Homeboy’s Soul: Pride, Terror, and Street Justice in America (Publish America) invites readers into the vicious, unforgiving heart of street gangs to reveal the truth about life as a gangbanger. In this amazing book, which has garnered two national literary awards, Don Armijo, former shotcaller for one of LA County’s most vicious street gangs, puts the true story of his turbulent rise to power, downfall, and resurrection on display with the hope that young people will learn from his mistakes.
Despite more than 30 years of attempts to wipe out street gangs, they still thrive in nearly every community in America and have become increasingly violent. Why? Homeboy’s Soul frank revelations provide young people, parents, school officials, civic leaders, and anyone interested in the future of America’s youth answers to why so many young people are easily attracted to the homeboy’s lifestyle and ultimately to gang warfare.
Moved by the positive response to Homeboy’s Soul, co-author Fred Stawitz is organizing a national initiative to eliminate the impact that street gangs have on school-age children. “Education is the key,” reports Stawitz. “Keep children on a path to success in school and chances are good that they will not join a gang.” “Young people need developmental resources, support structures, opportunities and acceptance to develop successfully into contributing members of society,” says Stawitz, who has extensive experience working with at-risk children. “High dropout rates are an indicator that society has failed children in these areas leaving an opportunity for gangs to attract young recruits with the illusion of acceptance, power, respect, and ready access to wealth from drug sales.”
Homeboy’s Soul neither blames nor defends barrio youth for their decisions, but rather provides a basis for understanding the culture and influences that lead them to the choices that have devastated so many lives. “Increased policing and counseling alone will not solve the gang problem that plagues communities throughout America. Any long term solution,” Stawitz emphasizes, “must address the conditions in the community that impact the ability of children to complete a secondary education.”
Danny De La Paz, actor (Boulevard Nights): “Homeboy’s Soul deserves to take its place among the best literature available today on the complex and fascinating subject of what draws a promising young life to such self-destruction.”
Richard Reyes, Pancho Claus and Gang Prevention Activist: “This book should be required reading for students, parents, school administrators, police officers and community leaders.”
Joel Valenzuela, Former Teacher: “It gives ammunition to parents waging a painful war for the souls of children caught in the deadly culture of street gangs.”
Elizabeth Rhone, First Lady, Mount Sinai Church of God in Christ: “You won’t want to put this book down!”
Barbara Tako is the author of Clutter Clearing Choices (O-Books), an exceptionally motivating and witty book that is filled with great advice on how to get organized. At this time of the year it is especially helpful as many of us get ready to switch out summer clothes for autumn and winter, but no matter what time of the year – Tako has it seasonally organized to make our lives easier; clearing out at the end of the year for goal setting in January, organizing papers at tax time, and so on. Realizing that we are all unique, she offers many choices for readers to pick from.
Barbara Tako is no stranger to audiences and is well-recognized by corporate giants, such as 3M, Medtronic, Target and Securian, who use her expert speaking skills and her humorous, common sense advice to help their employees take control of their lives – knowing that a cluttered worker is rarely as productive as an organized one. She reinforces that ‘feel good factor’ that comes from donating cast-off’s and helping someone else out. It seems we can all relate to how clutter seems to develop a life of its own and Tako’s entertaining writing style offers readers motivating ways to ‘take their life back’ and pick which mode of de-cluttering works best for them.
Not nearly so organized in her earlier years, Tako believes she could have been related to Oscar in ‘The Odd Couple.’ She kept everything forever, believing that ‘you never know when you might need it!’ She credits her ‘so clean you could eat off the floor’ mother-in-law with her metamorphosis. Witnessing time and time again the boundless energy this amazing woman always had for family and friends was an inspiration for Tako to get organized in order to have time left over for what she really wanted to do. Clutter Clearing Choices is a humorous, authentic, entertaining, and informative book on clutter clearing, home organizing, and simple living.
A former columnist, television and radio guest, and writer, Tako has definitely ‘done her part’ to give us the tools to simplify and reclaim our lives – and it’s all wrapped up in a hilarious and amazing little package called Clutter Clearing Choices! This entertaining writer has a hidden agenda where her readers are concerned; she hopes that by making them more organized they will take more time for themselves and their health. Tako is currently undergoing chemotherapy and radiation for breast cancer and has taken on the role of advocate, never missing an opportunity to encourage women to get regular mammograms. In fact, she is donating a portion of the proceeds from book sales to cancer awareness and research. Please visit this inspiring woman on her website at www.clutterclearingchoices.com.
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TIP SHEET: Victoria Moran, author of Creating a Charmed Life: “Funny, thorough, and not the least bit intimidating, this book is a godsend for the organizationally-challenged. It makes keeping the clutter manageable seem manageable after all.”
Barbara Hemphill, author of Taming the Paper Tiger at Home: “When I began my organizing business 30 years ago, it was based on four simple words: Clutter is Postponed Decisions®. Few of us…ever reach the point of being satisfied with their ability to get rid of clutter. Tako has done a wonderful job of giving her readers practical suggestions for getting rid of the clutter in their lives. Less is more!”
Barb Szyszkiewicz of Family Corner.com Magazine, Inc: “A step-by-step, concrete solution to overcoming household clutter, this book is full of helpful hints and resources…easy-to-follow program is designed to take readers through a whole year of clutter control…Tako’s book is loaded with common sense, humor, and good advice.”
Toi Duckworth, www.WAHM.com The Online Magazine for Work-At-Home Moms: “Tako’s common sense approach to de-cluttering your life is simple and easy to follow….simple, easy-to-adopt advice such as letting go of items that you no longer use yet keep for sentimental value. Tako’s book gives real, practical advice to help streamline your life.”
The Reverend Michael Mortvedt, Co-Director of Alternatives of Simple Living: “Tako has a warm and personal style of writing which helps the reader identify with her and with her struggles and successes at organizing and clearing clutter…a series of conversations with a friend about things that matter – about clearing away what weighs you down, taking care of the people you love, and living what you believe. A book I will come back to many times as the seasons change, as the cleaning bug strikes, and as a reminder about what is truly important in life.”
Isla Mujeres, The life of cats and dogs on this idyllic island is bleak. The local government has a despicable solution–population control by electrocution! Her organization has become one of hope; dedicating itself to rescuing and caring for these abused and discarded animals through spay and neuter clinics, fostering, and adopting.
Alison Sawyer Current has spent ten years working with and supporting other rescue groups in the Yucatan. While continually addressing the big picture she has re-housed over four thousand animals, placing them with individuals and rescue groups in the US and Canada. In 2005 she received the Doris Day Animal Kindred Spirit Award and was invited to the first ‘Forum on Small Animal Over-population’ in Mexico City.
Isla Animal’s programs are run totally on donations. It’s Alison’s goal to educate pet owners and provide them with free services and basic supplies, such as food, flea and tick medication, shampoo, collars, leashes and medical supplies. On a typical day she has thirty to forty dogs at her house; most of them are sick and scared from a life on the streets – and these are the strong ones! Islanders drop the dogs off or tie them to her gate, or tourists find them by the side of the road. It takes time and love to get these animals ready for a good home but Alison is prepared to take care of each and every one until she can send them to a better place. Isla Mujeres is a tourist destination so the animals are considered unsightly and are eliminated in an effort to create a more pristine vacation destination. Alison is sure that if tourists knew what was truly going on they would want to do something about it.
Isla Animals desperately needs additional funding so that they may continue their wonderful work. Please visit their website at www.islaanimals.org for more information on this incredible organization and how to alleviate the plight of these desperately mistreated animals.
Alison Sawyer Current is also the author of an intriguing novel, No Urn For The Ashes (Bayfire Press Publishing), and generously donates the proceeds from her book sales to further the care of her extended feline and canine family.
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TIP SHEET
Ascot Media Group is providing public relations services to this humane organization at no charge in their attempt to help these animals in Mexico.
There is no telling the chaos that would result from an announcement that someone discovered a formula that would enable us to replace fossil fuels. Every nation would want to get their hands on it – there would be no end to the lengths they would go to in order to get control of the secret that would make them the most powerful nation on earth!
No Urn for the Ashes (Bayfire Press Publishing) is an outstanding novel by Alison Sawyer Current. It is the perfect blend of adventure, thrills, compassion and grief, and the author’s choice of her dynamic characters reflects an incredible insight into human nature.
Tennyson Garland is the genius behind the discovery of this formula and he knew he must keep it a secret. After this brilliant scientist and his young daughter tragically die in a fire at their isolated mountain cabin, his widow realizes there are evil forces at work that will stop at nothing to control the world with this discovery. Eight years pass and Taylor is in the midst of a failing marriage, still suffering the loss of her first husband and child, and finds herself having to deal with the past once again. She gets caught up in the treachery of Kevin Levine, the former colleague of her first husband who was always left behind in the wake of Tennyson’s brilliance. The drama that follows leads her to believe that her daughter may actually be alive!
In this suspense-filled, page-turning story readers get transported to Nicaragua and on to Mexico when a new struggle arises – with the prize being the greatest discovery of modern times. We follow Taylor in her search for her long-lost child as she deals not only with the past, but with the return of her absent father who is tortured by his own demons, and the mysterious stranger who was hired by him but who may represent an even greater threat than even Levine’s insatiable ambition for control! Readers share Taylor’s warm relationship with Ruby, her dearest friend and most intimate confidant, and the uneasy and emotion-packed truce with Patricia, the mother by adoption of a girl named Emma – who may well turn out to be Taylor’s long-lost child, Rebecca.
No Urn for the Ashes is action-packed to the very end. For more information on either the book or its creative author, please visit www.bayfirepress.com.
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TIP SHEET:
Midwest Book Review: “Unlocking the key to a discovery, which could potentially change the world, has its downside. Taylor loses her husband … and her daughter in a bizarre fire. Now eight years later as her second marriage is dissolving, Kevin, who was Taylor’s former colleague …surfaces and sparks the almost unimaginable: Taylor’s daughter may not be dead after all and her husband did not accidentally die, he was murdered. As all the plots unfold readers bear witness to Taylor’s emotional journey as she attempts to make sense of her past and how to deal with the dilemmas of the present. In this brilliant novel, author Alison Sawyer Current will delight mystery readers and those who enjoy moving character studies.”
Anita Finley, Boomer Magazine: “This is a compassionate, heart-rending tale of loss, grief, and hope set against the backdrop of a struggle to control the fate of the world’s future. No Urn for the Ashes offers a unique blend of adventure and psychological insight.”
What woman didn’t laugh in amazement when Lorena Bobbit hacked off her husband’s schlong as he slept or watch in disbelief as dentist Clara Harris drove her Mercedes over her philandering husband until she knew he was dead! Author Diana Sheets knows that real women want more! They are done with the lying memoirs and celebrity tales that mainly occupy the best-sellers list and crave something honest, something that captures the zaniness of real life in American today. American Suite is just such a book.
Sheets’s novel comprises the diaries of three women from an affluent, Protestant family; Arisa, Sophie and Rosalyn, whose perspectives often clash and whose diary entries frequently contradict one another. Arisa’s story is the central plot of American Suite. Single, in her mid-thirties and excited about a new life as a writer in the Flatlands, she has ditched her career in Manhattan along with her longtime partner, Ben, and severed ties to her widowed mother and married sister on the East Coast.
At the mercy of her romantic passions, she falls in love with the first male Flatlander she meets just days after arriving in the Midwest, only to find he has a wife and two children. Following a brief but disastrous visit from Ben, Arisa seeks therapy. Life gets worse when she visits New York over Christmas; family problems, finding that Ben has a new love, and an anxiety attack after visiting Ground Zero all force Arisa back to the Flatlands before fleeing to Schlectenberg where she falls in love with a screenwriter and Hollywood director. This lasts until she finds out he has filmed their debauched relationship as material for his new movie, Legs Wide Open! After absconding with the director’s Doberman and a short retreat in a monastery, she returns to the Flatlands determined to tell her version of the affair in her memoir, Shrill Quills & Broken Lenses: This Muse Bares All. From this point on, as Arisa’s life gets nuttier, the story just gets more hilarious as she falls in love with an ex-con and sicks the Doberman on a stalking Peeping Tom who loses his “family jewels” to the Doberman’s iron jaws and has them reattached later by a surgeon.
Rosalyn and Sophie’s stories are interwoven all the while with Arisa’s, and the reader catches up with Sophie’s life as her husband loses his job and Sophie lusts after her son’s tutor. When Sophie’s sons embrace conflicting religions, sailing becomes the family hobby as a means of creating some kind of unity until the boat gets damaged during a race. The sisters decide to celebrate a multicultural December holiday in New York along with Arisa’s ex-con lover, Roy. It turns out to be a huge disaster, but one that glitters nevertheless. Sophie’s diary ends as she embarks on her own ‘memoir,’ Sophie’s Seven Simple Steps to the Perfect Life.
Last, but definitely not least, is Rosalyn’s story. From her diary, readers learn she is a Jewish mother whom God has challenged by making her Christian. We share in her pain as she loses her husband of forty-four years and her joy when she finds Saul, her new partner and love of her life; her anger when she is discarded by her children and her devastation when Saul dies. Inconsolable in her grief, she decides to convert to Judaism and writes her memoir, The Hadassah Chronicles.
The novel concludes with the Peeping Tom seeking revenge for the loss of his virility. He breaks into Arisa’s house where he sees newspaper articles about their scandalous altercation. Arisa returns. Shots are fired. Television viewers are urged to stay tuned for the latest breaking news. Thus, we get a glimpse of today’s American family. Not perfect, but thriving despite its dysfunction. American Suite is a zany, poignant saga that rejoices in the strength and resilience of these three strong women and revels in the complexity of life’s journey.
This exceptional, character-driven novel has received rave reviews and has the makings of becoming a box-office smash hit. For more information on Dr. Diana E. Sheets, please visit her website at: http://www.literarygulag.com.
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TIP SHEET:
Kathleen Kubik, author, Neither Sand Nor Sea: “… edgy comedy of manners. What happens when a WASP family becomes multicultural…a “chick lit” novel that upends our notions about romance, celebrity, family, identity, and our seemingly insatiable hunger for memoir to ask, “Who are we really, and what are we becoming? Diana Sheets has written an incredibly innovative novel…cleverly tells the story of three women, a mother and her two daughters, through compelling diary entries …each juggling their own lives and personal relationships, as well as the often antagonistic familial one among the three of them. Ms. Sheets has skillfully kept each character in character…and their stories are told in such a way that each voice is clearly defined. To simply say, ‘It’s a real page turner,’ somehow doesn’t seem to do American Suite justice, but that is exactly what this book is. I couldn’t wait to discover what wonderful writing awaited me on the next page. My congratulations to Ms. Sheets on an exceptional story.”
Jerry Sander, author of Unlimited Calling (Certain Restrictions Apply): “”Diana Sheets is unafraid of taking on the sacred cows of ‘chick lit’ in a sweeping family saga that offers up sexy men, violent and treacherous romance, dull marriage, soulful union and resourceful women. . . . Religious and spiritual confusions vie for attention with family loyalties and geographic rootedness as a New Yorker moves to the Midwest in search of a good-enough life.”
Although the Cost Basis legislation which requires brokers to report their clients’ cost basis has gone into effect as of January 1, 2011, what most investors don’t realize is that the requirement is only for securities purchased after January 1, 2011. That means that brokerage firms are only responsible for what was purchased this year going forward and not for the millions upon millions of shares that investors currently own. This is potentially a huge problem for investors because at the end of the day, they are responsible for accurately reporting their capital gains/losses to the IRS.
In the last several years, Cost Basis has taken center stage with the IRS, Congress and the Financial Services industry. The focus began back in 2005 when the IRS reported over $11 Billion dollars in underreported capital gains by taxpayers in their Tax Gap Study. Then in 2008, the Economic Stabilization Act was passed by Congress which included the Cost Basis Legislation and since then, the financial industry has been busy making sure that they will be compliant going forward from 2011 for stocks and 2012 for mutual funds.
So what does that mean for an investor with a broker and an investor without a broker? Practically the same thing, unless your brokerage firm is going to provide you with your cost basis for the stocks you already own as a customer service. If not, then it means that you will have to calculate and be legally responsible for your cost basis information as much as the guy who trades online in his underwear at 2:00 a.m.! As many investors already know, trying to get the purchase or sale price of all your reinvested dividends, corporate actions, and other critical pieces of information necessary to calculate your adjusted cost basis, is time consuming, frustrating and susceptible to human error.
Recently there have been articles and blogs telling investors where they can go to research pricing and corporate action information in order to calculate their cost basis, but Cost Basis adjustment was always a very difficult calculation, even for professionals, so how is an investor supposed to research and calculate this information accurately enough to report to the Internal Revenue Service? What wasn’t widely known until now is that there is an amazing online tool available to the public. It is called NetBasis and is available at www.netbasis.com.
NetBasis can automatically calculate the adjusted cost basis for any security going back as far as 1925. It will take into consideration all corporate actions as well as any possible dividend returns or return of capital that may have occurred during the exact holding period of the investment, so the information is specifically tailored to the individual investor. It isn’t a table where you try to see where your investment fits in, nor is it just a pricing list where you have to figure out the rest. You simply choose your security, enter in your purchase and sales date(s) and number of shares, and NetBasis does the rest in seconds. It also gives you the ability to choose your accounting method which investors are now able to do under the Cost Basis legislation. NetBasis can also calculate the cost basis for securities that were gifted or inherited.
NetBasis is a system that was originally designed for the financial services industry. A professional version of NetBasis is currently being used by brokerage firms, accounting firms, Fortune 500 companies, and universities, but now everyday American investors can access the same tool and get the same accurate results. For a small fee of $19.50, an investor can enter multiple buys and sells for one security and receive their adjusted cost basis, gain/loss, sale proceeds, fair market value, and a detailed accounting page that provides a chronological listing of all of the corporate actions and other adjustments that have occurred to your security.
After collecting literally hundreds of vintage tales of Hollywood legends over the years, Stephen Schochet not only wrote a book that everyone could enjoy on the glamorous, and not so glamorous, stories of Hollywood icons, but also created audiobooks. As explained in an interview with Reuters, this entrepreneur told two kinds of stories on his tour bus; origin stories – telling how things we take for granted came to be, and funny anecdotes. He not only read a lot of books to find his material, but also tried to meet people who were connected to the famous – like housekeepers – that he could garner some tidbits from! His book is a special blend of biography, history and legends and covers scandalous yarns on some of Hollywood’s greatest characters – from Shirley Temple and Lucille Ball to Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney and Michael Jackson.
Hollywood Stories: Short, Entertaining Anecdotes About the Stars and Legends of the Movies! (Hollywood Publishing) is packed with wild and wonderful short tales on many famous stars, movies and directors – anyone who has been a part of the world’s most fascinating and unpredictable industry!
Schochet is also the author and narrator of two audiobooks. The first is Tales of Hollywood which started as a way to highlight the origins of how famous things in Hollywood began, combined with humorous tales about the stars – for which he masterfully provided background music and sound effects to add realism. The second project, Fascinating Walt Disney, was a huge hit – telling stories of how Walt created Mickey Mouse, Disneyland, Snow White and all his endearing characters, causing the host of one radio show to dub Schochet ‘The best storyteller about Hollywood we have ever heard.’
The author covers the gamut when it comes to situational stories; from the one about a bus full of tourists at Universal Studies who were viewing the famous motel from the movie Psycho and who screamed in terror as a tall man, dressed in drag, carrying a large knife and looking remarkably like Norman Bates, charged the tram with a convincing maniacal expression– only to find out it was actor Jim Carrey having some fun – to the story of how Walt Disney overprotected his two daughters from the limelight in fear of their being kidnapped, to the point that when one daughter found out from a classmate that her father was THE Walt Disney, she went home and asked for his autograph!
Hollywood Stories truly has something for everyone. It is a thoroughly entertaining book that features a remarkable cast of Hollywood’s legendary characters and icons and is jam-packed with surprising and funny tales with often unpredictable endings. No matter which page the book is opened on, there will be some fascinating part of Hollywood history to be savored! Check out this author’s website at: www.hollywoodstories.com.
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TIP SHEET:
Stephen Schochet is willing to do in-studio interviews as well as on location at famous Hollywood sights, such as Grauman’s Chinese Theater, the Chateau Marmont Hotel, etc.; places that will serve as the perfect backdrop to some of his best stories.
Jan Wahl, KRON TV San Francisco: “A wild, fun ride through Tinsel Town, past and present!”
The Midwest Book Review: “Hollywood Stories is packed from cover to cover with fascinating tales.”
Tim Sika, Host of the radio show Celluloid dreams on KSJS in San Jose: “The best storyteller about Hollywood we have ever heard.”
Joe Mazza, King of Late Night Radio, Genesis Radio Network: “Probably one of the most entertaining and knowledgeable guests in regards to the movies.”
Jordan Rich, WBZ in Boston: “Stephen is a remarkable guest with instant recall of Hollywood Stories that keep audiences glued to the radio. He makes regular appearances on my show and never fails to entertain.”
Jim Bohannon, Host of the Nationally Syndicated Jim Bohannon Show and America in the Morning: “Stephen really knows Hollywood! In all the times I’ve had him on my night time Jim Bohannon Show, he ALWAYS surprised me with at least one amazing tidbit of information I’d never have suspected. Usually, it’s half a dozen or more.”
