November, 2009 | Warren Adler

Month: November, 2009

The Chilling Path to Assassination

Posted on: November 29th, 2009 by Warren Adler 1 Comment

The recent “crashing” of a Presidential State Dinner by a couple of wannabe celebrity publicity hounds sends chills up my spine, especially motivated by the picture of them being greeted by President Obama. It inspires the unthinkable.

It recalls the unavoidable “A” word, assassination, and to my mind, it is the most serious breach of security in recent memory, the consequences of which might have resulted in the most disruptive act in the history of our country. Indeed, the life of our President, whether we agree with his policies or not, is our most cherished living symbol, the jewel of our democratic aspirations.…

Sarah Again

Posted on: November 21st, 2009 by Warren Adler 2 Comments

One should be given combat pay for defending Sarah Palin in Manhattan. The other evening at a lecture, a so-called distinguished author of political tomes reflected on the declining state of conservatism and cited Sarah Palin as the reincarnation of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who stirred the ire of the country by accusing a huge swath of the State Department as being card carrying communists.

Hearings were held and eventually the Senator, an authentic alcoholic, was exposed as a liar and a fraud, chastised by the Senate and tossed into the rubbish bin of history where he belonged. The ugly comparison ticked me off enough to challenge the author much to the consternation of the passive audience who had been nodding their approval throughout the lecture, which struck me more like a rant against Governor Palin, and despite being cloaked in snobbish intellectual certainty seemed far more virulent than I had heard in other Manhattan venues.…

Go Sarah

Posted on: November 17th, 2009 by Warren Adler 6 Comments

In my daily Manhattan world, where most of my friends and acquaintances are old style political groupies of a distinctly liberal bent, nothing gets them more riled, really riled, hyper-irritated, when I mention that I admire Sarah Palin.

They fuss and fume to such an extent that I have serious qualms of the effect on their physical health. Some, I can tell by the clenching of their fists and the sudden burst of color on their complexions, are on the verge of combat.…

About Warren Adler

Posted on: November 13th, 2009 by Warren Adler 2 Comments

Warren Adler is a world-renowned novelist, short story writer and playwright. His books have been translated into more than 25 languages and two of his novels, The War of the Roses and Random Hearts, have been made into enormously popular movies, shown continually throughout the world.

Three short stories from his acclaimed collection The Sunset Gang have been adapted as a trilogy and shown on Public Television stations. Mr. Adler’s 29th and most recent book, Funny Boys, was released in 2008 by The Overlook Press and his fifth short story collection, New York Echoes was published in 2008 by Stonehouse Press. His play Libido is scheduled for an off-Broadway production and his stage adaptation of the novel The War of the Roses is currently being produced in Italy, Berlin, Hamburg, Prague and countries in Scandinavia.

Mr. Adler is a pioneer in electronic publishing and has acquired his complete backlist and converted this entire library to digital publishing formats.…

Featured Title: Blood Ties

Posted on: November 12th, 2009 by Warren Adler No Comments

During a family reunion at their ancestral castle, the famed Von Kassel family — arms dealers for over a hundred years — suddenly find themselves in possession of stolen plutonium capable of creating the most destructive weapon on earth. Previously aloof from the moral implications of their business, the family is torn apart by the deadly potential of their recent acquisition. Family conflicts are ignited that had long been avoided in order to maintain solidarity and the insulation of wealth and power. Through fascinating and startling familial relationships, the reader is drawn into the web of power and intrigue that motivates people who once believed they were above moral or ethical considerations.

As rivalries escalate and alliances form only to be broken, this powerful novel of family pride, personal ambition, and individual ethics moves to its compelling and ingenious climax.

Read the first chapter of Blood Ties free now!…

The President’s Secret Thoughts-a Speculation

Posted on: November 12th, 2009 by Warren Adler 1 Comment

Perhaps it is merely force of habit, but I often find myself imagining what powerful public figures are really thinking as they act in ways that impact on our lives. Unlike psychologists and psychiatrists, who make a lifetime study of human motivation and rely on data that has been acquired scientifically by repetition, experimentation, observation and insight, the novelist operates purely on instinct and imaginary license.

That said, I can’t help wondering what our President is thinking as he accepts the Nobel Peace Prize. He surely knows in his gut and admits that the prize is aspirational, based on his rhetoric and not on his accomplishments. In his private thoughts, I truly believe he is sincere in that he wants to do everything he can to realize his aspirations as he has defined them in his speeches; to make the world a better place, to persuade people to put down their arms, to compromise, to rely on peaceful means to resolve conflicts and bring warring factions together for the common good.…

Dumb and Dumber in the White House

Posted on: November 12th, 2009 by Warren Adler 3 Comments

Growing up in New York in the thirties and forties, there were at least eleven daily newspapers, all spouting varying opinions from both left and right perspectives. Offered by the news organizations were a potpourri of praise and anger, mostly anger, at perceived abuses, both social and governmental.

The din was loud, a Tower of Babel of opinions. There were public parades and protests. The Daily Worker was at its zenith. Hate speech and hate news outlets were commonplace. It was one big free speech and free press orgy, a massive free- for-all.…

Mainstream Media is in its Death Throes

Posted on: November 12th, 2009 by Warren Adler No Comments

The so-called mainstream media, once defined as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal and the three major network TV stations, no longer have a monopoly on the opinion making process in American life. Why belabor the obvious? We all know why. Eyeballs are migrating to the Internet, that vast endless, timeless cloud of information that assaults us 24/7 from every corner of the globe. When eyeballs migrate, the money as defined by the advertisers migrates with them. The less eyeballs, the less revenue, the less revenue, the less investment by the media. When the revenue decline reaches the tipping point, money dries up, shrinkage occurs until there is nothing left to shrink and the media entity dies or morphs into something else.

That is what is happening now. The old media is dying. The new media is building on the corpse of the old media and it is too early to tell if the business paradigm for the new media will ever prosper.…

I Want To Be Me

Posted on: November 11th, 2009 by Warren Adler 1 Comment

I once wrote a script for a short film titled “The Year Nobody Gave.” It illustrated the tragic outcome if the money stopped coming to the particular charity that paid for the making of the film. It pointed out the terrible tragedy that would result for the recipients of the charity’s largesse. It was meant to scare the bejesus out of the good people who never gave to the charity and to encourage the regular givers to cough up more money.

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I am reminded of that film by a number of recent solicitations on the phone, on the Internet and on the street corners to answer survey questions designed to discover my preferences for various products, political leanings and specific attitudes to this or that.

In other words, they want something from

SONY Reader to Offer Special Promotion of Fiona FitzGerald Mysteries

Posted on: November 2nd, 2009 by Warren Adler 1 Comment

On Tuesday the SONY reader will begin a promotion that bundles all of Warren Adler’s Fiona FitzGerald mysteries into a special price download that is a “must read” for anyone who really wants to know the truth about what happens behind the scenes in the nation’s capital.

The Fiona FitzGerald Mysteries

Fiona FitzGerald is a single, smart, sexy, strong-willed woman in her early 30′s. who is a D.C. homicide detective. Because of her expertise in the mores of Washington she is given the assignment to solve those homicides that involve important Washington political and diplomatic figures. This acclaimed series has been hailed by critics as providing rare insight into the American power structure and the deviousness and corruption that occurs behinds the scenes.

AMERICAN QUARTET
Never underestimate the power of failure. Four seemingly unconnected D.C. murders stimulate Fiona FitzGerald’s sense of history. She delves into a disturbing obsession of a socially prominent but failed politician.…

Month: November, 2009

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