By Hank Richards

Barbara C. Johnson was born in Boston in 1934. She grew up in Newton, Massachusetts a suburb of Boston known at the time for its fine public schools.

She received her B.A. from Bennington College in Vermont and entered the New England School of Law at the age of 49. In 1987, she received her J.D.

In my interview with Ms. Johnson said she was ‘called to the stage during her NESL graduation ceremony and received the West Publishing Company Corpus Juris Secundum Series Award (1987) for the highest annual scholastic average.’

She began her two decades as a sole-practitioner in civil and criminal litigation in State and Federal courts at both the trial and appellate levels.

As a member of the Children’s Rights Council panel, she addressed a joint state-congressional committee on a shared-parenting bill.

As an activist-attorney, she received a Woman of the Year award from the Fatherhood Coalition.

Her activism had grown out of her early outside interests. As a film consultant, she advised the Massachusetts Bar Association’s Bicentennial Committee.

She conceived, produced and moderated ‘Think Tank,’ a cable-TV series (Continental Cablevision in Newton) on local government and business.

In 2002, she ran a quixotic campaign for governor, campaigning in an antique fire truck and promising to use creativity, compassion and a willingness to listen to the people to mend an ailing government.

On August 9, 2006, Justice Francis X. Spina signed an order of disbarment against Barbara C. Johnson and she was forbidden from practicing law effective September 8, 2006.

At her hearing Ms. Johnson, a fiery and unconventional 75 years old, was quoted as saying, ‘No – damn it, no.

Unless you’re willing to agree that you have a kangaroo court here, you cannot say that to me . . . that’s a wagon of detritus, cow chips, horse manure . . . the disbarment by this kangaroo court is an effort to silence my criticism of the courts.’

Johnson has long been a fierce advocate for fathers’ rights in family courts. She is an outspoken critic of the Massachusetts court system, which she says is rife with corruption.

Her aggressive nature and quest for court reform brings her book, Behind the Black Robes: Failed Justice, to the market.

According to some legal reviews, many agree with her position about the legal system.

‘The book addresses a serious problem – the need for court reform and the abolishment of judicial immunity.

The book is filled with the courts’ tricks and traps for the unwary and tries to alert readers both why their law cases fail and what must be done to effect court reform.

Each chapter presents a series of illustrations intended to teach the readers by example how to avoid those court tricks and traps that people are likely to encounter in their existing or potential court cases’ says one reviewer.

A newspaper once wrote, ‘While we don’t fully agree with either her politics or her methods, Johnson is a character in a humdrum world sorely in need of more characters.

She’s the thorn in the side, the thumbtack on the chair . . . Johnson speaks her mind, and loudly.’

Another review states that ‘if we do nothing, the country will continue to drift slowly from bad to worse.

Only continuing civil disobedience, demonstrations, including the recent much-laughed-at Tea Parties must first take place. Bets are on that the U.S. system will collapse after a severe energy shortage.

When the voting public finally becomes active and educated as to what kind of person they should elect to governmental office, only then can the evolutionary process begin’ – anonymous.

Her book, Behind the Black Robes: Failed Justice is available at Amazon.com, Abebooks.com and Alibris.com .

Barbara is currently working on two more nonfiction books to help people who are representing themselves in family court.

When finished with the nonfiction, she is planning to switch back to fiction or faction.

This 75 year old world traveler is a divorced woman with two sons and five grandchildren. She can be reached by e-mail at barbjohnson74@gmail.com .

Source: Examiner

Editor’s Note: Contact Hank Richards by email at editor@pronlinenews.com or call him at (256) 417-6084. 

Richards is a prostate cancer survivor and a nationwide public speaker on the issue. If you would like to schedule him for your speaking venue, call the listed number above.

If you would like to comment on this story and you are haven problems logging in. Send your comment to dan@goldcoastchronicle.com and we will post it.

By Alan Caruba

I have been a book reviewer since the 1960s and am, in fact, a founding member of the National Book Critics Circle, but I rarely devote a commentary to a particular book. I am, however, going to recommend you read “:

The Manchurian President: Barack Obama’s Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists” by Aaron Klein with Branda J. Elliot.

All your worst fears will be confirmed. Using Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” as their guide, “progressives” (otherwise known as communists) have, since the 1970s, been boring from within, hiding their anti-American beliefs and allegiances to infiltrate the nation’s universities, its media, and to gain power in its various levels of government.

They have now hit the jackpot with the election of Barack Obama as President.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus is the largest of the Democrat Party caucuses in the House of Representatives with 83 declared members. Among its more prominent members are Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, Charlie Rangel, and co-authors of the Cap-and-Tax bill presently in the Senate, Ed Markey and Henry Waxman.

There are 15 members from California, eight from New York, and six from Illinois, but most states are represented.

Suffice it to say they wield a lot of power. Of the twenty standing committees in the House, ten are chaired by members of the CPC.

This explains why the Healthcare bill got rammed through and why we are in danger of seeing the same process at work with Cap-and-Tax and an amnesty bill.

Klein’s book is intensively researched and footnoted with 54 pages of citations.

On May 15th, “The Manchurian President”, made it to the famed New York Times list of bestselling books.

If you had any doubts that President Obama is a Marxist, you can put them aside. He was what has come to be called “a red diaper baby”, raised, mentored, and steeped in the socialist ideology that calls for a “redistribution of wealth.”

 Needless to say, he did not make much mention of this during the 2008 campaign, but then neither did Hillary Clinton who, along with her husband, subscribes to a similar political agenda.

One of the reasons you never hear about this takeover of Congress and other institutions of the nation is that the media is very much a part of it and thus part of the cover-up.

Indeed, the media did everything in its power to get Obama elected even though he had not even served one complete term in the Senate from Illinois.

Klein’s book is page-after-page of revelations that connect the dots as it examines Alinky’s “community organizers” program by which radicals can impose their will on Americans and change the nation from a constitutionally-based republic to one in which the government owns or controls everything.

Klein names names among Obama’s closest advisors, some of whom form his cadre of appropriately named “czars.”

 It identifies the many socialist groups pushing his agenda and, in particular, those drafting the legislation that has occasioned the rise of the Tea Parties to protest it and to organize to support candidates like Rand Paul who ran on a platform of “taking back America” from these political termites.

“In an August 31, 2008, letter to the editor of the Boston Globe, radical organizer Saul Alinksy’s son praised presidential candidate Barack Obama for having stirred up the masses at the Democratic National Convention, ‘Saul Alinky style.’ ‘Obama learned his lesson well, said the letter, signed L. David Alinsky.”

Americans who have essentially been sleep-walking through their recent history as socialist legislation from Social Security to Medicare and dozens of other governmental control over key sectors of the economy were unconstitutionally foisted on them in the form of agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Departments of Education and Energy. There is no authority in the Constitution for them.

From the unions to ACORN, the process has aggressively moved ahead in the first year and a half of the Obama administration.

An aroused and frightened America has been making its voice heard in the elections of conservative governors in Virginia and New Jersey, an anti-Obama care Senator from Massachusetts, and now in the primary elections to determine candidates.

It is not too late. November will determine the fate of the nation if power can be wrested back from the Democrat controlled Congress and, in two years, Obama be defeated for a second term.

After that, an enormous job of reversing the slow death of America can begin.

Source: Alan Caruba (C)

Editor’s Note: Mr. Caruba is an author, business and science writer; he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.

We would like to know what you think. dan@goldcoastchronicle.com

By Glenn Beck

Editor’s Note: Exclusive by Glenn Beck of Richard Paul Evans is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Christmas Box and fourteen other bestselling novels.  He is the winner of two first-place Storytelling World Awards and the Romantic Times 1995 award for best women’s novel. 

His newest bestseller, just in time for Mother’s Day, is called The Walk–the story of Alan Christoffersen, a man who loses everything and begins a journey from Seattle, Washington, to Key West, Florida

This will be the second of a three part series. We hope that you will go out and get this book, it is a must read for all.

We would like to know what you think. dan@goldcoastchronicle.com

In order to throw my wife off the scent, I told her that we’d go piano shopping on Saturday, which would be the day after my surprise arrived.  The plan backfired.

The idea of unrestrained piano shopping boiled the coupon-clipping, sale-watching consumer blood that coursed through Keri’s veins.  She fully intended to be a piano-buying expert by Saturday.  With notebook and calculator in hand, she ran to nearly every piano store in the Salt Lake Valley.  Ninety-six hours before V-day, Keri called my office.  I was learning to dread her calls.

“I’m really glad you didn’t buy that Queen Anne piano,” she said for the third time in two weeks.  “I don’t even want it anymore.  It’s not a good kind.”

My heart, well versed in the procedure, went into palpitations.  “Really?”  I asked meekly.

“Yeah.  The manufacturer is being sued for saying their soundboard is made of hardwood when it’s really not.  They have a piece of particle board sandwiched between two layers of hardwood, and the ultra-resins they use can eventually separate.  Good thing I found this out before we made a big mistake.”

“I’d hate to have the ultra-resins separate,” I repeated stupidly.

“Besides, I prefer the look of this other piano I found.”

It’s not worth it, I thought.  Nothing is worth this.  I was about to break, to tell all, to confess my purchase and ruin the surprise when, inexplicably, a fire ignited in my chest.  No, I would not give in.  Never.  I had come too far to be denied.  The wrong piano?  The heck with the piano.  I didn’t care if my brand of piano caused cancer.  It was the surprise that mattered.  My wife would be surprised whether she liked it or not.  No one, especially my wife, would take this surprise from me…err…her.

“Honey, how about we go see the piano this Saturday.”

To my surprise she agreed. “Good idea,” she said. “You’ll be glad you did.” 

“I’m sure I will.”

For better or worse, I had succeeded. Broken, but successful. Friday was the day of the piano movers and the surprise of my wife’s life.  The mother of all Mother’s Days.  I had looked into the gaping jaws of defeat and spit.

Defeat spit back.  Just fourteen and a half hours from my moment of triumph, the phone rang.  It was Keri.  “I’ve done something really bad,” she said.

“What?”

“I opened something I shouldn’t have.”

“Opened what?”

“I’m sorry. I really am.”

I wasn’t connecting the dots. “Opened what?” I repeated.

“A letter from a bank,” she said slowly. “The one that is financing our new piano.”

My heart stopped.  The bankers.  It’s always the bankers.  In the history of the world, how many dreams had been spoiled by the bankers?  I didn’t speak.  I barely breathed.

“We’ll laugh about it someday,” she said hopefully.

“Someday?” I said hysterically.  “Ha!  I’m laughing now!” And I laughed—the demented, twisted laugh of a madman who had lied and schemed, been insulted and demeaned, only to be denied in the end.  Denied my dream of the ultimate surprise—a Mother’s Day of unequalled magnitude. Denied the dream of The Baby Grand.

Or had I?  There was still the piano–the beautiful, hand-carved, hand-polished Queen Anne baby grand.  Calm enveloped me.  The piano, the mahogany piece of heaven that would fill our home with beautiful tones of rich, familial harmony: more than just an instrument of beauty, more than a work of art, it was now a symbol that would live in our family’s history, reminding Keri, every time she saw it, of the depth of my love for her.

No, I hadn’t been denied.  At least not what really mattered?  For even Keri was surprised at the lengths I was willing to go to give her a Mother’s Day that she would never forget—a day that would celebrate the day by honoring her for all the beauty and joy and madness that she brought to my life. 

And that is something truly worth celebrating.

Source:  Glenn Beck

Editor’s Note:  We hope you enjoyed this Exclusive three part Interview by Glenn. We hope you will comment, so that we can post for others to read. dan@goldcoastchronicle.com

By Glenn Beck

Editor’s Note: Exclusive by Glenn Beck of Richard Paul Evans is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Christmas Box and fourteen other bestselling novels.  He is the winner of two first-place Storytelling World Awards and the Romantic Times 1995 award for best women’s novel. 

His newest bestseller, just in time for Mother’s Day, is called The Walk–the story of Alan Christoffersen, a man who loses everything and begins a journey from Seattle, Washington, to Key West, Florida

This will be the second of a three part series. We hope that you will go out and get this book, it is a must read for all.

We would like to know what you think. dan@goldcoastchronicle.com

I wonder, in the course of history, how many times the best-laid plans of husbands have been foiled by the intuitive powers of astute, well-meaning wives.  Keri could not have planned to make the next two weeks more miserable for me.  Without telling me, the next day Keri returned to the piano showroom with her sister, Shelley, to show her the one that got away.

“There it is,” she said.  “Rick said it was sold.  They must not have delivered it yet.”  She lifted the red SOLD tag and squealed.  “It’s sold to the EVANS!”  She turned to Shelley.  “Do you really think Rick bought it?”

Fortunately I had let Shelley in on the surprise.  “No,” she said, concealing her panic. “Rick is way too cheap.”

This was only the beginning of the humiliations.

That afternoon Keri called me at work.  “I went out to the piano place today,” she said casually.  “There was a sold tag on our piano.”

“Yes,” I replied coolly, “I told you that it was sold,”

“The tag said ‘Evans’ on it.”

“Really?” I said, my heart beating wildly.

“I thought maybe you had bought it.  You know, to surprise me.”

I detected doubt in her voice.  She wasn’t sure.  I could still pull this off.  “Really?  Sold to another Evans?  Well you know how many Evanses there are.  Still, what are the odds?”

“Shelley said you would never buy it because you’re too cheap.”

I ignored the insult.

“But then, maybe she’s in on it.”

“In on what?”

“The plan.”

“What plan?”

“The plan to surprise me with the piano for Mother’s Day.”

I breathed in deeply.  “Honey, I told you that the piano was sold when I went out there.  I mean, I got you something nice for Mother’s Day, but it wasn’t five thousand dollars.”

“Six thousand dollars,” she said.  (The incorrect dollar amount was a clever ruse on my part, and she fell for it.  The piano was really seven thousand with sales tax.)  To my relief, I detected a slight tone of disappointment in her voice.

“Look, honey, I really don’t want to ruin your Mother’s Day by getting your hopes up.  If you don’t believe me, just call the showroom and ask them who bought the piano.”

My confidence seemed to convince her.

“Okay,” she said, clearly disappointed. “Sorry to bother you at work.”

“No, I’m sorry to disappoint you. I wish I had bought it for you.”

“See you tonight.”

The minute Keri hung up; I flipped through the phone book to find the piano store.  I scolded the person who answered the phone.  “My wife was in your showroom today and saw her name on the piano I’m trying to surprise her with.  I can’t believe you guys put our name on it.”

“We always put names on sold pianos,” he said dully.

“It was supposed to be a surprise.  I think that I’ve convinced her that someone else named Evans bought it, but she may still call to find out.  I want you to instruct all of your salespeople to tell her someone in Idaho bought it.  Put a note by the phone if you have to.”

“What if she doesn’t call?”

“She’ll call.”

“What’s the name?”

“My wife’s name?”

“No, the person in Idaho.”

“I don’t care.  Make one up.”

“How about Lavita?”

“Lavita?”

“That’s my grandmother’s name,” he said proudly.  “She lives in Idaho.”

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever,” I said.

I knew my wife was ultra-persistent, but even I was surprised by our conversation the next morning. I was pouring Corn Chex into a bowl when Keri said, “Lavita.”

I looked up.  “Lavita?”

“They sold the piano to some woman named Lavita.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked innocently.

“I called the showroom.  They said that they sold the piano to Lavita Evans in Idaho.” 

Uncomfortable pause.

“Doesn’t it seem a bit peculiar that they told me the woman’s name?”

“I suppose.”

“You told them to say that, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, right.  I called the showroom and told them to tell everyone in the store that my wife may call, so be sure to tell her that some woman named Lavita Evans in Idaho bought the piano.”

She frowned.  “I guess you’d have to be crazy to do something like that.”

“Darn right,” I said.

Keri was quiet, but I knew she wasn’t finished.  She was just thinking it over.  It was time to act.

“Honey, I don’t know how else to say this.  I really wish that I had bought the piano for you…”  I fell dramatically to the floor on my knees, surprising even myself at the length to which I was willing to go to conceal the surprise.  “I would buy it now, if I could.”

Keri looked down at me.  “Well I’m glad that you didn’t buy it,” she finally said.

“Why is that?”

“Because it had a big scratch on it.”

My chest constricted.  “A scratch?”

“A deep one.  All the way across the back.”  I felt sick to my stomach.  Then I looked into Keri’s dark, conniving eyes—eyes searching for my reaction.  What a devious woman, I thought, but she is going to be surprised if it kills me.

“Then it’s a darn good thing that we didn’t buy it,” I said calmly.

The next day Keri called me at work.

“Honey, you’ll never guess what I’m about to tell you.”

You have no idea how right you are, I thought. “What?” 

“The private school on Preston is closing.  Guess what they’re selling?”

“A piano,” I ventured.

“A grand piano!  And it’s in mint condition!  I put fifty dollars down on it to hold it.”

“Honey, shouldn’t we have talked about this first?”

“You said that you wished you had bought that other piano.  I’m just glad that you didn’t.  I like this one just as much and its a thousand dollars less.”

My stomach turned.  I was grasping here, but I was desperate.  “That would be great, but a grand piano won’t fit in our living room,” I said.  “It would stick out over the fireplace.  Remember that guy said a grand piano is twenty-six inches wider than a baby grand?”

“He never said that.”

“Sure he did.”

Keri was quiet.  “I hope they’ll give me my deposit back,” she finally said.

I hung up the phone and slumped over my desk.  Just then my secretary, Julie, entered my office.

“More piano woes?”  She asked.

“Mother’s Day will never come,” I said.

“Isn’t it your anniversary this Friday?”

“Yes.”

“If I were you, I’d just have them deliver the piano for your anniversary as an early Mother’s Day gift.  For now, you can tell Keri you’ll go look with her for a piano on
Saturday.”

“Brilliant,” I said. “Just brilliant.”

The plan backfired miserably. 

Coming Tomorrow: Part Three

Source:  Glenn Beck

By Glenn Beck

Editor’s Note: Exclusive by Glenn Beck of Richard Paul Evans is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Christmas Box and fourteen other bestselling novels.  He is the winner of two first-place Storytelling World Awards and the Romantic Times 1995 award for best women’s novel. 

His newest bestseller, just in time for Mother’s Day, is called The Walk–the story of Alan Christoffersen, a man who loses everything and begins a journey from Seattle, Washington, to Key West, Florida

This will be the first of a three part series. We hope that you will go out and get this book, it is a must read for all.

We would like to know what you think. dan@goldcoastchronicle.com

THIS is a true story.  You might not believe it, but it is.  All of it. 

I didn’t even exaggerate, which is something my wife accuses me of a million times a day.

But in this case, you’ll just have to believe me when I say it’s all true. 

Fact is oftentimes stranger than fiction.  And always a whole lot more painful.

Let’s be clear about something from the beginning: I didn’t want a new piano to begin with.  Frankly, I didn’t even want the one we had. 

Most of the time it just sat in our house dormant like one of those revolutionary exercise machines that you bought at two in the morning because you were half asleep and they convinced you that it might make you look like Chuck Norris.

Actually, to our children, the piano was like a torture device in the house, something they’d hurry by lest my wife associate them with the piano and say, “before you touch that TV [video game, internet, and brownie] you need to practice the piano.”

I can’t blame them for not liking piano lessons.  My own history with pianos was less than stellar. 

In spite of my mother’s faith in my musical promise, my piano career ended in childhood with Schumann’s first book of annoying finger exercises. 

So when my wife, Keri, announced that she wanted a new piano for Mother’s Day, I was less than excited.

“We have a piano,” I said.

“It’s a bad piano,” she replied.

How could I argue?  From my perspective there was no other kind.  So when I found myself following her into the piano showroom the next day, it was with the intent of shocking her with the prices and walking out, consoling her with a “maybe someday.”

At least that was my intent. 

Initially, our visit to the piano store went as anticipated.  Keri floated from instrument to instrument, her smile falling a little more with each inspected price tag while I smugly watched her, my wallet safely intact. 

All according to plan, I thought; another fifteen minutes and we’ll be driving home piano-less. 

Then I saw it.

The Queen Anne Mahogany Baby Grand.  It wasn’t just a piano.  It transcended piano.  It was art and beauty. 

It was all that was right with the world–a piece of skillfully crafted wordmonger that had fallen from some loftier sphere into this humble showroom. 

It didn’t matter what it sounded like.  We could just put it in our living room and stare at it like a fine oil painting.

The salesman knew love when he saw it.  “She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” he said, sidling up to me.  “Too bad it’s the only one in the state.  It will probably be gone by morning.”

Panic gripped my heart.  What? Someone take my piano? 

For what it’s worth, I pride myself on being a sophisticated consumer.  I was, after all, an advertising executive by profession, an abuser of such obvious sales tactics­–the marketer of sock stackers and expensive clothes hangers disguised as exercise equipment. 

But, as any teenager can tell you, when one is in love, the brain is parked in idle. 

The salesman played me as masterfully as Beethoven himself might play the celestial instrument I coveted.  “I’ll be sorry to see it go.”

I pulled him aside. “How much?” I asked, embarrassed to equate money with love.

“It should retail for twelve,” he said, eyeing me, carefully measuring my resistance like a fisherman testing the strength of his line, “…but I like you. We’ll let her go for just six. 

That is, if you buy it now.”  Then, for good measure, he threw in, “It’ll be gone by tomorrow anyway.”

“It’s for my wife,” I said.  “For Mother’s Day. I want to surprise her with it.”

“No problem. Mother’s Day surprise,” he said as he scribbled on some piece of paper.

Just then fiscal responsibility reared its ugly head.  I groaned.  “You know, I better look around first,” I said mechanically, “You know…compare prices…” I spoke haltingly, as if afraid that he might change his mind about selling it.

A broad, confident smile spread across his face.  “Tell you what I’ll do,” he said.  “I’ll write up an invoice with your name on it and hold the Queen Anne until noon tomorrow.  But no later.”

I looked across the showroom where Keri stared longingly at the beautiful instruments.  The mother of my precious daughters. 

The love of my life.  Our entire bank account was a small sacrifice for such a mother.  This would be the Mother’s Day she would never forget.  “All right,” I said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

As we left the showroom, Keri put her arm in mine.  “Maybe someday,” she said sadly.  I was glassy-eyed.

By nine o’clock the next morning, I was on the phone, calling all the local piano stores to investigate my desired purchase, which was like asking a professional wrestler what he thought of his opponent. 

Somehow every piano dealer offered the only credible line of piano in the world. 

The one exception was Steinway; no one disputed their quality.  But you cannot live inside a Steinway (not comfortably at least), and it was that or our house, so, after hearing the prices, I let the salesclerk know I was not in the right price range.

“But nothing plays like a Steinway,” the salesclerk said.

“Including my wife,” I replied as I hung up the phone.

The truth was, I was clearly out of my element.  Having me determine a good piano was like asking a nun to pick out a good honeymoon spot.  But I knew someone who spoke the language of piano: my business partner, Evan.  He would know. 

He was the owner of a grand piano.  He could play my Queen Anne and discern it’s vintage.  With just one hour before my deadline, I dragged him from the office to see my love. 

He knew the piano from its curves.  With unfeigned reverence he sat down at the instrument, stretched his fingers, and began to play.  How sweet it sounded.  He nodded, and I wrote out a deposit check.

This would be the Mother’s Day neither Keri nor I would ever forget, I thought.  I had no idea how right I was.

“This is a surprise,” I reminded the salesman.  “Under no circumstances are there to be any phone calls to my house. 

If there are problems, you can call me at my office or on my cell phone.”

“Crystal clear,” the man said, folding the check into his shirt pocket.  “By the way,” he said, “we turn all our financing over to a local bank–so you’ll be making payments to them.”

“That won’t be necessary,” I said.  “I plan to the pay the piano off the day you deliver it. 

I would pay it off now, except my wife would notice the drop in our bank account, and that would ruin the surprise.”

He shrugged apologetically. “You know how it goes, formalities, and formalities. I still have to send the invoice to them.  So you’ll pay them not us.”

Whatever, I thought.

That evening Keri asked me where I’d been that morning.

“Nowhere,” I lied. “Just work.”

“I called your work.  Julie said you were out running errands.”

“Oh, yeah. I was.”  

Keri’s intuition is almost as legendary as her persistence.  She just couldn’t let go.  “What errands?”

“What does it matter?” I said, “Just errands.  What did you do this morning?”

“Like what errands?” she pressed.

“All right,” I said.  “If you must know, I went back to the piano showroom.”

“I knew it,” she said.

“How could you possibly know that?”

“Why did you go back?”

“I just wondered if…I could talk them down.”

“And?”

“I was too late. Our piano was sold.”

She was crestfallen.  “Sold?  In one day?”

“You heard what the man said.  He said it would be gone by tomorrow.”

“Clearly he was just using sales tactics.  You’d have to be dumb to fall for that.”

“So you’d think,” I said.

She sighed. “That’s too bad.  I really loved that piano.”

I feigned disappointment.  “So did me.” 

It was a close call, but I made it.  All was according to plan. Or so I thought.  The worst was yet to come.

Source:  Glenn Beck

Editor’s Note: Stay tone for part two tomorrow.

Going Rogue: An American Life By Sarah Palin (Harper, 413 pages, $28.99)

By Melanie Kirkpatrick
November 17, 2009

“Going Rogue,” the title of Sarah Palin’s autobiography, refers to the snide remark of an anonymous McCain aide late in last year’s presidential campaign. It was used to describe the vice-presidential candidate’s move to break free of her media handlers and speak out against the campaign’s decision to pull out of Michigan, a state that, in Mrs. Palin’s view, was well worth contesting. The “word came hurtling down that I had been ‘off-script,’ ” she writes. The campaign hadn’t bothered to inform her of the Michigan decision, which she learned of from a reporter. “Of course,” she adds drily, “it’s pretty easy to issue candid, off-script messages when there is no script to begin with.”

One of the biggest mistakes of the failed McCain campaign—and there was no shortage of them—was its handling of Mrs. Palin. Her criticisms of the campaign’s treatment of her appear prominently in “Going Rogue.” But the book contains self-criticisms too, if not as many as there ought to be for a candidate who was ultimately responsible for her own uneven performance.

That said, “Going Rogue” is more a personal memoir than a political one. More than half the book is about Mrs. Palin’s life before the 2008 campaign. She discusses her coming of age in the “new frontier” state of Alaska; her personal faith journey; her experiences with marriage and motherhood, including two miscarriages, a special-needs child and a pregnant teenage daughter; and the free-market convictions that have guided her political career. As a politician, she comes across as a prodigious worker capable of mastering complicated issues—not least the energy policies that matter so much to Alaska’s economy—and of building bridges to Democrats.

Through it all, Mrs. Palin emerges as a new style of feminist: a politician who took on the Ole Boy network and won; a wife with a supportive husband whose career takes second place to hers; and a mother who, unlike working women of an earlier age, isn’t shy about showcasing her family responsibilities. She writes with sensitivity and affection about her gay college roommate, and she confesses her anguish when she found out that she was carrying a baby with Down syndrome. That experience, she says, helped her to understand why a woman might be tempted to have an abortion. This is not the prejudiced, dim-witted ideologue of the popular liberal imagination.

But of course it is for details of the McCain campaign that many readers will pick up “Going Rogue,” and Mrs. Palin will not disappoint them. She describes in particular how campaign aides muzzled her and mismanaged her family. If anything, she is too gentle on the staffers who kept her out of the loop and under wraps. She is certainly too gentle on the man at the top of the ticket who let them get away with it. She has hardly a critical word to say about John McCain, whose appearances in the book are surprisingly few.

The mistakes started on day one. The McCain communications team had not compiled the usual press-briefing guides, she writes, with the result that the national media had “zero information” on her or her record in Alaska. Moreover, her “family, friends, and political associates were under strict instructions not to talk to the media.” She wasn’t even allowed to speak to her home-state press, which was very friendly. When one of her aides asked McCain headquarters for permission for her to go to the rear of the campaign plane to talk to reporters, the response was swift: “No! Absolutely not—block her if she tries to go back.”

She says that the campaign stiffed her for $50,000 in vetting expenses. She expresses perplexity at the focus of McCain aides on her clothes—”Never before had I been involved in a campaign that placed such an emphasis on packaging.” And she is angry about the campaign’s handling of her daughter’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy, which included putting out a press release that Mrs. Palin had not seen or approved. “If they [the leaders of the campaign] weren’t going to let me speak my heart and mind even about an intimate issue affecting my own family, what would they let me speak to?”

When the media blackout was finally lifted and she had an interview with Katie Couric of the “CBS Evening News,” the result was disastrous. Mrs. Palin takes responsibility, saying that she “let the team down” and that she “mistakenly let myself become annoyed and frustrated with many of her repetitive, biased questions.” But she also blames the campaign for not prepping her adequately and for telling her that it was going to be “a pretty mellow interview, short and sweet, about balancing motherhood and my life as governor.”

It is disappointing that Mrs. Palin devotes so little of “Going Rogue” to the issues that she and Mr. McCain ran on. She says that the campaign should have focused more on the flagging economy and been more aggressive in countering Barack Obama’s agenda. She also says that she wasn’t allowed to praise President Bush’s homeland-security policies. But that’s about it.

Mrs. Palin’s veep candidacy ignited fury on the left and much skewed reporting in the mainstream media. It is probably too much to hope that a book that begins at the Right to Life booth at the Alaska State Fair will inspire her critics to read on. But if they do, they’ll find themselves in the company of a woman whose views are more nuanced than they were portrayed to be during the campaign. As for her supporters on the right, they won’t find much new ammunition with which to counter those who say that Mrs. Palin isn’t ready for the rigors of the White House.

Speaking of which, “Going Rogue” offers little guidance on the big question: Is Mrs. Palin preparing to run for the presidency? The final chapter, “The Way Forward,” is a mere 13 pages and reads like a stump speech. It consists mostly of generalities on conservative values, fiscal restraint and the need for a strong defense. But the quotation from her father with which she introduces the chapter perhaps offers a clue to her future plans: “Sarah’s not retreating; she’s reloading!”

Ms. Kirkpatrick is a former deputy editor of the Journal’s editorial page.

Source: Wall Street Journal ]]> http://www.goldcoastchronicle.com/books/her-side-story-mccain-aides-kept-her-out-loop-focusing-instead-on-packaging/feed/ 0 http://www.goldcoastchronicle.com/media/videos/glenns-the-christmas-sweater-for-kids/ http://www.goldcoastchronicle.com/media/videos/glenns-the-christmas-sweater-for-kids/#comments Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:53:04 +0000 Kim http://www.goldcoastchronicle.com/?p=22611  

by Dan Samaria
Publisher/GCC
Oct. 31, 2209

If you loved Glenn’s Christmas Sweater, you will love this one just for kids.  As he described on his radio show that he read it to his kids, when he first wrote it without the pictures. His two kids kept on requesting it over and over.

I decided to test his words, not that I didn’t believe him. I took it to a group of children in my neighborhood. I couldn’t leave; I had to read it over and over again. I was there for three hours. It brought tears to my eyes that there was a book that kids wanted to hear. And they didn’t even know that it was teaching them a lesson. Some of the kids even ask me to help them learn how to read it themselves.

If you have not got it, I am telling you that it is a must book to read to your children. This is one that kids will want to hear every night over and over again. You don’t have to read it just for Christmas. It can be read anytime.

I am going to let Glenn describe what the book is about in his own words.

We would like to know how your children reacted and what they have learned from it. You can contact us at dan@goldcoastchronicle.com . And we will publish them.

by Glenn Beck

On Christmas Eve, Eddie shook his snow globe one last time and placed it on the dresser beside his bed. He watched the snowstorm swirl and thought about the one gift he wanted most for Christmas—a new bicycle.

Adapted from the #1 New York Times bestselling novel by Glenn Beck, The Christmas Sweater shares a young boy’s story of hope and redemption as he searches for the true meaning of Christmas. With the whimsical Grandpa by his side, Eddie takes a magical journey reminiscent of A Christmas Carol and The Polar Express that leads him to appreciate the simple things in life: family and love.

The picture book edition of The Christmas Sweater is a beautiful holiday treat from Glenn Beck that you’ll share with your family again and again.

Source: Glenn Beck

By Human Events

In 1776, Tom Paine published Common Sense — the case for revolution made with logical, straightforward, indisputable arguments. “Today,” says TV and radio sensation Glenn Beck, “we find ourselves back in 1776 — but this time our path forward isn’t so clear-cut.” That’s why he wrote Glenn Beck’s Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine — an incisive indictment of the abuses being perpetrated by our government, and a clear path back to sane democratic rule.

Beck examines how Barack Obama and other hard leftists, in their mad quest to reshape and redefine America, have put us on the path to national suicide. He shows how money has become the real opiate of the masses — laying bare how not only liberal but also conservative political elites have purchased the silence and subservience of all too many American citizens by means of our national debt, and how the U.S. Tax Code has become the political weapon of choice for venal politicians (and there is no shortage of those). He also skewers the perks and privileges of today’s political class, cures the cancer of progressivism, and thoughtfully considers the question of whether the sun is rising or setting upon America.

Beck concludes with nine truly life-changing principles, along with twelve key values, that he calls the 9/12 Project: maxims and ideals to live by that have been forgotten by many Americans today — including the simple and unqualified proposition that “America is good,” and that “I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.”

A ringing call to the restoration of American greatness:

Our governing elites today: robbing us blind while turning our children against the principles and values that we cherish through indoctrination disguised as education

How the power of the political elites is out of control — and why the only way honest citizens can rein in that power now is to change the rules of the game.

Why a revolution is needed in America today — but one that can be fought with the weapons of genuine republican government.

How many among the Washington elites understand that truly honest debates about the state of our nation today will pull back the curtain on the scam they’ve been perpetrating — and so they do everything they can to quash such debates.

How neither our homes nor even our own bodies are secure any longer from government intrusion and the whims of the state.

Why we must take away the ability of Congress to bribe or punish companies by using the tax code.

The ridiculous price of “feel-good” environmental policies: the supposedly environmentally-friendly light bulbs that Congress has now required us to use in our homes — light bulbs so poisonous that the EPA has drawn up special guidelines for what to do if one of them breaks.

Why saying that socialism is better than capitalism is essentially saying that it is better to be fed — and led — by the state than to be free.

The election of Barack Obama: how we didn’t vote to change the very nature of the Republic, we only voted to change Washington’s culture of corruption.

George Washington: how America is experiencing today exactly the troubles and temptations that he warned us about.

Why it is important to know the difference between a democracy and a republic, and to remember that the United States was founded as a republic.

The great discovery Americans made on September 12, 2001 — that we must recapture now.

How our politicians have committed future generations of Americans to pay a combined $99.2 trillion just for our unfunded Social Security and Medicare obligations.

The pervasive movement that requires Americans to sever our ties to our Founding and to follow an ever- evolving social gospel instead.

How campaign finance laws have helped the two dominant parties — and numerous corrupt politicians — become entrenched in power.

The 2008 election: not a real choice between candidates with differing political philosophies, but a choice between two Progressives.

The key principles that the Founding Fathers understood — and that many Americans today try very hard to forget.

Why neither major political party today is focused on finding solutions to the real problems that beset America.

How this is a fight of Us verses Them — with Us comprising those who believe in liberty as it is described in the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence.

Why so many Americans are losing all trust in government — and how elected officials can regain that trust.

Government debt: why it is not only bad economic policy but also morally unacceptable.

The bubble around our elected representatives that makes it hard for them to understand what life is really like across America.

The subtle change Barack Obama has made in the AmeriCorps program that essentially destroys its spirit

Why, as Americans, we must stop telling ourselves that we can’t do it and that our best days are behind us.

What could happen if we fail to speak up and speak out against the madness that afflicts Washington and the nation at large.

Eight questions you can ask your neighbors to awaken them to the grave threat our Republic faces today.

Plus: the full texts of Thomas Paine’s world-shaking Common Sense

If you believe that it’s time to put principles above parties, character above campaign promises and genuine common sense above all, then don’t remain neutral! Says Beck: “The American Republic will not be swept into the dustbin of history if good men come forward now.” Take up Glenn Beck’s Common Sense and stand with him to make that most simple, most powerful, and most American of demands: Don’t tread on me.

Source: Human Events

Editor’s Note: We would like to know what you think? dan@goldcoastchronicle.com

By Ariel Hasell

Being a teenager is more than just showing up at shopping malls and homecoming games. We review new fiction that explores the hard parts of life.

Wintergirls (Viking Children’s Books), by Laurie Halse Anderson, gives readers an insightful and heartbreaking look at Lia, a high school senior, battling anorexia. Lia — in and out of treatment centers herself — learns of the death of Cassie, her bulimic best friend.

She obsesses over the circumstances surrounding Cassie’s death, and consumed with guilt, suffers a relapse of her own disease. Lia’s desire to be an accomplished student, a good daughter, and reliable sister is directly at odds with her desire to become smaller and smaller. There are pages that repeat the words: “Must. Not. Eat.” Obviously, this is not going to be an easy battle for Lia.

Anderson is a celebrated young-adult author who captures the complexity of the modern, American teenage mind without reinforcing old strereotypes or relying on caricatures. In Wintergirls, Anderson maintains the tenor of her other works; her portrayal of anorexia is honest, enlightening, and doesn’t glamorize the disease, as other stories sometimes inadvertently do.

Age: 12+
Retail Price: $9
Available at: multiple sellers

Source: Grandparents

Editor’s Note: We would like to know what book you read this summer? dan@goldcoastchronicle.com

by Beverly Beckham

Share with your grandkids the inspiring story of a child’s special love for her sister who has Down syndrome.

When Nancy Tupper Ling’s childhood friend gave birth to a daughter with Down syndrome, Ling wrote a poem called Our Fragile Emissary. The heartfelt verse quickly landed in e-mail inboxes and on message boards around the world. (You can Google it.) Six years later, Ling wrote a book about the same child, titled My Sister, Alicia May, and what happened next is a tale of fate, serendipity, and maybe something more.

Ling sent her manuscript to Pleasant St. Press, a small publishing house in Raynham, Mass. Co-owner Jean Cochran, who is also a children’s book author, instantly loved it, and bought the rights to publish the book. Then she went looking for an illustrator. “I first saw Shennen [Bersani]’s work on a British website for illustrators,” Cochran said. She assumed two things: that Bersani lived in the United Kingdom and that she would never be able to afford her.

Cochran contacted the illustrator anyway and learned in a telephone conversation that Bersani lived not an ocean away, but just ten miles down the road from her office. An even more remarkable coincidence is that My Sister, Alicia May was in many ways Bersani’s personal story, too.

“Shennen informed me that just as with the sisters in the book, she too had a sister – her only sibling – who has Down syndrome,” said Cochran. “I had no way of knowing this. We were both in shock at the coincidence.”

It took Bersani a month to decide whether she should illustrate the book. “I thought if I take this on, it will bring up all the emotional stuff,” Bersani said. But she chose to do it because, she said, “No one will be able to do it the way I can.”

When Bersani’s sister, Holly, was born 40 years ago, it was a different world. There were few programs for any kids with disabilities. A lot of the day-to-day caretaking for Holly fell on Bersani. She went to art school during the day and watched her sister nights and weekends. Although Bersani is a successful artist now, illustrating books for children that sell more than a million copies around the world, she had never used her professional work to explore her feelings about her sister or disabilities in general.

“I can tell you honestly, I sobbed and wept over a few of the pages as I tried to work on them – I ‘became’ Rachel [Alicia May's older sister]. I felt every emotion vividly because they were my own.”

The book is filled with these emotions.

Cochran, whose publishing company is only three years old, said, “It is extremely important to us that our books are as good, if not better – in content, art, and production – as the larger, more established houses with whom we must compete.”

My granddaughter Lucy has Down syndrome and I have spent the last five years in search of a mainstream, beautifully written and illustrated book like this. Until My Sister, Alicia May, I’d found nothing.

Cochran said there is a huge void in the market for children’s books, especially picture books. “In publishing, there’s a saying that everything under the sun has been done. This has not been done. Not like this.”

My Sister, Alicia May, which was published May 1, is the story of two real girls, Alicia May and her sister Rachel, and every child who has a sister or a brother or a friend. It is the story of what it’s like to love someone. Sometimes the people you love irritate you the most. Sometimes you want to pretend you don’t know them. Sometimes you don’t want them tagging along. Sometimes you’re so proud of them you want to tell the world.

“Classrooms, libraries, doctors’ offices, and ordinary households need this book,” Cochran said. “I feel that it’s important as a person and as a publisher to bring awareness, to tell this story.”

This is also the kind of tale that belongs on every grandparent’s bookshelf. It is a story first, and only subtly, like all good stories, a lesson.

“She looks like me,” an 8-year-old at my local library said after studying the book’s cover. Alicia May has long, dark blond hair with bangs, pink cheeks, and a beautiful smile. And what this 8-year-old saw was not a child with Down syndrome, but another little girl with blond hair, just like her.

Source: Grandparents

Editor’s Note: We would like to know what you think? And what good books are you reading this summer? dan@goldcoastchronicle.com