Jeannie's Fall Surprise!

NERVE, a young adult suspense, will be published Fall 2012 by Dial Books. When Vee is picked to be a player in NERVE, an anonymous game of dares broadcast live online, she discovers that the game knows her. They tempt her with prizes taken from her ThisIsMe page and team her up with the perfect boy, sizzling-hot Ian. At first it’s exhilarating–Vee and Ian’s fans cheer them on to riskier dares with higher stakes. But the game takes a twisted turn. Suddenly they’re playing all or nothing, and the prize may be their lives.

FYI: The above is a promo.  Jeanne Ryan is related to Mediawingnuts (she's a sweet daughter and friend) and Dial is a Division of Penguin Books. We're all hoping that some of her other novels (as yet unpublished) join Nerve in her line of New York Times best sellers and future Oscar-winning Holleywood movie screenplays.

"Corporations Are NOT People and Money Is not Speech!" and "Get Corporate Money Out of Our Democracy" have been the theme of demonstration after demonstration during January and February. Although aimed largely at Republicans in general, the 1% in the "1% vs. 99%" posters on signs in demonstrations throughout the country, the 1% might well be 0.001% when it comes to Mitt Romney and his SuperPacs.



Add to that the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (Jan. 21, 2010), a bitterly divided Supreme Court overturned a century of established precedent by ruling that corporate spending on candidate elections cannot be limited under the First Amendment. (In case you wondered where these SuperPacs originated ...)



In so doing, Justices Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Kennedy effectively declared that corporations are indistinguishable from people with respect to federal law and the U.S. Constitution. As a result of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, corporations and billionaires can spend unlimited sums of money, without disclosure, in political campaigns. As "people," corporations fell well within the 1% bracket.



Then add to that miscarriage of American justice, Romney's own lips mouthing such fodder as "I like to fire people!" and "You wanna bet $10,000?" and "I don't care about the very poor people ..." ... plus too many to count, we have gotten to the point where Rick Santorum might very well be on the side of the 99% before the end of the day with his strength finally beginning to show signs of life in Missouri and Minnesota.



For starters, just his being on the side of Jesus Christ of Nazareth across from the likes of Joseph Smith Jr., Moroni (who's he?), Brigham Young and other Mormon High Priests and Bishops (of which Mitt Romney was one at that rank in his church prior to his running for President) surely puts him (Rick Santorum with his sleeveless sweaters) with the 99%'ers. As I recall, Jesus had to borrow a denari to make one of his points as he constantly fought the 1%'ers (the Pharisees) in his day.



Anyway, we'll finally get to see whether 1% tops 99% or vice versa in some interesting contests this evening.



The question to be answered is: "Will our democracy (and men like Barack Obama and Rick Santorum) survive in which ordinary followers of Jesus Christ can control their future? Or will "democracy" simply become another commodity owned and controlled by billionaires and corporations in order to serve you-know-who's purposes?"



The 99% say NO!"