Cochise County issues subpoena for journalist's private emails

If you think your emails are private, guess again.  They're subject to subpoena.  Even messages you thought you deleted aren't safe from government snooping.  A prosecutor, or any lawyer, could issue a subpoena to your email service provider, get your private communications, and you might not even find out about it.

When it happens to journalists, it's more than just a nuisance or potential embarassment.  It could put a chilling effect on the reporter's ability to gather the news for the public.  That is why, when the Obama administration went after Associated Press reporter phone records in 2013, the story made national news--and AP raised hell about it.

This is going to get me into big trouble

Pictures of scantily clad women are flooding my computer screen.  It’s not what you think.  I'm the victim here.

Okay, so, this is awkward. 

I’m in sort of a predicament that I’ve been trying to keep secret.  But I’ve decided to come clean about it. 

It’s a problem that of late has forced me to do my home office work behind closed doors.  And the situation in which I find myself has me hurriedly reaching for the mouse to dump the Internet and call up an innocuous word processing screen or something every time my spouse knocks on the door.

No, it’s not what you think.  At least not precisely.

The Whistling Mothers' Musical Treasury of Christmas

Here's a bit of comedy from my radio show that you have to hear to believe.  Featuring The Whistling Mothers, plus Hollis Fernbeck on the mouth trumpet.  This spot will be dated after the 25th, and will get its last play on my radio show today.  I'm placing it here in hopes of spreading a little holiday cheer.  Enjoy, and Merry Christmas!

©2014 by Forrest Carr.  All rights reserved.

Attack of the Cybercats IV

New pictures contain startling revelations about my cats’ mind-bending capabilities.

Another set of pictures reveals the secret powers our cats wield in our household.  As before, I have used special filters to bring out features invisible to the naked eye.  Taken together this evidence explains why my wife, Bride of the Bloviator, has so pampered our pets throughout the years.   Below is the latest evidence, along with my descriptions of what I believe to be going on.

Publishers Weekly gives nod to "A Journal of the Crazy Year"!

Lightning strikes again as another internationally respected literary reviewer adds its voice to the growing chorus of praise for a sci-fi/post-apocalyptic vision of the future ripped right out of this morning’s newspaper headlines.

I can’t believe it.  It’s happened again!

The influential, internationally-respected literary reviewer Publishers Weekly opens its review of A Journal of the Crazy Year with this line:  “Fresh thinking and feeling animate this heartfelt postapocalyptic novel.”  After summarizing the plot, the reviewer goes on to say:  “The book is stuffed with untrimmable, character-driven, cogent dialogue, and Carr’s sincere investment in the concept of people groping their way through hell on Earth makes his story a fascinating read all the way to its chilly, barely hopeful conclusion.”

Wow.  I mean, wow.

The Truth about Mass Media Lies

Take it from this 33 year veteran of TV news:  Our mass media news system has not broken down completely, but it’s headed full tilt in that direction.  Here’s how you can defend yourself.  

I went page-turning through my morning newspaper today looking for its coverage of the Jonathan Gruber hearing, in which congressmen grilled the MIT professor and Obamacare architect about his stunning claims of deliberate deception in the process of writing the Affordable Care Act.  I found the story exactly where I expected to:  page A14, buried in the interior of the Nation & World section.  The newspaper devoted about 15 column inches the report—smallish for a newspaper account, but not quite miniscule.  The headline of the Gruber story read, “Obama health adviser Gruber apologizes for ‘glib’ remarks.”

Our Society’s New Cultural Communism

In the world that’s coming, if not everyone can possess a given desirable thing or trait, then it won’t be cool for anyone to do so.  And we won't simply adjust our concept of “normal.”  We'll abandon it.  Will this new society be more just?  

Society’s pendulum is always swinging.

Not so long ago, during the Victorian era, it was considered the height of lewdness for a woman to show her ankle in public.  In polite society, one never uttered the word “leg”; if you simply had to make some kind of reference to this human appendage, you used the word “limb.”  Even furniture was covered with long cloths or wrapped with skirts so as not to show table and couch legs. 

Kirkus Reviews selects A Journal of the Crazy Year

I just received some fabulous news, and I’m bursting to share it.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, this year I submitted the final version of the upcoming print edition of A Journal of the Crazy Year to Kirkus Reviews for an indie review.   The results of that came in a couple of weeks ago, and as I told you in a previous post, the review was excellent.

Yesterday I received an unexpected email from Kirkus.  It said:   “I just wanted to let you know that your review for A Journal of The Crazy Year was selected by our Indie Editors to be featured in Kirkus Reviews 12/1 Issue. Congratulations! Your review appears as one of the 20 reviews in the Indie section of the magazine which is sent out to over 5,000 industry professionals (librarians, publishers, agents, etc.)  Less than 10% of our Indie reviews are chosen for this, so it's a great honor.”

I won’t say I fainted dead away at this point, but I did get palpitations.

Conversations with Mabel

By listener request, I'm posting all five of the "conversations with Mabel" that have run on my PowerTalk 1210 AM radio program.  I hope you enjoy the down-home Tennessee humor!  Many thanks to my good friend Bonnie Kourvelas of Memphis, who plays Mabel.

Conversation with Mabel Episode 1

Conversation with Mabel Episode 2

Conversation with Mabel Episode 3

Conversation with Mabel Episode 4

Conversation with Mabel Episode 5