Missing: From Her Home and From The Media (Join the Search!)

Genia at Sisters Talk wonders -- quite rightly -- why pretty blonde-haired white girls get more media attention when they disappear than do minority women. There is also a lovely pregnant woman named Latoyia Figueroa who's missing -- her little girl wants her home. And, while she's gotten some media attention, it's sandwiched in between the hour long programs on Natalee Holloway.

If Latoyia had disappeared at the same time as Lacey Peterson, would we have ever heard about it?

Now, I still am TV-less and watch TV only at my grandmother's house. She loves Court TV, Nancy Grace, and Larry King. It is not unusual for me to see hours of coverage of Natalee Halloway and I've seen about 10 minutes of the Latoyia story. And the coverage of the Halloway story on Nancy Grace and Larry King is pretty identical. While my heart goes out to that family -- why wouldn't King opt to do something new? Give publicity to a case that really needs to be publicized still?

Oh, and the 10 minutes of Latoyia not only competed with the Halloway case -- it also lost time to the rich white guy who disappeared from his honeymoon cruise and the story of the rich white guy killing his rich white wife.

I like Nancy Grace -- and at least she did cover the story (and with passion and respect) -- but Larry King really doesn't seem to care at all. What's say we have a chat with him?

I've also made a point to Google and Technorati search Latoyia Figueroa -- it would be wonderful if she got as many searches as Natalee has? Don't you think? It might be just a symbolic act, but it seemed like the right thing to do.

Terrific News To Share!

I found out last week that one of my stories will be appearing in an anthology. I couldn't be more pleased since I worked hard on this one and actually wrote the story in hoped that it would make it into this book. Yay Me!

It's a love story between two women and I think it's really sweet and cute. I believe that love is love, and as long as a writer is being true to their characters, there should be no additional struggle to make the participants the same gender! I'm very proud of writing a story which honors the wonder of meeting someone who takes your breath away.

I don't have an official publication date, but it should be around Valentine's Day '06. The publisher is Bella Books. The story is Babalu. The writer's name is....is...oh yeah -- Nicolette Rivers!

Yeah, I Got Nothin' Again -- So I did a Quiz.

I don't cut cheesy farts -- I draw the line there!

the Shock Jock (61% dark, 65% spontaneous, 63% vulgar)

your humor style: VULGAR | SPONTANEOUS | DARK Your sense of humor is off-the-cuff and kind of gross. Is it is also sinister, cynical, and vaguely threatening to the purer folks of this world. You probably get off on that. You would cut a greasy fart, then blame it on your mom, and then just shrug when someone pointed out that she's dead. Yours is hands-down the most outrageous sense of humor; you like things trangressive and hardcore. It's highly likely (a) you have no limits (b) you have no scruples and (c) you have no job. Ironically, it's your type of humor that can make the biggest bucks in show business. PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Howard Stern - Adam Sandler - Roseanne Barr

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 99% on dark You scored higher than 83% on spontaneous You scored higher than 99% on vulgar

Link: The 3 Variable Funny Test written by jason_bateman on Ok Cupid

When Can I Expect the Pulitzer?

I decided I wanted to blog on the diagnosis of Dana Reeve with lung cancer so I went to Technorati to see what other people were saying. I found this entry to be thought provoking -- in terms of what it says about me...and blogs in general.

I used to be dedicated to getting all the tabloids each and every week. They were more factual than naysayers would admit, and I liked glitzy celebrity gossip. I stopped right after Princess Diana died -- it bothered me to think that the lengths that tabloids went to for a story might have killed this woman.

And we are how many years past that? And more hungry for gossip than ever. We expect our news programs to tell us what our favorite star is doing and no longer acknowledge that this is no more news reporting than my glow-in-the- dark phone from the 80s is an antique. We accuse the news of having a bias to the left and to the right -- but this implies they have time for serious news between Britney's Baby and Jessica's jugs.

In this upside down world, tabloids CAN be called newspapers and the woman who talks about her neighbors over the backyard fence is a serious journalist.

The Biggest Mystery is...

This result:


MYSTERY! - Who-dunnit? And How? And Why? Your
inquiring mind understands the secret workings
of the villainous murderer and thief. You feel
the need to build a puzzle so complex, and a
villain so unsuspected that you leave the
reader gasping in shock on the last page.
Dashiell Hammett and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are
your guides.


What Kind of Novel Should I Write?
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I just don't see it. I'm more about witty repartee than plotting. I don't have the patience to drop clues which are obvious -- but not TOO obvious. I enjoy reading them because the villain is ALWAYS a surprise to me.

I'm just going to start my own genre.