Criminal Cats? Unbelievable!

Dark Things II: Cat Crimes
Edited by Patty G. Henderson
Savage Tiki Digi Books, Dec. 2011
ISBN 9781468055481
trade paperback, 243 pages
also available in E-book format

First things first. Yes, it’s true that I wrote one of the short stories selected for this collection of criminal capers involving cats. My story, Diamonds Aren’t Forever, is a piece I’m proud of and truly enjoyed writing.

But it’s also true that I have no close association with either the editor or the other writers who donated their stories to Dark Things II: Cat Crimes. I’m reviewing this book for two reasons only. First, because all proceeds from the sale of this book will go to support feline rescue and support facilities in California and Florida. And secondly, because I’ve read every story in the book, and I’m truly impressed with the quality of the work Patty chose for inclusion in the anthology.

Let me give you a brief sample of the tales so lovingly penned by the twenty-one contributors.

Jim Silvestri’s Eating Cleopatra features a young man who must compete with a bird and a cat for his mother’s love. All poor Chauncey wants is a little attention from dear old mum, but is he willing to go to any lengths to get it? Read the story and find out.

In Nat Burns’ Hisss, Darla is convinced that a dream about snakes shape-shifting into cats is not just a nighttime fantasy, but a true evolutionary explanation for the existence of felines. No one believes Darla—except her cats.

Dogs may enjoy the feel of a good brush down, but cats look on grooming by a human as sheer torture. In Room Service, by Patty G. Henderson, we learn how an angry Angora takes her revenge when a groomer’s shears leave her looking like a shaved poodle.

J. S. Watts’ Cats and Bags tells the story of a sympathetic feline whose beloved mistress suffers a sudden and severe decline in her health. Is a swift mercy killing preferable to an agonizing natural death? Only the cat knows.

Baby Lamb is an unusual cat. She won’t eat store-bought food, preferring to hunt for her dinner in the great outdoors. The weird thing is, when she catches a mouse or a pigeon, she never eats the flesh. Is it simply a coincidence that her former master once investigated the grave of Vlad the Impaler, the model for the fictional Count Dracula? You’ll have to read Anna Sykora’s Baby Lamb to find out.

Have you ever watched a cat play with his image in a mirror? In Edward DeGeorge’s The Other Cat, Skeeter the tabby undergoes a life-changing experience when he discovers another cat lurking behind a glass ‘window’ in his house. He can’t get at the intruder, and this irritates him no end—until the day the other cat passes through the window, causing all hell to break loose in Skeeter’s domain.

Last but not least, my own tale, Diamonds Aren’t Forever, features a trio of feline thieves who must compete with four robbers of the two-legged variety when they attempt to steal the famed Duchess Diamond of Baldagovia from a local city museum. Can Eddie G. and his trusty friends outwit a couple of behind-the-scenes manipulators, two not-so-trusty museum guards, and a doped-up Doberman Pinscher to save The Boss from the feared Axe Man? Given the plates of fresh catnip waiting as their reward, they’re sure going to try!

These are just a few of the tales recorded in Dark Things II: Cat Crimes. If you love cats, you’ll enjoy not only them, but also the other offerings this anthology of odd, funny, scary, and/or off-beat stories.

If, on the other hand, you hate cats, you’ll still enjoy this book: it will definitely confirm all your beliefs about conniving cats and their criminal natures.

And if you don’t care about cats one way or the other, buy this book for someone who does. I guarantee they’ll thank you for it.

And so will our furry little friends in California and Florida.


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It snowed here in Chicago last week. Snow was falling when I woke up Thursday morning, and it didn't end until late Friday afternoon. We wound up with five inches of the white stuff, and were only saved from more because the ground was still warm due to the fifty-degree weather preceding the storm. Still, it made for some shoveling, and that I didn't mind. Shoveling gave me an excuse to abandon the dining room where I was struggling through the annual chore of sorting through bills, receipts, and records needed for filing our income tax.

(It also gave me that righteous feeling of burning off some calories, something much needed considering my post-holiday scale numbers.)

Thankfully, my husband does the major work on our taxes. My job consists of putting the records for my two C-Schedule forms into some kind of recognizable order, 'recognizable' meaning our accountant won't tear her hair out when she sees them.

You see, I have a bad habit of tossing everything into a folder in the file cabinet with the promise that "I'll get to it next week." Like tax procrastinators everywhere, "next week" usually means somewhere around April 10th.

This year, though, I decided to mend my evil ways. With my latest writing project finished and off to be formatted, I dug into my tax folder early. Good thing I did. It seems I'd misplaced the pamphlet from the Illinois Tollway Authority on which I'd scrawled the user name and password I use for their website. Without that, I had no way of downloading my toll records for the year. That might not seem a big deal if you don't use your car for business, but as a writer, I travel a lot, and those tolls add up quickly.

If you're reading this and you write on an active basis with profit as your goal, do you use Schedule C to report your income and losses? If you don't, you're liable to run into problems with the IRS. Royalties, advances, and any other profits from the sale of your books -- private sales at book fairs, presentations, libraries, or other customer events -- must be recorded on a Schedule C. Business expenses such as mileage and tolls to and from book events, lodging costs for conferences at which you're speaking, and ordinary business expenses connected to your writing -- office supplies, editing fees, advertising and marketing costs -- are deductible on a Schedule C form, as is depreciation of home office equipment such as your computer.

Whatever you do, don't be tempted to avoid paying the self-employment tax by reporting book profits -- royalties or other payments -- as "Other Income" on a Schedule A form. The IRS may treat your writing as a hobby rather than a business and may even audit your past tax returns, leaving you in a whole heap of trouble.

My best advice to serious writers is, get yourself a good accountant who understands publishing and the tax laws related to it.

And don't be like me and put off your tax chores until the last possible moment. I was lucky and eventually found my ITA pamphlet tucked in with the 2008 tax forms. How it got there I'll never know, but it sure came in handy for recording my 2011 toll payments. If I'd waited until April to look for it, I'd have been scrambling to get done by the 15th.

Then I really would have been snowed under! :)

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Books, Books, Books!

I have two new book reviews for you today, the first one written by yours truly and the second one written by Carl Brookins. Before I get to them, though, I have some good news to share. DARK THINGS II: CAT CRIMES will be released later this year in time for holiday gift giving. Published in both print and eBook format, this anthology features short stories in which cats play a major role in some pretty unusual crimes. I'm thrilled to report that my short story, "Diamonds Aren't Forever", will be included in the anthology. I don't want to give away the plot of my story yet, but stayed tuned because I'll be putting more information about the book and the charity it will benefit in my November blogs.

And now...on to the reviews!

Dear Priscilla
Mark Schweizer
Faintinggoat Press, 2011
ISBN 9780984484614
316 pages, $23.95


Mark Schweizer is best known for his nine Liturgical Mysteries, humorous tales of murder and mayhem set in the fictional town of St. Germaine, North Carolina (The Tenor Wore Tapshoes, The Alto Wore Tweed, etc.). With Dear Priscilla, Mr. Schweizer begins a new series set in 1943 Chicago that features Detective Merl Cahill, former Chicago Bears lineman turned policeman, and his bookie cop partner, Fish Biederman.

As the book's jacket so succinctly puts it, "Chicago in 1943 is a very lucrative place to be" if you're a cop. Crooks like Larry the Dip visit Cahill's Maxwell Street police station every Monday to deposit the squad's share of their weekly take. Guys like the Nowak brothers are just as helpful. Little Eddie is Fish's muscle man, brilliant at convincing people to pay up when they've lost a bet. Big Eddie is...well, 'really big!' says it all. And Just Plain Eddie, while neither big nor little, is the meanest of the three brothers. Just Plain Eddie is the man to go to when a cop needs a drop gun that can never be traced back to him. Last but not least, there are the merchants of Maxwell Street, a mile-long outdoor market where anything can be bought or sold. They're happy to service the police with everything from cut-rate overcoats to whispered-in-the-ear information.

All these sources come in handy when Merl and Fish investigate the murder of a young woman found beheaded in an Army duffle bag behind a Maxwell Street grocery store. Lacking the modern conveniences of today's police force, the two must trust their brains to decipher the few clues left at the scene of the crime. Their big break comes when The Chicago Times receives a letter from the killer addressed to "Dear Priscilla", the newspaper's lonely hearts columnist. When the woman who writes as Priscilla quits because she thinks the killer is targeting her, Merl is persuaded to take on the column as a side job. His rationale is simple: not only does The Times pay him more than the police department, but the job also allows him to keep in touch with the killer. This latter fact becomes even more important when the man strikes again.

Schweizer has a sure-fire winner in Dear Priscilla. Not only is the plot strong, but the characters are also some of the most entertaining to come along recently. Merl is more or less an easy going sort of guy, an ex-football player who left the game due to an injury and is now living on a limited income. He believes he might be engaged to a young woman he only sees on occasion (he didn't really propose, but he thinks she thinks they're engaged), but he's attracted to the first female cop ever promoted to the detective division. Merl is definitely not up to speed in the romance department, but it's fun watching the fireworks fly between him and the lady cop.

And then there's Fish, a complicated character if you ever met one. Addicted to yellow silk jackets, Fish sings tenor on Fridays at his synagogue and Danny Boy on other days at police funerals. His voice is outstanding, but his knowledge of the street and how to profit from it surpasses even his singing. He'll take a bet from anyone on anything; he pays off gracefully when he loses (which isn't often), and collects ruthlessly when he wins. Fish never falls for a hard luck story, but he's generous with his friends, especially Merl.

The other characters in this mystery are equally well drawn, and the dialogue fits both them and the era in which the story takes place. You don't have to be a Chicagoan to enjoy Schweizer's knowledge of the city and it's past. Schweizer describes places in Chicago with such accuracy that readers will almost smell the hogs in the Union Stockyard and taste the hotdogs once sold from carts at the now gone Maxwell Street market.

I've appreciated Schweizer's abilities as a writer ever since being introduced to his clever Liturgical Mysteries. His move to historical mysteries surprised me, but not as much as the ending of this book did. A bit of a shocker, it left me eagerly looking forward to the next offering in the Merl and Fish series.

Viper
by John Desjarlais
978-1933184-80-7
2011 trade paper release
from Sophia Institute Press
238 pages.

Set in rural Illinois, the novel follows disgraced DEA agent Selena De La Cruz as she tries to re-order her life into some semblance of normality after a drug raid gone bad results in a tragic aftermath. Leaving that life turns out to be more than just difficult. It is impossible. And so Selena leaves her insurance company and re-enters the dangerous world of undercover drug enforcement among a Latino population that is turbulent, ever-changing, and marked with friends who become enemies and family members short on understanding.

The author cleverly establishes Selena as an independent, capable woman beset on all sides by the chauvinism of her bosses and the cultural disapproval of her family. Good Latina women do not carry guns and arrest drug dealers. There is an invasive Latin Catholic presence throughout the book. The basic theme of the story is a list of names entered into a church’s Book of the Dead, requesting prayers for their souls. The problem is that the people represented are still alive as the book opens. But one by one they are murdered. Since Selena’s name is last on the list, she has more than usual reason to be concerned. Her interaction with law enforcement and Church officials becomes more and more intense as the list is shortened, one by one.

The novel is smoothly written, logical and mostly gripping. There are several sections of Aztec and other religious history and legends used by the author to explain some of the ritual Selena encounters which, while interesting in themselves, have a tendency to slow the narrative. Nevertheless, Viper is a worthwhile read, blending religious mystery with brutal modern crime.

Carl Brookins www.carlbrookins.com http://agora2.blogspot.com
Case of the Great Train Robbery, Reunion, Red Sky

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Computer Frustration: How Not to Have a Good Day

Have you ever been so frustrated with your computer that you wanted to drop kick it right out the window? Happened to me last week, and this with a new, up-to-date, can-do-anything computer recently bought to replace my four-year-old dying one. this new one has Windows 7, so of course I have to relearn practically everything I thought I knew how to do. Grrr! But okay, I accept the fact that computer gurus love to 'simplify' things by making them more complicated. That's just a fact of life. Still, I didn't expect those complications would affect my ability to use the Internet.

Silly me.

Two weeks after installing the new computer, I began to have trouble connecting to the Internet. Didn't matter if it was morning, noon, or night, sometimes I connected immediately and sometimes I got that "Access Denied" message. Then I noticed that the green light on the modem wasn't lighting up, nor was the little world doodad on my router blinking as it did in the past. 'Ah ha!' I thought. Obviously something was wrong with my hook-up to AT&T.

After checking all my line connections and finding everything in order, I called AT&T for help. Of course, the first thing I got was an automated voice that informed me it would perform some tests on my line. After a minute or so of beep-beep-beep-beep, the voice informed me that everything was fine with my line and I should hang up and check my home connections, then turn off the computer, reboot it, and call back within 24 hours if that didn't solve the problem.

That's like a doctor saying, "Take two aspirin and call me in the morning." But I did as I was told, and guess what? Still no connection to the Internet. Rather than wait 24 hours, I called back immediately. Another pleasant but automated voice told me it would perform more testing. Again I was subjected to a series of beeps before the voice returned to inform me that I was being connected to a AT&T technician who would help solve my problem.

And yeah, you guessed right, I was connected to a gentleman in India who advised me to pull up Internet Explorer and put some numbers in the URL bar. I told him I couldn't get IE because I couldn't connect to the Internet. He said, "Try anyway." So I did, and I got an IE page saying "Access Denied" because I wasn't connected to the Internet. The technician dismissed this bit of news and insisted I enter the series of numbers he'd given me. Due to a slight language barrier problem, I had to ask him three times to repeat the numbers. When I finally had them straight, I hit the "Enter" button as requested, and of course got nothing since I WASN'T CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET.

At this point the technician made a fatal mistake.

He asked if he could speak with my husband.

I won't bother repeating my reply here since you've probably already guessed what I said to the man. Suffice it to say, he backed off pretty quickly. He then asked if I had a router, and when I said yes and gave him the router info -- name, serial number, etc -- he seemed very pleased. He told me he could solve my problem. I would just have to disconnect the router and he would hook me up to AT&T via my main computer. I would, of course, have to leave the router disconnected, meaning I'd have no Internet access on my laptop. Nor would my daughter have access on her laptop, the computer she uses for her college masters degree program.

Of course that was unacceptable, which I told the technician. Couldn't he hook me up to AT&T and then get it to work through the router, I asked? No, he said. He was sorry, but he hadn't been trained to do that.

At this point I exploded. Surprisingly, I didn't swear, but I did tell the man exactly what I thought of AT&T and their service technicians. I then hung up. I waited one day, then called AT&T again and got another automated voice. Once again we went through the beep-beep-beep of testing, then the voice kindly told me I had a connectivity problem. After banging my head on the wall a few times, I hung up and waited for my daughter to get home from school (she's a teacher) so she could call her boyfriend, a young man possessed of considerable computer savvy. He had originally installed the router, so I figured he'd know what to do.

And he did. It took him less than 5 minutes to find the problem: when we installed the new computer, we failed to link the Internet connection to the hard drive through the computer's program listing, so it had been giving us Internet access through wi-fi instead of through the phone line. Sometimes we got wi-fi, sometimes we didn't. (At least, that's what I think he said. His explanation was way over my head.)

Anyway, we are all now online all the time and happy to be so. As for AT&T, maybe they'd like to hire people who know what they're doing.

How about you? Happy with your service provider, or frustrated like I was?

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Review of REUNION by Carl Brookins

REUNION
by Carl Brookins
Trade paperback, 8/31/11
Echelon Press, 268 pages
ISBN 9781590806685

Jack Marston's past includes a stint in the Navy as a NCIS investigator. Now living a more sedate life as the director of student services at City College in Minneapolis, Jack has no idea his former occupation will prove useful when he accompanies the woman he loves to her twentieth-year high school reunion in the Minnesota farming community of Riverview. But he soon learns that psychologist Lori Jacobs' hometown in no way resembles the idyllic rural locale he imagined. Deeply held secrets dominate life in this pastoral setting of white-painted farmhouses and lush fields of wheat. Backbiting gossip, sly innuendo, and downright hostility mark the opening festivities of the class of '89's reunion. Unsettling as they may be for Jack, these activities pale in comparison to the gruesome murder of one of Lori's classmates outside Georgiana's 40-Mile Club.

Elroy Guteman's death puts a damper on, but doesn't stop, the weekend celebration. While Sheriff Arnason investigates the crime, the remaining members of Lori's class continue their scheduled activities in and around town. Then another former graduate winds up dead, and Arnason enlists Jack as a second pair of eyes and ears within the reunion group. What Jack observes is often confusing to him, but having grown up in Riverview, Lori is able to supply answers for most of his questions. Some of those answers exact a toll on Lori; resurrecting old memories requires her to face long denied demons from her early life.

Working as a team, the pair gradually pieces together a stunning puzzle that links underhanded deals and long forgotten deaths not only with people from Lori's past, but also with present residents of Riverview. But obtaining final justice isn't easy for Jack and Lori. Death and danger dog their every footstep as they pursue truth in a town dedicated to preserving easy lies.

Carl Brookins presents readers with a complicated but logically constructed story in REUNION. Jack and Lori are fabulous characters with strong personalities that mesh nicely even under stress. Other characters are equally believable and well described, as is the rural setting of Riverview. The author displays a keen awareness of life in small communities, where relationships between neighbors are generally close, and gossip and secrecy often distort the truth of a situation. This awareness is complimented by Brookins' understanding of rural economic conditions where farmers are held hostage to both the weather and the whims of the futures market. By introducing a third complication into this mix -- namely the mortgage-and-loan business -- Brookins successfully engages readers in not one, but two distinct mysteries within a single story. The plot moves along at a nice pace and is complimented by dialogue that is natural and flows smoothly. I greatly enjoyed this book. My only criticism of it concerns the number of characters with similar sounding names. With a cast as large as the one in REUNION, it was easy at times to confuse one minor character with another when their names sounded so alike.

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Book Reviews by Carl Brookins

What would Monday be without some great book reviews by Carl Brookins? Without further ado...


Where Danger Hides
By Terry Odell
ISBN 978-1-43282-512-6
Five Star Mystery from Gale
May, 2011

The novel is a suspenseful thriller with a healthy dose of romance. Or maybe it’s a romantic thriller with a good deal of suspense that keeps this moving at a sometimes alarming pace. “Where Danger Hides” is both, and it’s also a fantasy in particular in the way and the speed with which the two principal characters are drawn together.

Miri Chambers is the caretaker and overseerer of a San Francisco shelter primarily for abused women. Galoway House also manages to shelter and care for a number of children and men, as well. There’s a lot more to Miri Chambers. She is adept at disguise, light-fingered, and as prickly as one can get. Two wrong words and she is liable to go off like a rocket. That propensity for shoot-from-the-hip judgments and attitude may also be the reason for her nearly unbelieveable hormonal response to the hunk she meets on a clandestine foray into the home office of a wealthy art patron.

Her reaction to “just” Dalton isn’t much different from his. He works for a private security firm that has a large well-funded and mostly covert group of operatives working well outside the usual legal limits. Dalton, one of Blackthorn’s elite black ops operatives, has an appreciated eye for female anatomy wherever he finds it, including hiding under the desk of the aforementioned wealthy San Francisco Art patron.

Dalton and Miri Chambers are all fire and sparks and hot sex throughout this rollicking novel. The author has created a pair of characters who could each carry the novel solo, but when you pair them, look out.

The action carries Dalton and Chambers from posh and elegant settings to gritty exceedingly dangerous operations. Readers are not likely to predict each succeeding move. One is required to suspend disbelief and recognize from the outset that explicit play, both sexual and with firearms, is integral to the story. Nevertheless, the plot is carefully and fully laid out, the dialogue is mostly logical, and the tension carries well through the entire book. Gritty, tender, frustrating by turns, I did feel that there were times when both characters exhibited too obtuse attitudes and were slower on the uptake than they should have been, given their life experiences.

Nevertheless, this is a fun read that makes several important points along the way.


Danger In Deer Ridge
by Terry Odell
e-book available at all the usual retailers.
released in 2011

All right, so there’s a big fat coincidence at the beginning of the novel. These things happen in real life so why not in crime fiction? The coincidence does not, however, make things easier at the beginning for Elizabeth Parker. Even late into the novel the woman has understandable trust issues. Paranoia is always nearby.

Elizabeth is running from an abusive marriage and has taken her son deep underground. The problem is, that isn’t all she took with her when she disappeared from the relationship and from her home city.

The characters in the novel are well-written and develop in reasonable and meaningful ways within the fabric of the story, and that includes most of the relatively minor ones. The setting, rural mountainous Colorado, is both beautiful and menacing at times. Two major threads, often in conflict, wind through the novel. In order to remain free and see her son develop a normal life, Elizabeth must try to set aside all-encompassing suspicion and mistrust. Beyond that, she has to develop some real relationships. No one can live in society without relating to others, even if it’s just arms-length situations. For Elizabeth, a healthy woman with normal drives, that is difficult. To return to anything approaching a normal life, she also needs to resolve the dangers still associated with her former husband.

Odell has a good handle on Parker character and the themes of the novel. I look for more worthwhile reading from her.



The Rock Hole
by Reavis Z. Wortham
ISBN: 978-1-59058-884-0
2011 release from Poisoned Pen Press. HC, 284 pages

A sensitive, suspenseful debut crime novel. Full of twists, wry and earthy humor, it epitomizes the grit, the patience and the perseverance, of middle America. Folks who grew up in Texas, where the novel is set, or anywhere in the belt that runs from the northwest angle of Minnesota to the Padre Islands and from the middle of Pennsylvania
to Cody, Wyoming, will recognize themselves in this novel. Their humor, their practicality, their keen natural observations, are all here to savor.

Welcome to 1964. In Center Springs, Texas, farmer and part-time constable Ned Parker is faced with a puzzling series of animal deaths. That they are brutal, atrocious, unnecessary killings only adds to the tension and suspense. Across the river, the black deputy, John Washington, is trying to find reasons for the same killings, while also dealing with the added difficulties of racism in the county. All these factors entwine to create a real and growing calamity for the small communities in the county surrounding Center Springs. As the killings continue, strange footprints are found near bedroom windows and citizens begin to carry weapons and look suspiciously at their neighbors.

Laced with forthright humor, the novel proceeds at a racing pace through event after event as suspicion grows and plot twist after twist keeps readers off-balance until the stunning climax is reached. Ned Parker is a real character who carries the story in an authentic and realistic manner.

The novel is not without its problems. Abrupt and annoying changes of points of view are occasionally confusing, but the writing, like the stories within the narrative, is solid. This is an eminently satisfying novel. I look forward to the next.

Carl Brookins www.carlbrookins.com http://agora2.blogspot.com
Case of the Great Train Robbery, Reunion, Red Sky
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Carl's latest book is REUNION, a Jack Marston mystery, that I'll be reviewing here shortly. Jack works with adult students at City College while his lover, Lori Jacobs, is a psychologist and part-time employee of the same institution of higher learning. Returning to Riverview, Minnesota, for Lori's 20th year high school reunion gives Jack an opportunity to learn more about Lori and her life before they met. Unfortunately, it also puts him smack dab in the middle of a gruesome murder case involving one of Lori's former classmates. Stay tuned for the full review of this puzzling new mystery by accomplished writer Carl Brookins.

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Responding to False Email Stories

Several days ago, a friend sent me this photo and the others shown here in an email. The text accompanying them read: "Wow! Your tax dollars at work! Can you guess what this is?? It is the new Cook County Correctional Center in Chicago, Illinois. This is where the Administration plans on putting the terrorists from Gitmo, and we have Americans living in cardboard boxes on the streets that have never killed anyone. Nothing makes sense anymore. How's that compare with "Sheriff Joe's" prison in Arizona???? PLEASE PASS THIS ON! MOST PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW THIS!!"

Well, there's a reason most people don't know this, and that's because it's not true. Oh, sure. If you live in Chicago, you'd recognize the pictures as false. For one thing, like a lot of states, Illinois is broke. It has no money to pay for new correction centers, nor does Cook County, the county in which Chicago lies, have any money. I know, because the Cook County Board is always pushing for new taxes to support itself.




To the right is a picture of a cell in the supposed "new" Cook County Correctional Center. To the left is a picture of a cell in the REAL Cook County Department of Corrections facility at 2700 South California in Chicago. Built in 1929 during the administration of Mayor Anton Cermak, the facility covers 96 acres, over eight city blocks, and looks its age.






Another picture of a REAL cell at the jail. Not quite as comfy looking as the one above, is it. And compare the below picture of the REAL cell catwalk in the jail with the second picture above, the supposed "new" cell catwalk. Again, no bright airy look to the scene as in the false pictures, just a no-nonsense walkway that restricts crowding by prisoners.

This is a view from the supposed "new" jail showing an inmate sitting on a porch looking out at the beautiful countryside. In reality, all prisoners can see from their windows in the REAL Cook County jail is blocks of old factories, railroad tracks, and parking lots. This next picture is what Cook County inmates see from the 'recreational' area of the facility -- no basketball courts or fancy running tracks as shown in the false pictures, most of which I've chosen not to include here.

The truth is, all those "false" pictures were of the Justice and Detention Center in Leoben, Austria. Designed by architect Josef Hohenstinn, the facility houses both court rooms and a penitentiary. More information on the center can be found at Snopes.com, the website that exposes urban legends and downright lies that float through space via the Internet.








The person who first put that email together obviously knew he was perpetuating a falsehood. But he was willing to lie because he had an anti-Administration agenda, and lies always help when you can't depend on the truth. Now, I don't agree with everything President Obama says or does. I didn't vote for him in the primary election because I believed Senator Clinton was more qualified than he. But I voted for him in the general election because I couldn't vote for a John McCain who, given the chance to select an intelligent, experienced, and truly capable woman as his running mate, chose instead to team up with a clearly inexperienced and unqualified Sarah Palin.

I'll be the first one to call out the President on a policy I believe isn't working. I have no problem with anyone else doing that too, as long as it's done in a civilized manner. Object if you will, but refrain from resorting to lies, crudeness, and bigotry to make your point. And the author of this particular email sought only to inflame passions against the Administration; i.e., President Obama.

I wrote back to my friend after receiving this email and told her to check Snopes.com. I do that with any emails I receive that falsely portray other people or their actions. Sure, I could simply delete them and forget about it, but isn't that avoiding responsibility? If we truly want to live in a country where we can discourse on politics and agree to disagree in a civilized manner, we all have to respond to unwarranted lies circulated by unprincipled people.

Falsehoods don't make you a patriot. They only make you a liar.



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