Wednesday, August 27, 2014

For My Readers' Enjoyment

The following is edited from a p---ing contest between myself and a Virginia South-basher in a comment thread following an online letter to the editor or something....
ME: Actually, it's the winners, the north, the union, who've been taking liberties with the truth since Appomattox Courthouse, santizing their complicity in slavery, sprinkling the perfume of phony righteousness on their "cause" (money). Why do you think Lincoln had to sell the war as "preserving the union" instead of freeing slaves? Because (1) the north generally didn't care about slaves and (2) it did care about keeping that slave-grown cotton flowing northward to enrich maritime interests who shipped it to Europe, and textile interest who worked it in their mills....

My Opponent (hereinafter referred to as MO): ... stop being dishonest. we did not "sell" the war as anything but the fight to preserve the union. Slavery was the cause of the Confederacy and the Confederacy alone. Sure our history, from 1619 on included Slavery. However, slavery was on the way out in the North and in in future territories it was not going to be established. However, the Founders of this nation did not fight to preserve slavery. The Union Army did not fight to preserve slavery. Again, that was the Confederacy alone. You cannot revise the words of Davis or Stephens or any of the other 'slavery forever' leaders of the Confederacy. Slavery was the "state's right" they demanded.

ME:  I'm not being dishonest. You would have to be omniscient to know that, and I don't believe you are. The north's complicity in slavery has indeed been sanitized and is still being sanitized. You're helping to do it. Certainly the founders fought to preserve slavery, because slavery existed in what they fought for. Do you mean they didn't SAY they were fighting to preserve slavery? That just means they were the ones being dishonest.

Slavery was "on the way out" in the north because abolishing it -- and selling off their slaves -- was necessary to rid those states of their black populations. Keeping slavery out of the territories was necessary to keep blacks out of the territories. It is an unpleasant truth for some to acknowledge today, but it is still truth. What underlay the "slavery" issue was race.

Everyone north and south knew slavery would end eventually. Southerners wanted to "expand" slavery into the territories to more evenly distribute the black population before the end of slavery. The north did not want blacks in the north or in the territories. A war was fought to keep blacks bottled up in the South. It was successful. That is why this map looks like it does to this day:


http://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/maps/img/black.jpg

MO: wow, you have the revisionist history down. The truth, not so much.
MO:  However, slavery was on the way out in the North and in in future territories it was not going to be established.
 

ME:  Slavery was "on the way out" in the north because abolishing it -- and selling off their slaves -- was necessary to rid those states of their black populations. Keeping slavery out of the territories was necessary to keep blacks out of the territories. It is an unpleasant truth for some to acknowledge today, but it is still truth. What underlay the "slavery" issue was race.

MO:  The nation was evolving as the South chose not to. The South was losing their economic supremacy, their free labor supremacy and their white supremacy as well as their power in the Congress and they came undone and blamed others for their problems, much like the revisionist Confederates do today.
 

ME:  The nation was evolving? LOL! The northeast has never evolved out of its love of money. Fighting a war to keep the north's cash cow (the South) in its possession during which slaves were incidentally freed doesn't absolve the north (and the US government) of its sins -- the Gilded Age, the Robber Barons, the official US government policy of genocide of the Plains Indians by starvation (by killing off their food supply, the buffalo), the imprisoning native Americans in concentration camps artfully called reservations in conditions worse than plantation slavery, the coal mine owners who lived like kings while miners and their families lived in conditions worse than plantation slavery; the northeast factory owners who lived like kings while CHILDREN worked in slave-like conditions in their factories...

Not to mention deliberately keeping the South in poverty for generations after the war by preventing economic growth (read this to see how it was done http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cescott/freight.html) Yes, it was policy of private industry, the railroads, but it was permitted by the feds, and realize this did not end until 1952, when I was three years old. And for those generations of grinding poverty after the war, poor Southerners, black and white (and most Southerners were poor) were plagued with nutritional deficiency diseases, pellagra, hookworm, that took a horrible, horrible toll... But I guess it served them right because their daddies and grandaddies fought to keep an ENTIRE RACE (spoken in high-pitched hysteria) in BONDAGE.

See, what you slave-o-centric folks don't realize, what you folks who wear slave-colored glasses either can't see, or refuse to see, is that whatever was happening with the political classes, north and South, whatever arguments they may have had about slavery, secession or the price of rice in China, what the average Joe in the South saw was a huge, brutal army armed to the teeth marching toward his town, his home, his family. And he fought to protect them. And THOSE are the Confederate I honor. You don't like it? Tough.

MO: ... rehashing the sins of others will not absolve the Confederacy of theirs. No sale.

ME:  Why, yes, it does. When the ones trashing the Confederacy are the ones with the sins I mentioned, it certainly does.

MO:   you do not "honor" anyone, you hide your anger, secesh and anti-government, anti-north, anti-Lincoln sentiments behind them. Well, I should say that you attempt to. I see right through you and your insults. Honoring the soldiers has never required your bile, revisionist history and dishonesty. Never.


ME: Oh, I have never denied there was more to it than honoring soldiers. You say "secesh" like it's a bad thing. LOL. I believe in the right of secession. You don't. I don't care.

Not anti-government, just anti-bad government.

Anti-north? Nope. Lots of good northerners. Anti northeast, money-grubbing, totalitarian yankees.

Anti-Lincoln? You bet.

MO:  according to the people leading the secession, yes slavery was the main driver. The "cornerstone". The north and south fought again together as the United States in almost no time. You just keep being dishonest and revising the history you do not want to admit. Slaves running from slavery went north. Black men fought for the Union. Former slaves helped bring the end of slavery. Of course racism remained but there was no actual "Jim Crow North", either. You believe your own hype clearly.


ME: It wasn't called "Jim Crow" in the north. It was called "black codes." Ever heard of sundown towns?

It's quite easy to for the north to tolerate its black populations when they are so tiny. Even so, most of the major urban race riots in modern times occurred outside the South.

You tell me why that census map looks like it does. Did you know the counties with the greatest black population in the Southern states today are exactly the same ones with the greatest slave populations before the war? If the north was so wonderful to the former slaves, why wasn't there a black stampede out of Dixie to the welcoming arms of the north?

Sprinkle that perfume, keep sanitizing the north. Keep trashing the South, which you claim to love. Ha.

MO:  you just keep on being dishonest. Clearly you cannot do otherwise. I have not "sanitized" anything or anyone. Claiming that the South could not "tolerate" so many free black people is not helping your case. The war was not over racism.

ME:  LOL!!! If you're not talking slavery, you're talking racism; and suddenly it's not about racism?

MO:  again for the slow, racism and bigotry is what allowed slavery to happen and flourish to the point that the Confederacy was willing to fight a war to keep it. They lost on both scores. The soldiers were honorable in their fight, as all soldiers are. You and your ilk, are not.

The Civil War was over slavery and the South's demand to keep it and their demand that the North accept that and continue to enable it. Their secession was not about the government being wrong, theirs was aligned much like the US already was. Their secession was not about them not having representation or a voice, they already had both, it was about them not being able to control the nation's choices anymore and refusing to accept the changes the evolution of humanity demanded. They wanted to keep their slaves, their caste system and their white supremacy domination of an entire race. There is no other story to it and the "state's right" they demanded was to keep slavery and have that respected.

Secession was rebellion. It was put down and it was adjudicated as unconstitutional. You people cannot let that go but it remains the truth.


ME:  The fact remains, regardless of the "sins" of the South, the north/union had NO moral authority for militarily invading the Southern states, and our Confederate ancestors were absolutely right to defend homes, families and communities and from a barbarous army.

The Southern states had the right to secede (http://youtu.be/7qfX0uXDktY); the self-righteous north, aside from not wanting to lose its cash cow, was simply enraged that anyone would wish to disassociate with them.

Secession is not rebellion. Secession was about slavery, among other things. The fighting, however, was because the north couldn't stand the idea of the South leaving. I guess they figured the northern states couldn't make it as a nation on their own... So, they fought a brutal war to bully the Southern states into the union.

The deliberate and punishing economic oppression and grinding poverty of the Southern states for FIVE GENERATIONS after the war illustrates the north's avaricious, venal, mercenary motives and proves they were not the righteous city on a hill you wish to believe in. You may want to believe slavery and secession are America's only sins. They are not. Not by a long shot.

A cold, hard look at the reality of northern sins makes slave holding look rather innocuous by comparison.
=========

And as a bonus, I include this marvelous observation by another commenter, with which I enthusiastically agree::
... my view of the South, along with the vast majority of its people, traces to the hard bitten, strong willed pioneers and small hold farmers - some of whom held slaves, but most did not - who carved a Christian civilization out of the wilderness and thicket from the Potomac to the Rio Grande in about 4 generations. They were heroes and they were better men than any today. They also had the backbone and fortitude to take on the might of the federal govt in defense of their liberty and right to self-rule.
 =========

My Opponent, btw, posts comments occasionally at Crossroads where, between self-righteous put-downs of the Virginia Flaggers and the SCV, she drones on and on about race, race, race, race, race....

Sunday, August 24, 2014

New Cover for Southern Man

Somebody advised me that I needed to emphasize the "relationship" aspects of my novel as opposed to the issues/corporate politics aspects. The current cover certainly evokes the corporate politics in the story. It was inspired by Michael Crichton's novel, Disclosure, which is also about a false accusation of sexual harassment, but that's about where the similarities between the stories begin and end.

But Southern Man is also very much a relationship novel. There is, of course, the primary relationship of the main character, Troy Stevenson, and his wife. But it also features his relationship with his children, his best friend, his secretary, his co-workers, his pastor, and other families at church.

I've had people tell me that the Crichton-inspired cover evoked not just corporate politics, but mystery and suspense. Since there is no mystery or suspense in the story, it's probably best to replace that cover.

I really like the new one. The models look enough like those I've used in promotions (memes, banner ads, videos, etc.,) that I won't have to re-do any of them. We'll see if those "relationship" readers like it better.


I'm  testing this cover on the ebook first. If it's a go, I'll change the print cover, as well.  The size and resolution of this photo needed for print costs considerably more than the small, screen-rez version, so a test is in order before forking over the moolah.

U.S. Journalist Is Executed by Beheading...

...by ISIS in Iraq.

Christians in Syria are being genoicided, including children being decapitated. Missiles rain down on Israel from "Palestinian" terrorists. Iraq is soaking in blood.

A parade in Orlando, Florida supports Hezbollah, a terrorist group.


And what do the Floggers and their wannabees get all bent out of shape over? Southern heritage supporters and the Confederate flag.

Kevin Levin sez....

There is a wall that I always hit when I read commentary by Ta-Nehisi Coates owing to my personal background and race. While I can relate to his preferred interpretation of Civil War memory on an intellectual level I am aware that his understanding comes from a very personal place and a sense of community that will always be foreign to me.
 Yet he imagines he can not only relate to, and understand, Southern whites, past and present -- and  their very personal place and sense of community -- but understands it well enough to pass judgment and condemn them ...  So much that he runs a blog that exists largely for passing judgment and condemning Southern whites over the civil war, and anything else he chooses.

Floggasms on Facebook

(and not even good ones)

Corey, using yet another fraudulent Facebook profile (George Bishop), started a group with the fraudulent name, Honoring Confederate Flags. He's gathered together a small handful of leftist loonies who get off on hating and slandering the Virginia Flaggers and Southern heritage folks in general, and feeding each other's hate.

Goat seems to be a big mover and shaker on the new page. He's still upset about somebody he thinks is a VaFlagger kicking his amp -- you know, the one he uses to crank up the volume on the filthy, obscene rap lyrics he blasts at visitors to the VMFA.

Like Brooks Simpson wandering around the desert going, "But what about Rob Walker? Rob Walker..." Goat wanders around the sidewalks of Richmond going, "But what about my amp? My amp...my amp...."

Corey recently had his fake profile George Bishop make him an admin of the group. Is that not hilarious? What's fun is to watch Corey's fake profiles have conversations with themselves.

The group's initial burst of hate for the VaFlaggers is still rocking along, although its starting to get stale. 

Goat posts some info from the VaFlaggers Facebook and asks:  "How do I join the Va Flaggers?" You can't. We need to be able to refute your ties with us once you break the law or the public finds out you are a white supremacist."

Of course, it's impossible for the Virginia Flaggers to refute ties to people they have never been "tied" to, so Goat's observation is pretty useless.

Then Corey says, So that would make the mother of Lilly Baumann a member of the Flagger since she has done many of these things...since there is no official "join" process?

Many of what things? There are only TWO mentioned in Goat's copy/paste: (1) Flagging (joining the Flaggers on  the sidwalk) (2) helping with email campaigns....  Now, I have seen no photos of the person in question  flagging the VMFA. Did she participate in any email campaigns? I don't know. I can almost guarantee Corey doesn't know either.

So he's lying. As usual. He'a a proven liar. A self-admitted liar, as I've shown before:

http://mybacksass.blogspot.com/2012/06/framed.html
http://mybacksass.blogspot.com/2012/06/news-flash-vic-hatcher-aint-vic-hatcher.html
http://mybacksass.blogspot.com/2012/06/victor-vic-hatcher-apologizes.html
http://mybacksass.blogspot.com/2013/11/how-liar-lies-part-deux.html

The photographic evidence I've seen indicates that the woman in question attended a couple of events that some of the VaFlaggers also attended. She went to those events with her boyfriend as a guest. Whether they were Flagger events or sponsored by other groups, her attendance didn't make her a VaFlagger.

Somewhere out there, there's a desperate woman, a mother in fear for her child's wellbeing. We may think what we will about the legality and wisdom of her flight, but only the most despicable, lowlife scum would use her to drum up hatred for innocent people just because they don't like them, or "disagree" with them about "history."

Later, in a different thread, Goat says, "I've said this before but not to anyone in this group, the Virginia Flaggers prefer to have no membership logs to avoid responsibility."

Really.  How does he know they have no membership log?

Corey the Liar adds, "Sure, and I doubt they have logs concerning the donations they get...no way to know how much taxes must be paid. They have openly stated that they are not a 501 3c or whatever that is supposed to be to be a charity."

What does it matter what he "doubts"? HIs doubts are shadows without substance. What matters is reality, and he doesn't know what that is. So, once again, all he's doing is attempting to stir up hate and trouble for the Virginia Flaggers.

And for what reason? What have they EVER done to him?

Nothing.

Saturday, August 16, 2014

New Floggerette Liar -- Goat Gatsby










Goat, get this through your head. No Virginia Flaggers are wanted for kidnapping -- or anything else.

Let me step you though it.

The child's mother disappeared with the little girl, and the authorities are calling it a kidnapping.

She is not a VaFlagger. She attended a couple of Flagger events.  But she is not a VaFlagger.

The mother's ex-boyfriend is a Virginia Flagger, but he didn't kidnap the little girl. He hasn't kidnapped anybody, and is not wanted for kidnapping. 
 
Let me say it again, so you have a better chance of grasping it.

The mother who disappeared with her little girl is not a Virginia Flagger.

The mother's ex-boyfriend is a Virginia Flagger, But he didn't kidnap the little girl.

Is that simple enough for you to understand? 

Baaaaabaaaabaaaa.


You owe the Virginia Flaggers a huge apology.












Friday, August 15, 2014

Nice Little Smooth Jazz Interlude

Cafe Reggio by Zachary Breaux.  Love the evocative opening chords...

Breaux died in Miami Beach in 1996 at age 36. He suffered a heart attack and drowned while trying to rescue a drowning man caught in a riptide. Can't help but wonder how much beautiful music the jazz world was deprived of by that tragic turn of events.

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Brooks D. Simpson, Liar

Let’s set aside the fact that all reports mention the connection of Lilly’s mother to the Virginia Flaggers. (Emphasis mine. ~ccw)  Brooks D. Simpson, dabbler and babbler extraordinaire...

Izzat right? All reports, huh? ALL OF 'EM?

Florida mom on the run after 'kidnapping 2-year-old daughter' http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2658193/Florida-mom-run-kidnapping-2-year-old-daughter-wouldnt-allowed-to-school-learn-black-history.html.
*No mention of the Virginia Flaggers.

Sunrise Police Searching For Missing Toddler  http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/259877731.html 
No mention of the Virginia Flaggers.

Have you seen this child? LILLY BAUMANN http://www.missingkids.com/poster/NCMC/1232607/1 
No mention of the Virginia Flaggers.

FL - Lilly Abigail Everett, 2, Sunrise, May 2014 - Parental Kidnapping http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?244233-FL-Lilly-Abigail-Everett-2.
No mention of the Virginia Flaggers.

LILLY (EVERETT) BAUMANN - 2 yo (2014)/ Suspect: Mother; Megan Everett - Sunrise FL http://www.justice4caylee.org/t21497-lilly-everett-baumann-2-yo-2014-suspect-mother-megan-everett-sunrise-fl#810546 
No mention of the Virginia Flaggers.

Sunrise police seek woman accused of kidnapping 2-year-old girl http://www.local10.com/news/sunrise-police-seek-woman-accused-of-kidnapping-2yearold-girl/26065276 
No mention of the Virginia Flaggers.

Lilly Abigail: Family Marks Two Months Since 2-Year-Old Was Kidnapped by Fugitive Mother http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2014/07/lilly_abigail_friends_and_family_mark_two_months_since_two-year-old_kidnapped_by_fugitive_mother.php 
No mention of the Virginia Flaggers.

Missing Persons: A Voice for Missing and Abducted People https://www.facebook.com/missingorabducted/posts/232877473573847 
No mention of the Virginia Flaggers.

Anti-Vaccine Mom Kidnaps Daughter To Avoid Immunizations, Black History http://www.inquisitr.com/1300550/anti-vaccine-mom-kidnaps-own-daughter/#IlQcDHwjWe8wll7y.99 
No mention of the Virginia Flaggers.

Wanted by the FBI -- LILLY ABIGAIL BAUMANN  http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/parent/megan-elizabeth-everett/lilly-abigail-baumann/view 
No mention of the Virginia Flaggers.

I guess he let a few slip past him....

(Note: The mention of the person she was romantically involved with, who is a member of the VaFlaggers, is not the same as mentioning the VaFlaggers.  He is an individual. They are a group. If the mom had been involved with a lawyer, nobody would seriously consider saying she was a member of the bar association, by virtue of the relationship. Nor would anybody seriously consider saying or implying that the lawyer, a single individual, WAS the bar association.

If the mother was "connected" to the VaFlaggers by virtue of her boyfriend being a VaFlagger, then she is connected to any and all organizations he's a member of, or connected with. A ludicrous claim.)


*These articles were the subject of a browser "find on page" search using the search term "flaggers." It did not show up in any of them.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Children As Weapons....

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says that in 2013, there were 462,567 entries for missing children under the age of 18 in the FBI's National Crime Information Center, also called NCIC. There are undoubtedly considerably more that were not reported.

Hundreds of thousands of missing kids in the USA.

Why is Brooks Simpson obsessively posting about ONLY ONE of them? Why is he basically ignoring the OTHER hundreds of thousands?

Because none of the others can be used for smearing, attacking, denigrating, harassing and bullying Susan Hathaway and the Virginia Flaggers.

THAT is his primary interest in Lilly Baumann. He doesn't care about the wellbeing of the child. He only cares about her as a weapon to use against the VaFlaggers.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

It's Not History, It's Flogger Ideology

I've said it before. I'll say it again. Brooks Simpson is not going to be happy until some Southern heritage people come to harm, especially the Virginia Flaggers and most especially Susan Hathaway.

He has been on a campaign to smear, harass, bully and intimidate Susan for over two years. He tried to smear her with the Rob Walker incident. He compared her to criminal gang bosses by claiming, "Susan Hathaway’s henchmen are doing her dirty work..." He has repeatedly brought up her employer  -- for what purpose?

He is so eaten up with hate, he complains about the COLOR OF HER CLOTHES. He's been carping about that for a year...
August 2013

~ "The pictures are not about the flags or the issues of Confederate heritage, but of the Flaggers having fun (or the numerous images of Susan Hathaway in her red top)." B. Simpson

July 2014

~ "In the summer Susan Hathaway finds that it’s too hot to wear her favorite red tops." B. Simpson

August 2014

~ "Susan Hathaway on red, Red, RED!" B. Simpson
Yes, hate can be incredibly petty.

But now he's on a rampage. He's trying to pin a kidnapping on her...or accessory to kidnapping, or, at the very least, withholding information about it. And he has repeatedly accused Susan and the VaFlaggers of not caring about the issue because they haven't plastered their Facebook pages and blog with it, the way Simpson has. (Of course, we know if they HAD, he would have taken his verbal bullwhip to them over THAT. They can't escape his harassment, because that is what he intends to do, no matter what.)

He cloaks his accusations in plausible-deniability language -- he just "hopes" Susan and the VaFlaggers are helping to find the little girl. He has been very careful not to directly and specifically accuse her of participating in either the kidnapping, helping to hide the missing child, or withholding information.

That's because he's as slick as a rotten banana peel when it comes to crafty language. He carefully chooses what he will accuse her of, to plant a seed in people's minds, and then hopes they will embellish the accusation for themselves.

Some have.  Some floggers and flogger followers have flat out accused the Virginia Flaggers of kidnapping.  Others have accused the Virginia Flaggers of withholding information from the authorities.

My question is -- do these accusers KNOW this?

If they do, why have they not come forward, notified the authorities and provided proof?

That they haven't done so means these are false accusations.

And what THAT means is that these false accusers don't care one bit about the missing child -- they only want to harm the Virginia Flaggers.  She is simply another instrument of flogging in their hands.

They are crafting their fraudulent and hurtful claims based on some pictures on the internet. If that's the basis for suspicion, there are quite a few suspicious characters in the photo section of the family's hysterical Facebook page.

I'll say it again. Brooks Simpson doesn't give a rat's rear end about the little girl. He cares only about smearing, harassing, bullying and ultimately bringing harm to Susan Hathaway and the Virginia Flaggers.

Why? Why is that? Why has he written 200 blog posts (and numerous comments on other flogs) over the past three years smearing, attacking, denigrating, harassing and bullying the Virginia Flaggers and Susan Hathaway?

The floggers are fond of saying that for we who honor our Confederate ancestors, "It's not history, it's heritage."  But as I've noted, with them, it's not history, either. It's hate. But that's only part of it. With the floggers, "It's not history, it's ideology."

For them, history must comport with  their leftist ideology; and leftist ideology demands, among other things, that the Confederacy and white Southerners, past and present, must be trashed and dehumanized as evil racists and "white supremacists." That's why Simpson can trash somebody and accuse them of something based on who they have a picture made with, but exempts himself from the same standard.

Leftist ideology doesn't care about truth, standards, facts, objectivity and fairness, reason, and common sense, morality and integrity.  It cares only about triumphing over the right and all it stands for -- tradition, religion, family, culture. Like the horrific murderous totalitarian regimes it spawned around the world in the 20th Century, it cares only about silencing its critics and wiping out its enemies.

Anyone who does not fall in line with leftist ideology must be ridiculed. And if they go so far as to openly disagree or criticize, or worse, defy leftism, they must become targets of smears, harassment, denigration and bullying. They must be destroyed.

That is why Brooks Simpson and his flogger buddies cannot shut up and post about history. That is why they have to mess into things that are none of their business, smear groups they're not members of, pass judgments they are totally unqualified to make, and attempt to bring harm to those who flout the ideology they worship.

To them, the Virginia Flaggers must be destroyed. The Flaggers must disappear from the Boulevard, from Lexington, from Facebook, from everywhere.  They must go home, shut up, become invisible. Their flags beside the Interstate must be removed and destroyed.  Groups cropping up elsewhere, inspired by the Virginia  Flaggers, must also be trashed, ridiculed, and ultimately destroyed, their members sinking into obscurity.

To recap, for the floggers, it's not about Confederate flags, it's not about history, it's not even about heritage. It's about ideology. It's about people whose religious beliefs and and organic connection to their culture stand in defiant opposition to liberalism, socialism and any other ism connected to leftist ideology. 

Leftists worship their ideology above all else; that is why it caused untold human suffering, violence and death -- murders in the hundreds of millions -- in the 20th Century... and why certain leftists will not be satisfied until their godforsaken ideology triumphs and good people are rendered mute and made to suffer.

Just a Reminder Redux

I am an admirer and supporter of Southern/Confederate heritage in general, and the Virginia Flaggers specifically. I am not a Virginia Flagger. I am not a spokesperson for the Virginia Flaggers. They send me content via email for me to format and upload to their blog. I do not write any of it.

They have made me an honorary VaFlagger due to my voluntarily maintenance of their blog -- and due to my defense of them, on my own blogs and elsewhere, from lies, malicious attacks, harassment, hatred and persecution by floggers and their followers, primarily Brooks D. Simpson.

Most of my information about the VaFlaggers comes from Facebook -- from their group and individual pages -- and other sources on the net.  On a very few occasions, I have contacted members of the VaFlaggers to verify facts or obtain information before writing about it and posting it. But I keep such contact to a minimum, as I am well aware that the demands on their time -- particularly Susan's -- are great, and I am reluctant to encroach on it. I have access to very little information that is not available to the general public.

My writings, which appear on my blogs and elsewhere, are my thoughts, for which I am solely responsible. They originate with me. Simpson's odious attempts to smear the VaFlaggers by attributing my beliefs and writings to them is, in my opinion, a clear (but unsurprising) breach of ethics.

Posted for those who prefer truth to lies, malicious attacks, harassment and persecution.  C.Ward

Saturday, August 9, 2014

I'm Absolutely Blown Away...

...by Hope Denney's review of Southern Man, published at her review site, Orchard Rest Writer's Loft.  Ms. Denney is a Southern writer as well as a great reviewer of Southern fiction, having published her first novel, Surrender at Orchard Rest, in February. Her affinity, both writing and reviewing, is 19th century Southern Gothic novels, so I am especially pleased that she chose to review my late 20th Century historical.

The whole review was great, but here are a few snippets that especially brought a smile to my face:
Ms. Chastain excels at penning a smoothly flowing, polished prose that is years ahead of first novel status.

 Despite this novel having a large cast of characters once you add in the cast of Troy’s workplace, I got to know each character well. They were powerfully and beautifully sketched.
Troy’s ... lingering guilt over a teen-aged drinking episode was exceptionally well done and poignant).
Ms. Chastain sketches a Christian but passionate marriage with all the prowess of an armchair psychologist.
Troy Stevenson is a well-crafted Southern hero that I believe encompasses the contemporary Southern man ... much better than any that I have read of late.
Needless to say, I am much obliged to Ms. Denney for not only penning a fantastic review, but tweeting links and helping to make my novel a bit more visible in the crowded and chaotic world of book promotion.

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Is Brooks Simpson Anti-semitic? Homophobic? Anti-Italian?

After all, he DID have his picture made with Spike Lee. And his own standard, implied numerous times on his blog, is that if you have your picture made with somebody, that means you believe exactly what that person believes, you embrace what they embrace.

Spike Lee....

Anti-Italian
http://www.nj.com/suburbannews/index.ssf/2013/01/italian-american_group_inducts.html
  • “the most anti-Italian director of all time,” has a “notorious track record of vile and negative portrayals of Italian Americans” in his films.
Homophobic
http://newsone.com/2274769/spike-lee-school-daze-homophobia/
  • Lee ... proceeds to make statements filled to the brim with homoanxiety...
Anti-semitic
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1990-08-29/news/9003120922_1_stereotypes-with-sharks-smiles-white-filmmakers-mo-better-blues
  • Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, says the Flatbush brothers ``dredge up an age-old and highly dangerous form of anti-Semitic stereotyping.``

What one sends around, comes back around....