F. W. vom Scheidt and Coming for Money

Joining us today is F. W. vom Scheidt, author of Coming for Money.

How much money is too much? And how fast is too fast in life?

International investment firm director and author F. W. vom Scheidt, writes from his first hand-hand experience of the world of global money spinning with candor and authenticity in his remarkable literary novel Coming for Money.

As investment star Paris Smith steps onto the top rungs of the corporate ladder, he is caught between his need for fulfillment and his need for understanding; trapped between his drive for power and his inability to cope with his growing emptiness where there was once love. When his wife disappears from the core of his life, his loneliness and sense of disconnection threaten to overwhelm him. When he tries to compensate by losing himself in his work, he stumbles off the treadmill of his own success, and is entangled in the web of a fraudulent bond deal that threatens to derail his career and his life.

Forced to put his personal life on hold while he travels nonstop between Toronto, Singapore and Bangkok to salvage his career, he is deprived of the time and space necessary to regain his equilibrium.

In the heat and turmoil and fast money of Southeast Asia, half a world from home, and half a life from his last remembered smile, he finds duplicity, friendship and power --- and a special woman who might heal his heart.

A talented author, vom Scheidt has confidently crafted a fast-paced, highly readable and intelligent novel. His details are fascinating. His characters are real, and not easily forgotten. A deeply felt story about the isolation of today’s society, the prices great and small paid for success and the damages resulting from the ruthless exercise of financial power, Coming For Money is a taut literary page-turner about a man who refuses to capitulate to the darkness in his journey into the light.

I've asked the author to tell us a little of how he came to write this novel and about his main character, Paris Smith.

I sat down at the keyboard. Although I have always been a literary writer, I had no idea how I would capture my experiences in international finance in literary fiction. Without thinking, the first sentence came to me. I typed it. Then I looked at that sentence for a long time.

Instinct told me that the sentence had risen from something that was deeply absorbing me, and that it was something I had to tell. I knew I had to find some way to tell it truthfully. From that point, I knew there was no way out . . . except to construct the novel.

While Coming For Money is a story that advances from chapter to chapter along the corporate intrigue that beats at its heart, and continually mirrors the financial headlines of our daily newspapers, it is much more. It is an illustration of what happens to us as human beings when we lose emotional connectiveness, when we lose emotional logic.

And this was how Paris Smith came to me – because he is tragically, if admirably, flawed. He is not flawed in the classic Shakespearean sense of a noble man who is brought to ruin by his own avarice or rage. His weakness is not that he lusts after wealth or power or flesh. Rather, and far more important for us in these times, he is flawed in that he never learned the great lesson of his generation: don’t become emotionally involved. Paris Smith’s weakness is that he needs, and has always needed, emotional involvement in order to sustain his life. It is for him – as, ultimately, it is for us all – as necessary as breathing.

As Paris Smith refuses to relinquish his search for emotional connectiveness, he becomes a character we learn to appreciate and admire. In the sometimes stubborn, sometimes creative, battles he wages against other men in his corporation who are pitted against him, Paris Smith becomes ever more conscious of how he could stem his personal pain and loneliness by simply retreating emotionally and victimizing those around him. Or he might learn anew how to offer up his own emotional involvement. I’ll leave it for readers to see how this plays out in the end, and to decide what they may want to take away from his quest for human meaning in our contemporary world. But I hope readers will appreciate Paris Smith as much as I do.

F.W. vom Scheidt is the author of the literary fiction novel, Coming for Money. You can visit his website at http://www.bluebutterflybooks.ca/titles/money.html.

The Effects of Deregulation on the Airline Industry by J. R. Hauptman

Today's guest blogger is J.R. Hauptman, author of The Target.

About the Book:

More than a half-century ago, Ernie Gann authored "Fate is the Hunter" and "The High and The Mighty". There has not been a bona fide blockbuster novel about the airline industry written by a genuine airline professional since then.

THE TARGET; Love, Death and Airline Deregulation by J.R. Hauptman, is set in Colorado and the Rocky Mountain West, and tells the tale of the tumultuous first years of airline deregulation and the effects it had on that industry and the people who worked there. There are many people today who believe it was, in large part, the rush to overall deregulation back then, that led directly to the economic chaos that threatens to overwhelm our entire economy today.

In the nineteen-eighties, Carlo Clemenza was known as "the most hated man" in the airline business, as described by some pundits. A dedicated corporate raider and union buster, Clemenza uses ruthless tactics to crush competing airlines and to bring airline workers to heel. His methods have earned him countless death threats, yet he struts with arrogance, surrounded by his cadre of security toughs.

Virtually thousands of pilots and other airline professionals find themselves forced to start their careers over or to find them at a sudden and complete end. The airline grapevine echoes daily with the cry, "Why doesn't someone kill that SOB?"

Only one pilot, angered by the deaths of his friends, takes up the chase and he makes Carlo Clemenza THE TARGET! His chase will take him to the far corners of the country as he also finds himself the object of pursuit and murder. The characters merge in spectacular action and settings and the climax of the story ultimately ends in redemption.

In this guest post, J.R. talks about the effects of deregulation on the airline industry:

My novel, The Target; Love, Death and Airline Deregulation, is primarily a human story, a tale of one man’s struggles with himself and a world that for him, has been turned upside down. However, there is a strong undercurrent to the book that might cause a feeling of unease in the reader; it is a sense of potential revolt and impending disaster. Given the current disastrous economic situation in our country, it may turn out for this book to be unfortunately prophetic.

Airline deregulation came about in the late Nineteen-Seventies due to the fact that the Civil Aeronautics Board, which regulated that industry, had become too politicized. The CAB decided what airlines would fly what routes, at what frequency and what fares they could charge. Both Presidents Johnson and Nixon, having the powers of appointment, approval and veto, used this vital component of our national transportation infrastructure to reward their political allies and to likewise punish their enemies. The ideal solution would have been to reform the industry and allow more competition in route awards and fares, but the action chosen was what became the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978.

The promoters of airline deregulation proudly declared that the Act would result in free market entry by both established and startup companies, more competitive fares and result in better airline service and cheaper tickets for traveling Americans. An added benefit foreseen but not often publicly touted by economic “conservatives,” would be an anti-inflationary check on airline employee wages in this highly unionized industry. They privately salivated over the prospect of putting the final screws into the coffins of labor unions.

Rather than recount the past three decades of instability and chaos in the airline industry, let me point out the results. First, the concentration of the industry. Promoters of deregulation were unaware, or simply ignored the fact that the airline business is extremely capital intensive; it takes a lot of money to operate and maintain a modern fleet of jet airplanes in any semblance of flight frequency, safety, and reliability. Further, free market entry by small upstart airlines was nipped in the bud by a simply Darwinian fact of economic life; the Big Fish eat the Little Ones. The big carriers, having huge cash reserves, would simply match or undercut the fares of the low cost carriers and run them out of any competitive market. The result is, that eventually, the industry went from many high quality carriers serving large, medium and small market cities to a very few major carriers, deemed “too big to fail,” skimming the long haul routes, leaving the medium and small markets to be served by contract carriers operating smaller, regional jets.

Secondly, was the overall degradation of service. Economic gurus touted the idea that airlines were finally solving the problem of excess capacity, or “too many empty seats.” The problem was and continues to be that with fewer major carriers dominating “Hub” markets, they are not only able to fill those empty seats, it is established practice to cram more seats into airplanes, making current air travel an exercise in torture. Additional factors, such as fuel prices, weather delays and security issues only exacerbate these problems and make the travel experience even more unpleasant.

The effects of unbridled deregulation on our national economic system are currently there for us to witness every day. Airline deregulation was followed by deregulation of the public utilities, energy, and truck transportation industries, to mention a few. Worst of all were the complete dismantling of critical securities and banking safeguards. One of my first jobs, after my airline underwent a sham bankruptcy orchestrated by a corporate raider, was as a securities broker. My mentor there had come from trust department commercial banking and early on, he warned me; “Just watch; the banks want to get in on the securities business because the bankers see huge profits on the commissions we earn and it will mean disaster for both.”

How right he was! The Glass-Steagall Act of 1932 was passed during the Great Depression and placed a barrier between Commercial and Investment Banking, which is essentially a securities function. Glass-Steagall was largely ignored during the go-go days of the Nineteen-Eighties, and then repealed to obviate any undue embarrassment of those who were charged with regulating these industries.

The result has been overall irresponsible and some outright criminal behavior by those who manage and regulate banking and securities. They have turned these crucial businesses into veritable “Crap Games” by designing a plethora of shady products designed primarily to line their greedy pockets. The list is lengthy; the junk bonds used for “Greenmail”, the savings and loan and Enron scandals, credit card usury by the banks, the abusive banking, securities and insurance bailouts with abusive compensation schemes, sub-prime lending; on and on, the list seems endless.

Nothing is more representative of this sickness than the Madoff Scandal. Those who are currently involved in trying to solve this mess are less guilty than Madoff only by degree. Nonetheless, they seem to be repeating the same arrogant mistakes of their sordid past. They ignore the risk at their peril and that of our nation. That risk is Revolution; populist and potentially bloody.

J.R. Hauptman is the author of The Target: Love, Death and Airline Deregulation. You can visit his website at www.caddispublishing.com.

Learning Disabilities by Etta K. Brown--Book Review

If you suspect your child has a learning disability or if an educator has suggested your child has a learning disability you'll want to pick up a copy of Learning Disabilities: Understanding the Problem and Managing the Challenges by Etta K. Brown.

A certified special education teacher, school social worker, school psychologist and Licensed Education Psychologist, Brown puts her twenty years of experience to excellent use in putting together a helpful and informative guide for parents who need to understand learning disabilities and the environmental influences that impact a child's ability to learn.

If only I had this book in my possession when I began the difficult process of having my daughter assessed, I would not only have done things differently, I would have been a better advocate for my child. I didn't know the majority of the information found in the book, which is why I believe that every parent with a child who has been recommended for an assessment needs to read it before taking any step in that direction.

In addition to the impact that diet and sleep have on brain function, the author discusses developmental readiness and how immature development may affect classroom performance. She spends time on the subject of retention and why it isn't always the best solution. This book also covers how parenting, emotional trauma and toxic metals can affect development.

After getting an understanding of learning disabilities and environmental influences that impact a child's ability to learn, Brown moves on to a history of Special Education and provides an in-depth look at the entire process of determining eligibility, tests and testing, and the Individualized Education Plan (IEP). She is a strong proponent of parents acting as advocates for their children.

The last section of the book shares signs and symptoms of learning disabilities and accomodations and modifications that can be made at home and school to provide the best enviroment for your child's learning based upon the disability she is trying to manage.

Learning Disabilities will empower parents to take an active role in their child's education and provide them with the tools to be the best advocates for their child.

I highly recommend Learning Disabilities by Etta K. Brown. Every school should have multiple copies on hand to assist parents with the process.



Title: Learning Disabilities: Understanding the Problem and Managing the Challenges
Author: Etta K. Brown
Publisher: Langdon Street Press
ISBN: 978-1-934-938-17-1
SRP: $19.95 (U.S.)

Valerie Kent and Juggling Finances

Today's guest blogger talks about a subject many of us fret over: finances. In this down economy, it sure seems that saving every dime is essential to survival. That's why even though Valerie Kent's book Gracious Living on Social Security is targeted at people who are retired, some of the advice found within this book's pages can be applied to anyone.

Valerie is going to share with us a few tips on juggling finances.

As it happens, my husband Rick is an expert at dealing with the financial side of things. An experienced businessman, even when we found ourselves living largely on Social Security he has come up with a number of techniques for getting the most out of every dollar. One answer has been to take an occasional part-time job. I’ve worked for years as an adjunct professor at Eckerd College teaching non-traditional students, mostly people without degrees who want to acquire special skills, in my case, writing. We are scrupulous about managing credit card debt, and find that paying off our balance every month enables us to collect on rebates and other programs. Read the fine print. Pay at the last possible moment to preserve your cash balance and use frequent flyer programs and similar arrangements to cut down on travel costs. Compare bank loan rates when shopping for a car or any other commitment. The differential is tremendous. At times like these, re-mortgage your house at lower interest. Every penny counts.

There is a chapter on juggling your finances in Gracious Living on Social Security. For a fuller background treatment of Valerie Kent’s life and this book, have a look at the Tree Farm Books website: www.treefarmbooks.com.

You can purchase a copy of Gracious Living on Social Security at your local bookstore or at Amazon.com.

Tomorrow Valerie Kent will be visiting Zensanity. Don't miss it!

Learning Disabilities and Least Restrictive Environment: Why Inclusion Works by Etta Brown

Today's guest, author Etta Brown, received her undergraduate degree from the Ohio State University with a major in Dental Hygiene Education and the Masters in Education degree from South Carolina State University with a major in Special Education. The Educational Specialist Degree was conferred at Kent State University with studies in School Administration, and a major in School Psychology.

Through her graduate programs, and internships, the author acquired skills with speech and language, visual-motor training, auditory training, and the teaching of reading and handwriting.

During twenty years of professional experience in the public schools in Ohio, Iowa and California she has worked as a special education teacher, a school social worker and as a school psychologist. At no time, in either of those positions did she feel that she was able to apply any of her acquired knowledge to help children to learn.

While the summer months might not be the time one wishes to think of learning issues, the reality is that parents must be informed if it has been suggested that their child might have a learning disability. In Learning Disabilities: Understanding the Problem and Managing the Challenges, Etta Brown takes readers on a three-part journey through understanding the problem, managing the administrative challenges--having been through this I can tell you it isn't fun when you don't know what you're doing--and managing the challenges in the classroom.


The purpose behind the legislation which mandated the “least restrictive environment” for the special education student was to preserve the integrity of the student’s social status which has been identified as having a positive influence upon achievement. This is particularly true for children in the same neighbourhood who have grown up together, and are now separated.

The presence of the special child in the classroom challenges the teacher and student to respect individual differences among the people in their social environment. The challenges of the special student in the classroom are minimal when compared with the overall benefits to the group. Even when the child is severely handicapped, and is unable to benefit from the instruction, they benefit from the social interactions which teach those behaviours which make them socially acceptable out of school.

It has been well established that learning disabilities are handicapping only in the classroom, and these children function well and are socially well adapted in the out-of-school environment. When isolated from their normal peers, they have limited exposure to the wide variety of learning experiences which are readily available in the general education classroom.

There is very little evidence that children who are placed in isolated learning situations ever return to the regular classroom, and it is not well documented that they learn more in special placements. When learning disabled children are placed in special classrooms, they continue to underachieve, and fall farther and farther behind their non-handicapped peers. The question which must be addressed by the IEP team is whether special education is appropriate for the child even if he is eligible.

Advantages and disadvantages of special placement are seldom weighted when a child is eligible. Very often the motivation for referring the child for assessment is because the child presents a challenge to the classroom teacher, and she would rather not work that hard, or she does not have the kind of training necessary to accommodate the needs of the learning disabled child and believes that being placed in special education will be benefit the chid. Some professionals have even stated that special education will “fix” the child’s learning problem. Nothing is farther from the truth. Special education modifies teaching methods so that the child can perhaps learn visually when he has difficulty retaining what he hears. Special education does not “fix”, heal, modify or change the child in any way.

There are some rare, highly qualified well trained teachers of special education who make school less challenging for learning disabled children, and their student learns, and remains at grade level. However, this is rarely the case in most neighbourhoods, and children once placed in these environments beg to be returned to the regular classroom, and many drop out as early as sixth grade. It is an uphill battle championing this cause, and the professional who does so, becomes unpopular in a setting where enrolment is down and numbers are needed to keep that class funded, so that teacher can remain at the school where she has worked for several years and has important social connections.

This problem is addressed by the legislature by empowering parents to champion this cause for their own child. The powers granted to parents now supersede those of the school, and it is necessary for parents to become informed regarding their rights, and become actively involved in the special education process so that they can claim those rights.

Ms. Brown has met this need with a parent manual entitled LEARNING DISABILITIES: Understanding the Problem and Managing the Challenges. In the book the author empowers the parent with information that it is not in the best interest of the school for them to know.

However, without this information, Ms. Brown feels that parents cannot fulfill the role delegated to them by the legislature, and parents are the only safeguard against inappropriate special education placement. In most cases, parents are unaware that their child cannot be placed without their permission, and fail to claim their rights under the law. Even after the IEP is completed, many parents remain unaware that they had the right to say no to special education and demand an appropriate placement for their child. Full inclusion with special assistance in the regular classroom is seldom suggested to parents.

My review of Learning Disabilities is coming soon. I truly wish this book had been available to be me when I began the process of navigating the challenges for my daughter.

For more information, please visit the Understanding Learning Disabilities website.

Virtual Vice Virtual Book Tour July and August ‘09

Join author Jason Kays as he travels the blogosphere in July and August 2009 with Pump Up Your Book Promotion Public Relations on his first virtual book tour to discuss his new technology crime novel, Virtual Vice (BookSurge).

Readers follow disillusioned entertainment attorney Ian McKenzie as his professional life takes a decided turn for the questionable when he is hired by the charismatic and dangerous Scott White to represent Scott’s interests in his cutting edge Internet startup, Metropoleis Multimedia. Unfortunately for Ian, Scott has more in common with Scarface’s Tony Montana than Apple’s Steve Jobs, and things go from questionable to deadly in no time flat. As Scott’s confidant and consigliore, Ian soon finds himself caught between the Feds, La Cosa Nostra, and the Cali Cartel in a fatal game of corporate winner-take-all.

Praise for Virtual Vice:

“Fascinating!” – D. Kaplan, York, PA

“Great read and timely given the corporate scandals we are seeing today.” – Merc, Virginia Beach, VA

Jason M. Kays is an intellectual property attorney with fifteen years experience in both information technology and entertainment law. Kays is an accomplished jazz trumpet player and his passion has always been music, technology, and convergence of the two in today's digital age. This is his first novel.

You can find Jason online at www.virtualvice.net.

If you would like to follow Jason Kays on his virtual book tour, visit the official Pump Up Your Book Promotion Virtual Book Tour site at http://virtualbooktours.wordpress.com/.

Jason Kays’s virtual book tour is brought to you by Pump Up Your Book Promotion Virtual Book Tours, a virtual book tour agency for authors who want quality service for an affordable price. More information can be found on their website at www.pumpupyourbookpromotion.com.

Gracious Living on Social Security VBT July ‘09

Join author Valerie Kent as she travels the blogosphere in July 2009 with Pump Up Your Book Promotion Public Relations on her first virtual book tour to discuss her retirement memoir, Gracious Living on Social Security (Tree Farm Books).

Gracious Living on Social Security is an easy-to-read decade-long journey that offers tips and suggestions on how senior citizens can stretch their dollar and get the most for their money. Eleven chapters cover every important aspect of living together, from the wedding preparations to where to live. Key considerations follow each chapter for quick reference: Considerations like where and when to buy clothing, choosing a place to live and juggling your finances. Artist Jeff Nitzberg adds his unique touch with original drawings introducing each chapter.

PRAISE FOR Gracious Living on Social Security:

“This is a book of lives fully lived related in wise, wry, entertaining and very educational fashion. Kent writes with a pithy style that makes reading this book not only valuable but also exceptionally entertaining.” – X Book Reviews

At eighty-eight, Valerie Kent is the survivor of a long lifetime spent adjusting to dramatically evolving worlds. She moved from Britain to the United States in 1933. Valerie began at the age of forty-six the drawn-out process of education - seven universities - that would generate, initially, a career as a drug and alcohol counselor for troubled women, then a decade as a celebrated college teacher and - ultimately - a final, exultant marriage.

You can find out more about Gracious Living on Social Security at www.treefarmbooks.com.

If you would like to follow Valerie Kent on her virtual book tour, visit the official Pump Up Your Book Promotion Virtual Book Tour site at http://virtualbooktours.wordpress.com/.

Valerie Kent’s virtual book tour is brought to you by Pump Up Your Book Promotion Virtual Book Tours, a virtual book tour agency for authors who want quality service for an affordable price. More information can be found on their website at www.pumpupyourbookpromotion.com.