A Southern Missive

As you’ve noticed, on the sidebar is an cover icon of my new children’s book, Jim Limber Davis: A Black Orphan in the Confederate White House. It gives my page a new look. The icon for my Stories of the Confederate South is gone temporarily as printing makes transition from Booklocker to Pelican.  Red River Fever will remain with Booklocker, and soon I’ll have another nonfiction work with Booklocker.

The media is giving much attention to Obama in this upcoming presidential election. If elected, he would not be the first black American to be in the White House in a presidential family.  The first member of a presidential family in American, ironically lived in the Confederate White House, as a member of the Jefferson Davis family.  That is the story of my children’s book, the true story of Jim Limber, a free black orphann who was taken into the Davis family.  Yes, it’s true: Jefferson and Varina Davis even became his legal guardians. This is a story of an endearing act of kindness, a story that promotes racial harmony and family values.  It is a story that American needs to hear.

WRITING QUOTE OF THE DAY:  (From John Dufresne’s The Lie that Tells a Truth)

“One’s real life is often the life that one does not lead.”–Oscar Wilde

Last night, I watched We Were Soldiers, a 2002 film produced by Randall Wallace and starring Mel Gibson, Sam Eliot, and Madeleine Stowe, three of my favorite actors. I’ve long been a student of the Viet Nam War, I and own the movie and the book it was based on, We Were Soldiers Once . . . And Young.

There’s so many good lines in the movie, so many moving scenes. I especially like the song, “Sgt. MacKenzie,” written by Joseph Kilna MacKenzie. The song was written in memory of Joseph’s great-grandfather, Charles Stuart MacKenzie, a sergeant in the Seaforth Highlanders, and who fought in World War I. Wickipedia says “Sergeant MacKenzie was bayoneted to death at the age of 35, while defending one of his badly injured fellow soldiers in the hand-to-hand fighting of the trenches.”

You can find a good review of the movie written by a Viet Nam veteran here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0277434/ On this site, you can find tons of information about this first major battle of the Viet Nam War in the Ia Drang Valley in November of 1965: http://www.lzxray.com/

This morning, I did grandfather duty with my grandson, Mason Alexander Shelby. He’s two and a half, and so bright and so much fun. He calls me popi. The rest of the afternoon, I intend to work with my writing business (no shortage of work for sure) and then tonight, I’ll have a band practice. This Saturday night, Tom and I have a DJ gig, but other than that no appointments. I need to make plans to see my parents in Oklahoma soon. They live in a little town called Kemp, the setting of my novel, Red River Fever.

Today’s Writing Quote (from John Dufresne’s The Lie that Tells a Truth:

Jesus said, If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you—The Gospel According to Thomas

I’ve thought for a long time that our nation is on its way to becoming a dystopia due to our loss of freedoms and rights, and due to the mindsets and policies of our government officials. I strongly believe that all government officials should be required to read the great dystopian novels: 1984, Fahrenheit 451, A Brave New World, A Handmaid’s Tale, A Divided Kingdom, and Anthem–before they are allowed to run for office. I don’t know what books are on politicians’ reading lists these days, but I doubt that the classics of literature, and certainly the dystopian novels, are not on them.
I found a new presidential candidate who I really like: Donnie Kennedy. He will enter the GOP Primary with a pro-South, pro-liberty, and pro-Constitution platform.  Believing that the Federal government has too much power, that it is taxing us excessively, and that states have lost too many of their rights, he has a platform that makes sense.  Donnie is a prolific author. I have all of his books and I assure you that they are worth reading. Start with The South Was Right! I’ll have more to say about his books in future blog entries. You can read Kennedy’s bio, review his books, and read some of his  thought-provoking articles on his Web site: http://www.kennedytwins.com/default.php

You can find more about Donnie Kennedy’s presidential campaign here: http://electwdkennedy.com/2007/april/states_rights.php?SessID=30562

LITERARY QUOTATION FOR THE DAY:

I’ve always loved Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, both in written script and movie form. I admire all of Miller’s work, but this play is my favorite. His portrayal of John Proctor is so moving wonderful—indeed, a masterpiece. Anyone who has been the victim of a witch hunt can empathize with Proctor. There are many lines I like, but today I’ll enter this one from Act II. John Proctor says:

“I’ll tell you what’s walking Salem–vengeance is walking Salem.  We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!”