid until the 1930′s. For anyone who doubts Robert Pattinson’s acting ability, all you have to do is watch 10 minutes of this movie. You will forget that he is or has ever been anyone other than Dali.

To take on the role of such a controversail subject is brave in and of itself. But Pattinson takes on the subject of homosexuality, art, poetry, political revolution and socially unacceptable behavior with grace.

The movie left me wanting more. I wanted to see more of Dali’s work and learn more about the man. It opened my eyes to a truly beautiful, talented poet – Lorca, who paid the price for his choices.

Visually it is like watching a painting. The music is Spanish-flavored guitar and will put you in a romantic frame of mind just listening to it. The movie introduces you to artists, writers, journalists and revolutionaries and is truly a movie that is not to be missed.

Check on-line to find when it is showing in your area and make it a point to see the movie. You will not regret it and it is certain to become a favorite. I think Robert Pattinson deserves an Oscar nomination for his performance in this film.

It is showing in Louisville for a week, beginning on July 31st.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7BlNbL9eFQ

My ending to Stephenie Meyer’s “Midnight Sun” July 19, 2009

For those of you who have been waiting patiently, here is my ending to Stephenie Meyer’s “Midnight Sun” which was incomplete. You need to read her version at www.stepheniemeyer.com first because mine takes off where hers ends.

The story is a companion novel to Twilight and is told by Edward Cullen’s perspective. I will never publish this because it is not my story to publish. This is Stephenie Meyer’s story. I wrote this as practice to hone my own writing skills and for my friends who longed to hear the rest of Edward’s story. No copyright infringement is intended. I just want everyone to have fun with it. If you read it, please leave me your comments – good, bad or otherwise.

Midnight Sun Part II – Kiva Johns Adkins author

“And That’s The Way It Is…” July 17, 2009

He was 55 years my senior and was the voice of American news for almost a century.
He was old-school and worked his way up from print, to radio, to television and finally contributed on the Internet.
He was “the most trusted man in America” and he was my hero. He was Walter Cronkite and today he passed away.
Walter covered the Battle of the Bulge and The Nuremberg Trials.
He was there for us when Kennedy was assasinated and man walked on the moon. He covered the Vietnam War, the Watergate Scandel.
In my youth I read the newspaper every day and watched the CBS Evening News every night. Cronkite was the person and journalist I wanted to be. He told us (America) the truth and only broke the journalist’s code my shedding a tear on air twice – most famously when he announced that President Kennedy had died. I wasn’t there for many of those moments but I have seen every one, through Walter Cronkite.
Although he became a broadcast journalist Cronkite was always a newspaper man. For those of you not in the business, there is a significant difference between the two. At heart, I am a newspaper woman.
Newspapers are closing down, magazines folding and the written word transitioning to the internet. Walter harks of the days when integrity meant something in journalism. He was a journalist when quality meant more than quantity.
My dad is gone, my mom is gone and now Walter Cronkite is gone. My heart truly aches because with the death of ‘Uncle Walter’ also comes the death of the news as I knew it and it will never be the same. Who will the journalists coming up now look up to? Who will they admire? Who will be their Cronkite?

Revolution June 21, 2009

I began using my Twitter more than ever last night.  It kept me up-to-date on the events in Iran. The government thought they could control the media and therefore control the people. The people rose up and reported for themselves. The word is a powerful thing.

I watched the video of a 16 year old Iranian girl named Neda dying in the streets. Someone posted “Neda died with her eyes open. Why do we watch with our eyes closed?” I thought that was so true.

I don’t believe our government needs to get involved (look how that has worked out for us before) but as individuals we should care and offer our support to the Iranians who want to take a stand against the regime and the dictatorship that calls themselves their government. Their government would tell them we are the evil ones. They need to know we are the ones who love and care for them.

Sometimes I think I was born at the wrong time. I think had I been born 15-20 years earlier I would have been a protester in the 60′s and 70′s. I think that is what I am now. Only now we don’t walk the streets. We raise our voices on the world wide web and we are heard near and far. Silence is shameful. We should speak of atrocities and injustice just as we speak of accomplishments and love.

If I were an Iranian, I would want my individual voice to be heard and I would want anyone that hears me to pass the word along. Some people in the world would have us believe there was no Holocaust and if those that survived and witnessed Hitler’s atrocities had been silent, perhaps the world would believe this lie. Turning a blind eye or covering our ears does not make what is happening go away. It happens anyway and it will happen again because we don’t speak out.

I know some of my friends think I spend too much time on the computer and television, obsessed with the news. Perhaps that is true but I want to learn. I want the knowledge and I want to soak it all in – good AND bad. It would be nice to believe the world is full of good news but the reality is bad news abounds. We have the power to see the bad and make good come of it.

I only hope that, as my children grow, they continue to be as outspoken as they are now. I hope that if they witness injustice they take a stand against it and I hope if they witness peace they will sing it’s praises. More than anything, I hope they use THEIR voices and speak for what THEY believe in – not what I believe in, or what their father believes in or what their government believes in. They, and every person in the world  have a powerful tool – their voice.

Join a Revolution or Start a Revolution.  “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable -JFK”.

Today, my name is Neda and I will be the voice the government of Iran tried to silence.

The Green Book June 18, 2009

I have been into “The Green Book” for a while now. If you haven’t picked up a copy, do so immediately.

For starters, The Green Book is printed using 100% post-consumer recycled paper. That is just ONE of the benefits of buying this truly green book.

It tells you things you should already know, like change your light bulbs to energy-efficient CFL bulbs but it tells you a lot of things you probably never considered.

• When you stay in a hotel use your towels and sheets again. You wouldn’t change your sheets or towels at home everyday. Would you?
• Subscribe to your favorite magazines instead of buying them. Along with convenience of delivery you will save up to 75% off newsstand prices (who couldn’t save a little money?). Did you know that 60% of most magazines at the newsstand that aren’t sold have to taken to the dump – a waste of time, money and energy.
• Next time you want movie or concert tickets, purchase them on-line or over the telephone and print them out at home. The print-at-home tickets use plain copy paper which is easier to recycle than the paperboard used for printed tickets.

Go pick up The Green Book and keep it handy. It will become your eco-Bible.

Gran Torino June 18, 2009

I watched Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino this past weekend with some friends. In trying to convince my husband to watch it after I got home, he said, “I like Eastwood’s Westerns. I wouldn’t like it.” I told him that I believed it was a modern-day western and when you watch it so will you.

Eastwood reminded me a lot of my dad and the other men of that generation – soldiers in Korea and Vietnam. Men who came home from the wars and spent their time in American factories, taking pride in their products, only to see those empires fall. They have biases that hang on and linger and oftentimes it is hard for them to let go of those and hard for us to understand.

He comes off as an anti-social, aging bigot (and to some degree that is true) but you learn why he is that way and that his bigotry is born from fear and regret. He gets the opportunity to redeem himself and make his karma scale move to his favor.

In the end, his bigotry and hatred are softened and maybe ours is as well. Sometimes it is what you see in others that allows you to see the good that lies within you.

Recommend seeing this one.

Stranded June 18, 2009

Well, no cross-country trip for us.  At the last minute Ashleigh had a job offer that fell through so we are just chillin’ at home, taking a trip to Amish country later in the summer. We also really didn’t have the money for the trip although it was something I wanted badly. New game-plan. Perhaps that will be each kid’s graduation gift – a trip cross-country. In the meantime I am going to try to take a trip somewhere with my bff. Nothing like a girl’s trip. Tattoos might ensue.