Sample- Darlene McCoy

Sample- Marie Robinson

Sharon Liner Sample

Sample One Sheet- Sharon Liner.

6 Catch and Release Questions

Photo Courtesy of Associated Press

Gospel Fiction is not a political site, but I need to ask some questions that have been sitting on my chest since last night about Bush's immigration reform address. Maybe you can help me. so that I can return to plotting my novel.

The border should be open to trade and lawful immigration and shut to illegal immigrants, as well as criminals, drug dealers and terrorists.

1. We have more documented terrorists coming in from Canada, than Mexico. So why aren't any troops guarding the Canadian border?

It is important for Americans to know that we have enough Guard forces to win the war on terror, respond to natural disasters, and help secure our border.

2. Where were these 6, 000 troops during Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma? Why didn't Bush think it was imperative for those troops to stop the terrorism in the SuperDome? And why aren't troops helping out in New England this week with the floods?

More than 85% of the illegal immigrants we catch crossing the southern border are Mexicans, and most are sent back home within 24 hours...

3. a. Border Patrol catches 85% of 12 million illegal immigrants. Where are the other 1.8 mil coming from? Remember Cubans become legal the minute they step foot on American soil. Haitians and their boats are returned courtesy of the Navy National Guard. So who's left? Who's here without papers?

More than 85% of the illegal immigrants we catch crossing the southern border are Mexicans, and most are sent back home within 24 hours...

3. b. And what about the ones that are not caught? The ones that fly in on commercial airliners? The ones that come through from Canada? How many illegal immigrants do Border Patrol never see?

As a result of these actions, we have ended "catch and release" for illegal immigrants from some countries.

4. If you're stopping the catch and release system for some countries, then why not all? Who are we letting stay here? Cubans? Irish? Saudis? Pimps at the Watergate Hotel?

"...the US will not militarize the border..."

5. Will Georgia have to send Presidente Fox an invoice for jailing the 85% caught illegal immigrants here like the sheriff did in Oregon?

This program would match willing foreign workers with willing American employers for jobs Americans are not doing.

6. What jobs are we not willing to do? My aunts cleaned homes for sixty years and made $25 a week the entire time. It is illegal to pay a citizen wages that low. Yet they took those jobs because that was the only job most black women in South Georgia could get. What jobs are we not willing to do? Laying asphalt? Mowing lawns? Turning fries at McDonalds? Babysitting? Working without benefits? Working under the table? Come on. We all know someone in our family that does at least one of those. So what jobs are we not willing to do?

It is a myth to believe that these laborers are working for less than minimum wage. In Georgia Mexican laborers are not They are making upwards of 9-15 an hour cash money. I know this because--I can't tell you why I know this. :) But you can ask any contractor that employs them and they will tell you that these men and women are compensated well. The reason businesses say that they are hiring them is because they work faster and harder than most Americans, not that we won't do the work.

Unfortunately, I do not agree. I think this problem along with many other problems in our country have become to big to hide anymore. I think there are too many illegals in this country. I think race is still an issue in this quasi-Christian country and the demon behind this melee. I think it is sad that Mexican illegals are being singled out, while Mexican and other Latino citizens are being ill-treated because of it. My daughter's father is Puerto-Rican and my fiancee is from Panama, both are legal, second generation Americans. Both not treated well in this country. But neither am I...and my grandma Annie was Native American and my Grandaddy Frank fought in WWII for a country that didn't treat him like a citizen, because he was the son of slaves. So I'm waiting for your answers, to give me a better view of this reform bill before I send a letters to Senator (GA)Saxy Chambliss.

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Happy Birthday to Dee

It's my brother, David and my birthday and I'm wearing a ruby red lipstick in support of the American Heart Association's Go Red Day. I hope you are wearing red today. This organization has been my saving grace after five years of living with peripartume cardiomyopathy(post partum heart failure.)

Join me at my new site Gospelfiction.com to celebrate. I have e-cake!!

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5 Ways to Better Extra-Biblical Effectiveness

Scripture Reference: 2 Timothy 4:3-53. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers;
4. and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.
5. But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
From time to time I write a topic over at my blog called Why Fiction Matters. It discusses ways I've found where fiction helps us on a daily basis as Christians. One entry spoke on HBO's movie The Girl in the Cafe and how it interlocked the theme of global poverty and romance together in such a way that the script couldn't have one without the other. Another topic on Christian Gaming and how this new form of entertainment will meet the need of the gaming community without creating children who are numb to pornography and sin.

Usually I find my examples for this topic in the news or from observing some form of fiction entertainment. But yesterday at McKendree UMC I witnessed it during a sermon...

Oh-oh.

To read the entire entry click here.

7 Soldiers Killed in 2 Blasts

Click on pic to get to the news article regarding today's Iraq explosions. Five soldiers killed in one blast; the other in another roadsibe bomb blast.

How do soldiers guard themselves against these popular MOAs?

Who's the Smart-E-st?

Angela Benson, author of the Amen Sisters, Abiding Hope & Awakening Mercy named me one of the smartest people on the internet. I'm so honored.

 

Now my mind is going bonkers with all the smart people I've met via the Net. Before I make a final decision, who have you found to be the smartest E-person?

 

Dee

 

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I'm back

Dee's back and I will be posting again. Doing some clean up on Blogger, but I'm back..

 

So sad about the miners in WVA. Let's pray for the peace of  the family members of the deceased.

 

Dee 

 

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Mayor Franklin hosts The AIDS Memorial Quilt

Mayor Shirley Franklin Hosts World AIDS Day Memorial Quilt Display in City Hall

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WHO:	Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin will host the 2005 World AIDS Day display of The AIDS Memorial Quilt in City Hall.  The display will include more than 50 3-foot by 6-foot handmade panels including the panel Rosa Parks created in memory Deborah Haynes for The Quilt. The opening ceremony for the display will feature remarks by Mayor Franklin; Julie Rhoad, executive director of The NAMES Project Foundation; and H. Lamar Willis, Atlanta City Council member and board member of The NAMES Project. The program will also include the traditional reading of the names on The Quilt and a Quilt dedication ceremony at which time new panels will be presented to The NAMES Project including those created by Pearl Ann Walker and Mamie Hughley, both in their 90s and members of Reynoldstown Quilters.
WHAT:	This display is presented by The NAMES Project Foundation, the international caretaker of The AIDS Memorial Quilt, now headquartered in Atlanta.
WHEN:	1:30 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 1, 2005, at City Hall Atrium, 55 Trinity Ave.
WHY:	World AIDS Day is the ideal time to remind the community that HIV/AIDS still poses a serious, lethal threat and a display of The AIDS Memorial Quilt is a vivid and poignant way to illustrate what has been lost and what is at risk.  With teddy bears and Boy Scout badges, The Quilt is our most powerful educative tool in the fight to curb the tide of new HIV infections. With more than 45,000 handmade panels, The Quilt stands as the largest piece of community folk art in the world and the most democratic memorial ever created.   Known as a leader in the fight for civil rights, Rosa Parks was one of the more than 100,000 individuals who have created a panel for The AIDS Memorial Quilt.  Her panel for Deborah Haynes will be among those on display at City Hall on World AIDS Day.  This World AIDS Day (December 1) also marks the 50th anniversary of the day Mrs. Parks refused to relinquish her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama

Doraville , GM Jobs, South Korea & DaeWoo

 DEE-ANN DURBIN, AP Auto Writer.  "DETROIT - General Motors Corp. will eliminate 30,000 manufacturing jobs and close nine North American assembly, stamping and powertrain plants by 2008 as part of an effort to get production in line with demand.

 GM has been crippled by high labor, pension, health care and materials costs as well as by sagging demand for sport utility vehicles, its longtime cash cows, and by bloated plant capacity. Its market share has been eroded by competition from Asian automakers led by Toyota Motor Corp. GM lost nearly $4 billion in the first nine months of this year. "

 

Sad news for my boys at the Doraville plant. They began a production slow down in August, and they will cease production at the end of the currents products life cycle in 2008.  

 

Now, although people are debating the war in Iraq. The pressure should also be on Bush to come back from his Asian tour with a gameplan to stop our American powerhouse employers like GM from closing plants and laying off so many Americans.

 

Like I said before...although we love Wal-Mart.  But as a Christian, I will not support it this year, but it's position with South Korea is in a proportionate ratio with American job loss. Remember GM Daewoo have plants in Asia(South Korea) and Wagner just met with Watanabe this month to create a Toyota/GM alliance:

 

"As a way to raise restructuring funds, GM sold 8.7 percent of the 20 percent stake it holds in Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. to Toyota in October for 35 billion yen."

Good thing I speak Japanese. Now if I can sit down long enough to learn Mandarin. I'll be good to go. What about you?

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Barbie in Trash

 

Samantha Burns has me rolling out of my chair over here, because she has featured the most realistic Barbie Doll she has ever seen. You have to click over there and see her for yourself. 

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Blogger & MS Word

 Now you can use Blogger right within Microsoft^® Word. Just download and install the Blogger for Word add-in and a Blogger toolbar will be added to Word allowing you to edit, save and manipulate your posts inside an easier format.

Currently, I use Qumana to create my blog posts. I like it alot, because all my eight blogs can be managed by one click. However, I may try this add-on feature out for my Girl Scout blog, so that my troop committee can create posts easily, since they are not familiar with blogging. If you try this, please come back here and tell me what you think about it.

Thanks,

Dee

 

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Nice Nasty Chicken Coop Poltics

Didn't surprise me when Bush first nominated Miers. He had to nominate a woman. And it didn't surprise me that Miers didn't have the best credentials to be a Supreme Court Justice.
Why?

Because I'm southern. And I'm very well aware of Nice Nasty Politics.

Give the enemy what she wants. Dumb her down so bad, that the enemy chicks can't see the real hen that is moving into the hen house-Salito. What surprises me is that so many people fell for it. Bush had no intention of placing Miers in that position. It was an act. Now both parties have chilled out and signed. We have a rooster. Cockadoodle Do.

 

Dee 

 

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Rosa Parks Rests Eternal

 

CNN: Rosa Parks, whose act of civil disobedience in 1955 inspired the modern civil rights movement, died Monday in Detroit, Michigan. She was 92.

 

On the Bus with Rosa Parks

by Rita Dove

 

 How she sat there, the time right inside a place so wrong it was ready.

 

Time Magazine online has a great Rosa Parks Timeline.

 

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Rice Trumps Cheney

Paul Bedard at USNEWS posts:

Sparked by today's Washington Post story that suggests Vice President Cheney's office is involved in the Plame-CIA spy link investigation, government officials and advisers passed around rumors that the vice president might step aside and that President Bush would elevate Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

I can deal with the weather rebalancing itself all over the world. But the term when Hell freezes over may happen in this case. Not saying that I don't like LeezaRice. She has a great coming of age story. But if Cheney "the puppet master" steps down--and I totally doubt that--then the Republican Party, the Democratic Party and America would really have to come to terms with racism in this clever culture. Unfortunately, I feel bad for LeezaRice, who has her plate full with ministering to the world... Ministering to America is something entirely different.

What do you think? You think Cheney would step down over this? Should we care? Don't we have a lot of other crap like finding cheap Christmas gifts to concern ourselves about?

Dee

Bush, Bird Flu & Forced Quarantine

President Bush and Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt met with leaders of the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry October 7 about their role in the prevention of an influenza pandemic.

The World Health Organization has confirmed 116 human cases of bird flu and 60 deaths since December 2003.

Why haven't we known about this bird flu before now, if the WHO reported about it in 2003.

Bush mulls quarantine if avian flu crisis hits By RON HUTCHESON,Knight Ridder Newspapers...

WASHINGTON — Raising fears of a deadly flu pandemic, President Bush said Tuesday that he is considering the use of military troops to impose a quarantine in the event of an outbreak.

To learn more about Avain flu treatment and prevention visit these links:

The CDC

Avian Flu

Pray for my brother, David, who is a plant manager for Gold Kist Farms.

Dee

Delay Indicted

AP-A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, an indictment that could force him to step down as House majority leader. Click here for more details.

New note: Delay has temporarily stepped down from his Majority Leader seat.

Tavis Smiley Hosts PBS Hurricane Relief Concert

September 15, 2005

TAVIS SMILEY TO HOST PBS CONCERT FOR HURRICANE RELIEF
PBS Talk Show Host Went to Mississippi to Find Missing Sister and Family

Tavis Smiley had some very good reasons for accepting PBS's offer to host the
television coverage for Live From Lincoln Center's Jazz at Lincoln Center's
Higher Ground Hurricane Relief Benefit Concert airing nationwide on PBS stations
Saturday, September 17, 8-11 p.m. E.T.

It took the PBS late night talk show host less than a heartbeat to accept the
invitation. Not only did Smiley tour the devastation first hand in the immediate
aftermath and devoted extra coverage to it on his nightly show, he also went to
Mississippi to locate and retrieve his sister and her three children who had been
missing for five days.

Smiley was born in Mississippi but spent most of his childhood in Indiana.

"What I have tried to bring forward on both my PBS and PRI shows is the enormous
human magnitude of this disaster," said Smiley. "It is one thing to see the
destruction first hand and know how television images cannot begin to describe it.
It is another to look into the eyes of the people directly affected by it and to
hear their voices. I know that my sister and her family are indeed blessed.
I cannot begin to express how grateful I am to be part of this event."

Featured artists include Wynton Marsalis, Terence Blanchard, Ken Burns, Shirley
Caesar, Cyrus Chestnut, Peter Cincotti, Elvis Costello, Bill Cosby, Aaron Nevile,
Robert De Niro, Paquito D'Rivera, Jon Hendricks, Norah Jones, Diana Krall, Abbey
Lincoln, Bette Midler, Dianne Reeves, Marcus Roberts, Paul Simon, Meryl Streep,
James Taylor, McCoy Tyner, Robin Williams, Cassandra Wilson, Jeffrey Wright,
Buckwheat Zydeco, and many more.

During the television broadcasts phone numbers will be shown on screen so that
viewers can make donations to the Higher Ground Hurricane Relief Fund, The Red
Cross, and Salvation Army.

"Tavis Smiley" is seen weeknights on PBS. For more information, visit
http://tavistalks.lyris.net/t/2268/12205/3/0/.

Crossing Jhordan's River Crosses over to #1

#1 on Essence Bestsellers List!!! Crossing Jhordan's River(Christian Fiction Blog's May Book of the Month,) the book that graced the #3 spot on September's Essence Bestsellers List makes the #1 spot its new home for the month of October!

In the September issue of Essence Magazine, Kendra was officially given the title of National Bestseller when her novel Crossing Jhordan's River made the #3 spot on the list for bestselling paperback fiction. This month, God gave her the increase and Crossing Jhordan's River now sits at #1 on the list in the newly released October
issue of Essence Magazine.

Kendra says, "Reaching national bestseller status was a direct answer to prayer. However, I never asked God to make any of my books a #1 national bestselling novel. But He did promise to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, so I know this is His doing. And I thank Him continuously." The new Essence listing has not been loaded onto their website yet, but feel free to go out and pick up a copy of the October issue - in stores NOW.

Kendra Norman-Bellamy is the author of five current Christian fiction titles: A Love So Strong (Moody Publishers), For Love & Grace (BET Books), Crossing Jhordan's River (Moody Publishers), Because of Grace (BET Books) and Three Fifty- Seven A.M. (KNB Publications, LLC).

Congrats, Kendra.

Dee