The Coconut Wireless

What Tangled Webs

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 08 May 2014 16:25:00 +0000

What to do when you can’t log in to the web? I found myself dusting the web hanging from the shower head. How’s that for a subconscious connection?

Going Viral

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 08:25:00 +0000

Hey I’ve just gone viral. In the old sense of the word, that is, with a bad case of what I have dubbed the Florida crud. It started like a nightmare, my throat dipped in kerosene and set afire, my ears serving as blistering passageways where the flames escaped. My bones ached like they’d been stomped a thousand times during the running of the bulls in Pamplona—or at least through downtown Tampa. I coughed and hacked until my insides turned out and I did the unmentionable over the toilet. The only missing element was, no gastric involvement, and so I survived the past several days on bouts of bed rest and ate cough drops as if they were popcorn.

I haunted the aisles of the drugstore, reading the labels on the nostrums as if they were blurbs from hot novels designed to deliver prurient thrills. I finally settled on Advil, and took enough pills that I could, after several days of negative gravity, muster the energy to dial my friend Vi to apologize for not calling her to let he know that I had indeed arrived in beautiful Southwest Florida for the winter only to be felled by some local bug lurking on the underside of the pristine weather.

Guess what? Vi sounded worse than I did. Vi, being Vi, a woman careful to look after her health, had already been to the doctor, who told her there was nothing she could do, would not prescribe an antibiotic. This was a case of the old fashioned viral nasty. The best the doc could offer was to suggest that Vi stock up on some high test cough syrup and tough it out. Vi could return for medical intervention if her cough hung on for more than six weeks. Six weeks?

Vi confessed that she is hiding out from the Centers for Disease Control and I am loath to rat out my friend, so I am not using her real name. Vi is terrified that she’s the CDC hit list, since she was silly enough to attend a seminar, from which she had to excuse herself several times to go out and hack her head off in the hall.

Not the way to go viral these days. This was no hit on the best seller list, where we had had hit the jackpot with a bestseller on Amazon. This was just a wake-up call from the real world where going viral is not at all glamorous, and the old meaning, viral, rears its ugly head and asserts its original meaning with a deadly sting.

Catherine Coulter at the Piano?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 08:37:00 +0000

Catherine Coulter at the piano? With 65 million books in print? But there she was doing familiar hymns and popular tunes last night at the Congregational and United Church of Christ Church in Fort Myers, FL. As Coulter exchanged the keyboard for the podium she said her mother was a church musician. This dynamo of the book biz with her stable of thrillers, suspense and romance novels said she was lucky to have flourished during the golden age of publishing. She sees a future where books on paper will be relegated to curiosities as the publishing world turns electronic. On the other hand, the frontier world of self-publishing offers ample opportunities for the aspiring writer, but one thing that doesn’t change is the discipline required to write. Two hours a day, every day; that’s Coulter’s formula.

Coulter’s in town for the Southwest Florida Reading festival Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Harborside Hall, downtown Fort Myers. Coulter is just one of two dozen nationally known authors in multiple genres for children and adults.

Do stop by the exhibition hall where novelist Bennett Shelfer and I can be found in space 43, with our novels, Drawing Dead and Four of a Kind, based on that icon of American literary lore, the poker game.

Millie McCall's Full Moon Poker Night

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 00:59:00 +0000

Eastsound WA: A full moon sets Darvill's bookstore aglow for the launch of Four of a Kind, Doug Quinn's collection of poker tales from around the country. Who should stride right in, wearing her flaming red gown and her Harley leathers, but Millie McCall herself, the eccentric herione of my novella, Millie McCall's Full Moon Poker Night, showering readers with cards and poker chips, just as riotous ever she was, the sort of outrageous character much beloved here in the San Juan Islands.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 01:18:00 +0000

In the Final Analysis, 23 percent of Americans believe that President Obama was born in Kenya and somebody, quite possibly his wily grandparents, inserted a fake birth announcement in the two major Honolulu newspapers. This startling statistic jumped out at me from the inside back page of the August 2010 issue of Psychology Today.

That was back when the previous poster boy for the “birther” movement, Terrance Larkin, a U.S. Army Lt. Colonel and a medical doctor faced court-marshal for refusing a second tour of duty in Afghanistan. Larkin claimed that President Obama had not produced a birth certificate and therefore could not prove he was the legitimate President. This meant that Larkin was under no obligation to follow Army orders.

In the end, after being touted on the internet as a national hero, Larkin ate crow at his own trial, pleading for leniency. The Army was no place to serve as a political platform, Larkin admitted, and the Army agreed, at which point jurors put Larkin in jail for six months and tossed him out of the service.

Donald Trump dragged up this this fake political issue in his recent bid to become the Republican nominee for President of the United States. As for those who disagree with Obama’s policies, there are plenty of reasons for legitimate debate, about real issues of substance to the nation. Too bad we have heard nothing of substance from The Donald.

Last May, during the Larkin debate, CNN Reporter Anderson Cooper flashed a Hawaiian birth certificate popped onto the screen. There I sat, staring at a familiar document issued by the State of Hawaii Health Department. Since my two sons were born on the Island of Maui, I have several certified copies of their birth certificates in the house, so, if anyone cares to ask, I’ll personally verify that the President’s birth certificate is legitimate.

State of Hawaii birth certificates for my sons have been accepted by public schools, colleges, universities, and the U.S. Government Passport Agency. I am able to order birth certificates for my sons because, as their mother, I am a person who is entitled to order one under the tests set forth under a very common sense provision of Hawaii law which excludes the general public from requesting anybody’s birth certificate and doing weird things with it, for instance passing themselves off as someone else, for instance, the president.

If Obama has no Hawaii birth certificate, just how is it that he could have gone to school in the United States, been admitted to Columbia University and Harvard, served in the United States Senate, and traveled outside the country on a United States passport?

If Obama has no Hawaii birth certificate, then my sons have no birth certificates. If the President of the United States has no personal privacy, then my sons have none, and neither do the millions of native born Hawaiians.

As for Donald Trump’s bid for the presidency, I do hope that the powers-that-be in the GOP will drag The Donald into the boardroom and give him a little of his own medicine: “Donald Trump, you are fired.”

I'm looking for love in the ole' salt shaker

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 19:09:00 +0000

http://healthland.time.com/2011/04/07/why-french-fries-are-good-comfort-food/?xid=newsletter-daily

Don't Miss the Naples Authors and Books Festival This Weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 15:52:00 +0000

http://authorsandbooksfestival.org/2010/12/book-as-event/

Here's a book festival with something for everyone, and it's coming up this weekend. Aside from a two day slate of workshops, there's a wonderful Saturday luncheon at one of Naples' premier restaurants with the lively Nancy Cohen as keynote speaker, two days of workshops, pitch sessions with editors and literary agents and an evening street fair for attending authors. There's a mystery authors panel on Sunday morning, where we're talking about the nuts and bolts of the most popular genre in the nation, and I'd love to see you there.

Even if you can't make the conference, take the virtual tour through the website which offers tips, quips and suggestions to help you make the most of your writing career.

First Day of Spring

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 13:36:00 +0000

The otter slinks past my window, tail curled high, in a salute to the sky.

Southwest Florida Book Festival-- See You There!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 16:44:00 +0000

Southwest Florida Reading Festival Festival Authors

Got books? Posters? Name Badge? Reivew? Bookmarks? Tape? Oh, yes, do not forget, never forget a pen to sign copies with.

And so it goes, I'm getting ready once again for that grand book fair, the Southwest Florida Reading Festival, tomorrow, Saturday, March 18, Harborside Hall, downtown Fort Myers. I've taken a perch in the Marketplace. Do stop by and say hello where I'll be signing my suspense novels One Big Itch and The Don Juan Con--if I haven't sneaked off to hear one of my favorite authors giving a talk, that is.

Nelson DeMille and Linda Fairstein are headliners, this year a thriller writer and a mystery author, and as it happens the Gulf Coasting Magazine of the News-Press in Fort Myers thought to inquire of the lovely librarians who organize this event just how it is that they select the authors who are invited to speak. The lineup this year also includes J.A. Jance, Ridley Pearson Heather Graham, Mary Jane Clark, and our own Prudy Taylor Board.

Guess what? The Librarians look at their own checkout numbers and pick the most popular novelists available. So why is mystery at the top of the list? Because they are the most sought after books in the library, that's why.

One of the very great pleasures of a newly published author such as myself is to meet and chat with the most famous names in the business. I met Linda Fairstein a few years ago at SleuthFest in Fort Lauderdale, one of the greatest mystery writers' conferences in the nation. Fairstein is a mystery writer after my own heart. She laces her books with historical touches. One of my favorites is Entombed, about Edgar Allen Poe and the house he occupied along the Hudson River in upstate New York. "All these things intrigue me," Fairstein told Tropicalia: "I'm not interested in car chases and shootouts. I want to come away smarter. I like to learn something in the year it takes me to write a book."

Right on, Linda. Besides that, I have to confide what she whispered to me, when I first met her. "I'll buy your book she said. "I remember those days when I started out just how hard it was to sell my books."

The Caped Superintendent Myth Plagues Schools

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 13:15:00 +0000

How are we going to solve the education crisis? Just throw money at the next superintendent and this talented creature will create magic in the classroom. Since I happen to be a bi-coastal bird with one webbed foot in a southwest Florida metropolis and the other on a dinky village in the San Juan Islands of Washington, I see the same story over and over in school districts I happen to know about.

Whether a large district of a small one, our communities care about education, but too often school boards fall prey to the siren song of head-hunters who cheer them on, with expensive and disasterous results. A wealthy community in Collier County, Florida home to the extravagant community of Naples is a case in point, which I felt it was worthy of attention.

I'll venture to say that you, dear reader, have seen this very thing going on on in a community you know and love and so I offer this column, which appeared in the Fort Myers News-Press this morning as a cautionary tale.

http://www.news-press.com/article/20110310/OPINION/103100362/1015/Collier-schools-pay-big-superintendent-mistake

Goodwill - the new Saks?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 14:53:00 +0000

Recession-era reverse snobbery it may be, but these days it’s just fine, thank you, to brag about the new/old tank top you snagged at the consignment shop for $4.95. Even if you are heading out for a winter cruise, you may as well skip the trip to Macy’s or Saks, for resort wear, since the hot look from designers such as Tory Burch has been filched right out of the consignment-store aisles, or so it seems to me.

Take a look for yourself at:

http://www.toryburch.com/lookbook_resort2010_runway.aspx

Wonder is our need today, not information

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 23:11:00 +0000

So said Elia Kazan, actor director, playwright, and novelist. Kazan was famous for his visual daring, and so I would imagine he’d be blown away by the stellar performance of the moon, our most versatile celestial actor, pulling off a disciplined performance, a full, stately and slow lunar eclipse, the likes of which our world has not seen in some 350 years, and it happened in the wee hours Tuesday morning December 21, ushering in the winter solstice.

The best seating for the grand spectacle in our backyard was in the darkest corner, beneath the Australian pine tree, hidden away from glaring street lamps and the white reflections of Christmas decorations floating in the lake. We crept there with our chairs and passed the binoculars round and round and put out cell calls to interested parties and shot frame after frame of the action, much to the disgust of an anhinga whose single loud squawk surely meant, “down in front.”

As the silver moon turned the deep shade of an overripe tangerine, clearly visible to the naked eye, a deep orange blush, an expression of love from the world’s shyest guy.

The supporting cast was wonderful. The big dipper, usually so full of himself, lay prostrate, bowl overturned in a posture of complete and worshipful submission. Just offstage, Orion, the archer, served as a heavenly impresario saluting the moon’s greatest performance with a silent nod and a still wave of his arm.

Athlete Wannabe Dips Toe in Plasma Injection Pool

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 16:25:00 +0000

There I sat in a hospital bed staring at a syringe about a third full of a fizzy pink substance; in color and texture it looked like a raspberry snow cone. The syringe was a result of what I had given consent for my podiatrist to do: I was having my own enriched blood plasma platelets injected into my foot, a cutting edge medical technology.

“Isn’t this what famous athletes do?” I asked the nurse who was tucking a heated blanket around my icy feet.

“All sorts of athletes have it done for their injuries,” she replied. “Tiger Woods had it in his knee before his big tournaments this year. Pittsburgh Steelers Hines Ward and Troy Polamalu did it before the Steelers won the Super Bowl. It’s a treatment that speeds up the healing process.”

Blood plasma taken from my arm was spun in a centrifuge right there in the Gladiolus Surgery Center in Fort Myers, FL. The enhanced blood platelets were separated out and were to be re-injected into the wound site, in my case the incision where an arthritic bunion at the base of my toe was to about to be removed. The big toe would be realigned by means of a titanium screw. The payoff for me was the stabbing pains to my foot would stop.

The plasma injection marshals the body’s natural defenses in muscles and tendons where there’s not much of a natural blood supply to begin with. The platelets, which look like tiny sponges under a microscope, catalyze tissue growth. Though more research needs to be done on this procedure, the fact that my insurance covered the procedure was an indication to me that I might hope for positive results, even though there’s been an aura of scandal attached to this procedure in the world of professional sports.

The New York Times, Scientific American, and the scandal watch website, Steroid Nation have all reported on rich plasma injections (PCP).If an athlete has PCP done in to repair an injury, as Woods did before playing The Masters Tournament at Augusta Georgia, then the procedure is legit. If an athlete has it simply to boost performance, as various Olympic runners and Tour de France cyclists have been accused of doing, then it isn’t.

Where I was concerned, I figured that a side benefit of having a rich platelet procedure was bragging rights. I hoped it might enhance the status of a laggard writer among the star athletes of my extended family. A pencil pusher who does a few yoga stretches and leisurely walks with the Intrepeds, our ladies’ hiking group in Deer Harbor can’t be taken seriously in my end of the gene pool.

Brother Dennis Kincaid climbs the major peaks in North America to keep in shape. A summer or two ago he visited me on Orcas Island after summiting the 22,841-ft Aconcagua, ‘Sentinal of Stone’, in the Andes range of Argentina,highest peak in the Americas. I just had to keep up when Dennis did a Sunday stroll up the 1519-ft Turtleback Mountain on Orcas. Next day I collapsed while Brother Dearest put in eighteen miles or so on his mountain bike.

On the Williams’ side of the family tree, ‘Jamaica Bill’ Williams of LTU Pub in Negril is a disciplined runner who was training for a 13-mile marathon when I saw him a few weeks ago. His younger sister Christine Shaw in Boston has been a competitive gymnast her whole life. Chris is now involved in rigorous training so that she can be called upon to judge in the Olympic level competitions.

The height of my own athletic endeavors was a climb of Mt. Adams in south central Washington State, waaay more years ago than I care to admit. A Mt. Adams climb is a useful brag, however. The 12,281-foot Adams is closely aligned with its more lethal Cascades Range volcanoes, Hood and Rainier, which have a nasty habit of offing experienced climbers on a regular basis.

Mt.Adams has a gentle slope, a walkers’ hike, a very long, exhausting hike, and I was an under-trained last-minute substitute among several hundred serious hikers who made a mass climb of it, in the way the Japanese gather en mass to walk up Mt. Fuji. We awakened at midnight, summited at dawn, the miners’ helmets on our heads snaking up the mountain, a magnificent sight this was.

I’ll admit right now that I never would have summited at all but for the coaching of Everest class moutaineer and expedition photographer Steve Marts, hired by my editor to see that I got off Adams alive and lived to write about it for Cascades Magazine in Seattle. Marts refused photo credits for the assignment lest his serious climber pals laugh him out of the club. My editor, as I now recall, was the guy who bailed on the hike at the last minute; he didn’t dare leave me to fend for myself on Adams.

As for the plasma injection? I slept right through it. Having this procedure, while not exactly a piece of cake, is more of a strawberry snow cone number. However, my podiatrist insisted that his traditional treatment rules still apply. Stay off the foot for 72hours, apply ice, take pain meds if necessary, remain bandaged for four to six weeks, and hobble around in a rigid boot for at least three weeks.

One Bank Robber Jailed

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 15:30:00 +0000

Just why our Bank Robber was in jail by nightfall, I can't say for sure but the reverse 911 call to everyone with a land line in the area may have inspired the tip police got as to where he was hiding out.

Meanwhile the hard core News-Press followers were bitching about why the 911 call description was not more specific. "Facial hair" didn't cut it with them. I don't know what they wanted: moustache, Van Dyke?

However, since I'm new to the alerts, I have to say that just receiving a call was amazing in itself.

Here's a creative touch in policing

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 11:59:00 +0000

At 5:30 p.m. Wednesday the 911 dispatch for the Lee Co. FL sheriff's department notifies us in a recorded telephone call that a B of A bank has just been robbed. Be on the lookout for a white male, glasses, facial hair, striped sweater, 30ish, ball cap, etc. Though it was unlikely any but an idiotic robber would turn down our street, which is a dead end several miles away, I rushed out and notified what neighbors I could find.

This a.m. I thumbed through the "paper" paper (yes, I still love newsprint) but the story isn't in today's version, I did find it on the News-Press website and I'm high on the sheriff's department for such an innovative move.

Uncle Sam Wants You, Mr. & Mrs. Rich

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 15:39:00 +0000

In a pragmatic move that has offended many in his own party, President Obama has agreed to hold his nose and approve a measure that would ensure that the Bush tax cuts are to be extended for everyone for another two years, even to the group earning a quarter million a year and up. One would think these people could afford to pay a few taxes, since it is a fact that 70 percent of the wealth of this nation is concentrated in the hands of a mere ten percent of the population, and those making $250,000 and up are closely aligned with the richest three percent of the population who collectively control about forty percent of total wealth.

With the exception of Switzerland, no other industrialized nation on earth has a greater concentration of wealth in the hands of so few, or so says Professor William Domhoff in his exhaustive study, Who Rules America: Wealth, Income and Power. Domhoff’s website offers an exhaustive accounting of the wealth of our nation as compared with the rest of the world.

The richest people in America do collectively pull their weight where income tax is concerned, however. The top ten percent of Americans, about 1.2 million people, pay close to sixty percent of all federal taxes, while the bottom 50 percent of Americans pay around four percent. In the last decade, the upper tiers of middle class taxpayers have edged up in tax burdens, while the burden on the poor has been lightened.

From a practical standpoint, however, if you pass along a tax cut for the individuals who have been paying a chunk, then you raise the federal deficit, and it’s amazing that the Republicans who came into this latest congress, voted in on a platform of cutting the deficit, have now succeeded in raising it.

Republicans insist, however, that taxing the ultra wealthy is wrong. Wealthy people are the engineers of job creation, they insist, even though the evidence we do have suggests otherwise. In 2004, for example, where the economy was rocking along, overall income increased by 27 percent, although 33 percent of the increase went to the top one percent of the population.

When the economy crashed, by July 2009, the median wealth of the nation dropped by an astounding 37 percent, while the top one percent of households took a much smaller hit, about 11 percent.

In the battle to keep the economy from further deteriorating , the government gets two dollars back for every dollar passed along to the jobless, who must spend every dime just to keep going. The wealthy may choose to put their tax cut in a savings account. This is the mantra of the US Congressional Budget Office, which is said to be non-partisan.

Obama went along with the Republicans this time around because the tax cuts for wealthy are tied to the extension of unemployment benefits to the hard core jobless, and other measures designed to stimulate the economy, or at least prop it up. Obama is wily enough to realize that Republicans couldn’t very well hand tax cuts to the Sag Harbor set, while leaving some fifteen million people jobless in the Great Recession without a dollar to buy a doughnut.

Let’s not forget people were thrown out of work by the fiduciary recklessness of the Wall Street traders, over-leveraged hedge funds, and the lame brains in government—including those in elected offices, not the least Mr. Oracle at the Fed--who were supposed to be minding the economic store. Cut benefits to the jobless now, it’s revolution time. Suppose a few million jobless people start a march on Washington? On TV this would definitely not look good.

This tax cut extension will last for another two years, which I believe is enough time for the wealthy to prove their mettle. Rather than handing money carte blanche to the Gucci bags, tax cuts for the wealthy should be done in the form of tax credits contingent on the creation of a new business or by putting someone to work.

Extending tax benefits in the form of credits to the rich would create a statistically valid paper trail. That way voters could make rational decisions about the trickle down theory of wealth, which has its vehement detractors.

Let the wealthy have their tax cuts, so long as they prove they are spending them. Hiring is hiring, whether it’s money spent on an additional trainer for the horse farm, a captain for the yacht that’s been put in mothballs, or a personal trainer to work off the anxiety created when one’s hedge fund collapsed. Uncle Sam Needs You, Mr. & Mrs. Rich, to get out on the front lines and put America back to work.

What's Next for the Barefoot Bandi? Jailhouse Flip-flops

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 15:49:00 +0000

From the San Juan Islands here in the Pacific Northwest to the Bahamas in the Caribbean is a stretch, but the Barefoot Bandit had made the trip big-time, sticking to form. Steal a plane, crash land it, break into houses, hide in plain sight, island hop in stolen boats...But this time the word was out, the police in the Bahamas had word from the FBI and the local islanders recalled seeing him bathing in the bay...lurking in the woods...buying a gal a drink in a bar...When a 40 foot boat went missing the authorities on an adjoining island had a watch out, nabbing Colton as he attempted to dock his stolen boat around 3 a.m.
Meanwhile, this wily and capable bandit enjoyed his erstwhile fame as his victims found themselves basking in a perverse sort of glory. For instance, the a.p.photo flashed around the world this morning is from the Whole Foods Market in Eastsound WA, here on Orcas Island. Whole Foods baked the blueberry cheesecake Colton loved so much he robbed the market not once but three times.

Our Town Mayor Could Prove to Be a Real Dog

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 21:13:00 +0000

Orcas Island, WA—A hairy political battle for Mayor of Eastsound is being fought tooth and claw here in the San Juan Islands as candidates get in their final purrs and moos. Official voting wraps up tomorrow, following the Fourth of July Parade.

The ballot boxes around town are filling up. At the rate of $1 per vote, this is one political race where money talks. There are no bothersome residency restrictions to contend with and you may stuff the ballot box with as much cash as you want. Not one of these incorruptible candidates will ever make hay with the funds. One hundred percent of the proceeds go to a most worthy cause, the Children’s House School. Vote online at www.oich.org

From a political standpoint, the burning question is: will Eastsound go to the dogs once again? Retiring mayor Dakota, a gentle giant of a yellow lab, has put out a woof on it. The sleek black lab Clara, has a big campaign budget judging from her artful signage out on the streets. However, political pundits around the hamlet are saying that the ticket might be split among dog lovers due to the entry of the popular and well mannered border collie Lucky Lu, whose distinguished countenance and calm demeanor has graced many a previous Fourth of July Parade. Lu has it in her genes to round up the votes.

The cat people are behind Tractor. Insiders say Tractor is not nearly as ferocious as she looks; Tractor can be cute and playful, although, being a cat, she’s sure to run the town with an iron paw. Tractor is the true middle of the road candidate, her backers say, appealing to both Democats and Republifelines.

Not to be overlooked is the woolliest candidate in the race, Bossy, who is not nearly as sheepish as she appears. Bossy will give you the coat off her back and that is a fact say her defenders. Bossy’s generosity may well be what Eastsound needs. She’s the true candidate for these hard times and she’ll never pull the wool over her constituents’ eyes.

Then there’s April, a perennial favorite and also the most mature candidate in the race. For close to twenty years, April has been queen of a huge field overlooking Eastsound. April deserves the Mayor’s title because she’s the only contender who actually lives inside the city limits say the traditional voters. April is not only udderly incorruptible, but also will never milk the public. Vote April and the bull stops with her.

My feeling is, this race will remain an extremely close call unless it goes national, whereupon that huge political network might throw the race to April on the strength of her natural ability to process methane gas, which could be more cheaply turned into bio fuel than ethanol.. You know the organization I’m talking about: Mooove on.org. Haven’t decided whom to vote for? Neither have I. However, I’m not above trading favors and voting for critter in the race, so if you’d care to pick up one of my hot mystery novels at Booth 24 at the Orcas Historical Museum fair tomorrow between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. on the Eastsound Green, I’m not above trading favors.

The Barefoot Bandit Leaves Black Footprint Over Orcas

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 15 May 2010 16:15:00 +0000

Meet me at the Orcas Book Exchange, 274 A Street, Eastsound, WA from noon to whenever today, where, among other things, I’ll be signing my mystery novels and trying to solve a real mystery.

We’re taking tips as to the whereabouts of our local teen rebel outlaw, Colton Harris Moore, aka The Barefoot Bandit. This lanky 6’5” kid’s been stealing everything from eggs out from under hens to Cirrus airplanes, and leaving outsized footprints around as calling cards, so that I for one woke up the other morning viewing a very large black blot in the shadow on my ceiling, which organized itself into a footprint. This brat is invading my subconscious. This is ridiculous!

I recently arrived on island to find that my own neighborhood had been buzzed by a chopper, searched by tracking dogs and police, in a midnight raid for Moore. He made the mistake of breaking into a rental house right on Cayou Valley Road, whose owner lives across the street, and who happened to notice odd light coming from the residence. This mini shock and awe campaign yielded nothing but signs that Colton Moore had been in the house reading newspapers and eating popcorn by candlelight.

Shades of Vietnam, said the war vet in a letter to The Island’s Sounder. He’s now president of our owners’ association. While the flashing lights and barking dogs were entertaining, maybe it is overkill when we’re talking about an 18-year-old thief, and not some ax murderer, my neighbor said. What was needed, he said, was more comprehensive police work. This is not likely to happen however, since the recession has left the sheriff’s department seriously under-manned and under-funded.

Mostly the stories I’ve picked up since are in the LOL category: two kids who were trying to claim a reward for the bandit were said to have made a citizen’s arrest on two suspicious characters walking down North Beach Road in the wee hours of the night. These youngsters performed a citizen’s arrest on two armed federal agents. Could it really be true that the escaping bandit sprayed the deputy chasing him with bear spray? Is it possible that he was camping in the woods right behind the sheriff’s substation?

All we do know is that The Barefoot Bandit has a Face Book fan group some 30,000 strong, and various publications such as Outside and Rolling Stone have written up his exploits. The movie option has been sold. The Colton Moore tee shirt is available for sale online. ABC TV has interviewed the owner of The Homegrown market, who has been robbed by Colton not once but three times.

Where media attention goes, commerce follows. The blueberry cheesecake Colton ate at The Homegrown during the course of one of his robberies is now said to be the most popular cheesecake on the island. The family whose chicken coop Moore raided made a cast of the bandit’s footprint and sold it on E-Bay for a tidy sum, or so I have heard. Enterprising teens at Orcas High organized a high school business class project to sell tee shirts to raise money for victims of the Bandit’s crime. I’m sorry to say this venture raised an outcry on the island and was shut down.

The Outside article quotes Colton’s mom. She’s one proud lady, proud that Colton managed to fly expensive airplanes with no lessons but computer simulation and reading stolen flight manuals. Not to mention that said planes were crash landed, violated closed airspace, caused upwards of a half million dollars damage in at least one case, that sort of thing. Is it possible that Colton is acting out mama’s own delusions?

Moore’s the quintessential impoverished kid who fell through the cracks of the justice system, or at least slipped through the window of a halfway house where he was serving out a sentence for scores of petty crimes he committed on his home island, Comano, before moving on to Orcas, where he’s knocked over a bank ATM, repeatedly robbed a popular tavern of thousands of dollars, eluding police with a C.U. signature scrawled in his barefoot prints. Why the bare feet? I haven’t a clue, except Colton likes to get into buildings from the roof and maybe he climbs better in bare feet.

Mama Moore claims to be in touch with her son. In long conversations they share a fantasy that he’ll make it big and they’ll go off to the Bahamas or somewhere and live in the grand style. Yes, she might have been poor but she made sure Colton had all the right toys, she said. Right toys, wrong attitude. Where’s the mother’s plea to her son to turn himself in before he gets seriously hurt, if not killed?

Meanwhile, The Orcas Book Exchange is also overshadowed with a signature Barefoot Bandit footprint. Owner Don Yerly had no idea that Moore was scrambling over the top of the Main Street building Yerly was moving out of. The Bandit was a getaway run as Yearly worked below packing books prior to moving to his new location.

So what is the appeal of the Barefoot Bandit? I asked Don. Colton Harris Moore is no Robin Hood after all, he’s an outright thief, and an outsized one, enjoying his own self-aggrandizing pranks.

“The Barefoot Bandit opens up the possibility that a lower class guy with few opportunities can pull off large scale mischief and get away with it,” Yerly said. “It’s usually rich people with a lot of resources who pull off this sort of stuff,” Don said, and I believe Don has a point.

I believe The Barefoot Bandit is a Pacific Northwest homegrown version of the California celebrity wannabes who hung around with Paris Hilton and her jet set pals, followed their movements and then begin breaking into their homes and robbing them.

If you can’t be one of them, then you get even by taking their stuff and selling it so that you can live as well as they do. You are not then simply a wannabe, you’ve become an ought-to-be. Until you get caught, that is, and are retired to a jail cell, no longer a wannabe or an ought-to-be but simply forgotten, and has-been, which no doubt will be the fate of the Barefoot Bandit. Unfortunately, this is not likely to happen soon enough.

Prof Who Knows His Heat is Big on One Big Itch

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 13 May 2010 14:47:00 +0000

This is a very well written and entertaining murder mystery about a Hawaiian P.I. The “flavor” is spiced-up by the inclusion of the “Honolulu locals” perspective in the story line, colloquial language, and descriptions. You will feel like you live there – and not a tourist. Highly recommended!

Ralph L. Webb
Professor Emeritus, Penn State University
Website http://mne.psu.edu/webb

This Time the Dragon Wins

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 02 May 2010 18:08:00 +0000

As I munched on plates of fajitas with my friends the Minnesota Twins pitcher and his family who happen to staying next door, the talk, unaccountably, turned to dragons. Or maybe not so oddly at all, given a week that for me was filled with visions of a Komodo dragon in Florida—a literary nightmare.

A female Komodo dragon has made her debut on the New York Times bestseller list thanks to the recent publication of Deep Shadow by Florida novelist Randy Wayne White, starring the nerdy but resourceful marine biologist Doc Ford. Madame Komodo is accompanied in the story by a royal court of lesser monitor lizards, who at six feet or so, are startling enough, as I happen to know, having once encountered one in my own sedate Fort Myers backyard.

As I consumed more than my share of my neighbor’s wonderful fajitas, she recounted how she took her tots, ages 3 and 7, to see a very cute new DreamWorks release, “How to Train Your Dragon.” The following morning came a wire story in the Fort Myers News-Press announcing that a new monitor lizard has been identified, lurking in the canopy of the dense northern forest of the Philippine Island of Luzon.

I also happened to be working a weekend book event with my friend Sandy Lender, author of the amazing Choices Meant for Gods and Choices Meant for Kings fantasy novels where a scaly, bird-sized dragon by night turns princely lover by day. “Sometimes you just want the dragon to win,” is Sandy’s mantra of her work, and I believe Sandy has neatly pegged our passion for—and wariness of--assorted denizens of the reptile tribe. The dragons in our literature, not to mention those in our zoos and nature preserves, are at least as endearing to us as they are appalling.

On a Pacific crossing with my husband in our sailboat back in the mid-seventies, I once spent my watery weeks afloat in the deep ocean devouring In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents by the Belgian French naturalist Bernard Heuvelmans, father of the science of unknown creatures, which he dubbed ‘cryptozoology’. Heuvalmans’ compelling accounts of Komodo dragons, bizarre but documented sightings of strange creatures at sea, and the possible identity of the Loch Ness Monster, took on deep meaning; we’d had a very close encounter with a monster whale at the time, and so I very much empathized with Heuvalmans’ reasoned attempts to sort sea myths from reality. Consequently, once I realized Randy Wayne White’s novel starred put a Komodo dragon in a starring role, I lapped up his novel in a couple of all-night readathons.

Deep Shadow takes us beneath Florida’s fragile surface, honeycombed with underground rivers and unstable limestone caves. Doc Ford and his friends dive into a sinkhole of a central Florida lake in search of a plane gone missing in 1959. The B-26 in question is rumored to be loaded with Cuban gold. The lost plane is one of four cargo planes bearing the contents of the Cuban national treasury that ousted dictator Fulgencio Batista supposedly sent from Havana to Tampa, the better to finance his exile. Meanwhile Fidel Castro assumed the dictatorship of a bankrupt country. This might explain why Fidel, sans gold, has been left to dress in nothing but serviceable khakis to this day.

As for Doc Ford, the treasure hunt proves to be the least of his problems. His buddy and polar opposite the bud-addled Buddhist, Tomlinson, and a tough Native American teen with a cool head are trapped in an underwater dive accident when a limestone bridge collapses. This pair eventually claw their way to the underside of a fetid lair of a creature you definitely don’t want to meet in the dark—or the daylight for that matter, a Komodo dragon. The world’s largest lizard, known for halitosis of epic proportions and a lethal bite, is a holdover from the dinosaur era. The two desperate divers with empty air tanks take turns sucking in the stench of the Komodo’s nest, in no position to complain about air quality at that particular moment.

The Komodo dragon is named for the remote Indonesian island where its tribe thrives to the tune of some six thousand critters; all of Komodo is now a wildlife park. As White points out, a Komodo monster might well flourish in Florida’s lush and swampy countryside. Fortunately, outside the pages of White’s thriller, Floridians have yet to see a live Komodo in the wild.

We make do with such cheap thrills as a monster Burmese python some sixteen feet long, weighing in at some four hundred pounds, seized from its owner in the Central Florida city of Apopka after it got loose once too often. The town of Marathon, sprawled the length of a half dozen Florida Keys, has its own python patrol doing its best to keep down a burgeoning Burmese python population hailing from the Everglades to the north, where some 30,000 of this non-native species threatens the ecosystem, though the population may have been decimated due to the record breaking cold winter Florida suffered through.

Meanwhile, back in the menacing world of Deep Shadow, murderous characters of the human variety arrive at the dive site. As darkness falls, weird hissing noises arise. The high powered lights that the superbly equipped Ford has brought along paint a pack of carnivorous monitor lizards against a background of gnarly cypress trees. The monitors are stalking the humans, looking like “pit bulls with scales.” The eyes glittering in the dark send chills down the spines of all the two-legged observers, the good guys and the evil types alike. Not to mention the reader’s, I might add.

Monitor lizards in Florida are one of the non-native species turned loose in roadside ditches by pet owners or animal traders who perhaps tired of their feistiness, or maybe their feed bills. The monitors have multiplied, there’s no doubt about that. One such monitor that I met up close and personal was flashing his tail around our Fort Myers neighborhood last fall. Our cluster of condos situated on a narrow bridge of land between the Caloosahatchee River and a lake, is well stocked with various lap-sized pooches, which might, on a bad day, serve as a monitor’s appetizer. This is why our owners’ association sought a judicious way to get rid of him.

If you’ve ever watched a three inch gecko on the finial of a lampshade, warming himself by light bulb as I have, then blow him up a couple of dozen times, turn him as green as the lakeside cattails, that’s what our “Monty Monitor” looked like. In the peaceful daylight of a Florida morning, “Monty” appeared to be just about as menacing as a beanbag monster straight off the shelves of Toys R Us. Unfortunately, however, Monty was having a grand time flaunting condo rules. He refused to prance into the progressively larger traps set out for him.

One afternoon, an alarmed neighbor called, warning me that Monty was right outside my door. I found him lolling lakeside in broad daylight, as much at home as if he were paying the maintenance fees. A team of licensed hunters arrived in a pickup truck with the intent of moving Monty to a more suitable locale, which, I now realize, might well have been a sinkhole of a lake somewhere in Central Florida, the setting for Doc Ford’s encounter with Monty’s kin. Suppose Monty went wild and joined a pack of his ravenous cousins? By the light of our sunny morning, our Monty certainly didn’t resemble any pit bull with scales, but in the deep shadows of swampy darkness, who knows?

Monty’s thick skin warded off a tranquilizer dart that was supposed to have lulled him into submission. Monty became too agitated to let a snare loop his neck, whereupon the frustrated game handlers dispatched him with a round of shots from a light rifle, a twenty two caliber, if I recall correctly. The faces of my neighbors gathered to watch Monty’s roundup registered shock and dismay. All we wanted was our dragon to win—or at least to draw a new lease on life.

In Deep Shadow, the monitor lizard pack soon takes a backseat to a truly scary creature, a Komodo dragon, a monster of some thirteen feet that swims like a heat seeking missile, has the snaggle teeth of a shark, and a lethal bite. Madame Komodo was perhaps given her size by dint of literary license, but White is a careful researcher. Doc Ford knows that an Indonesian Komodo at ten feet is a large one; however, if I recall my Heuvelmans correctly, there is a biological rule of thumb that a given member of a species may be half again the size of its normal members and is classified as a monster.

Madam Komodo of White’s novel is a true monster, worthy of her adversaries—or at least of Doc Ford’s murderous enemies. Ford turns the Komodo’s ability to see infrared light into an asset, whereupon Madam Komodo becomes dragon turned defender, winning big time; or at least she gains a new lease on life.

As for that new Philippine dragon among us, it bears a royal sounding name: Northern Sierra Madre Forest Monitor Lizard. This six-foot black and gold lovely weighs in at about twenty two pounds. Sierra’s home at the top of the forest canopy explains how this elusive creature stayed out of the record books for so long; rumors of this new monitor’s existence swirled about in biological circles for at least a decade. Unlike the Komodo, and the common monitors such as Monty, Sierra happens to be a fruit eater. This beautiful creature is apt to show up as a cuddly beanbag on the shelves of Toys R Us, but, unlike Madam Komodo, is unlikely to star in a thriller anytime soon.

Ten Rules for Writing times Ten Fine Writers Equals...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 10:21:00 +0000

You cannot love your writing if stuck with the income tax. Get an accountant and get on with it. That's one of the rules. Oooops. The Tax Man Cometh; I'm struggling with those bloody numbers "write" now. Yes I have an accountant, but the accountant wants stuff organized. She gets hissy if you hand her a shoebox full of receipts. At any rate, this chorus of advice on writing from famous writers gathered by The Guardian, UK is a bracing tonic, I find. One writer here says never write on any computer that is connected to the internet. That's excellent advice.

Join professional writer's orgs, says another, which I also recommend, and frankly, I'm blogging this courtesy of NINC, a prestigious org for multi-published authors, in which I managed to wangle a membership on the strength of my relatively paltry production. Most of the members have around twenty or so books to their credit and they'll blog around for awhile about stuff like tipping and serving lemons, and then post something great, such as:

Want to be a writer? Read this:

http://tinyurl.com/ygzq42z

Massacre Bay Bill--Aloha to a Friend and a Reader for All Seasons

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:51:00 +0000

Massacre Bay Bill was a fine neighbor and friend of Bill’s and mine on Orcas, one of the American San Juan Islands. Just south of Vancouver B.C., home to the Winter Olympics now splashing the grandeur of the Pacific Northwest all over TV—that’s where the San Juans happen to be, and as it happens there are so many Bills in my life that M.B. Bill’s devoted companion Anne and I couldn’t keep all the Bills straight. We took to naming our various Bills for pieces of geography. “Massacre Bay Bill,” our neighbor, was one of the “Bill” trio. The others are my husband, “Cayou Valley Bill,” and his first born son, “Negril Bill” in Jamaica.

“Massacre Bay Bill,” who passed away Friday, was a very accomplished person, who at one point arrived in California fresh out of college with a couple of buddies. Forty years ago? Fifty? M. B.Bill was a contemporary guy. He kept up with the times, and so it never occurred to me to ask. At any rate M.B. Bill and his pals were so broke when they arrived in Los Angeles that they managed to scrape together enough spare change to buy a can of soup, so they flipped a coin to decide who would eat it. I never did find out who won the toss, and now, sadly, I never will. By the time I met M. B.Bill, he’d founded a thriving business and passed it along to his sons. He enjoyed many successful real estate ventures and had successfully conquered some demons of his own along the way. What I appreciated most about M. B. Bill was that he was never far from his next read. If M.B. Bill wasn’t watching a ball game or out fishing, he could be found in his study engrossed in another book.

I’m one of those writers who thrive on input from readers and M. B. Bill was a reader of eclectic tastes, whose opinion I valued. After I finished a draft of my third novel, One Big Itch, I passed it along to him. When he didn’t volunteer anything about it, I figured I was in trouble. I finally asked him what he thought. Then came that little grin, the small laugh, and the bald statement of the facts: “I got lost in it,” he said. “There were all these suspects and I couldn’t figure out whodunnit.” That was another thing I valued about Massacre Bay Bill. He never minced words.

Well, if you’ve outsmarted a reader as sophisticated as Massacre Bay Bill, you’ve lost most of your audience, or so I concluded. I changed the story, naming the suspect early on, leaving the proof of the case as the mystery to be resolved. Now that I’m whacking away at that thicket of images that somehow has to be shaped into novel number four, I’m at a loss. Where’s Massacre Bay Bill? What would he say? Aloha, to you Bill, I’m forever grateful for your help and I pray that on those rainy days in paradise you’ll find yourself yet another great read.

Capybera Jerky - Not here in time for the Super Bowl

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:05:00 +0000

News Flash: The Latin American nation of Bolivia plans to export capybara jerky to neighboring Venezuela, which considers the meat of the world’s largest rodent something of a delicacy.

Capybara jerky is a Bolivian export plan to find a sustainable income for indigenous communities in the country’s eastern lowlands. A group called the Friends of Nature Foundation is spearheading this project. The Friends believe that somewhere between 200 and 500 capybara can be harvested every year while maintaining a sustainable capybara herd, or tribe, or whatever you call a bunch of oversized rats, so don’t figure on finding this delicacy in the snack food section of Walmart in time for Super Bowl Sunday.

However, the story reminded me of one of the tales told to me by Kathleen
“Misti” Wilcox. Misti is one of my editors and also a friend of many years standing. I was delighted that Misti took over the cooking in our household for the summer while she helped me launch my third novel, One Big Itch.

Misti arrived at our summer home base in the San Juan Islands with a truckload of gear, including her private stash of exotic spices and kitchen paraphernalia. Soon Misti will be launch her food blog, She Drives with Knives, a blog that can’t happen soon enough as far as I am concerned. Misti is full of entertaining tales. She’s a gutsy world traveler and a fine cook and Misti happens to be the only person I know who has not only eaten capybara, but cooked one.

A mature capybara weights about 130 pounds, Misti tells me, and it resembles an enormous shaggy guinea pig. Misti, whose former husband was a project director of the World Wildlife Fund operations in Latin America, was once faced with inventing a capybara stew in order to feed a passel of hungry scientists who were working in the forbidding lowland country of Venezuela, Los Llanos, a vast rolling lowland which lies at the foothills of the Andes mountain range to the west, and is drained by the Orinoco river. In the dry season, daytime temperatures hover around 110 degrees. The whole territory has the desiccated smell of one vast bouillon cube Misti says, which strikes me as the type of metaphor only a committed chef would come up with.

The rugged llanero people, Venezuelan cowboys, also have canoes outside their huts, Misti said, which she thought was totally bizarre, until she found out that in the wet season Los Llanos floods, the primitive roads disappear in the deluge. Canoes and--not horses-become the main transportation.

As for the capybara, these huge rodents spend half of their time wallowing in ponds, where they also choose to do their mating dance, Misti said. It was for this reason that in the 16^th century, the Catholic Church ruled that the capybara is a fish, allowing capybara consumption during Lent. Possible starvation of the native population might well have had something to do with this timely decree.

How to cook a capybara? First you have to get rid of the fishy taste, Misti said. “I learned from one of the native women to rub the meat all over with lemon juice.” Misti then winged it by putting the meat into an enormous pot, filling that with liberal quantities of beer laced with every kind of spice she could find, ginger, mustard, and Chinese spices, and stewing it for hours.

What does capybara taste like?

“Not like chicken,” Misti said, laughing. “More like pork. White meat, but mostly capybara tastes like nothing else.”

Except beer?

Lost Things

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 22:46:00 +0000

They’d been on the ground in Atlanta for an hour when he realized he didn’t have his wallet. There was the mad rooting through their luggage, the dash down the long concourse, clear back to the plane they arrived on. Amazingly the plane they had arrived from Seattle on was still on the ground. There was the scramble to locate a stewardess to accompany them on board, and then the long trudge down the aisle of an empty plane. Ever notice how a big a plane is when you are the last one on it?

There was slide into the window seat at aisle 31 A. The reaching into the seat pocket, which turned up…nothing. Argggg. Embarrassed apologies to the stewardess. Then, a final feel around of the crevice of his seat. And? Success! Wallet found! Nightmare avoided. This time.

We’re fifteen minutes out of SFW. I’m driving, while reliving my son’s nightmare scenario. What a pain to lose a wallet: The lost I.D.? Can’t fly home without it? The ruination of a hard fought for and much needed Florida vacation?

“Not the first time you’ve done that,” I said. “Next time, all you have to do when you get off a plane is feel around for your wallet.” Cut off your tongue, Mama. Shut your mouth. Who are you to talk? Haven’t you been there and done that? Oh yes, which is why when I board a plane I count the bags I’ve got, and count them again every so often, then count them again before I get off.

As a way of commiserating I confess how I a cell phone once noty ten minutes from boarding a flight. I still can’t figure out how I did that. What is the body count on lost cell phones? I wonder. Where do airports put them? You can’t reuse a lost cell phone after all.

His fiancee giggles. I hope she never loses that endearing little laugh, so I entertain her with another tale from my vast store of lost stuff experiences: This hunky old SUV I’m driving? I’m down to one set of very expensive keys. The set that’s lost was the one that was supposed to stay in the car. Plan was, we’d use door keys to get in and out and the ignition keys would perpetually stay in the vehicle.

My son laughs. His fiancée laughs. At least they are not like Big Brother, who lost his wallet yet again last week. What a pain. Getting the I.D. all over again. New debit card and all that.

I thought about my own recent loss of this sort. I’d lost an car! Lost it in the parking lot at Publix. My ultimate humiliation came when a couple of my friends spied me me trudging around behind a grocery cart with what must have been a disoriented bag lady type expression on my face. After three trips through the parking lot I finally found this bus of a thing (this wasn’t some kiddie car I’d lost), faced toward the store, way I always park it, except it was one lane over from the one I routinely park in. The one I hadn’t searched because it was too far over. What was I thinking? What was I losing? My mind?

No, I refuse to believe that I am any more or less forgetful than I ever was. We lose things when our thoughts race through the ten things we should be doing right this minute instead of going to the grocery store. We have so much to lose all the time. Right now we are losing the senior generation in my family. Last year my mom. Then the letter arrived. The funeral CD and the program. We’ve lost my 104 year old aunt. I can still see my aunt’s serenely sweet face from when I was six and she drew my name in the family Christmas drawing and sent me a tea set the following March.

Yes, we lose track of time. We lose weight, if we are lucky and altitude if we are not.

The things we hate losing most: motivation, direction, interest, time.

And then there’s that one thing I pride myself on never losing: hope, which brings me to the end of this woeful tale. The lost keys from the SUV? Gone since the week we bought the car off a used car lot?

The morning after the nearly lost wallet fiasco, the keys to the SUV turned up. My husband dangled them from his fingers, then teased them away, pocketing them, when I reached out.

“Where did you find them?” I said.

“You never looked,” he sneered.

Oh, but I did. I combed the entire car for them, more than once. “Where were they?”

“In the crevice where you raise the back seat.” He pocketed this new treasure, the lost keys, claiming dominion over my car. “I’ll keep them, since you lose everything,”

I wanted to hoot but restrained myself. I’d lost the battle but not the war. My husband never loses anything. Except his tools. Has anyone seen a table saw? A square bottomed spade? The electric tester? A box of screws?